Each Little World

Shades and shoes of red

Just a week ago, the focus was on yellow flowers and foliage for GBBD and Foliage Follow-up. Today it's all about pinks and reds and cerise and maroon and wine and more shades of red in the garden than I can name. Even though the yellows and reds are all blooming at the same time, most of them are not growing cheek by jowl. Where they do meet, I'm helping them to merge more harmoniously by adding plants that combine both colors — and then hoping that everybody is on the same bloom schedule. 

Here's a sampling of recent reds: Cercis canadensis 'Forest Pansy' (Forest Pansy Redbud), Malus sargentii 'Tina' (Tina crabapple), Paeonia obvata var. willmottiae (Asian woodland peony), Trillium sessile, Fritillaria meleagris (three variations on checkered lily), Epimedium rubrum (red barrenwort), Epimedium grandiflorum 'Red Queen' (Red Queen barrewort), Pulmonaria longifolia 'Majestic' (Majestic lungwort), and fallen petals of an ancient unknown crabapple variety.

Bloomin' Bergenias

I've been growing a few varieties of Bergenia cordifolia for years and only recently ever had them bloom. The last few years, it seems like I notice a couple of fat flowerheads — and just as they start to uncurl — the bunnies bite them clean off. This year when I saw more flowerbuds pushing up than ever before, I determined to cage the plants so I could enjoy the blooms. I never did get around to that chore but it looks as though I may not be plagued with hungry rabbits this season as the plants are in full flower with nary a notice of any nipping. 

The one with paler pink flowers is most likely Bergenia crassifolia and the darker one is either 'Bressingham Ruby' or 'Eden's Dark Margin.'

A Valentine flower for your favorite gardener

Dicentra spectabilis 'Valentine' is high on my wish list of new plants for the garden. This version of the old garden classic Bleeding Heart has cherry red heart-shaped flowers that "dangle from arching, dark red stems in spring. This newcomer offers a different color than the typical pink form, but keeps the same tall, graceful habit of the old fashioned Bleeding Heart," according to the Klehm on-line catalog. In the photo from the Klehm catalog directly below you can easily see the color is as described. 

Tony Avent, in the on-line catalog of Plant Delights, notes that the flower color actually was as good — if not better — in person than in the photos he'd seen, having initially been concerned that the red coloration was more Photoshop than reality. He also points out that the grey-green lobed foliage emerges with a reddish tint. I've included the Plant Delights catalog photo below because I think it provides a better view of the foliage than the Klehm image. Even though the new flower color is the selling point, it is the foliage that we will live with for most of the season.

Though Dicentra spectabilis is often listed as a partial to full shade plant, in my experience it can take a fair amount of sun as long as it has enough moisture. It is hardy in Zones 3-9, and will grow to about 2' x 2'. Klehm's Song Sparrow Nursery is offering Dicentra spectabilis 'Valentine' for $18.95 for a 2.06 qt. container, 3 for $53.00. Plant Delights is offering it for $16.00.

Locally the Flower Factory also lists it in their 2012 catalog for only $9.00. I am going to take a chance that it will be available at FF and plan to get there early on opening day, April 21. Their plants are always good size and, at that price, if I thought it was too small I could always buy two and still come out ahead of mail order shipping costs. 

A bejeweled tree

When I was right out of grad school, my roommate and I had a great old apartment that allowed us to play out our decorating fantasies; albeit on a very limited budget. That means that at Christmas we could afford a big tree but not the ornaments. So we made paper chains, strung popcorn and improvised. One of the things we did was to put all our jewelry on the tree to add a bit of sparkle.

This year I decided to resurrect that idea and hung assorted earrings on the tiny tree that I ususally decorate with miniature ornaments. I have to say that it turned out to be easier said than done. Since I was using earrings that I actually wear, I had to be careful not to damage them by bending the posts or the loops that go through my ears. I resorted to hanging a few using ornament wires — until I remembered the stash of 1950's clip-on earrings I have that belonged to my mother. They proved to be easy to attach to the branches and added the touch of glam that my little tree needed to shine!

Just when you thought . . .

it couldn't get any better, the fall color dazzled us this morning when we looked out the living room window. Mark was compelled to dash out and take a few more shots to capture the scene.

This Acer palmatum dissectum 'Viridis' changes daily but is always a stunning mix of orange, red and coral. The Pagoda dogwood (Cornus alternifolia) has already lost a lot more leaves since Mark's photos of a couple of days ago. These are planted to the west of the deck and just outside our living room.

Maybe it was a trick of the light but the Bloodgood Japanese maple (Acer palmatum atropurpureum) had turned the brightest red we've ever seen it in the 12 years since we first planted it. This shot was taken from the front edge of the deck. The structure just visible between the red maple and Ginkgo is the roofed entrance gate of the fence along the back lot line.

Walking east from the deck, you come around the bog with the hills to your left or south side, and the tea house on the west side of the garden almost on the lot line.

Mark has taken a few steps south and now he's looking toward the Turtle Mound with the weeping Katsura (Cercidiplhyllum japonicum 'Pendula") in the background. The path continues behind the low hedge.

Standing on the crest of the Buddha Mound looking back toward the house. The last garden pots are resting upside down on the deck waiting to be washed and brought indoors for the winter.

On the back side of the Buddha mound is Acer palmatum 'Orangela' showing its fall color. We have had a lot of winter dieback on this maple but it also puts out a fair amount of annual growth. In its location, it is actually perferable to have it a bit small rather than quickly outgrowing the limited space.

Still behind the Buddha Mound, a bit to the west of the previous shot. Here you can see the full array of color in the back garden: white pine (foreground); cinnamon-colored Dawn Redwood (Metasequoia glyptostroiboides 'Miss Grace'), the Japanese maple, Golden curls willow, our eastern neighbor's maple and bluish Scots pine. Then Mark turned around and walked through the gate into the yard of our neighbors on the south side.

Looking back into our garden with our weeping Katsura and the lower branches of our neighbor's Dawn Redwood, which happens to be the state champion tree of that species.

Back in our garden, Mark is standing at the top of the stream looking back to the Buddha Mound. The yellow leaves in the background are from the Carolina Silverbell (Halesia tetraptera) while the green weeping tree in the foreground is a Purple Fountain Weeping Beech. 

Walking behind the Tea House and looking back up at it from the path along the west edge of the garden.

Standing in the same location as the photo above but looking in the opposite direction. This is the "West Gate Garden," though the gate does not actually exist yet. The tree in the foreground is Acer mono 'Painted Maple" while a clump of Burning Bush (Euonymous alatus) burns brightly by the fence. Behind it, you can see the parent plant in our west-side neighbhor's garden. And way in the background — fading to pink — is the Burning Bush out by the street that is first to color-up each fall.

From where he's been standing, Mark now turns east (left) and heads back to the deck along the path behind the little hedge.

It's just started to rain, so these are probably the last shots of great color for this fall.

Last lilies

These hot sunny days have been just what the water lilies and garden lilies need. The water lilies will keep going for another month but this is the end of the ones growing in the garden.

This one (first two images below) is Lilium oriental 'Time Out' from Brent & Becky's Bulbs.

The next four images are Lilium henryi or Henry's lily. According to Old House Gardens (where I bought this lily), it is a wild Chinese lily and takes sun to light shade. 

These are reaching for more sun but still fully blooming. I kind of like the curving stems so I may leave them where they are. 

I planted these lilies in memory of my late father-in-law whose name was Henry.  He's also represented in the spring garden with Iris ensata 'Henry's White."

I've looked at my plant I.D. cards and assorted garden journal entries from 2008, which is when I received these beautiful red speckled lilies from Brent & Becky as trial plants. At the time, I marked them in B&B's catalog so I would remember the name. But the catalog, along with the name, is long gone.

The coloration is reminiscent of the famed 'Stargazer' lily, but the flowers are more recurved than the typical Oriental lily. Any guesses?

The Driveway Border

Hot sunny weather, followed by a little rain and the acquisition of new camera lenses sent Mark on a walking tour of our garden. Here's the long driveway border (about 60' long x 10' wide / 18.3m x 3.05m). Originally I called it the "Hendrix border" because my idea was to create a purple haze. There are still a number of plants from that plan like dark red 'Claude Shride' martagon lilies, red barberries, the 'Forest Pansy' redbud and dark Heucheras and Heucherellas. But the addition of a Dawn Redwood (Metasequoia glyptostroboides 'Gold Rush') shifted the balance toward ochre, yellow and chartreuse. This spring we finally took out our 'Royal Purple' smoke bush to give the redwood the room it needs.

Epimedium rubrum (above) is filling in nicely along the front of the border along with a broad-leaved yellow sedge (Carex siderosta 'Lemon Zest'). This is the area with the Claude Shride martagons, also Heucherella 'Sweet Tea" and two ferns: Athyrium hybrida 'Ghost' and Dryopteris felix-mas 'Linearis Polydactyla'.

The large ceramic pot holds a dwarf waterlily. The bare space behind it is the home of the former smokebush. We will replace it with a 'Green Mountain' boxwood that is currently in a planter on the deck.

The standard tree in the angle of the zigzag stone wall is my "lollipop lilac." 

This sloping stone path is the wheelbarrow route to the back garden. You can also see some of the peeled trunks from the Arbor Vitae that Mark removed 14 years ago when we began the garden. We are still using them in a number of projects, including as a support for a red clematis that is visible (the support, not the clematis) in the 4th image.

More Martagons

My large stand of Martagon lilies in the back garden are all the variety 'Mrs. R. O. Backhouse'. In only a few years half a dozen bulbs have exploded, while the Martagons in the driveway border — the deep red 'Claude Shride' — have expanded much more slowly. The difference may be the quality of the soil, amount of sun (or lack thereof) or the degree of rainfall that reaches the different groups. I've never quite been able to determine the reason for the difference in their growth habits. Even though there's not many of them, the lacquered red of the petals of 'Claude Shride' make up in drama what they lack in volume. 

Red twigs

One of the benefits of an early Spring visit to Olbrich Botanical Gardens is that you can see and enjoy all the backbone plantings of the garden. Trees and shrubs and grasses stand out in all their glory when there are no flowers to distract you. And nothing shines like the colorful stems of dogwoods and willows ... and a few other unexpectedly bright branches.

Remodeling: the finishing touch

We both love textiles: African Kuba cloths, Japanese ikats, Paisley shawls, Chinese emboideries, Lao scarves — and especially antique Persian rugs. We dreamed of someday being able to add beautiful rugs as accents on top of our new wool carpet. The weekend before Thanksgiving Mark suggested we visit David Ward at Stony Hill Antiques in Madison. Over the years we've found a wonderful Kuba at David's along with African masks, jewelry, books and paintings. The shop is eclectic and an afternoon digging around while we gab with David is always fun.

I didn't really expect that we would find a rug to our liking since David generally stocks contemporary Iranian rugs. U.S. trade barriers have kept the supply of rugs coming into this country an on-again-off-again situation. When the last embargo ended, rugs poured into the U.S., meaning there were lots of rugs at reasonable prices for consumers, if not as profitable as the dealers might wish. A new barrier on rug imports from Iran by the Obama administration went into effect at the end of September, so prices are likely to rise again. We started flipping through David's rugs, took six home to see if they would work in our rooms — and kept five of them!

This pair of pictures shows before and after of the front entrance hall. The ceiling was torn out of this space so we could insulate it and change the heat vent and lights. We also swapped out old linoleum flooring for ceramic tile. Luckily neither the old floor nor its adhesive contained asbestos. We had to send samples to the state lab for tests, and asbestos would have meant major abatement issues and costs.

Another view of the space showing the paint colors: the walls are "Coastal Fog" like the stairwell walls while the doors are "Woodcut" like the display wall in the strairwell. The rug adds the punch the area was lacking and also helps to tie the wood tones of the stairs themselves to the rest of the design.

We brought home a couple of rugs that were very similar in color and style, hoping we might be able to use them together in one room. We love the look of overlapping rugs that we've seen in books and magazines and were hot to try it ourselves. That idea worked but not with the pair of rugs we anticipated.

We realized that two rugs in this space worked only if they contrasted in style and scale, as this pair do.

The rugs really tied the whole look together, giving it a polished aura that the room lacked before — something that was not apparent to us until we brought in the rugs and put them down. We also brought in an antique English Windsor chair and a Thai rain drum to finish it off.  

The pair of pictures above shows the corner bookcase wall before and after. The ceramics on top of the new bookcase are all by Bill Farrell of Galena, Illinois; one of our favorite potters. 

 

So two rugs in the library and one in the front hall. Where, you ask, did the other two rugs go? They went into other rooms that were not part of the remodeling, but felt like completely new spaces with the addition of these delightful rugs. You can see one in front of the couch in the living room and the other in the red sitting room. As a final note I should mention that these five newer rugs cost about the same as the pair of small antique  Kurdish kilims we bought elsewhere a few years ago. David Ward's rugs turned out to be a very big bang for the bucks!

 

500 paint colors here.

We pick the wall paint colors here.

We begin teardown and construction here.

Putting it all back together here.