"Jim Elbrecht" wrote in message
...
Thanks for a great essay. Smells are the stimulants that seem to bring back
the most vivid memories.
I tend to agree with you Jim..... and I have been terribly delinquent in
writing to the newsgroup lately. Just too tired.....and distracted here in
Fairy Holler.
Lilacs always remind me of going to open up our summer camp. I leave the
creeping thyme in my lawn as it brings back the memories of a long forgotten
apple orchard that I used to play in on hot summer days.
This year was my first year after I hard pruned a beloved lilac that a
friend gifted me of eleven years ago. When I said I didn't have any, he
pulled out a three gallon pot with five stems in it and said "I took
cuttings from my mother's lilac that is out front, help yourself, plant the
whole pot" And I moved it five times in it's short life. It was moved,
planted in what I assumed was a safe spot and then farmer mentality mowed it
to nubbins. Then I dug it up and plunked it into a galvanized tub that
didn't have a bottom and kept it there until we moved from the farmhouse
three and a half years later to here, and I planted it in the wrong spot. I
then moved it twice more until the spot where it now resides wheather I like
it there or not. But after it started hogging the flower bed I'd built next
to it, I pruned out a third of the branches last year "be damned if I lose
all the flowers next year" and son of a gun if this year the flowers were
the largest and most fragrant I've ever seen it have.
I am leaning towards fragrant and textural and colorful leafed plants now to
fill in for the lack of flowers at the other times. You should see my oak
leaf hydrangea!! I took a slower more "stoned" walk around the whole area
that I've planted so far and it amazed even me............I've done more
than I realize, and nothing at all...........
"madgardener" wrote
-snip-
The Harlequin Glory Bower had started setting buds last week much to my
dismay but if I hadn't been so distracted and had stuck to at least partial
entries in my journal I would have seen that it was actually TIME for this
limbed up bush/tree to do it's thing for me here.
The leaves smell like peanut butter.
But peanut butter!. For anyone who, like me, just said - 'I want one!' - My
ancient copy of Wymans has them as Clerodendrum trichotomum- 20', zone 6.
There is a picture of the plant at
http://www.whidbey.com/mvg/glorybower.htm , and the description say it
will tolerate full sun, but likes a little shade.
Mine is on the east/south corner of the NSSG (not so secret garden, or maybe
we should say CISSG....Crammed into small space garden G) it gets dappled
eastern sun in the morning thru the black cherry tree that has always been
here and is huge and is the true point of the "shade" part of the two
gardens. It gets hard southern sun and indirect scorching western sunlight
and droops and sulks in the heat. But once the worst of the heat is past and
dusk is approaching, it perks up wonderfully. I tend to pamper it when we
have drought like last year. It would droop and I'd water it in the late
afternoon. If you want to try it, plant it on your south-western spot in a
sheltered area where it will get some dappled shade to help it thru heat.
The flower & berries are pictured here-
http://www.dinop.com/plants/0054/DSCF3697.JPG .
BOY are THOSE the berries!!!!! When I first saw the picture of this berry
in the Holbrook Farm catalog back in 1995 when it was still open, I remember
saying " I GOTTA HAVE THAT PLANT FOR THE BERRIES ALONE" When the original
owner decided after 15 years to close the incredible and inovative nursery
down and move on to other things, I remember thinking it wasn't fair,
especially when I had just discovered it. But as luck would have it I was
able to obtain three of my major players and bones in my original plantings
despite everything I moved over here seven and a half years ago. The bush
variety of St. John's Wort or Hyperion I think. Incredible bush with yellow
pom poms that look right off a very feminine lady's dresser (like a powder
puff only yellow) and a perfect shape. Moved that one three times before
getting it where it really loves it. on the northeast edge of the lip of
the slope where I have crammed in so much on the east side of the house.
It's very happy but is being shoved now by the RUNNERS of the GLORY
BOWER..........you want a few seedlings??I could dig a couple in the fall
and send them and you can pot them up and see how they do where you are if
you're game, I have a thicket going on at the moment.
The other plants I got at Holbrook Farms was a "Twig-Leaf Dogwood" that
turned out to be a Cornelian Cherry tree. These both cost me $1.50 for a
four inch pot. the third one I treasure is the Glory Bower and it cost me
more, $3.00 for the quart pot.
I love everything about this plant so far. The smell, [one I love-- and *so*
unique for a plant], the habit, the partial-shade preference. But I'm
technically in zone 5, though I'm on a protected NE facing slope, so I get
some leeway. I see the madgardener is in Zone7. Has anyone tried this plant
further north--- or know of a newer hybrid that might tolerate more cold but
retain the same features?
If you would like to try a sapling or two and pot them up and let them
acclimate to your climate, your more than welcome to try it like I said.
E-mail me if you're interested. The worst you will do is kill them, and I
can afford to have the whole area turn into a thicket. The Glory Bower is a
suckering shrub/tree and I also have a Sorbaria which ALSO is a suckering
shrub, they're fighting it out at the moment with the Sorbaria gaining
fast.........but the Glory bower is just gaining in height. I will though
have to move the Mexican jasmine bushes before I lose them to lack of light.
they prefer more sun than they're now getting.
-snip-
This years surprise was the loosestrife. Nothing would have surprised me
more but that it's so far from any possible source tells me that Mom
Nature's breath and life giving rains played a part in this seed to get from
the front of my house all the way down to the western slope almost half an
acre away. It sits lone in the middle of the overgrown weeds not three feet
from a raised bed of odd plants. I will relocate it later.
Sadly, it will relocate on its own. Loosestrife is one of NYs top 20
invasive species.
http://www.ipcnys.org/pages/top%2020.htm I have mixed feelings on it
myself, as it is a beautiful plant. But I've seen a 100 acre wetland that
supported maybe 100 different plants, [plus large turtles, fish, & other
critters that like water
1-2 feet deep] converted to a 100 acre field of loosestrife.
I agree, I was amazed and horrified to see how much it had eaten Michigan's
wetlands when I as last there and I'm sure it's much worse now. that's where
I got the hunks I have now. But it's a shadow of itself compared to what it
is up there in the loose, rich sandy soil and high water table. Mine pretty
much behaves in the clay soil, and the Japanese beetles eat it down to bones
which is what they're doing right now.......I will update everyone on my
more sedate walk tomorrow. It was incredible.......thanks for the
encouraging words.........
madgardener in Eastern Tennessee
-snip-
always yours, madgardener, up on the ridge, back in Fairy Holler,
overlooking a stormy English Mountain, mist and cloud enshrouded Douglas
Lake in Eastern Tennessee, zone 7, Sunset zone 36 (if it's not 36, let me
know now since I've changed to 7 instead of 6b)
Thanks for the walk through your estate-- Hope you weren't late for work.
Jim