An Iowa Garden

 

 

 

What is it about mailorder nurseries? I'm not aware of any other business sector that is so testy about the behavior of its customers, and spends so much on ink, complaining about it in their catalogues. Either the people who sell plants through the mail are by nature a cranky and inflexible bunch, or gardeners are an ungrateful and demanding lot. Two of my favorite catalogues, Plant Delights and Arrowhead Alpines, always have extensive essays instructing us on how to be a good customer. I've never thought I needed anybody telling me how to behave when buying something, but after this last spring, I'm not so sure. I ordered quite a bunch of plants from Arrowhead, and as we had late snow that spring, it took a while to get them into the garden; when I finally got around to planting them, I found about ten plants missing, and e-mailed the nursery to complain about it. The next day it dawned on me that all the missing plants were dormant tubers, as opposed to potted plants, and I remembered I had put the former in a cold garage closet, rather than in the greenhouse, and had just forgot about them. Now, Bob, the owner of Arrowhead has the reputation of being the soup nazi of the mailorder nursery world, so it was with some trepidation that I called him to explain my mistake, but he was quite nice about it (though on hearing my name, he did say "Oh, you're the guy with the terrible handwriting" hey... I'm a retired doctor). Then this summer I e-mailed Barry Yinger of Asiatica, complaining that my Tricyrtis flava had bloomed purple instead of yellow, obviously being the wrong plant. He was very gracious, promising to make it good with my next order. A few days later, the tricyrtis next to that plant started putting out yellow buds, and I realized I'd just switched the labels. It will be interesting to see if anyone highlights their instructions to the customer in the catalogues they send me this next spring.

 

 

Considering that gardening is one of the most popular hobbies in the country, it is odd that there are so few television shows catering to gardeners. HGTV used to have a couple of very nice garden shows, which after being re-run a couple of hundred times, disappeared altogether, to be replaced by yet more home remodeling shows... I call this channel "HTV", now. I would imagine that it's a question of ad dollars, in that much of the gardening industry is still dominated by smaller businesses, which do not have national advertising budgets. The one show I miss most of all, though was called, I think, Garden Architect, and had three sections each week; the first was the garden architect host (Michael?) touring a garden, the third part was a gorgeous Australian gal making birdhouses and such, wielding a saw and paint while in full makeup, and a silk blouse. The middle segment was my favorite, though: a fellow who would each week stop by somebody's urban home to solve their outdoor decorating problem; usually a dreary little backyard with a view of a garage, or perhaps just a deck overlooking an alley. He obviously had a VERY modest budget for his segment, as his creations were equally modest, bordering on cheesy, and quite similar from week to week. If there was a deck or patio, you could count on him first laying down a square of some type of cheap carpeting (which with the first rain would undoubtedly become permanently wet and mildewed). His next addition was always some inexpensive plastic furniture, then the finishing touch: a couple of old pieces of wrought iron, like a piece of fencing and a couple of iron trivets, which he would nail to the side of the garage, with maybe an old, rusting birdcage hanging from a tree. At the end of his segment, he would show the client around his creation, and here's the part I always watched the show for: with the plastic furniture and whatnots that he placed down, there were naturally certain paths that you would have to take to walk by or through them, and in his presentation, these became grand walkways; it was as if an English Lord was showing you through his 500 acre formal garden. The host would dramatically cast his hand towards the plastic chair and table he had just put down, and say "and as you walk down here to the shady area, you can either walk THIS way, or you can take the longer route and come around THIS way, to go out to the main yard" (meaning you could walk to the left or the right of the plastic chair to get to the garbage can in the alley). God, I loved that show. Once in a while, when I'm showing somebody around our garden, I'll point to a bush or something and say "and here at the rose bush, you can either walk THIS way, or you can take the more scenic route and walk around THIS way", but I know that nobody ever knows why I think that's funny.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Merry Christmas (or is it Happy Holidays) to everyone. My 96 year old aunt is absolutely sharp as a tack, but I've decided her eyesight may be failing a bit; she wrote back to us that she really enjoyed our Christmas card this year, but couldn't figure out HOW we got the kittens to hold still, with those little Santa hats on, and she showed it to three other people in her nursing home, and they couldn't figure it out either!

 

 

 

I'm not sure why, in the middle of winter, that I've been thinking today about the woodland lilies; a group of six genera of plants that are in the lily family: Disporum, Smilacina, Streptopus, Polygonatum, Uvularia, and Disporopsis. I don't grow Streptopus, though S. rosea, or rosy twisted stalk is native to Iowa, and I remember seeing it in the woods as a child. I do have examples of all of the other groups growing here in the garden, and they can be sort of confusing: Disporum has five species in this country, and another thirty five or so in Asia, and are often called merry bells or fairy bells (though the two species in the S.E. of this country are often called mandarins). Uvularia is native just to this country, and look for all the world like Disporums (but they have capsules instead of berries for seed). Iowa has two native Uvularias, which we usually call merry or fairy bells, since we have no Disporums... then there are the Solomon's seals (Polygonatum), the false Solomon's seals (Smilacina), and what are sometimes called evergreen Solomon's seals (Disporopsis). Well, anyway, someday I'm going to write up a real report on all of these, with pictures of all of them we grow... in the meantime you might want to consider growing Disporum flavens (also called flavum, or just for real confusion, in older literature, uniflora). This is also called Korean bellflower or fairy bells. It is usually thought to be the best of the genus, being fairly tall, to two feet, and very healthy and vigorous looking. It is one of those plants (like Jack in the pulpit) that sort of unfolds as it arises in the spring, so it always is interesting to watch; when I first grew it, I thought it had been damaged by frost, as it appeared all crooked and bent over in early April, but then it unfolded and rose up, and bloomed, with its pretty, light lemon yellow flowers.

 

 

For years, I've wanted to put together a database for all of our garden plants. In pre-computer days I did start a couple of notebooks listing some of the plants, but then I'd move, and never had the time to restart a list since moving to our present house, until now. Unfortunately there is a little issue of a foot of snow (it was a foot and a half, but we've had some melting the last couple of days) so at least the tops of the plant labels are showing, but the database is on hold. 

There may be a foot of snow outside, but I do have a little garden sanctuary; our attached greenhouse, right off of the living room. The two tanks on the left have the water plants and the goldfish from the garden pond, which I bring in for the winter. When the sun gets a little brighter in January and February, there can be deep snow, and it can be 10 below zero outside, and the exhaust fans will go on in the greenhouse because the sun has warmed it above 80 degrees; kind of nice. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No, you're not crazy (well, maybe you are... what do I know), but in this case you're right; sometimes my essays do change after they've been posted. One of the other readers has somewhat pointedly asked about this... artistic license seems to get you nothing anymore. I must confess this blog is somewhat of a stream of conciousness sort of thing, but I also have a conscience, and after posting, I do feel obligated sometimes to go back and tidy up some of my more messy stories, so the blog probably does sometimes have the feel of a literary quicksand. I'm not sure what surprises me more about being called to task about this: that anybody would be huffy about me editing my posts on the fly so to speak, or that anybody would re-read one of my posts in the first place, so they'd notice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Midwest, and Iowa in particular, receive more than their fair share of disparaging comments about lack of culture; I'll have you know that Iowa City is an unheralded bastion of good taste and appreciation for the finer things; above is a picture from a parade here... eat your hearts out, Coasters. 

When I lived in Berkeley in the 70's, I lived right off of Telegraph Avenue, had hair down to my shoulders, and an attitude. I loved the ferment of folk-rock music that was all about the area then, and one day walked over to the Greek Amphitheater on the U.C. campus to see a concert sponsored by a new organization, Bread and Roses, who were raising money for their goal of providing free, live music for those in institutions; prisons, nursing homes, and the like. The spearhead for Bread and Roses, who came out on stage that day, and softly sang and looked like an angel, and had the crowd in the palm of her hand, was Mimi Farina. Even at that time, she was the stuff of music legend; the younger sister of Joan Baez, she had come to New York when Bob Dylan was having an affair with Joan, and her amazing beauty at age 17 had struck Bob Dylan like a thunderbolt, and he pursued her, but Mimi instead went off to Paris, where she met folksinger Richard Farina, and married him. Mimi and Richard came back to California, living in Carmel Valley, and put out several albums, which I already had in my record collection when I moved to Berkeley. Mimi had at that age a beautiful, open face, and a sweet, clear singing voice. It is said by some that Bob Dylan copied some of his song writing style from Richard Farina, and in listening to those old albums, I can hear what they are talking about with a marriage of poetry to rock music. Richard died in a motorcycle crash on Mimi's 21st birthday. Mimi, after disappearing for a while, went on to sing solo, and with other musicians, perhaps most notably with Tom Jans; I also have one of their old records, which I will pull out tonight and listen to. She never really achieved true fame or fortune, though, but went on to found Bread and Roses. She lived in a small house on the ridge behind Mill Valley in Marin County, a house I knew, as I used to hike Mt. Tamalpais, near her home, frequently. The reason I bring this all up, is that I was quite astonished to learn yesterday, that she had died in 2001, at the age of only 56... I guess I'm out of the loop for pop music news now. She had hepatitis C, which likliest was from i.v. drug abuse, and died of lung cancer from smoking. How that sweet-faced young girl of the 60's, with placid, grey eyes that looked out to the ends of the earth, could have had such demons clouding her life, so she ended up as she did, is an enigma... I would not want to portray her as some end of the line loser, as she had an incredibly rich and meaningful life, but it's still a sad story, if only for its shortness. The last years of her life were devoted to raising the money to endow Bread and Roses. Ah well, I guess I'll go pull out that record album.

I just love these little plants, but have to say, don't try these plants at home, kids. They are considered an invasive pest in much of New England, and even as close to us as Wisconsin. Several States are considering banning them. Ranunculus ficaria supposedly goes by the name lesser celadine, but I don't know anybody that calls them that; for that matter, I don't know anybody else who even has them... for some reason they are not exactly a must-grow item here in the plains. When they push up their shiny little leaves in the early spring, I never fail to get down and examine them closely, and always find them delightful. The leaves, which sometimes have a deep chocolate-purple sheen, are reason enough for me to grow them, and the beautiful little buttercup flowers (they do, indeed reside in the buttercup family), are a further delight. I grow two different single-flowered ficarias: Brazen Hussy, pictured above, and Coffee Cream, below. The whole plant goes dormant in mid-summer, but it doesn't flop about or go through a prolonged, Camille-like dying process, and the bare spot that results is so small, that the plant's passing is almost unnoticed... it just seems to kind of disappear, as magically as it appeared. I've not noticed anything alarming about them that suggests they are going to explode into our countryside, but I have them both well esconced in contained beds right in the middle of the garden. The double-flowered forms are supposed to be much less likely to ramble about, and I do have two doubles, Picton's double, and Collarette, but so far they have been kind of wimpy here... probably our climate is just too warm for these little plants to get too frisky, as I note the States where they are a pest tend to be cooler, and wetter than us. These plants were very popular in England in the 19th century, with hundreds of varieties available, then went out of favor, but just recently have seen a resurgence of interest, with a number of new clones on the market in England, some of which I lust over, but they are extremely hard to find in this country. I'm going to try to pick up a few other varieties; it may well be that time is short, as they will be even harder to find if the New England states actually ban them.

Seasons, and then lives, all will come to an end,
And so it is, we've now lost our old friend.
Seventeen years we had her, since soon after her birth,
Now she lies still, in the garden's dark earth.
She loved the outdoors, to explore, and to run,
To feel wind on her face, and snooze in the sun.
She was the sweetest of tabbies, always bringing cheer,
We'd had her so long, it seemed she'd always be here.
But time took her health, and age took her sight,
So life became painful, her days turned into night.
Only when sleeping could she now ever be free,
With cat dreams of spring days, and climbing a tree.
On her last day, even with her life taking flight,
She purred in our arms, telling us it was alright.
It may take a while to sink in that we've lost her,
So forgive us if we go to the door and call "TOASTER"! 

The snow fell gently all the night
It made a blanket soft and white
It covered houses, flowers, and ground
But did not make a single sound
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a child's poem

We picked up another 6 inches of wet snow, now with perhaps 18 inches on the ground. Pretty, until you have to shovel it. Now they are predicting we go back in the deep freeze for the next two weeks, with temperatures 15-20 degrees below normal. If you live in the south, I don't want to hear from you right now!

A few days ago, I showed what I call my rhododendron dell, with pictures from last April, when it was filled with lepidote (small-leaved or scaly-leaved) early rhododendrons (a further view above). This area actually goes through several metamorpheses, with the deciduous azaleas blooming a couple of weeks later, as below, then the lepidote (large or smooth leaved) rhodys, then later a variety of other plants, culminating in the oriental lilies.

 

 

 

The other day when I posted an entry that ended up being about chiggers (usually pronounced "jiggers" around here), I couldn't get a picture of the adult chigger, or mercurochrome bug, to load, but it seems to work today, so it's up.

On looking out the window this morning, our main bird feeding station was completely deserted; a sure sign that a hawk is about. A sharp shinned hawk then swooped in , and started circling the two large fir trees in the back yard, trying to flush out the small birds that shelter there. The hawk would alight on a branch, then continue to return to circle the firs, flying tight spirals only about six feet off the ground, and feinting with its wings wide open, to try and panic one of the little birds into bolting. Though I fancied that the trees almost trembled, everybody sat tight, so breakfastless, the hawk sailed down the valley and across the pond; perhaps to check out the Arby's in town.

We gardeners in America almost all have English aspirations; no garden here is too small or too modest to completely escape some allusion to the grand border, the white garden, or perhaps, if you happen to garden in a certain woods in eastern Iowa, the rhododendron dell. Our garden here slopes fairly sharply in spots, to the pond, and in one such area the land does form a slight bowl, which I've planted fairly heavily with rhododendrons. I call it the rhododendron dell, but only to myself... the worst aspersion you can cast on somebody here in the middle west is to call them "highfalutin' ". Besides, the term "dell" is not exactly an everyday word here in Iowa... maybe computers, or remembered faintly from a childhood song about a farmer ... there are the famous Wisconsin Dells, that everybody here is familiar with, but they bring up a vision of flat bottomed river tour boats, Tom Thumb golf courses, and of course the famous dog jumping from one sheer limestone ledge to another on the half hour, as tourists snap pictures. Somewhere we still have a photo my Mother clicked 50 years ago, with her little Brownie camera, catching the dog in spectacular mid-leap; this was one of the most valued heirlooms of our family, and much-commented on by those who saw it. Back to the present, if the truth were known, I also have, to my mind, a nice garden glade, but if I told anyone, they'd probably think I was talking about using air freshener to perfume the garden. Sometimes, living here in Iowa is a cross to bear, but I do like a good, dinner-plate sized pork tenderloin sandwich now and then.