Archive | 2025

Backward March!: Garden Year 2025 Unfurled

“Life can be lived forward but only understood backward” Soren Kierkegaard.

Join me for a revealing — often surprising — backward march thru garden year 2025. We begin in Autumn with the arrival of fabulous garden mushrooms. Mother Nature has even gifted Mortimer Moose with a mushroom ankle bracelet! Photos below.

The enchanting early-Fall blooming perennial, Begonia grandis alba Z. 6-9, was my gift to the 2025 Autumn garden. In order to pay daily homage to the plant, I planted it in a large container, outside by the front door. When the temperature dropped and the flowers faded, I planted it in the ground. Photos of the flowers and foliage below.

Eminent British horticulturalist and author, Graham Stuart Thomas, was also a fan. He grew the pink-flowered Begonia grandis and included it in his book, Treasured Perennials. “I challenge any gardener,” he said, “not to be thrilled with the success of growing this charming plant.”

I also grew an Annual Non-Stop Begonia that spilled large, elegant white flowers from a hanging basket during Spring, Summer and Fall. I was sure that the October Nor’easter would finish it off, but, true to its name, while the plant suffered some damage, it continued to produce new flowers and foliage. Photos below.

Another notable Nor’easter survivor, award-winning Annual Salvia ROCKIN ‘Playin The Blues,’ didn’t suffer at all. I was amazed and the Bumblebees were delighted. Photos below. (Note: While the plant’s tag says “Annual except in zones 7a-10b,” this pollinator magnet has never survived the winter in my zone 7a Northeast garden. I have to replant every Spring. Would that it were otherwise.) Photos below.

The Nor’easter had nothing to do with the October Massacre of my elegant Carex ‘Feather Falls’. In my last post I wrote that the Sedge “is reportedly deer/rabbit resistant.” Sadly, the Bunnies report otherwise: C. ‘Feather Falls’ was a featured dish on their Autumn menu. Photo below.

And one November evening, insect damage and wind caused a 25+foot huge oak to crack and fall across our driveway — taking several branches of our beloved Magnolia ‘Merrill’ on the way down — and landing on our car and Stewartia ‘Ballet’. (We were not in the car and we are thankful that no one was hurt.) Photos below.

Quickstepping backward into Summer, a handsome, evergreen conifer captures everyone’s attention. After several decades in my garden, Cryptomaria japonica ‘Sekkan Sugi’ Z 6-9 is about 12 feet tall and 10 feet wide. The contrast between its primrose yellow new growth and its dark green needles is especially significant and showy in Summer. Dan Hinkley, of Heronswood Nursery fame, agreed. “In a partially shaded site,” he said, “there are few conifers that can deliver such impact of enlivening color and gratifying texture.” Sekkan Sugi has never suffered disease or pest problems in my garden. Provide organically rich, well-drained, acid soil. Photos below.

(Note: As recommended by an ancient proverb, “The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The next-best time to plant a tree is now”.)

Rosa “Rambling Rector” Z 4-9 is a hardy, healthy superstar. In the Summer, the rose produces an abundance of beautiful, small, pure white flowers that release exquisite perfume onto the air. Rambling Rector partners with a dark purple clematis in a large container tucked against a study oak tree support. I plant garlic cloves around the rose to repel aphids–it works!–and I fertilize with RoseTone and compost. Photos below.

Early Spring was memorable for both a big success and a big failure. Success first: Tulip “Akebono” not only returned for a second year but increased by half! Photos below. (See also post: “April\May 2024: Spring Enchantment.”)

Not so lucky with the 50 bulbs of Hyacinthoides hispanica “Excelsior’ that were said to be “deer and rodent resistant.” They came up in 2024 but not one returned this year, and there were vole holes in their planting beds. I trusted the PR and didn’t amend the soil with effective vole-repellent. BIG MISTAKE !!! (See post: “2022: Natural, Non-Toxic Vole Repellent.”)

May blooming Rhododendrons are awe-inspiring. For decades in my garden, award-winning R. ‘Hachmann’s Charmant’ Z 5-9 has been a standout worthy of celebration. Photo below.

Finally, in the Spring, I purchased another passion flower. Couldn’t resist. Photo below.

Hope you enjoyed this 2025 backward-march post and found it useful. Grumpy Gnome and I wish you all a splendid Thanksgiving!

Spring 2025: Pieris and Dazzling New Additions

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“Unseen powers lie in wait with trouble or failure for him who boasts of continued success…. At no time am I more timid of these avenging fates than when openly rejoicing in some garden success, and more especially so in print. So often has dire calamity, sudden death, or uprooting by storm, followed the publication of a photograph and exultant note describing one of my best specimens…” E A. Bowles.

I recently defied the Fates with the publication of photos and an “exultant note” about my beloved climbing hydrangea (Blog-post “2024: Small Treats & Joyful Moments”) and squirrels clawed, chewed, and denuded this glorious, flowering vine which took decades to reach the top of a thirty-foot oak tree support.

Moreover, the “avenging fates” are on a “dire calamity” roll: The Oak trees dropped thousands of acorns, resulting in massive numbers of oak seedlings in the garden beds and containers — not to mention providing food for a billion ruthless squirrels. Adding insult to insult, we then suffered from entwined downpours of throat-choking, pollen-laden oak flowers and hordes of ravenous green worms that devastated our roses. Photos below.

The Fates be damned! I am in the business of plant exultation:

One can’t exult enough about the perfect shrub for shade, evergreen Pieris japonica Z 5-8. This deer/rabbit resistant plant flaunts early Spring fragrant flowers beloved by bees and butterflies, colorful new foliage, and beautiful flower buds in Autumn that also provide Winter interest. There are many named Pieris cultivars to choose from. I grow, inter alia, the white-flowered P.j. ‘Mountain Fire’, the pink-flowered P.j. ‘Dorothy Wycoff,’ and the red-flowered P.j.’Valley Valentine’. Photos below.

After decades in my garden, P.j. ‘Bert Chandler’ has never flowered. Yet, however much I like flowers, I will never replace this fabulous chameleon. Bert’s new foliage emerges dark-pink, then changes to light-pink, and then to snowy-white before finally turning green. WOW! (That’s me “rejoicing”.) Photos below.

This year I ordered a truckload of plants from Garden Crossings in Michigan. All arrived safely in pristine condition. Last year I had great success pairing shade-loving Begonia annuals, Solenia Yellow and Solenia Scarlet (Blog post “2024: Summer Splendor”) so I decided to repeat the marriage. And I also added to my order their beautiful, dark-foliaged cousin, Begonia Solenia Chocolate Orange and paired it with Double Up White Begonia. Photo below.

A favorite addition. Carex ‘Feather Falls’ Z 5-9, brings a unique elegance to my shady garden. Perfect perennial to line a border for instant impact. And this showy, variegated Sedge is reportedly deer/rabbit resistant. Photos below.

Another favorite is the Spring flowering perennial groundcover, Saxifraga arendsii ‘Marto Red Picotee’ Z 4-9. Imagine a wedding party: the Bride is the main attraction but isn’t it always the sweet, endearing, little flower girl who steals the show? Photo below of show-stealer Marto Red Picotee.

Garden Crossings; sales@gardencrossings.com; 616-875-6355; www.gardencrossings.com

Note: E. A. Bowles, quoted above, was an award-winning plantsman and author. He is best known for his three popular gardening classics: My Garden in Spring, My Garden in Summer, and My Garden in Autumn and Winter. His books are informative and a joy to read. (Remember joy?)

The quote about the avenging fates came from My Garden in Spring, published in 1914. Here are a few excerpts from the chapter entitled The Lunatic Asylum:

“Then a home was needed for some trees and shrubs of abnormal character that I had been collecting, and the Lunatic Asylum sprang into existence. The twisted Hazel was the first crazy occupant, and is perhaps the maddest of all even now…the whole bush is a collection of various curves and spirals, a tangle of crooks and corkscrews from root to tip…. A young plant of a similarly twisted Hawthorn has now come to be a companion to the nut, but has not had time to develop its mania very fully.”

“The Viburnum family has sent some inmates. V. Opulus, the Guelder Rose, has a…dwarf variety. It makes a beautifully rounded bush, covered with small leaves, but it is a seriously minded lunatic, suffering from melancholy madness, for it never flowers.” (Ah, melancholy madness. Poor Bert!)

Fall 2024/Winter 2025: Garden Highlights

Apr17

Before diving deep into Spring, I’d like to recapture and share some Fall/Winter highlights from my garden:

In Autumn, when the trees play dress-up in their colorful finery, we eagerly embrace what Dan Hinkley called “reverence for the leaf.” Two native trees were foliage superstars in early Autumn. Oxydendrum arboreum (Sourwood Tree) produced gorgeous, large, lacquered leaves in red and purple and Sassafras albidum was aglow in leafy, buttery-yellow. Later, in November, the resplendent Japanese Maple, Acer japonica ‘Aoyagi Ukon,’ was the center of attention. Photos below.

When annual Lantana’s yellow flowers fade in the Fall, they are replaced by luminous clusters of midnight-blue berries. A happy bonus for the garden — and for the birds. Photos below.

Was climate change the reason Coleus went wild and Brobdingnagian? Maybe. Yet, in Autumn, despite outgrowing their container, the plants provided migrating hummingbirds with a very welcome departing gift of nectar-rich flowers. Photos below.

In January and February 2025, the garden looked magical in frosty-white. Photos below.

I do try to keep the bird feeders full, especially in Winter. I love having songbirds visit the garden. Hawks, not so much. Photos below.

Finally, this is a good time to share Vita Sackville-West’s cautionary note about plant catalogs: “I have grown wise, after many years of gardening,” she said, “and no longer order recklessly from widely alluring descriptions which make every annual sound easy to grow and as brilliant as a film star. I now know that gardening is not like that.”

Next Post: 2025 Spring Garden.

floragloria

A Garden Blog by Lois Sheinfeld

Archive | 2025

Backward March!: Garden Year 2025 Unfurled

Spring 2025: Pieris and Dazzling New Additions

Fall 2024/Winter 2025: Garden Highlights