Buffalo: The Fling!

So there was a Fling in Buffalo, NY. It was great, I was there.

That’s the executive summary and you’re more than welcome to just browse through the following plethora of photos -plus I expect quite a bit of rambling once I get started- and just move on to the comments or the like button or your next thing, but I’d like to give Buffalo it’s dues and also thank the organizers of this event who took on quite the organizational headache and had it go off without a hitch… or at least it seemed that way to me. Oh wait, I did hear two complaints over the three days. Someone mentioned they’d rather not have had delicious bagels brought in for breakfast every day, and another person complained that there were only roast beef sandwiches left at the tail end of lunch on day one. I guess some people like their food -and now I can hear my travel companions laughing as they review the number of times our all day adventures had to rely on a gas station stop or sandwiches pulled out of a pocket, since apparently I am reluctant to stop for anything other than plants 🙂

A lakefront house in Buffalo which is set to celebrate the summer. Had I predicted their popularity I would have tried to fill a photo album with the many buffalo, goat, rabbit, elephant, and dog statues we found across the city.

As I’ve mentioned, the Buffalo Fling was a three day+ adventure which brought together 73 garden bloggers, instagrammers, youtubers, maybe tik-tokers… online garden people who wanted an excuse to all get together and meet in person. Personally I’m more one who makes excuses not to meet in person, but peer-pressure and curiosity forced me into something new, and that turned out to be a good thing. I fell into a group of people who wanted to know about compost and pelargonium cultivars, and were interested in hearing about snowdrops and obscure dwarf conifers. We weren’t all experts but we were all plant obsessed and talking about gardens over lunch and then repeating it for dinner and all that plant talk was a new thing for me. I have a few friends who will step up, but a group of strangers? Exceptional!

The bus begins to unload and about 35 gardeners start the slow shuffle, ‘ooh’ and ahh’, ‘look at this’ tour. About 45 minutes pass, the bus is loaded, and another bus arrives for the second half of the wave. It must be quite a whirlwind for the homeowner!

Industrial decay, massive snowfalls, and a football team might be many people’s view of Buffalo but perhaps you can add one more. Over the last few decades Buffalo has developed quite a reputation for gardening, and today Garden Walk Buffalo draws thousands of people from across the country to walk the city streets and Buffalo neighborhoods, admiring a small slice of the hundreds of gardens which are open for the weekend. It’s quite the event and has grown to add a July-long open gardens program which offers Thursday and Friday special openings. The walk is free, I believe a ticket is required for the Thurs/Fri events but honestly I’m sure you’ll search up your own information if you’re interested. Let me get on to the photos!

Porches and patios were an inspiration, with amazing style and comfort

Planters, pots, and statuary… oh for a pocket-full of cash and a heads up on an amazing estate sale.

An excellent selection of shrubs and trees throughout the gardens, with this tricolor beech (Fagus sylvatica ‘Tricolor’) still perfect with its springtime color.

Flowers were exceptional. Hydrangeas, phlox, daylilies, and lilies were all at their peak!

The three days were set up with three or four morning garden visits of larger gardens outside the city, with a break for lunch, and then a self-guided garden walk in the afternoon through one of the Buffalo neighborhoods which had opened for the Flingers.

The personalities of the gardener shone through in each garden. Here a collection of hybridized daylilies and hostas sheltered under older conifer and Japanese maple plantings. A brilliant double-use of space to fit even more in!

More gardener personality, in this case dragons!

As well as a koi-filled pond, one of multiple water features in this garden.

The Flingers descend upon another suburban patio, and are again confronted with a choice between inspecting every last treasure or admiring the ‘big picture’ from the comfort of well-appointed patio seating 😉

A few of the gardeners were recognizable from their online presence. Here Jay Jinge Hu of Whispers in the Garden welcomes us to the exuberant color plantings which surround his family’s home.

And the more restful shade plantings around the back patio.

Some of the larger properties were garden after garden advancing around the house, as the gardener’s inspiration moved from one garden idea to the next. I could relate although thankfully my garden doesn’t have as much property… because I don’t know how these places are kept in such wonderful condition with happy plantings and under-control weed populations. Sure a tour will push you to impress, but you can’t throw this look together in a weekend, it takes years!

Multiple garden areas, each one probably started with a nugget of an idea and then blossomed into a garden vision… and then on to the next nugget!

Extensive, inspired plantings are one thing, but then throw in a garden art nook!? Why not? I think there was almost a line as everyone took turns getting a photo in here 🙂

Oh and let me just throw in a painted allium seed-head photo. For a minute I wanted to know the variety of this blue thing until I realized it was paint! I’ve seen this done before, but usually as a multi-color ‘fireworks’ display, but I think I prefer the one color look.

Many of the gardens included a house with a history, and often that history included neglect and then an optimistic ‘I need to save this’ adventure. These gardeners/home-savers were finally into the last few window replacements and that must be a relief. Obviously they didn’t hold off on the garden while the house was consuming their after-work-project life. Why not tackle it all? At the same time?

And why not restore the “shed” as well. So many of the tour gardens had outbuildings which could inspire anyone to ‘up’ their tool storage, outside puttering game.

Hostas could be a contender for Buffalo’s signature plant as many gardens we visited had wonderfully lush and un-marred clumps which seemed bigger in Buffalo. Perhaps it’s some kind of Great Lakes loam or perfect pH, or maybe that copious winter precipitation, or maybe a local hosta farm which becomes a go-to garden for inspiration and enabling.

Our first day lunch-stop was Murry’s Hosta Farm, and other than the roast beef incident the farm was a beautiful and restful break. I did not purchase anything in case you’re wondering, and I just wanted to state how proud I am of that level of resolve.

Another lunch stop where there were sandwiches galore was Silo City, a reimagined urban ecology/industrial restoration/arts-entertainment-museum-native plant nursery… a land of many hats which links Buffalo’s future to its past. Massive abandoned grain elevators are the leftovers from Buffalo’s wheat from the West, to the Erie canal transport East days.

A final lunch stop which connected abandoned history-restoration-and now a cultural hub for Frank Llyod Wright fans was the Martin House complex. This prairie style home set in the Parkside neighborhood of Buffalo was not only an architectural highlight but also a garden gem.

Following the morning bus tours were the afternoon neighborhood walks. In three days we only saw maybe 25 of the hundreds of city gardens open for Buffalo’s Garden Walk but it was still a treat. There’s a Buffalo style which so many of the city gardens embrace and we were lucky enough to have with us two of the people who actually wrote the book on it. Sally Cunningham and Jim Charlier are co-authors to ‘Buffalo-Style Gardens’, and Sally was our stalwart and always on-time bus leader, while Jim was one of the organizers and hosts for our Fling. We explored the Buffalo style each afternoon and got to experience the colors, art, and quirkiness across the city with Jim’s own garden being a highlight.

Jim’s “shed”, surrounded by Harry Potter displays inspired by his daughter’s love of the books and his hopes to interest her in gardening. This also resulted in another book, Harry Potter: Herbology Magic which Jim again co-authored.

So I will leave you with a few Buffalo streetscapes in addition to snippets of Buffalo Walk gardens, since the gardening magic and Buffalo style often include the house and spread out into the neighborhood.

A mix of rebuilt and restored homes line the streets, nearly all with generous porches

Bold colors brought a vibrancy to the streets, with many of the old homes embracing their original architectural details.

Color in Buffalo’s Cottage district.

Urban lots are often tight, and I was told during the Garden Walk it’s not unusual to have the police directing traffic as people file in and file out of gardens packed full of curious people.

A plant inspection in progress in this garden filled with the owner’s vacationing houseplants. Word is she still had masses inside… plus a downtown shop filled with more… where maybe we popped in and maybe we bought a couple things…. maybe.

Even with strangers filing through, the gardeners were excited to talk about their plants, homes, and process and I have to give them a lot of credit for taking so much time out of their days to share. It was really a lot of fun and we heard so many good stories along the way and picked up quite a few, possibly dangerous ideas as well. Oh and in case you forgot, they really do get feet and feet of snow during the winter, especially when the cold isn’t deep enough to freeze Lake Erie. The gardens all look lush and summertime full right now, but nearly everyone we asked had stories about buried windows and streets and shoveled tunnels to get out of the house and even just across the porch. Wow. It doesn’t happen every hear, but when it does Buffalo is ground zero… and gardeners in the suburbs are more than happy to mention the snow belt usually doesn’t extend far enough to effect their gardens 😉

Extensive annual plantings are much cheaper if you have a source for early-season plug purchases, as this gardener shared.

A warm embrace of the color red for this gardener, as well as a garden overlooked by Venus on the decking above the garage. Venus replaced the bee hives which used to feed the neighborhood with honey until the gardener/beekeeper decided the stairs and hives were too much work for someone feeling the effects of aging.

Quirky garden art galore

And summertime seating surrounded by chlorophyll.

This scene is out of what might have been my favorite garden. Lush plantings which envelope a visitor in foliage and flower. I remarked on how well all the colors work together and how I struggle trying to achieve the same, and the gardener informed me he was color blind. I was insulted.

So there it is, a whirlwind three-day tour of gardens edited down to just a few observations, and you’re welcome for that! Thanks to all the volunteers who put this together and made it happen and thanks to Buffalo, and thanks to the other Flingers who were so welcoming and friendly. I had a great time. Thanks as well to Kimberley and the cast on her wrist which handed photo duties to myself, but kept her as the camera whisperer who changed the settings… which I just don’t have the brain for, because without that duty I’d probably have come home with a phone full of plant label pictures and a few blurry flower shots.

Hope you enjoyed, and if you’re curious next year it’s Portland Oregon hosting, and sure to be another horticulture adventure!

A Chrysanthemum Show

Nov8

For several years it’s been on the list to visit a chrysanthemum show. Not just any farmstand with fat bushelbaskets of mum color, but an official show with carefully trained displays complete with a bunch of different styles… foremost among them the single bloom monsters which I love above all others. I don’t know much about mums, but I do know I needed to see a show. Enter friend with suggestion to go to NYC 🙂

Kiku: Spotlight on Tradition. If the show has a name, it’s got to be official, right? Cascading forms and bonsai trained Kiku (Japanese for chrysanthemum) greeted us as we entered the greenhouse display.

We settled on a visit to the New York Botanical Garden. Strangely enough, for someone with a mild plant obsession and who grew up less than 50 miles away, this would be my first visit to the NY Botanical, but better late than never, right? Actually the truth is that the Bronx Zoo was always the winner when we were making our way to this part of the city. Actually it still tends to win out, but at least now I can blame the kids. I digress though. We made it to the Gardens at a decent time and were pleased to find ourselves visiting on one of those blue-sky, crisp air mornings that are perfect for brisk walks through extensive botanical gardens. I bet you didn’t even know that was a weather category, but for further reference it’s just a tad warmer than leaf-raking weather.

Carefully trained and nurtured for months, the kiku display covers a range of styles and forms.

The actual display was a little smaller than I was expecting, probably due to greenhouse renovations and all the plant moving that goes with that, but the flowers were fascinating. I like the big, full flowers best, but there were plenty others to catch the eye. Actually enough caught my eye to get me thinking that maybe I need to dig a big part of the garden up and just plant it to all chrysanthemums.

Class 11 brush and thistle chrysanthemum ‘Saga Nishiki’. I believe there are 13 classes in all.

Photographers were out in droves capturing flowers and fall foliage, and one person I spoke with was enthralled with the light… ‘the light is amazing’ she said, but for a point and shoot kind of photo-taker like myself the pictures on my camera leave much to be desired. Hopefully the give a decent feel for the display.

I was quite impressed by the garlands of chrysanthemum trained from side to side, but the towers of flowers on the right, and the various classes lined out on the left, kept me in this part of the greenhouse for quite a while.

In case you’re wondering I did get to see plenty of the huge single blooms as well. My tastes run to the gaudy end of the spectrum, so these big, fluffy things were just perfect.

I believe these are of the regular incurve class of chrysanthemums. I may have given a bloom or two a light squeeze, they’re so irresistibly full (my grandmother would have been appalled).

Wait, how could I forget the spider form. I love these as well… although I always wonder why the ring supports underneath are bright white and not a less obvious black or dark green…

Spider perfection at the NY Botanical Garden

With the serious business out of the way it was time to wander the grounds and enjoy the beautiful fall weather. Foliage was at its peak and beginning to wind down.

Japanese maples never disappoint.

Early November is probably not the showiest month for flowers, but we did enjoy all the trails and vistas and well tended plantings, and it’s amazing to think our quiet afternoon happened within the city limits of a metropolis which millions call home.

The light, the light… Inside the rock garden.

Although we weren’t able to find a single autumn flowering snowdrop we did catch the last of the Halloween displays and some of the other events going on in the park.

Giant squash and warty gourds almost made up for the lack of snowdrops. They’re so nice in fact that I’m actually considering planting my entire garden to squash and Indian corn next year.

And then we arrived at the main greenhouses and I forgot all about squash and snowdrops. The salvia were in bloom.

Yellow Salvia madrensis, fuzzy purple Salvia leucantha, and probably the carmine bloom of salvia ‘Wendy’s Wish’ flowering in the Ladies Border.

Most of the fall blooming salvias arrive a little too late to show off in my PA garden, but here in the big city they flourish.

Yellow pineapple sage (Salvia elegans ‘Golden Delicious’) in the herb garden. Mine is usually just opening its first flowers when frost crashes the party.

So now I’m thinking I’ll plant the whole garden with salvias. I could do worse.

More Salvia madrensis alongside purple barberry and perennial sunflowers. It was a beautiful day 🙂

And then our visit came to its end. I didn’t want to admit it but my legs were kind of worn out from all the walking and when we sat down for a bite to eat neither of us were in a rush to get going again. Perhaps we should have taken advantage of the trams circling the garden, but I’m sure there will be plenty of time to rest up when the winter season rolls in… which judging by the 10 day forecast will be sooner rather than later.

Have a great weekend!

Were those snowdrops all just a dream?

Apr19

It’s hard to believe that just over a week ago this gardener was completely consumed by snowdrops. Today the grass is green and people are nursing sunburns but just seven days ago we braved the usual snow squalls and windchills to pay Trumansburg NY and Hitch Lyman’s Temple Nursery a visit.

The garden’s namesake reflected in the overflowing waters of the garden’s pond. There had been plenty of rain in the days previous… good for melting the last of the snow.

This was our third visit to the gardens and for a snowdrop lover it’s always a treat. Mr. Lyman opens his garden through the Garden Conservancy, an organization committed to opening gates and preserving gardens across North America, and although this one’s early spring drabness might not appeal to everyone, it’s a treasure chest for those interested in seeing what is likely North America’s most diverse collection of galanthus (snowdrop) cultivars. But perhaps your interests lie in the warmer seasons and silly things such as sunshine and butterflies. If so check out the other garden open days listings, and you may be surprised at what’s open in your neck of the woods!

Snowdrops along the woodland path of Hitch Lyman’s Temple Gardens.

Since most of the rest of the world is well beyond snowdrop season I’ll try to keep this quick. Interest in little white flowers dims quickly once the tulips start to open and I want to list this year’s favorites so I have something to look back on next January when the fever starts up again.

You can’t go wrong with the clean and simple. This is an old classic, galanthus “Mrs. Backhouse #12”.

Since I’ll be the first to admit that nearly all small white snowdrops look remarkably identical I’ll try to focus on a few that stand out. The ‘greens’ caught my eye this year, and galanthus ‘Greenish’ was looking perfectly different this spring and really makes a nice clump among the whites.

Galanthus “Greenish”

Green is different, but a green ‘spikey’ is even more different. I’m not sure if this tiny burst of flower is to everyone’s taste but it is definitely what I’d call ‘interesting’….

Galanthus “Boyd’s double”

Yellow is also different, but on a flower like “Spindlestone Surprise” it looks just great. This was one of several nice clumps of yellow drops.

Galanthus “Spindlestone Surprise”

Ok, so one more picture of an interesting green.

Galanthus “Green Arrow”

I hear that when temperatures rise enough above 40F (5C) the flowers in this garden will actually open wide and show off their inner markings. I have yet to experience that since we always seem to be at the garden the day before the sun comes out and the air temperatures rise. This year was par for the course since the Sunday forecast called for a calm and sunny 60F.

Even when still closed, the puckered petals and grass green foliage of galanthus “Augustus” still make for a great show.

I hate to admit that over the years I’ve added quite a few snowdrops to my garden, and with each new one I somehow tell myself it’s exactly the drop to complete some final empty void in my collection. To publically admit I have a collection is a bad sign in itself, but to admit I NEED even species snowdrops is probably another bad omen. They’re all white and green, just like every other snowdrop, but each one is just so much more special than the last 🙂

Galanthus koenenianus. How can you not love those fat grey leaves? This was just one of several interesting little species snowdrops Mr. Lyman grows.

Now that we’re getting into special little things which make your fulfilling life seem just a tiny bit lacking lets look at this early blooming scilla relative which goes by the name of puschkinia. This strain is supposed to have more rounded heads with darker lines of color and since I don’t grow it (yet) I’ll take their word for it.

Puschkinia scilloides ‘Aragats Gem’

…and what gardener goes on a garden visit without adding something to the wishlist? These last two will surely remain on the list for a while since even I can’t justify the pricetags which usually accompany them.

Galanthus “Phillip Andre Meyer”. I think of these as pagoda shaped although they’re usually referred to as inverse poculiforms (ipocs, or inpocs if you fear the wrath of Apple’s trademark police). The flowers are reversed (inverted) with the green inner petals on the outside, and all six petals nearly similar in length.

“A. E. Bowles” will not likely visit my garden anytime soon but I’m going to put it as number one on the wishlist. How exciting (for me at least) to be able to see it in bloom, and what a great way to commemorate such a talented plantsman and author. Actually the snowdrop “Augustus” is another drop which is named after him, as well as dozens of other cultivars of plants. Not a bad legacy in my opinion.

Galanthus “E.A.Bowles”

Of course it’s not all about pedigreed names and high pricetags. There were plenty of clumps who’s names were known only to Mr. Lyman yet were still fantastic first signs of spring.

No obvious label on this one, but its fat, rounded blooms made me happy to see it. Nice foliage as well.

After a long visit we were finally on the road again and made a quick pit stop at Ithaca’s Cornell Plantation. The plantation is part of Cornell University and we wanted to stop in quickly for a look at their gardens, in particular their winter garden.

Cornell Plantation’s winter garden. Bright conifers, colorful bark, and a few winter bloomers all just recently released from underneath a cold blanket of snow.

The winter garden was a nice stop but since our fingers were still tingling from the cold we didn’t exactly linger much. I don’t think I’d mind coming back in another few weeks when things really explode, but on this particular day the conifers and bare twigs, for as colorful as they were, just couldn’t keep us away from the heated car seats.

More gardens at Ithaca’s Cornell University. The arboretum and other parts called but we wanted to get home before dark!

In spite of the weather we always end up enjoying our visit up to Trumansburg, Ithaca, and the Temple Gardens and are grateful that Mr. Lyman opens them up each spring. In case you’re unaware Mr. Lyman also sells snowdrops so if you’re interested the process is to send three or four dollars to the following address: Temple Nursery (H Lyman) Box 591 Trumansburg, NY 14886. Catalogs go out in January and the drops are usually sold out within a few weeks so you need to be quick!

Enjoy spring and your very own garden visits 🙂

Chanticleer (pt 2 of 3)

Sep6

It’s been longer than I planned, but here’s the continuation of my Chanticleer visit. Part 2 of the visit picks up at the tennis courts, a part of the gardens who’s former function should be obvious!

The flat area that used to function as the court has been turned into a group of five beds filled with all sorts of interesting plants. My favorite was this one which leans towards a yellow theme. A redbud with yellowish foliage anchors the bed and a nice clump of the tall variegated arundo donax grass is peeking out from behind. For a late season garden it still looks good.

There was plenty going on around the garden with cleanup and cutting back, I don’t know how it is on other weekdays but during my visit the place was buzzing with garden staff. Here’s another view with a nice banana, some of the annual purple perillia, and a couple of those dead looking brown sedges. Grasses and sedges seem well used around Chanticleer and they do add long season airiness and texture.

Beyond the courts is the cutting garden. The Chanticleer interpretation is more like a wild ocean of frothy flowers, some of which top out at over 10 feet! A cool garden to wander through since it comes in on you from all sides. You can just make out the asparagus hedge that closes in the right side here.

A little structure in this garden is given by the archways. I’m stealing this idea since it’s not tough to copy. A rebar arch forms the basis while vines and branches are twisted around…. since I already have the rebar arch set up, no problem-o on twisting some twigs around!

The tall orange sunflower-ish plants are the annual tithonia. It’s supposed to be easy from seed but I’ve never had much luck. It sure did well here though.

This path leads to a small fenced in vegetable garden, a nice little spot to take a breather on one of the vegetable themed benches. For as wild and bloomy as the cutting garden is, there were still a ton of late bloomers left to come, so I bet this garden comes to a peak in about another month…. in case you’re still considering a visit!

A relaxer next. A woodland section called Bell’s Woods is a streamside collection of North American plantings. Even though it probably peaks in the spring there were still plenty of cardinal flowers (lobelia cardinalis) in bloom. It’s a nice soft stroll since the “wood path” is actually a soft rubber mat that looks like wood chips…. or at least that’s what I read… even after being told, I still thought they looked like shredded bark!

Throughout the gardens are bits of functional art such as chairs, railings, and this metal “hollow log” bridge.

Even though Chanticleer is a relatively small garden and heavily planted, there are still plenty of restful areas, many of which have a nice seat and an excuse to linger.

And nearly all are somehow color coordinated!

Around the red chair you can see some clumps of prairie dropseed. It’s a native grass used as a kind of lawn replacement for many of the open areas beyond Bell’s Wood. It’s also probably my least favorite of the plantings here since I just can’t get past what Wikipedia refers to as a “vague scent of popcorn, cilantro, or sunflower seeds”. I just call it stink, and forgive me if we skip this and the ruins garden and head straight to the gravel garden.

The gravel garden is a very un-Pennsylvania bit of sloped, well-draining garden that is filled with plants better suited to a more Mediterranean type environment. It’s a bit of surprise to see hardy cacti, yuccas, and agaves this far north, but apparently they like the winter drainage.

The gravel garden tumbles down to the antithesis of good drainage, the pond garden.

I love a nice pond (unlike my pathetic leaky pre-formed) and this one is just surrounded with a nearly wild planting of moisture loving growth. Well fed Koi are always fun too.

I loved the pond gardens. If I had more room a big waterlily pond would be near the top of the want list. Waterlilies are just so saturated with color, so waxy and lush, that they just draw you in. This one was nice and close to the pond edge.

My want list also got a new plant added. This yellow hollyhock looking plant is abelmoschus manihot, an annual that I eliminated from a seed order last winter and now wish I hadn’t. It’s sometimes referred to as sunset hibiscus, but it’s actually a close okra relative… that means nothing to a Yankee like myself, but southerners may weigh in on that!

I think I’m about to overdo the pictures here, but there was so much to see. The bottom pond was given over nearly entirely to sacred lotus. Lotus is so cool in the way the leaves stand up above the water, the oversize leaves and blooms, the water beading leaf surface, the shower head seed pods…. You know if I had the room I’d grow this one too!

Asian woods next. Restful and green…. too many pictures already so I’ll move on!

I was a little thirsty and just had to stop at this. Every little bit of this garden is thought out and then re-thought out and it shows up in all the little flourishes and details.

My last stop on the Chanticleer tour was a stroll around the terraces of the main house. If you thought this post was picture overkill there’s still more to come. The terraces contain all the stuff I really go for like bold colors, overplanted beds, fat container plantings, and tons of tropicals. Hang in there, it’s the last Chanticleer post!

Chanticleer 2013

Sep2

Last Thursday I made a trip down to Chanticleer Gardens, a “pleasure garden” located just West of Philadelphia PA. I’m glossing over much of the history, but basically it’s the 1913 former summer estate turned full time home of Adolph Rosengarten and his wife Christine. As family members passed away and moved on the Chanticleer Foundation was formed and the property became a public garden. This year marked the 100th anniversary for the property, but the public incarnation is still relatively young, having been formed in 1993. I don’t have many garden visits under my belt, but Chanticleer ranks as one of the best public gardens in the US and I could really see the reasons why.

Here we go! After a drive of just under two hours, please excuse me for making the restrooms my first stop.

Even the restrooms are a plant lover’s treat with unique varieties, creative uses and just plain artistic furniture and pottery. I had plenty of room for myself since the hot, muggy, overcast weekday didn’t really bring out a stampede of garden visitors. Good thing too, since I made the trip alone and my stupid grin and plant touching probably would have had me escorted out on a crowded day.

The first official garden was the ‘teacup’ garden. It fills the patio right off the house and I love all the gate and bench details leading into it.

The teacup garden is named for the central fountain. Each year this garden is redone with a totally different feel and this year seems to be leaning towards an orange theme.

There are so many special plants here, and orange never looked better. Many of these are tropicals and if you look closely you might notice the upright orange leaves producing a small pink pineapple near the front.

There’s so much texture and subtle color going on. One of the many plants I loved was this melianthus (honeybush). I feel a little foolish for letting my little 6 inch seed grown plant die outside last winter, had I seen the real thing first I probably would have found a winter home for it.

I don’t think I could have found a spot for this big pot of variegated New Zealand flax.

Few of the plants have labels in this ‘pleasure garden’, it really is meant to be enjoyed, but I did scare myself realizing how many things I recognized…. apparently I spend way too much time on the web looking at plants….

Check out the railing here -and the container plantings aren’t too shabby either. The banana growing up alongside the house is the (I think) surprisingly hardy musa basjoo which even I can even overwinter in my much colder zone. The tall white variegated grass (arundo donax) is also hardy. I have both in my own garden, of course they look nowhere near as well grown or well placed 🙂

Continuing around the house are beds just flooded with cool tropicals and hardy perennials. Here’s number two cool plant leaf that I want, it’s the rice paper plant (tetrapanax). Big leaves that start out fuzzy, what’s not to love?

More foliage along the path. I have no idea, but the yellow veins of it matched the ivy creeping along the ground. Fancy. You can also see some of the many seats scattered around the grounds. In my opinion gardens are always best viewed from a comfortable seat!

Here’s another nice seating area.

I believe the three dark green plants along the walk are samples of the infamous breadfruit tree. Maybe it’s just the result of a few too many childhood viewings of “Mutiny on the Bounty” (The 1962 Marlon Brando version) but I think this food staple of the Pacific is a fascinating plant. This plant was the reason Captain Bligh was commissioned to sail to Tahiti in the first place, and this is also the plant thrown overboard when the mutiny takes place. Besides Captain Bligh’s survival story, the story of the mutineers and their descendants on tiny Pitcairn island is also quite a tale. They still live on today as a British territory.

Less contentious is the yellow-green underplanting of variegated boston fern, hakonechloa grass, and others. I’ve heard people say you shouldn’t mix variegated plants, but here I think that theory expires.

Oh, and if all that’s not enough, the glass topped table is actually a terrarium 🙂

Ok, so that might be enough for today since WordPress has locked up twice and both times I had to redo what was lost. Next stop is the former tennis courts….. tennis has never looked so good.

More snowdrops from the Temple Nursery

Mar19

Here’s the second installment of photos from our visit to Hitch Lyman’s garden. These pictures are all taken on the bank of earth that lined the one side of the driveway leading up to the house. The drops (and a few other things such as cyclamen coum) seemed happy on the slope, even though there didn’t seem to be much in the way of soil improvement or mulching or any other tinkering with the planting area. But I don’t know that for sure, all I know is there were plenty of nice looking galanthus and even in the cold weather they were a hopeful sign of spring.

Cyclamen coum and Galanthus ‘Sickle’ looking somewhat chilly

Galanthus ‘Warham’

I’ve always been a big fan of snowdrops. When the first warm days of spring rolled around I’d always make a point of swinging by the yards and parks where I knew there were a couple growing. Although they were one of my favorite flowers, when I tried growing them in my parent’s garden they never really settled in. They just hung on.

The ones at the Temple Nursery seem to be doing much better. If you’re curious as to snowdrop names, a mouse hovering over the photo will hopefully show their identity. In this photo, the one on the right is galanthus “Sophie North” and it was one of my favorites. The blooms were big and fat and at this point when they’re still tucked in by the foliage I think they’re perfect.

Galanthus ‘Sophie North’ on the right and ‘Sentinel’ to the left

This was my first opportunity to see a lot of named snowdrops in the flesh, and it may have made a snowdrop snob out of me. I’m beginning to pick up on the variations and differences. Here’s “Spindlestone Surprise” which even an amateur like me can pick out as being different from the usual green-whiteness.

Galanthus ‘Spindlestone Surprise’

Yellow snowdrop

But I still can’t tell too many of them apart (and never with any certainty unless there’s a label stuck right next to it). Here’s another yellow, and although there was a “Wendy’s Gold” label nearby, I don’t see much of a difference between this and the other yellow.

I may be drifting into snowdrop-snobbery but I still think I’ll be fine with just a couple. Fyi they’re on order for shipment this spring.

Here are the last few pictures. “Lodestar” shows a little green even when closed, and the blooms splay out a bit instead of having the round drop shape.

Galanthus ‘Lodestar’

Wasp has a longer narrow bloom, looking a little sad in the cold.

The long wing-like petals of Galanthus ‘Wasp’

Galanthus ‘Naughton’

I think this is Naughton. I really like the fat blooms, no green showing, and the curled Pedicle (or at least I think that’s what you call the green thing over the bloom.

Not to leave things on a down note, but some snowdrops looked like they took a hit from the cold. Here’s “Lord Monosticus”, and it appears the blooms got more than their fair share of winter cold. I’ve had this happen in my garden with some of the earliest ones, and they recover fine for next season, but it’s sad to see. This one was actually on my short list for ordering. I’d like a real early one, but maybe it’s not worth the stress.

Galanthus ‘Lord Monostictus’ after a rough spring

So that’s it for the snowdrops, I guess they’re not everyone’s “thing” but I kinda like them. Also there’s not much else going on here as another 4 inches of snow comes down……

Snowdrops and snow

Mar17

First days of spring come and go but for me a major turning point is the first garden tour. Saturday was the day, and a friend and I headed up to Trumansburg NY to visit Hitch Lyman’s garden and his collection of snowdrops and other early bloomers. I won’t bore you with the details of the “should be a 2hr drive” but the clock put it at closer to 4 hours and I’m sure that was due in a large part to not having a map, not really paying attention to directions, and having a co-pilot with a lot of new stories to share. So we got there a bit later than planned, got to see a little more of the country side, and got to see a few more cities than we should have. At least we didn’t end up in Canada is all I’ll add.

A snowdrop visit to upstate New York in below freezing weather and amidst snow qualls isn’t everyone’s idea of a good time. Most of the garden is still asleep and when you pull up it’s more the house you notice, and less so the gardens.

The house at Temple Gardens

This open day was organized by the Garden Conservancy and according to their description the 1848 farmhouse was moved to the site in 1990. What a job that must have been, and I’m going to guess it needed a bit of restoration when it got here. On our side trip to reach Trumansburg, we came down rte 414 from Geneva Falls and experienced first-hand some other “in need of renovating” historical houses. Some fascinating buildings, almost kind of ghost-towny in spots, and I’m going to make another guess that the local economy can’t support the upkeep on these grand old houses. So they sit and slowly decay.

Back to the garden. As you can see from the house photo most of the front acreage is naturalized fields with a few specimen plantings here and there. The drive up to the house is also a mix of naturalized shrubs and trees, but along both sides are banks of earth spotted with all kinds of treasures.

A sloped bank of hardy cyclamen and various snowdrops

The snow and cold had many of them lying down but there was still plenty to see. We checked in for our visit and headed around the house. Plantings close to the building were pretty subdued and actually the direct opposite of what most gardeners do. I put all the little stuff right up around the house, but here the only plantings were a raised terrace with a planted fieldstone sitting area.

The terrace out back

I’ve seen springtime pictures from this vantage point, and the white wisteria and crabapples make for a much more lush view than the current frozen winter aconite among the paving.

Around back is the namesake temple for Mr. Lyman’s Temple Nursery…. snowdrops are the specialty in case you missed that.

Behind the temple you can make out the dark green of the yew and boxwood that surround the formal garden. I didn’t get any pictures inside the garden, but it’s a formal layout of geometric planting beds filled with lilac, peonies, colchicums, hellebores, and of course snowdrops and other spring bulbs.

The formal garden entrance

Deer seemed to be a problem outside the hedge and protective fence, with plenty of nibbled and buck rubbed shrubs, but once inside there were many signs of spring… in spite of my freezing fingers and cold toes.

Some early Lenten roses (Helleborus niger) in the formal garden beds

Galanthus ‘Jade’

Of course there were snowdrops(here’s “Jade”), but the bulk of the snowdrops were in the next (and last) section of the garden. The woodland garden was furthest from the house and consisted of a narrow path that wound its way through the secondary growth of trees and shrubs that lined the back field.

Here’s how the path looked.

The carefully marked woodland path, lined with snowdrops.

There were small clumps of drops everywhere and I was nervous to even use the outer edges of the trail since many clumps edged up to the path. For a snowdrop fan there was interest galore…. for a non-snowdrop person I suspect they would want someone to widen the path, throw down some mulch, and pick up a few of the fallen twigs.

An authentic snowdrop woodland peppered with clumps of named snowdrop varieties

Here are a few clump closeups from the woodland area.

Galanthus nivalis sandersii

Galanthus ‘Diggory’

Galanthus ‘Lapwing’

Galanthus ‘R D Nutt’

Unlabeled double snowdrop

I’ve got a few more pictures taken of the bank along the driveway but I think I’ll save them for another post. For now I’ll leave you with some interior shots of the temple (it’s not just for show!). After losing all sensation in my fingertips, we allowed ourselves a break inside by the temple fire.

Warming up in front of the fireplace at the Lyman garden.

I hope we weren’t crossing any poor-garden-conduct boundaries by going inside, but the door was slightly ajar and the fire was so inviting. Plus by then we were freezing, and a passing snow squall wasn’t helping matters much. As we were looking around and considering building our own garden temples, I saw this above the door and had the feeling we were just as welcome here as we had been in the rest of the garden.

Inside details of the temple

Thanks for having us Mr. Lyman.

sorta like suburbia

more than you ever wanted to know about my garden

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