February 15, 2010:            

I witnessed an overthrow of power today, as a totalitarian mockingbird was hording an abundance of food on a very snowy and cold morning. There was a larger group of robins who had returned from their southern overwintering grounds, searching for a place to eat. They gathered together along an unfrozen stream, first 10 or 15, then a few more each minute until their numbers were close to a hundred or so. They waited patiently while the lone ruler sat on his perch amidst the beautiful and bounteous food supply. Occasionally a bold upstart would attempt a landing on a branch to grab a plump piece of fruit, only to be attacked by the commander. Even my presence a foot or two away did not deter the dramatic interplay between the two factions. I felt like a reporter on the front lines of a skirmish, watching the events unfold as bystander not really changing the outcome. The mockingbird guarded his precious winterberry cache and for quite a while was able to stave off attacks from the impatient and impetuous marauders who would fly in and attempt an attack. However, as the numbers of robins grew, the tide began to turn. For several hours the lone mockingbird was able to stand his ground but at some point the robins had had enough and they banded together and descended upon the branches of the winterberry en masse. The mockingbird made a few more attacks on the intruding gang of robins, but to no avail. Their sheer numbers were just too great, so he joined in the fracas, eating as many of the fruits as he could amidst all the ravenous interlopers . Within a few minutes of frenzied feasting, every last berry was consumed, leaving the monarch sitting alone in a barren landscape. Where there was plenty a few moments before was now a barren wasteland which will not see production for 3 more seasons and only if the proper pollination occurs in Spring. But the robins were happy and this battle is now declared over! If the band of robins had not visited today, the mockingbird would have had enough food for the rest of the winter, but now he’ll have to move on to some other less preferred and probably not as tasty food source (maybe the buckberries?) and we’ll have to get used to the view from our window without the colorful winterberries! Good thing Spring is near!

    Tickled About Pink in the Garden!

Pink Anemone

Pink Anemone With Northern Sea Oats

On the other end of the garden, the hardy begonias (Begonia grandis) are also showing lots of color. This is an old favorite of mine that surprises so many people when they learn there’s actually a perennial begonia. This is a classic pass-along plant, because they don’t really like to be in pots for long. We also have a patch of begonias along the path in the Walking Shrub Border behind the Sun Mounds, which started blooming about a month earlier and are 3’ tall (the tallest I’ve ever seen)! In combination with Gold Dust Aucuba, it is quite a memorable sight. 

Hardy Begonia

 

Hardy Begonia In the Hillside Shade Garden

 

Adding a little more color to our back garden is Aster divaricatus (White Wood Aster). They started blooming in late July and are still blooming 2 months later. This Kentucky native is one of the few plants I brought from my childhood home and have had them now for probably 35 years. That’s what I call a long-lived perennial! I used to go up to a farm near Stanton, Kentucky with Paul Kress, a friend of my father’s. Mr. Kress would take me out rock hunting and in the process I would always find a few plants he’d let me dig up from his woods. This aster never did all that well in my garden on Cross Keys Road. I planted it under a huge old honeysuckle bush that I had limbed up to make a shade garden. It was always very dry under there, and although I’d get some nice rough textured heart shaped leaves every year and a few white flowers each fall, it was nothing spectacular. When I started the gardens at Springhouse, I brought a piece here and planted it behind the office. It kind of sat there for the first few years like it did in my other garden, but then it took off and started multiplying! The asters must really like their new home and they reward me with lots of great foliage and bigger and more plentiful flowers. Curiously, the flower color has changed from white to pale pinkish-purple and are blooming longer than I ever remember. I guess this is the right plant in the right place! 

 

White Wood Aster

 

 

A Kentucky Native

There is another pink late summer bloomer that is one of my favorites — Hot Lips Turtlehead. Maybe it’s because I’m really a kid at heart and I can really imagine this flower as a turtle’s head (although I’ve never seen a pink turtle!) Turtlehead (or Chelone if you prefer Latin names) really likes it wet. Native to stream sides and low lying areas, I had just the place to plant one – in our stream bed just before the water disappears under the patio by our office. The dark green glossy leaves look healthy all season and the interesting flowers bloom for over a month. This year, some white smart weed and orange jewel weed have popped up to keep the Turtlehead company. This little trio is growing so well in the soggy soil - actually too well with all the extra rain this year - so I’ve had to do a little pruning so the Turtlehead doesn’t get overtaken and covered up by the rambunctious companions.

 

Hot Lips Turtlehead (Image by Horticulture Department, Cornell University)

They say timing is everything and these plants are no exception. The color provided by these late summer flowers comes at a most appreciated time. Their subtle beauty will soon be eclipsed by all the more vibrant and riotous colors of fall, which are just around the corner.

 

 

 

The Adventures of R. J. Weber, Garden Explorer… 

Oriole nest by the driveway

I found an oriole nest on the ground a couple of weeks ago. It was last year’s nest and it looked like a jumble of twine on the side of our driveway by the office.  Anyone walking by might think it trash to be discarded, and at first I thought it was, but this is turning out to be an annual occurrence. I guess I have four or five oriole nests from the same number of years. I don’t ever see them hanging in the big elm that stretches out over our driveway while the orioles are nesting in them, but I usually notice them after the leaves have fallen and the trees are bare. It is only then that the interesting pouch of the nylon fibers appears as it sways in the winter wind. The nest hangs on for the entire winter and most of the spring and summer and then as it occurred this week – detaches from its home base and plummets to the ground, to be added to our collection.   I saw the orioles this spring when they returned from their over winter grounds somewhere in either Mexico, Central America or northern South America and  I watched them to try to detect where their 2009 home might be located, but to no avail. I scour the ends of the pendulous elm branches, looking for the latest of the orioles amazing creations, but I suppose I’ll just have to wait until the leaves drop again and the cold winter’s wind reveals the location of this year’s brood. 

Oriole searching for a place to build its nest in our elm tree

  

Adult oriole & big baby congregating near the burn pile

As you drive the back roads of Central Kentucky, keep your eyes peeled for the oriole nests in branches hanging over the narrow two lane roadways. I often can spot the oriole pouches as I’m zipping through the countryside. I don’t know why the orioles choose to build their nests so often just above a stretch of hard asphalt - not necessarily a soft or friendly landing spot for young orioles as they try to leave their nests. Maybe they just want to keep in touch with their human admirers and reveal themselves to those with keen vision to discover as they pass by. To learn more about orioles and how they construct their nests, check out this link - http://www.learner.org/jnorth/tm/oriole/BuildNest.html

    

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I felt like I was following in the footsteps of John & William Bartram, famous father and son botanists and plant explorers, as I pushed my way through the underbrush, smacking mosquitoes and feeling my toes getting damp from the soggy ground.  I descended a wooded slope after finding some interesting native plants such as:

Solomon Seal (Polygonatum canaliculatum) with its pendulous blue fruit,

Frostweed (Verbesina virginica L.) beginning to bloom with its dusty white flat headed blossoms

and the Spotted Jewelweed (Impatiens capensis) that always remind me of little orange cornucopias hanging down from the robust growing plants.

As I was heading towards a gurgling shaded stream, my eye caught a glimpse of pure white in an otherwise green landscape. What was it? As I got closer I could see one solitary flower on a sinuous stem rising up from a small clumpy tree.

. About the size of a silver dollar, the beautiful flower was fully open and revealed a cluster of golden stamens.

It was the first flower of the elusive Franklinia! On this the fourth day of August, was I in a swampy forest in Georgia? I could have been, but I was a lot closer to home.  I was in the Hillside Shade Garden behind my office at Springhouse Gardens, one of the benefits to working in a garden. I can go out and be in nature or a garden in just a moment, and see things that I would normally miss if they weren’t so close to my workplace. We planted the Franklinia several years ago at the foot of a slope close to where the water from the spring runs under the old farmhouse. If you could find a Franklinia in the wild (they are considered to be extinct) this is where they would like to be. Franklinia alatamaha was first discovered in 1765 by the Bartrams in Georgia along the banks of the Altamaha River, which when the Latin name was selected, the species name was mis-spelled as alatamaha, and was thus immortalized incorrectly. On a later trip, William Bartram found the trees again and collected some seeds which he took back to Philadelphia and had blooming within 4 years. He named the genus in honor of Benjamin Franklin, a good friend of his father, and inspired the common name – the Franklin Tree.

One bud ready, one flower open.

This unusual rounded bud is ready to burst into bloom.

Franklinia has not been seen in the wild since 1803 and all plants in existence today originate from the few plants collected. A census was undertaken in 1998 to try and determine how many trees existed in the world. Check out this link to see the count www.bartramsgarden.org/franklinia/census_results.html.  Hopefully our descendent of this enigmatic plant will survive (I’ve already tried and failed with this plant more times than I can count) and grace us with its subtle yet elegant beauty and remind us of how fleeting life really is.

SATURDAY IN THE GARDEN

Saturday, August 1, 2009: Richard worked on the front of the border in the Meadow Garden.

I’ve been thrilled with the results of our newest Display Garden - the Meadow Garden.  When it was planted in August of 2008, I concentrated mainly on the middle and the back of the border.  What was missing was some interest at the front edge of the garden. So, on Saturday I addressed that shortcoming (pardon the pun!) and added some great low growing perennials that fit into the design concept of an informal, more natural and relaxed look for the garden.
Here’s what I planted:
o 3 Nepeta ‘Walker’s Low’ (2007 Perennial Plant of the Year)
o 2 Origanum ‘Herrenhausen’ (one of Russ’s favorites)
o 3 Stachys ‘Silky Fleece’ (an old standby which comes in & out of my favor)
o 5 Dianthus ‘Brilliant Star’ (one of the more subtle of the new Star Series)
o 3 Silene caroliniana ‘Short & Sweet’ (a new native cultivar I’m trying)
& 1 Linum ‘Saphir’ (an old favorite with fine foliage & beautiful light blue airy flowers for the middle of the border amongst the Echinacea ‘Big Sky After Midnight’)

While I was at it, I found a few very sad plants up in Polyhouse #3 that desperately needed to be planted…
o 1 Rudbeckia ‘Prairie Sun’ (not sure if this will be perennial or not)
o 1 Baptisia ‘Purple Smoke’ (one of the new False Indigoes –very long lived & drought resistant)
o Rudbeckia fulgida speciosa ‘Viette’s Little Suzy’ (I needed a little more yellow-orange at the top of the border.
o 1 Aster ‘Raydon’s Favorite’ (this really is an old favorite of mine that Allen Bush introduced to me)

I tucked the first of these 3 into the ends of the main border. I found a spot for the Aster on the back side of the plank fence which we’re just starting to plant, along with the rest
of the sinkhole garden. Bruce & I were busy marking out, digging out & grading out the huge sunken basin where our original Sycamore Grove once stood. Soon it will be another rain garden with plants that can tolerate lots of moisture. More to come on that garden as the summer progresses.

Nepeta 'Walker's Low' planted between the Dwarf Fountain Grass and the pea gravel drainage border.

Dianthus 'Brilliant Star' makes a nice silvery-blue addition to the front of the border next to Coreopsis 'Moonbeam'.

Silene caroliniana 'Short and Sweet' along the front of the border by Ceratostigma plumbagnioides.

Stachys 'Silky Fleece' (Dwarf Lamb's Ear) adds a soft and silvery touch to a formerly empty spot beside the Gaillardia 'Frenzy'.

Dianthus 'Brilliant Star' was chosen to create a nice color echo with the burgundy blotch of the flowers blending with the Echinacea 'After Midnight' in the background.

Stachys 'Silky Fleece' along the front edge of the border.

Visit the Springhouse Gardens Website at http://www.springhousegardens.com/