Beltsville Library Saturday (Colchicum 'Waterlily" blooms)

I did addition by subtraction at the Library today. When I began taking care of the area, its plantings consisted of three trees, a number of shrubs, and a lot of hostas and daylilies. Too many hostas and daylilies. The hostas all burned. The courtyard is surrounded by brick walls, has a brick walkway, and gets a lot of sun. Its hot and they don't like it. Most had to go. I thought I was able to visualize the effect of changes in a garden, yet I am still surprised at how much better the area looks as a result of the removals. I'm keeping the dwarf daylilies and consolidating them, but removing most of the standard varieties. A few are nice, but I find the foliage tends to become messy and disgtracting from June to the end of the season.

The Colchicum 'Waterlily' are flowering now as the C. speciosum finish up. I planted three divisions of Rohdea japonica from the Adelphi garden last week and they are doing well. They will provide evergreen structure at gound level under the birch. I moved the Rhapidophyllum hystrix (Needle Palm) to the right. Last week I didn't have the resources to remove the giant clump of hosta where I really wanted it so I heeled it in near the Coral Bark Maple. It looks better where it is now. I planted a piece of Canna 'Bengal Tiger' from a container on the front deck. It is hardy and will add a foliage element that can relate to the Golden Banana. Next spring I'll add a Basjoo banana on the left-hand wall and there'll be a triangle of bold foliage.

Sternbergia lutea out of nowhere...not really, more out of the past

It's a good day when you learn something new or realize something important, so this is a good day. I found this Sternbergia under a rose in a front bed and remembered how it got there. About 8 or 9 years ago I divided a clump of these cheerful fall flowering bulbs and split the bulk of them between two locations. I remember now though that I took a handful of impossibly small bulblets and distributed them to random spots around the garden. This is the first of these plantings to come to fruition. It is a tough bulb and will inevitably become a clump and, if allowed, will, by seed, gradually colonize the bed it's in.

My epiphany though, was that all of our actions in the garden take different times to realize themselves. This sounds pretty obvious, but hey, maybe I'm not that bright. And anyway all epiphanies are patently obvious in retrospect; its just that explosion of awareness that makes them so wonderful.

I regularly think about time in the garden. Days and years are cyclical and roll along the linear passage of the years, but what about those finite fragments of linear time: 5 minutes to plant a flowering potted plant, 60 days to grow some annuals, 100 years to flower a Century plant, a lifetime to grow a mature shade tree. a year and a half to go from a 1 gallon pot to a beautiful garden perennial. And they are all layered on themselves like paper mache. I have always though that the idea that we had control over our gardens performce and evolvution was a bit of hubris. I'm not smart enough to do all those calculations. There's a lot of serendipity going on, or maybe the universe is helping us?

Sorry about the 4th paragraph but I have one more observation. If you are starting a garden you are waiting for results so its good to do the things that will give you a quick return; hardscape, annuals, perennials, a few big plants. Now the important part. Just because you're in a hurry don't neglect those plants that will take a long time to mature. Plant a Stewartia early on. Or a shade tree if you really want shade. They will take 20 years to mature, but procrastinating will only make you wait longer. Plant perennials that you want to colonize like asarums, or Pachysandr procumbens, or Trillium grandiflorum. Trust me, the time will pass!