The happy inner child

Between quake and hurricane, and during Ben Bernanke’s Jackson Hole speech, I escaped.   Mind you, I am still perched on a granite cliff at the mouth of Muscongus Bay and it was the sort of glorious clear blue-sky-and-evergreen day you get north of the 43^rd parallel, so it wasn’t as though reality was really bearing down.  It was just a perfect morning to visit the much-acclaimed Coastal Maine Botanical Garden ( http://www.mainegardens.org/home/ ) in Boothbay.

Board member Tom Renyi had told me that the two-acre “Bibby and Harold Alfond Children’s Garden” is wonderful so that’s where I headed.  My inner child couldn’t resist.  Lucky for me that was all I had decided to see.  The carefully maintained Botanical Garden, all 248 acres of it, is the largest in New England, and it will take hours, days, and seasons to really get to know it.

The drive into the Botanical Garden is gorgeous, with the smell of the sea lingering in the air and tall spruce stands towering above well laid-out and not too formally landscaped spaces.  I was immediately pleased to see that it isn’t “all tarted” up with fancy roads, buildings, and walkways.  Instead, it is nestled elegantly and naturally into its site, with a strong Maine identity, almost as though it had always been there.

The entrance to the Children’s Garden immediately draws you into the world of childish fantasy and magic for there, in a circular space bordered with rustic wooden swings and multi-colored shrub and flower beds, are several whales, intermittently spouting sun-sparkling spray.  The whales, perfectly placed boulders subtly carved and equipped with spouts, are a child-sized reminder of the garden’s connection with the sea, and are the creation of Damariscotta sculptor Carol Hanson. I was hooked.  I immediately regretted my adult height and took advantage of my role as photographer to sit and watch the whales spout from a childish elevation.  I’m not proud.

Red salvias are great for attracting butterflies
and hummingbirds

Leaving the whales reluctantly, I proceeded into the garden along the path to the bog.  The flowers lining this walk are rampant with a joyous spectrum of flowers, some low to the ground for the really small to see easily, and others tall enough to dwarf the just-under-4-foot crowd.  Flittering butterflies and bees added to the magic.  I especially loved the many types of annual salvia that were tucked among the perennials, knowing that hummingbirds visit them frequently.  You have to be patient with annual salvias – they are usually not available in the nursery until late spring and it takes some real warmth to get them growing.  It’s always worth saving them a spot, though, because they are easy to grow in pots or in the garden, and will bloom until fall in full sun.  I especially love Salvia farinacea for it’s unique cornflower hue, and believe that scarlet salvias are the best for attracting humming birds. 

And then there's
lobelia cardinalis....

Speaking of scarlet, red Cardinal flower (Lobelia cardinalis), was planted abundantly in the Children’s Garden.  You couldn’t miss its tubular flowers, a standout crimson color, attractive to hummingbirds and the human eye. This short-lived perennial will self-sow and is native to moist slightly shady and sunny areas in eastern North America.   It is a stunning addition to the garden in need of knockout late summer color.  

Rudbekia lanciniata stands out

The path’s exuberant stand of two Rudbekia species, both North American natives, was also dazzling. The first was the well-known Black Eyed Susan (Rudbekia hirta), the state flower of Maryland and a robust bloomer in well-drained soil and full sun, though I find it can take some shade.  The other was Rudbekia lanciniata variety ampla, purportedly named by Linneaus himself in 1753.  These stood nearly five feet tall, their centers a yellow contrast to R. hirta’s dark purplish brown cone, and were alive with butterflies.  I could easily see this growing in a small sunny urban cottage-style garden if it was frequently pinched to keep it under control. 

Another North American native, Butterfly Weed, Asclepia tuberosa, grew nearby adding to the riot of color.  This sweet plant, with clusters of tiny orange flowers, grows to between 24-36 inches tall, and I have seen it blooming well in Georgetown most of this summer in a location with a bit of shade.  I have always heard that Butterfly Weed, which develops a thick taproot, resents being moved so find a location for it and leave it alone.   The great thing about this perennial is that it adds a dash of restrained orange exuberance that combines especially well with blues, lavenders, whites, and yellows. 

Sal's cub.

When I neared the end of this cheery walk, I looked up and simply stopped in my tracks for there, across a small bog and pond, stood a small bear on a miniature island of blueberry bushes.  It was Sal’s bear cub, of course, from Robert McCloskey’s “Blueberries for Sal”, a story I remember being read in kindergarten.  A strong Maine –based literary theme runs through the Children’s Garden, (E. B. White and Barabara Cooney are also represented), and there is even a small cottage-like library full of books and chairs where people, young and old, can sit and read.  I was sorely tempted. 

Those are really blueberry bushes
atop this cottage.

Beside this building, and in view of the cub, was another cottage that caught my eye.  In addition to its charm, the roof was planted with grasses.  The roof of a nearby shed was planted with low bush blueberries.  These two buildings made me wonder if I could turn the flat roof over my living room, with it’s boring water proof membrane, into a green roof to help insulate the house, to provide additional fodder for butterflies and bees, and to sit in above the fray of Georgetown.  “Living roofs” have always intrigued me, including the famous one at Chicago’s City Hall, especially since they can real garden space and planted areas in dense urban areas.

Further down the path is the veg garden and it’s a jewel.  The vertical gourd stand was especially imaginative and would be easy to replicate in an urban garden.  This one was a simple wood structure with whimsically painted faux gourds hanging brightly beside the real deal.  The vegetable garden, complete with scarecrows, compost pile, and a small working greenhouse all perfectly scaled to children.

As it was time for me to leave, I decided that the creators of the garden, including designer Herb Schaal and Executive Director Maureen Heffernan, have really created an ideal children’s garden.  My inner child was delighted, and judging from the visitors I saw, ranging in age from three to over 80, mine wasn’t the only one.  In her letter of invitation to the opening of the Children’s Garden last year, Ms. Heffernan quotes Miss Rumphias, Maine author Barbara Cooney’s unforgettable character:  “You must do something to make the world more beautiful”.  This garden makes the world more beautiful and will inspire generations to do the same.

Just say yes to pot(s)

The fog has rolled in, here on the coast of Maine. I’ve been repeatedly told there was hardly any fog in July or the first part of August when I was sweating uncomfortably in our Nation’s Capitol, but now I’m here fog has apparently resumed its usual place in the coast weather pattern.  I am making every effort not to take it personally.

Instead, I am making the best of it by acting on a thought I’ve had every spring when I’m trying to decide what to plant in my pots.  That is, I’m making notes and taking photos now of especially sumptuous pots. That way, next year I have an idea of what I want to have before I walk into my favorite nurseries and am stricken with “kid in a candy shop” syndrome when facing benches of gorgeous annuals.

Potted plants, annuals in particular, are an important feature in small gardens and especially in Washington where summer’s heat drains color from perennials and flowering shrubs, and shortens their bloom times.  Annuals growing in well placed pots can keep the magic of color, fragrance, and texture going well into fall, especially if they are pinched, fertilized, and watered regularly.

Yellow daisies need regular deadheading
and may flag in too much heat.

Some of my favorite pots this summer have featured a single type of annual.   I especially love a profusion of yellow daisies but they can get ragged in Washington’s heat.  A great alternative is yellow lantana (Lantana camara) for its heat, sun, and drought tolerance and its lemony fragrance.  Lantanas also come in pink, orange, white, and lavender, attract butterflies, and combine well with other sun-loving annuals.  Their berries are said to be toxic, though, so it’s best to snip them if you have dogs or small children. Removing the berries, of course, will also encourage new blooms. 

For shade I love impatiens, both combined with other plants or not.  It’s really hard to beat such a great workhorse, though my snooty designer friends look down their noses at me for confessing admiration of such a commoner. Brightly colored begonias and delicate fuchsias are terrific, but seem to bloom less vigorously in deep shade where ferns thrive. Simple ferns, especially planted in black, old-fashioned urns are completely elegant.  There’s something languid, cool, and constant about well-tended ferns. 

Pots of mixed plants are trickier.  First, you have to combine plants that require similar growing conditions and have compatible or complimentary growth habits.  Next, their colors should match.  This seems obvious, but I have had to avert my eyes more than once at color combinations that remind me of Bozo the Clown’s sartorial choices.  One need not be uptight about color combinations, but a little can go a long way.

Love the yellow and red,
but not the pot....

Lovely and simple,
verbena and petunias

A strong simple color combination I must keep in mind next year is pale lemon yellow and burgundy, like pale yellow petunias, purple fountain grass (Penasetum alopecoroides) for height, and Alternanthera dentata 'Royal Tapestry', all of which like sun and can stand some shade.  On the other hand, a good purple flower can stand out cheerfully against chartreuse.  One wouldn’t want to plop this combination near orange flowers, though inexplicably I have seen it done.  I adore blue flowers, but avoid lobelias because I can’t grow them to save my life, love them as I do.  Instead, I have had great success with blue fan flower (scaevola aemula).  This Australian native tolerates light shade as well as full sun and is used as a ground cover in warmer zones where it is hardy.  I love it with dark purple petunias, peach trailing verbena (Verbena speciosa), and white geraniums; with fuzzy Swedish Ivy (Plectranthus forsteri “Marginatus”), white verbena and light green flowering tobacco (nicotiana); or combined red petunias, purple fountain grass, and white bacopa for that “Fourth of July” celebration.  The possibilities are almost endless.

This shaggy coco mat needs camouflage quick.

Fillers are essential to well planted pots.  By fillers I mean plants that you include more for foliage and/or form rather than for their flowers.  Fillers have many uses.  First, their structure can make or break a composition.  For example, it’s almost always lovely to have something viney spilling luxuriously and softly down the sides of a container like ivy, sweet potato vine, or licorice plant (helichrysum).  Unattractive containers, like window boxes with shaggy coco-liners that resemble badly tended facial hair, absolutely require the cloak of an obscuring filler.  Second, if you are not assiduous in pinching back your blooming plants or if you inadvertantly missed watering opportunities and your annuals have temporarily gone leggy or stopped blooming, fillers with good foliage tend to compensate in the color and texture department until the bloomers recover.  Third, fillers offer subtle contrast that flowering plants usually lack.

Such a beautiful combination.

I tried chartreuse sweet potato vine this summer with great trepidation and the encouragement of an old nursery hand.  After a couple of months I decided that I liked it because it beautifully softened the brick planter it was in.  Next summer I think I’ll be wild and experiment with burgundy-leafed plants of which there are several.  In addition to Coleus “Dark Star”, an upright plant that has inch-long velvety leaves, and the good old purple sweet potato vine, I am very interested in “Purple Shield (Strobialanthus dyerianus).  This old-fashioned plant dates back to Victorian gardening but we won’t hold that against it.  It is an upright plant with long pointy magenta leaves marked strongly with complex dark green venation.  It tolerates drought well and grows tall if not pinched back but doesn’t really start growing in earnest until temperatures begin to climb.  This is one of those plants I probably wouldn’t dare mess with but having seen it successfully planted with purple angelonia and dusty miller (Senecio cineraria), I think I could handle it. I’m sure it would be gorgeous with purple lantana, all kinds of petunias, pink salvias, and pink dahlias as well. 

My last “note-to-self” for this piece is articulating what I will avoid next year:  Pink impatiens in front of red brick, filler plants that reach aggressively outward in a tight seating spaces, zinnias, and poor use of fertilizer. 

Now the fog has lifted and it’s time to pinch my petunias.

Love me or leaf me.

 Surely it has not escaped any Georgetowner that we have just survived the hottest July on record.  I am no authority in the science of climate change but it wouldn’t take a meteorological expert to convince me that the record highs, not to mention poor air quality, were the result of the voluminous and toxic emissions of hot air emanating from both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.

It’s also been dry.  I was going to write a sequel to the drought-tolerant plant piece of several weeks ago, but really – just go water your pots, plants, and trees.  Almost nothing is THIS drought tolerant and a few drops of rain now and then are not going to make a difference.

Butter burr's giant light green leaves.

No, I would rather talk about leaves.  This time of year, the most reliable and interesting feature of many gardens are imaginative combinations of leaves.   As I was moseying around Georgetown looking for inspiration, I was consistently attracted to the textures, shapes, colors, and sizes of the foliage in various gardens.  

Take, for instance, butter bur (Petasites hybridus).  Butter burs grow in North America, Europe and Northern Asia, and have been used to alleviate migraine headaches, as diuretics, to soothe coughs, and to mitigate stress.  I certainly don’t advocate resorting to butter bur for medicinal reasons.  My interest is purely aesthetic.  I associate its very large, broad light green leaves, which grow on 2-3 foot stems, with mass plantings along waterways.  It was a great surprise, therefore, to find it growing in a small front garden nearby, alongside the native Joe Pye Weed (a great one for butterflies) and a fine leafed evergreen shrub.  Its placement in this small space was intended, surely, to amuse, and it worked on me!  It makes me think that butter burr would contrast beautifully with rhododendrons, tightly clipped boxwood, and grasses.

Zebra grass is a show-stopper

Speaking of grasses, Zebra grass, (Miscanthus sinensis 'Zebrinus'), is a terrific eye-catcher.  Every time I see its 4-6 foot tall narrow leaves, horizontally marked by creamy-white bands, I am stopped in my tracks. In mass plantings it looks sensational, but it works equally well in small gardens as a focal point.  A stunning contrast beside formal hedges, it’s also a good complement in borders featuring broad-leafed plants like great blue hostas and clumps of perennials like bee balm and white coneflower.  Aside from its good looks, miscanthus tolerates light shade and isn’t fussy about soil. 

Each frond has its own pattern

In writing about leaves, I would be remiss not to rave about ferns.  I adore ferns, from the time their tightly coiled fronds shoot up in spring to the time they die back in winter – or in the case of Christmas ferns, all year around.   Ferns look great with everything, and fantastic in masses all on their own.  One of my top three hundred and forty three ferns (I don’t play favorites) is the Japanese painted fern  (Athyrium niponicum).  I love their unusual colors, metallic grays tinted with magenta, and their soft ruffled texture is irresistible.  They do well in shade to part shade but they don’t like drying out.  Keep them moist in nice compost-rich soil, and combine them with red leafed plants, plants with pink or white flowers, and shrubs with dark green leaves.  If you have shade and you don’t have ferns, you may want to rethink your planting priorities.  Your shade needn’t be damp, since there are several species that tolerate dry soil.  Know your garden’s conditions and find a fern that fits!

AddAucuba in dappled sunlight

And then there is the way light plays on leaves.  In winter, hollies and evergreen magnolias are wonderful because sunlight reflects off their leaves as though they were polished mirrors.  Variegated aucuba (Aucuba japonica “Variegata”) also reflects light beautifully, and is most theatrical when planted in lightly shaded areas penetrated by gentle sunlight giving the soft yellow in the leaves the verisimilitude of sunlight at sunset.  Plant Aucuba beside the soft, slightly blue-green leaves of nandina or the spikey leaves of Oregon grape, and you’ll get some great textural tension.  Aucubas come in males and females, so you need both to generate gorgeous big red berries.  They are adaptable shrubs that can grow in a wide variety of conditions and are known for their drought tolerance – but then I wasn’t going to mention that. 

Rosemary thriving in a
Georgetown garden.

Sage and thyme are
great complements

Several Georgetown gardeners proudly display herbs in their front gardens to great leafy effect.  I know of several enormous rosemary bushes that bring out my most envious impulses.  I adore their fine, silver gray texture and their tall upright structure.  Wouldn’t you love a very sunny, well-drained garden lined with rosemary hedges?  I also love the combination of sage and thyme. The contrast of these two compatible plants, one with pubescent soft, silvery (or burgundy colored) leaves and the other with tiny leaves lining semi-prostrate stems is immensely appealing.  Aside from their leaf-ish attributes, of course, herbs offer scent, winter interest, and culinary possibilities that make one salivate. 

I have only skimmed the surface of the realm of leafy possibilities.  There are trillions more to rave about but, even online, space is limited.

Just one more word, however, a designer’s caution: Plants with interesting foliage can add immense interest to your garden, but, poorly combined, they can have the opposite effect -- sort of like wearing plaid pants, a striped shirt, and a polka dot tie with trainers.  If you plant too many things with a similar texture, you will have a boring garden; too many leaves with too much character and you will have a chaotic garden; too many fine-textured plants and you will have a fuzzy mess.  Embrace drama, subtlety, balance, and whimsy, and you should be fine. 

And the good news is that August should be more temperate for gardening, now Pennsylvania Avenue has been deserted.