Jack and David's Garden Blog: February 2015

Wisps of fog rise from the valley below us, at sunrise. Neither the Hudson River School nor Chinese scroll painters were making this stuff up.

Calamintha nepeta 'Gottlieb Friedkund' around the rain gauge

Seed heads of Rabbit's Foot Clover, Trifolium arvense, contrast with the strong stone driveway edging-- the volunteer trifolium are on the driveway side of the edging!

Coreopsis tripteris, Tall Coreopsis, in the west meadow

Hummingbird perched on trumpetvine on the back deck

The fenced garden from a studio window

Coreopsis tripteris, Tall Coreopsis, in the big island bed, with Clematis terniflora, Sweet Autumn Clematis on the arbor and Heptacodium miconiodes behind

Heptacocium miconiodes and Clematis terniflora, Sweet Autumn Clematis-- both white, both fragrant

Sweet Autumn Clematis, Clematis terniflora, close up

Heptacodium miconiodes

Symphyotrichum oblongifolium 'Dream of Beauty', a pink, low growing form of the reliably deer-resistant Aromatic Aster (the species is usually lavender-blue)

A eupatorium corner off the driveway: Eupatorium chinense, Hemp Agrimony, on the left, and white Eupatorium aromaticum 'Jocius' Variegated' on the right

Symphoritrichum cordifolium, Heart-leaved Aster, with Angelica gigas, Korean Angelica. The aster was formerly a distinct species, Aster saggitifolius, Arrow-leaved Aster. The common names describe a difference in leaf shape between the former two (former) species, apparently not enough difference to maintain two separate species when the whole aster genus was reorganized and much of it became symphoritrichums. I can't keep up.

Another victim of unstable taxonomy, the former Zauschneria garretti 'Orange Carpet'. I had long wanted to grow zauschnerias. Now that we have one that does well even here, they've moved to the genus Epilobium.

Actaea pachypoda, White Baneberry, where the driveway passes through the woods

Eurybia divaricata, White Wood Aster, along the driveway. Yes, this was Aster divaricatus, and I still think of it so.

Pycnanthemum muticum, Short Toothed Mountain Mint, behind a chartreuse leaved cultivar of Caryopteris x clandonensis, Blue Mist Shrub, along the driveway. The Mountain Mint has good foliage, blooms for a long time, and supports a range of pollinating insects.

The white variegated foliage of a cultivar of a fully herbaceous caryopteris, Caryopteris divaricatus 'Snow Fairy', is fresh and cool all season, far into the fall.


Looking across the gravel entry courtyard to an arbor of Sweet Autumn Clematis, Clematis terniflora, that marks the opening of a curving path with Hydrangea paniculata 'Pink Diamond'

Clouds over the valley below can still look like summer.

Looking out to the east meadow from our basement plant room

The true blue of Salvia azurea 'Nekan', Blue Sage, by the east garden steps

Sorghastrum nutans, Indiangrass, catches the light in the meadow beside the circle terrace

Salvia azurea 'Nekan', Blue Sage, almost as clear in color as the September sky behind

Colchicum byzantinum has been our first (false) Autumn Crocus to bloom each year. Its bold foliage rises early in spring and collapses in a messy sprawl in early summer. The flowers rise naked and benefit from a low groundcover, here Sedum spurium 'John Creech'.

Some of the plants in our patch of putative Colchicum byzantinum have broader petals, and may be the cultivar C. 'Autumn Herald'.

Our strain of self-sowing nicotianas in the fenced garden. For years we grew Nancy Ondra's "Green Mix", derived from Nicotiana langsdorfii and N. 'Lime Green'. Once we grew the species N. mutabilis for a couple years many of our plants came to show its influence, with pink or white (changeable) flowers, still on tall, loose stems, among the shades of green. Here is one with Verbena bonariensis, which also persists for us through self-sowing, blooming, like the nicotianas, in late summer and into the fall.

Indigofera 'Little Pinkie' just keeps blooming more heavily as the season advances.

Looking across a goldenrod-dominated section of the west meadow and a corner of the fenced garden with late yellow daylilies to the farm fields of Hawthorne Valley and the hills beyond

That seasonally moist stretch of the east meadow also includes Rudbeckia laciniata, Green-headed coneflower.

One of our favorite goldenrods, Solidago juncea, Early Goldenrod, in the west meadow

Rudbeckia laciniata, Green-headed Coneflower, in the west meadow

Looking across the gravel entry courtyard from the driveway, in which a group of Black-eyed Susans, Rudbeckia hirta, have sown themselves. The Black-eyed Susans nearly filled the meadow in its earliest years, but have become scarce there as grasses and other plants have made a tight sod that offers few openings for short-lived plants to sprout and grow. Now the Black-Eyed Susans turn up in the driveway and gravel paths, or sometimes in planting beds.