A Colorphile's Take on Combinations: part I

Eww. (Viola definitely not with Lathyrus, sweet pea.)

I have no qualms admitting that I have strong opinions on color. While I dislike orange, I can still appreciate it when it's used well (just not in my garden).  Recently,  Frances at Fairegarden, got me thinking about color combinations. It's not so much the hue that is the issue, as it is the intensity and purity of the colors to be combined. I might have a sensitive stomach, but strong yellows with washy, grayed purples or blues, like cool pinks with orange, are a nausea-inducing sight to my eyes. The lighter hue should, in my opinion, be lighter in intensity than the darker hue to which it is paired.

I cut pansy and viola blooms in three different shades of yellow and compared them with the mauve bloom of Clematis 'Betty Corning'. They are arranged from the subtle to the ill-suited.

 I prefer this palest lemony yellow.

Eh,  a bit too Easterish for my taste.

This is just painful.

It's not that the yellow is bad, it's just that it's wrong with that mauve. The yellow is too dark for the light tint of purple.

the same yellow with a darker purple

Now, isn't that better?

Wildflower Wednesday

Wildflower Wednesday, hosted by Gail of Clay of Limestone on the third Wednesday of every month, is even more special this month because it's also National Pollinator Week. My post at Beautiful Wildlife Garden this week celebrates Squirrelhaven's pollinators. The native wildflowers are at a bit of a lull here at Squirrelhaven this week, transitioning from the woodland garden to the Nanoprairie. The last woodland wildflower still metaphorically standing is the one that stands tallest, the big Solomon's Seal, Polyganatum caniculatum. The highest of its blooms are at eye level. It's the darling of the bumblebees.

Moving from the sublime to the ridiculous colorwise, the big show now is the over-the-top magenta blooms of Callirhoe involucrata.

It's a sprawly thing that interweaves among other plants.

It's easy to see why the common name is "wine cups."

Of a similar color are the blooms of Asclepias purpurescens.

Last year only one plant sprouted, but this year, all three sprouted and two are blooming. I'm hopeful for seeds this year. It's smaller and better behaved than Asclepias syriaca, the other pink flowered milkweed.

I wish I had pictures of the latter two plants with pollinators, but the weather has been wet and windy, not ideal for them. 

Blue Moon of June Bloom Day

Paeonia 'Vivid Rose'

It's the 15th of the month, the day that Carol, of May Dreams Gardens, asks us to show what's blooming in our gardens. It wouldn't be June in Chicagoland without peonies, Clematis and Campanulas.

Clematis 'Rhapsody' with a few buds of 'Betty Corning' coming from the left

It's been a fabulous year for Clematis here.

Clematis 'Silver Moon'

This is just a sampler of the Clematis blooming now.

Clematis 'Evipo 023' (Cezanne) with Dicentra 'Bountiful' and Penstemon 'Husker's Red' in the background

Even 'Vyvyan Pennell', which was moved last year, then accidentally dug up in March, looks better than ever, even with only 2 blooms.

The Calycanthus floridus 'Athens' is still blooming and scenting the garden.

Clematis 'Fairy Blue' (Crystal Fountain) has spread into the Calycanthus. I hope it doesn't get smothered.

Other sweet scents courtesy of

Dianthus 'Cranberry Ice', with Lavender 'Hidcote'  and Rosa'Carefree Beauty'

and

Phlox pilosa 'Eco Happy Traveler'

My next door neighbor even commented on the scent of this little phlox. Stinky scent courtesy of Phuopsis.

(Thanks, Nan Ondra.) Towering above them are the last blooms of Baptisia 'Midnight Prairie Blues'

a free trial plant that I just love. It's in its second year here.


The long border is in full bloom now.

Campanula persicifolia 'Grandiflora Alba' and 'Telham Blue' with Heuchera 'Raspberry Ice' and Campanula 'Sarastro'

The dark purple dots further down are Aquilegia vulgaris 'Leprechaun Gold'. The columbines are past peak, but still blooming. This Aquilegia vulgaris 'Sunburst Ruby' seedling got a late start.

All the Astrantias are blooming now.

Astrantia 'Roma' with a hybrid Geranium

The Penstemons are all blooming.

Penstemon "Fairegarden"

This plant is a seedling from  Fairegarden.

Making its Bloom Day debut is Geranium 'Jolly Bee'.


Also making its Bloom Day debut is a Knautia.

Sorry, no name for this one at this time. I had it in a container last summer, then stuffed it in the ground and forgot about it. Shame on me. I'll have to track down the tag when I get a chance. That chartreuse background is the foliage of Cotinus coggrygia 'Ancot' (Golden Spirit). While not technically a bloom,

the seed heads are more showy. Also not technically a bloom are the bracts of Cornus kousa 'Beni-fuji' with the fallen petals of the just finished Paeonia 'Port Royale'.

This has been a spectacular year for this little tree.

And here it is, the promised 'Blue Moon'

in full bloom, Wisteria macrostachys 'Blue Moon'. What's blooming in your garden?

Also in bloom:
Alchemilla mollis
Aquilegia vulgaris 'Woodside Blue'
Astrantia 'Moulin Rouge'
Astrantia 'Rainbow Loveliness'
Brunnera 'Jack Frost'
Callirhoe involucrata
Campanula garganica 'Dickson's Gold'
Campanula 'Samantha'
Clematis 'Evipo 31' (Bonanza)
Clematis 'Evisix' (Petit Faucon'
Clematis 'Henryi'
Clematis 'Natascha'
Clematis 'Viola'
Corydalis 'Blackberry Wine'
Corydalis 'ex Du Fu Temple'
Dicentra 'King of Hearts'
Dracocephalum 'Fuji Blue'
Geranium 'Bob's Blunder'
Geranium macrorrhizum
Geranium nodosum 'Svelte Lilac'
Geum triflorum (smoke)
Gillenia/Porteranthes trifoliata
Heuchera 'Lime Rickey'
Heuchera 'Smoky Rose'
Heuchera 'Vesuvius'
Heucherella 'Burnished Bronze'
Iris siberica
Paeonia 'Monsuier Jules Elie'
Penstemon digitalis 'Dark Towers'
Polyganatum commutatum
sweet peas
Stylophorum diphyllum
Thalictrum 'Thundercloud'
Thalictrum thalictroides/Anemonella and 'Cameo'
Tiarella 'Iron Butterfly'
Tiarella 'Pink Brushes'
Veronica prostrata 'Verbrig' (Goldwell)

I'm Not Don Quixote

driveway beds May31, 2011

Many years ago, when I was going to school in Rome, one of my professors assigned Don Quixote by Miguel Cervantes to read over spring break. In addition to being annoyed at having to tote a heavy book through Europe, I quickly discovered that I hated the book. I can't understand how people love it, or the musical Man of La Mancha. I stopped reading it less than halfway through, then read just the end. It did me no harm, I got an A. Why do I hate it, and what does it have to do with gardening? Here's the explanation I gave the boy and the girl when "Don Quixote" came up as an answer to a Quizbowl question:
Don Quixote enters a new town. He mistakes X for Y. He attacks X. He gets his butt kicked. Sancho Panza has to pick and patch him up. They leave town and enter a new town. He mistakes X for Y. Repeat ad nauseum.
Yes, this was the first book I abandoned because of a character too stupid to be at large (CTSTBAL). From then on, any book with a CTSTBAL as a main character goes unfinished by me. But I digress.

The point is that I refuse to play that role, I will not keep doing the same stupid thing over and over in the garden. I will dream possible dreams.  I spent an inordinate amount of time pulling black medic out of the driveway beds this spring.

That's not one black medic plant, but many, each of which had to be pulled.

Finally, after a couple of years of battling black medic on the south side of the driveway, I'm changing my tactics and smothering the mess.

There's barely any lawn left anyway.

Can you find the grass in this picture?

My Very Indugent Spouse  was on board for the project when I described it, that all the weeds would be smothered, and then grass seed sown to create a new lawn. Then he saw the extent of the project as I started laying down the newspapers, and he asked if I was "going to do all that and it'll be like that all summer?" Yes, I am and yes it will. I have to. If I don't kill it all, it will just come back, and I'm not Sisyphus.

The Truth* about Clematis 'Betty Corning'

1 week into blooming

Meet Clematis 'Betty Corning' a/k/a "Betty the Beast." It's a heavily blooming, healthy Clematis. I fertilized her last year, and she grew wildly huge, but I managed to keep her mostly on the supports. This year, I thought I was so clever; I didn't fertilize her. So what?

She's bigger than ever and threatening to pull the chickenwire off the chimney and spread her grasp into the crabapple.

Squirrelhaven's 'Betty Corning' is on the east side of the house, planted on the south side of the chimney at the top of a small slope, partially shaded by the crabapple tree.

'Betty Corning' is a type 3 Clematis, meaning it flowers on new wood. This is all new growth; I pruned hard in March.

the copper colored stems are this year's growth

According to the Missouri Botanic Garden and BBC Gardeners' World, 'Betty Corning' gets 5 to 6 feet tall and 2 to 3 feet wide. Hah! By contrast, Clematis on the Web lists it as 8 to 9 feet tall. That's definitely more like it.  The Victory Garden website describes Betty as "[o]ne of the most vigorous clematis hybrids." Now that I can believe.

I cut off some of the new growth and brought it inside for a vase ('Betty Corning' makes a good cut flower, especially the long-stemmed blooms),

Clematis 'Betty Corning' with Clematis 'Natascha' and 'Fairy Blue' (Crystal Fountain)  and peony

but I fear the pruners are going to get a workout very soon, as Betty the Beast continues to thicken.

It's doing a good job of covering the ugly chimney, but I've had to tie down some of the canes to keep it growing towards the north. As I noted previously, Clematis are photo tropic, and this one is growing in partial shade, so it wants to lean toward the light.

There is some question concerning the fragrance of 'Betty Corning'. According to Clematis on the Web, cultivars of 'Betty Corning' in the UK are fragrant, while American cultivars are not. However, in 95F heat I detected a light fragrance from the blooms of my plant.

I can't recall ever noticing the fragrance before, so it might depend on environmental factors.

'Betty Corning' is a wonderful, tough, blooming machine that I highly recommend to anyone who has an arbor, arch or pergola to cover in full to partial sun. Despite last summer's drought (it doesn't get any supplemental water, as the sprinkler usually misses it), it is better than ever and loaded with buds. If you've got the room, give 'Betty Corning' a try. As for me, I'll be on the lookout for a much larger trellis.

*This is the way this plant performs in my garden. Performance under other conditions may vary.

Maximum Acceleration

Clematis 'Silver Moon'

With the sudden onset of full summer, with lows in the 70sF/24C and highs in the 90sF (it is 96F/35.5C as I write this), plants have gone from 0 to 60 in less than 36 hours. This Clematis wasn't in bloom on Sunday.

Similarly, this rose wasn't in bloom on Monday.

Rosa 'Carefree Beauty' with lavender, Dianthus 'Cranberry Ice' and Cornus kousa 'Beni-fuji'

It hasn't been this hot here since August '06. I swear, if you could stand the heat, you could see the flowers opening. Check this out:

see the difference in the center of the bloom? That happened in the time it took me to change aperture settings on my camera and snap another shot. Things were delayed from blooming by the unseasonable cold in April and May, now they're playing catchup in a big way. I hope they can adapt to this sudden heat, I fear for them. I watered all the plants in containers this morning and some of the plants in the ground. I'll be getting out the sprinkler at 5 o'clock, the earliest I can water under local ordinance. If I can just get them through one more day, we'll have temperatures below normal, with highs in the 60sF/19C. Fingers crossed.

Dusk

David Perry, garden photoblogging guru, issued a challenge: to shoot at dusk to capture the mood, avoiding rendering the image looking like daylight. I accepted the challenge and headed out to the garden just after sunset looking for the subjects. Miraculously, there was no wind. (The wind loves my tripod, it does a little dance whenever it sees me bring it outside.) White flowers always seem to glow at that time of day, so I homed in on Cornus kousa 'Beni-fuji' which is in full bloom. Actually, those aren't petals, but bracts, but let's not quibble.

The biggest challenge was being able to see well enough to focus. After trying to shoot a couple other plants, I spied these bearded Iris.

So, what do you think?