Last week my garden was on the annual tour for The Holden Garden Club (of which I am a member) and I took it as a great opportunity to not only assess the garden, but to assess the gardener as well.

As for the garden…… given the poor soil in many areas and the cold wet weather we have been having which only serves to encourage the fungal spores here to take over the world …it is really not in bad shape. There are two roses that have been fighting black spot for their second season now, so they will get the heave-ho next spring when the clematis plants that are currently climbing on them can be cut back. I was very annoyed having to pull off all the icky leaves for the tour even thought the roses don’t seem to care at all and are thriving despite the malady.

A few other plants need to be yanked here and there , and several need replacing like the chamaecyparis psifera ‘sun king’  that suffered terrible winter burn and the chamaecyparis  obtusa ‘Nana Lutea’ that has looked sickly since the day it arrived here ( the nursery owner blamed the failure to thrive on me  for removing the burlap wrap from the base even though I argued that leaving the burlap on has been proven to be detrimental to trees and thus I refuse to patronize his place anymore and I am tempted to send him the reciepts of the plants I have purchased elsewhere so he can grieve my absence.)

On the plus side of things , the iris and peony had a great year  as all the now two year old transplants are mature enough to put on quite a show.Many of the groundcovers (moss phlox, dainthus, drift roses and  the awesome new hybriid purple iberis called ‘Absolutely Amethyst’ )are  blooming, as are the penstemons and a few of the lavendar species. The rabbits are still around, but do far less damage when the plants are larger for the most part , although the entire edge of the border in the Dog  Garden was clipped clean of hosta leaves overnight leaving a path of bare stems that elicited a few comments and/or giggles.

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.My clematis and roses never fail me when it is time to show off the garden. For this tour I had a large number of both in bloom and they really add so much to the borders they adorn. This is Rosa ‘New Dawn’

and an unknown (gift from my mother) red climber

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.As for the gardener,I have come a long way in letting people comment on my garden without breaking down and thus was able to go into the tour with these two scenarios that in an earlier year would have given me fits of anxiety

1.) in an odd case of I-can’t remember -what- happened- here-itis I evidently pulled out a few plants and failed to replace them. I have a vague recollection that the sprinklers were not reaching this part of the garden and whatever was there was stressed, but then  memory fails. The day before the tour when I was doing a weed check, I glanced at the hole, thought about running to the nursery, then shrugged it off and put it on my to-do list to figure out what plant will fill the space and solve the problem. Not adding a  band-aid -plant of whatever I could find at the nearest nursery  was a HUGE breakthrough for me.

2.) There are several places where I have located shrubs that WILL be large, but as of now are very SMALL ( some due to the rabbit problems some due to the fact that I ordered them online and  shipped plants are generally  smaller ). In the past I would rush to fill this area with temporary plants to fill out the garden while they grow, but the new and improved Cheryl  just let it go. My thought process was, there is a shrub there, it will get big, it needs all that space and if it bothers you…oh well!

Hosting a group of gardeners through my space with that attitude is very unlike me , but felt very freeing in the end.

3.) As I was taking a small group around, someone commented that they  would have not noticed all the negative things I was so carefully pointing out to them, that the garden was beautiful and maybe I should pipe down . Good advice. Thank you.

4.) I have gotten to the point where I have so many separate gardens and spaces that I am forgetting plant names and locations. One member asked me about the clematis I had planted to climb into my lilacs, and I responded that I had no idea what she was talking about, I have no clematis climbing in my lilacs. Which is true….for the lilacs in the Lilac Bed. However,  there IS clematis growing into the species lilac and the ‘Donald Wyman’ in the Dog Garden, I just apparantly forgot even though she insisted they were there. Hmmmmm.

I also can not remember many plant or cultivar names when asked and will work on maybe labeling some things ( ha-ha can you hear me laughing? let us be honest here,that will never happen!)

I will however, and did on the day of the tour, offer to retrieve the book and large ziploc bag that hold all my labels and plant info if anyone would really like a plant name.

I saw many a suspicious look when I identified what was clearly a thistle as a sea-holly, though no one was rude enough to tell me I was not even in the same family let alone cultivar name. Ladies, the plant in question is and always will be echinops and my apologies.

Also, the geranium is question was geranium dalmaticum ‘DragonHeart’, the salvia is ‘Royal Crimson Distinction’  and the dianthus is dianthus gratianopoltanus ‘Firewitch’.