Garden wisdom from 2008

December 16 , 2008

R-r-r-r-repetition

One of my classic mistakes in landscape design is overlooking the design principle of repetition.

Repetition is just what it sounds like-repeating shapes, colors, species and other elements in a design. It's the glue that keeps a design cohesive.

It's hard, sometimes, for an avid gardener to be a good designer. We gardeners want some of everything we see, whether or not it makes good design sense. In a vegetable garden, if you have the room, it's perfectly acceptable to grow a smorgasbord. But in the landscape, too much variety is jarring.

My primary weakness in the landscape is choosing plants for their usefulness in flower arranging. It's the reason I must have a beauty berry bush, just for its luscious clumps of purple berries in the fall. It accounts for my two spirea varieties, not quite enough and not far enough apart to call it repetition. It's why I'm now thinking about planting some juniper shrubs, for their usefulness in wreath-making, even though I have no juniper elsewhere and not really any room for it. By March, I will have forgotten all about this season's greenery needs, but now I'm caught up in the beauty and fragrance of juniper.

I recently planted a bed of shrubbery on the west side of my house, not really visible from the street or the back yard, unless you're strolling from front to back or vice versa. There I planted a variety of shrubs that don't occur elsewhere in my yard. It's like the junk corner in my basement-a place for things that don't fit logically anywhere else, yet I must have them. My goal for 2009 is to plant two new beds-one on the back corner of my lot, the other in the front yard, where the driveway meets the sidewalk. Hopefully, I can incorporate some repetitive elements there to bring harmony to my yard.

One problem is that landscapes, by definition, are larger than the typical suburban lot. So from the street, elements of repetition include the neighbors' tree and shrubs. That's great if you like what they have, but much harder if their idea of landscaping is a row of privet, pruned like lollipops. But somewhere within a few houses from your own, there's bound to be a tree, shrub or design idea worthy of emulation, and planting something compatible helps bring visual harmony to a neighborhood.

Here in the south, it's just about a given that neighbors will have dogwood trees and Japanese azaleas. I, too, have this combo. My neighbors and I don't agree on the colors of the azaleas, but when the whole street is ablaze with their blooms under the spreading branches of flowering dogwood, it's a beautiful and harmonious sight. It's something to look forward to next spring.

August 13, 2008

Figs

My grandmother had a fig tree in her small yard in downtown Little Rock, Arkansas. It shaded her front porch and helped stock her pantry with quarts of preserves every summer. I thought those fig preserves were the best things I ever tasted, and I still love them today.

I planted my dwarf fig tree in 2000. It's a 'Petite Negra,' a self-pollinating variety, and it seems indestructible. I've moved it twice, and water it almost never. It shed its leaves during last year's historic drought, but otherwise came through unscathed.

This year it has come into its own, and I have more figs than ever before. One reason is that I finally figured out I need to sneak outside in the first light of dawn and steal the ripe ones before the birds discover them. I re-use newspaper bags as disposable gloves to avoid getting the sticky, irritating sap all over my hands.

I make preserves by cutting them up and adding about one part sugar to two parts figs, with a generous amount of lemon juice. I boil them about an hour. I've given up on boiling the jars, as my grandmother used to do, but simply refrigerate them and use them quickly. I'm grateful to my grandmother for inspiring me to grow these wonderful fruits.

May 12 , 2008

Luscious Larkspur

In my yard, annual larkspur is as easy as any perennial I've ever grown. It reseeds itself generously--even after I've harvested as many seeds as I can to give to friends. The tiny black seeds lie in wait all summer, finally sprouting when the weather cools in September.

The feathery seedlings sail right through Alabama's mild winters, shooting skyward when the weather warms. They start blooming in April, when my daffodils and tulips are in decline. For reasons I don't understand, purple ones bloom first, year after year. Lavender, pink and white ones follow.

Besides providing a gorgeous display, the larkspur flowers attract hummingbirds and butterflies, and they make a graceful, long-lasting cut flower in floral arrangements.

They peak in May and by June they'll be waning, but they dry exceptionally well, which helps me to enjoy them year-round. I cut the stalks when about half the blossoms have opened, since they'll continue to open when they start drying. I hang bunches of about 10 stems upside down in my basement, near a vent. To arrange them, I anchor the dried stems in glass marbles, along with dried roses, statice, and lavender.

All this from an annual that reseeds itself so thickly it crowds out spring weeds. What could be better?

January 14 , 2008

The Great Indoors

Winters are mild in Alabama, and I've come to appreciate their special charm. Still, I spend more time indoors during the winter months and most of my gardening is focused on house plants.

I'm old enough to remember the 70s, when terrariums were all the rage. (They were popular in Victorian times, too, but I'm not that old.) It seems that they've recently experienced a resurgence in popularity, and last fall I decided to take a refresher course at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens. I came home with a terrarium of my own but the plants didn't thrive in their long, low container (in my eagerness, I'm sure I crammed too many in there). I took it apart and transplanted the small fern (unknown species), climbing fig (Ficus pumila) and aluminum plant (Pilea cadierei) into an old goldfish bowl, along with mosses and pebbles that I'd gathered on my walks around my neighborhood.

I call my new creation a bottle garden since it's not closed like a classic terrarium. And because of the opening, it does require some watering to compensate for the water vapor that escapes. You have to be careful not to overdo it. For me, a few ice cubes seem to work best. They melt very slowly, allowing the water to distribute itself evenly.

It amazes me how well the plants thrive in a thin layer of soil and low light, but they seem to get cozy in their glass home, just as I do when I sink into an overstuffed chair within sight of my bottle garden, wrap an afghan around my shoulders and start leafing through my latest seed catalogue.

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