My oldest son is getting married this weekend. Although I am not doing the flowers for the wedding we are having the rehearsal dinner here and I am making a few arrangements for the  tables. One will sit  where the bar is set up, and the others are for the guest tables to be set amid votive candles. We will hopefully be outside, the party is an old fashioned New England clambake , so is casual and relaxed. I chose an enamel  coffee set meant for camping as the containers and went out to  see what I could  grab from the garden. I came in with hydrangeas ( annabelle and one of the many blues) , berries from symphoricarpos, eryngium yuccafolium, a variegated tall sedum with white flowers , and a couple of dahlias.

Enjoy your weekend, I know we will  enjoy ours!

it’s the simple things that make me happiest

I can’ say that August is ever down time for me in the garden. I mean, it totally could be if i wanted it  to because if I keep up with the weeding and deadheading ( which requires a commitment of 10 min a day) then there really is nothing to do except the odd day of watering or pruning here and there. What happens just about every year , out of boredom truthfully, is I rip stuff out . This year is no different EXCEPT that there are complicating matters.

Back in May 2014 my oldest son got engaged. They wanted a simple outdoor wedding and said “We’ll just have it in the yard”. My response?  OOOOOOOOH no you won’t!  You may wonder why I would refuse my first born and also give up an opportunity to show off the garden, and the answer is not what you may think…..it has to do with port-a potties. our family is large, so even a small immediate family- only gathering is quite a large number. Add in her family, and now we have exceeded the ability to provide adequate potty service for everyone and I have a borderline crazy -town aversion to portable toilets. I won’t use one, I don’t want to see or smell them and i certainly do not want some large truck with some sort of cutsie name  like  ‘Throne Depot ‘ dropping any off in my yard. Nope. Not a chance. So we relocated the wedding to  Wachusett Mountain which has loads of real flushable potties with sinks and running water and decided to just have the rehearsal dinner here.  It will be a New England Clambake with all the fixins’, catered, so I thought easy-peasy.

At the same time we have been dealing with the replacement of the decking around the pool, or as i like to call it ‘The Project From Hell’  and after firing the first company, starting the process all over again, redsesigning the whole thing and hiring a new company, this project that started when there was still 4 feet of snow on the ground is yet to have begun. Of course they have called and set up our start time right after the big event, so the pool area , which has been in a sorry state since we opened it in May, has descended into a full blown mess as we had to start ripping out the existing landscaping   before they get going with the pavers. Add in a garden tour planned by a local garden society who will be here in early September, and you may say with confidence that I am overwhelmed.

I know, I know, I do these things to myself, but why does it always work out this way?

This week I actually hired some help to take out 4 overgrown shrubs that needed to go. Great decision on my part if I do say so myself. Now this weekend we only have to dig out what is left of 2 of the stumps,  take out the crappy soil from the areas and replace it with compost and loam, paint the areas of the fence that were hidden by the shrubs and are now exposed, move everything off the deck to make room for the caterers and stain it while it is empty, move a large stand of ‘Sum and Substance’ hosta which are HUGE, hang lights around the area where we will set up the tables, bring a bunch of stuff we are clearing out ( old umbrellas , the kids old pool basketball sets etc) to the recycle center, and then we can move on to tidying the garden for visitors.

Without whining I will tell you that we spent all of this past week going to medical appointments with my youngest daughter , who is thankfully in year 9 post cancer treatment. Every once in a while all her appointments clump together and they take priority over everything else. Today was the last of them except the eye dr which is next week so now i can focus on the tasks at hand. Well,  I can sort of focus since my dress fitting has yet to even be scheduled, the deck company  is coming for a site visit, I have to make the arbor decorations for the wedding service……sigh.

I know it will all get done. I know I work best under pressure. I got this…I think.

Meanwhile let’s look at what has been going on here in the garden without me……ending with the obligatory cute corgi photo 

I am named after no one in particular. I know because I asked. I asked because I have always hated my name and wondered why of all the names out there Cheryl was chosen for me. My parents  and their families  are Polish. Our roots in this country are barely established. They are also strongly Catholic, again a very defining affiliation, so  I guess I would have expected I would have a Polish, or at least a Biblical name. Not so much.

Names fascinate me, because at least up until recently ( in most cases other than my own,)  a name usually told a story, or at least some small part of one. They connect you to a history, a culture, a family. My brother in law was telling me about a friend of theirs who, while in the maternity ward with their youngest, was taking record of the other baby names and could not help but be horrified to see this name on a bassinet…..La-ah. To the uninitiated,  that would be pronounced lahdashah, but the letters in “dash” are represented by the symbol  – .

It makes me sad to think how disconnected this child will always be. Made up names, especially ones that are so beyond normal rules of pronunciation and comprehension , do not ground you to anything. They say nothing  endearing about who you are or where you came from, and that is always how I felt about mine. Cheryl was not a popular movie star name, had no clear affiliation with a race of people or country of origin, no great story of why that name belongs to me exists.  To boot, I have never had a nickname, or a cute abbreviation, leaving me only the one icky  and unconnected name.

Somehow, conversely,  that has translated to me always being very curious about names, which has naturally led to an obsession with plants names and the consequent study of them in both their common and botanical Latin form .

The plant I am talking about today has more names than any one thing should have. It has common names referencing a country, someones offspring, , a bird, several other plants, and even a weapon.

It has been botanically named and renamed until i am no longer sure what is the correct and current one to use.

to whit….it is a member of the Iris family ( iridacea) yet called variously an orchid and a lily.

It It is a gladiolus, yet  has born the name acidanthera

It has been known in botanical Latin  as Gladiolus callianthus ( beautifully flowered)

Gladioulus murielae ( after botanist Ernest Wilson’s daughter Muriel)

Acidanthera bicolor ( obvious when you see it bloom)

Acidanthera murielae

and commonly as Abyssinian gladiolus ( from Ethiopia)

Peacock orchid

Fragrant gladiolus and

Sword lily

Yikes. Anyway, just pick one and call it that . I will stick to Peacock Orchid for now, because I am sensitive to yucky names, and personally like that one. Peacock orchids, unlike other gladiolus are graceful . They nod instead of standing ramrod straight and are anything but funereal. They are planted out as little corms, here (Z5) in late spring after frost or even a little before, and by midsummer have grown to 2-3 ft and start blooming. The flowers are a creamy white with a maroon center, and mildly fragrant. .

There are many great reasons to love this plant. First..it is dirt cheap. you can get the corms anywhere and plant them in the ground or in pots. They are only hardy to zone 7, but in colder areas  if you lift them at the end of the season and store them in perlite over the winter in your house, you can plant the old bulbs as well as all of the offsets they produced next year, This translates to $$$ saved on annuals .As someone who gardens on an acre and plants as many as 50 containers a year, cost matters. I warmer areas they will multiply if left in the ground..

Secondly, you can easily stagger the bloom time by planting the corms in waves , and if you do this in pots, will have many plants to  place in any  area that needs a pick me up  when the long summer takes it’s toll on the garden. You can move the growing plants from the pot into the ground , drop the pots into more decorative pots, or place them pots and all in the ground. Your choice, all will work.

Third, they are easy. They are full sun plants, but will tolerate part shade and so far they have suffered no pest damage here. I have them growing in the ground and in 3 different containers and they all look beautiful. In one container I have a black eyed susan vine working its way up their stalks and into the tree above them, which was a brilliant idea if I do say so myself.

Peacock orchids  combine very well with other containers plants both when it has just its dramatic foliage as well as when it is is bloom because the color is subtle.

Whatever you call it, be sure add it to your “need to plant” list next spring

Every one in a while I become completely enamored with a plant, or a group of plants, In the past few years I have all but become obsessed with the genus hydrangea. Until recently I did not have enough shadier areas and soil moisture is always a concern, so I stuck with the paniculatas like ‘Limelight’ and grandiflora, and  for 4 years have been doing a blooming experiment moving around an ‘Endless Summer’ and ‘Penny Mac’. I also have two old macrophyllas, ‘Nikko Blue’ and an unnamed lace cap that have been here since the garden originated and will only bloom if the weather is  conducive.

But lately I have been adding hydrangeas  in wherever I can eek out space, or even evicting other plants in some cases (gasp)!

I have posted on my faves and the ones I have found to reliably bloom in colder climates, and now am branching out to try other species that are listed as hardy to higher zones but may in fact be hardy here…only time will tell!

The first I am going to tell you  about is hydrangea involucrata. The species in native to Japan and Tawaiin and is often called bracted hydrangea.  it is a close relative of h. aspera  but it stays much smaller …3-4 ft where aspera can get 10-12 ft.

The flower buds are really fascinating as they are involucral ( the word comes from the Latin for wrapper) and consist of a rosette or whorl of bracts that surround the flower cluster which  remains enveloped or wrapped  until bursting open to slowly reveal the opening flowers. I think they look like wee little eggs.

The cultivar I planted this year is called ‘Yokudanka’ which  blooms in a undefined color, sort of pinkish-green tinged cream with soft yellow at the centers.  They sort of remind me colorwise  of the flowers on hydrangea quercifolia ‘Snowflake’.The leaves are bristly which makes it a great rabbit resistant choice .

So far I have discovered a few things about it. It does not appreciate being let dry out, so I have a few leaves that are brown around the edges, and it’s leaves have remained bright yellowish green even though I thought they may fade to a deeper  green as the season elapsed. I am committing myself to watering it better, and have taken a few cuttings to overwinter indoors in case it does not survive the winter.

Next on my list is h.involucrata ‘Blue Bunny’,  which flowers blue on acidic soil and is said to bloom on new wood so if it dies back I still should get flowers.  You can get one here  It is listed as hardy  to z6, but in  a sheltered spot I am hoping it will do well.

This is pure speculation, but I think these hydrangeas bloom very late here (  end of July into October) because of the die back and consequently the  necessary time to re-grow , which makes them great additions to the late season garden. Mine is blooming now because it was green house grown so had an earlier start , and boy am I am happy to have it! Fingers crossed I can get it to overwinter , but even if I don’t I will grow it in a container forever and ever, it is a really cool plant!

Tuesday I went with a wildflower look gathering as many smaller and less refined flowers as I could jam in the pitcher including yarrow, indian aster, coreopsis, salvia, rose campion, feverfew, spirea and the first of the sweet peas to put on the porch.

Today it is clematis Betty Corning, Etoille Violette, Pope John Paul, and Comtesse de Bouchard in a little container of test tube vases set on the deck.