Gardens by Kelly Productions

For as long as I can remember, Augusts in my Midwest garden call to mind the word baked.  Particularly the last few years.  It rains, rains, and rains for days and months on end, breaking records and flooding fields.  Yet just as abruptly as it began, it comes to a fast halt.  Then it gets hot, and then we bake.  The ground splits open in revealing cracks, and the garden gets dry and parched.  Happy August!

But three plants caught my eye tonight.  Three toughies that know how to stick it out, even better than this gardener who retreated long before dusk tonight as a hard line of mosquitoes doggedly pursued his every step.

Scutellaria incana-  You may remember me extolling the virtues of this plant, commonly and unfortunately known as hoary skullcap, during my travels through the Ozarks last year.  In effort to stem the tide of inevitable purple prose from my fingers, I’ll offer these brief words of praise.  This shade-loving, rocky woodland native glows in cobalt blue tones in the months of June and July.  Electric blue, in the shade, in JULY!?  What more should I say?  The habit can be a little lax on some forms, but not to the point of flopping over into a disheveled heap (unless you garden in 10 feet of pure compost, at which point most things will probably collapse).  If you can’t handle lax, prop it up with a shrub or something.

Sedum telephium ssp. ruprechtii ‘Hab Gray’- This unfortunately uncommon sedum deserves a place in American gardens.  The Royal Horticultural Society no doubt did a disservice to this plant when they decreed in their last sedum trial at Wisley that this plant lacked comely, ornamental traits.  For the record, I’m not quoting here, but at least trying to emulate the haughtiness.  They chided its cream flowers which turn to shades of chocolate (although they chose some ghastly adjective like brown to describe them in their report) as altogether unsplendid.  They bashed its mysterious marine-colored foliage as boring.  Bleh.  This workhorse plant deserves greater praise.  Only this year has it collapsed in my garden, likely due to extraordinary amounts of rain and not of any innate problem.  It’s foliage is exquisite, its stems red and contrasting, and its cream flowers merely creamy topping to an already pleasant dessert.  It even seeds around politely, so once you like it you’re guaranteed just a few more.

Rudbeckia subtomentosa ‘Henry Eilers’- Perennial followers of this blog know that I have a fetish for this plant.  It’s on my desert island list (as is the Scutellaria mentioned earlier), a list of a few dozen plants (or more if I choose) that I absolutely couldn’t live without, even if stranded on a desert island in an otherwise temperate climate.  Many personalities have had a hand in this plant, and a simple search of my site reveals too much about this plant already.  Bottom line–even when in a baked garden, it still looks fab.

P.S.–Dearest readers….I’m going to try a more regular, shorter, and truncated blogging strategy.  So you may be hearing from me more often in the form of little ditties like so, rather than the expository essays which you all, no doubt, find endearing and charming.  And so it goes with good intentions and all…

It struck me during this last week that I hadn’t been on a single local botanizing foray this summer.  Not one.  After spending at least a day per week for the last two years in the field during the summer, I’ve let my busy schedule come between me and one of my favorite, pleasureful pasttimes–foraying into the remnant wilderness around my home.  So today I fixed that.  I spent the afternoon, albeit a hot one, in the field in search of local flora blooming at the height of summer.  Another realization I still find most troubling–it’s August 1st.

August 1st, for me, marks the peak of high summer.  High summer, as garden writers of old wrote, marks midsummer, the time at which many gardens succumb to heat and humidity and during which many gardeners retreat for the cool shelter of air conditioning.  Despite my abhorrence for the heat and humidity, I relish my garden the most during high summer.  Maybe because the norm among gardens at the height of summer is drab, blah, and burnt.  I’m good for sharing my secrets too.  Stay tuned to the folds of Fine Gardening magazine in 2011 for my run-down on how to beat the heat of high summer with a palette of dependable, hardworking plants.

When I think of that palette of plants, which really is quite encompassing, I think of the prairies of Iowa–environments where plants must thrive through heinous bouts of heat, wind, hail, and torrents of dashing rain, often repeatedly from June through August.  I spent some time remembering and rediscovering some of these plants in their raw beauty today amid the buzz of dragonflies and the cajoling calls of nesting songbirds.  Take a look…

Clematis virginiana–Known commonly as devil’s darning needles, this native clematis rightly reminds many of the favorite sweet autumn clematis (Clematis terniflora).  This native counterpart differs by forming a more sprawling vine perfect for ambling up shrubs and small trees with bevies of smaller flowers borne earlier than its Asian cousin.  I found these faintly scented flowers just opening this afternoon.

Echinocystis lobata–I love vines and honestly never have enough vertical space in my garden.  If you gave me two hundred trellises, pointed towards the horizon, and said “go west and create a garden,” I’d hit the road with nothing more than seeds and a well-polished trowel.  One vine that I keep meaning to try, and that I think has some promise in the “annual vines with fragrance” department, is the cucumber vine.  It will easily engulf a trellis by midsummer only to outdo itself again with loads of sweetly fragrant white flowers.  The fruits are equally entertaining, harboring four seeds that develop under hydrostatic pressure.  These spiny, prickly, hedgehog-like pods explosively pop late in the fall, reportedly ejecting seeds at speeds of up to 11.5 m/seconds.

Elderberries and American plums looked tasty today.  Made me think of preserves, jams, and jellies.  My “foodie” mind is never far away.

I visited this local prairie today to find it awash in yellow daisies–members of the genus Silphium to be exact.  These rosinweeds (Silphium integrifolium) are some of the most underused late summer-blooming yellow daisies.  Sure, some chalk them up haughtily (or boringly) as just another in the encumbering class of “ADCs” (another damn composite).  But these starkly textural, tough, and zoneworthy perennials laugh in the face of high summer bringing much needed color to an otherwise tired and often burnt garden scene.  I believe strongly that some seasons of the year have a “just so” kind of look–and for August, that “just so” look is blended yellow and gold against clear blue skies.  See also Silphium spp.

Scrophularia marilandica–I was so tickled to find this common figwort today.  I’ve never seen one before, but immediately knew what it was when I dashed by it at 30 mph along a dusty gravel road.  I ground to a halt, sped backwards a few hundred feet, and waded through a ditch of head-high weeds to get this photo.  I remember marveling over these obscure flowers in field guides as a kid, and sure enough found it today just a five miles from my house–a lesson in how easily we take native plants for granted.  Though I don’t see much hope for common figwort in American gardens, it’s truly a nerdy plant that you just have to see to appreciate.

Normally I wouldn’t call the 8th of July midsummer, but in a year like this it feels like it already.  Maybe it’s because I’m not here nearly everyday like I was last the past two summers.  Time rolls on in waves of new flowers, color in and out with a rhythm I admire.  That rhythm can be seen beautifully in the restored, remnant, and reconstructed prairies across my home state where the seasons fade into each other with paradoxically exacting effort.  Each week seems to own its identity.

Some day, maybe next year, I’d love to start a calendar project that documents the passing of each week in my garden photographically.  You can join in too!  It’ll truly be a garden calendar that causes us to revere the seasons as they evolve across the tapestry of our landscapes.

Until then, here are a few of the garden-worthy natives gracing the stage of my garden and/or local prairies this week.  More again soon, but for now, I’m headed to the garden!

Greetings from frigid Iowa!

My heartfelt thanks to the 100 plus attendees of my lecture “ZoneWorthy: Underused Plants for Zones 4 & 5″ at the Des Moines Botanical Center this morning.  It’s always great to start a new year of lecturing activities with an energized, inquisitive local crowd.  To check out the slate of upcoming lectures, click over to my calendar.  If I’m in your neighborhood, give me a shout!  I’ve got a few engagements to add to that calendar, but it’s up-to-date for the most part.

For more information about my Zoneworthy concept checkout www.zoneworthy.com, a redirect to plant profiles from this blog.  In 2010, I plan to launch a standalone website that will serve as a conduit of information for people intrigued and engaged by the Zoneworthy concept.  Look for updates and changes!  Also feel free to download copies of my handouts and view my Powerpoint lecture on the Handouts and Downloads page.

I like to think of the autumn months as the calendar’s candy shop.  Bright colors, sweet sights.  Each year the grandest and most august of seasonal shifts lends the landscape a richly saccharine palette.  From the licorice red colors of maples to the butterscotch tones of oaks and witch hazels, deciduous trees and shrubs shed their coats as we don ours in preparation for the bustle of winter.

Today I’d like to share with you some of my favorite “candies” from around the Iowa State University campus, my surrogate home for the last four years (and two more).  Anyone who has ever visited campus knows of its beauty–a proverbial arboretum of many hundreds of species of trees and shrubs, including woody plants less appreciated than their overplanted counterparts.  In that vein, let’s take a walk.

As indecisive as I am, I could easily narrow down my list of favorite native trees to several dozen or so.  Near the top of that list is the American smoketree (Cotinus obovatus).  Dream no longer of purple smoketree, the purple blight on the landscape.  Instead think a little bigger, heftier, and prettier.  American smoketree boasts conspicuous, smoky flower clusters in mid-summer, puffing out like billowy clouds of not-so-pink cotton candy.  The semi-glossy, bluish-green foliage often holds raindrops, perfect distractions for nebbish, naturally minded kids of all ages.  We’ve got three trees on campus just west of Kildee Hall.  Each is different.  One literally glows in amber and cider tones.  One shines in gold, hopefully an inspiration to the sun which these days doesn’t show itself much.  The third sports a zebra look with black veins harnessing bands of yellow trapped between.

My next find was a colony of dwarf fothergilla (Fothergilla gardenii).  These happy companions to daphnes and rhododendrons look sumptuous this time of year with rounded, coin-shaped foliage reminiscent of a bowl of hard candy–greens, yellows, oranges, and reds.  Perfect for borders or that small bed where you’d like a shrub but don’t have room for a viburnum or weigela, dwarf fothergilla blooms in late spring here in Iowa, sending out bottlebrush-shaped flowers that glisten in May sunlight.  Keep in mind that this southeastern U.S. native loves organic matter, so top-dressing with compost never hurts.

Making my way west along Osborn Drive, I stopped by a most elegant specimen of Chionanthus virginicus, our native fringetree.  This is one of my favorite Ozarks native shrubs, occuring in southwest Missouri at the very northern limit of its range.  Dangling, silvery white blossoms adorn all limbs of the plant in late spring.  I love the texture of the flowers, even though I’m not the biggest fan of white in the garden.  But perhaps the best part of the show comes along in fall when lime green foliage ages to baked gold, providing a glowing backdrop for chocolate chip-like drupes that dangle where flowers once did (at least on female plants; the species is dioecious).  Aesthetics and ornamentation aside, I love American fringetree because it’s tough.  This multi-stemmed, large shrub thrives near water and in rockier soils as well.  Durable, adaptable, and gorgeous.  What more could you ask for from a specimen shrub or woody focal plant at the edge of the shade garden? 

Before ducking into my office in Horticulture Hall, I took a quick peak in the courtyard beyond my door between the building and the greenhouses.  This alcove of plant life sports collections and fun accessions of faculty in our department.  My favorite specimen of Heptacodium miconioides (seven sons flower) dripped in bright pink this morning, thanks to the colorful sepals left behind from the white flowers that finished several weeks ago.  Munchable candy they’re not.  But they’re damn sweet to look at!

My last plant of note is a red twig dogwood (Cornus sericea).  I know…what could be so fascinating about the most overplanted dogwood in American history?  Just take a look at this amazing specimen’s fall color.  What a trip!?  Even the most ordinary plants can earn their keep when you take a moment to look past what makes them ordinary.  Great gardens most often feature great plants.  But the best gardens feature great plants used in remarkable ways. 

I’ll hope you’ll take a trip through the candy shop in your part of the country–hopefully in your own backyard.

Autumnal nights come fast. Racing the setting sun, I sped with trowel and bucket in tow around the garden, quickly tucking in the last of my weekend purchases and watering them. Bats buzz bye, darting past my head as they bypass the security light. Though I love fall, I can’t help scorn the last of the light that flickers beyond the horizon shortening the hours I can spend in my garden. It’s an assured consequence of my second favorite season.

Though I disapprove of shortening days, I grimace more when I hear fellow gardeners decry the hardness and dryness of fall. “Oh the garden looks tough,” they moan, suggesting that fall marks an end.  While it’s logical to regard fall as bold and vibrant ending to a well-sung concert, I relish its span of time as much as I did the measures and bars before it.  The end is the best part, right?  So in defiance, I go shopping every fall in search of the best divas capable of hanging on through overture after overture to appear only in a gallant end scene.

This fall I’ve got a few stops planned.  First, I made my way to the coolest plant haven in Iowa, The Perennial Flower Farm of Ionia.  Owners Steve and Caroline Bertrand relish the closing acts too, propagating numerous clones of bush clematis (Clematis heracleifolia), the adorable yellow waxy bells (Kirengeshoma palmata), and giant bugbane (Actaea simplex ‘Pritchard’s Giant’).  I bought some of each, even though I already own several bush clematis and yellow waxy bells.  I’m insatiable, what can I say?  The giant bugbane has been a lust plant for me for years, even though I’ve had ample opportunity to buy one.  Plant geeks have priorities though, and somehow I kept passing up this skyscraping tall boy in favor of something else.  Yesterday, however, was its day.  Even though my photo fails to do the plant justice, imagine the scent with me for a moment.  Bawdy and lusty, bees and all manner of winged pollinators swarmed six-foot tall flower stalks despite my prodding lens and investigative eyes.

My next stop lies 1,200 miles from my fair garden home.  Next Sunday I embark with fellow plant geeks Dan Heims, Kate Bryant, and Bob Pries on a whirlwind tour of North Carolina’s finest, all before the annual Garden Writers Association (GWA) convention in Raleigh.  I’ll post photos and stories of our trek as I do every year from GWA.

In the flurry of fall, I look to my garden for stability, and even though I’ll miss the entirety of the ending this season, I’ll know it’s nothing but the best.

Check out more photos from my annual trip to The Perennial Flower Farm below:

Listed in order of appearance: Giant bugbane (Actaea simplex ‘Pritchard’s Giant’), Clematis viticella (seed wild collected in Poland), Sanguisorba tenuifolia, and a very petite-flowered clone of the unfortunately weedy Clematis tangutica.

It goes without saying that I’m a wanderer of wild lands, though I’m often asked why.  Wild lands are the frontiers for garden plants, whether in Iowa or the Ozarks.  Frontiers are full of wonder, bewilderment, and the ripe occasion of failure.  Not everything found will suit American gardens.  Nobody will find everything they’re looking for either.  But the pursuit itself is a worthwhile occupation of time.  This afternoon I stole away for a few hours to find my way through a very familiar prairie–one I grew up on.

This prairie holds special meaning to me.  It’s the first virgin tallgrass prairie that I ever set foot on and it’s where I learned one plant at a time how to botanize, to watch and listen for the cues plants dropped.  Botanizing, as aloof an activity as it may seem, really just taps into any individual’s native tendency to observe, organize, and categorize.  And I can’t believe that anyone gardens without observing.  That’s partly the point after all, right?  The first daylily.  The last tomato.  This innate phenology joyfully haunts our spirits and minds.

While this prairie holds great memories for me personally, it also holds a population of the federally threatened western prairie fringed orchid.  A superbly beautiful plant, it’s garden suitability ranks nil.  It requires exacting conditions, symbiotic associations with mychorrizal fungi, and has an inconceivable relationship with its immediate environment that results in an abberant, Circadian rhythm of sorts throughout its lifetime.  Digging them from the wild will get you sent to the farthest depths of hell, not just for removing it illegally from the wild but for ultimately failing miserably at cultivating it.  Warnings aside, the intricate beauty of this plant captured me when I first saw it.  Here’s an image of one I found today in peak bloom.

Western prairie fringed orchid (Platanthera praeclara)

Finally got the video compiled from our trip to the Ozarks!  Thanks to Elizabeth C. for her awesomelatudinous videographer skills!  Enjoy a little nerdy fun with plants, an overzealous plant-a-holic, and a video camera!

Elizabeth catches me looking my worst!

Today concluded my plant-driven outing to the Ozarks with plant pals Josh and Elizabeth.  Part 4 proved to be the most fun and most exciting of the trip, thanks in large part to the invaluable assistance of Susan Farrington and Dan Drees, local botanists and wildlife experts who own several hundred acres of prime Ozarks habitat.  We spent the morning and early afternoon at the “Farrington/Drees Research Station” and began our trek back to Iowa around 2:00 PM.  I write from my office in Bedford tonight a little tired but ready to find some local prairies to trek through tomorrow.  I’m a sucker for the quest.

After scanning through a floristic inventory of the property that Susan kindly provided me, my eyes instantly caught sight of Nemastylis geminiflora, a native Irid (Iris family member) known commonly as prairie celestial.  I suppose it basically looks like a blue-eyed grass on steroids with giant, starry blue flowers held above grass foliage.  Susan led us to one of several populations where we collected seed.  Prairie celestial is another species I came to know thanks to Claude Barr’s out-of-print tome Jewels of the Prairie, which happily extolled its many ornamental virtues.  Though the flowers last only one day (and the longest of any Nemastylis mind you), the two to three weeks each clump remains in bloom satisfies want and yearn for blue in the spring garden.  Who says all plants must bloom on and on for eternity?  Why not appreciate the emblems of the season and the joy of the moment?  While I love the idea of my favorite plants (irises!) staying in bloom for longer than they do, it would be akin to Christmas every day.  And mom always said that would never be much fun.

Silene regia

Topping our list of must-finds today were the two red catchflies, Silene virginica and S. regia.  The latter, commonly dubbed royal catchfly is just beginning to open now in the Ozarks.  The former, called fire pink bloomed three to four weeks ago and had already set seed.  Many gardeners already grow both of these striking beauties, but with a little selection work these natives can become even better.  I think fire pink especially will prove promising for those seeking dianthus-like plants in better colors with better heat tolerance and garden carrying capacity.  Why grow sad, meltable Dianthus when you could grown a rough, tough, and red Silene?

Trekking through Susan and Dan’s glade was alone worth the trip, even if we didn’t add tons of new species to our “found” list.  Their glade seemingly spans on and on and flourishes at the hands of such able managers keen on preserving and conserving this fragile ecosystem.  We tossed back and forth ideas about horticulturally worthy plants (both have horticultural backgrounds/experience and even propagate native plants for local plant sales) found in glades and across the Ozarks.  We agreed most of the time! 

Closeup of flowers of Asclepias variegata

One plant we both agree warrants additional attention is the seductively beautiful Asclepias variegata, the redring milkweed.  The native milkweeds (with the exception of A. syriaca, the common milkweed) make such great garden plants!  They thrive, if sited well, without much care and continue to reward the gardener for a lifetime.  We’ve been on the lookout for four or five this week and have happily tagged populations of most for seed collection.  The redring milkweed especially calls a siren song to me and macro lens (note the burgundy ring subtending the showier, coronate petals).  Red stems, red rings, white flowers for contrast.  Say no more!

Asclepias variegata

The last plant that I’ll mention before tucking in tonight is the grass pink, one of my favorite orchids and a “weed” as far as native orchids go.  Calopogon tuberosus puts out showy pink flowers on grassy stems only when happily oriented in a bog setting, just like we found in Dan and Susan’s garden (99% natives) behind the house.  I squealed with delight.  This dapper pinkling could easily have a home in a homemade bog like this one or a flooded container garden (bog ala miniature).  Though not readily available, more gardeners should seek out this relatively easy orchid.

Calopogon tuberosus

This isn’t one of my better worded posts, and it lacks my usual fluency.  Mea culpa!  The comforts of home and bed tempt me now at this point more than my keyboard!  I’ll post more tomorrow from my local hikes and a recap video as soon as our team produces it in the next week or so.

The phrase “cardio workout” took on new meaning for me today.  We hiked Porphyry Mountain north of Eminence today, a 1,000 foot peak  (it’s an Ozark mountain) with steep trails and weather-beaten woods.  An “inland hurricane” as locals call it, ripped through the area about a month ago sending trees and power lines down throughout the county.  Workers have made some progress clearing the trails but lots of old growth forest and the trails through them remain in tatters–kind of like my heart and lungs after today’s trek.

An Ozarks glade

Admittedly today was a slower day for “new discoveries” since we covered a lot of ground yesterday.  But we hiked through some tremendous examples of glade communities (and even shot some video in one of them…stay tuned for post-trip video compilation!)  Glades are outcroppings of limestone on sunny slopes.  These communities serve as home for a finite number of narrowly zoned plants that thrive in minimal soil profiles with basic pH.  Plants from these settings would site well in rock gardens, in particular, but in many cases have some range of adaptability for other stressed garden conditions (like hot barren spots where nothing will grow).  Plants from the Ozarks are tough.  Period.  More Ozark natives (like my favorite violet, Viola pedata) have been killed in cultivation with kindness than from poor suitability to the garden setting.

Delphinium carolinianum

So what did we find new today?  The day started off blue, literally in fact.  Alongside a dusty county road we came upon a small stand of Delphinium carolinianum.  I think these brilliant blue flowers would look smashing in the rock garden, but the perennial larkspurs have always had a somewhat lackluster reputation as garden plants.  They don’t have much of a presence and last for such a small amount of time.  Nerd plants?  Yes, probably.  But how can you beat that blue color?

We turned up LOTS of Echinacea simulata today, the kissing cousin to the pale purple coneflower (E. pallida) of prairies here and farther north.  Personally I think E. simulata has showier flowers with richer coloration, but other than a minute difference in pollen color (E. pallida is white, E. simulata is yellow) they look virtually identical.  E. simulata probably has some breeding potential for variation in flower form and intense coloration.  I don’t know if its genes have contributed to recent advances in the genus.  Anyone?  We tagged several populations with GPS for future seed collection.

Echinacea simulata

Our visit to the first glade added Cheilanthes lanosa, the hairy lipfern, to our list.  As I alluded to yesterday, I’m in love with ferns, and after seeing this soft-textured gem pop from crevices all day, I can’t imagine gardening without it.  It grew next to another plant that I love (and profiled on this blog last summer)–the prickly pear cactus (Opuntia humifusa).  These prickly pears appeared stress and weren’t in bloom yet either.  The pads were smallish and suffered from winter dieback (harsh cold winter winds easily desiccate hardy cacti).  I recently read (yes I read papers on the systematics of Opuntia in my spare time) that specimens of O. humifusa with orange centers are tetraploid and those with clear yellow flowers are diploid.  Funky? 

Scutellaria bushii

Perhaps the highlight of the day was finding another Ozark endemic, Bush’s skullcap (Scutellaria bushii).  I’ve pondered the ornamental features of this plant from time to time since so many of its cousins (like the sprawling S. resinosa and the shade-brightening S. incana) shape up into fine garden plants.  We tagged two occurrences, both with a limited number of individuals for future visits.  Though small, they easily attract attention from a distance.  I don’t think anyone should rush to the garden centers or feverishly flip through catalogs looking for them, but they may catch some attention in the future with serious collectors looking for subtle impact in the rock garden or other settings.

In the woody realm, we came across some smashing forms of Hydrangea arborescens today.  I know, I know it’s altogether bland and ordinary as far as hydrangeas go.  But this tough ol’ bird spans the gamut of flower forms and overall plant habits.  The choicest form occurred mid-way through the steep hike mentioned earlier.  In spite of my shaking hands and racing heart, I stopped to snap a photo of this overwhelming beauty.  Dark foliage.  Crisp white flowers.  Contrast is good, right?

Hydrangea arborescens

Tomorrow we’ll join local botanical experts Susan Farrington and Dan Drees on their private property for our last day of adventuring.  Now I’m going to sit back and enjoy the charm and hospitality of our hostess at Wild Horse Inn.  Catbirds are calling in the mimosa tree (Albizia spp.), robins are singing their nighttime adieus, and I’m sipping lemonade watching lightning bugs fly by.