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snow birds (some days it is impossible to take just one photo!)
Category Archives: gardening
in the winter garden
Camellia buds!!!!
Yesterday was not a fun day in the garden because sadly tree guys working at a neighbor’s property took out our electric fence in our woods while taking down dead trees in our neighbor’s woods. But all is not lost as I heard from the company owner today and they told me they are going to pay for my repair, so I will take them at their word.
But it’s stuff like this that happens in the garden that drives me bananas. And we live in the woods so it’s happened before. It was an accident, and it could have been worse, because the tree that came down came down 14 inches from our shed (give or take an inch.) And thankfully the tree when it came down didn’t damage any of my plantings or younger trees.
I am much more Zen about it today, yesterday afternoon not so Zen.
Today I knew I had to put out deer repellent. I have had a herd of more than 10 going through the very back of our woods at our property line every day for weeks now. Truthfully, I’ve never had such a big herd go through back there. So if I don’t keep the repellent up and alternate repellant come spring I may have a munched plant problem. But while I was out today putting out anti-deer stuff I had a reminder that life still is pretty cool in a winter garden!
My Camelia japonica “Bloomfield” has flower buds!!! I am so excited! This was an experimental shrub for me and it was developed at the Morris Arboretum in Philadelphia originally.
Also super cool? One of my new winter blooming Witch Hazels also is loaded with buds! I lost the tag I think the cultivar is named “Diane”.
I have bought a bunch of different Witch Hazels now after being inspired by Jenny Rose Carey and her own personal garden. I have bought my Witch Hazels from three sources:
The Camelia came from Camellia Forest Nursery.
I also checked on my rhododendrons today. Rhododendrons and azaleas can take a beating in the winter and I lost my blue azaleas last year except for one. I for the most part have red rhododendrons that I have planted, but I also bought two yellow ones to experiment with.
How my yellow rhododendrons survive in particular it will be interesting because they are towards the front of the property and I put up reflective markers so my Township snow plows don’t plow them over (fingers crossed!) Yellow rhododendrons can be a little finicky in general in our planting zone of 6A, so we shall see.
Most of my rhododendrons come from Oregon and the nursery is Rhododendrons Direct. A couple of rhododendrons I have came from Applied Climatology who are at the West Chester Growers Market in season.
Other things I checked on included my new Japanese Maples – Acer palmatum ‘Orange Dream’ which also came from Applied Climatology. We are at the end of January and so far so good.
I know spring is coming because I got my David Austin Roses catalog. I am in a holding pattern on roses I might order one but that’s all.
I also got my newsletter from the Delaware Hosta Society . If you live in the greater Philadelphia/ South Jersey /Wilmington area and are a hosta fanatic like I am you should consider joining. It’s very reasonable for the year and they have lots of great events with interesting speakers. And they always have raffles at their events. I have some very cool hostas from them!
My other plug goes to Jenkins Arboretum. I have been a member of Jenkins for a few years and it is one of my favorite local arboretums, if not my absolute favorite local Arboretum. Jenkins does events and classes and workshops all year round, and if you go through their events calendar you will also notice they have events for children as well! It was because of Jenkins Arboretum I fell in love with Chestnut and Burr Oak trees. I live for their winter emails there’s always something fun to learn.
If you decide to join the hosta society or Jenkins please make sure and tell them you read about their organization on this blog.
Also note I’m not compensated for talking about any of these places. I belong to both Jenkins and the Delaware Valley Hosta Society, and the nurseries I mentioned I am a regular customer of.
I have also been gobbling up streaming British gardening shows. I find them through Amazon Prime streaming.
Well that’s it for me for the day. Take the time to enjoy your winter garden, it’s bones are skeletal but it has form and life all on its own. And plant some witch hazels if you have the room!
Thanks for stopping by!
Witch Hazel flower buds!
why can’t u.s. television produce a real gardening show?
Every time a new gardening or garden/landscape show is going to premiere on US television I watch it. I am a rabid gardener and an avid gardener and I like to learn and be inspired to garden better, garden smarter, garden prettier.
But every single show I see on DIY or HGTV and now Bravo aren’t real gardening shows. These shows don’t give any gardener I know inspiration. And they aren’t really creating garden spaces where the homeowner learns about the plants and how to care for them after all the television crews are gone.
I had high hopes for Bravo’s Backyard Envy. But after watching the premiere episode, I think it’s going to be added to my skip it list and I’ll tell you why. And FYI the photos are screenshots I took from the television screen.
My sister lives in Manhattan. She has both a rooftop garden and a rear yard garden. I have watched closely what the gardening professionals have done with her spaces over the years and it’s nothing short of lovely. They are also for the most part, plants that she can care for, a garden space someone who doesn’t really garden or have time to garden can maintain. My sister has lovely maintainable spaces that are beautiful four seasons of the year.
Backyard Envy made me wince. In my opinion they don’t know what they’re doing and I wouldn’t hire them. Being a garden designer and landscape architect are very specific practices. The people who are the principles on this show aren’t landscape architects or true garden designers. Being a designer for Ralph Lauren stores/events and having space planning background and graphic design background doesn’t make you a landscape architect or a gardener.
And to add insult to injury, they butchered both the common names and Latin names for many plants. I don’t pretend to pronounce everything perfectly but if somebody gave me a garden design television show you bet your life I would learn how to pronounce everything before I was on camera or recorded!
I will admit that I found the roof deck of the house in Bedford Stuyvesant Brooklyn (think that is where they were) clever, but I found some of the choice of plants unrealistic for the homeowners to maintain unless they wanted to pay someone to come in a couple times a week and take care of the space. Part of the trick to urban garden spaces is to also make it sustainable and relatively simple to care for because not everyone can afford staff to keep everything in garden magazine ready form 24/7. I also was uncomfortable watching them “blacken” wood up on the roof, because in my humble opinion something with a live flame should have been done outside and on the ground and then taken up to the roof after everything was cool.
The second property they were dealing with was up in Piermont, New York. Piermont is in Rockland county. It’s on the west bank of the Hudson river apparently. It is very attractive to people who want a more bucolic lifestyle yet still be somewhat close to New York City. It’s a very pretty place. It’s also not too far from the site of the now demolished Tappan Zee bridge. So, essentially it’s a place that is quasi-on the water, which means gardening has to take that into consideration right?
The show goes to the home of a couple with a very modern house on the edge of what seems to be a big pond. The space they want fixed up as usable garden space is literally 2 feet from the water. As soon as the crew starts digging water comes up. Well d’oh what did they think was going to happen? Can you say water table? Aquifer?
Their solution on the show reinforcing a bank with railroad ties and adding a French drain. French drain pipes are something we use in our gardens to direct water and deal with water. But when mother nature is RIGHT there with a body of water and not much space or slope, do we really think that is a long-term solution? Will that garden space even last? What happens if there’s a good storm or something? If those people didn’t have public sewer and it was away from their septic and public water, why didn’t these “experts” suggest things like willow trees? Or other, longer lasting solutions?
Why willows? Willows absorb water as they live for water. We planted one in our front yard when we moved into our house because we are not on public water we are not on public sewer and 1/2 of our front yard was extraordinarily wet because it was the low spot on the street leading to the woods in the rear. We now have a front yard that does much better in the rain and our garage doesn’t get flooded anymore. I have also improved the grade slightly of the flowerbeds next to the house and that helps. In other wet spots in our woods I have done things like plant giant pussy willows.
The garden space in Piermont was an attempt at a layered garden. But as opposed to what David Culp has done in his gardens (see David Culp’s website) or what I have seen British gardening treasure Monty Don do, this fell short. Sure it looked good for cameras, but what real gardeners prepare a riparian buffer and put echinacea / cone flowers in it? If you’re going to do a riparian buffer it has to actually have plants that all tolerate a lot of water and you need the right light and a lot of it. Echinacea/coneflowers also don’t like wet feet. I found out the hard way when I tried to plant them in a certain spot out front in a flower bed on the side of our property near the willow tree we planted. I had the right light, but it was an area that gets wet and the plants had a whole failure to thrive and eventually died.
There were also other plants that definitely don’t like wet feet that they planted on this episode, and/or didn’t seem to be right for the light. Maybe people who like the show are going to find me overly picky, but sorry not sorry for my opinions. I dig in the dirt. I wear gloves but I still get my hands dirty. And I’m not afraid to get my hands dirty. One of those guys seemed like he was going to pass out if he actually got his hands dirty. If that’s the case, what’s he doing in a garden or on a show that creates outdoor spaces?
A real riparian buffer is a total work of art, and the other thing I found missing from this design were native plants. If it was my show I would embrace plants that were native to the area as well. And I would point them out because people are interested in that. And they should have spoken more about creating a riparian buffer on the edge of water and not just ” look at these pretty flowers”.
The problem I have with these shows (and not just this one) is I don’t think anything is sustainable long term. I think in a few years if that a lot all of these homeowners who participate in the shows will be looking for help. When you plant things for instant gratification to look good and tart up for the cameras, it’s like the online dating/relationship shows like the Bachelor or Bachelorette — what happens after the cameras stop rolling?
For me, the plants come first and whether or not I have a bar cart next to my pond if I had a pond would come second. As I grow my gardens I plan my seating areas around that. And maybe I am more of a traditionalist and I don’t want an outdoor living room out back. I have a living room already and it’s inside. As someone who has also deliberately planted layered gardens I can tell you it is work and maintenance.
I think the three folks who star in this show are very creative. But I don’t find them to be actual gardeners. And with all these lifestyle shows no matter which network you choose, it would be nice once in a while in the US if we had an actual gardening show. United States television could take a page out of BBC’s book. BBC offers fabulous gardening programs which is why am so happy to have access to them via the streaming services.
Is actual gardening such a boring concept in the US that we can’t get a real gardening show? Is there life beyond mega decks, outdoor man caves, and hardscaping? I think there is, and I know I’m not alone so I hope we get to see more of folks like Monty Don and his colleagues on this side of the pond.
As for me personally? I get to see how winter hardy some of my plants actually are in the next couple of days. Here’s hoping everything survives. Stay warm and thanks for stopping by.
january in the garden
January in the garden. Branches bare of leaves reaching skyward. Walking in the woods the leaves are soggy because of all of the rain.
I really should be spreading more wood chips while they aren’t a giant frozen lump, but I just don’t feel like it. I love my garden but it’s time for it to go free range for a while.
My rhododendrons are very happy right now. They are setting big, fat buds for spring. Hopefully they will get through the winter unscathed. It has been a strange winter thus far. So weird my pussy willows are popping.
Anyway, the Eagles won and Outlander is on. Thanks for stopping by.
on the eve of 2019
As 2018 draws to a close, what another long, strange trip it’s been. As is the case with every year, there were beginnings and endings.
This was a year where once again I found mankind in general a wee bit disappointing. Especially with the political vitriol. From coast to coast, print media to Internet to social media to television, it began always with the swirling inanity / insanity coming out of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C.
One New Year’s Resolution? Just because he tweets, it doesn’t mean I have to read or listen. And for those of you who don’t like my opinion over the dictatorship in place, well cheerfully and with respect, you can stuff it. I didn’t vote for him, I have never liked him, he’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing meets charlatan and circus big top ringmaster.
I was a Republican for most of my life, perhaps when sanity returns I will be once again. Truthfully I think both political parties are screwy right now. I think Republicans and Democrats need to get back to the business of doing what is best for the entire plurality, not just selective factions. Our government was founded by the people for and of the people and it feels like a dictatorship meets turf wars. The anger that fuels this country is sick and twisted, and building a wall ain’t gonna change a thing.
In 2019, you don’t have to like my opinion or anyone else’s but we should be going back to the Founding Father’s and our rights to our own opinions. And respect for that lovely thing called the First Amendment. As a SLAPP suit survivor I know of what I speak, don’t I?
Our rights to expression and freedom of speech and the press are neither selective nor subjective. They are freaking inalienable and if you don’t like what someone says, it’s a big world with lots of opinions. And the right to have opinions. So if you don’t like something, move along, nothing to see here. (And that includes this blog.)
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
This is why I support groups in this country like the Institute for Justice.
And can we talk eminent domain? Eminent domain is a vile thing. 2018 saw the rally to Save Stoneleigh (Natural Lands/Villanova/Former Haas Estate/Amazing) from eminent domain (and I will note I had the first big regional editorial on the topic May 18, 2018 in the Philadelphia Inquirer.)
Well, we saved Stoneleigh and on Christmas Eve Eve we learned that Scrooge, I mean the Lower Merion School District, has started yet another eminent domain attempt. Is this the third time is the charm for Copeland and Lower Merion School Board and Lower Merion School District? 2017 was the attempt to go after Ashbridge Park, then Stoneleigh, now two other nearby properties that Villanova University was poised to purchase?
What remains to be seen is if Villanova will take this lying down. I hope they don’t. I hope Villanova University files suit against Lower Merion School District. Some may find my opinion surprising, but I think Villanova is a preferable neighbor when compared to Lower Merion School District and they aren’t wasting taxpayer money like the school district does every time they go on their vision quests of arrogance and greed.
Also 2018 saw all sorts of craziness when it comes to the Mariner II pipeline. Sinkholes, ruined wells, lessened property values, and raping and pillaging of Chester County. And a Governor of Pennsylvania who doesn’t give a crap but was the lesser of two evils in the twisted mid-term elections of 2018.
Finally, right before Christmas the residents of Chester County received a gift from District Attorney Tom Hogan when he filed criminal charges against Sunoco/Energy Transfer Partners/Sunoco Logistics. What will happen now that DA Hogan has done this is of course anyone’s guess, but for 2019 I hope justice prevails. What has happened since this news broke is residents of Berks County pressuring THEIR District Attorney to follow Tom Hogan’s lead.  Hopefully Berks, Bucks, and Delaware Counties ALL follow Chester County District Attorney Tom Hogan’s lead, right?
Adelphia Gateway are you listening? If one pipeline is on our District Attorney’s radar, doesn’t it make sense he will keep tabs on all of them?
And speaking of pipelines, there is this thing (see screen shots on left) which floated by my Twitter feed. So Mariner II/Sunoco Logistics/Energy Transfer Partners are you ok with this? A homeowner essentially being threatened?
How is this O.K.? You bar people from parts of their own properties, and how is this O.K.???
How is any of this O.K.? We as residents are not benefitting here. What is raped from the land is shipped away from here to places like Scotland to make plastics, so what do we gain? And doesn’t that in fact make the eminent domain takings of land for pipelines more like eminent domain for private gain? And don’t forget about the bullsh*t fake public utility status and how is it politicians all looked the other way for that again?
2018 with the march of the Frankenpipe has done what exactly to benefit us? The workers aren’t even local guys – you can see it when you drive by job sites. And with all the work stoppages due to issues and fines, how is this pipeline safe? How are any of the pipelines safe?
As we move forward into 2019, we also need to look at Chester County municipalities and development fever. East Goshen, East Whiteland, West Whiteland, West Goshen, Tredyffrin, Easttown, and finally Caln Township come to mind immediately. So hey now? Elected officials? Who is it exactly you are representing again? From ginormous digital billboards to overly dense developments residents do not want (and destruction of open space and historic structures), who are all of you collectively working for? Us? Doesn’t feel that way.
And elected officials in Harrisburg? Do we need an act of God before you update the Municipalities Planning Code to offer Pennsylvania residents some protections, land and historic preservation?
Personally, it has been an interesting year. Lots of wonderful gardening and spending time with friends and family. It has been a year of reconnecting with friends I had not seen in a long time, and also closing the door on some other relationships. Cleaning house and recognizing who your friends are is not a bad thing. Introspection is good, and we do not need to be “friends” with everyone on social media.
I have rediscovered how local politics can be a blood sport out here, but can we say one of the roots of the cause can be when folks deal out good old-fashioned shady assed behavior?
I’m no fool, and I have my battle scars from just a few years living here. I’m outspoken and I’m a blogger. I don’t think you’re supposed to be either in the minds of some people. You are simply supposed to be some form of a Stepford wife. Or a bobble head.
I have done my time over the years of being the subject of gossip for being outspoken and a blogger and this whole theory of knives and knitting needles. And I have been the target of behavior that is so incredibly malicious and hurtful directed at me mostly because I was different from the way they were, or even because I just did not like them.
I think adult social bullying is the worst, and I truly think that a lot of people don’t even realize they are doing it. Suffice it to say, human beings can be so incredibly cruel to one and other.
I think 2018 will go down in the history books as a year where everyone, everywhere was totally mean to each other. As I have said before, I do believe a lot of this has to do with the stage that has been set in Washington DC. People are so angry from coast to coast, and here in our little corner of the world you see it as well.
2018 will end with two people still missing whom we have come to know through the people who care about them.  Geoff Partridge of Villanova and Anna Maciejewska Gould of Malvern. Today is #MissingMonday and I hope these people are located.
2018 saw a year where our family lost a beloved pet. As a matter of fact many dear to me lost pets this year. The unconditional love and joy they bring us are like nothing else in this world. Remember the pets who have gone over the Rainbow Bridge with a prayer to St. Francis and support local animal rescues.
Although 2018 has been a tumultuous year from coast to coast and locally, it is not without bright spots. People are good even in the midst of bad. There are those who offer hope and bright spots when others have disappointed you. God may close doors, but always look for that window he left open.
I will tell you honestly I am not a big New Year’s Eve party person and much like St. Patrick’s Day, I would rather be at home.
When I was younger people would look at me funny when I said this. I suffered through many a New Year’s Eve at loud parties that did not suit me.
One of my favorite New Year’s Eves was in the late 1980s. I was taken to a funny as hell off-Broadway show called Lesbian Vampires of Sodom. Bizarre title and it was (in my opinion) one of the great NYC theater experiences. I laughed from beginning to end. Pure camp, very funny.
The show was at a small and legendary playhouse in the East Village – the Provincetown Playhouse on McDougal Street. Sadly, after being ruled eligible for preservation status, NYU essentially demolished one the most historic theatres in New York City a while back. The history didn’t matter there, either.
This New Year’s Eve long ago was a New Year’s Eve where some of my girlfriends were seriously pissed at me for leaving the fold and NOT going to a New Year’s Eve party with them. It was an eventful evening for a few of them that New Year’s Eve. I remember one of my friends met her future husband at the party I blew off for off-Broadway and the East Village of NYC.
But seriously? Usually I am fast asleep waaaayyyy before the ball drops in New York City’s Time’s Square. And at least in my 50s it’s quite alright to stay at home. Even from the Mummers Parade.
I have rambled far long than I intended to today. My humble apologies, but sometimes the words come pouring out. I will close by wishing all of you have a happy and safe New Year’s Eve. Cheers to 2019, and farewell to 2018.
gardening reading for the winter
My garden is wearing her winter structure already. Harder angles, the stick shapes of shrubs like my red twig dogwoods. Giant pussy willow boughs naked of leaves and catkins bobbing when a breeze blows. Looking up, the trees and their limb structure look like giant arms outstretched, and everywhere are squirrels’ nests (and even a squirrel box for our Eastern Flying Squirrels!)
Our annual tree work is done and the flower beds are resting comfortably under piles of oak leaves. I pruned the rose bushes a few weeks back, and planted my bulbs. I still spray for deer every few weeks, however.
Now as we enjoy the remainder of the Christmas season and are headed towards New Year’s Eve, I have already started the countdown to spring and wondering what the garden will look like because every year as my garden matures, it’s a little different.
As we head further into winter months, my inner gardener always gets twitchy. It’s hard to dig in the dirt when the ground is frozen, after all.
So how do I bide my gardening time until it’s spring? Gardening and seed catalogs and gardening books.
This winter’s reading list for books will be as follows:
- Down To Earth by Monty Don
- The Complete Gardener by Monty Don
- The New Shade Garden by Ken Druse
Read a review of Down to Earth HERE. You can buy new and used copies on Amazon and eBay.
The Complete Gardener has been out quite a few years now. My edition is 2003. But it is worth the purchase. My copy came from eBay and a British book seller. Also available through many sources including Amazon.
The New Shade Garden by Ken Druse first came out in 2016. I had to do a bit of a search to track down a copy of this book. It’s a little pricey too. But it is an awesome book thus far. The book has suggested plant lists which I love. The author, Ken Druse, also has a website which is terrific.
Anyway, these are the books I am delving into while I wait for spring.
Thanks for stopping by.
swiss pines november, 2018
I always read about Swiss Pines and the magical gardens before I moved to Chester County but I never realized where it was located until I lived out here a while.
Where it is— where it lies in ruins is along Charlestown Road.
I am really bummed out that I will probably never ever get to see the gardens and that they will probably just continue to rot into oblivion.
I actually wrote about Swiss Pines before. Why it has always interested me was because of the wonderful Japanese woodland gardens.
My personal gardens have so much of a shade garden and woodland garden component to it here in Chester County, that Swiss Pines is exactly the kind of place I would love to explore to learn what they did. Gardens like this are always inspiring.
But I am losing hope that the gardens will ever be restored and re-opened. I hope I’m wrong, but I don’t think I am. My fear is someday it will all just be bulldozed under for more development.
Today when we drove by, the bamboo seemed larger and more oppressive than usual. (It can get really tricky on Charlestown Road in front of those gardens especially as we go in the winter because something is always falling into the road.)
Even in their state of ruin, the gardens of Swiss Pines still beckon. When you drive by you catch little glimpses of what lies on the other side of the bamboo. Remnants of paths and little footbridges, Japanese garden ornaments. Way overgrown plantings.
I think Swiss Pines is a treasure. Right now, it remains a tantalizing mystery disappearing into the overgrowth.
enjoying the november garden
One of our big maples out backÂ
The November garden is spectacular in her own right. The bright blooms of summer might be gone, but the fiery glory of late autumn waiting for winter is a magnificent display all on her own.
Years ago when I discovered the late Suzy Bales’ books Down to Earth Gardener and The Garden in Winter it was like having a gardening epiphany. I had been gardening my whole life and she just inspired me to see things differently. Like many gardeners, for years and years I gardened for two seasons: spring and summer. She opened my eyes to four season beauty. I have learned over the past few years the sheer beauty of each season if you let it happen.
A flower on my Sochi Tea Plant!
This year I added Jenny Rose Carey’s book Glorious Shade to my garden library and she sort of picked up where Suzy Bales’ had left off because I was new to such serious shade gardening and woodland gardening in our current garden. Through this book and one belonging to my late mother-in-law my eyes have been opened to the possibilities of the shade and woodland garden. In these gardens, fall I think is one of their best seasons because you completely see the amazing range of fall colors getting ready to make way for the winter garden, which is different yet again.
In addition this year I discovered British gardener Monty Don when I realized through streaming services like BritBox I could get Gardener’s World, the long running and can I say amazing BBC gardening show. I also acquired Monty’s Book Down To Earth Gardener recently. Monty Don is a true inspiration to the home gardener and his show is the best I have ever seen. It’s actual gardening and learning about plants and gardens and gardening, not just some DIY or HGTV hack show where people blow in over a few days and create unrealistic outside gardening spaces with about as much charm as a McMansion wrapped in Tyvec. Sorry not sorry but for all of the brilliant U.S. gardeners and gardens it blows my mind the U.S. television is unable or unwilling to produce a quality program along the lines of BBC’s Gardener’s World.
One of my little blue birds of happiness
This morning the first thing I saw when I looked out the window was blue birds. Not just a pair, but at least six fluttering around and checking out the bird boxes! Last year we had two. They have returned and bought others. We think it is last year’s mating pair and perhaps some grown chicks.
I am telling you there are few sights as happy as seeing blue birds flittering and fluttering around the back gardens. They are shy and hard for me to capture in photographs, so the photo is small and grainy.
Also a happy discovery today was a flower newly opened on my Sochi Tea Plant (tea camellia) and that witch hazels I forgot were in a woodland bed on the edge of the woods were blooming!
Common Witch Hazel H. virginiana. This is the variety the atringent witch hazel is made from. This was purchased from Yellow Springs Farm in Chester Springs, PA
Witch hazels are a wonderful often overlooked shrub. The first person to introduce me to them as a wonderful native plant was Catherine Renzi who along with her husband Al is the owner of Yellow Springs Nursery in Chester Springs PA. (Al Renzi is the one who finally got me to try a Chicago Hardy fig this summer so we shall see how it over-winters!)
Witch Hazels like moist, well-drained somewhat acidic soil. They grow in full sun to partial shade, but are an understory plant so I do not recommend full sun although people do grow it in full sun.
Witch Hazels also might like moist soil and flood plains but they don’t like heavy, wet soil. Have a care on their mature heights and width. Mine are in a spot that will require regular pruning on my part because I did not pay close enough attention to their mature dimensions, yet I do not wish to move them as they are really happy where they are. Prune before summer but after flowering. Since these are blooming now, I could technically prune them any time after they are finished.
Gardener’s World has a great piece on witch hazels. I am not sure if all cultivars are available outside the U.K. but it gives you an idea of variety available. The Brooklyn Botanical Garden has a great article about them on their website too. Fine Gardening is fond of witch hazels as well! Catherine Renzi introduced me to them originally, but it was in fact Jenny Rose Carey who made me look at them again. She talked about them at a spring garden lecture I attended and she has several varieties in her own gardens at Northview. I am really lucky to know some fine gardening folks!
I have several trees to plant yet this year, along with a few shrubs and ferns. Chestnut and Burr Oak , Amish Walnut, baby umbrella magnolias, more witch hazel, dogwood shrub, native azaleas, and a couple of ferns. And more leaf mulch to be shredded as well. I have planted all of my bulbs though!
I also have hydrangeas to prune. Yes, you CAN prune hydrangeas and you SHOULD. It just depends on your type of hydrangea and if blooms on new or old wood. It is one of the most often asked questions in my gardening group. This link to Gardener’s World will help you, other tips from Gardener’s World, and the one I have used in the past— help from Fine Gardening Magazine.
Enjoy the photos at the bottom of this post. The garden in November is so lovely. Afinal note is if you are a Chester County resident or live in close proximity to Chester County, one of my favorite growers, Applied Climatology is having their end of season clearence sale at the West Chester Growers Marke on Saturday morning, September 10th. Check out their event listing on Facebook for more details.
perfect fall color
new garden toy is finally put to use!
So this past spring I was attending a garden lecture where Jenny Rose Carey was speaking about her book Glorious Shade (buy it!) and when speaking about her own garden she spoke about these leaf mulcher machines like the one you see above in the photograph.
Now I have seen how terrific shredded leaves as mulch are on large properties like Natural Lands’ Stoneleigh and in private gardens like Jenny Rose Carey’s Northview Gardens so I really wanted one of these leaf mulchers. My husband bought me the Worx one you see above as a birthday present.
I know, I know a lot of people have lawnmowers that do this, but lawnmowers are not a tool you allow me to use as it’s a thing I truly cannot do well in the garden and I am the first one to admit it. If you let me do the lawn I will kill it. My late father one time remarked when I “helped him” with the lawn it looked like aliens had invaded. Besides I don’t want to mulch leaves on the lawn I want to use the shredded leaf mulch on my garden beds and on the edges of my woods.
You either have to put bags underneath this to catch the leaves that you shred or a giant trug bag like I used.
My husband helped me with this because I had never used this before and helped me set it up too. Ours is electric powered.
I would advise wearing goggles why you do this because bits of leaves are flying everywhere and if anything blows back out of the machine and hit your eyes it could be really bad.
You also have to make sure there are no sticks in the leaves because that could cause problems with the shredder, or just as a dangerous projectile.
Shredded leaves are a light and fluffy mulch to spread on your garden beds and it’s so good for the soil. And it’s a great way to make use of the leaves you rake up and (again) it’s a great FREE way to enrich your soil! it’s kind of like garden recycling and you don’t have to drag the giant bags of leaves to the curb – you can use them!