Though the garden is filled with flowers at the moment, spring foliage is always as intersting and dramatic as any flower can be. Here are lily of the valley and a fern to prove my point. Find other noteworthy foliage at Digging where Pam Penick hosts the monthly Foliage Follow-Up.
Though our Purple Fountain Weeping Beech tree is the drama queen when it comes to leafing out, I've never met a tree that I didn't love at this season of the year. Here are a few favorites from our spring garden.
Korean maple (Acer pseudosieboldiana):
Pagoda Dogwood (Cornus alternifolia):
Doublefile Viburnam (Viburnum plicatum tomentosum 'Mariesi'):
Tschonoskii maple (Acer tschonoskii):
LIttle Gem maple (Acer circinatum 'Little Gem'):
Golden Shadows pagoda dogwood (Cornus alternifolia 'Golden Shadows'); note the tip chomped by the rabbits:
As Mark and I were taking a walk in the neighhborhood yesterday I considered taking photos of all the piles of arborvitae, yew, white pine and unidentifiable deciduous prunings we passed as my offering for Foliage Follow-Up. Dozens of houses had brush piled at the curb, the most recent exhibits of all the damage trees and shrubs suffered from this winter's storms and snow.
Instead I'm sharing this image of my current grouping of green plants — indoors. For the last couple of months, I've made a trip to Johannsen's Greenhouses every time a snow storm was forecast. As a result the house is currently home to a "pansy" orchid, a small pot of variegated lemon thyme and this trio (from left): Bird's Nest fern, a weeping pussy willow and a maidenhair fern.
To see what kind of foliage other gardeners are showing off, visit Pam Penick — the gardener and blogger who began this meme — at Digging. You can find her foliage posts under "Foliage Follow-Up" in her archives.
Erin, at The Impatient Gardener, invited me to submit my favorite shrub for a recent round-up of that subject on her blog. Given the snowy winter that so many of us have experienced, I think that what I told her is worth sharing with the rest of you:
"If it were May or June, then I'm sure I'd declare Doublefile Viburnum my favorite shrub. It's definitely a show-stopper and is always the center of attention when it blooms. But shrubs in the winter garden need to stand-out in a different way than summer plants. At this season, Alpine currant (Ribes alpinum) makes a much needed statement. We grow both the straight species and the dwarf variety ('Green Mound')."
Our dwarf currant hedge continues the curve of bamboo hoops edging a path buried under the snow.
"They take well to pruning, creating strong horizontal lines in the garden through the seasons: green in summer; almost black in winter. Some years, they make a strong presence in the winter garden; other times only the top of the hedge peeks out of the deep snow. Because they become so densely twiggy they have not been bowed and broken like so many other garden specimens during the heavy snowstorms we've had in recent years. It's a shrub that's well-worth a second look, and it's readily available at most nurseries."
Note: These photos are from prior years. Though we have a lot of snow on the ground, we are at the beginning of a warmer stretch of weather and hoping it means Spring is on the way.
and has been doing so since some time after midnight Friday. We've had 2.56" so far, including .75" in just a little over two hours this morning. Enough rain that it may have been able to penetrate our bone dry soil. Definitely enough to penetrate our basement where Mark got to try out his new shop vac.
After watching (via the library window) our dry stream come roaring to life (above), Mark grabbed an umbrella and went outdoors to shoot the fall color in our garden which looks beautiful glazed with rainwater (below).
This is the most significant rain we've had since July 18. We're down at least 10" for the year, so it will take a lot more before the garden is in ideal condition for winter!
Last week I visited Allen Centennial Gardens on the UW-Madison campus with Julie Siegel, a Chicago-area garden designer, blogger and friend. The garden is a teaching garden for the university but it is also free and open to the public. It was a perfect day for a visit with blue skies and few clouds, evidenced by this shot of the decorative details on the house once used by the Deans of the Ag School.
On the ground, however, it was a bit sunny for capturing the best photos. I took this shot of Geranium dalmaticum to remind me that mine is planted in the wrong spot in my garden judging by how happy it seems to be here.
Every time I visit ACG I discover something that is completely new to me — like this seedpod of Datura. I've seen this plant growing in many gardens but never at this season when it has these huge pods along with its last few flowers.
Ed Lyon, the director of ACG, always creates exciting mixes of edibles and ornamentals.
And he's an expert when it comes to color in the garden: whether it's flower and foliage combinations or art objects that he adds for emphasis. Every one of the following images offers ideas for home gardeners looking to do something a little different. (These tubes are painted PVC).
I particularly like blues that have a touch of gray or green as accent colors in the garden, and Ed must also judging by all the ways he employs it at ACG.
When I was at ACG at the end of June, I was taken with the clumps of peachy-pink hollyhocks that picked up the trim color of the Dean's house. This visit, it was the seedheads that matched the Cream City bricks.
This summer I've been enjoying two foliage plants that have a similar look and feel but come from different families. Vacouveria hexandra, known as the "Vancouver fern (below)," makes a great groundcover in dry shade. This swath is growing next to an Arborvita hedge in a grove of River Birch trees so you know there is a lot of competition for moisture.
I love Adiantum pedatum aka Maidenhair fern. Years ago a neighbor gave me a clump and I've been a fan ever since. Two years ago I planted Adiantum Venustum (pictured below), the Himalayan Maindenhair fern. Though it has the same lacy quality, Venustum lacks the spiral shape of the tall fronds in the straight species. It grows instead in airy clumps that slowly spread out like a lacy groundcover. These are growing in a richer, more moist environment that the Vancoveria. I am quite pleased with it given the fact that its first two summers in the garden have both been hotter and drier than normal.
To find out what kinds of foliage appeals to other gardeners, visit Pam Penick at Digging for Foliage Follow-Up Day.
On October 20, 2008, I posted the picture below showing that our Acer tschonoskii ssp. koreanum (Butterfly maple) tree was just beginning to color.
Most likely as a result of our hot, dry summer, this year the same tree (bottom photo) has already started to turn color on August 20 — literally two months early! Another reason the weather in 2012 will be one for the record books.
Our big sugar maple is losing leaves and turning color already as well.
Late afternoon sun lighting up leaves in the garden. This Weeping Katsura tree makes a tunnel over one of the garden paths which is bordered by Japanese painted ferns.
The foliage on this Pelargonium — planted in the Traffic Island — glows with or without sun.
The first maple leaves are starting to color up and add a bit of shine where they land.
If you're a fan of fabulous foliage, check out Pam Penick's Foliage Follow-Up on her blog, Digging.
