Moonlight and Roses

The only thing that could have made our near-5ft tall clump of 'Carolina Moonlight' Baptisia look better this spring was the beautiful color contrast provided by the red 'Double Knockout' Rosa in the background.

False Indigo, Baptisia sp., is perhaps my all-time favorite perennial plant, and the 'Carolina Moonlight' always steals the show in the spring with its vigorous height, although I do have 3 varieties of the shorter purple-toned Baptisia australis hybrids that are gorgeous as well. I love watching every stage of the plant's growth, from the asparagus like buds shooting out of the ground in early spring, to the delicate blue-green foliage, and of course those characteristic pea-family flowers!

The 'Knockout' rose in the back of the border provides a background to make the light yellow Baptisia flowers really stand out. 'Knockouts' have become a common staple in landscapes, offering a re-blooming, disease resistant option for even the most novice rose gardener. Used in the right places, the dark foliage and dazzling flowers give a show all season long... and with this warm spring they are starting extra early. In our sunny perennial border filling with spring flowers, these two beauties really steal the show when they come into bloom at the same time!

Early Spring in the Perennial Border

Spring is here. The leaves are out, the flowers are blooming, and the birds and bees are stirring in the garden. The Perennial border is finally filling in with color after the long months of bare mulch and branches.

 This time of year the plants are leaping towards the sun, putting on inches of foliage by the day, or bursting into bud overnight. Two of my favorite standouts for early spring border blooms are the 'Wine and Roses' Wigelia (left), and the 'Carolina Moonlight' Baptisia (right).

These beauties are also favorite spots for the bumblebees that have recently returned to the garden. Its great to see all the familiar faces of spring back once again!

Getting the Border Ready for Spring

The first week of March usually marks the start of the spring scramble in this house. All the dreams of garden projects we wanted to get done by spring are now facing a reality of being put off for next year, as we ready the garden for spring. Id already cleaned up the perennials and the roses, and all that was left to tackle was the butterfly bush. Its been a warm winter here as in much of the country, and the shrub still had as much foliage as it did in late fall....until I channeled my inner Edward Scissorhands and gave it a good pruning... from around 8 feet to just under 1 foot.

Butterfly bushes are some of the most commonly used landscape shrubs in our area, and rightly so because of their beautiful blooms that keep coming all summer. But with any widely-used plant, some people buy them without learning how to correctly care for them. The key to keeping your butterfly bush full and healthy year to year is to cut it back with some sharp bypass loppers to about 1 foot in the spring when new growth emerges. 

Now, you do not have to cut a butterfly bush back in the South, as the stems stay alive year round here, but be warned: they will grow to almost 20 feet in this area if not pruned! That and the pruning increases flowering dramatically, and gives the bush a cleaner shape. The most common mistake with this shrub is to cut it back too early (in the fall or early winter) leaving its hollow stems vulnerable to frost damage. Even in the early spring I make sure to make my cuts at least 1/2 inch above a growing point (i.e. a new leaf) in case temperatures drop.

And now all there is to do is throw down some all-purpose fertilizer (I prefer organic products and love the "good stuff" in Espoma's Plantone to give the border a boost in the spring) and just wait for summer blooms!

June Bloom Day

Its mid month again, time for Garden Bloggers Bloom Day sponsored by Carol at May Dreams Gardens... only I'm a little late, but not too late too be blog number 171 on her list! This is also a perfect chance for me to catch up on everything that's blooming in the summer borders. Right now the star of the show is the 'Jacob Cline' Bee-Balm (Monarda didyma 'Jacob Cline'), which is in full bloom and yet to be touched by any rains.

We have only had 1/4 inch of rain in the past few weeks, and although we set up the sprinkler on all the beds about once a week, we can never get quite enough water for the plants... and its starting to show. The constant temperatures about 90 don't help either. We were supposed to get storms last night but they swung south.... and so out comes the hose again, but that's what it takes.

The familiar faces of summer are returning to the garden. The first Purple Cone flowers (Echinacia purpurea) have just opened. A personal favorite of mine, Crocosmia 'Lucifer', is also just opening. I just love the exotic flower and the large linear leaves add interest even when not in bloom.

June is full of blooms of all shapes and colors, too many to capture. A few more beauties right now are a pink Yarrow (Yarrow millefolium 'Summer Pastels'), Route 66 Coreopsis (Ceoropsis verticillata 'Route 66'), Perennial Plumbago (Plumbago ariculata), Japanese Aster (Kalimeris pinnatafida), and a sunflower planted by the birds.

 

Two more of my favorites June bloomers are Culver Root (Veronicastrum virginicum) and Tomato Soup Coneflower (Echinacea 'Tomato Soup'). The Echinacea is not quite as red as some pictures I have seen of it in other gardens, but mine generally gets a beautiful striping effect.

The Clematis (Clematis 'Ernest Markham') is also blooming, for the first time I've seen. Actually we thought it was a different variety ('Nelly Moser') because that's what the tag said, until it bloomed with a deep burgundy flush instead of white. I guess that's the chance you take with clearance plants.

There are quite a few day lilies (Hemerocallis) splashed in the garden too... but 'Lady Elizabeth' is my favorite, with its near-white color.

 For a passing glance, I will leave you with the first blooms from the Butterfly bush (Buddlea) in our front landscape, a true sign of summers presence. It is almost 10 feet tall already, and I cut it back to less that a foot this spring! I'll have to think of it as my gift to the butterflies. 

"Let us dance in the sun, wearing wild flowers in our hair..."  ~Susan Polis Shutz

May Bloom Day

With everything going on right now, I almost forgot about May's Garden Bloggers Bloom Day sponsored by Carol at May Dreams Gardens. The perennial border is filled with bloomers this month! I defend for my Masters tomorrow and am quite busy so I will have to substitute my usual closeups for mostly wide shots and a list. It does give me a chance to show off the perennial border, which is looking beautiful right now!

Blooming right now: Penstemon, Gallardia, Scabiosa 'Butterfly Blue', Catmint 'Walker's low', Guara 'Whirling Butterflies' and 'Pink Gin', Red Knockout rose, Allium giganteum, Dianthus 'Heart Attack', Phlox 'Minnie Pearls', Coreopsis 'Moonbeam', Purple Flag Iris, Lespedeza, Spirea, Hydrangea 'Endless Summer', Hydrangea 'Annabelle', Agastache 'Salmon and Pink', Lamium... and some more! I hope to feature many of these as Plant Spotlights.

"More than anything, I must have flowers always, always." ~Claude Monet

Peak at the Perennial Border

Ive been spending the last week or so glued to the computer finishing my master's papers, but the beautiful sights of mid-may outside keep calling me for a break. I told myself I wouldn't post again until my paper is finished, but I couldn't resist... so here's a peak at the perennial border in all of its mid-may glory. I can't wait to have the chance to catch up on all the spring happenings...

"Climb the mountains and get their good tidings.  Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees.  The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves."  ~John Muir

Mother Nature

This past weekend a "family" of tornadoes came through central and eastern North Carolina. One tracked 200 yards away from the greenhouse where Brian works, and headed in a path that took it only 1/4 mile away from our house. We were lucky, no damage... but others were not so lucky.

Damage in Raleigh was bad, and its amazing how people bond together after tragedies. Damage was worse in Jacksonville, NC about 2 blocks from where my sister-in-law lives. My mother in law took the picture below. Luckily they were okay as well.

24 People lost their lives in the tornadoes, 3 in our county, but luckily no one we know was severely affected. One of our good friends and coworkers at the greenhouse lost all the trees in her backyard. Buried deep under the pile is her squashed perennial border. The loss of a garden makes me appreciate the beauty of mine even more. Perhaps I should give her some plants.

"Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature. It will never fail you." ~ Frank Loyd Wright

The Perennial Border: A Spring Study

When looking for our first house, the yard was an important aspect: we knew we wanted a large perennial border. We were lucky enough to find a home with, among other features, a South-facing fence in our garden that makes a perfect backdrop for our full-sun mixed perennial border.

 

When we moved into our house in January of 2009, the first thing we did when the ground was warm enough to dig was fix the drainage around the property. Snaking its way through the back of the border is a buried drainage pipe that is trouble to dig around, but helped lay the plans for our perennial border. Brian, being the landscape designer, drew out the curvy style of our beds, while I was left with my favorite task of filling it in with plants. A huge area to fill, it took us 2 seasons to complete our plant selections. Starting with some clearance shrubs and home-propagated native perennials we built it up steadily. With almost everything in since last summer, this year promises to be gorgeous. There is one more hole to fill in this area however, an arbor at the far end was taken out, leaving me with some more room to expand the sun-perennial collection... I dread the time when I run out of room to plant!

Another great advantage of our home is the raised back porch. It provides a perfect vantage point to survey and document the garden. The view from above provides a much different perspective, and makes it even more of a challenge designing plantings that look good from every angle. The result of such is usually planting things a little too close to fill in holes seen from above, leaving me no room to walk into planting areas for maintenance. But, that's the thing about your first house/garden: you make lots of mistakes and always learn from them. Anyway, the vantage point on the porch is perfect to take a series of pictures to see how the border progressed over the month of March and early April.

March 9th, 2011

March 20th, 2011

March 29th, 2011

April 4th, 2011

The growth rate of things amazes me this time of year. I swear the Monarda grows an inch every night! As of now almost everything is up in the garden, with a few exceptions like fall perennials such as Joe Pye Weed. The Reeves Spirea (Spirea cantoniensis) really stands out in this series, as the blooms progress from the back to the front, weighing down the branches.

The weight of the blooms on the Reeves Spirea are so heavy that the branches touch the ground in the front of the border, making a rare visit with the "Little Beauty" Tulips. What a beautiful meeting!

I had to include some close-ups of a few other standouts right now in the perennial border. The 'Double Dutch' Tulip is a standout from any angle, at any stage of bloom. From a too-bright-to-capture neon orange, to this rusty aged copper, this Tulip has to be one of my favorites.

The Roman Hyacinth (Bellevalia romana) (left) was one of the first plants to go in the border. Bought on clearance and not planted until the end of January, these little guys have toughed through and are just now beginning to bloom. Not a standout from afar, it sure looks beautiful for its spotlight picture! The 'Stairway to Heavean' Jacob's Ladder (Polemonium reptans 'Stairway to Heaven') (right), on the otherhand, is a standout from afar, and you can see its white new growth in the foreground of the perennial bored time-lapse pictures. Yesterday, the first little sky blue bloom appeared, and soon they will be covered in blooms. Perhaps one of my favorite foliage plants as well, these little guys had to be moved into their shadier location to prevent leaf scorch.

The Easter Rose (Kerria japonica 'Honshu') (left) burst into bloom this week, and is setting many more buds for what looks like will be a long bloom time. I'm enjoying this new addition more and more every day, as the tropical looking flowers add a touch of summer to the spring pallet. The 'Wine and Roses' Wigelia (Wigelia florida 'Wine and Roses') (right) was another standout in the pictures, as you can see the wine-colored foliage appearing in the center of the perennial border time-lapse pictures. What you can't see from those images are the swelling rose colored buds, covered in pollen, but still beautiful!

I will conclude with a bit of a misfit, as it is not in the sun perennial border, but the Wisteria is in full bloom and dropping its lilac-colored petals all over the garden. Tonight promises to be our last night below 45 degrees, very exciting times! Perhaps a trip to the garden center is in store for tomorrow...

"If you've never been thrilled to the very edges of your soul by a flower in spring bloom, maybe your soul has never been in bloom."  ~Terri Guillemets