Dixter Comes to Peterborough

Gardening buddy and author of Anemone Times, Heleln O'Donnell, called with a couple of hours notice to say she and two gardening friends from her days at Great Dixter would like to visit my garden. They were having coffee downtown and had admired the Pavilion Garden (my last post) at Depot Park and Helen thought they might like to see my private garden. Helen has done two stints as a garden student at Great Dixter. Her friend Yannick Boulet is currently a gardener at Great Dixter and Emma Seniuka is a recent Dixter alumni now working at Chanticleer as the Head Gardener in the Cut-flower and Vegetable Garden. I hadn't lifted a finger in the garden for weeks, so I warned them that the garden wasn't quite ready for prime time and invited them over.

Fellow blogger and Dixter Student, Helen O'Donnell, Section Gardener at Chanticleer, Emma Seniuk, and Dixter Gardener for 3 years running, Yannick Boulet in my Upper Garden.

Everyone wanted me to identify the grass in the upper garden: Calamagrostis brachytricha, seen here deep in the garden with Aster 'Little Carlow', Hibiscus acetosella 'Maple Sugar' and Ligustrum sinensis 'Variegata', Salvia 'Indigo Spires' and Mina lobata and Cuphea 'Bat Face'

Rubus thibetanus was another plant they all knew and liked. I am planning to save a division for Helen's VT garden.

Acer triflorum foliage burned bright orange and formed a backdrop to the Upper Garden and The Hall With Balls.

Cobaea scandens was still in bloom covering the arch dividing The Hall With Balls and the Lower Garden.

I got to show them my brand new planting on the slope in the Woodland Garden. It was quite sparse but the colors gave a suggestion of the show that hopefully be a pretty picture in a few years: Rhus coppalina, Callicarpa bodinieri 'Profusion', Hydrangea quercifolia 'Snowqueen', Rhus aromatica 'Gro-Low', Vaccinium angustifolium, Arctostaphylos uva-ursi and Lindera glauca var. angustifolia

Disanthus cercidifolius and Helleborus foetidus was a combination I thought looked sensational in the Woodland Garden. Everyone seemed to agree. I had mentioned to Yannick that Christopher Lloyd's book Succession Planting for Year-round Pleasure had given me many ideas for the mixed border in the Upper and Lower Gardens but I forgot to tell Emma how the Asian Woods at Chanticleer have been an indispensable inspiration for the Woodland Garden. I have been very fortunate to have several gardening mentors over the years; some, sadly, are now no longer with us. It was a great pleasure for me to have members of the next generation of great gardeners come to for a visit.

Depot Park Ready for 'Peak into Peterborough'

Saturday, October 19 is the Greater Peterborough Chamber of Commerce's annual fall foliage tour called 'Peak into Peterborough'. We try to make sure the parks are in tip-top shape for the visitors. Depot Park looked particularly good this week. We haven't had a killing frost so many of the gardens remained lush late into the season.

Miscanthus 'Morning Light' compliments the foliage Fagus sylvatica 'Asplenifolia' aka the Fern Leaf Beech.

A path in the park with several Malus 'Sugar Tyme' in full fruit.

The upright foliage and flowers of Molinia litoralis ‘Windspiel’ with Aster oblongifolius 'October Skies' planted at its feet at the Pavilion Garden.

Pennisetum purpureum 'Vertigo', a new grass we tried this year, was a big success. It hasn't had a long enough season to flower but the strap-like burgundy foliage was enough of a show.

The vertical spires of Eupatorium capillifolium in the Pavilion Garden look particularly lovely in the autumn light.

A close up of Eupatorium capillifolium., a native Joe Pye Weed from the South up to Massachusetts. It can become an invasive pest in warmer gardens but it performs well here as an annual: an outstanding textured punctuation point.

Living Room With a View in Late September

 The Lower Garden

The Upper Garden

Boccelli and Putnam in Late September

The view from the Rain Garden at Putnam Park to the Boccelli Garden across Grove Street.

Garden Workshop in Brattleboro, VT Jan 25, 2014

There will be a Garden Workshop on Januray 25, 2014 at the Latchis Theater in downtown Brattleboro, Vermont. It is part of a fundraising effort to restore the historic Latchis Theater. Fellow blogger, Helen O'Donnell, form Anemone Times, will be giving a talk on her experience at Great Dixter. Other speakers include Gordon Hayward, Julie Messervy, and Dan Snow. Sign up soon as only 100 tickets will be sold. For more information, go to latchisarts.org

Freedom Plaza 30 Years Later: Nothing Left to Lose

I've made the pilgrimage to see the work of the late Wolfgang Oehme and James van Sweden at the Freedom Plaza in Washington, DC three times in the last ten years. Each time, I have been sadly disappointed. The last time, about a week ago, it hit me: the plantings that van Sweden considered the birthplace of "The New American Garden" no longer exist--at least not how they were intended. From what I have read in his book Gardening with Nature, the pair began working on the Freedom Plaza, a modernist plaza located a few blocks from the White House, in 1981. They were first asked to plant a dozen huge aluminum containers, designed by landscape architect George E. Patton, on the perimeter of the plaza. The architect, Robert Venturi, requesated that the urns "be planted to look like Edwardian women's hats". There is an iconic photograph of Oehme and van Sweden planting a prototype container in the book Bold Romantic Gardens that has always stuck in my mind as that moment van Sweden was referring to. Today, all that is left in the urns seen in the 1982 photograph of the duo, are the original yuccas surrounded by dead, dried-out plants and trash.

In 1984, Oehme and van Sweden were permitted to remove the solid blocks of yews planted in the twenty-one alcoves along the sidewalk that van Sweden felt looked like "boring concrete". They planted, in their place, a lush mixture of perennials, shrubs and grasses using their newly evolving style. Sadly, many of the alcoves are now empty, several had overgrown shrubs and a handful had the ornamental grasses that were the hallmark of their revolutionary design approach. None of the alcoves were maintained well.

The large fountain at the western end of the plaza was not operating and...

...the proud statue of Kazimierz Pułaski, a Polish soldier who saved the life of George Washington and became a general in the Continental Army looks very sad at the eastern end of the plaza. 

The buzz word of contemporary landscape design is sustainability. But whether it is the High Line in Manhattan or a modest public park in New Hampshire, gardens need to be maintained no matter how low-mainatinance they claim to be. For even a ground-breaking public space designed by masters in their field will be a fleeting achievement without proper maintenance. Lynden B. Miller, the famed public garden designer, states in her book Parks, Plants and People, "Make it gorgeous and they will come. Keep it that way and they will help." We must remember that the "making" may be just as difficult as the "keeping."

More than any other city, more than any other region, the Nation's Capital should represent the finest environment which America can plan and build.

John F. Kennedy, 1961, Freedom Plaza, Washington, DC

The Garden in Late Summer

 Welcome to the Upper Garden

The Lower Garden

The Blue Bench Terrace from the Main Terrace and Woodland Garden Below.

 The Planter on Blue Bench Terrace From the Woodland Garden

A Peek into the Woodland Garden through the multi-stemmed Heptacodium miconioides.