Not all of my roses came from nurserseries. Not all of them have official IDs and names. I have several Farmgirls tht have come from neighbors in Heath. This magnificent rose was given to me by Rachel Sumner the summer before she died. She told me this was a mighty and vigorous rose. Many years before her husband was building a big garage which required substantial excavation; he piled all the excavated soil on top of her rose. She was not best pleased! However, the rose barely noticed and grew right up through all the soil to continue her robust bloom.
I took her home and planted her at the end of the Rose Walk where she thrived. Then we decided to build our Cottage Ornee, essentially a screened porch that is not attached to the house. Upon the advice of our consulting architect, we decided to use four large boulders as footings for the four corners. One had to be placed exactly where the rose, we named her Rachel, was growing. We dug her up and planted her at the other end of the Rose Walk, where she thrives to this day. See photo above.
However, we obviously left a bit of root under that boulder, because three years later another generation of Rachel joined the alba Celestial that we planted next to the boulder. See photo below. They both thrive and are putting on quite a show for the Rose Viewing. Tomorrow!
If you take the long view, from my bedroom window, things look pretty neat. You even get a little more sense of the roses in bloom than the picture shows. I hoped the Greenfield Garden Club would be happy with the big picture, and wouldn’t be too bothered with details like weeds.
After slathering ourselves with bug repellent we took a walk to the Shed Bed which has really good soil, possibily because it is right next to the hen house with all that good manure. This is where I have planted the Austin rose, Mary Rose, rugosa Mrs. Doreen Pike, Leda and Belle Amour. You can’t tell from the photo but the vine on the shed is a hardy kiwi, notable for the pink and white blotched leaves.
The Rugosas which bloom earlier than some of the other varieties are putting on a good show. I have the standard single pink and white, and Scabrosa which I don’t think looks much different than the familiar beach rose, but I do have some favorite Rugosas.
Apart is one of my favorites. It has a large fragrant blossom, nodding more than usual in this photo because of all the rain we have had. Like all rugosas it is about as easy to grow as any plant. The only drawback is the short season of bloom.
Belle Poitvine grows along the pasture fence. It is more double, and a shorter shrub, so far anyway, but the fragrance is equally delicious.
This is Mount Blanc. The only double white rugosa that ever gets mentioned as a superior plant is Blanc Double de Coubert, but in my garden Mount Blanc is a bigger more vigoruous plant, sending out more shoots to dig up and give to friends. I think the flower is also superior in form and in fragrance. If you want a double white rugosa, this is the plant to look for.
The Garden Club got to see at least a single blossom from most of the roses, but they are still coming. The Official Rose Viewing is on Sunday.
The peahen has visited in years past. We don’t know where she spends most of her time – especially during the winter, but we occasionally get excited phone calls from other people who wake up to find her in their yard. Sometimes these calls are just to share exotic news, and sometimes from people who wonder if we have added pea fowl to our chicken flock. She is a mystery.
This year she has been sticking around for a prolonged visit. She is quite tame. Henry feeds her from his hand every evening and yesterday she kept me company while I weeded the herb garden. She nibbled the parsley while I weeded the mint. The showers have continued so I am behind on the weeding and mowing. Maybe if the Garden Club has the peahen to marvel at they’ll overlook the less than perfect garden maintenance.
It is amazing to me that the weeds and grass continue growing in the rain, but the roses and other plants go into suspended animation. Another mystery.
Last Monday afternoon we had a terrific hailstorm that lasted over 10 minutes. Ferocious winds, driving rain and battering hail. At least it didn’t really hurt the thyme – see above. The lettuce and young squash and bean plants weren’t so lucky. Still, life will not be denied! Many of the battered plants are recovering. Another reason to procrastinate and not act on that despairing impulse to rip everything out and start over.
Last night there were ferocious thunderstorms. Torrential rains that continued on into the morning. This time it wasn’t the garden that I was worried about, but the house! We are in the process of putting in a new north foundation and we are at the point in the process where the north wall of the house is being held up by four fragile looking metal posts sitting on blocks in what is now mud.
This photo was taking on a sunny day earlier this week. I don’t dare go out there now for fear of a dangerous mudslide.
Of course, while we are suffering all this bad weather, I keep hoping for a fine day so that my ‘Yard Man’ 18 year old Justen can finally finish the mowing because I am preparing first for a visit from the Greenfield Garden Club on Thursday, and then our Annual Rose Viewing on Sunday. Why does it always rain on days when the Yard Man is scheduled?
Last weekend I worked at The Riverfest in Shelburne Falls. Our theme was the 100 mile diet, which is really just a hook to hang eating local on. We live in a rural area with a few remaining dairy farms. However, less visibly, hidden on the back roads are an increasing number of small farm raising produce under the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) system, selling shares for weekly distributions during the growing season, as well as goat farms making cheese, orchards making cider including hard cider, free range beef, berry farms and who knows what all. There are more farm stands and bigger farmers markets every year. This year, with the price of gas being what it is, the small local farms are finding it hard to keep up with local demand. What a wonderful problem. Whooops. I mean challenge.
The Riverfest had booths for the local energy coop, Master Gardener demonstrations, raft rides on the Deerfield river, exhibits by the Deerfield River Watershed organization. There was talk about conservation and innovation everywhere. A day filled with optimism.
I guess I can’t really take credit for this Double Knock Out which was in full bud when I planted it about a month ago, adding it to my collection of about 70 hardy roses – all that will survive on my Massachusetts hill top. The color is spectacular and a great contrast to the pastels which predominate in the garden.
This is Mount Blanc, one of my favorite rugosas. I don’t know why Blanc Double de Coubert gets so much press when this fragrant gorgeous double white is ignored.
This Apothecary rose was the first to bloom this year. It has increased mightily since it was planted about 15 years ago. Now it is racing out into the field to join the mystery iris.
Of course we have ox eye daisies, buttercups, some kind of aster-ish flower and yarrow out in the field, but I have no explanation for how this stunning clump of Siberian iris jumped out in the field. I will say it must be a strong grower and extraordinary spreader because I think everyone in Heath has clumps of this beautiful flower. You’ll notice that the field looks overgrown; it won’t be mowed until after the bobolinks (should there be any) or other birds have done nesting. The purple iris is one of the three cultivated flowers we found when we bought our house. One of the other two was a white iris. See below.
In spite of the clover and ‘weeds’ like galium or lady’s bedstraw this white iris is another strong grower. It is possible that the yellow loosestrife below wouldn’t count as a cultivated flower, but it was here and is cheerful and dependable. It stays.
There is more to flowers than color.
This mock orange was planted so that when were were resting or visiting inside the Cottage Ornee we could enjoy the delicious fragrance. A little shoot of mock orange was given to me by the very green fingered Sue Chadwick who is known for her orchard of heritage apples. She knows her way around scion wood.
The peonies have just started to bloom. I have very few early peonies because I want as many as possible to still be blooming when the roses begin their season.
In 1990 I bought a wisteria from Wayside Gardens. I had visions of it sheltering and shading the ‘piazza’ on an arbor right in front of our house. Unfortunately the arbor wasn’t yet built.
I kept watering the potted wisteria and kept hoping that my husband and son would get together to build the arbor some weekend. This didn’t happen until my birthday in August. I happily put the little wisteria in the ground next to one of the supports, never worrying about the poor quality of the soil there. Somehow I had gotten it into my head that wisterias like lean soil.
Years passed. The wisteria put out a little growth and I wondered how it had ever gotten its reputation as a vigorous weed. My husband swore at it and said if it didn’t grow to the top of the support (about 12 feet) by the spring of 2000 he was going to rip it out. The plant heard and duly warned it reached the top and rapidly began spreading out across the top of the arbor. I did my part and started topdressing with lots of compost, and watered it well. I learned that wisteria love rich soil and water.
Five years later the wisteria provided the shade I had longed for. But no blooms. Then in 2006 it was filled with breathtaking bloom. We could hardly believe it. We took pictures. We invited friends over to admire it. We ate under it. We marveled.
The winter of 2006-07 was bad with temperatures that fluctuated. Very cold then almost warm. In the spring of 2007 we thought the wisteria was dead, but couldn’t bring ourselves to do anything radical like take it down. In fact, new shoots kept coming up from the roots and we thought we could kind of start all over.
This spring we watched a few buds struggle to fatten during wisteria bloom season and thought again about taking it down. Then we realized some of those buds were flower buds. And look where we are now. In my own better late than never way, the wisteria has several blooms and the foliage is again spreading over the arbor.
So many lessons. First, do better research when planting. Second, get a plant in the ground as fast as you can. Third, be patient. Fourth, even in the face of death, remember that life will not be denied. Procrastinate. Be patient. Celebrate!
One of the problems I find with local garden centers is that they cannot possibly stock specialty plants, or much variety within a species. One of the delights of Garden Open Today events is that gardeners get to see and learn about plants they never knew existed. These deciduous azaleas which are blooming now in early June are in Jerry Sternstein’s garden. A riot of color that I never imagined existed. In fact I didn’t know anything about deciduous azaleas. And now I have a whole new garden world before me. And a man who knows the specialty catalogs.
After learning about Guan Yin (Kwan Yin, Kannon), the bodhisattva of compassion while we were living in Beijing, and became familiar with the beautiful tree peonies at the Forbidden City, the Imperial Palace, I knew that I had to have this gorgeous tree peony named for the bodhisattva.
A bodhisattva is one who is so compassionate she refuses nirvana in order to help those who are still suffering. Guan Yin is often depicted with her magic tools, a pill that will cure what ails you, a brush to brush away distractions, and always, a bottle with the dew of compassion that she sprinkles around liberally. She often appears to people in visions, laughing as asking why we struggle so. I became very fond of her during our Chinese sojourn.
Tree peonies are not really trees, but they do not die down to the ground in winter. they will become larger and larger. I recently saw a local tree peony with about 100 blossoms. Mine has 15 blossoms this year. In spite of the fragile appearance of their blossoms, they are very hardy plants, and don’t mind zone 4 winters. They bloom in early June, before herbaceous peonies. The only drawback is that spring rain storms can destroy the blossoms very quickly. During their brief bloom season they are a marvel.
Not all of my roses came from nurserseries. Not all of them have official IDs and names. I have several Farmgirls tht have come from neighbors in Heath. This magnificent rose was given to me by Rachel Sumner the summer before she died. She told me this was a mighty and vigorous rose. Many years before her husband was building a big garage which required substantial excavation; he piled all the excavated soil on top of her rose. She was not best pleased! However, the rose barely noticed and grew right up through all the soil to continue her robust bloom.
The Annual Rose Viewing | Pat June 28, 2008 | 
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