Next-to-last "Walk in the Garden" Post

You might think we'd be done by now, but we still have two groups of pots to go.

Here's pot 13, which contains a Japanese Pieris, the sibling of the one in Pot 1.  This one isn't quite as big, but it too has a lot of new red growth.  I need to prune those empty twigs, though!

Pot 14 contains a boxwood, purchased in summer 2018 from Brighter Blooms after I managed to achieve the almost impossible task of killing my previous boxwood.  Also two hostas: Rainforest Sunrise, on the left, and Mighty Mouse, on the right - both purchased in Connecticut in summer 2018.

Pot 15 is an old favorite of mine.  It contains the Jim Dandy winterberry holly, who leans severely to one side and has had several dead branches pruned off over the years - but it's a survivor.  Purchased from Forestfarm in 2016, it's the biggest tree in my garden.

Also in the pot:the American Halo hosta (what is eating its leaves?), the Touch of Class hosta (supposed to be tricolor, but some of the leaves now come up monocolor, a phenomenon I hope to explore in a later post), and the hosta known as "Whee!" (in the second photo below).  Plus lots of ivy.  This has always been a busy pot!

Pot 16 is a Bleeding Heart that I bought last summer, and it's doing very, very well - putting the lie to my frequent claim that nothing blooms in my garden.

Pot 17 contains my other winterberry holly.  I bought these hollies for the red berries.  I got three the first season and none since then - because you don't get fruit without blossoms, and these hollies don't blossom in the shade.

Pot 17A is a new one.  This lovely red tree is the Spring Coral maple, new this season from Forestfarm, and I predict that it will never be this red again.  But I really love the color. 

 

Also in the pot: a new Dancing Queen hosta, and another hosta I'd like to tell you a bit about.  These little shoots were an accident.  I was trying to split the Touch of Class hosta from Pot 15, but the roots in that pot are so entangled that I couldn't do it.  I just ended up breaking off a couple of stems with leaves.  Now, normally a split hosta has to have a bit of root to grow, and there didn't seem to be any root here, but I'm an optimist, so I shoved the broken stems and leaves in Pot 17A - and they're growing!

Pot 18 is the Upright Japanese Yew, new last year.  It still hasn't quite settled in, but it's putting out a little new growth, so there's hope.  Also a Japanese Ghost Lady fern, and some ivy from the Greenmarket that is unstoppable.

And here's a pot without a number.  I bought two pots online last fall, and when they arrived, the enclosed documentation said they were uninsulated and should be brought in during the winter, which makes them unsuitable for perennials.  That would have been nice to know before I bought them.  Still, I can plant annuals in them, since they will die before winter no matter what.  My plan was to go out to the plant store or the Greenmarket to fill the two annual pots, but the plant store is closed.  So I got this little pansy at the Greenmarket, and it's practicing social distancing.

We'll look at the final group of pots next week

Garden Map, the Finale

Let's finish up the garden map so that next week, we can talk about plant sex.

Pot 15 -I've always loved this pot.  When I first started container gardening, I read about "The Thriller, the Spiller, and the Filler," meaning that each pot should have something tall and dramatic, something that spills over the sides, and something that fills in the rest of the space. I'm not sure how useful this rule is.  I tried it out only in a few pots, and they're all in the section I'm writing about today.

 

 The Thriller is the Jim Dandy winterberry holly (purchased in 2016 from ForestFarm at Pacifica), who is doing nicely after a bad year or two.  The Spiller is the ivy.  And the fillers are three hostas -Touch of Class, from 2016, which is looking better than it ever has;

Wheeee!, purchased in 2017;

and American Halo, purchased in 2018. 

The entire pot is thriving.  Also, please forgive that all the photos are sideways! 

Pot 16 is empty.

Pot 17 has a Berry Heavy winterberry holly.  Thriving, but not yet blooming.  Also sideways.

Pot 18 has the new Upright Japanese Yew as Thriller, more ivy as Spiller (ivy is excellent at spilling), and the Ghost Lady Fern (purchased from Wayside Gardens in 2016) as Filler.  All thriving. 

The Ghost Lady always looks dead in the wintertime, but then just explodes into fluffy ferny-ness every April.

Pot 19 has the Prince William Serviceberry as Thriller. 

I bought the Prince William Serviceberry in spring 2016, when I was still under the delusion that flowering trees would bloom in my garden.  Prince William has never bloomed, of course, because trees need sunlight to bloom.  Most years, he has some kind of rusty-looking spots on his leaves, but so far this year, he hasn't succumbed to whatever blight that is.  He's a sad little tree who doesn't grow much, and he's not much of a Thriller, but I'm fond of him.

The Spiller is the Creeping Jenny, which at the moment is just ground cover but which may droop over the sides of the pot as the season progresses.  (Creeping Jenny is invasive, so it's fine in containers but could be a terror in a regular garden.)  And for Filler, I have a Key West hosta (2017) and a Marmalade Lime heuchera (split off in 2018 from the plant in pot 26).  I don't know what possessed me to put all these lime-green plants in one pot, but they do look kind of nice together.

Pot 20 is a Dwarf Alberta Spruce that I got cheap at Whole Foods after Christmas 2017.  It's putting out a lot of new needles, which is nice.

Pot 21 is the Cathedral Windows hosta, purchased last summer at Van Wilgen's in Connecticut.  It's not growing as quickly as most of my other hostas, but it's surviving, at least.

Pot 22 is also a Van Wilgen's plant - the Christmas fern.  It's coming back in a small way, so surviving but not thriving.

Pot 23 has another of those self-seeded oak trees, but it's got lots of little leaves!  It's still tiny, but this is definitely my mightiest oak.  Also in the pot: more ivy (it's cheap and easy to grow) and a Redstone Falls heucherella, split off last year from the one in Pot 6.

Pot 24 is a windowbox with three hostas: Restless Sea (Agway, Connecticut, 2018); Electrocution (2017); and Pilgrim (not sure of the year).  Restless Sea is kind of taking over the universe here.

Pot 25 is the other windowbox, with Stained Glass hostas that I purchased bare-root from Home Depot in 2016.

And finally, Pot 26, with a Lime Marmalade heuchera that I bought in Connecticut in 2018.

And that's the garden!

More New Plants

Greetings from my garden!  The "Oregon Fern" Fullmoon Japanese Maple is leafing up nicely.

 I've got some new leafy friends to introduce today

Beginning in 2016, I've purchased trees and shrubs every spring from ForestFarm at Pacifica.  They've sold me some lovely trees, including my Winterberry holly plants, both of my Japanese Maples, and the Upright Japanese Yew that I accidentally killed last year.  So I'm always excited when the ForestFarm box comes.

First out of the box - the replacement Upright Japanese Yew!

I put it in the same pot where the old Upright Japanese Yew lived.

That pot should look a whole lot better once the "Ghost Lady" fern comes up.  She's always a latecomer, so I'm not worried.

Next up, the Barberry.  Barberries are a native species to this area, which was why they first appealed to me, but this is actually a variety from Nepal known as Jaeschke's Barberry.  It's a thorny little critter, but I think it will make an attractive addition.

I added it to the pot with the new plants from last week.  Barberries come in numerous varieties and colors, so if this one works out, I can see myself adding more.

I'm not sure why I ordered the next one.  It's a maple - not a Japanese maple, but a real grown-up maple.  It doesn't seem completely fair to stick it in a pot.

And finally, the Columnar Chinese Poplar.  You may have noticed that I like tall skinny plants (the Upright Japanese Yew, the Sky Pencil holly).  Here's another one.

I've always liked poplar trees, and I think they do OK in windy conditions.  We'll see!

Next week, we'll take a look at what's coming up.  The short answer: almost everything!

Back from an extra-long hiatus

It's spring in the garden once again.  Little stubby green things are appearing in my pots and will soon turn into hostas.

The heucheras are growing brightly-colored little new leaves - which is especially exciting because often, my heucheras do not make it to a second season.

 

And the trees are budding.

Well, most of the trees.  Maybe not the fig tree.

I suppose I owe you all an explanation for why I blogged only once last year.  There's a one-word answer: fertilizer.  I had asked an employee at a garden center why my Japanese Pieris didn't flower, and he suggested a particular fertilizer.  So I bought the fertilizer, and a companion fertilizer for non-acid-loving plaints, and I fertilized my Japanese Pieris and many of my other trees and shrubs.  Unfortunately, I did so very enthusiastically, and I exceeded the amounts specified by the package directions, and I killed a lot of my plants. I killed the Japanese Pieris. I killed the Upright Japanese Yew that had been in my garden since 2016.  I killed the Orange Dream Japanese Maple that I'd raised from a twig in 2015.  I killed a Boxwood.  And I killed a Mountain Laurel.  Losing so many beautiful plants by my own hand was devastating.

So I didn't have the heart to blog last spring and summer, even though most of the rest of my plants did just fine.  I got some new plants.  I mulched everything last summer and fall, to help the pots retain their heat in the winter, which may be why my heucheras are mostly not dead (though the reasonably mild winter we had could also be a contributing factor).

It's too early yet to play "Who's Surviving, Who's Thriving, Who's Dead," or to show you the garden as a whole, but I thought I'd introduce you to three new plants that arrived this week.  Say hello to the Champagne Heuchera!

Please welcome the Lady in Red Fern!

Yes, I agree, she does look like a Lady in Green.

And I'm not sure what you should say to the Rhino Hide Hosta.

Yes, that's exactly how it arrived.  Looks stone dead to me, but I put it in the ground anyway and will keep you posted.

By next weekend, four new trees and shrubs will have arrived, so that's something to look forward to.  Happy spring from Grey to Green!