by Charlotte Gross, Blauvelt Master Gardener
Soft colors to delight the eye.
As the season progresses, the Siberian iris bordering the stone path come into full bloom, the double file viburnum at the top begins to bloom. Ferns near the building are uncurling and the climbing hydrangea is leafing and budding. Many shades of green are now seen all over the hillside and blues and yellows are evident. The lovely yellow hakonechloa is putting forth its new growth.
The eye has so much to look at, including allium, mertensia, and astilbe. Sedums begin to fill every space and despite sewing California poppy seeds at the top of the hillside, they manage to find their way to the lower area and begin to bloom.
Euphorbias and geraniums begin their bloom time and the green patches of Irish moss soften the stones in the pathway to the top. The lovely, low white campanula ’Ivory Bells’ graces the bottom area.
These are just a few of the observations of the Hillside garden in spring and early summer, there are many more and I encourage you to take a few minutes when you arrive each week to note the changes. They will surprise and delight you.
Summer 2010
The Ralph Snodsmith Perennial Garden
by Donna De Sousa, Suffern Master Gardener
Much of our work this year has been in the Ralph Snodsmith Perennial Garden. Part of the Garden is still recovering from the Fall 2008 repair to an underground pipe which required the removal of plants and soil from about a quarter of the garden. Also, the wildlife has been seriously snacking on this garden. We usually blame the deer and woodchucks but now can add rabbits to the list. A final woe, as with any herbaceous perennial garden, some plants increase politely and slowly from their crown and others send out stolons, rapidly overrunning their neighbors. In the RS Perennial Garden, the worst offenders are Clustered Bellflower (Campanula glomerata), Hardy Ageratum (Eupatorium coelestinum) and Gooseneck Loosestrife (Lysimachia clethroides). We manage the first two plants, by removing the extras but two years ago we decided to eliminate the Goosneck Loosestrife completely. Even though it has a lovely white flower blooming in midsummer, it is too aggressive, actually a garden thug. We still found new plants of it this year because even a tiny bit of root left berhind can sprout. With the untimely passing of this garden’s namesake, we decided to honor Ralph Snodsmith by requesting some new plants. We created a list of herbaceous perennials that included new plants not represented in the garden, which would grow well in the site, bloom at different times and, most important, which would not be tasty to mammals. Checking the Cooperative Extension guidelines on deer resistant plants (which we hope the woodchucks and rabbits also read but in reality probably don’t) we chose Japanese Anemone (Anemone x hybrida), Goat’s Beard (Aruncus dioicus), Turtlehead (Chelone lyonii), Wild Bleeding Heart (Dicentra exima), Globe Thistle (Echinops banaticus), Cranesbill Geranium Rozanne’(Geranium’Gerwhat’ Rozanne), Lavender (Lavandula x intermedia), Variegated Jacob’s Ladder (Polemonium reptans), Meadow Sage (Salvia nemerosa), and Foamflower (Tiarella hybrid). Matterhorn generously donated all of the plants. This season we are also trying to be more diligent in applying animal deterent sprays. We have been able to get blossoms on our Blue Lace Cap Hydrangea (Hydrangea macrophylla -one of the few woody perennials in the RS Garden and a favorite of deer) and recover growth on the Boltonia (Boltonia asteroides) and Balloon Flower (Platycodon grandiflora) which were heavily bowsed in the late spring despite the fact that they are supposed to be ‘rarely damaged by deer’. Again, we suspect the woodchucks are not reading the list.As we work in the garden, we tend to focus on what is not working and try to correct it. However we also do try to step back and take a look at what is succedding. A real joy are the ‘volunteer’ plants that pop up each year. We usually find California Poppies (Eschscholtzia californica), So. American Verbena (Verbena bonariensis), Love in the Mist (Nigella spp.), and Butterfly Weed (Asclepias tuberosa). This year we have been enjoying a bumber crop of Catchfly (Silene armeria). Originally from Europe, Catchfly is a naturalized but non-invasive wildflower. It has interwoven itself in the RS Perennial and Hillside Garden providing splashes of eyecatching deep pink. Even though we didn’t plant it, we do appreciate this volunteer. One other group of volunteers also adding to our gardens are the people who took the Green Gardener course which requests that they spent a few hours working in the Demo gardens. It has been wonderful to get to know them and their help is much appreciated.
