Remember

I want to tell you all about our fun first day in our Fall retail season. It was a cool drizzly day in the early morning. It was a hot and exhausting week before. It was a day filled with hope, and some consternation over what details might have been lost. It was a day to cheer the return of customers as old friends, and to meet new ones.


When I was thinking about what this blog might look like, I had these pictures in mind that I took the last few days. I admired the work we'd done, and couldn't wait to show it off.


Somewhere during the afternoon, my attention was turned to the fact that it was September 11. And here I was having such an energizing day instead of one that should perhaps be somewhat somber and retrospective. Then I ran across this lovely poem, and it all seemed to make sense.


I love what we do here. I love the plants, the people who love plants, the sharing of experiences with plants. I have especially enjoyed sharing the evolution of our retail space with Zach and recently with Bradford and Micah and Malissa. It is all better because of their input and hard work. And of course, holding hands with Joe as we plan the future.
So, I hope you enjoyed a glimpse of our week.
Read the poem. Yes, this week we forgot. But we smiled.

Remember

by Christina Rossetti

Remember me when I am gone away,

Gone far away into the silent land;

When you can no more hold me by the hand,

Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.

Remember me when no more day by day

You tell me of our future that you plann'd:

Only remember me; you understand

It will be late to counsel then or pray.

Yet if you should forget me for a while

And afterwards remember, do not grieve:

For if the darkness and corruption leave

A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,

Better by far you should forget and smile

Than that you should remember and be sad.

Whatcha got? I got a New Attitude...

We finally slipped into a real summer here, after a long, cool, gradual spring and a good rainy entry into summer. Recently "real summer" means no rain at all, sweltering heat and just barely breathable levels of humidity. After six weeks of this weather, plants start looking a little ragged, and even the most enthusiastic gardener runs for iced tea and air conditioning. But just as this sweaty season reaches it's most unbearable also come requests for plant availability in the nursery. "Send me your list....what looks good?"..... So, after several weeks of "almost" getting to it, I have reserved this week- as long as it takes- for inventory taking before all else.
I hate inventory. I hate standing out in that hot sun, I hate writing each name, size, location, etc. I hate piling up sheet after sheet, knowing that I won't be finished even when I'm finished until I put it all in the computer. This year I'm trying on a new attitude to help me with inventory. It's going to be a "learning experience" for Zach, so that he can not only learn the inventory- including spelling the names- but also a brief "what does it do?, how do you use it?" session. That lets me talk about the plants....which I love to do. After a day, I think the new strategy is working. I think Zach learned a few things yesterday, and I even had enough energy left to swim and then go home and start entering the data. But the best part of the day yesterday was the face to face reminder of some of the plants we grow for just this season.

There's Hydrangea involucrata for example. It is a lacecap, but hardly looks like a hydrangea at all with it's fuzzy leaves. But those fuzzy leaves look great, and it's all budded up and starting to bloom now, just when most other Hydrangeas look tired and washed out. And how about Clematis heracleifolia 'Blue Mood'? This vine is a "leaner", not a "twiner". It's foliage is clean and it's flowers are a deep and clear blue that is sometimes hard to find in the garden. But for sure the mood is cheerful and interesting, and if anyone ever sees it in the garden, they are usually interested. Rosa mutabilis looks fabulous right now, and seems to laugh at heat, humidity and drought. Isn' that a pleasant statement about a rose?


And from the old fashioned gardens of the south, we have Rose of Sharon Hibiscus syriacus in it's double white variety. Unlike the single flowered ones, this double form is sterile, so all you get is clear white flowers- no seedlings!Or another old fashioned plant rarely seen in nurseries these days is the flowering Pomegranate- Punica granatum. The foliage is glossy green, the shrub is still producing it's double orange flowers, and it's also loaded with orangey red fruits.
Speaking of orangey flowers, look at this fantastic perennial! Dicliptera suberecta. It has fuzzy leaves also, in a nice greenish gray tone. Loves the heat; flowers all summer. Another constant flower producer is Abutilon megapotanicum . Both are favorites of hummingbirds.
The thought of plants that shine in August reminded me to get the pictures of my most recent trip to the Atlanta Botanical Garden. Of course you will find all sorts of beautiful displays there, but the succulents in the dry garden are especially astounding. I recommend a trip to your nearest public garden even on a really hot day. I know, it's not something we want to do. But there are all sorts of lessons to be learned that you can take home to your own garden, and it just might give your hot and tired summer brain a reason to sing along with Patti Labelle.......

"Somehow the wires uncrossed, the tables were turned

Never knew I had such a lesson to learn

I'm feelin' good from my head to my shoes

Know where I'm goin' and I know what to do

I tidied up my point of view

I got a new attitude"

A Breath of Fresh Mountain Air

In the southeast, we have this period of time during the middle summer we call "the dog days". What I didn't know about dog days I found at Wikipedia: "In the northern hemisphere they usually fall between early July and early September ...Dog Days can also define a time period or event that is very hot or stagnant, or marked by dull lack of progress. The term "Dog Days" was used by the Greeks, as well as the ancient Romans (who called these days caniculares dies (days of the dogs)) after Sirius (the "Dog Star) ". What I do know is that this term represents the long sultry days of no relief from heat and humidity.
Luckily, Joe and I found our relief in the mountains of North Carolina the last two weekends. July 11th we went to Waynesville to visit our friends Trish and Greg at Rux Gardens (www.ruxgardens.com)
They hosted a meeting of the NC Hosta Society, and I was invited to speak to the group on Conifers for Shade Gardens. We also sold plants as visiting vendors. The weather was crystal clear and cool. The meeting drew a good gathering of really good plantsmen. We also had a wonderful opportunity to meet and talk with Bob and Nancy Solberg from Green Hill Hostas(www.HostaHosta.com) in Chapel Hill, NC. Nothing stagnant or dull about that weekend!

This last weekend, starting Thursday, we drove up to Cashiers, NC, to participate in the Garden Shop associated with the Joy Garden Tour there. This is a fantastic event, sold out well in advance, with a huge catered gala Thursday night, and a tour of some incredible showplace gardens sprinkled across the mountains. (www.villagegreencashiersnc.com/joy_garden_tour.htm) As it turns out, this is also an event that gathers really savvy gardeners and funloving people who breathe a breath of fresh air into midsummer. Mother nature did the same! We went from sauna to cool blue overnight. We also sold a LOT of plants at a time in the season that is usually a "dry spell". What a difference a mountain rain makes!

There are all sorts of gardens

I've been getting out and visiting my garden friends. It has been a delightful tour of plants and personalities. Plants that make up the gardens, and personalities who pick the plants that make the personality of the gardens. Joe and I stopped in to Charlotte's lovely woodland garden a couple of weeks ago. This garden is a gem of a shade plant garden, chocked full of delicious combinations, textures, special objects and "garden moments". Charlotte is a gem of a gardener. She takes meticulous notes, pays attention to the smallest details, asks lots of questions, has every plant catalog I think she's ever gotten, and knows everyone around who gardens. She's a bundle of fun filled energy packed into a small space, and her garden reflects just that.

Barbie also has a shade garden, but on a much larger scale in many ways. Barbie's expansive eye for texture and fun has taken her in a completely different direction. Hers is the home of the "big leaf" plant. She's got Fatsias and Farfugiums, Colocasias and Alocasias, Musas in several colors, bigleaf Japanese Maples, hydrangeas, and Xanthosomas. But she doesn't stop there. In our hot and humid south, roses are usually a garden bust. Only the most studied and determined and diligent of gardeners even bothers to try. But she is the one who can pull it off, and in huge bouquets. Then there's her growing conifer collection, grasses, agaves and alpinias to bind the big plants together. She keeps records of growth rates, rainfall, temperature. She tops all this off with a full coop of Rhode Island Reds and Bard Rocks, and a huge vegetable garden. In other words, there's a "WOW" at every turn.

Now Ozzie's garden......What can I say?? This small reticent man is the opposite of his garden. He lets his rare, regal, unique plants speak for him. They tell of expeditions to China, Viet Nam, Europe and Japan; of collections of seed along mountain ridges and purchase of plants from the most sacred and secret nursery stashes; of breeding for the most exquisite, the most useful, the most desirable of plants. I've been to Ozzie's many times. I can't even get my fingernails into the breadth of his collection, much less a grasp on the true character of this incredible garden. Quietly, deliberately, patiently he answers my questions. Loudly and insistently this week's explosion of flowers or fruit or color call to me from nooks and crannies all over his garden. I could visit once a week for years and learn a completely new lesson every week.

My most recent trip was not to visit a garden. Yet as I go through my pictures, I must include Saultopaul in the lineup of plants and personalities. My friend Susan is an artist with a fine eye and skilled hand for the most minute detail. At her NW Georgia farm, she has used nature as her palette with that same skill, and orchestrated the components to their best advantage. Susan is a reader. Susan is a thinker. Susan is a moss gardener. Susan can take the most minimal of nature's elements and show me how to see them in rich and meaningful ways.

John Muir said "In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks"

No kidding......

With Pleasure

One of the very best things about working with plants is other people who work with plants. I could spend a lot of time theorizing about what makes this true but the theories don't matter. Plant people are just great, and that's a fact.
This year's rain has rejuvenated gardens and gardeners alike. In the last few weeks, I have had the great pleasure to visit some great gardeners, and to enjoy their gardens with them. For me, this is the ultimate plant experience. Out of doors in the late Georgia spring, fabulous settings, incredible collections of magnificent plants all come together to teach me how much I have to learn, and how much I will look forward to it. Walking through Willis Harden's garden in Commerce with him was like walking back in time in every sense. To be sure, his garden has some age and stature to it. He has been carefully crafting it for 50 years, and it shows. He knows every plant. No, not just the name of every plant, but the actual plant: where he got it, how he got it, when he planted it, what the weather was like when he planted it, when it first bloomed, how it fared in ice and snow..... From the specimen Windmill Palms (Trachycarpus fortunei) to the large drifts of Pachysandra procumbens;
from Magnolia sieboldii to the largest collection of
Rhododendron I have ever seen; great care has gone into assembling the garden as a perfect companion to the glorious setting that Homeplace Garden occupies.
On a completely different level, when I immersed myself in the garden, I lost track of the tick of my internal clock: my daily routines, the things that distract and nag at me, the things I need to do or have done poorly. We spent the day tromping and strolling, and tucked a heavenly lakeside picnic in between. Time to digest good food, and the delicious bites of wit and wisdom this group could offer. It just doesn't get any better than this. This was a day well spent, and each moment cherished.
One of my favorite poems comes to mind when I think about this wonderful experience.

The Summer Day
by Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean--
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down--
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?


Can't wait.... Ozzie's garden tomorrow.......

Purple Haze

"Purple Haze all in my brain..."

It's been a long time since Jimi Hendrix lyrics floated thru my head. But that was certainly the tune I was playing when I wandered thru the garden over the weekend. It was not a flashback to my old college days or anything; just a good accompaniment to the "Ah ha!" moment I had when I saw my
Cotinus x 'Grace'.



She seems to be blooming a little early this year, maybe because of the continued rain we've had, and the relatively cool temps. The other smoke trees are in bloom, too. I've got a regular green _Cotinus coggygria, and a

Cotinus coggygria 'Velvet Cloak'
and a pretty nifty little Cotinus coggygria called 'Pop's Pink Champagne'. But none compare to the stature and depth of color that 'Grace' has. Somehow Smoke Trees have gotten the reputation of being fussy or hard to grow in the Southeast. I can't for the life of me figure out why. I have several trees in full blazing all day sun with only mulch to help them thru the last two year drought. I have a couple of Pink Champagnes and the Royal Cloak in full shade. None has shown any problem in any cultural situation, and all have bloomed routinely every year. When I look them up on the NC State website (one of my favorite reference sites) there is nothing there to suggest anything but the same success I've had with these delightful and unusual shrubby trees. The fall color is also outstanding. Check out www.cotinus.net or http://www.cas.vanderbilt.edu/bioimages/species/coob2.htm for other pictures and descriptions. Check out your local retail garden store. If they don't carry smoke trees, ask them why not? Once you get to know these beauties- especially Grace - you'll find yourself humming along.....

"whatever it is, that girl's put a spell on me..."

Fringe Trees

Do you remember when we cut the flowers that were in bloom; when we ate what was in season? Yeah, I'm old enough to remember looking forward to the German iris bloom in my grandmother's rows and to asparagus and soft shelled crab in early spring. Seems like most things are available without wait these days. But we miss the anticipation.


Right now in my garden both the American and Chinese Fringe trees are in full glorious flower. It's not the azalea and dogwood that herald spring for me, but these two beauties. Nothing can substitute for the rare and delicate nature of the flowers, for the staggering impact of a large tree full of them, nor for the fleeting nature of the experience.
Chionanthus virginicus flower
Chionanthus retusus flower

Chionanthus retusus habit



Feast on these pictures for now. The flowers are already fading. Go quickly to find one up close. Smell that faint sweet fragrance that just smells perfectly like spring. Remember the lines from that old Tom Waits song...

I never saw the morning 'til I stayed up all night
I never saw the sunshine 'til you turned out the light
I never saw my hometown until I stayed away too long
I never heard the melody, until I needed a song.... (San Diego Serenade)

Enjoy them now. Look forward to them forever after.