Showing posts with label gardens. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gardens. Show all posts
Tuesday, 4 March 2014
Garden Bloggers Bloom Day May 2012 Gardens in Bloom!
Welcome to my Long Island zone 7 northeastern garden. Inspired by the quote, “We can have flowers nearly every month of the year.” by Elizabeth Lawrence, Carol at May Dreams Gardens hosts Garden Bloggers Bloom Day on the 15th of every month. Gardeners from all over the world walk out into their gardens to note what is currently blooming.
Due to our exceptionally mild winter many of the blooms are way ahead of schedule this year. In early April I was already venturing out into the garden and adding some new members to my woodland section.
The loss of an old maple tree that was ailing opened up a world of opportunity. I decided to give the woodland section of the gardens a face lift. With more sunlight I was able to add some colorful goldmound spirea and nepeta along with the existing hosta, coral bells, ajuga and azalea (seen left).It has created the perfect combination and the new burst of spring color is such a joy while still being able to maintain a woodland type of setting where I can just venture out and get lost in my garden.
And then there is the iris garden all in bloom. There is a story behind this garden. My husband and I reside in the home that I grew up in as a child and my mom planted this iris garden about forty five years ago. My mom only had a few gardens and this one still remains as it was long ago and I think of her everytime I look at its lovely blooms.
In one of the more recent gardens (1996) the Azalea are in bloom with our sixteen year old Weeping White Pine in the backdrop.
The Rhododendron are always a welcome sight in spring with their bright lavender blooms. These plants are also nearly twenty years old and very reliable.
In the evergreen and perennial garden the salvia are a bit ahead of schedule and are already very well into bloom. The peony are also forming large buds and are ready to open any day now.
The perennial garden is well into bloom with Lambs Ear, Hosta, Salvia and Astilbe. This particular garden changes constantly with every month of the year and there is always something to look forward to.
The miniature Butterfly Bush (center) is doing well in its second season. Behind it are Gold Mop Cypress, Salvia Maynight, Coral Bells, Weeping Blue Atlas Cedar and Barberry Rosy Glow.
Here is a close up of the blooms on my Maynight Salvia. This is one of my favorite perennials. It displays a purple color like no other and lasts throughout most of the summer. I get so much enjoyment from it.
The roses are in bloom on this lovely May day. I added Knock Out Roses to the garden after many years of not having them and they have become one of the most enjoyable aspects of my garden. They make me smile every time I look at them.
Thank you for stopping by and I hope you enjoyed the tour of my May gardens. The gardens are always changing so there are sure to be more new additions as the season moves along. Be sure to visit Carol at May Dreams Gardens for more blooms from around the world.
Happy Garden Bloggers Bloom Day and As Always...Happy Gardening!
Author: Lee@ A Guide to Northeastern Gardening, copyright 2012
Gardens are Frivolous
Gardens are Frivolous: So go outside and get silly.
Readers of this blog know that I am endlessly fascinated by planting design in all its historical and contemporary forms. The human impulse to arrange plants for our own pleasure is so utterly frivolous and entirely unnecessary that it attracts me even more as a topic of study. Farming and vegetable gardening are logical, right? After all, we need to eat. But ornamental gardening is a deeper mystery. It is as if gardeners are compelled by some atavistic duty to scratch in the dirt like hens.
Remember: I make a living designing, writing, and teaching about gardens, so I have much to lose by claiming that garden-making is frivolous. But let’s be honest: it is pure silliness. We ornament and embellish our dwellings with flowers; we weed and mulch to prevent natural succession from happening; and we create little dioramas of nature in our yards. The more I think about the whole pursuit, the more absurd it is to me. I wonder what anthropologists from another planet would say about these rituals.
Hold on, you say: there are many good reasons for gardening. Yes, of course, there are many reasons for gardening and many benefits of gardening, but ultimately, none of these really justify a garden. Nor do we need a justification. In fact, I’m personally weary of feeling the need to defend gardening, of trying to turn it into a solemn or academic subject. It isn’t.
So what if it’s silly? Yes, exactly! So what! Accepting that garden-making is frivolous is the first step of liberating it from all those forces that try to tame it: the real estate industry, good tastes, garden designer’s need to justify themselves, eco-evangelism, or the horticultural industry. It frees us to take risks, act foolishly, and embrace failure.
That gardens are frivolous is exactly why so many of the great gardens in history have been designed—not by professional garden designers—but by gardeners who made their own gardens their life’s work. British garden writer Tim Richardson wrote an excellent essay on this phenomenon. It makes sense. Professional garden designers don’t have the luxury to take risks. It’s too expensive and requires too much of the owner. The home gardener, on the other hand, can spend decades cultivating an emotionally powerful, personal vision. They can get silly.
And it’s high time for us to get silly. The recent focus on native and sustainable gardens has had many benefits, but one of the unfortunate side effects is the rather lugubrious, solemn tone it’s added to garden-making. I don’t mind the zealotry of eco-evangelists—in fact, how can you create anything lasting and beautiful without a bit of zealotry? But please, let’s not take our gardens too seriously.
Let’s make gardens with our hearts, not just our heads. Give me exuberant plantings dripping with emotion; richly layered spaces that thrill me with color and chill me with darkness; and above all, give me romance. Let’s look upon our tiny plots with the inspired eyes of lovers, lost in a vision of what can be. And if our yards don’t love us back, don’t give us what we hoped for, then let’s double down on our bets and try again. It’s a fool’s strategy. But I’ve always been a fool for a one-way romance.
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