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woodyoak

WALATing in the garden this morning - looong, picture heavy post!

I was walking around looking at things in the garden this morning and thinking of some of the recent discussions on threads here so took some pictures of plants in those discussions. I'm reasonably happy with the backyard garden but have reached the conclusion that the front yard is in need of an overhaul! Actually, we've been making quite a few changes in the last year or so that have not yet fulfilled their potential, but there is a lot more that needs doing! I couldn't get one decent picture of the south driveway border! It doesn't seem to look too bad in person but the ruthless eye of the camera shows every flaw :-( So I'm giving a lot of thought to what the next changes need to be - I'll let this summer play out as-is while sorting out what stays; what goes; what gets added... As the trees and shrubs mature, the character of the front garden is changing and the rest of the plantings need to change too.

Starting in the backyard:

I love the hostas that dominate the planting around our small patio. (There are way too many mosquitoes in the backyard so the patio rarely gets used for sitting or dining! We've gradually stopped bothering to put any outdoor furniture on it. The back porch is the main outdoor sitting area - and dining too for 2-4 people. It's not a screened porch but the bug population is a little less dense a bit higher up.)

Cole acting a a 'scale figure' with some of the hostas:
{{gwi:253202}}

You can see the Persicaria polymorpha on the right side of that picture. That one is shaded by the ash tree which gives a high shade. This is a more complete picture of the Persicaria:
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This persicaria is under the edge of the white pine canopy and is also shaded by the ash. You can see that it flowers considerably less:
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You have to look more carefully for the Persicaria flowers in this picture which shows one under the denser shade of the oak with some evergreens blocking light from the south:
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Skipping around to look at the Persicaria in almost full sun in the front garden you can see that it is much denser in flower - and flowers earlier - the flowers are fading fast now:
{{gwi:253206}}

I have mentioned at times my intent to try to make a 'golden path' area under the pines. I'm not sure if I'll be able to do what I envision because the conditions are tough under there - very dry most of the time. Some things are doing reasonably well; others not - some have disappeared. This picture also shows the view I most hate in our garden - the neighbours' unattractive metal garden shed! It is too dry back there for any shrub I would consider planting to hide it :-( There is a small seedling Japanese maple doing reasonably well against the fence that I have hopes for longer term but, for now, I do my best to ignore the shed!
{{gwi:253208}}

Oakleaf hydrangeas were under discussion recently, so I looked to see how my pathetic one was doing! I was happy to see it has a grand total of about 6 flowers this year! You can see some of them here:
{{gwi:253210}}

And, if you look closely, in this picture you can see some flowers on a dwarf oakleaf hydrangea between the 'Ghost' fern and the hosta:
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I really wish these hydrangeas would do better for me!

Taking a peek up the south alley the clematises that I'm trying to swag along posts-and-chains on either side are doing reasonably well - the right side is shady so they aren't doing as well there. On the shady side they will have enough light once they make it up onto the swag chains - someday!
{{gwi:253214}}

Heading up the north alley to go to the front garden...

The astilboides flowerbuds are developing fast. You can see that they are very tall - much taller than the rodgersia flowers that are just finishing. The stem is too weak to hold up the heavy flowers so the stalk tends to fall over. I usually cut it off shortly after the flowers open.
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The north alley fence and gate made from copper pipes:
{{gwi:197339}}

Through the gate leads to the back corner of the garage and the back of the main front bed. The narrow bed along the garage is dominated by clematis and hydrandeas:
{{gwi:253216}}

A grass path leads towards the driveway:
{{gwi:253218}}

At the driveway end an iron arbour and path leads into the main bed. There used to be a very vigorous (Hall's ?) honeysuckle on the arbour. We removed it in 2010 and the replacement 'Emerald Gaiety' euonymus and clematises will take a few more years to cover the arbour, so it looks a bit bare at the moment. The spring flowers are finished and the summer ones are just begining so there isn't a lot of color showing at the moment. Over time this bed has become a later-flowering garden. The tree on the right side of the bench, for instance, is a heptacodium which doesn't flower until early September - when it is smothered by migrating monarch butterflies! This bed is definitely due for a big renovation to give the space more definition!
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'Becky' daisies were under discussion recently. In this picture you can see how they have spread around in this bed even though I have been digging them out for years now! Keep an eye on your Beckys!
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This picture shows the grass path on the other side of the main front bed, running between the wisteria 'moat' bed and the main perennial bed. It gives the area a nice structure that is visible in winter too when the garen is more bare.
{{gwi:253223}}

Looking at the front garden from the road, you can see that the flowering is in a lull at the moment! Up close, there is more in flower than you might imagine from the picture but it lacks the obvious color you might expect - and that will appear soon.... You can also see that there are quite a few trees and taller shrubs that will soon enable this garden to transition to a shadier garden (my favorite kind!)
{{gwi:239047}}

A partial tour of the garden for you on this hot, humid day when it is too uncomfortable to actually spend much time out there!

Comments (17)

  • karin_mt
    10 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Super nice! I appreciate the tour and the honest narrative. I feel the same way about my gardens and I'd bet that most of us do - some areas are great, some are on their way to greatness and others still need work or a fresh vision.

    I love your giant hostas (or is that a miniature dog?) and your beautiful shed out back. All of your beds look well thought out with interesting plants that are well-tended. Looks great! Thanks for sharing.

  • christinmk z5b eastern WA
    10 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Really great woody! Such a serene color palette, what with the blues, whites, and greens you use- gorgeous (and I'm not even a fan of white flowers!).

    Your Astilboides is absolutely stellar btw.

    Have you ever considered a Symphoricarpos shrub for that dry shade area? It's not terribly dense, but I always see it growing around here under pines with easy abandon.

    Ps. great looking shed- it fits so perfectly there.
    CMK

  • a2zmom_Z6_NJ
    10 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Absolutely love it!

    A couple of questions, if I may.

    How long did it take you to get your hostas to that impressive size? I think my hostas are in too much shade. They're healthy enough, but just aren't really increasing in size.

    Secondly, I was reading over at the other garden site and someone posted that they found Persecaria amplexicaulis to be a Japanese beetle magnet. Have you found that polymorpha atracts JBs? It's a gorgeous plant and I'd love to put one into my garden.

  • rouge21_gw (CDN Z5b/6a)
    10 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    I appreciate the tour and the honest narrative. I feel the same way about my gardens and I'd bet that most of us do - some areas are great, some are on their way to greatness and others still need work or a fresh vision.

    Said perfectly 'karin'.

    'Woody', I would love to see your gardens in their entirety.

  • woodyoak zone 5 southern Ont., Canada
    Original Author
    10 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Karin - Cole is a small dog (miniature poodle) but some of those hostas are indeed giants! The shed replaced the rotting icky one that was here when we bought the property. We lived with it for a few years until I was thoroughly fed up with it! I designed the new one and had a handyman build it for us on the same 'footprint' as the original (so the property survey remained valid....) Initially the shed was blue-gray with white trim, which was nice but drew too much atttention away from the garden. In 2010 I decided to try to paint it to blend into the background a bit more and we're quite happy with the result.

    a2zmom - the hostas took the usual 3 years to get to a reasonable size. The big ones are ones that naturally grow large - are the varieties you have ones that should get large? I've never divided these ones (they're about 10 years old...) but I have cut chunks out of them in spring to share with friends. I've never had any Japanese beetles on the Persicaria - but then I've never had a lot of them anyway - after I got rid of the big white rose that they flocked to!

    CMK - Snowberry might grow in the area where I want to hide the neighbours' shed. Gray dogwood might too. But both are large suckering shrubs and I'm afraid they'd encroach on the path eventually and become a maintenance problem. It's a difficult situation to find an appropriate plant for.

    rouge - any time you want to come down for a garden visit, e-mail me and we can set up a date and time... It's always fun to have a visit from a knowledgeable gardener! The usual caveats apply - i.e. the garden looked better last week and will look better next week - no matter what week you visit it! :-)

  • prairiemoon2 z6b MA
    10 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Hi Woody, loved the tour! I remember your shed because it is unique. I didn’t remember that you designed it yourself, but now that you mention it, it makes perfect sense that you would. I love the window in the door. The color change is heads and shoulders above the old colors.

    Everything looks so healthy! With all the rain and the heat, that’s not so easy to do. You’ve created so much privacy from the street, it must be enjoyable.

    The clematis on the garage is so full and covered in blooms, that start so low on the vine. What are you feeding it, steak and eggs? ;-) And which variety is that huge purple on the garage? I am looking forward to seeing the clematis reach your chains on the other side of the house. How much farther does it have to go?

    I have a lot of dry shade too, Woody and have struggled with screening in deep shade. You are right, not to add a gray dogwood. I added one and it suckers a LOT and very quickly too. I’m sorry I added it. It did give me almost an instant screen though, which is difficult to do in that corner. Cornus that don’t sucker, have done pretty well for me in dry shade. I have ‘Ivory Halo’ and just added a ‘Golden Shadows’ tree where there is only filtered light and it seems to be doing well in it’s first year. (But all this rain will probably never be duplicated, (g)) It would fit with your golden theme too. Even if it didn’t grow as tall as they are capable of, if you bought a 6ft size it wouldn’t have to grow much more. It is is a Cornus alternifolia so it will have that horizontal growth pattern which is so great for screening. I know they are supposed to be intolerant of heat and drought, but I’ve had such good luck with other cornus that I gave it a try. It helped that it was a small $35. purchase at an arboretum sale, making it easier to experiment.

  • Thyme2dig NH Zone 5
    10 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Woody, I was very excited to see the subject of your post! I love to "visit"your garden through photos. Thanks so much for taking the time to put the post together. Everything looks so wonderful and all the hard work you've been doing really shines through.

    There is so much I love about your garden it is hard to list everything out. Around each corner there are interesting things to see. I also really like how your garden truly is multi-season. I hope you'll post some picture late-summer/fall to show the progression.

    The shed...best shed ever for a shade garden. Your clematis swag idea is so unique. I can't get over your heptacodium. It looks better and better every year. What is your pruning technique? In another post about this tree many folks were saying it was too tall and leggy and it would snap. That has caused me to step back and not prune it into a taller tree, but rather try it as a very large shrub. I just can't seem to get it shaped the way I envision it. The shape of yours is superb.

    It sounds like you use copper pipes quite a bit in your garden. I didn't realize you had a fence with them. It is a wood structure with pipes? The peony rings you had posted about earlier this season were very interesting. It makes me wonder about a trellis made with pipes, or what else can be done with copper. Do you have to treat it with anything to get a patina? I also love the iron arbor and tuteur in your bed. Gorgeous!

    Cole is adorable!

  • mxk3 z5b_MI
    10 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Gorgeous! Very quiet and peaceful - just how I like it :0)

  • anitamo
    10 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Love the tour Woody! one beauty after another. Your Seven's Sons tree (shrub) has gotton so tall! Maybe a cedar fence panel would work to hide the neighbor's shed. Just one panel, or two, stategically placed could solve the problem. I linked a photo I found of what I'm talking about. Look at #4.

    Here is a link that might be useful: Panel idea

  • woodyoak zone 5 southern Ont., Canada
    Original Author
    10 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Thanks for the nice comments! The garden is my main hobby - and my passion :-) One of the reasons we bought this property was the existing ash, white pines, and young red oak that made a perfect setting for a garden. The rest was pretty much a blank slate, so it's come a long way in the past 14 years - and there's still more that needs doing... - thank goodness! (I'd be terribly bored if there were no changes required!)

    pm2- the clematis on the end of the garage is supposed to be Nike (I have a lot of clematises that appear to be not what the label said it was supposed to be!) The color is a bit odd this year - it's usually has a redder undertone - this is what it looked like last year:
    {{gwi:163469}}
    Perhaps the cooler temperatures this year affected the color....? As for the size and bushiness - I never bother cutting my group 3 clematies back hard. I just trim off any obviously winter-killed bits and trim them as necessary to neaten them up a bit. That seems to work for me to get vigorous bloom from them top to bottom! They get a small dose of clematis fertilizer in late May or early June.

    I suspect it'll be another two years at least before the clematises on the fence side of the swag will make it up to the chains. I had to replace a few that didn't make it through their first year in the ground (planted in late summer 2010).

    Thanks for the 'Golden Shadows' suggestion. That looks like a possibility. I actually have a Wolf Eyes dogwood a few feet to the left where it gets a bit more light and moisture through a break in the tree canopy:
    {{gwi:253224}}
    I'll have to think about whether the two different variegations would go together or not. Maybe the golden one could be shifted far enough to the right to give some visual separation while still screening the shed.

    thyme - my pruning technique for the heptacodium (and most things in the garden) is 'if a branch is in my way when I walk past, lop it off!' :-) Actually the heptacodium tree is an odd shape when viewed from the side. It is planted close to the old cedar clump so the heptacodium had no room to develop branches on the side closest to the cedar. If you look at it in the picture of the front garden from the road you can see that it sort of looks like half a tree! But if you look at it beside the bench in the picture through the iron abour, it looks perfectly normal! That is the way we most often see it so we don't particularly care about the odd look of it from the side.... I doubt that the heptacodium would snap unless perhaps it was in a very exposed place, so if yours has some shelter from wind, I wouldn't hesitate to prune it up a bit.

    The clematis swag started as a rose swag in an effort to try to control the New Dawn roses that used to grow on the south gate arbour. I loved the rose swags we saw in England and wanted to try one. It was very pretty;
    {{gwi:165084}}
    but we got tired of those wicked thorns! The Clematis montana on the arbour had started to climb on the swag so that gave us the idea of using clematis as a 'kinder and gentler' alternative to roses for the swag. So far it seems to be working out reasonably well.

    Copper pipes are handy to work with! Yes, the fence and gate is pipes threaded through a wooden frame. The gate just after we completed it in the garage:
    {{gwi:253225}}
    If I was doing it again, I'd have painted the wood the Bonsai green of the dark trim on the shed instead of the sage green we used. It is too much of a PITA to repaint it now! I don't treat the pipes at all - they rapidly turn brown so blend in to the plants and disappear. It'll be many years before the copper turns to verdigris green. It would be easy to make a trellis with copper pipes. The big clematis at the back of the garage is on a tripod I made with copper pipes threaded through wooden stretcher bars. The link below will take you to a thread in the clematis forum where I describe how it was built.... The iron arbour and tuteurs are also things I designed and had a local iron craftsman make for me:
    {{gwi:169404}}
    I like making things - but welding iron is beyond me! :-) Mario said 'if you can draw it, I can build it' - he was fun to work with but is retired now.

    Thanks mxk3 - green and serene is my major goal - for the backyard in particular.

    anitamo - the panel idea is a good one - I've given some thought to the possibility of doing something that would create a trompe-l'oeil arbour/gate implying the garden continues into the distance... I think it would take perhaps more work than I want to do at this point so I'll probably go with a tree/shrub if I can. But I still have a yen to do something trompe-l'oeil somewhere....!

    This post was edited by woodyoak on Sun, Jul 7, 13 at 12:06

  • prairiemoon2 z6b MA
    10 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    woody, I have had the same problem with clematis that doesn’t look like what it is labeled, but I bought mine from Bluestone Perennials and figured that I needed to buy them from a more specialized clematis grower. That ‘Nike’ has a nice fat shape to the blooms, I like it.

    That’s interesting that you don’t prune back your group 3 clematis. I usually end up with only a few stems from the base and I keep thinking if I keep pruning it hard every spring, I will get more new stems from the ground, but that hasn’t happened. So If I don’t prune it, I will still have lower stems that are lanky and bare, right? Is there some specific ‘clematis fertilizer’? I’ve been using Planttone and think it is doing okay.

    That’s a good looking ‘Wolf Eyes’ I really like that tree and wish I had room for one. I'm not sure I enjoy the white variegation and the golden variegation together either. I usually try to keep them in separate areas.

  • woodyoak zone 5 southern Ont., Canada
    Original Author
    10 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    pm2 - we were out shopping this afternoon and stopped at a garden center on the way home - I now have a 'Golden Showers' dogwood - and also one called 'Prairie Fire'...! So tomorrow I'll have to figure out the best placement of those two to fit into the golden area and try to hide that shed. And then I have to keep them alive - not the best time of year to be planting shrubs!!

    I'm not sure why everyone seems to have anxiety attacks about bare clematis stems:-) Nobody objects to bare tree trunks.... The solution is pretty simple - plant something at the base to hide them if they bother you or if the trellis/support itself doesn't hide them. I never even notice them. In fact, like the one at the corner of the garage, quite often the clematis seems to have side stems quite low to the ground. Since new clematis stems can be quite brittle/easily broken, sometimes woodier stems are an advantage. For instance, since my clematis swag is along a narrow path, there is a reasonable risk that the stems could get broken off as people (and dogs) use the path. But, if the stems get mature enough to be woody, there is less liklihood of them getting broken. And you can always cut the clematises back if you need to and they will regrow. In 2010 when we took out the New Dawn roses that were on the south gate arbour we had to cut back hard both the Clematis montana and the Jackmani Superba clematis that also grew there. The montana is a group 1 'no prune' and the Jackmani is a group 3 'hard prune'. Neither of them had ever been cut back for at least 7 years. Both were vigorously growing back by the fall and both are very happy now - with the addition of new clematis companions that are also not being pruned. So try a year or two of not pruning - you really have nothing to lose by trying it to see how they do.... You'll probably want to shake the vines a bit in spring to help loosen and knock off the dried leaves from the previous year just to neaten it up a bit if the leaves haven't fallen off on their own - usually only an issue at the top of the arbour....

    As to clematis fertilizer - around here it's pretty common to see various brands of fertilizer labelled as 'clematis fertilizer'. I just buy one of those, not really paying attention to brand names. They tend to be relatively low in nitrogen relative to P and K. Rose or tomato fertilizer would likely work just as well.

    Pictures re unpruned clematis on the south gate arbour:

    July 2010 before clearing to remove the roses:
    {{gwi:165285}}

    July 2010 after clearing all plants off the arbour:
    {{gwi:168820}}

    July 2011
    {{gwi:169484}}

    I don't seem to have any good pictures from the front for 2012 so these are from the back:
    June 21 2012
    {{gwi:158286}}

    July 13 2012
    {{gwi:253228}}

    Recovery was quick for the cut-back clematises. See any bare stems at the base that bother you....?

  • prairiemoon2 z6b MA
    10 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Woody, how exciting, now that was quick work! lol I hope that ‘Golden Showers’ does the trick in your gold bed. I did want to point out, that I had to go back and look up the name of the plant I have, before I suggested it, because on google, there was both a ‘Golden Shadows’ and a ‘Golden Showers’ and mine is the ‘Shadows’ which is a tree that gets to be 12-15 ft x 15-20ft wide. I wonder if they are not the same plant? The photos online look very similar. I will try to get a photo of mine tomorrow to post for comparison.

    And I had not heard of a Cornus ‘Praire Fire’, but I see Monrovia offers one. Now that sounds like just what I need. Even the name is right up my alley. I assume it does not sucker? I didn’t find a lot of information on it. I see it has white fruit like the Gray Dogwood. Whereas the 'Golden Showers' has black fruit, which should be pretty against the gold foliage, too.

    As for planting them now, you have the advantage of having a shady garden, that helps. I wonder if you have tried soaker hoses? I’m sure you will do your usual great job. :-)

    You’re very brave to have cut those clematis back to the ground when they were SO beautiful! And I see how quickly they came back up for you. I will definitely try letting mine go without pruning for awhile. And the fertilizer I’ve used is a general all purpose organic granular fertilizer but the brand I use also has a TomatoTone version, which I use on roses and other blooming plants, so I might switch to that for the clematis. Thanks for that suggestion and all the explanatory photos.

    Looking forward to updates when you add the new shrubs. :-)

  • woodyoak zone 5 southern Ont., Canada
    Original Author
    10 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    PM2 I did get the Golden Shadows - typo...

    Prairie Fire is supposed to 'fill out to the ground' but I can't find anything re suckering, so I'll keep an eye on that...

    I used soaker hoses when I did the initial planting under the pines years ago, but they've been removed. We were able to water enough to keep the Wolf Eyes alive when we planted that at a less than optimal time, so hopefully we can do it again!

    I'll post a photo after we plant today's purchases!

    Experiment, experiment re the clematises. I doubt you'd regret leaving them unpruned for a while just to see how they do.

  • prairiemoon2 z6b MA
    10 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    I just noticed that 'Prairie Fire' is Cornus alba, which is the same as my 'Ivory Halo' and that does not sucker in any meaningful way. Unlike the gray dogwood, Cornus racemosa which is the one that suckers so much.

  • rouge21_gw (CDN Z5b/6a)
    10 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Earlier this spring I saw a "Golden Shadows" dogwood at a nursery. It was stunning. I came an inch from impulse buying it on the spot but it would grow much too large for any free spot I might have had.. I wonder how much shade it can take and still do its stuff?

    Anyways with all this rain 'woody', this is the perfect time for planting!

    This post was edited by rouge21 on Tue, Jul 9, 13 at 5:54

  • woodyoak zone 5 southern Ont., Canada
    Original Author
    10 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    rouge - we're certainly going to find out how much shade the Golden Shadows can take! The place it'll be going is under white pine canopy as well as under the old spruce canopy from the trees in the neighbour's yard with the ugly shed! I'll plant it a bit to the left so it'll get some light from the break in the canopy near where the Wolf Eyes dogwood is.

    It's going to be interesting to see how dry the ground is when we plant. That big T-storm in Toronto yesterday didn't affect us here - we only got 11mm. The evergreen tree canopy in the 'golden' area sheds a lot of water so it takes a long, hard rain to really soak the ground under there and we haven't had one of those in about 3 weeks although we've had a reasonable amount of lighter rains.

    I hope you weren't on that GO train yesterday!

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