Spring Deliveries – Part I

Posted on February 22, 2011 by Peggy Hill

 If I could do a cartwheel, I’d be flippin’ right now. This combination is amazing! The flowering plant is a Lenten Rose (Helleborus ‘Winter Moonbeam’). It came in the mail on Wednesday with two other plants. I usually don’t start planting perennials until late March, but these are hardy a few zones further North, so I am hoping they will be fine. If I had waited, I would have missed the bloom, and that was totally unacceptable.

 Good design is a result of careful planning, but sometimes the best designs are a happy circumstance, or what you get after walking around the garden with a plant in your hand wondering where it belongs. That’s how he landed here. What makes this combination so fabulous is that the color of the faded blossoms are an exact match to the underside of the emerging leaves on the monk’s cap (Aconitum, ‘Fischeri’). The little wild iris adds a nice texture.

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The plant in the upper right is another new arrival Helleborous foetidus, ‘Red Silver’. I killed the last Helleborous foetidus I tried, but I’m very optimist about this one. He is perfect here with the silver laced, purple leaves of the coral bells (Heuchera, ‘Frosted Violet’), the spiky texture of Carex ‘Blue Zinger’, and the ruffled purple leaves of the kale. Once we get to frost free, I’m going to eat the kale and plant something else.

Posted in The Little Picture | 7 Comments

Four Great Conifers

Posted on February 15, 2011 by Peggy Hill

In the summer my potted garden is overflowing with colorful plants. After they’re gone, I can’t stand to stare at the empty pots all winter, so last fall I bought these two great, slow growing, dwarf conifers from Tiny Treasures Nursery. They should be happy in these pots for several years. The star of this show is, the Christmas tree shaped, Chamaecyparis lawsoniana ‘Treasure Island’. It only grows 18” tall. Down front, in a supporting role, is Chamaecyparis obtuse ‘Nana’. Is it odd I like to pet its tight round form? It is very slow growing to only 8” tall and 12” wide.

This is a larger variety of Chamaecyparis obtuse called ‘Nana Gracilis’. It will slowly grow to about 4 feet tall with a loose funky shape.

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Here are two views of Gold Mop Cypress (Chamaecyparis pisifara ‘Paul’s Gold’). I love its color and totally relaxed form. Sometimes it gets a notion to send a shoot way above the rest, and it spoils the dense look, so I cut it off halfway down into the shrub. The foliage looks great in cut flower arrangements.

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A Garden Prayer

Posted on February 11, 2011 by Peggy Hill

I was in the poetry section of Barnes and Noble, and struck up a conversation with a classy looking woman. My grandmother-in-law had always seemed the definition of Southern charm and hospitality, and this woman reminded me of her. She pointed out several of her favorite books to me. It was obvious she loved poetry. When she found out I was looking for a garden poem to read as the inspiration at a garden club meeting, she offered to send me something. I received her email the next week, in it she explained that this poem was read at her daughter’s garden club meeting in Birmingham. Her daughter liked it so much; she had it written in calligraphy as a Christmas present. 

This is a beautiful garden prayer, and it is more meaningful to me because a complete stranger went to the time and trouble it took to share it with me.
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Cranefly Orchids

Posted on February 6, 2011 by Peggy Hill

Imagine how my wine connoisseur friend, John, feels when he’s going through his cellar and finds a fabulous bottle he had totally forgotten he had; (I’m fairly certain this happens a lot.) or how Marilyn feels when she is doing her annual sorting and purging of the shoes, (there is only so much room under a king sized bed) and she finds the missing pair of Stuart Weitzman embellished slingbacks. (I have NO idea what those are.) Those examples pale in comparison to how I feel when I find a really cool plant in my garden that I had nothing to do with. It’s a little gift from nature, and I am so grateful!

Cranefly Orchid The last weekend in January I was doing some chainsaw work in the woods, and I noticed these. The leaves are green on the front and purple on the back. Some had more distinct veining than others.

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Cranefly Orchid
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In another area I found these. They are the same, only different. The top of the leaf is spotted, and the color has more gray in it. The bottom side is a darker purple.

Here’s the best part!! I found out these are cranefly orchids, Tipularia discolor. They are a native woodland wildflower. If you think you might have some of these, look for them now, and mark the site. The leaves go dormant long before the flower stalks emerge in July. I’m going to try and transplant a little to a location right next to the path.

There is a great picture of this plant in bloom at Dave’s Garden website. I’m trying to get permission to post the picture here, but in the meantime, you can follow this link:picture of cranefly ordhid in bloom

Posted in It Just Grew There | 2 Comments

What’s Blooming the Second Half of January

Posted on February 3, 2011 by Peggy Hill

I won this phenomenal orchid in a raffle at the garden club meeting yesterday!! I’m positive it is the universe’s way of saying “Hey Peggy. You need more plants.”

The only thing blooming in the garden is witch hazel, and I already posted that. I stopped by Heatherly Farms and bought these 3 cute little orchids and their pots. Even including the pot, they are less than 12 inches tall

Three years ago, I bought one when it was blooming. If you buy them when they are just getting started, they have an incredibly long bloom period. It was gorgeous, but it has never bloomed again. I asked Robin at the nursery, and she said that you sometimes have to shock them to get blooms. Don’t water for a long time, and when they finally get some, they may start blooming. My plant is going to be sorry I heard that, because it’s not going to see another drop until March.

Therapies for autism cheap viagra cialis are aimed to help men with problems maintaining their erection. It is an ideal choice for men who are older as order cialis online some find it hard to consume and is highly cost-effective too. Take certain factors into consideration if you are planning to opt for viagra online no rx djpaulkom.tv online drivers ed, online Joshua’s law, driver ed online consider certain important factors. It is believed that Winstrol helps block the progesterone buildup while Nandrolone Decanoate helps viagra prescriptions online with the joint issues that some suffer while on Winstrol. I know this next picture is a little fuzzy. It seems I was focused on the plants. I’m going to excuse my lack of photography skills because all things happen for a reason. Robin was complaining about her lack of makeup, but in my picture all you see are big smiles and fabulous plants.

Robin Heatherly and her daughter Kelsey Heatherly show off some of the other great plants they have for sale.

Posted in What's Blooming? | Leave a comment

Garden Stuff I did in January

Posted on February 1, 2011 by Peggy Hill

You may read this and think “Maybe I should do something like that.”, or you may think “That Peggy is CRAZY. It’s January.” Either way, there’s lots of time until spring, or I’m just getting started.

 On the 7th I planted seed for the 5 different lettuce varieties I grew last year: Green Deer Tongue, Little Gem, Romaine ‘Parris Island’, Red Sails, and Drunken Woman Frizzy Headed. (Sometimes I buy plants just because of the name.) Green Deer Tongue is my favorite. I planted twice as much of it, because you can harvest the whole plant by cutting it at the base, then it will grow back, and you can harvest again.

Here they are on the 28th. Soon after taking the picture, I started planting the largest ones into those little 4 packs. 

For the past 2 years I’ve grown my own tomato and pepper plants from seed, and for the past 2 years I’ve ended up buying them at the plant sale in spring. Mine are always still so small, and I’m impatient to start eating fresh. So this year I planted much earlier than ever before. On the 28th I planted 3 packs each of banana, jalapeño, Anaheim, poblano, red, green, yellow/orange and Serrano peppers. I also started 8 tomato plants of 4 different varieties.

The flower seeds sown in late January were: blanket flower, (Gaillardia “Mesa Yellow”), Salvia “Artemis”, columbine “Oragami”, Rudbeckia ‘Denver Daisy’ and Alstroemeria.   

I started 3 new six packs of coleus.I’m not sure what I’ll do with all of it, but you have to pinch them back to make them bush anyway, and I can hardly stand to just throw it away. Just cut a piece, remove the bottom set of leaves, and bury it in fine potting soil. They are so easy. You could root them in water, but that just seems like an extra step. The salad I buy at Sam’s comes in these big plastic containers. I put the plants in one, and cover it with another. Leave a little water in the bottom. In 2-3 weeks you should be able to remove the cover. Transplant them to something larger in another 3-4 weeks.

Other miscellaneous chores completed in January:

  • I moved a dozen miscellaneous perennials, and split a couple in the process. (I split one of the grasses into 3, and moved that Euphorbia “Silver Swan” over to make room.)
  • Cut back 6 butterfly bushes
  • Pruned my Lady Banks rose (You are supposed to prune it after it blooms in early spring, but mine was so overgrown it was trying to choke one of the butterfly bushes.)
  • Finally finished cutting back the last of the perennials (The grasses are an exception. I’ll leave them until Feb. I also leave the tender perennials, such as lantana, until late March. It helps them survive the winter.)
  • Sprayed “Neem” oil on most of my evergreen shrubs
  • Cleaned all old blooms and old foliage from 5 Hydrangeas “Endless Summer”. It had some type of leaf spot last year, so I threw everything in the trash instead of on the compost, and I sprayed the stems and the soil around it with “Neem”.
  • Reworked the stones that edge the beds on either side of the steps. They had sunk too deep. I lifted them, added sand underneath, reset them, and raked the mulch where it belongs. A nice edge really makes a garden look neat and tidy. 
  • Placed my seed orders with Park Seed and Thompson & Morgan
  • Ordered a bunch of spectacular new perennials from Plants Delight. I got my order in so early, they weren’t sold out of anything yet. I ordered a winter blooming iris I’ve been wanting for a couple years and some other cool stuff. This is VERY exciting!
  • But the MOST exciting thing for me in January was I started this blog!!!

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Welcome to my Garden – Part 2

Posted on January 26, 2011 by Peggy Hill

“Welcome to my Garden – Part 1” was a trip from the car to the front door and then looking out the window at the lake. Let’s review a little, and then go to one of my favorite areas.

Welcome signThis is my front door, and I really like the color. I would say, third time’s a charm, but it needs a fourth coat. It needs to be a higher gloss. My friend Liz gave me the very cute, welcome sign.

If you are like 99% of the people who visit my house, the next thing you do is look out the window at the lake. All the pictures in this post were taken either January 22nd or 24th, about a month after the pictures for “Welcome to my Garden – Part 1”.

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Many visitors look at this next. (I am not above taking product placement ads. I have a gardening habit to support, so if you know anyone with a microbrewery….)

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Fortified for the journey, let’s head towards the lake. I’ve stopped halfway between the bottom of the steps and the rose covered arbor. I’m going to stand right here and spin around to give a view of the back yard. I’ll post these same pictures several times during the coming year to track the changes from season to season.

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Spinning clockwise.

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Keep spinning. The evergreen shrub is mountain laurel (Kalmia latifolia). Mama nature planted it, so other than having the good sense not to kill it, I take no credit. I appreciate how it frames the garden. Because it is mature, it makes the garden seem older than it is.  In mid-May it will bloom in several shades of light pink or white.

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Keep spinning all the way around. (I’ve given up trying to get these pictures to display the way I want. I need a “Blogging for Dummies” book.)

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Continue on, and just before you walk through the arbor, look to the left. The garden hose is marking my new bed line. This spring, I’m getting rid of all the grass on the right side of the hose. Eventually I’ll plant a mixture of trees, shrubs and perennials here; but I plan to use a lot of annuals the first year. This is just one of my 2011 garden goals. I’m a little worried that I’ve bit off more than I can chew.

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This picture was taken from the same spot, but looking right instead of left. Last spring I completed a large expansion of this area. It turned out pretty good, but this year it needs a few tweaks.

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 Just past the arbor, the path splits.

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The path on the left leads to the dock.

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The path to the right leads here. My grade school bffs designed this sign, andLinda’s husband Gary made it. They usually bring the kids and spend a week with us in the summer. One year there were 5 of us girls. Adding spouses and kids, we totaled 25. It was a BLAST!! The more the merrier!

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The Starlight Lounge is much more inviting with the cushions and summertime flowers.

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But whatever the season, I usually stay here awhile and enjoy the view.

Posted in Spinning in the Backyard | Leave a comment

I’m Very Concerned

Posted on January 22, 2011 by Peggy Hill

Yesterday I stopped at Heatherly Farms to get a bag of potting soil, and of course I had to look around. The nice lady who works there seemed bored of her year end paperwork, and we struck up a conversation. She told me sometimes customers and friends bring them pieces of cool plants. (It’s nice to share). But here’s the frightening part of the story; some time ago there was a theft. They took a table and chairs AND a rare plant. It’s a nursery, so there are lots of plants, but the thief only took that one plant. Could the table and chairs just be a cover up? Is it possible there is someone out there stealing plants who knows the difference between the hosta ‘mediovariegata’, that I picked up at Sam’s Club, and the spectacular, mail order hosta ‘Risky Business’ from Plants Delight? Does he have a shovel??? I’m terrified at the thought.


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The scene of the crime. I’m pleased to report, there have been no further instances since the cameras were installed.

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What’s blooming the first half of January?

Posted on January 18, 2011 by Peggy Hill

Not much, but I found a few.

This is my showiest bloom. It’s an amaryllis, a lovely and thoughtful gift from one of the garden club ladies. Don’t you love how sharing plants is a little connection between gardeners?  I’m going to plant it in the garden this spring.

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This is my poinsettia and Gomphocarpus (its common name is hairy balls, but my eldest prefers I use the Latin). I think hairy balls add an interesting shape to flower arrangements, and they are sooo long lasting. These are actually the same cuttings I picked for Thanksgiving. I grew the plant from seed last year. It was very easy to grow, but you need to keep a close eye on it. Bugs really like hairy balls.

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This was what the Thanksgiving bouquet looked like. The Gomphocarpus is freshly picked and has a much brighter color.

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This is witch hazel (Hamamelis Virginiana). It is growing wild in the woods around my house. It’s a native (the Latin gives that away). It grows naturally in the shaded understory, but I have one in almost full sun, and it’s doing fine. It is a small tree or large shrub. The flowers are bigger, and the autumn color is better on some of the new and improved varieties. I’d like to get one with orange flowers to plant next to this one.

Posted in What's Blooming? | 2 Comments

Welcome to my Garden – Part 1

Posted on January 12, 2011 by Peggy Hill

As a way of introducing myself, let me introduce my favorite place on earth, MY GARDEN!!

Welcome! This is the view as you pull up in your car. It is a pale comparison to its summer glory, but I’ve been trying to add a few more evergreen perennials and things to give it winter interest. All the pictures in this post, except the last one, are the things you would see as you walked from your car to my front door. Every picture, except one, was taken the week of Christmas. Of course you would have to really slow down and look around to notice it all (you should always do that).

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On the right as you step from the driveway to the sidewalk you see this pretty combination. The lacey foliage of artemisia (Artemisia ludoviciana ‘Powis Castle’) blends nicely with the large, fuzzy, silver leaves of this salvia (Argentea ‘Artemis’). (I grew a dozen of these from seed last spring, but the armadillo dug up all but this one.) The dark foliage of black mondo grass (Ophiopogon nigrescens) and kale add a nice contrast. ********************************************************************

To the left is this path into the woods.

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Take a closer look at the plants just before the path splits. I love the rounded form of the dark leaved coral bells (Heuchera ‘Obsidian’) with the spiky texture of blue fescue (Festuca glauca ‘Elija Blue’). The juniper (Juniperus horizontalis ‘Blue Star’) is growing slowly, and I’m getting a little impatient, but the color harmonizes nicely.

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The left fork of the path leads to the hammock. The dried flower heads of sedum ‘Autumn Fire’ can be seen on the left. I leave them standing until spring to provide winter interest.

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The right fork leads to a wooden arbor and the woodland garden beyond. The woodland garden is more of an idea than a reality, but I’m working on it.

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A little further down is another path to the left. This one is lined with my middle daughter’s favorite plant, the evergreen perennial, ajuga. Some sources list it as invasive, but I just think of it as providing lots to spread around or give to friends.

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I love my little pond and the fishing dog. The silver and purple plant combination here is very similar to the second picture. I used the same black mondo grass, a different variety kale, and artemisia (Artemisia schmidtiana ‘Silver Mound’). The artemisia looks pretty rough in midwinter.

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I wanted to post how spectacular the ‘Silver Mound’ looks in midsummer. This is the same plant, but the picture was taken from the other direction. The big white blooms are phlox ‘David’.

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Just before you step onto the front porch is this really cool lawson cypress (Chamaecyparis lawsoniana ‘Ducanni’). I’m hoping it does better than the last one. It won’t be hard, considering that one died in less than a month. This time I planted in fall instead of spring, and I’m trying a different location.

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As you step through the front door you can look back on my front garden.

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Once inside the house you’ll probably want to look at the view from the back deck. I’ll show you more later.

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