Perennials – Gardening Gone Wild https://gardeninggonewild.com your weekly infusion of garden passion Sun, 08 Sep 2013 21:52:29 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 Stalking Geraniums https://gardeninggonewild.com/stalking-geraniums/ https://gardeninggonewild.com/stalking-geraniums/#comments Mon, 24 Jun 2013 23:44:05 +0000 https://gardeninggonewild.com/?p=24257
When faced with overwhelming choices in beautiful gardens, it is almost essential for garden photographers to give themselves a target, an assignment.  These days, I am stalking geraniums. True, it is great to wander around a wonderful garden, drinking in beauty, grabbing shots, but too often such photos end up as snapshots without a story […]
]]>

When faced with overwhelming choices in beautiful gardens, it is almost essential for garden photographers to give themselves a target, an assignment.  These days, I am stalking geraniums.

holt_780_503.CR2

True, it is great to wander around a wonderful garden, drinking in beauty, grabbing shots, but too often such photos end up as snapshots without a story to tell.  They may remind you, the photographer, what you saw, but don’t communicate to others.

So, when my friend, Robin Parer, unarguably one of the of the world’s authorities in geraniums and owner of Geraniacea Nursery, told me she was finally doing a book, I had the excuse for an assignment.

When I realized my friends Deborah Wigham and Gary Ratway of Digging Dog Nursery, with unarguably some of the world’s best perennial borders, had many of Robin’s geraniums in those borders, a match was made in garden photography heaven.

An excuse to go make photos: follow me along as I stalk one geranium in this fantastic garden.

Geranium 'Johnson's Blue' -holt_780_430.CR2

And, for this lesson in The PhotoBotanic Garden Photography Workshop, (3.5 -Themes), make an assignment out of your next garden shoot.  Choose a feature of the garden, its style, or theme, and tell a garden story.  And think like a gardener, trust those instincts that inspire you as a garden photographer.

Geraniums are hard to photograph.  The very feature that makes them so valuable in the garden – lax, sprawling fillers with delicate leaves and ephemeral flowers, makes them hard to isolate and distinguish in a photograph.  So I was delighted to find this specimen in full flower, glorious ‘Johnson’s Blue’.

Spilling out of the mid border onto a gravel path with nothing else in flower around it, for interest, I tried a vertical shot to bring in an old bench half hidden in the foliage.

holt_780_421.CR2

I am kneeling on the path with my tripod as low as it goes using a wide angle lens almost on top of the geranium.  Another way of composing a vertical with the bench is to use a longer lens.

holt_780_432.CR2

Again, a low angle, but backed away so that the telephoto lens can get close to the flowers while stacking up the other elements as shapes in the composition.

This is the classic way to “work” a garden photo, trying different techniques, thinking of different ways to present the story; and why having an assignment allows the photographer to think about every angle and every way to capture the subject.  You slow down to really see the subject and its surroundings, deciding which elements need to be part of the story you want to tell.

Let’s look back at the geranium, down the path the opposite way:

holt_780_437.CR2

Almost exactly the same relative composition – the geranium carries about the same space in the frame, but this photo is all about the blue geranium in context of the chartreuse foliage of its neighbor.

I am now back the next morning, still walking in circles around the garden, coming back to this border, stalking ‘Johnson’s Blue’, not wanting to miss any new photo opportunity.  The light is much changed.

holt_780_436.CR2

Now shooting the other direction, I am able to incorporated an urn in the path.  The light is not murky like it was the afternoon before.

Hmmm…  How about even wider lens ?

Geranium path Digging Dog-holt_780_502.CR2

Aha.  I think I have something here for Robin’s book.  I like all the photos for different reasons, but this one really shows how to use this geranium, its scale and habit, its color and companions, its place in an authentic garden.

It took hours, even days to “see” this.  But without the assignment, to force me to keep looking, I doubt I would have come up with what I consider a calendar quality photo.

That is the goal of this lesson, indeed this entire PhotoBotanic Garden Photography Workshop.  Striking pictures don’t just happen, even if you think you see them.  If you take garden photography seriously you need to work at it.  Put all the techniques you have learned into practice with an assignment, a theme you understand and want to tell a story about.  “Work” the scene.

There is always the fear you will miss something even more glorious if you stay on assignment in only one part of a garden, but the bigger fear is to miss the moment when the assignment subject looks its best.  You want that calendar shot, not lots of snapshots.  Stay on task.

Indeed, more likely staying on task will give even more insight on the garden you are studying, and give you other photos you would have never seen.

holt_780_485.CR2

If I weren’t down at ground level studying ‘Johnson’s Blue’ I would never have seen how this Carex pendula works.  See the blue beyond ?  Ahh, right.  I only got to see the Carex shot because I kept looking for ways to see the geranium I was stalking.

And in the very first photo of this post ? See way beyond the magenta geranium, along the path into the other garden room?  Aha; again that same ‘Johnson’s Blue’.

There are many ways to give yourself an assignment. Think like the gardener inside you to find a theme that interests you, that will inform your photography.  Are you good at propagating, do you know good color combinations, love foliage, feel attuned to seasons, enjoy design, marvel at trees?  Use a theme, go shoot.

As you get more comfortable telling stories, you will be able to juggle multiple themes during a shoot, always thinking about what you are seeing and how it relates to one story or another that you can tell.

While at Digging Dog Nursery, thinking about blue geraniums it was easy to see how Gary used other blue flowering perennials, such as Nepeta ‘Walker’s Low’.

catmint-walkers_low-holt_780_450.CR2

Now if my assignment had been “blue in the garden” I would have shown you a different set of photos….

 

]]>
https://gardeninggonewild.com/stalking-geraniums/feed/ 17 © Saxon Holt/PhotoBotanic 415-898-8880
Site of the Succulent Celebration https://gardeninggonewild.com/site-of-the-succulent-celebration/ https://gardeninggonewild.com/site-of-the-succulent-celebration/#comments Wed, 05 Jun 2013 09:00:00 +0000 https://gardeninggonewild.com/?p=24098
Will you be at the Succulent Celebration and book launch June 7-8 near San Diego? I’d love to see you there! To entice you, here are a few glimpses of the nursery that’s hosting it, Waterwise Botanicals. Aeonium ‘Zwartkop’, in pots and on the hillside, is one of the succulents that the nursery sells a lot […]
]]>

Will you be at the Succulent Celebration and book launch June 7-8 near San Diego? I’d love to see you there! To entice you, here are a few glimpses of the nursery that’s hosting it, Waterwise Botanicals.

IMG_1438

Aeonium ‘Zwartkop’, in pots and on the hillside, is one of the succulents that the nursery sells a lot of.

IMG_1450

This is the catfish pond, with alstroemeria in the foreground.

IMG_1463

Another view of the pond. You can see the flowers in the previous photo, now on the opposite side.

IMG_1466

I climbed the hill to take this photo to show you.

IMG_1478

These kangaroo paws are in one of the display gardens.

IMG_1483

These are in the shadecloth area. Not all succulents can handle full sun—especially not echeverias (foreground). Others are yellow-orange Sedum nussbaumerianum and rosy Graptosedum ‘California Sunset’.

IMG_1487

The succulents on the lower left are one of my favorites: Crassula perforata. It’s a great cascader. Near it are Aeonium ‘Kiwi’ and (lower right, with purple flowers) Kalanchoe pumila.

IMG_1499

Does anyone know what species or cultivar of Opuntia this is? Even the nursery doesn’t know what to call it. The manager, Tom Jesch, says it looks like a poodle ran into it. Fascinating!

Hope to see you there!

IMG_1536

My goal is to share the beauty of waterwise, easy-care succulents in gardens, containers and landscapes via blog postsnewsletterspublic speaking and workshopsphotosvideosmerchandise, and social media (Facebook and Pinterest). My books: Designing with Succulents, Succulent Container Gardensand Succulents Simplified.  www.debraleebaldwin.com 

 

]]>
https://gardeninggonewild.com/site-of-the-succulent-celebration/feed/ 17 Gardening Gone Wild
Biomimicry – How Doing It Nature’s Way Will Change The Way We Live https://gardeninggonewild.com/why-we-need-to-grow-food-like-a-prairie/ https://gardeninggonewild.com/why-we-need-to-grow-food-like-a-prairie/#comments Fri, 03 May 2013 14:47:16 +0000 https://gardeninggonewild.com/?p=23890
The disappearance of a major natural unit of vegetation from the face of the earth is an event worthy of causing pause and consideration by any nation. Yet so gradually has the prairie been conquered by the breaking plow, the tractor, and the overcrowded herds of man…that scant attention has been given to the significance […]
]]>

The disappearance of a major natural unit of vegetation from the face of the earth is an event worthy of causing pause and consideration by any nation. Yet so gradually has the prairie been conquered by the breaking plow, the tractor, and the overcrowded herds of man…that scant attention has been given to the significance of this endless grassland or the course of its destruction.  Civilized man is destroying a masterpiece of nature without recording for posterity that which he has destroyed.  John Ernest Weaver, North American Prairie (1954)

How many of you grew up watching ‘Little House on the Prairie’ or reading Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House series of books? The North American prairie is as American as apple pie and is an important part of our heritage.

 Biomimicry - How Doing It Nature's Way Will Change The Way We Live

Photo courtesy of Saxon Holt/Photobotanic

Description of Photo – Fragrant Blue giant hyssop or Anise hyssop (Agastache foeniculum) and Gray-headed Coneflower, Pinnate Prairie Coneflower, (Ratibida pinnata) native perennials flowering in Crow-Hassan Park, prairie reserve.

Biomimicry Innovation Inspired by Nature

When I returned from my trip to Ecuador this past fall where I spent time with the Achuar, an indigenous tribe, a friend saw how the experience had transformed me. He suggested that I read Biomimicry: How Innovation Inspires Nature. To say that it left an imprint on me is an understatement.

The author, Janine Beymus, has written a powerful book. This is how she defines biomimicry –

“In these pages, you’ll meet men and women who are exploring nature’s masterpieces – photosynthesis, self-assembly, natural selection, self-sustaining ecosystems, eyes and ears and skin and shell, talking neurons, natural medicines, and more – and then copying these designs and manufacturing processes to solve our own problems. I call their question biomimicry – the conscious emulation of life’s genius. Innovation inspired by nature.

In a society accustomed to dominating or ‘improving’ nature, this respectful imitation is a radically new approach, a revolution really, Unlike the Industrial Revolution, the Biomimicry Revolution introduces an era based not on what we can extract from nature, but on what we can learn from her.

As you will see, “doing it nature’s way” has the potential to change the way we grow food, make materials, harness energy, heal ourselves, store information, and conduct business.

Biomimicry Innovation Inspired by Nature

Photo courtesy of Saxon Holt/Photobotanic

Description of photoPurple love grass (Eragrostis spectabilis) flowering with Canada Rye and Brown-eye Susan wildflowers in Crow-Hassan Park, prairie reserve Minnesota

In a biomimetic world, we would manufacture the way animals and plants do, using sun and simple compounds to produce totally biodegradable fibers, ceramics, plastics, and chemical. Our farms, modeled on prairies, would be self-fertilizing and pest-resistant. To find new drugs or crops, we would consult animals and insects that have used plants for millions of year to keep themselves healthy and nourished. Even computing would take its cue from nature, with software that “evolves” solutions. and hardware that uses the lock-and-key paradigm to compute by touch.

In each case, nature would provide the models: solar cells copied from leave, steely fibers woven spider-style, shatterproof ceramics drawn from mother-of-pearl, cancer cures compliments of chimpanzees, perennial grains inspired by tallgrass, computer that signal like cells, and a close-looped economy that takes its lessons from redwood, coral reefs, and oak-hickory forests.

The biomimics are discovering what works in the natural world, and more important , what lasts. After 3.8 billion years of research and development, failures are fossils, and what surrounds us is the secret to survival. The more our world looks and function like this natural world, the more likely we are to be accepted on this home that it ours, but nor ours alone.

Virtually all native cultures that have survived without fouling their nest have acknowledged that nature knows best, and have had the humility to ask the bears and wolves and ravens and redwoods for guidance. They can only wonder why we don’t do the same. ” From Biomimicry

But due to our hubris and unwillingness to use nature as mentor, we have all but destroyed the prairie ecosystem. Only 1% of the original prairie land remains – 99% of it is gone. And because so little native habitat remains, many prairie plants and animals are now endangered, rare, or extinct.

Did you know that most of the eaten around the world today comes from only about 20 species, and none of them are perennials? Although some did begin as perennials, over the span of 10,000 years we’ve removed their perennials and domesticated them into being annuals.

Characteristics of Prairies

“1. 99.9% of the plants are perennials – which means that they cover the ground throughout the year, holding the soil against wind and breaking the force of raindrops.

Researchers have actually measured the difference between how hard rain reacts when hits the prairie vs. rows of crops. They found that you get 8 TIMES AS MUCH RUNOFF from a wheat filed as from a prairie.

2. Perennials are  self-fertilizing and self-weeding. 30% of their roots die and decay each year, adding organic matter to the soil. The remaining two thirds of the roots overwinter, allowing perennials to open their umbrella of vegetation first thing in the spring, long before weeds can struggle up from seed.

3. Diversity is also the cheapest and best form of pest control. “Many pests tend to specialize on one host plant species, so when there’s a diverse mix, pests have a harder time finding their target plant.

4. The signature of a prairie is its four classic plant types: warm-season grasses, cool-season grasses, legumes and composites. Cool-season grasses come up early, set seed, and then bow out of the way, allowing warm-season grasses such as big bluestem to rule the rest of the season.”  From Biomimicry

We have left less than one-tenth of one-percent of our prairie.  The rest of it died to make Iowa safe for soybeans. Loren Lown, quoted in Grassland: The History, Biology, Politics, and Promise of the American Prairie, written by Richard Mann

Photo courtesy Saxon Holt/Photobotanic

Photo courtesy Saxon Holt/Photobotanic

Description of photo – Castilleja integra Wholeleaf Indian Paintbrush, orange red flower, meadow wildflower with native fescue grass Festuca arizonia in Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument, Colorado

There is no describing [the prairies]…They inspire feelings to unique, so distinct from anything else, so powerful, yet vague and indefinite, as to defy description, while they invite the attempt.  John C. Van Tramp, Prairie and Rocky Mountain Adventures (1860)

Why should we care about preserving and restoring prairies? Below is a list of prairies’ benefits – simply stated.

13 BENEFITS OF PRAIRIES

They are never complete lost or destroyed – even in a catastrophic situation –

Their perennial root systems ensure next year’s re-birth

There is no net soil erosion

There is no devastating pest epidemics

They have no need for fertilizers

They offer a system that survives on sun and rain

There is no need to cultivate the soil or plants seeds

They emit no damaging waste

They recycle all of their nutrients

They offer a cheap and organic pest control through plant diversity

They hold the soil against wind and rain

They conserve water, acting as a sponge when hit with big rains

They adapt

The prairie, in all its expressions, is a massive, subtle place, with a long history of contradiction and misunderstanding.  But it is worth the effort at comprehension.  It is, after all, at the center of our national identity. Wayne Fields, “Lost Horizon” (1988)

NOW IT’S YOUR TURN. What do prairies mean to you? What are ways home gardeners can help re-store them to our landscapes?

* A big thank you to Saxon Holt of Photobotanic (and Gardening Gone Wild) for his generosity in sharing his photos for this post. To see more of his magnificent photos, visit Photobotanic.

 

]]>
https://gardeninggonewild.com/why-we-need-to-grow-food-like-a-prairie/feed/ 29 Gardening Gone Wild Photo courtesy of Saxon Holt
Top 13 Perennials For 2013 https://gardeninggonewild.com/10-classic-plants-for-2013/ https://gardeninggonewild.com/10-classic-plants-for-2013/#comments Sat, 05 Jan 2013 11:38:14 +0000 https://gardeninggonewild.com/?p=22843
I’ve experimented with several dozen perennials over the years. But there are certain ones that I return to ~ time and again. They are star performers, easy to grow, hardy, can handle a wide range of soils, and moisture. Each of them adds a unique element to any garden. They are classics. The genii listed […]
]]>

I’ve experimented with several dozen perennials over the years. But there are certain ones that I return to ~ time and again. They are star performers, easy to grow, hardy, can handle a wide range of soils, and moisture. Each of them adds a unique element to any garden. They are classics.

The genii listed below have other species, varieties, and cultivars that are just as outstanding as these ~ several of which I’ve used in gardens (panicum has about 450 species).

Here are my Top 13 Perennials for 2013.

Achillea millefolium

 

Amsonia hubrichtii

Artemesia ‘Powis Castle’

 

Astilbe chinensis ‘Visions In Pink’

 

Echinacea pallida

 

Eupatorium purpureum

 

Lavandula (?)

 

Macleya cordata – Plume Poppy

 

Macleya cordata -front right hand side with large plumes

 

Panicum virgatum ‘Northwind’

 

Perovskia atriplicifolia

 

Salvia pratensis

 

Sedum ‘Red Cauli’

If I’ve mislabeled any plant, please correct. And if anyone knows what lavender it is in photo, do tell!

Now it’s your turn. What are your Perennial Picks for 2013?

]]>
https://gardeninggonewild.com/10-classic-plants-for-2013/feed/ 16 Gardening Gone Wild Panicum virgatum 'Northwind'
Warm Wishes from GGW https://gardeninggonewild.com/warm-wishes-to-you-all/ https://gardeninggonewild.com/warm-wishes-to-you-all/#comments Thu, 20 Dec 2012 09:00:13 +0000 https://gardeninggonewild.com/?p=22718
Nature is astonishing, isn’t it? How delightfully ironic that the flowers of many cacti resemble water lilies and the tops of some, snowflakes. Here are 18 examples to warm you this chilly season. Apologies to cactiphiles; I wasn’t able to identify all of them. If you would like to provide one or more IDs, please do! — […]
]]>

Nature is astonishing, isn’t it? How delightfully ironic that the flowers of many cacti resemble water lilies and the tops of some, snowflakes. Here are 18 examples to warm you this chilly season. Apologies to cactiphiles; I wasn’t able to identify all of them. If you would like to provide one or more IDs, please do! — Debra

L-R, top: unknown, Epiphyllum sp., Ferocactus wislizeni

L-R, middle: Opuntia sp. (cholla), Chamaelobivia ‘Rose Quartz’ (peanut cactus), Thelocactus nidulans

L-R, bottom: Trichocereus sp., unknown, Mammillaria sp.

 

L-R, top: unknown, unknown, Pachycereus marginatus (Mexican fence post)

L-R, middle: Stenocereus therberi, Mammillaria eichlamii, Trichocereus (Echinopsis) spachianus

L-R, bottom: Pachycereus weberii, unknown, unknown

 And to all of you, warm holiday wishes from all of us. Thank you for hanging out with us here at GGW, and for your comments!

Fran Sorin, Debra Lee Baldwin, Saxon Holt, Noel Kingsbury

]]>
https://gardeninggonewild.com/warm-wishes-to-you-all/feed/ 4 Gardening Gone Wild
5 Ways To Know If You’re A Spontaneous, Uncontrollable Plantaholic https://gardeninggonewild.com/5-ways-know-if-youre-a-plantaholic/ https://gardeninggonewild.com/5-ways-know-if-youre-a-plantaholic/#comments Wed, 16 May 2012 06:42:00 +0000 https://gardeninggonewild.com/?p=20515
After 2 years of experimenting, researching, and trying to find someone who could help implement my ideas, i FINALLY finished and planted the first phase of my front garden. Any of you who have been following my garden making in Israel know that I am someone who can live with ambivalence. Not rushing to decision […]
]]>

After 2 years of experimenting, researching, and trying to find someone who could help implement my ideas, i FINALLY finished and planted the first phase of my front garden.

Any of you who have been following my garden making in Israel know that I am someone who can live with ambivalence. Not rushing to decision allows me to meander and play with new ideas.

April 17, 2011-front rooftop 001

I tried a container garden (and hand watering) last summer. I knew it had to go. I desperately wanted to have a garden where I could sink my hands into the dirt, push the soil around, and have dirty fingernails.

After more frustration than I’ve experienced in a long time, I was introduced to a  designer who understood what I wanted and worked with me to create it.

It’s a simple design….4 beautifully crafted raised beds side by side next to the front balustrade….a good length  (132”) but with a narrow width, a measly 22”.

I’m used to designing gardens that are minimally 4’ deep. My style is one of several of one perennial in large numbers sweeping throughout the bed. This was going to be a challenge.

Why I assumed that I would be able to use at least 3 of one perennial in a grouping is beyond any logic. Once the wooden structures were brought up and positioned on the rooftop, it finally hit me that the width of my planting space could be problematic.

Rooftop---newly Planted-May 2012----rudbeckia, pelargonium, grasses, canna

After a moment of a ‘OMG, what did I do?’, I realized that  designing an ornamental grass garden was solution. I was going to take a disciplined approach…something that wasn’t going to be easy for me.

It was no problem finding 3 ornamental grasses that would work perfectly. The first one, Panicum ‘Northwind’ is a Roy Diblik introduction straight from his nursery, Northwind Perennial Farm in Wisconsin. It looks like it’s going to be a winner. The native Muhlenbergia capilaris,  with its fluffy pink seed heads was perfect as a mid-border grass. As much as I wanted to go native, I couldn’t resist Carex ‘Prairie Fire’ from New Zealand. Its bronzed tinge leaves that turn burnt orange in the fall are breathtaking.The native Carex pennsylvanica wasn’t going to cut it.

I should have stopped there. But I couldn’t resist. I wanted to try Rudbeckia deemii, a native rudbeckia that with which I wasn’t familiar. My eyes landed on dozens of orange kniphofias. Couple that with the Canna tropicana from last year and I’ve got a winner.

‘OK….enough’ I told myself.’ But then I was drawn to a sweet, deep purple silver leaved plant that reminded me of Geranium ‘phaeum’ which I love. It was Pelargonium ‘sidoides’. It would look magnificent sidled up against the carex. I quickly packed 9 of them in a box before I could change my mind.

P1050751..pelargonium on rooftop-may 2012

I’m sure you’ve experienced the same ‘gotta have it/can’t resist’ impulse. And the more you garden, the more difficult it is to resist buying ‘just one more plant….or two or three.’ Before you know it, you’ve become a plantaholic.

I knew I was going to have a blast planting the garden up….and I did. When I finished, It looked sparse but I was used to that. It didn’t bother me at all. By fall, it would begin to fill out with texture, movement, color, and wildlife.

P1050779

Within a few days, my pleasure turned to discomfort. The garden just didn’t feel right. Why hadn’t I followed my original plan of an ornamental grass garden? It was back to the drawing board.

Another round of Panicum, Carex, and Muhlenbergia landed on my rooftop yesterday afternoon.

P1050771

I started removing perennials and planting new ones this morning. How does it look? Too soon to tell.  What am I going to do with the perennials that I pulled out? What does any keen gardener do?  Tell us what you do in this situation.

P1050781

5 WAYS TO KNOW IF YOU’RE A PLANTAHOLIC

1. Your pupils dilate, you gasp for breath, and sweat profusely when you lay eyes on a plant you’ve seen for the first time.

2. You don’t flinch when the cashier tells you how much you owe….even though it’s way over your budget. ‘Eh’, you think to yourself ‘buying tons of plants is better than gambling.’

3. You transplant the majority of your ‘must have/can’t resist’ plants to a holding bed by fall. They just don’t work well in the garden. ‘No problem’, you think, ‘I’ll find another place for them’.

4. You pat yourself on the back for experimenting, learning, and taking risks. ‘Yes, it cost some extra bucks,’ you tell yourself ‘ but it’s a lot cheaper than studying horticulture at a university.  And look how much I learned.’

5. You do the exact same thing the following year….even though you promised yourself that you wouldn’t.

Do you consider yourself to be a plantaholic? If so, share your stories with us.

]]>
https://gardeninggonewild.com/5-ways-know-if-youre-a-plantaholic/feed/ 19 Gardening Gone Wild
Time for The CHOP https://gardeninggonewild.com/time-for-the-chop/ https://gardeninggonewild.com/time-for-the-chop/#comments Wed, 12 Jan 2011 07:35:48 +0000 https://gardeninggonewild.com/?p=15280
Written by Noel Kingsbury We’re delighted to have Noel contributing to GGW.  Alot of you are most likely familiar with his name. He has written several books; I have more than a few of them on my bookshelf. As well as being a prolific writer, Noel is a lecturer on plants and gardens. He has been in the […]
]]>

Written by Noel Kingsbury

We’re delighted to have Noel contributing to GGW.  Alot of you are most likely familiar with his name. He has written several books; I have more than a few of them on my bookshelf. As well as being a prolific writer, Noel is a lecturer on plants and gardens. He has been in the nursery business as well as doing garden design. Mostly known for his promotion of naturalistic and wild-style planting design, his gardening interests are wide-ranging, global and eclectic. Two years ago Noel completed a PhD with the University of Sheffield on long-term plant performance; he is hoping to continue research on a number of different fronts. He has a fantastic blog that’s worth checking out.      Fran Sorin

I think everyone on the garden lecture circuit has a least favourite, but frequently asked question from the audience. Mine is “what about small gardens?” my own fault as the most dramatic pictures I show are usually of larger ones. Piet Oudolf’s is “when do I cut my perennials back?” There is a somewhat pained look on his face, as to him this is a rather absurd question. His reply is always “when you want to”.

Once upon a time there was always this idea in gardening that there is a right way and a wrong way to do just about anything. The right way would be explained in a Royal Horticultural Society manual (I always wanted to write a book – ‘Digging a Hole, the RHS Way’).  Nowadays we tend to be more pragmatic, but those new to gardening still yearn for clear and unambiguous instructions.

DSC_0233[1]-Noel Kingsbury 2-cardoon

I think Piet’s answer to the issue of when you cut back deal perennial growth at the end of the year is that this is a question of personal taste.

There is a subtext – which is ‘how wild do you want your garden to be’? Some of us have spent a lot of time promoting the idea of the beauty of seedheads, of grasses waving in the wind or of winter sunlight on the infinite variety of fawns, golds, browns and reds of perennial stems and seedheads. But we have to recognize that it does get tattier as winter progresses, and if we get a rainstorm or high wind, a lot of stems collapse soggily and untidily. In the west of England this happens a lot, so the winter seedhead look has had quite a bit of ‘won’t work here’ type criticism.

Personally I always cut back in two phases. One is in November and involves taking out anything which looks a mess or will do shortly. That leaves grasses, which nearly always stand better than flowering perennials, and a few really sturdy perennial stems. Of the latter I have a particularly fine form of Joe Pye Weed, a Eupatoriadelphus fistulosus from seed collected in North Carolina by Ed Steffek. Very narrow and at 3.4m (9ft) its very statuesque. I’ve even had American visitors drooling over it. Worth leaving for the winter. If you chop everything down and you have a winter wonderland hoar frost then you have nothing to look at. Leave at least a few stems of something and a hard frost can create the most magical effects out of the most unpromising material.

DSC_0027[1]-Noel Kingsbury photo-1

Phase two of the winter chop is in February, just before the first snowdrops poke their noses up (have to avoid crushing them underfoot). That’s when grasses, Jo Pyes, everything goes.

DSC_0235[1]-Noel Kingsbury-eupatorium and grasses

But what do you do with all the debris? As someone who has promoted big perennials, prairie plants, grasses, I have to admit that this can be a problem. There’s a lot of stuff. A lot of it is tough stuff, still in the compost heap a year later stuff…. miscanthus grasses are the worst offenders, they’re so tough they’re almost woody. If you have masses of space and like carting armfuls of dead perennial stuff around you can build yourself compost heap city. But most of us haven’t the space.

What you do with the debris is related to how you cut it down. Secateurs and occasionally shears will do most small-scale dead perennial borders. A hedgetrimmer held at ground level is pretty effective too – most of the work then is gathering up. Increasingly though I like the idea of shredding and just returning the debris as a mulch – no transport miles and just recycles the nutrients. Probably good for invertebrate bio-diversity too. I am told that some folk feed their herbaceous debris into a shredder, but my experience here is that they clog pretty quickly with herbaceous as opposed to woody stuff. But I’m open-minded and waiting for suggestions of a shredder that might do the job well.

Managers of some larger gardens with lots of perennials use a hedgecutter and then ride over the borders with ride-on mower to shred the material. Would be good if I had a ride-on mower. So I tried a brushcutter – the nylon cord of course is no good against miscanthus, ironweeds, goldenrods etc. The metal blade chops off at ground level but won’t shred in the way the cord does. I tried a serrated-edge plastic blade made by Oregon, did a great job, then a metre in the plastic tears and goodbye. I reckon I would have used a whole packet of the little blades just to get half way through my prairie border. So, back to the blade (by the way, I HATE power machinery, all that smoke and noise is so utterly antithetical to the whole spirit of gardening), and I’ve now developed a cut’n’-mulch technique I’d like to share:

  1. cut it all down at the base
  2. rake up debris into low piles in the border
  3. attack with low-angled slashes with the brushcutter blade towards the centre of the heaps until you have got it all down to bits less than a foot long
  4. vaguely tidy up with the rake

OK it looks a bit messy. But most of the people reading this will be American, you get more snow than we do. Snow is the great leveller of dead herbaceous. A good snowfall and it’ll be crushed to the ground as mulch. Nutrients recycled, compost heap left empty for other stuff, nice mulch, goodbye. Wait for Spring to come.

]]>
https://gardeninggonewild.com/time-for-the-chop/feed/ 31 Gardening Gone Wild
Farewell to Roses https://gardeninggonewild.com/farewell-to-roses/ https://gardeninggonewild.com/farewell-to-roses/#comments Fri, 24 Aug 2007 21:17:59 +0000 https://gardeninggonewild.com/?p=113
While I’ve never risen to the heights (or sunk to the depths?) of some rose addicts, I’ve put in my share of time obsessing over drool-inducing rose catalogs and clicking through photo-filled rose-related web sites. So, despite not considering myself a collector, I’ve managed to gather a few dozen favorites over the years, and many […]
]]>

Rose rosette disease on ‘Ghislaine de Feligonde’While I’ve never risen to the heights (or sunk to the depths?) of some rose addicts, I’ve put in my share of time obsessing over drool-inducing rose catalogs and clicking through photo-filled rose-related web sites. So, despite not considering myself a collector, I’ve managed to gather a few dozen favorites over the years, and many of them came with me when I started this garden six years ago. They thrived in the full-day sun here (my last garden was only partly sunny, at best), and I was feeling quite complacent at my success with them. Then, about two years ago, disaster struck.

Rose rosette disease on Rosa multifloraIt started on ‘Darlow’s Enigma’, a pretty, long-blooming thing that was finally filling out into a beautiful large shrub. Walking by it one day, I noticed a little knot of bright red leaves growing on one cane. I meant to take a closer look but got distracted by another task. Then, a few days later, I was whacking down some of the Rosa multiflora clumps in my meadow, and I realized they had similar symptoms, only much worse; in fact, some of the plants were almost covered with stringy, bright red shoots. Uh oh. Welcome to the not-so-wonderful world of rose rosette disease (RRD).

I’d heard about this problem while working on the manuscript for the last revision of Taylor’s Guide to Roses back in 2001, mostly in discussions in on-line rose forums. In the years since then, though, it seems that the awareness of RRD hasn’t extended much beyond the rose community. I haven’t noticed any mentions of it in the gardening magazines I see, and it seems to be news to the gardeners who visit me. It’s something we all need to be aware of, though —at least those of us in the central and eastern states and Canada who grow even one rose.

Rose rosette disease on Rosa multifloraWhen I recalled the symptoms on my ‘Darlow’s Enigma’ and connected them to what I was seeing on the wild multifloras growing just a few hundred feet away, I knew trouble was afoot, and I started doing some research. Google “rose rosette disease” and you’ll be inundated with information—much of it outdated or conflicting. One excellent place to start, though, is the web book put together by Ann Peck, which you can find here at Rosegeeks.com. It’s worth taking the time to learn about the symptoms, because you don’t want to confuse the normal bright-red new growth of some roses with the red leaves and shoots caused by this virus (or virus-like organism).

Rose rosette disease on ‘Ghislaine de Feligonde’There’s no cure for RRD, which is a good thing if you’re cheering for the decline of multiflora roses but a serious concern for those of us who love our garden roses. You can take some steps to try to prevent it, and there are some ways you may be able to coax a few more years out of affected plants, but the consensus seems to be that removing and destroying infected roses is the best way to go. So, my ‘Darlow’s Enigma’ met an untimely end two years ago, and in this last year, Rosa glauca, R. eglanteria, and ‘Ghislaine de Feligonde’ have all shown symptoms. I’m trying to be philosophical about this; think of all the space I’ll have available for other plants, after all. But if my treasured Knock Out roses start showing symptoms…well, I can’t bear to think about it!

]]>
https://gardeninggonewild.com/farewell-to-roses/feed/ 8 Gardening Gone Wild