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“No, a new spring is never like the old one,
and that is what makes living so good-- the thrilling experience of something new every year.”  -- from "Nature's Diary" by Mikhail Prishvin |
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|  from clear to clouds, breezy, 62ºFEach year about this time, the leggy pansies and the remnants of tulips are cleared from the display gardens along the main walks of the Garden. The plantings that replace them will stay until late September or early October when the mums take their turn. The Garden keepers use bedding plants in their summer plantings. So as the season matures, so will the small plants. By August, none of the soil will be visible. I can only guess how the Garden keepers choose plants to feature in these most visited garden areas. Those that thrive in sun and heat would seem to have an edge, as would those that add vivid color or contrast to surrounding plants. Given these considerations, the Garden planners did as they did last year. They chose a tropical look for the summer beds -- bright colors and intense contrasts, often both within a single leaf. Except for some pentas that will flower a bright red (Penta lanceolata 'Butterfly Red') and a salvia that will bloom an electric blue (Salvia guaranitica 'Black and Blue'), the beds will get most of their color from the shape and coloring of plant leaves. For contrasting or freckled color on the same plant, the beds use three plants: red caladiums streaked and fringed with green ('Red Flash' and 'Florida Cardinal'), Caricature plants (Graptophyllum pictum 'Tricolor') with green leaves accented with white marbling, and pink ribs, and the fine lobed multi-colored leaves of the 'Trailing Duck's Foot' coleus. For darker contrasts, the beds use a tall burgundy-leafed sugar cane called 'Pete's Smoke' and a fleshy-leafed purple creeping spiderwort called Tradescantia pallida 'Purpurea.' If all goes as planned the display gardens ought to cause even the most jaded visitor in July or August to pause and take a snapshot.  Three times last week our unwilling cat and I waited out severe storm and tornado warnings in the basement. Several of those storms brought high winds and hail. In the Garden, the hostas took the brunt of the hail damage. In some areas, the hostas looked as though they had been leveled with a weed whacker. Other hostas leaves had holes the size of the hailstone that ripped though them. Thankfully, the storm must have been brief and spotty because most hostas were untouched or only slightly damaged. Wormwood (Artemesia) is being used more and more in sunny beds to add contrast to flowering plants. The grayish-cyan color of their lacey leaves acts like the colored paper foil that florists use to make even the most humble plant a special gift. I've been looking for a plant like the wormwood that could be used in shady places. I found one this morning. It was tucked into a shady corner of an area called "The Secret Garden." The plant was a bleeding heart (Dicentrata) called 'King of Hearts.' The soft, cut leaves looked like cyan-colored parsley. It turns out that 'King of Hearts' is aptly named. It is the result of a cross between two hybrids native to the United States-- the east coast (Dicentra eximiathe) variety and west coast hybrid (Dicentra formosa) - with a rare mousy Japanese variety called Dicentra peregrina. The rich blue-gray color of the leaves comes from the bleeding heart's Japanese parentage. Flowers of the 'King' are pink and prolific, but I was more interested in the foliage. I wonder how it will fare in the hot, humid Midwest summer? A sure sign that spring is gone: The tombstone markers that identified the daffodils have been collected and are being readied for storage.  clear, calm, 74ºFMost of the tulips have finished blooming. Already their leaves have begun to yellow, shrivel, and rot. I'm sure some folks find beauty in this stage of their regeneration. I can't. Such great beauty deserves to age with grace and dignity. I wonder if tulip breeders have given any thought to making the aging of tulips more akin to the afterlife of the amaryllis?  Of the uncounted varieties of tulips that were planted at the Garden this year, one remains. Like other late bloomers, a variety called 'Princess Margaret Rose' has bloomed and shattered. But unlike the others, the 'Princess' wasn't finished. After its primary stocks of large, shapely yellow petals edged with salmon were cut, the bulbs sent up secondary stems. The flowers on the secondary stems are smaller and more rounded -- more like those of a specie tulip. But the foliage is still main-season fresh, and the bulbs continue to develop more buds. I don't know whether this display is a one-season chance happening or whether 'Princess Margaret Rose,' like her namesake, is known for this kind of outlandish behavior. The "broken color" irises I was looking for last week have begun to bloom. The falls are like nothing I've seen in an iris before. Like Rembrant tulips, no two are alike in how the streaks of color flow from the beard. As if the flower colors were not enough, some of these irises also sport variegated leaves. The Garden keepers have chosen to display their collection of broken color irises in a bed nearest the main walk so that even casual visitors can be awed. The label on most of these irises identifies the breeder as "Kasperek." By poking around the internet I found that the irises came from a small commercial iris garden in northern Utah called Zebra Gardens. Kathie and Brad Kasperek operate the garden. Their website says, "The commercial garden is an out growth of Brad's addiction to hybridizing (cross pollinating two flowers to produce seeds) bearded irises and was established in 1994. Zebra Gardens is the leading source for both broken color bearded irises and variegated foliage bearded irises. Kathie handles the paperwork while Brad does the gardening and produces new varieties of irises . . . Brad has a full time job so we can afford this business." I know nothing about the passions of iris lovers, but if these irises excite them as they do folks like me, Brad will soon be able to quit his day job. overcast, damp, breezy: 52ºFThis morning only a few visitors walked the Garden. I blame much of the disinterest on the weather - chilly enough to make breath fog. Also, now that the awe of spring has past, fewer people want to get out of bed to see tulip blossoms shatter or to look at the fading iridescence of azalea flowers. Then too, nothing special is going at the Garden on this morning. I think that attendance is driven more and more by events that use the Garden as venue or background. I read an article subtitled "What exactly is a botanical garden for?" a couple of years ago. The author, Hatsy Shields, describes a concert she attended in the glassdome of a botanical garden in Wales. At dusk, she wrote, "a thousand transparent panes of glass turned a pearly lavender-opal as the light faded." She goes on to mention the beauty of the music, the lushness of the setting, and the glass dome that from a distance glowed "like an otherworldly spaceship." Then bluntly she concludes, "It was lovely - but it had nothing to do with plants." What Shields misses is that the plants she cares so much about continue to grow and thrive because of all those lovely, and sometimes irrelevant events. We saw a boy of about seven entering the Garden holding his dad's hand. Just as they got outdoors, we hear the boy's dad say, "Let's go catch the action." We wondered what he had in mind.  Peony buds are swelling and a few have started to bloom. With the chill and dampness of the morning, the buds look like those FTD pictures of vases of fresh, dewy roses waiting to open as soon as they are delivered to your door.A few flowers are blooming in the newly refurbished iris garden. The garden will likely not be as stunning as last year since so many of the plants are new arrivals. The aim, according to the Garden's magazine, is to have iris garden up to snuff by 2005 when the American Iris Society comes to town for its annual convention. Jason Delany, the Garden's iris expert, reported that the collection was "completely overhauled" to include recent introductions and selection of some irises so new that they can be seen only here. Delaney says that the hottest thing in new introductions are "broken color" irises. Delaney doesn't say what these sizzlers look like, but from what found on the web, broken colors are "random streaking and splashing of assorted colors on to the petals of an iris, especially the falls. This gives the flower a very striking appearance as if it had been overpainted with bands of colors." The description makes the blooms sound a bit like the Rembrant Tulips. Next week I know more of irises will be bloom, so I'll see if I can spot any of these "broken colors."  Hollies are much ignored at this time of year. They are the premiers of winter when reds and greens are so rare. Yet this is the time to see more than their seasonal color. Now, for a short time, the hollies display their whole life cycle at the same time -- the deep green leaves and red berries of last season, the older yellow leaves that are being sloughed, and the flowers that will form the berries of the winter to come. Taking it all in makes me feel like a time traveler able to see past and future just by shifting my glance. Next week I intend to buy a small Japanese Maple tree, so I'm looking at the ones in the Garden with greater interest. I know I will buy a one with red leaves, but that doesn't keep me from staring at the unusual beauty of a Japanese maple with lime-gold leaves that borders the Linnean glasshouse. It's called a Golden Full-Moon Maple (Acer Shirasawanum 'Aureum'). It's a small tree-probably no more that 6 feet tall-absolutely packed with palm-shaped leaves with delicately etched veining and saw tooth edging. Growing vigorously at the base of the tree are several mature clumps of 'Gold Drop' hostas that match the gold of the maple leaves. The effect is like a path of gold spilling from the tree out over the he ground. The last of the magnolia trees to bloom is the Magnolia hypoleuca. Everything about this magnolia is imposing. A cluster of 6-7 smooth leaves each nearly a foot long radiate from a central point. Large creamy white flowers are held above the leaves. As the flower matures, the petals arrange themselves into ballet-like positions of grace and elegance. Reportedly the flowers have a "delicious fragrance," but the blooms were too high on the tree for me to sniff. |