see ya next summer, Dahlias
Yep, we woke up to a freeze (not a frost) on Columbus Day morning. Bit of a shock and sad to see the Japonese anemones go at the height of their brilliance, along with the blood-red Dahlias, Nasturtiums, Zinnias, and all the peppers and tomatillos. We still have greens galore and Borage nodding on in blue and pink. Then it snowed. It’s almost bedtime for the garden.
early morning in the field
frost-edged cranesbill
Then, on Bloom Day (10/15), it snowed, and we woke up to about 2″ the next morning.
By our mid-morning walk, most of it was gone.
Been a while since I made a bloom day post, so tonight I did two! Thanks to Carol at May Dreams Gardens for hosting the bloomin’ love fest. Remember to stop and smell the flowers–they might not be here long.
Looks like fall
Helianthus helinthoides 'Lemon Queen' with Sanguisorba
Rudbeckia maxima (still young & minima) with Joe-Pye
Periwinkles and pots
Nasturtium 'Alaska'
Anemone 'Honorine Jobert' taking her time
Colchicum, the autumn crocus
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- Nasturtium ‘Alaska’
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- tufty blue and white bed
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- Chelone lyonii, Salvia superba, Zinnia ‘Polar Bear’
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- Homerocallis ‘Buttered Popcorn’–a gift
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- Eryngium yuccifolium ‘Rattlesnake Master’
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- daisies of course
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- the freebie orange Zinnia shows off
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- Ecinacea, uh, yellow
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- Feverfew and Chamomile
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- Periwinkle
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- the antisocial Dahlia
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- the last Sweet Pea
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- oops, blooming broccoli
Living in the sticks, music news comes late. But just let me tell you that that it made for a helluva Monday to make these two late discoveries–Jim James has a solo EP out, and Monsters of Folk (J. James, M. Ward, Mike Mogis, and some other dude) are about to release a record and go on tour! NYC here we come! Seeing them together at HoB in Vegas in 2004 (?) was a huge treat, and also a cultural enlightenment into the emo kid world (there to see he-who-shall-not-be-named,convulsing on stage, and discover James and Ward). Why is he with this band and why does he get top billing in the illustration and elsewhere? blehh)
As discovered on the NPR Song of the Day, Jim James put out a solo EP covering George Harrison songs from All Things Must Pass. He recorded the songs in 2001 just after Harrison died. It’s worth it to go to the NPR site to hear Long Long Long in the NPR player. If you just can’t be bothered, listen to Behind that Locked Door on youtube.
As compared to the original.
Or buy the whole dad-blame thing for 6 bucks on Yim Yames web site. Why the Y’s? Silly, but makes it easier to search for the solo stuff. Part of the profits go to the Woodstock Farm Sanctuary. Jim’s made good.
And then, Monsters of Folk is a brilliant name even if the music weren’t special, which it is, and which you can hear a preview of on their site.
This is my favorite so far. M. Ward’s picking and singing lead off…
My sister sent me Tanya Tucker’s new record of covers, a sweet and sentimental gift. Speaking of covers, Tanya’s looking shockingly like Dolly Parton in her cover photo! It’s great to hear a familiar old voice, but it makes me want to dig out her old music, which is a touch more raw.
“Delta Dawn” was my first favorite song, at age 3. According to legend, I sang it to the neighborhood from the front porch, and those were pre-karaoke days.
She might be 11 here. Still don’t know what she’s saying: “a man of loaded peas stood by her side”??
My second favorite. So southern (and in the prairie dress). Little glimpse of Buck Owens, too.
Check out the interview in Texas Monthly to hear what the old days were like. sorta.
1. Cornell Plantations has its Fall Lecture series up. This is an incredible series and sort of special to me. It wasn’t long after I got here in 2007 that we attended the season’s first lecture and heard Diane Ackerman read from her book, The Zookeeper’s Wife. I was charmed, awed, and suddenly aware that Plantations was more than just a garden refuge for me. You can see a video of last year’s lecture highlight, Richard Louv’s “Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder” on CornellCast.
2. The Plantsmen nursery had its first Customer Appreciation Day today, with food, music, an outdoor art installation, and a scavenger hunt for free plants! As much as I would love to plant an Eastern redbud and some Ninebark in the front, I resisted, but brought home some on-sale perennials and picked up two freebies–a 2-gallon White Wood Aster and a 1-gallon Nepeta ‘Walker’s Low’ (Soon the garden will be only tufty plants with purple flower stalks. I should stop.). Plantsmen is a great place to find native plants and is Buddy-friendly, too. Get on their mailing list for good deals and announcements.
3. Craig at Ellis Hollow dug me up some boneset, Joe-Pye weed, and some asters for the ditch! He says his bog won’t miss ‘em, and we love ‘em. It started raining as soon as we got home: perfect Eupatorium conditions. Thanks, Craig!
pink Joe-Pye, white boneset, purple asters
gonna put 'em down at the lonely end of the ditch. That's a Joe-Pye cultivar I actually bought last fall.
4. Before all this, I got to talk to my good friend Andrea down in Tejas, from Grow Where You’re Planted. I hope it bucked her up knowing that their stellar season is just about to pop!
5. It stormed again, but stopped, so I still got to garden.
6. Saw the first Colchicum popping up under the black cherry tree as I planted the free aster.
7. Appreciated the first Japanese anemone bloom, the first I’ve ever grown, from tiny plants put in last fall. I’m so proud of these.
Anemone praecox
8. Talked to my dad.
9. Spent the whole day with Buddy until he pooped out and went to bed.
10. Sweet corn.
Hope your Sunday was equally fruitful, or just good and lazy.
© Reinaldo Loureiro
If you buy vegetables in a supermarket, see this photo essay and article by Reinaldo Loureiro on the lens culture blog. Even if yours aren’t Spanish vegetables, click through the slideshow. The industrialization of vegetables is complete, from the phallic and spacey advertising for squash to the dehumanization of the workers who grow them.
This body of work portrays the social and economic landscape of the Spanish greenhouse plains of Almeria. Once a deserted land and traditionally an impoverished territory, today the Almeria fields represent the largest concentration of plastic greenhouses in the world….
The fact is that more than 20,000 undocumented workers are systematically employed in this labour-intensive industry and many have to endure extreme living and working conditions. All have set sail across a murderous sea to reach the Spanish shore but only to become trapped in the red tape of immigration rules in this dramatic maze of white plastic.
Back on June 1, I posted a preview of photos from the rock garden society members’ garden tour. Here is the promised full version, a touch late. Perfectionist’s disclaimer: the middle of the day is not a good time to photograph anything, and you should be able to spend all day in any one of these gardens to fully see it.
May 2009 ACNARGS Member Garden Tour Revisited
This year’s member tour showcased starkly different gardens–urban, suburban, country, and commercial–whose common theme was the expert intertwining of rock, native, and traditional plantings. As a novice rock gardener still acclimatizing to the northeast, this mix was exciting to see. Each of these gardeners is expanding the notion of what gardens can be in their own settings. The pictures below are only a small representation from a remarkable day of learning from a passionate, friendly crowd. Unfortunately, I was not able to go to Bedlam Gardens.
David Mitchell’s Esty Street garden, Fall Creek, Ithaca
Passing through the layers of texture in the garden rooms David has created, you might forget you’re in a smallish urban corner. On one side of his home, the potager and rock garden soak up the sun, and a lush arbor is anchored by an old pear tree–the last survivor of a small orchard once shared by Fall Creek’s old Italian community. A path leads behind the well-hidden garage to a sophisticated shade garden on the south side side, walled completely from the street by a tall hedge and shaped by one of the oldest Magnolias in the city. Roses around the covered front porch soften the semi-formal style. David’s passions for plantsmanship and design is contagious, and any spot in this garden is a joy.
David's 70-odd-year-old Magnolia, one of the oldest in town. He says in winter, its shadows look like dragon tails on the flagstone.
David's potager. I saw it a week ago, lush and overflowing.
Hues of deep and bright purples surround the pond.
David's rock garden, softened at the edges of the lawn, contains a hardy prickly pear and other delights.
An old garage is all but hidden by many plant forms, giving great depth to a bed that's just a few feet wide in the small urban yard.
Under the magnolia, Asian and native Trilliums, Hostas, May apples, and ferns surround the shaded patio.
Nari Mistry’s suburban garden, Ellis Hollow Road
The garden at the home of Nari and his wife, Gin, on about two acres just east of Ithaca, manages to have two large areas devoted to rock plantings, a bog, a vegetable garden, a woodland, a sunny swath for tall grass and wildflowers, a spacious treehouse and play area for children, a moss garden, as well as traditional perennial borders. To share the success of their propagation efforts, guests were treated to gifts of native plant seedlings as well as tea and cookies.
Nari planted this Trillium 40 years ago, and it's never been divided.
Visible from Ellis Hollow Road, the Cornell Tower bird house is one of many that invite a wide variety of birds into the garden.
At the back of the 2-acre property, a wooden path carries you over a boggy natural area filled with sensitive fern.
Another birdhouse stands at one of several transitional spaces in the garden.
Cactus anchoring the center rock garden.
Tall grass and wildflowers separate a wooded area from the treehouse
A second gravel and rock garden to the south of the house spans a small slope leading to the back of the property.
Hidden details like tiny polar bears in the moss garden delight kids and careful observers.
Susanne Lipari’s country garden near Alpine, NY
At the end of the day, we met at Susanne’s garden, about a half-hour drive west of Ithaca. Gardening here for 29 years, intensively for 15, she has created a modern country garden, with a rolling softness shaped with the heart of an artist and the eye of a scientist. At this stage, she says, it sort of takes care of itself. Coming up the steep gravel/scree slope from the road, the gentle color of creepers, rock plants, and whimsical containers invite you in. Pathways made of stone from the old farm’s walkways lead to the north garden, with big-leafed Hosta hedges, nursery beds, and a large vegetable plot. To the west, uphill from the house, a steep slope laid with gravel forms another, shadier rock garden. Moving south, the sunnier hillside opens up with flowering borders and the patio from which to enjoy the view of the garden and into the valley fields.
The southern edge of Susanne's large country garden feels like a poet's meditative retreat, with stone paths to walk and delicate tree branches shaping expansive views.
Clematis lights up the central sunny garden.
A tree snag decorated with beakers gives new life to the bottle tree concept. The view across the valley extends the pastoral pleasure of walking in Susanne's gardens.
Old farm containers, enamel tubs, and troughs dot the scree slope facing the road.
Upended beakers and bottles throughout the garden catch the light and lend and air of plant science to the country.
Hostas are so varied and prolific here, they form hedges.
Masses of color surround the patio, where the tour-goers ended the day with snacks and conversation.
random acts of arugula on Flickr.
In a weekend of good intentions, a visiting friend, a great Plantations tour given, wilting at a hot afternoon lambBQ, one Tarantino movie that was one too many, and outside all day Sunday refreshing in a cool 73 degrees and working out garden frustrations on weeds and composts heaps, no blogging was done. No summer garden tours posted, no Welsh borders photos edited, no portfolio web site work done. But good neighbors, good friends, good pictures sustain and endure. And here’s another week of intending, growing, doing, and sharing.
Happy Monday.
Kevin Moss is going to show us around the herb garden this Wednesday evening, a good time to visit considering the heat index lately. Kevin led the volunteer course I took this spring for the docent program. He’s full of stories and knowledge about the plants and birds of the area. Go if you can.
When: Wed, August 19, 2009, 7:00 pm – 8:00 pm
Lengthening shadows, night-blooming flowers, nocturnal pollinators and diminished traffic noise can make the garden a place of special evening beauty. Join us for a relaxing stroll through the botanical garden and enjoy the quiet serenity of the garden at day’s end. Learn which flowers are at their best after hours, and why their color, foliage or fragrance makes them desirable for the evening garden. Tour lasts approximately one hour. Please dress for the weather and wear comfortable walking shoes. Presented in cooperation with the Cancer Resource Center of the Finger Lakes.
Instructor: Kevin Moss, Cornell Plantations staff
Fee: Free
Location: Meet on the patio outside the Garden Gift Shop at Cornell Plantations
For more information, please call (607) 255-2400, or 254-7430.
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