Birch Bed, Revisited

Sometimes, in a garden, you just have to go back to the drawing board. That's what we recently did with the bed at the back of our property that we call the Birch Bed because of its proximity to one of our river birches.

It was one of the few beds that existed when we bought our house, and it consisted of two gargantuan clumps of 10-foot bamboo-like grasses, two burning bushes, two white buddleia (butterfly bushes), two large clumps of perovskia (Russian sage), a small clump of yellow achillea (yarrow) and stokesia (Stoke's asters), three beautiful red daylilies, some orange Asiatic lilies, and a large clump of bearded iris that I had transplanted from a different part of the yard but that barely bloomed.

Occasionally I would throw some other plants back there, but there was no rhyme or reason to the design, and the grasses (which were a real pain to cut down each year) were on a mission to crowd everything else out. The bed did have some nice color in autumn, but we wanted to be able to admire it more often than that.

We were so happy with the improvements that Garden Room Design made to the corner bed (formerly known as the Bermuda Triangle, now known as the Fertile Crescent) that we decided to have them draw up a plan for the Birch Bed as well.

Out went everything except for the daylilies and the bearded iris, and even those got transplanted from the shady portion of the bed to the sunny side, which should encourage them to bloom more.

The tall grasses have been replaced with two good-sized but not overwhelming plants. One is a Limelight Hydrangea, which is supposed to have greenish-white flowers in mid-summer that turn deep pink in the fall. I wasn't expecting any flowers this year, but when I was walking through the yard this afternoon, I noticed buds!

The other large plant in the back is Persicaria polymorpha, which is tiny now but within a couple years will become about six feet high and wide, and sport white astilbe-like flowers in late summer.

On the sunny side of the bed are the transplanted iris (both bearded and Siberian from elsewhere in the yard), two Geranium 'Rozanne', and three Geranium 'Shepherd's Warning'. The 'Rozannes' that we have in front are fabulous plants that bloom from late May until frost without any care or attention; I'm not sure yet what to expect from 'Shepherd's Warning', which is a smaller, more low-growing plant, but we'll see how they do.

Several other plants that we've never grown before include Leucanthemum 'Banana Cream', a Shasta daisy with lemon-yellow blooms that gradually turn butter-yellow...

...Veronica 'Royal Candles', adding a touch of blue at the front of the bed...

...and Baptisia 'Carolina Moonlight', a very graceful plant that should have pale yellow flowers spikes at the beginning of next summer.

I've grown Monarda didyma 'Panorama Red Shades' from seed, and have been moderately pleased with the results, but the Birch Bed has 'Cambridge Scarlet', and I'm eager to see how it compares. For now, they're just little guys.

Equally small this year are the Phlox 'David's Lavender'—a plant that always reminds me of the garden my mother grew in our back yard when I was young. Of course, it'll be another year before that's really going as well.

On the shady side of the bed, we've got some Astilbe Ostrich Plume, still just getting established...

...Heuchera 'Plum Pudding'...

...'August Moon' and 'Stained Glass' hostas (well-sprayed with deer repellent) and Hakonechloa m. Aureola...

...and finally some Ceratostigma plumbaginoides, which were fabulous in the Fertile Crescent last year, but have been struggling this year. We'll see if they like the Birch Bed better.

Our designer also recommended an accent piece, like an attractive birdhouse, and when we were at Summerfair (the local arts fair), we came across a wrought iron and stone piece that struck our fancy.

All in all, I like the new design, and can't wait to see it become more established in the years to come!

Caprilla Cream of the Crop

A couple years ago, on the Loveland Garden Tour, I saw a honeysuckle vine that I just had to have. Last year we planted Lonicera periclymenum 'Caprilla Cream' outside our screened porch, and already I love this plant!

The main appeal for me was the color of the flower. Its buds are pink and its blooms are a pretty shade of yellowish cream, and since the flower clusters typically have both buds and blooms at the same time, you get this wonderful bi-color effect, especially en masse.

So far, it appears to be blooming only on the old growth from last year, which is clustered around the base of the trellis.

However, by next year, I expect it to rival its cousin at the front of the house, 'Graham Thomas'. (I know there's a trellis under there somewhere!)

Honeysuckle has a nice fragrance, which is one of the reasons why we planted it next to the porch, although in that location it's got competition from the adjacent Rose 'Blanc Doublet de Coubert' and Daphne 'Beulah'. Between the three of them, it's like walking through the perfume section of a department store!

For Whom the Canterbury Bells Toll

If nothing else, gardening teaches patience, especially if you're growing biennials from seed. Last year, we started about 18 Campanula 'Cup and Saucer' seedlings that looked like this when we transplanted them to the bed in the spring.

At the end of the year, they were nice and full, but still quite close to the ground. Then by mid-May, they shot up three and a half feet, sending up a thick central stem with several smaller side-shoots. (Last fall, a critter ate what would have been the center stem of one of my plants, and as a result I had nothing but side-shoots on that one.)

One of the challenges of trying new plants is that you sometimes don't figure out what they need in terms of care until it's too late. Last year, I learned that the hesperis really needed to be staked before it started blooming, or else the rains would knock it down to the ground. I had grown Canterbury bells many years ago, and didn't recall them needing staking, but boy, did 'Cup and Saucer' need it! The flowers, which stayed in bud for a couple weeks, are huge! Some of the pink ones are fully double.

Even the lavenders and blues, while not as full as the pinks, are thick with blossoms.

As a result, with the heavy rains we had this spring, the plants were leaning all over the place even before the buds opened. I had a few extra supports around, and propped some of them up, but once a flower stalk is bent by weather, straightening it up can cause it to break. So I resigned myself to the fact that the Canterbury bells were going to socialize with the shorter snapdragons, and let it go at that.

I'm very curious to see what happens next year. My foxgloves, although theoretically biennials, came back nicely this year, having been started from seed three years ago. But I'm not sure that the campanulas, which seem to rely on that central stem for a good show, will come back in the same way. But they're so pretty that even if I have to start some every year, I might just do that to ensure that I can always enjoy them.