Blossom IV

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“Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,
Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend
More than cool reason ever comprehends.
The lunatic, the lover and the poet
Are of imagination all compact:
One sees more devils than vast hell can hold,
That is, the madman: the lover, all as frantic,
Sees Helen’s beauty in a brow of Egypt:
The poet’s eye, in fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen
Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.”

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William Shakespeare

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“if something is there, you can only see it with your eyes open,

but if it isn’t there, you can see it just as well

with your eyes closed.

That’s why imaginary things are often easier to see

than real ones.”

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Norton Juster

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“Nothing is lost. . .Everything is transformed.”

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Michael Ende

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2016

Gloriosa superba

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Blossom I

Blossom II

Blossom III

Blossom IV

Blossom V

Blossom VI

Blossom VII

Blossom VIII

The Wonder of the Rhizome

Bird’s nest fern with a rhizomatous Begonia Rex sending up new leaves.

A rhizome, technically a stem, grows just at the surface, or slightly underground; sending roots down into the soil and leaves up into the light.

Many plants grow from rhizomes.

Have you eaten ginger?  Ginger is a rhizome, and the ginger you purchase at the grocery can be planted and grown into a new plant by placing it on the surface of some good dirt, adding just a little dusting of soil on top, and watering it in.  Within a few weeks roots will grow and leaves emerge from the piece of ginger rhizome.

Many of the most beautiful Begonias grow from rhizomes. 

And like a piece of ginger, the rhizome may go dormant for a period of time before suddenly producing new leaves and beginning to grow.

When you buy a Rex Begonia for its gorgeous leaves, it is growing from a little rhizome.

I purchased this bird’s nest fern and a little Begonia at Lowe’s back in the winter, and potted them up in a big bowl for a winter centerpiece on my dining table.  We enjoyed them all winter, but the Begonia struggled along while the fern took off.

I moved them both into a nursery pot and set them outside in early summer.  The Begonia had lost its last leaf by this time, and I had no way to tell whether it was alive or dead.

But look!  The rhizome survived, and has begun to grow again and produce new leaves.

Here is another rhizomatous Begonia which has gone completely dormant twice now, and then has suddenly sprung back into growth.

I love the leaves on this one for their silvery sheen.

Rhizomatous Begonias grow extremely well in the shade.  That said, they grow much better outside than inside.

Many of these special Begonias are winter bloomers, and will begin blooming, when they are happy, in January or February.  They need bright light inside to bloom, but love a shady and sheltered spot outside in the summer.

August 2013, with this Begonia growing under an Azalea

 

We had actually given up on this one for dead last spring, and chucked the contents of its pot under a shrub.  I was thrilled to find it alive and leafing out several weeks later.

It grew happily under an Azalea all last summer, and survived most of the winter potted, indoors by a window.

By April it looked like it was dieing back, and so I moved it outside, and out of its pot, into the Earth.  It perked up within a few weeks, and looks lush and happy again.

Because a rhizome sends out both roots and stems, it can be broken into smaller pieces and each replanted.

The rhizome grows longer over time, as it stores food for the plant; sometimes branching out to cover more ground.  It can grow  pretty quickly into a large plant.

A different rhizomatous Begonia at the bottom of the photo, growing with Japanese painted Fern. This rhizome has grown over the edge of the pot. I could break it off and set it into a new pot of soil to root.

 

Many ferns grow from rhizomes.  German Iris grow from rhizomes.

Ginger lily growing from a rhizome given to us by a friend. These can be divided and spread each spring.

Canna lilies and ginger lilies grow from rhizomes.

Plants which grow from rhizomes can be easily divided to increase your stock.

 

Each little piece of the rhizome has the potential to grow into a new plant identical to the original one.

Most plants growing from a rhizome need to dry out a little between waterings.  Too much water can cause the rhizome to rot, which will kill the plant.

Many ferns grow from rhizomes. They spread as the rhizome grows just under the soil level, sending out new roots and shoots as it grows.

 

Watch the leaves to know when more water is needed, but in general let the surface of the soil dry a bit between drinks.  Some, like iris, are very drought tolerant.

A rhizome is a wonderful adaptation which allows a plant to wait out poor conditions without dieing, so it can grow again when conditions improve.

And it is a wonderful thing for a gardener to realize that a plant thought dead was only dormant, and has begun to grow yet again!

 

Photos by Woodland Gnome 2013-2014

 

One Word Photo Challenge: Chartreuse

Gloriosa Lilies

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Whether golden tinged green,

Or green faded towards yellow;

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Chartreuse glows like chlorophyll infused sunlight.

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Dill in bloom

 

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Named for a French mountain monastery where monks make herbal infused liqueur;

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Perennial Begonia, planted last autumn as cuttings, fills this bowl with Creeping Jenny.

 

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even this botanical liqueur comes in a greener variety (more potent)

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Autumn “Brilliance” Fern

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and a milder, sweeter yellow golden variety.

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Coleus

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“Chartreuse” is the given name of a family of colors, more than any one particular shade.

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Coleus

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Sometimes fashionable, sometimes not;

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An acquired taste, perhaps,

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Rose scented Pelargonium with Colocasia

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Which can light up the garden, on even grey and cloudy days,

 

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Chartreuse.

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Geranium

 

Photos by Woodland Gnome 2014

With appreciation to Jennifer Nichole Wells

And her One Word Photo Challenge:   Chartreuse

Always Evolving

 

Why do you choose certain plants to add to your garden, and not others?  What drives your selections?

My answer shifts from garden to garden, year to year, and even season to season.  Perhaps your priorities for your garden shift, also.

 

Basil, “African Blue,” Catmint, and scented Pelargoniums  grow in a bed of plants chosen to be distasteful to deer.

 

We garden to fill a need.  Some of us need to produce some portion of our own food.  Some of us want to grow particular ingredients or specialty crops, like hops or basil.

Some of us want to harvest our own flowers for arrangements, or produce our own fruit or nuts for cooking.

 

Once upon a time I focused on growing flowers, and am still struggling to grow decent roses in this wild place.

And our garden is filled with flowers; some already growing here, some that we’ve introduced.

But our current inventory of flowers is driven more by the wildlife they will attract  than by their usefulness as cut flowers.

Lantana attracts many species of nectar loving wildlife to our garden.

 

Although I could still walk around and clip a decent bouquet most any day from February to November, we rarely harvest our flowers.  We prefer to leave them growing out of doors for the creatures who visit them whether for nectar or later for their seeds.

Purple Coneflower, a useful cut flower, will feed the goldfinches if left in place once the flowers fade.

 

Our gardening  focus is shifting here.  It began our first month on the property.  I moved in ready to cut out the “weedy” looking Rose of Sharon trees growing all over the garden.

I planned to replace them  with something more interesting… to me, that is.

And it was during that first scorching August here, sitting inside in the air conditioning and nursing along our chigger and tick bites, that we noticed the hummingbirds.

 

Rose of Sharon has grown to overshadow our original butterfly garden.

 

Hummingbirds hovered right outside our living room windows, because they were feeding from the very tall, lanky Rose of Sharon shrubs blooming there.

The shrubs didn’t look like much, but their individual flowers spread the welcome mat for our community of hummingbirds.

And watching those hummingbirds convinced us we could learn to love this Forest Garden.

This butterfly tree and Crepe Myrtle, volunteers growing along the ravine, normally attract dozens of butterflies each day during the weeks they bloom each summer.

 

Our decision to not only leave the Rose of Sharon shrubs, but to carefully prune, feed, and nurture all of them on the property marked a shift away from what we wanted to grow for our own purposes, and what we chose to grow as part of a wild-life friendly garden.

After a year or two of frustration and failure, hundreds of dollars wasted, and a catastrophe or two; we realized that we had to adapt and adjust our expectations to the realities of this place.

A dragonfly and Five Line Skink meet on a leaf of Lamb’s Ears.  Lamb’s Ears is one of the ornamental plants we grow which is never touched by deer.

 

What had worked in the past became irrelevant as we had to learn new ways to manage this bit of land.

And how to live in a garden filled with animals large and small.

The other major shift in my plant selection has been towards interesting foliage, and away from flowers.

Fig, “Silvre Lyre” and Sage

 

Although the garden is filled with flowers loved by hummingbirds, butterflies, bees of all sorts, wasps, moths, and who knows what else; the ornamentals we choose for our own pleasure run more towards plants with beautiful and unusual leaves.

 

Huge Cannas and Colocasia chosen as a screen between home and road have interesting leaves.  The Cannas also produce wildlife friendly red flowers.

 

If they produce flowers, those are secondary to the foliage.

There is such a wonderfully complex variety of foliage colors and patterns now available.

 

Begonias in a hanging basket are grown mostly for their beautiful leaves.

 

And leaves are far more durable than flowers.  While flowers may last for a few days before they fade, leaves retain their health and vitality for many  months.

Begonia foliage

 

We enjoy red and purple leaves; leaves with  stripes and spots; variegated leaves; leaves with beautifully colored veins; ruffled leaves; deeply lobed leaves; fragrant leaves; even white leaves.

 

“Harlequin” is one of the few variegated varieties of Butterfly bush.

 

While all of these beautiful leaves may not have any direct benefit for wildlife- other than cleansing the air, of course –  they do become food now and again.

These Caladiums are supposed to be poisonous, and therefore left alone by deer…. But something ate them….

 

It’s easier to find plants with distasteful or poisonous leaves, than with unappetizing flowers.

Our efforts to grow plants the deer won’t devour may also drive our move towards foliage plants and away from flowering ones.

Scented Pelargoniums offer pretty good protection to plants near them. This pepper has survived to ripeness.

 

Our interests, and our selections, continue to evolve.

Gloriosa Lily, new in the garden this year, is hanging down off of the deck, still out of reach of hungry deer.

 

We choose a few new plants each year to try; and we still seek out a few successful  varieties of annuals each spring and fall.

The garden never remains the same two seasons in a row.

 

Spikemoss is a plant we’ve just begun using as ground cover in pots and beds.

 

It is always evolving into some newer, better version of itself.

As I hope we are, as well.

 

Photos by Woodland Gnome, 2014