Looking into the garden pool … see the fish?
I’ve been busy at the Federal Twist garden and almost totally neglected the Brooklyn garden this summer. A few minutes of cleanup now and then. That’s about it. So how’s it doing?
This morning the light was too bad to get a photo of the whole garden, but here’s part of the shade planting on the north-facing wall–Darmera peltata, Astilboides tabularis, Tricyrtis formosana, little hostas, Pulmonaria (unknown plants that came in on something else), Aruncus aethusifolius, Smilacena recemosa, Mukdenia rossii. I don’t know what that herb with the white, umbelliferous flowers is. I thought parsley, but it doesn’t taste like parsley. Several just arose from the earth on their own, so I’d better remove them all before they set seed.
Here the south-facing wall with the giant Tetrapanax ‘Steroidal Giant’, Panicum ‘Cloud Nine’, bronze fennel, sedums, Ceratostigma plumbaginoides, a little Pennisetum ‘Hameln’.
Similar plants on the other side of the Tetrapanax, with the addition of Cotinus ‘Velvet Cloak’ and Persicaria ‘Red Dragon’.
Another view of the Tetrapanax. It’s over a foot taller than I am. Out of scale, some will say, but I like out of scale in a small garden … well, in almost any garden. I’ll try it out for a while to see what happens. It’s a risk, but any plant can be removed.
Looking up through the leaves of one of the four Sunburst Honey Locusts …

If not parsley, then maybe cilantro?
No. I tasted it again tonight. Tastes like nothing, almost texture without taste, looks like parsley or cilantro.
If the flowers are daisy-like, could it be feverfew?
Not feverfew, which I have in the country. These plants are very dark green and the flowers are umbels of small white flowers. It really looks like parsley, but with no taste. Perhaps parsley that been seeding for years and has mutated to a tasteless version?
or a wild ancestor, a field herb rather than the culinary kitchen variety. Cow’s parsley? Wild carrot??
I’ll try to dig them up and photograph the root. Maybe that will shed light.
I’m envious of the Astilboides and the Darmera. I’ve tried Astilboides here in northern VA and it disappeared once it got warm…. I’m afraid the same would happen w/ Darmera, but then your Brooklyn garden must be fairly warm given that’s enclosed and in an urban area…. Any tips to keeping alive during hot, humid season?