A Closer Look

This past Sunday, I visited some beautiful private gardens that were part of the annual Parish Art Museum's Landscape Pleasures garden tour.

I started the tour at the garden of Daniel Chung and Alexandra Alger.  I had once before toured this garden near Georgica Pond in 2009 as part of the ARF garden tour. (Click here for my first impressions.)  This garden was designed by the firm Oehme van Sweden.  As is their signature style, the plantings marry the house to the landscape using bold sweeps of plantings of grasses and perennials. Though totally designed, the garden blends beautifully into the existing woodland.  Since I had been here before, I took a closer look and found beauty beyond my earlier observations.  It was pointed out that this garden is both drought AND deer resistant.

I have more photos tour to share from the other gardens on the 2012 Landscape Pleasures, but I have to return to my own garden now before it starts to to look neglected.  I'll post more soon so stay tuned.

Plantings marry the stone and cedar  house to the landscape

The edges of the gunite pool are softened by plantings of grasses and Nepeta.

Persicaria polymorpha in full bloom

The spiky flowers of Acanthus add drama by the pool

Delicate seed heads on an unfamiliar grass or sedge

Autumn Stars

Asters flanking dwarf fountain grasses

Nothing accents a fall garden like asters.  Performing a supporting role all summer with crisp, green vegetation, asters move to center stage in autumn when most other perennials have stopped blooming.

My favorite fall aster is Aster oblongifolius 'Raydon's Favorite'.  It has the most beautiful blue-purple daisy-like flowers that start blooming in early October and continue for many weeks.

I have two patches of 'Raydon's Favorite' planted in my garden.  The original collection edges the perennial garden adjacent to the pool. Since I spend little time by the pool in the fall, I added another grouping of these beauties in the garden across from the front door.

'Raydon's Favorite' will grow to about 36 inches left alone.  However, I prune twice during the summer to get shorter, bushier plants that don't need staking.  I prune the plants by 1/2 at the end of May and then again by 1/3 at the end of June.  Don't prune past July 4th or you may not get blooms that year.

Blooming across from the front door

This aster cultivar divides easily in the spring.  This past spring I split the current grouping by the pool into many divisions and spread them out to fill an expanded perennial bed.  I mixed them with summer-blooming perennials and dwarf fountain grass (Pennisetum alopecuroides 'Hameln').  The fountain grass is now blooming along side the asters.

A simple arrangement

I was told by some local gardeners that asters are generally plagued with powdery mildew.  Fortunately, 'Raydon's Favorite' has been mildew-proof in my garden.

With all the rain here lately, I brought a few sprigs of 'Raydon's Favorite' indoors to admire.  I mixed them with a few stems of River oat grass (Chasmanthium latifolium) and Sweetspire (Itea virginica 'Little Henry') in a small Victorian vase.  A simple autumn arrangement.

Asters get their name from an ancient Greek work that means stars. Very fitting, not only for their star-shaped flowers, but also for their starring role in my autumn garden.

Star-shaped beauties

Who You Callin' a Weed?

Late summer lunch

Joe-Pye Weed (Eupatorium purpureum) created a spectacular show in my late summer garden this year.  This native perennial rises from the ground in late Spring and grows to six feet or taller by midsummer.  Starting in late July,  sizable pink blooms open on tall stalks creating a colorful wall of color behind the pool.  Although I originally planted Joe-Pye Weed for its blooms,  the privacy it provides around the pool (in and out of bloom) has become its most important attribute.

The plant's common name comes from the American Indian, Joe Pye, who used Eupatorium purpureum as an herbal remedy for typhus.

Ironically,  I learned about this native American perennial from European landscape designers Piet Oudolf and Noel Kingsbury in their fantastic design book,  Designing with Plants.  Luckily,  I found my initial plants at a local Hamptons nursery.

I have three cultivars planted around the garden.  'Gateway' is my favorite with rich, rose-pink blossoms.   One season I added to these a lighter, but equally tall, cultivar mistakenly labeled 'Gateway'.   It now mingles well among its darker cousins by the pool.  I also have a shorter variety called 'Little Joe' planted near the car park.

Occasionally, I will find a stray Joe-Pye plant that has self-seeded in another garden bed.  If the color works, I'll leave it but prune it by nearly half in early June to reduce its height.  It will mature shorter and bloom about a week later.  I also use this pruning technique on the original groupings.  By pinching back the outer stalks, you get lower blooms in front of the taller stalks.

Joe-Pye Weed is easy to grow.  It likes moisture, especially when newly planted.  It will bloom in partial shade, but full sun ensures the tallest plants, fullest blooms and most erect stalks.  Those behind the pool are still standing tall after Hurricane Irene, providing tasty seeds for the finches.

While this perennial dies down to the ground each winter, I don't cut the stalks down until the Spring cleanup.   I read that since their stalks are hollow, cutting them too soon will allow too much water from winter rains and snow to accumulate in the stems, causing rot.

I'm thankful the Europeans saw past this plant's "weedy" American heritage.  I'm not sure what other native or imported perennial could have provided me with such a colorful show and screen.

Joe-Pye Weed makes a wonderful backdrop for tall grasses

Good Morning Sunshine

Luminous quality

One of my favorite ornamental grasses is the Miscanthus sinensis cultivar 'Morning Light'.  It has fine variegated leaves that look fresh all summer.  Its reddish blooms show up at the end of summer.

Best in full sun, but can take light shade.  In fact, it looks better without the harsh midday sun.  The grass practically glows when backlit by morning or afternoon light.

At four feet high, plays well with others

This particular Japanese silver grass grows to about four feet so I use it often in mixed beds as accents.  It stays more erect and doesn't flop in late season like Miscanthus sinensis 'Gracillimus', allowing 'Morning Light" to play well with other plants in a bed.

Miscanthus sinensis 'Morning Light' and geranium 'Nimbus'

According to Rick Darke, in his Pocket Guide to Ornamental Grasses (one of my favorite books on grasses),  'Morning Light' has been a popular cultivar in Japan for a century but only introduced in Western gardens in the late '70s.   So really not that new, but still a fresh alternative to many of the other Miscanthus varieties routinely planted around here.