Dahlias: dem, dos, dese

Dahlias, clockwise from upper left: Karras 150, Rose Toscano, Normandy Painted Pearl, Pink Princess, Rae Ann's Peach, Roxy


Every fall, I second-guess that year's dahlia selection: "Why didn't I opt for something dark?" "Maybe I should have planted another one of those?" "Am I bored with collarettes yet?"

The mosaic above shows the current selection of backyard blooms. My second guesses run something like: "Yes, why indeed didn't I opt for something dark?"  "Why is Normandy Painted Pearl so shaggy this year?" "Thank goodness I missed digging up that Rae Ann's Peach tuber last fall, so it came up early this summer!" "What was that tuber marked 'WP' that never grew? White Perfection?"

Next year, I'm thinking less Normandy Painted Pearl and more American Dawn. Shadow Cat or Crossfield Ebony? Is it time to order yet?

Sungold harvest

This year, I planted two pots of "Sungold" cherry tomatoes, along with the usual container of "Sugary" grape tomatoes.  The good news is that we now have lots of cherry tomatoes, even after the low-hanging fruit has been harvested by the local bunnies.  This plate is holding about half of what ripened up over the Labor Day weekend.

The not-so-good news is that in comparison with the sweet grape tomatoes, these cherry tomatoes taste bitter. Maybe it wouldn't be noticeable if there was only one crop but with the sugary competition, these cherry tomatoes are also-rans.  And, while the tomato fruits are perfect saffron-colored spheres, the plants' growth habit is slovenly, sprawling, and downright shabby.

A few are being eaten straight off the vine (by humans), but most have been regulated to cooking tomatoes.  They are serving in pasta dishes and ratatouille and as salad garnish.  Did I mention that we now have lots of them?  Oh, yeah. Maybe next year, we'll have none.

Damp drought

Although we have been suffering through a string of blastingly sunny hot summer days, one corner of the garden is absolutely flourishing.

The raingarden is over-flowing with black-eyed Susans (Rudbeckia fulgida "Goldsturm"), Joe Pye Weed (Eupatorium maculatum "Gateway"), and Northern sea oats (Chasmanthium latifolium).

And that's because even during this drought, we have plenty of water running through this area. Our two-year old French drain is very effectively catching water as it flows down the back hillside. By the end of each steaming hot day, the standing water in the raingarden has evaporated, leaving just a margin of damp silt.

But by the next morning, water has pooled again.

Despite the French drain, the grass downhill is damp and squishy. And water is rising to the ground surface just uphill. What to do?

I am thinking that this hillside stream might have to helped along: removing the sod, inserting a series of flat stones to ladder and guide the flow, and edging the course with some marsh ferns (Thelypteris palustris), a low growing goldenrod (Solidago canadensis "Baby Gold"), and a dwarf sweet flag grass (Acorus gramineus "Golden Ogon").

This re-visioning was totally inspired by (soggy feet every morning and) a recent ramble through a profusion of Joe Pye Weed, goldenrod, cattails and loosestrife in the wetter parts of our local conservation land at Rock Meadow.

Yellow, purple, green, and pink. I'm in.

Traveling the High Line

I took advantage of an early Sunday morning during last weekend's trip to Manhattan to explore the High Line. I'd read a lot about this smart, sensitive, and refreshingly whimsical re-visioning of the urban landscape.  Originally built in Lower Manhattan during the 1930's as an elevated railway, the High Line tracks were laid through the center of buildings in order to collect goods without affecting street traffic.  Since it was decommissioned in 1980, the derelict railway has been in eyesore. Starting in 1999, a group of inspired activists initiated a move to re-use this urban space.  Much work later, in June 2009, Section I (Gansevoort Street to 20th Street) opened to the public.

Because of its elevation, long urban vistas unroll from all angles.  A cross-town canyon stretches beyond a screen of Joe Pye weed (Eupatorium purpureum "Gateway"),  purple coneflowers (Echinacea purpurea "Vintage Wine"), and broadleaf ironwood (Vernonia glauca).

The quintessential New York skyline of a rooftop water tank on a block-built modernist building is softened by foreground grasses.

Rather than trying to force the High Line into the ill-fitting form of a romantic garden or a greensward park, the designers played with its abandoned urban history:  they incorporated lots of native plants, like this familiar wasteland tree (oh, what is its name?) and Ohio goldenrod (Solidago ohioensis), and included species that had been growing on the tracks.

The plant selections are in tonal harmony with the reds, greys, and browns of the built environment.  Here, layers of grasses, silvery coneflowers (Echinacea purpurea "Jade"), and pale pink American boneset (Eupatorium perfoliatum) echo the stone facade behind.

  
The seed heads of  many flowering plants, like these drumstick alliums, remained intact, giving just the right mix of color and texture.

How great that the park attendant I asked could give me the Latin names of the plants I asked about!  But there were so many varieties I was interested in.  Next time, I'll bring a copy of that month's plant list with me!

A couple of days after my visit, the Rockefeller Foundation awarded to the High Line founders the 2010 Jane Jacobs Medals. Congratulation to the most deserving recipients whose work "creates new ways of seeing and understanding New York City, challenges traditional assumptions, and creatively uses the urban environment to make New York City a place of hope and expectation."  And forward to the future!

Hard pruning

"This thing is out of control," groused my husband as he slipped under a spray of "New Dawn" rose canes blocking his entry through the kitchen door.  "What the heck are you feeding that?" asked my neighbor from his yard next door.  "Yikes!" I thought when I saw the tussle of rose blossoms clambering up to a second floor window.

Such was the impetus for my most despised gardening activity: rose pruning.  I have to admit--as if I could claim otherwise in the flowery face of the evidence--that I had kind of let things go.  A couple of years, I really couldn't prune because I didn't want to disturb the birds nesting in the arbor.  Another year, it was just too dang hot.  My mother, an excellent rosarian, was no longer around to take up the task.   Meantime, canes sprouted, curved, flopped, and grew some more.

With several days of cool, clear weather forecast, I set to pruning every evening after work.  After more than five hours teetering on a ladder and after accumulating over five bags of clippings, I can say that I'm done.

It was hard to prune, and I pruned darn hard. My mother's rallying cry--"Whack it out!"--spurred me along.  She was a ferocious rose pruner--my tender-hearted father couldn't even bear to be around when she was wielding her clippers--and every time that I wondered WWMD, I knew the answer was cut, cut, cut.

Anything that was where it shouldn't be was snipped off.  (Almost all) distorted canes were removed.  Deadwood was clipped.  New canes were tied to the arbor.  A good 1 1/4 cup of Rose-Tone was scratched in around the roots.

And then, among the debris of shorn branches, there was even the thank you of a few last blooms!