National Arboretum in August 2014

I posted about the magnolias right after our visit to the US National Arboretum a few weeks ago…but there was a lot more to see. There are so many areas of arboretum. Even the parking lot near the visitor center hosted large crepe myrtles with their shaggy bark!

There was a lot of construction around the administration building. The koi pond was dry but the garden around the fenced area still included a pine with forming cones standing at attention among its needles.

We headed to the China/Asian Valleys - having learned from previous visits to not try to see the whole Arboretum in one visit. The garden was shady and inviting on an August day. Many of the flowers had faded so the overwhelming color of the garden was green. We picked up a map but decided to simply follow the paths rather than look at it. The walk was easy but generally downhill toward the river (and we knew we would have to come uphill eventually).

I like the moon shape in the lantern among the foliage.

The one pink bloom left on a hydrangea was a welcome relief from the green only scenes.

The steps up to the pagoda were part of the climb back to the upper part of the garden…and the exit.

Just as the crepe myrtle bark in the visitors center parking lot - this flower with the ants on the border of the parking area near the magnolias!

Chaos Garden - August 2014

The Chaos Garden gets relatively little attention from me. I pull plants that I recognize as not wanting at all: grape vine, stickers, honeysuckle, blackberry canes.  Everything else I simply leave alone.

The hydrangea is recovering from the late (and hard) frost last spring that killed all its buds. It has no blooms this year but is coming up from the roots and should be almost back to normal for next spring/summer. I'll trim away more of the dead stems in my next weeding pass through the chaos garden.

There is lemon balm but it is not as overwhelming as in previous years. I cleared a lot of it away last summer. I like it in salads and to add to mint ‘tea’.

The chives and onions come back every year. I need to remind myself to harvest them more frequently.  The chives bloom in the spring and the onions are blooming now.

There are some flowers that are remnants of the butterfly garden phase of this plot: cone flowers and black eyed Susans. There don’t seem to be as many butterflies these days but they do attract the bees.

The rosemary I bought last spring has grown quite a lot and I am hopeful that it will overwinter. Last winter, all the rosemary plant in my area dyed form the repeated blasts of very cold temperatures.

The sycamore is shading the chaos garden more all the time. The hydrangea won’t mine - they thrive just fine in shade - but many of the other plants will not do as well. The old patch of day lilies never blooms any more but its progeny bulbs are doing quite well in the front flowerbed where I moved them last summer.

Brookside Gardens - June 2014

We parked at Brookside Nature Center after finding the lot at the Brookside Gardens Conservatory full. On the boardwalk between the Nature Center and the Gardens, I saw wood hydrangea (image 1 in the slide show below) in bloom and the immature fruit of both May apples (image 2) and Jack-in-the-Pulpits (image 3). Both were in bloom last time I was on that path. It was greener along the boardwalk with the spring wild flowers gone to seed and the ferns unfurled.

Our walk around Brookside Gardens was truncated by the construction projects that have been starting (and not completing) over the past year and a morning wedding….but even a limited walk around Brookside has appeal. I particularly enjoyed the ivy bed around the river birches (left image above - the tiny red speck in the lower right of the picture is a hibiscus!). The gardens often have tropical plants set outside once it is warm enough. This year there seems to be a lot of taro (right image above); my daughter had talked about taro recently when she was summarizing her geology/astronomy field trip to the Big Island.

Some of the beds had been planted with clumps of dahlias and other summer flowers. Peonies (image 5) were beginning to bloom. There was a vine hydrangea that was climbing a tree (image 6), leaves that have colors other than green (image 7 and 10), fragrant roses (image 8) and lots of buds (image 9). Enjoy the little bit of Brookside slideshow below!

Garden Dreaming

My gardening areas have snow on them right now but I remember them from last summer and am dreaming about the garden for this next summer. I am full of plans as soon as it is a little warmer.

• I trimmed the hydrangea away from the window and house last fall but I need to be sure it was sufficient to keep it away from the wood. I’d like to try dividing the bushes again this summer (last summer my attempts were just putting out new buds when the deer found them). This year I plan to buy the deer repellent scent to keep them away from the garden.
• Our deck is a full story off the ground and underneath is very shady. Ferns might grow well there with enough mulch….maybe another area I should put the partially decomposed leaves from last fall.
• The deck pots will be mostly herbs this year although there are zinnia and cardinal flowers that will come back in a couple of pots at least (the hummingbirds and butterflies like them so I’ll cheer them on. Mint, stevia, basil and parsley are my favorite herbs and they do relatively well in pots. The mint will probably come back from last year. I’m going to look at seeds (and try not to go overboard) for the others.
• I’d like to do some composting directly into the garden - veggie scraps, tea, and egg shells. I think I’ll use a bucket outside the door and take it down to the garden every few days.

I can hardly wait to get started!

Outdoors in Maryland - February 2014

February is a stark month in Maryland. On a sunny day, I bundled up to take pictures - noticing that there is a lot of drab brown - texture becomes important in the scenes: the forest,

Hydrangea flowers from last summer,

And wood grain on the deck in the afternoon sun.

I’ve bought a bird feeder - advertised as ‘squirrel proof’ - and hung it so that we can see it through several windows.

A few days ago there was ice and that added a glistening coat to everything. I took pictures standing in doorways rather than venturing out on the icy surface: the frozen drips on the sycamore,

The tangled branches of the cherry with a pine providing background,

And a pine weighed down with a burden of ice.

That’s the outdoors scene from our area of Maryland for this month!

Atrium Plants

This is my second post about my walk around the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center last week (the previous post is here). The resort has a large atrium area that has pleasant tables and benches amongst lush plantings. Balconies of rooms on the upper floors make up three sides of the atrium with the roof and the Potomac side letting in lots of light. The building was mostly neutral colors and the outdoors was frozen in winter so the deep green foliage and occasional colors were very welcome. There were Bromeliads,

Hydrangea,

Cyclamen,

And zantedeschia.

Zooming - January 2014

The ‘zooming’ post for January includes botanicals from outside (curly bark, magnolia leaves, leaves and twigs of a bush under ice and snow, a deteriorating shelf fungus) and inside (hydrangea, Christmas cactus, Norfolk pine, lilies, amaryllis) plus a pitted shell in the rock garden and the fringe of a holiday tunic.