A Grand Evening Out

I really need to keep up on what's happening at my alma mater! I just arrived home a short while ago, having had the unexpected and tremendous pleasure of hearing Amy Stewart speak. A short sidebar notice in the local paper the other night was how I found out that she was appearing at the college. For those who may not be familiar with her work (and if you like reading and gardening, you need to remedy that), she's written several best-selling books: "Flower Confidential" (a thorough exploration of the cut-flower industry), "From the Ground Up" (a memoir of the first garden she ever made) and her most recent book, "Wicked Plants" (anecdotes and information on poisonous plants). She is also familiar to legions of garden bloggers as part of the great "Garden Rant" blog.

Amy gave an overview of her books, but also discussed writing in general, which was wonderful. She's a natural speaker - energetic, funny, and passionate. She's also one of those fortunate writers who manages to tackle a subject head-on, acquire mountains of data, statistics and interviews - and then manages to distill it down into an informative book that doesn't read like a textbook. I don't know how she does it, but she does it brilliantly. If she wasn't such a nice person, I'm afraid I'd have to be bitterly envious of her! If you ever have the opportunity to hear Amy Stewart speak - do yourself a favor, drop everything and go. Definitely time well spent!

Flower Arranging in the Time of Dahlias

Even though it means that winter is inevitably, inexorably creeping up on us, I do love fall (before frost, anyway) for one particular reason - my dahlias are blooming, and oh, the colors! The shades of dahlias, even the most pastel of them, are at once subtle and intense. I've gotten several new ones this year, and at least a couple of them are heirloom varieties from Old House Gardens in Michigan. Two of them appear in this arrangement I quite literally threw together this morning.

The dark maroon dahlias at the base of the arrangement are a newer cultivar called 'Nuit de Ete'. The larger dark pompom type is called 'Karma Choc'; a luscious dark shade that would work well in a chocolate-themed garden. The multi-colored pompom is one of the Old House Gardens heirlooms, 'Kaiser Wilhelm'; the multiple colors make it very adaptable to different companion flowers as well as containers. The other Old House offering is the hot pink-shaded dahlia 'Winsome', a dahlia I fell in love with a few years ago when visiting Stan Hywet Hall in Akron, Ohio. The large, dinner-plate type at the top of the arrangement is another new one for me this year, called 'Vancouver'. It's an indescribable garnet/fuschia shade with vague white edges on the petals - it's a prolific bloomer, and it will be back next season. As an aside, the other flowers appearing here are a couple of small double 'Pamina' Japanese anemones and an aster that I found in a vacant lot in my neighborhood. I have no idea whether it was an escaped garden variety, a chance seedling or what. I just liked the color: petals of a pale blue/violet with a pink center. It plays well with anyone you pair it with, so at this time of year, it's one of my "indispensables".

Sedums Great and Small

Now that the sedums are in their full glory, I'm amazed at the variety of the genus. I have probably half a dozen different ones, ranging from the dainty cauticola to a new one this year called 'Postman's Pride'. Beginning at the tiny end of the scale, there's Sedum cauticola; small and almost perfectly formed, with blue-green leaves and bright pink flowers. It's no more than about 4" high, and it cascades ever so slightly - really lovely. I also have Sedum rupestris 'Angelina', with its starry yellow flowers and ferny green stems, as well as a sprawling groundcover sedum that I haven't bothered to identify. It blooms infrequently, but when it does it sends up a stalk about 8" high in midsummer topped by mauve flowers. Of course I have 'Autumn Joy' (who doesn't?), but I also bought Sedum telephium 'Matrona' several years ago, and I like it better every year. This elegant sedum has maroonish stems and leaves, and pale pink blooms. An added bonus is that it stays very erect even under wind and rain - pity the same can't be said about 'Autumn Joy', which flops all over the place when the weather is bad. My latest acquisition, 'Postman's Pride', promises to be quite a sight. It does look a bit lanky this first year, as it spent the better part of two months in its shipping pot, on a shelf on the patio - it ended up with curvature of the spine. The color is fantastic; a deep, dark wine red with sort of orange-red flowers. I've not seen anything quite like it, and I'll really be interested to see it next year.

As I've mentioned in a previous post, I have begun to acquire plants with cultivar names that have the names of family and friends, and came across a sedum last year called 'Carl', which also happens to be the name of a very dear friend. It has a rather different growth habit than many large sedums. The stems, rather than having sets of large leaves, have many smaller leaves all the way around. I especially like the flowers on 'Carl' - they're as dark as "Autumn Joy', but a much more intense fuschia color. It's a living reminder of my friend, and it has the added benefit of being a nectar source for the butterflies. A satisfactory plant, indeed!

In or Out - Make Up Your Mind!

Today is a gray day. Sullen clouds drift across the sky, occasionally spitting rain out as they pass. It's not the kind of day for working outdoors, even though I have a boatload of weeding to do. Of immediate concern is weeding underneath the pergola. I want to get this done before the sweet autumn clematis draping it bursts into bloom. It's safer that way - it attracts so many bees that being around it is like sitting in front of a stereo with the bass cranked up. The clematis is a stunning sight in bloom, if I do say so myself. All those masses of starlike white flowers give the vine that blow-your-eyeballs-out quality of June bloomers. It's been there for 6 years, and it now covers nearly the entire length of the pergola.

I still have my doubts as to whether it actually is Clematis terniflora/paniculata. All the reference books say that sweet autumn clematis has a delicious fragrance, and mine has none whatsoever. I'm inclined to think that it was mislabeled, and in reality is Clematis fargesioides ('Paul Farges'), also sometimes referred to as 'Summer Snow'. That variety isn't listed as being fragrant, but the two look nearly identical and bloom around the same time. Still, fragrant or not, it's a sight to see in the fall when everything else is dead, dying or gone. And goodness knows, here in the Northeast, those days are fast approaching. Uncomfortably fast......

Maybe working in the conservatory would be more productive today. I think I'll haul out the BotaniWipes and clean up the Christmas cacti (a constant battle with the mealy bugs), then clear off the counter and put them there, out of the light, so that they can begin setting buds for the late-fall display. As my late mother was fond of saying, "It'll do you some good besides helping you!".

What to do on Labor Day

Well, here we are at Labor Day - what the TV weathermen annoyingly refer to as "the unofficial end of summer". Changes in the landscape, albeit subtle, are cropping up daily - tons of goldenrod blooming, here and there the odd maple beginning to color up. It really is a bittersweet time of year, and because we elected to spend our holiday at home rather than at my sister's in Pennsylvania, I'm nagged by the thought that time for planting and transplanting is rapidly evaporating. You're home, you should be out there using the afternoon to start getting the Big Dig plants back into the ground - that's what the gardening side of my brain keeps saying to me. However, the hedonistic, indulgent - all right, LAZY - part of my brain is saying, "Screw it - it's a holiday, you've been goofing off all weekend, why stop now?". The lazy side is very persuasive; plus, I just checked the radar and there's rain heading this way. The problem of what to do on Labor Day has now been solved!