The Obsessive Neurotic Gardener

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A little bit of everything

Posted on June 4, 2014 by jmarkowski Posted in Blooms, My garden, Spring .

We are at an interesting time out in the garden right now. OK, all times are interesting in the garden but I needed a solid introduction and thought the preceding sentence would cover it.

Moving on.

As the weather has warmed up significantly this past week, so have many of the plants made significant strides forward.

Like these peony blooms:   

With plenty to bring indoors as well:

The first blooms have emerged on many of the plants.

Ninebark ‘Diablo’:

Geranium ‘Brookside’:

Iris ‘Ruffled Velvet’:

An unknown Lilac I have virtually no memory of planting last Autumn:

Veronica ‘Royal Candles’:

Spirea ‘Snowmound’:

Nepeta ‘Walker’s Low’:

 

And there are some others that are holding on to their fading blooms for dear life.

Amsonia ‘Blue Ice’:

Amsonia tabernaemontana:

Iris versiclor:

And others who are just about ready to strut their horticultural stuff.

Astilbe ‘Amethyst’:

Astilbe ‘Deutschland’:

Itea ‘Henry’s Garnet’:

Or foliage putting on good amounts of growth.

Cimicifuga ‘Pink Spire’:

Eupatorium ‘Gateway’:

And yes my friends, the ornamental grasses are making an impact.

Panicum ‘Rotstrahlbusch’:

Miscanthus ‘Variegatus’:

 

However, with the more extreme temps, we are now starting to see some flaws in what was originally our wonderful fresh and clean spring growth. It is inevitable but that doesn’t mean I have to like it and accept it.

Dwarf Russian Sage not so happy:

Panicum ‘Heavy Metal’ a bit stressed perhaps:

Monkshood adjusting to its new home:

The recently transplanted Purple Coneflower volunteers sulking quite a bit:

F’n rabbits nibbling on the Northern Sea Oats ‘River Mist’:

A bit of everything going on right now. Enough to excite, keep me on my toes and frustrate all at the same time.

But no complaining here.

3 Comments .

Hi, me again

Posted on May 28, 2014 by jmarkowski Posted in My garden .

The latest and greatest:

The Panicum ‘Northwind’ are on their way with that blue/green upright foliage already visible:

A step back from that same garden bed and finally, it is starting to fill in.

The foliage on this Ninebark ‘Diablo’ is fantastic in a container after I had cut it back dramatically in the spring:

 

Oh foliage, how I love thee – Salix (Dappled Willow) ‘Hakuro Nishiki’ and Penstemon ‘Husker’s Red’:

Have I mentioned before how much I love Lady’s Mantle? As an edger, in the rain, with cool weather?

So damn close:

 

Weigela ‘Wine and Roses’ in full bloom. Eh:

 

‘River Mist’ Northern Sea Oats … consider yourself on watch … you have been below satisfactory the past two years:

As I mentioned last week, these Siberian irises are in need of division. The bloom count is way down this year:

I chopped off the fading blooms on the Geranium ‘Espresso’ hoping we will get some nice new dark foliage. They are looking a little tired right now:

 

2 Comments .
Tags: lady's mantle, penstemon husker's red, peony .

Yet another virtual garden tour

Posted on May 21, 2014 by jmarkowski Posted in My garden .

Geranium ‘Espresso’ continues to bloom its arse off:

With trepidation, I made a decision to underplant all of these geraniums with Lysimachia. Brown/yellow color combo, 1970’s anyone?:

Sigh …

Still a sucker for a purple/yellow combination:

Not sure how, but the tiny little Lilac I planted last summer is blooming like mad already:

The Astilbe show is coming to a yard near me soon:

If you set a foot outdoors in my yard today, you are overwhelmed with the scent of Honeysuckle from the 100 or so shrubs that are on my property. Kind of delicious:

While they are nearing bloom time, let’s face it, Lady’s Mantle are all about how they capture the raindrops:

Tsuga canadensis (Eastern Hemlock) ‘Moon Frost’ just put on its new growth and looks fantastic:

Same goes with Juniper ‘Gold Cone’:

Panicum (Switch Grass) ‘Heavy Metal’ has made an appearance and we welcome her with open arms:

But most importantly, there are actual signs of a true “garden”. Plants co-mingling and looking OK:

Good times.

3 Comments .

A garden update

Posted on May 12, 2014 by jmarkowski Posted in My garden .

Here’s what’s new out in the garden:

My young Malus (Crabapple) ‘Prairie Fire’, recently saved from an invasion of tent caterpillars, is in full bloom and I am loving it:

Not so long ago I complained about the lack of variegation on the Salix (Dappled Willow) ‘Hakuro Nishiki’. Not so much any more:

  

Newly in bloom is Geranium ‘Espresso’, but the foliage is the true winner here:

I have promised my daughter she will faint at the sight of the bloom of Allium ‘Globemaster’. Why I planted only one is still a mystery to me:

Here come the peonies and a potential showdown with the neighborhood deer:

I continue to love Juniper ‘Gold Cone’ more and more:

The heliotrope are planted and me likey:

And the pansies continue to thrive:

My precious lemon has turned into … well … a lemon … and soon we will all enjoy said lemon in some sort of celebratory ceremony, still to be determined:

4 Comments .
Tags: crabapple, geranium 'espresso', salix .

A garden stroll on Easter

Posted on April 21, 2014 by jmarkowski Posted in Blooms, Bulbs, My garden .

A garden tour from this Easter afternoon:

Viburnum buds continue to progress. And I realize just how many ornamental grasses I have based on their need to constantly photo bomb:

See what I mean?

What is interesting with these Mt Hood daffodils is how the trumpets start off yellow and eventually settle in pure white:

The Summer Snowflake blooms are appearing in bunches now, but I was more intrigued by the early evening sun on these bulbs:

More and more leafing out on the trees:

The lilac shrubs have shown signs of life for the first time:  

The peonies continue to emerge and unfurl:

I planted two Leymus (Blue Lyme Grass) ‘Blue Dune’ in containers last summer and let them overwinter outdoors. They didn’t take long to appear again this spring:

The Dappled Willow (Salix ‘Hakuro-nishiki’) has fully leafed out and looks better than ever:

The tulips I overwintered in the garage actually bloomed (yeah buddy) so I made sure to bring them indoors where they could be gleefully ogled:

Hope you all had a wonderful holiday weekend.

Ours was kind of awesome.

4 Comments .

Progress

Posted on April 16, 2014 by jmarkowski Posted in My garden .

“Stuff” is still happening out in the garden even as we experience wind chills in the teens and a bit of snow:

Buds on the Viburnum carlesii ‘Aurora’ continue to march towards actual blooms:

The buds are in full effect on the Amelanchier grandiflora (Serviceberry) ‘Autumn Brilliance’:
  

An initial bloom can be seen on the Leucojum aestivum (Summer Snowflake) ‘Gravetye Giant’:
 

The to-be monstrous bloom on the Allium ‘Globemaster’ has made its initial appearance:
  

The foliage on the Viburnum plicatum ‘Shoshoni’ has emerged: 

We have the first signs of the Astilbes:
 

And the cool season ornamental grasses have arrived:  

You have to love this time of year.

1 Comment .

Garden assessment

Posted on March 20, 2014 by jmarkowski Posted in My garden, Pruning .

Can I get outside and get my non-calloused hands in the friggin dirt already? With the official first day of spring here, I should have so much more done by now. Every ornamental grass should be cut down. The perennials should be cleaned up with their new growth exposed. The trees should be pruned. The plants that wussed out and didn’t survive the winter should be enjoying their new home on the compost pile. But we ain’t even close to that right now. Not by a long shot.

Now having said all that, I am still remaining patient. I believe the term you all may use is “maturing”. Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither was my early spring garden. The truth is, the soil is still so wet and I am not about to compact my compacted soil any further. As much as I want to put on my shit-kicking boots and garden away, we must wait.

But that doesn’t mean we cannot plan. I’ve told you before about my detailed plant spreadsheet but did you know that there is a column dedicated to spring tasks associated with each plant? And I log what I ended up doing each spring, going back five years now? Yes, I am aware of how awesome I am and I appreciate your praise. We can’t all be this organized and on top of things. You just have to accept it and move on.

So as I navigated the garden with pen and paper in tow (I can still kick it old school), here are some of the things I noted for future efforts or just simply noted or even noted in anger.

My four year old Malus (Crabapple) ‘Prairie Fire’ has never been touched beyond the removal of some suckers at the base and dead wood when I remembered to notice it. Well now I am ready to prune it a bit to aid in its development.              

As you can see, it could use some shaping but I don’t want to prune it just for the sake of pruning. I’ve done my research though and I think I am ready to take the plunge. Now is the time to do so before it blooms and leafs out. There are quite a few crossing branches that can be cut out.

And also a few branches that are now growing back towards the center of the tree.

More to come after John Scissorhands chops away. Did I mention how phenomenal the blooms are come the end of April?

I’ve been disappointed to date with the growth and habit of my Amelanchier (Serviceberry) ‘Autumn Brilliance’ and my gut tells me to take action with a pruner. For now however, we are ignoring said gut and leaving this alone for another year.

This Viburnum ‘Shoshoni’ is dangerously close to outgrowing its spot along the front of my home but I’ve managed to trim it enough “post bloom” to keep it in bounds. I have considered a severe pruning to really address the potential spacing issue but again, will continue with the light shearing and enjoy an actual shrub that is happily thriving in my garden.

Just a minute to salute this Viburnum ‘Emerald Lustre’ and the fact that the deer have never touched it and I can let it grow to its heart content. No pruning required here.

Me like berries and would never mess with that.

I so love the Redtwig dogwood (this is ‘Arctic Fire’) in winter so I will be selectively pruning this one to aid in the production of young red stems for next fall/winter.

You are looking at a suckering Clethra and I’m not quite sure if that is a good or bad thing yet. I welcome the spreading but need to keep an eye on it to see if it affects the overall growth of the mother plant.  

Time to remove the Holly ‘Blue Princess’ from the spreadsheet as she got her ass kicked this winter. And yes, this is not a deciduous Holly.

I am in the process of writing a new garden song entitled “The day the arborvitaes died” as I have close to ten of these that are in need of removal. I never really took to them anyway but they filled space and that can’t be underestimated.

I played around with some experimental pruning with Weigela ‘Wine and Roses’ a few years ago and this is the one I’ve never touched. Pruning to the ground worked well on another with its new flush of wine colored foliage and it is now residing in a container on my deck (long story). I think I may allow this to bloom in the late spring and then I will cut it back severely.

This is what happens when you desperately throw a boxwood in a container in December.  

This is what happens when you … actually I have no idea what happened to this unfortunate boxwood.

Since this Physocarpus (Ninebark) is on my deck and away from the soggy soil, I went to town and cut it back to a few inches. Hopefully the newly emerging foliage will be vibrant and light up this container.

Some other parts of the garden are completely inaccessible at this time so there is more evaluating to come. And yes, I will soon share my “plant spreadsheet of the gods” with you all but not the machinations that are behind it. That is for a future episode of Shark Tank.

John

7 Comments .
Tags: spring cleaning .

Why my mad photography skills are a curse

Posted on August 20, 2013 by jmarkowski Posted in My garden .

I consider myself to be a pretty decent amateur photographer. Through trial and error and a lesson with a local pro, I’ve come a long way over the past four to five years. You would think there would be nothing but positives with this development, but you would be wrong.

Allow me to explain.

Most of my “stellar” photography originates within the walls of my property. While I am starting to branch out a bit with my nieces and nephews as the subjects and there is talk (started and ended by me) that I could photograph a wedding and not embarrass myself, let’s face it, it’s all about those green things that stick out of the ground and do not move around so much.

My friends and family have had to suffer through years of blog posts, endless plant photos, confusing Latin references and bizarre rants just so they can say they’ve “read the blog” when we get together. It is bordering on comical to watch the dance when a friend will say “How’s the ONG blog thing doing?” or “I read your blog, like all the time” or “You really blog a lot, huh, that is umm, cool.” I can imagine the pre-game plan of action before people arrive at our house:

“Quick, bring up a recent post of his on your phone.”

“OK, here’s one on butterfly weed or something like that.”

“Great, remember a specific photo and remember to use the word ‘native’ in some way.”
“Got it.”

But here’s the deal, I have zero expectations when it comes to any friends or family reading the blog. If you are not an avid gardener, why would you ever want to read this nonsense? I can assure you if someone I knew wrote a blog about cars, or polish pottery or even soccer (wink wink Alex) I wouldn’t indulge for one minute. In this day and age, we ain’t got time to read what we don’t care about.

But a gardening blog presents a challenge I never considered before I started this venture. The photos, if executed well of course, create a belief that the garden is always in a state of blooming bliss and there couldn’t possibly be a weed to be found. So even non-readers who simply breeze through the photos get a sense that this garden must be mighty impressive:

And even more misleading are the “macro” pics (extreme close-ups of the flowers), which lead the uninformed reader to believe that the blooms are much more prolific and larger than they truly are:

So your peeps scan the blog, see the pretty pics and start to assume that when they finally make their way to your homestead, it is going to be a garden wonderland. Upon arrival, with big expectations in tow, they are almost immediately let down:

Not exactly awe inspiring is it? My photography tricks/strategic angles are exposed and the sum is definitely not the total of the macro parts. Call me paranoid, or neurotic, but I can see the let down in all of my visitors faces. To themselves they mutter “This dude spends countless hours gardening and writing about it and this is the end result? Color me not so impressed.”

Just this past Friday, my garden was featured on the Fine Gardening “Garden Photo of the Day” blog (shameless plug alert) and while I was thrilled and fortunate to be included – you can view it here – I immediately felt the pressure to justify the photos. While the praise rolled in from family members and friends, I wondered if they asked themselves “Is that really his garden?”. How easily I turned a positive into a negative.

Now having said all this, I think there are four potential solutions to my “over promise/under deliver” problem:

1 – Cut back on the photograpy quality – maybe time for a camera downgrade? Could I get it to a point where the real thing is better than the pics?

2 – Stop inviting people over – this is an easy one. We may end up alone, but I’ll be in a better place.

3 – Quit my job and spend day and night fine tuning the garden – think my wife will take a second job and maybe a third?

4 – Pay a professional handsomely and have it done right – worthwile investment for peace of mind, right?

What do you think? Which option is best? Any other suggestions?

Until I figure this all out, I’ll continue to suffer through the ups and downs of a gardener. I’ll also need to start a campaign to let the non-gardener folk know how difficult this really is. But that is an entirely different topic for another day …

10 Comments .

2013 garden resolutions

Posted on December 31, 2012 by jmarkowski Posted in My garden .

I know, I know … resolutions are a futile exercise and we forget about them by January 15th.

They are amateurish and a waste of time.

In terms of a blog post, they are so cliche and lack originality.

I get it and really had no intention of creating any resolutions this year. Until late last night …

I’m in bed rifling through the recorded shows on the DVR, looking to clean it up and eventually settled on the few episodes I had remaining for Growing a Greener World.

The episode that caught my eye was “The Dirt on Healthy Soil”. As I watched the host, Joe Lamp’l, gather soil for a soil test, I started to get really pissed off at myself. I call myself a “gardener” and I’ve NEVER tested my soil before. Chew on that for a minute … think my credibility should sink a bit lower? Me too.

But wait, it gets worse …

After “Joe Gardener” walked through the process of how soil is actually tested in the lab (which was really friggin cool by the way) he then took it to the next logical step. We determine our soil deficiencies and then look to address said deficiencies with … wait  for it … you may have heard of this “stuff” before … I believe it is commonly referred to as … compost.

Imagine that. Compost. What a novel idea.            
            
Oh, you’ve heard of it? I swear to you, it’s 12:18 AM and I’m in bed and I am stewing. How can I claim to be an “obsessive” and “neurotic” gardener and not make use of the single most important resource in the world of gardening? Heresy, right?

Oh I made strides two years ago and installed a compost bin and religiously composted all of our table scraps and leaves and grass clippings. But that is where it ended. I naively just dumped and hoped for the best. I got caught up in all of the other gardening tasks and forgot about the most important one. All of that composted material still sits in the bin but it never truly “composted” in a useful way. Son of a …

So as we entered the last day of 2012 and I considered self mutilation, I decided it was time to go back to the basics in 2013. And hence, my gardening resolutions were born. For this upcoming year, I will focus on three simple things:

1)Soil test
2)Compost
3)Education

In fact, I added these three items to the right side bar as a constant reminder to get back to the basics. See it? I’m that serious.

Soil test – as soon as the soil is workable in spring, I will get my samples out for testing and I cannot wait to see the results. Enough of the speculation and guesswork, time to get scientific.

Compost – it will take some time to get the production going, but thanks to that wonderfully inspiring GGW episode from last night, I now know where I can purchase compost in bulk. Check out this link.

Education – this is more of a keep reading, visit local gardens (and to think I’m not too far from both Longwood Gardens and Chanticleer and have never been is another strike against my credibility), talk to other gardeners (take a look at what is literally right down the street from me – Federal Twist), look into becoming a Master Gardener and simply get in the dirt kind of thing.

It is that simple.

I figure if I can address these three areas, then all else will fall into place.

Happy New Year and let’s do this in 2013!

John        

   

             

8 Comments .
Tags: Garden resolutions .

A shrub bounces back, a grass holds up and my daughter is impressed

Posted on July 23, 2012 by jmarkowski Posted in My garden, Shrubs .

I’m still carrying the momentum and excitement of the past few days out in the garden so I figured why not keep this massive positivity thing going, eh?

Here’s what else is going down at Les Jardines D’ONG:  

The Clethra (Summersweet) ‘Ruby Spice’ did not bloom at all for me last year but it has bounced back like mad this year. I’d love to report on how phenomenal the flower scent is, but you know, I have virtually no sense of smell:  

The blooms on Pennisetum (Fountain grass) ‘Karley Rose’ are so underrated even when they are no longer a bright pink color. Note to self: need to add more:    

I’ve seen very little on the internet regarding Panicum (Switch grass) ‘Ruby Ribbons’ and it has honestly underwhelmed ever since I picked one up a few years ago. But ….. just look at that leave color and you can see the potential it has:

It has taken a while to establish, but Acorus gramineus (Sweet Flag) ‘Oborozuki’ is starting to look good lining my driveway. It takes well to all of the water that drains off of the driveway and it is one of the few plants where I can actually pick up the scent on the leaves when they are scratched up a bit:

And whenever you can impress a six year old, you do it:

Garden your ass off!

John

6 Comments .
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