We’re allegedly getting a hard freeze this evening, the winds are picking up and peak fall is about to leave us. I had to capture it all before it departs.
Enjoy.
Monthly Archives: October 2023
I purchased Molinia ‘Sky Racer’ after my main gal Tracy DiSabato-Aust suggested it in one of her books.
I credit Tracy with really getting me into gardening after I read The Well Tended Perennial Garden back in the early aughts (translation: early 2000’s). She had me pruning, pinching, deadheading and cutting back my perennials for the first time and I recorded my results in a spreadsheet that I somehow lost along the way. I was hooked. I felt like I was in on a secret that only a few select gardeners understood. When I managed to chat with her via email a few years back, I was a true fanboy.
Sorry, back to Molinia (Moor Grass) ‘Sky Racer’.
It kicks ass.
I’m sure I’ve shared other photos of this grass in previous posts, but wanted to highlight the beautiful golden hue it’s holding right now. When back lit by the sun, it’s stunning.
If you want to read more about it, click here and my friends at Hoffman Nursery will get you all caught up.
For those of you into baseball who have been watching the playoffs, here’s my son, the prognosticator, before the playoffs even started.
The kid is good.
Autumn is still killing it.
From left to right:
Acer rubrum ‘October Glory’ (Red Maple)
Miscanthus purpurascens (Flame Grass)
Betula nigra (River Birch)
Hello reader, are you ready?
The race is on.
I vaguely remember planting this a few years back and had given up on it. Then it bloomed last year as a um, I guess, pleasant surprise?
Well it’s back again and it doesn’t fit in at all in its current location. And the flower is kind of ugly and ok, fine, I don’t like it. But I can’t just dump it, right?
Sorry, the race.
What the hell is the name of this? I feel like …
I swear on my children I just thought of the name. So funny. I was going to say the word “bone” or “hood” was in it and that prompted the answer:
It’s Monkshood.
Sorry to have fired you up to only let you down. But since you’re here, do I have your permission to remove it? Anyone want it?
It’s technically not a “DGP” (Daily Garden Photo) but we’ve already established this will occur from time to time. My garden isn’t THAT interesting that I can keep you entertained daily on just plants.
Like for today. What you’re looking at below is the base for a hammock.
It’s kind of gigantic. I bought it for my wife years ago assuming it would fit comfortably on our deck where she could lay back, read and relax while looking over the garden I’d so amazingly curated.
It was too big. And yes, I’d read over the measurements ahead of purchase and still got it wrong.
We tried out in the garden. Nope. Still too big and gaudy.
So it ended up underneath the stand of pine trees you viewed in my previous post. And it’s still there, where no one else knows it’s there but me. Until I figure out what to do with it next.
Spoiler: there is no “next”.
The end.
The first thing I wanted to add to our blank slate of a landscape 19 years ago was a wind break. I don’t recall my logic or if there was actually wind to “break” but I’d convinced myself it was a necessity. So we added five white pine trees (roughly 6 feet in height) along the northwestern facing part of our yard.
Oversharing alert: I know these were added at the end of March that year because I have clear memory of limping through the front yard to check out my new trees. Why was I limping? Because I’d had a vasectomy the day prior. There is something poetic about the dichotomy of a vasectomy and the planting of new trees, right? And yes, that’s the first time a vasectomy has been dubbed “poetic”.
Moving on.
Here are those trees today, all near forty feet in height and tightly packed together.
And you know what? They really do block the wind.
Go me.
“Forgive me Father for I have sinned.”
Inaudible whispering.
“Time since my last confession you ask? Um, is never okay to say?
Deafening silence.
“Well here’s the thing. I’m not technically Catholic. My wife and two kids are but not me. We agreed to raise them Catholic but I never converted. We good?”
A simple head nod.
“Oh great, thank you Father. Appreciate it. Here’s the thing. Yeah I’ve sinned here and there, sure. But this one is kind of big and I’m hoping this doesn’t keep me out of the pearly gates when the time comes.”
A barely audible gasp.
“No, no, nothing like that. But it’s bad. In my eyes at least.”
Gesture clearly indicating to get on with it already.
“Fine. Brace yourself.”
A very audible yawn.
“My bad. You’re a very busy man. Here it is. I’ve embraced the use of … fake plants.”
Pointer finger raised pointing towards the church exit.
“Don’t you want to hear why?”
He didn’t want to hear why.
But I need to let you all know why:
I got sick of watering the ferns or boxwoods that sat in containers near our front entrance. My time could be better spent elsewhere. Yes, that is a fake boxwood but doesn’t look like it, right? Shape is decent and it’s even sitting in real soil.
So no harm, no foul, right?
The dark purplish red/burgundy shrub in the photo below is Viburnum ‘Shoshoni’. While I’m highlighting it’s fine fall foliage color, it’s not the true purpose behind today’s post.
I may have shared this previously so if you’ve read this before, feel free to move on. I tend to get a little melodramatic at times and this is going to be another one of those times. Fair warning provided.
We now move on.
I recall the day vividly. A Sunday afternoon in late spring of 2005. I’m finally prepared to tackle our blank-slate-garden after moving into our newly built home the prior autumn. When I say “prepared” I mean I’m heading to the nursery prepared to buy something. I have no true “plan”. The plan is to buy whatever sparks my interest as I travel down the aisles of Rutgers Nursery.
The best part? I have my just-about-to-turn-3 son with me. He sits on the cart, humming away, lost in his own imagination, as I panic in the shrubs section. A blank slate is exciting and brutally intimidating. Where to start? I’ve got to build the bones of the garden but my two acre property needs like, a lot of bones. I debate leaving and consulting a landscape architect. But remind myself this is “fun” and “you’ve craved this opportunity dumb ass”.
I’ll fast forward now. I only bought two shrubs that day: Two Viburnum ‘Shoshoni’. Don’t recall the decision making there and that’s not important. I’d started the journey. And I did it with my little guy. It marked the beginning. And I’m tearing up as I write this. A big softie these days.
I planted the two Viburnum plicatum ‘Shoshoni’ shrubs along the front foundation in a way that can only be categorized as “curious”. It looked awful in retrospect. If you search the archives of this blog you can see for yourself. Not by best look.
After a few years of working around it, I finally decided to relocate both of them. And that decision came with yet again, no plan. Just dig up, drag to a yet to be determined location and hope they’d survive. I know you all do the same so don’t judge. We’re all planners and we’re also spontaneous fools when it comes to our garden.
I butchered the shit out of both. Branches fell off, detached roots spread everywhere and I’d screwed it up bad. They couldn’t be salvaged. I chalked it up to a lesson learned but not sure which lesson that was but it provided much needed comfort at that time. They were the first, they held a place in my heart and yet they were now gone.
I dare you to find this shrub anywhere today. After that joyous day back in 2005, I’d never seen them available for sale again. But I pushed on, nostalgia be damned, and dove into that blank slate of a garden. No time for sadness and no time to rue my mistake. There was work to be done and I couldn’t waste my efforts on two stupid shrubs that never looked good in my garden anyway.
Here comes the dramatic twist. While planting a variegated Northern Sea Oats (RIP) I dug up the roots of another plant that had a few tiny leaves attached. I recognized those leaves immediately. You know that glossy Viburnum leaf when you see it. And I knew immediately it was the thought-for-dead ‘Shoshoni’. With vigor yet with precise precision, I removed it from the earth, untangled its ample roots and whispered “Welcome back”. I planted it in a new location, a better location, and shed a tear. I’d been given a second chance. It was going to work out this time.
And it did as you can see in the pic above. Great spring blooms, great clean foliage throughout the summer and a bonus with the short lived fall color. I smile every time I walk by it and think about that little guy who is now 6 foot 2 and about to graduate from college.
Thanks for sticking around.
I love you all.
After posting this photo I realized I could simplify the description of my garden design plan as follows:
50% Ornamental grasses
20% Amsonia
20% Joe Pye Weed
10% Miscellaneous
And that’s it. Not all that complicated I guess.
