Late Fall showing Japanese maple, the angel Hernia, and the pond in the distance:
more humblebumble jumble
Finally, the nicest flower of all, my wife, Liz:
Don
the flowers are beautiful. so is your wife.. nice couple..
Don,
Just beautiful! It looks so peaceful and is probably what dreams are made of. Definitely like a place to wander. And your photography is just fine!
Terrie
Looks like a garden I'd like to spend more than 55 minutes in! Thanks for sharing.
Susan
Don, I recently heard all about your gardens. I think the word I kept hearing was "beautiful"! Now that I have seen a few pics, I have to agree. Nice to meet Liz too. :)
The best part is that it really is his!!!!
Hey Don...I have a new name for you...from now I'm calling you "ZO-De" (because *I* want your other name!) Come on...spill the beans...I want you secret to growing the 'rhodies' and Azaleas! I think no matter what my "zone" says...next year I'm buying at least ONE rhododendron!
I'm afraid that it would take *me* more than 55 minutes at the first stopping point in *your* garden. It's extremely interesting, beyond belief...and *gorgeous!*
And I also agree...the prettiest "plant" in your 'collection' is most definitely Liz. (Hi Liz! How does it feel to live in such a beautuiful 'wonderland?'
~julie~
Beautiful garden, Don! Your pictures look like garden scenes that would be featured in gardening magazines! SO BEAUTIFUL! They're even better than the fake pics you posted! LOL
Julie,
The main thing with rhodys and azaleas is excellent drainage, with loose, acidic soli. I make a mix of leaf compost (which we can get for $10/ton from the landfill) and peat and a little sand and a little rotted pine bark mulch.I would say this isn't just the main thing, it's the mandatory thing. Most azaleas lost here are from root rot due to planting too deep in clay soil.
Don
Don...:-D I'll have to post a picture of where I'm working today. (Actually, I'm in the middle of trying to pull poison ivy from the area I want to claim for myself. ;-)) It's a north corner bed under a hugh white pine...one part of it does get a few hours of direct sun both morning and evening. But the "soil" is probably 85% rotted pine bark, 15% sand. I'll trade ya some sand and pine bark for a little of your clay. :-D (just not too much...I'd hate to have my drive my back hoe to your house, too. ;-))
~julie~
P.S. Thanks bunches for the info.
The angel's name is "Hernia?!" From what you got putting her there? Beautiful gardens by the way!
Silvi,
The story is that the angel weighs 300lb., and after having her in the garden for a while I found a concrete base to get her up off the ground, so I was out there by myself, wiggling her to one side, putting down the base and then edging her up onto the base. It's on a hillside, and she started to tip forward with me with my arms around her... all I could think of was what the newspaper would say about it when they found me. I knew my friends would have said it was inevitable and long overdue! (I didn't actually get a hernia but should have. I was able to get enough traction to right her and get her up on the base, where she's STAYING.)
Picture of the angel Hernia:
Don
ROFLMBO!!!!! I just about got a hernia laughing, imagining you wrestling this 300 lb angel. My ds wanted to know what I was laughing about.
Silvi, glad you caught that, I totally missed it.
Nice addition, very nice!
Don...I don't know whether you're into country music or not...but my comment is, just be glad "Hernia" was a 700 lb Jesus! LOL & LOL Eric and I were just talking about him moving the concrete garden bench. (He knows *exactly* what you went through getting yours in place, believe me. :-))
Can you tell me what azalea cultivars you have growing there? I found out that rhody's aren't as hardy in my zone but I did find a couple of azaleas that just might make it.
~julie~
Don, loved your garden photos and especially the prettiest of all, Liz. I am not familiar with Cardinal shrub by that name, can you tell me the botanical name or another name. I have very alkaline soil. I work hard trying to get four or five azaleas and rhodies to grow and bloom. Donna
Donna: Weigela (I thought after I posted that, that I probably shouldn't have called it a Cardinal shrub or bush, since it's a pink one, but everybody around here calls them that regardless of whether they are red or not.
Julie: I have probably 40 different deciduous azaleas, mainly Exbury types, just because I like the flowers better. They tend to be rated Z5, but I grew them in a previous garden further north in 4a and just occasionally lost buds when it got down to 20 or 30 below. I've got some of the Minnesota "Lights" too but they always seem a little less vigorous to me. I have several bushes I bought years ago called Pale Lilac which is bone hardy, covered with soft pink flowers but I'm not sure you can get it anymore, and I'm suddenly enamored of the Weston late summer azaleas. July Jewel was covered with spicy perfumed red flowers for a whole month this summer... I must have more, and there are a ton of them. In the deciduous azaleas you could also think about Frank or Jane Abbott; developed in Vermont and VERY bud hardy... 7 foot tall here and covered with bright pink, perfumed flowers. If you get just one Exbury, get Mt. St. Helens, and think about Rhododendron Schlippenbachii, though it might need some wind protection in the winter (I had it on the east side of the house in 4b).
Don
Don, I've copied off your notes into my cardfile and you can bet your boots I'll be looking for some. That last photo (plus your comment about fragrance) put the finishing touch on my *need* to at least try these beauties one more time.
Thanks for your time and trouble to give me the details. It's very much appreciated.
~julie~
Don, thanks for posting a picture of (and identifying) the Himalayan Mayapple. I have the regular green ones and then last spring up came some spotted ones. I really don't know how they got there because they are right in the middle of my Sum & Substance, and I would never have planted them there. Are their growth characteristics the same as the native green? They're dormant now, but I'm hoping to move them next spring to a better location.
Don,
I also while I was reading your great Information was thinking of printing it to file away and I will.
Thank You for sharing Your photos ,ideas and knowledge,
Brigitte
Carmen,
In growth form the Himalayan (hexandrum) is much like our native; it doesn't as readily go dormant in late Summer though (this year, being cool and wet, it's still going strong) and it's flower is pink rather than white, with a bright red fruit (see photo). It's seeds germinate surprisingly well, so I've got about 6 little spotted babies. The Chinese species, veitchii, and pleianthum seem to break dormancy in the Spring so early that they are prone to get damaged by late freezes, so I have to cover them sometimes; I hate babying things, but they are so cool, I make an exception. Just got Kaleidoscope this Spring, which is perhaps a hybrid, so will have to see about it... at first I didn't see what the fuss was about with it, but it still looks great and has it's spots, whereas the spots on hexandrum fade out.
Don
zone any chance your bringing one of those babies to the iowa roundup next year?????? I Hope I Hope I Hope!!!!
Wow, Don, that's cool. Mine didn't flower this year, but maybe they will next year. Pink flowers sound great. I've noticed that they don't flower unless they have 2 leaves from the main stalk (at least for the native ones). I wonder if mine were a present from a bird? Now that I've got a name for it, I'll use my new plant labels and mark them. Thanks so much!
Alice,
I think they're too small to move yet (1" tall, probably with a bulb smaller than a bb) but maybe the following year, assuming the chipmunks don't dig them up. One of our old cats died of lymphoma this Spring, and the other almost died shortly after, dropping her weight from 9lb. to 4 lb., but turned out to be hyperthyroid (our vet has no sense of humor: she didn't crack a smile when I said "Oh, so Toaster was just CATabolic). She's doing better though I have to smear transdermal Tapazole in her ears twice a day. But then she lost eyesight in one eye, I don't think she hears too well (though that always was pretty selective) and so the chipmunk population has exploded. Now we have two new kittens; unfortunately one of them was just really cute and hyperactive at the start, but now I'm toying with the idea that this is hiding the fact that she's really not too bright... what I at first thought was just her being easily distracted is looking more and more like lack of comprehension. However her sister is a hunter (she ditches Snickers when she wants to do any hunting, leaving her looking about in the middle of the yard at everything and nothing in particular). Anyway, if they aren't eaten, I have hopes for the Podophyllum hexandrums. I know better now than to mess with them; it is very painful to recount how this Spring curiosity overcame me and I carefully dug down to see if my prize Roscoea bulb was sprouting (it was!) so I covered it up slightly, only to return the next morning to find an empty hole with a few scales lying about. The gorgeous, exotic spotted flowers usually seen only in picture books, became breakfast for a chipmunk.
Don
Don I must tell you that you absolutely crack me up with your descriptions of things. You make it so easy to actually envision what is happening!!!
I am so sorry about the loss and near loss of your kitties, I know the time will come when I have to deal with that and am dreading it all ready.
I have a brother and sister cat and the sister is the hunter and bubba (aptly named I might add) would not hunt for anything on a bet. If it crosses his path he might play with it for a moment but that would be about the extent of it. (I love him to pieces but as a kitten we realized we had to keep him because he was just too stupid to hand over to any one else) He entertained himself by running across rooms at full boar straight into the wall! He has pretty much given that up but has not gotten any smarter!!!
Bubba has a habit of insisting upon going outside and then sitting by the door yowling at the top of his lungs to get back in the house and acting as if someone had forced him out the door in the first place. Then of course, he requires at least 10 minutes of attention to make up for something we didn't do in the first place
LOL! Laughing hard about Bubba!
Alice,
I do also have about a hundred little Japanese (sikokianum) Jack in the pulpit seedlings. In another thread in this forum I recounted how last year I let my favorite, variegated-leafed sikokianum go to seed as the seed head was HUGE and really neat loooking. Unfortunately after this Herculean effort, the plant turned up its toes, but I planted the seed outside last Fall and now have many little, 3-leafed seedlings. They would be big enough but I'm just not sure about them: they look just a little rough-leafed for Jacks... it wouldn't be the first time I planted seed from some exotic, delicate, sky-blue flowered Nepalese Poobah plant, excitedly saw it sprout the next Spring, only to turn my back and have it unaccountably turn into some monstrous, 6 foot tall weed, spraying seed all over the garden. So, I think I'll wait until next year, and if they look right, dig them next Fall, and pot up a dozen for the Roundup. I still might not be able to guarantee that they wouldn't be hybrids between sikokianum and ??, as I grow maybe a dozen different Asian Jacks, as well as having native Jacks popping up here and there. Some of the native (triphyllum) Jacks are starting to look a little strange to me, with a couple being about 3 foot high, so who knows what is going on when my back is turned.
Don
i've sure had fun with this thread - and i must say, don, that you've totally changed my impression about IA. and your gardens are GORGEOUS!!! thanks for the pics and the inspiration!
Sikokianum:
Don
Don I am so glad to know I am not the only one that plants one thing and has it turn into weeds!!!! I was sure I was the only one with that talent. I am surprised that it happens in Iowa too!!!!
It just goes to prove that you can't turn your back on those seeds for a moment!