Disanthus cercidifolius: A Star in the Woodland Garden

The deep red-purple foliage of Disanthus cercidifolius can be seen from every angle in the Woodland Garden right now. It suffered slightly during our summer drought  but looked spectacular today.  Disanthus cercidifolius has heart-shaped bluish-green leaves during the summer which are subtly attractive in the garden. It should mature to about 6-10 feet in height over time. I have under-planted it Helleborus foetidus, the stinking hellebore. The deeply-cut dark green foliage compliments the round leaves of Disanthus cercidifolius nicely.  Disanthus cercidifolius has done well for me in dappled shade planted in humus-rich, moist soil.

   

Lindera glauca var. angustifolia was not looking too shabby today either.

The Garden After Another Tour

I had a garden tour from Albany, NY visit my garden and the Peterborough public gardens on Wednesday. We are having a severe drought here in New Hampshire but the garden has held up reasonably well. Here are some photos of the garden and some plant IDs for the visitors.

The Lower Garden from the terrace

Lower Garden head-on from the opposite direction

From another angle in the Lower Garden

The granite, yew and boxwoods in the Hall with Balls illustrates how strong structure in the garden can be very useful during a drought as well as in winter.

'Peterborough' Adirondack chairs in the Woodland Garden

Dahlia 'Happy Single Juliet' is turning out to be one of the few dahlias that I can rely on in southern New Hampshire. It is sturdy and produces many single bright pink flowers that pop visually in the garden against the dark foliage. There are other colors of single anemone-type dahlias in the 'Happy' series that I am thinking of trying next year.

I got this gomphrena called 'All Around Purple' from Helen O'Donnell at Bunker Farm in Dummerston, VT. Helen propagates an exciting list of plants each year. You can find her plant list for 2016 here. She specializes in unusual plants, many of which she learned about at her time gardening for Fergus Garrett at Great Dixter.

I let this tuberous begonia called 'Sparks Will Fly' go dormant in my basement last year and it came back beautifully. I love the tangerine-colored flowers against the lightly-veined dark foliage.

This is Clematis tangutica 'Bill MacKenzie' in the crabapple tree in the Upper Garden. I have noticed several seedlings of this clematis in the garden which I will let grow to see what the progeny look like.

I never tire of the fresh foliage of Amicia zygomeris. I may attempt taking cuttings this year. I found some excellent instructions, again from Great Dixter,  on how to do it here.

This annual red-leafed hibiscus called 'Mahogany Splendor' is also from Helen at Bunker Farm. By the end of the season, it turns into a robust shrub which looks a dwarf Japanese maple.

Here is another Helen O'Donnell plant, a variegated kiss-me-over-the garden-gate called  Persicaria orientalis "Shiro gane Nishiki'. It is just beginning to flower but the foliage has been an eye-catching feature throughout the season. I will be getting this plant again next year!

Melanthus major is my all-time favorite annual for the garden. The pleated glaucous foliage smells like peanut butter when it is rubbed but its best attribute is that it gets bigger and better throughout the season and survives the first wave of light frosts in autumn.

Cuphea llavea 'Bat Face' is a useful front-of-the-border plant that looks great for an extended season with little effort and no dead-heading.

Mina lobata 'Exotic Love', aka the firecracker vine, again from Helen

Finally, a volunteer seedling of Nicotiana sylverstris. This fragrant tobacco plant lands exactly where I need it every year. This time, it emerged from the brickwork at a corner of the Lower Garden that wasn't quite living up to expectations. Nicotiana sylverstris always exceeds expectations wherever it pops up. The huge, and oddly sticky, foliage is a dramatic feature that quickly identifies this plant as being from the tobacco tribe. I am a big fan of self-seeding nicotianas in the garden. I probably have 7 or 8 different species and/or cultivars, many of them are also intoxicatingly fragrant.

The Woodland Garden in Autumn

 

Cercidiphyllum japonicum is the central feature of the Woodland Garden. The goldenrod in the foreground is Solidago sphacelata 'Golden Fleece'.

Foliage textures below the the wooden steps flanked with Prunus x 'Hally Jolivette' under-planted with Hakonechloa macra.

The white spires of the native Heuchera villosa 'Autumn Bride' beyond a pair of Adirondack chairs.

The seed pods of the woodland peony, Paeonia obovata.

The Luxuriance of September

My favorite month in the garden has to be September. I incorporate plenty of autumn interest in the garden with a generous smattering of annuals that have a peak right now. I especially appreciate how fresh the annuals make the garden feel as the summer season winds down and the first hard frost approaches. Autumn is the season New England is known for, so it is fitting to start that season off with a bang even before the fall foliage begins to change color.

 The Upper Garden

 The Lower Garden

The Woodland Garden

The lowest path in the Woodland Garden

The Blue Bench Terrace

Gardeners Get Dirty

Our house has a single bathroom with a shower and after years bringing my muddy post-gardening body through the house to clean up, we decided to add an outdoor shower. It will be located behind the garage and will allow me to take a shower while peeking over the top of the wall and see the woodland garden.

The far wall is six and half feet tall and creates privacy from the neighbor. I was actually more interested in giving them privacy from me. The other three walls are five and half feet tall; high enough for me, the six-foot-three gardener, to enjoy views of the garden.

The floor of the shower repeats the bluestone in the two terraces in the Lower Garden.

The woodland garden below will be planted so the shower feels immersed in the garden.

Great Expectations Realized

Now that I have finally seen the smoldering fall foliage on my three toddler Lindera glauca var. angustifolia plants in the Woodland Garden, the purported four-season usefulness of this shrub has been confirmed. I first encountered this plant at the Arnold Arboretum in the winter when the persistant foliage turns a tawny tan color. I have placed this plant in the woodland garden along a path on a steep slope so the shrub will create a year-long visual and physical barrier ensuring that the garden visitor will not physically, and psychologically, roll down the hill into the garden below. This particular plant is placed forward to our native hemlock, Tsuga canadensis, which should be an effective combination all winter. During the summer, the  foliage is a pleasing light green color with glaucous tones on the undersides.

A second specimen is planted against the back of the yew hedge of the Lower Garden, a terraced garden room above the Woodland Garden. Here, I have combined it with Hydrangea quercifolia 'Snowqueen' whose massive leaves will be a nice contrast to the long glossy leaves of Lindera glauca var. angustifolia in any season.

Lindera glauca var. angustifolia does best in a semi-shaded site with ample moisture and will grow to about 5 feet; a few feet smaller than the very similar, and more well-known, Lindera glauca var. salicigolia. I chose this plant for its smaller stature which should fit in nicely in my diminutive woodland garden. As an added bonus, female plants produce small black fruit following tiny yellow flowers in early spring.

14 High Street at the end of July

Foliage Over Flower

Flowers, however beautiful, are fleeting but foliage can last the entire season. It is a rare plant in my garden that cuts the grade with beautiful flowers but lackluster foliage. Tulips and some of the alliums are examples that come to mind this time of year. I am looking for plants with foliage that has interesting textural qualities and attractive coloration. Arisaema fargesii is an example of my kind of plant.

I planted a pair of Arisaema fargesii in the Woodland Garden two years ago after seeing it for sale at Rocky Dale Gardens in Bristol, VT. They were small plants and looked like they might be marginally hardy but I gave them a try in a protected spot with good moist soil and drainage as instructed. The following year, the plants never came up. 

When I did my annual pilgrimage to Rocky Dale the following May, I saw a more mature specimen of Arisaema fargesii with the giant, glossy grass-green, trifoliate leaves it is known for. I decided I had to have this plant, so I tried it again. Amy at Rocky Dale informed me that it often emerges late in the season. When I planted the new plants in the same location in the Woodland Garden, I realized just how late Arisaema fargesii can be because I disinterred the tubers from the previous year. After a couple weeks, all my last year plants emerged. This year, all the Arisaema fargesii plants materialized the last week in June.

Arisaema fargesii originates from China and was discovered by the French plant explorer, Pere Farges, in the early 1900s. The wine-colored spathe has white stripes and resembles a cobra; thus the first common name, cobra lily. The maroon spadix inside the flower helps give this plant its other common name, jack-in-the -pulpit. No matter what you call it, this plant has a fantatic flower, but more importantly exceptional bold foliage, a perfect contrast to ferns, epimediums and grasses in the woodland garden.

Indian Pink in the Woodland Garden

Spigelia marilandica aka Indian Pink is a woodland plant native to south-central United States. I had never heard of it until several years ago when a gardening friend introduced this eye-catching perennial to me in her Dublin, NH garden. I must have been lusting after it because she promptly dropped off several divisions in my driveway the next week. Some of the literature states that Spigelia marilandica resents being moved but these plants survived and prospered in my woodland garden in a protected spot which has an hour of sun around mid-day.

The tubular flowers, which attract hummingbirds, are a very bright red color on the with a dramatically contrasting yellow center. This color threw me off as a woodland plant, at first, but I quickly become accustomed to being able to spot this plant from a great distance across the garden.

Pass-along plants, like Spigelia marilandica, are aways a satisfying reminder of a friend's garden and their generosity.