Kiss the Earth

June is rose month, peak time for these popular beauties. To celebrate I took an out-of-town friend to Morris Arboretum over the weekend to see its amazing Rose Garden. My friend grew up in Dallas and besides her memories of fragrant eucalyptus, it's yellow roses that are imprinted on her brain.

The garden was in full bloom, its four formal quadrants bursting with color, scent and what Stephen Scanniello, the rose expert I met last week, calls "a Monet-like quality." This impressionistic, dreamy kind of landscape results from the beautiful roses, of course, but also the plantings that surround them. So we didn't just see climbers and ramblers and hybrid teas of every shade and size, we saw catmint and foxglove, clematis and smokebush, growing around, next to and through the roses.

My rose story will be in the paper this Friday. I hope you'll tune in. (To read the story, go to http://www.philly.com/inquirer/columnists/virginia_smith/20070608_The_permissive_gardener.html. To watch the video, go to
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/multimedia/7903916.html)

Stephen is quite a character, as well as being a prominent rose expert, and he has more than 200 fabulous roses in his garden. Many are the old garden variety, romantic antiques that are loaded with fragrance.

He's a big believer in "companion planting," plants that play off the roses in ways you can't imagine - pinks next to lavenders next to oranges next to whites, each combination as interesting and pretty as the next. This is exactly what Morris' Rose Garden is all about, and it gave me ideas.

It also made me wish I had more room at home - or more room in a sunny location - to plant roses. I have about a half-dozen scattered about my garden, all planted in the last year, and it was quite a thrill to see the first blossoms last week. I have several of them planted by the front fence in hopes that they'll cimb and tumble over and give passers by a memorable experience. (Perhaps my roses will make a lasting sensory impression on one of the neighborhood children!)

Still, the roses at Stephen's house and at Morris are something to see in their own right. There is more variety among roses than you might think, given that all of us carry around memories of very particular ones from our childhood. Stephen often talks about "the pink monster" that his mother grew in front of their house.

Red roses are most people's favorite. But the classic 'Peace' rose is the one I recall best. Stephen says it's an example of a "great rose that had a great name." Bad names can torpedo great roses, he says, just as a great name can elevate a bad rose to popularity. 'Peace' was a rarity, a truly fine rose with a powerfully good name.

My friend lives in an apartment and works too much, so she hasn't got a garden to putter around in. At least, not yet. But she loved the roses at the arboretum. They got her talking about the role roses played in her childhood, too, and how, when her mother died many years ago, the florist suggested different flowers for the funeral ...

My friend wanted only one - of course, you know: yellow roses.

To read the rose story, go to: http://www.philly.com/inquirer/columnists/virginia_smith/20070608_The_permissive_gardener.html

Now I'm stuck on hydrangeas. Stuck isn't the right word but you know what I mean. Stuck as in infatuated with, the nature of infatuation being fleeting. It's the flower du jour! I've always loved hydrangeas, and we'll have a story about them in the paper this Friday. (See link below)

(http://www.philly.com/inquirer/home_design/20070615_High_on_hydrangeas.html)

We had a handful of China-blue mopheads growing up and now I have probably a dozen different kinds scattered about my own garden. Every time I think the lacecaps are my favorite, I get a glimpse of one of the oakleafs taking hold and they become my number one. But then there's the pink mophead, a giant unruly thing that started five years ago as one of those single-bloom, foil plants for Mother's Day.

A lot of gardeners have no luck planting those holiday plants. Undoubtedly, they're tortured and manipulated to bloom for the holiday with no thought of what happens next. But I was lucky, and the big rose-colored flowerhead turned into a sprawling specimen that probably ought to be pruned. But I just love the way it spreads and fills in the gaps on either side and casually encroaches on the pathway. There's something very romantic about it.

This morning I took a few photos before heading to work. Found myself wanting to keep photographing, but I'd already decided to concentrate on hydrangeas today.

The gardening season is all about waves of beauty. First come the so-called ephemerals in early spring, the crocuses and their pals, followed by other lovely things ... tulips and daffodils, magnolias, forsythia and foam flower, which is a little native I've adopted in my shady area. Lilacs. Spirea. They keep coming.

It seems as if everyone else's azaleas and rhododendrons are long over but mine have just peaked. Now it's rose time, and hydrangea time, and the clematis are out, as well. And I see buds on lots of other things. The next wave of blooms will emerge soon.

I'm experimenting with more flowers grown from seed this year, and already the old-fashioned sweet peas are blooming. What fragrance they have! Nasturtiums with their lilypad leaves are up and my sunflower seeds somehow escaped the squirrels this year. Last year, they ate every one. This year, the seedlings are six inches tall and intact.

Sunflowers catch a later wave, you see. The anticipation is delicious.

Oakleaf hydrangea is one plant that you truly can enjoy all year long. I know a lot of gardeners say that about other trees and shrubs, but you have to be a hardcore gardening addict to take pleasure in the bare outline of a tree in winter. With oakleaf hydrangea (Hydrangea quercifolia) , it's absolutely true that the flowers and leaves of this American native (bonus) are spectacular in every season.

Its long upright flower clusters are like towers, with white blossoms in spring and summer turning a soft shade of rose and tan in the fall. The leaves are large, green and shaped like an oak's, and they have a luminous light underside. In fall, the leaves turn reddish purple, sometimes orange, and the bark is a light cinnamon-y color.

Oakleafs like lots of room, for they grow quickly grow up and out. I've got some that are three years old - growing in dappled sun and shade - and they're massive already. I love just looking at them, imagining them growing wild and spectacularly out in a forest somewhere. Last fall I picked some of the individual flowers, called sepals, dried them, pressed them and made my own note cards. They're perfect for drying.

The one in this photo anchors a corner of my garden that's visible from my patio and my next door neighbor's back yard. It's planted where the flagstone path converges, near a fountain, so when we sit with friends back by the fountain, the oakleaf hydrangea is a big part of that experience. Invariably, friends take one look at it and say, "Wow! What's that?"

If you needed to see up close the beauty of our native flora, be sure to check out the oakleaf hydrangea. At first you'll think it can't possibly be a hydrangea, and it's true, it looks nothing like the Hydrangea macrophylla mopheads of our childhoods. But it's the real deal, an amazing crowd-pleaser.

I had to laugh this morning at the site of zillions of little cleome seedlings covering the ground in the middle of my garden. Cleome hasslerana is also known as spider flower or grandfather's whiskers for its long wavy stamen. They're officially an annual, but as anyone who's grown them or had them mysteriously pop up in their garden knows, they self-sow and come back in droves.

They're pretty indestructible, too. No need to stake. If something were to happen to a few, chances are you have plenty more.

I planted some three springs ago and they were terrific. Tall, interesting, colorful, in the height - and heat - of summer, just when the garden needed all those things. The next year, only a few came back. Only after I'd pulled out all the "weeds" in the middle, where the cleome had been, did I realize I'd actually removed the little cleome seedlings.

So this year, I let them go, and I have to say, they're running wild. The seedlings are a carpet in the middle of my garden. Good Lord, what have I created? Seedlings have also appeared in the far corner, in the vegetables, everywhere seeds can be blown, dropped or spit out.

Just for the heck of it, and I may regret this later, I'm letting most of them grow. I've already given away a fair number and am happy to continue to do this because my gardening pals seem to love these plants.

They like sun but seem to grow almost anywhere. They look great behind shorter things, in the middle as a focal point and mixed in and about in whatever way you like.

They're tall and spidery, in pink, white and lavender. They're fun when they blow in the wind and they look really great with almost anything else. And I rarely water mine, so they're fine in dry spells.

The only thing they aren't good for is cutting. First of all, they're sticky and prickly. Second of all, they have a disgusting smell. Supposedly if you soak them in warm water, they do better in a vase. I'd like to try this, because I think they'd be incredible on the dining room table in an antique vase I have. And, needless to say, I'm going to be awash in cleomes this summer.

Not that you need to be reminded, but just in case, here: Don't get too friendly. Up close, they really are just like you remember your grandfather's whiskers.

If you haven't clicked onto my colleague Ron Tarver's new gardening blog, you need to get right over there. Ron's a fabulous photographer with a special interest in gardening. He's going to be blogging about how he photographs nature, and already he's got two incredible photos up.

The blog is called "Art from the Garden," and you can get there from here: http://blogs.phillynews.com/inquirer/artfromgarden/. Check out that photo of a Gerbera daisy floating in a bowl. Have you ever seen anything so moody?

We all like taking pictures of our gardens, but some of us - like me - should never quit our day jobs. I'm going to be checking in with Ron's blog regularly, in hopes that he'll teach me how to do better.

Even if I don't get it, I'll at least enjoy the beauty of his expertise.

Meanwhile, I'm posting a picture I took early this morning in my vegetable garden. The first few squash blossoms of spring are always a thrill and it's hard not to capture their delicacy and brightness. I take no credit for anything except being up early enough to see them in the morning sunlight.

Enjoy.

Trains are not something that ordinarily interest me, beyond successfully getting me from point A to point B. Exceptionally fast, new or beautiful trains are very interesting, but we all know what my hobby is. Not much room for anything else.

Even so, I had a train moment a couple of weeks ago when my Texas friend and I visited Morris Arboretum to see the rose garden. Walking along, we caught sight of something else that was an unexpected delight: the garden railway. She's not a train freak either, but both of us stopped short at the sight of the tiny cars careening around the track. What fun! We took a look.

This is the 10th year the arboretum has put on its Garden Railway Display. I never paid attention before, and that's my loss. This display is really neat. The 2007 theme is "Great American Train Stations," and it'll be open daily till Oct. 8, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. (Info: 215-247-5777 or www.morrisarboretum.org)

The display, designed by landscape architect and garden railway designer Paul Busse, focuses on famous railroad stops - like Gettysburg, where Lincoln delivered his famous address. There's also a replica of Independence Hall. Everything's handcrafted, and made of natural materials - pinecone seeds for shingles, downspouts made of twigs.

It has a "deep in the woods" kind of feel. Trains and trolleys cross over trestles and bridges (10 of them!) made of bamboo and tree branches. There are seven tunnels made of logs and a giant trestle and waterfall.

The train cars are very cool, representing freight and passenger models and trolley car lines from throughout history. I confess their eras and designs are lost on me. I did see a car that looked like a ladybug - this even I can understand and relate to - which my friend and I found extremely amusing. (I really like it when gardens have a sense of humor. Good going, Morris!)

There are lots of activities coming up that focus on the railway, some rather unusual ... train enthusiast night is June 28 from 6-8 p.m., special circus trains and displays are coming during circus weeks at the garden railway (June 30-July 8 and Aug. 25 to Sept. 3), and on Saturday, July 14, it's an Eagles Train-ing event. From 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., former Eagle Hugh Douglas will be at the railway giving autographs.

Guess what I'm saying is that even if you're not a train buff, even if, like me, you can't tell one locomotive from another, the Morris' garden railway is a wonderful time. Take the kids. Go yourself.

And hope you see the ladybug!

Compared to a lot of the folks I meet on the job, I'm a relative newcomer to the native plant bandwagon. Turns out I have quite a few in my garden, but until a few years ago, that was coincidence. Now I look for them, having learned that they were here first, this is where they grow best and they're an integral part - a boon, really - to the local ecosystem.

Last fall, I planted a bunch of native plants I'd bought at Bowman's Hill Wildflower Preserve, a dandy place in New Hope that, turns out, I'd visited with my Brownie troop long, long ago. That news comes by way of my mother, who at 82 has a far better memory than I ever will!

(Bowman's Hill: www.bhwp.org)

Anyway, on the more recent trip, the preserve was in the midst of its plant sale. Who can resist a plant sale? I loaded up on native ferns, Indian pink and foamflower, rushed home and planted them in my little woodland garden.

This spring, it's been an absolute delight to watch them all come up and begin to grow. The foamflower bloomed early on and looked great next to some Japanese iris, heuchera and hosta. The ferns are still kind of small, but they all have different shapes that are becoming clear as they get bigger.

My favorite - this week, anyway - is the Indian pink or Spigelia, still small but outstanding to look at. The flowers look like little firecrackers, bright red tubes with yellow starburst tops. I bought quite a few - so glad now - and in the shade of my old Siberian elm tree they are really bright and cheery.

They're attractive to hummingbirds, though none has been sighted yet. Whenever there's a hummingbird in the garden, I stand there in awe. Magnificent creatures, aren't they?

Lately, other creatures seem to be everywhere. The other night, after a late dinner on the patio, we watched as bats zoomed in every direction. With any luck, they were feasting on mosquitoes by the hundreds. I don't really care that they ignore my bat hotel - are those bat boxes a racket or what? But I sure hope they're pigging out on skeeters.

The birds are out of control, waking us up at 4 a.m. every single day even with the windows closed! Wish those guys would sleep in sometime, especially weekends. A friend who knows lots about birds says the really loud ones are catbirds, but we have several wren families living in our birdhouse condos and they're no slouches when it comes to loud chirping.

Bees, bugs, worms ... no snakes or grownup butterflies yet.

But little by little, I'm building a habitat that shelters, nourishes and delights all manner of creatures. Which includes humans, of course.

I mean Joe-Pye Weed, not the Penn State football icon. Joe Pye or Eupatorium is also known as boneset or snakeroot, supposedly named for a Native American medicine man who once traveled through New England with his herbal remedies. It's another plant I'd never heard of until a couple of years ago.

Now, dare I say it, it's one of my favorites. (Sooner or later, everything's a favorite!)

I have some growing in several places in my garden. This is to be applauded. Great plant. It loves the sun, looks positively ethereal when massed and the pinkish flowers explode in a cloud, and butterflies love it.

But. BUT. When will I learn not to plant something that's going to get very tall in front of things that are shorter? My Joe Pye is growing along the pathway, in front of salvias and roses and other stuff that soon will be obscured by this unusual native.

Last summer it didn't get too tall. Already this spring, it's huge. I was admiring it last night and then I realized I'd done it again ...

Also last night I transplanted some coneflowers that I'd put in the middle of the garden a few weeks ago when nothing else was beyond knee-high. Now that the cleomes are going gonzo in there, threatening to overtake and squeeze the life out of my beautiful 'Sundown' Echinacea, I had to get the latter out of there.

The experts always say to think ahead. Don't plant that small holly tree in a spot that can't accommodate a giant mature holly. But who thinks like that? If you're like me, you're so excited about your new plant, you put it in the ground where it looks nice, wherever that may be. And then months later, or the following year, you realize you've - once again - been a dope.

As long as we're in confession mode ...just last weekend, I bought some new basil plants. I already had a lot, but pesto madness comes upon me every summer and I worried that there wouldn't have enough. So I bought several more and planted them on the edge of the vegetable bed, with some verbena, marigolds, snapdragons and wave petunias. The idea, new this year, was to make a colorful flower border around the veggies.

Ack! The basil's only a few inches tall now, but pretty soon - guess what - it'll tower over the other flowers. What was I thinking?

I'm going to have to move that, too. Hmmm. Maybe Joe Pye could use some - shorter - company. In the front this time.

Did you hear the grateful gulps coming from your garden last night? Maybe the thunder obscured it, but surely those sounds were out there. Anyone who's tried to water lately has been frustrated ... you water and water and the next day, dust bowl.

Gardeners aren't like regular people. (I won't say "normal.") Regular people complain about rain. It's a spoiler. It literally rains on parades and weddings and graduations.

But gardeners check weather forecasts obsessively. We watch the skies for a sign. We ask each other the latest.

Last night's rain was much appreciated! Merci buckets.

Today dawned sunny and warm, a perfect first day of summer. Yesterday's five hours of rain has made everything bright and beautiful.

Just had to share this before it disappears:

How did you start your day today? Lucky me ... mine began at Chanticleer, where I hadn't been since opening day in April. That day was raw and rainy. Today was the opposite, just about the nicest a summer day could be.

The garden had lots of visitors ... a group of artists, families with young children, couples, senior groups and more. I headed straight for Doug Croft's vegetable and cutting gardens, one of many favorite spots here.

These sunflowers were outstanding, as cheerful as the day made me feel. My sunflowers at home are still only a few feet high. Doug's hint at what's to come.

He took a few minutes to show me around. The sugar snap peas are fading, so he's putting pole beans in. He's got beet seedlings growing and while it's late for sowing tomato seeds, he's put more baby tomatoes in. His lettuces are bolting but he's left the towers in the ground. "It's kind of fun to see the yellow flowers," he says.

Now I don't feel so bad. My lettuces are flowering to beat the band.
And I haven't ever grown - or eaten - kohlrabi, but these were beautiful. Wonder how they taste?

It's a garden in transition, Doug says. Cold season crops are out, warm season crops are in. And even though we think of lettuce as a cold weather crop, there are warm weather varieties available, he says. To increase the chances of their making it through a Philadelphia summer, he suggests planting them in the shadow of some tomatoes.

When he pointed to his little warm-weather lettuce seedlings, I didn't even see them at first. They're about a half-inch tall! In my garden, they'd probably get mistaken for a weed or smothered by one. But this garden's nearly perfect. (I say nearly, but I mean totally.)

The cutting garden is magnificent. Besides the sunflowers, Doug's got bright red lilies, clematis-covered arbors, helianthoides (a striking, tall yellow perennial), a cloud of white astilbe and so many more I can't even remember, all planted in rows.

Standing there under the warm sun of a brand new summer, I could think of no place I'd rather be.

This morning I came upon a lovely sight - a little bird taking a dip in the birdbath. Nothing unusual about that, except that these guys rarely continue when I approach. So look closely at this photo and you'll see my friend. At 7 a.m. it was already warm and sticky. No wonder he decided to dive in early!

Always amazes me how pretty the garden's colors are in such heat, almost as if this is our reward for putting up with the rest. A lot is blooming ... the coneflowers have popped in the last few days. Last fall I bought a new color called 'Sundown,' kind of an orange-rose. Forgot about them over the winter and spring, which is a great reason to plant in the fall. Nothing like the surprise of a "new" flower in the garden.

I can't take credit for this, but I planted several clumps of 'Sundown' next to some lilies that are a complementary color. It was a shock to see how well they blend, and I can't wait for someone to praise my skill in color design. Ha!

At this point in the season, I like just about everything I see. That's part joy that things are coming up and looking good, but sometimes the garden is simply a place to accept and be accepted. We can shed our super-critical nature and just experience the pleasure of the color spectrum.

When gardeners talk about their color schemes and favorite shades of this and that, I sometimes think that red is one color I'm not wild about.

But then I see my budding Crocosmia - the evil, brilliantly red 'Lucifer' - set against the lithe limbs of Russian sage and some golden Helianthoides, and I banish the thought. What a combination! It's extraordinary.

There are more colors to share. Later.

How's this for color? They're green now, so very green, but later this summer they'll turn to a rosy pink. These are Reliance grapes, an American variety of seedless table grape. Seedless is the way to go, I think. Aren't they beautiful?

They're supposed to be one of the best tasting eating grapes, very hardy in climates like ours and quick to bear fruit. I planted two Reliance vines last year and both are loaded with clusters of green grapes.

I've never grown grapes before and I'm wondering if the birds will get them first. Already birds are stealing blueberries, despite the fact that the berries are still pretty green and hard. I'm thinking of wrapping the blueberries in netting, wondering how that will work, given that last year the birds won out despite the netting. We harvested but a handful of berries before the bushes were bare.

Oh well. Birds have to eat, right?

Between the grape vines and this trumpet vine, walking in parts of my garden is like being under an umbrella. Every once in awhile, if you look closely, you'll see a hummingbird halfway into one of the little trumpets. Actually, it's important to watch this vine closely. It has "volunteers" all over the place. I pull them out, or pot them up and give them to friends or plant them against walls elsewhere in the garden.

But I no longer nurture them. They've definitely become acclimated and have proven themselves to be extremely tough. I don't even water them. Perhaps someday, in addition to having places for birds to sunbathe and water-bathe and feast on berries and grapes, I'll have a pergola covered in vines suitable for homesteading!

In a June 15 story on hydrangeas http://www.philly.com/inquirer/columnists/virginia_smith/20070615_High_on_hydrangeas.html I wrote that the late Penny McHenry, the founder of the American Hydrangea Society had supposedly come up with a way to make these big blossoms stand up straight in a vase of water. Like so many hydrangea fans, I'm forever cutting them and bringing them in, only to have them shrivel up in a matter of hours.

Penny's method was to soak the hydrangeas in a tub of cold water for about three hours. She swore that if you put them in a vase after that, they'd hold up. Sure, sure.

Hey, guess what! I tried it on Saturday. I didn't use a bathtub, but I filled the biggest bowl I have with cold water and stuck a couple of stems in there. After about 3 1/2 hours, I took them out, gently patted them dry and put them in a vase.

Today is Tuesday and even in this %^$&^&*&($##() heat, those hydrangeas are fine. Everytime I walk by them, I check. Can't help thinking any minute now they're going to revert, but so far, so good. Even if they do shrivel up, at this point I've had them for three days.

So I'm here to report that Penny Mac was true to her word. And judging from the number of calls and emails the hydrangea story prompted - I almost started answering my phone, "Hydrangea hotline!" - I think some of you might be happy about that. This is peak hydrangea season, after all.