Quote of the day

Decayed literature makes the best soil

- Henry David Thoreau -
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Having been a voracious reader my whole life, my mental compost should by now be a steaming heap of crumbling, dark-brown soil full of nutrients and micro-organisms for something good to grow. Of course, the question is if I have fed it with the right stuff; those organic, well-balanced materials, that with a bit of added moisture disintegrate into a smooth, sweet-smelling humus ready make any plant leap to the skies with joy. Or have I unintended fed it with things difficult to digest, or kept it either too wet or dry? Or maybe, just maybe, I've been too lazy or comfortable to occasionally completely turn it over to give it more oxygen, so that the small aerobes can do their job?

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For many, summer is a time of reading; newspapers and magazines drown us in tips about what to take as a companion to the hammock or beach. This year, I will think of my mental compost heap and choose books that complement its balance well; not too wet, so it rottens to a smelly mass, not too acid, so that the heap won't heat and not too dry, so that the whole process looses its momentum. And of course, I will try to turn it properly over sometimes, to let some well-needed air to the heap.

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Today, I planted some beautiful Polygonatum x hybridum 'Variegata' that I bought at the Bellevue Botanical Gardens for a couple of days ago. I love their thick, juicy rhizomes with white buds telling in which way the plant is growing. The maroon stems and leaves with white margins are beautiful, too, not to mention the nodding bell-formed flowers that come up early in spring. I had masses of old Polygonatums that had spread themselves between the cliffs in my garden in Saltsjöbaden (not the variegated ones, though), and I enjoyed how they thrived in those hard conditions, shooting up early in the spring and staying around until late autumn.

An ultimate haven... my favourite garden

A copy of the 16th century statue of Mercury (Hermes) by Giambologna, looking at the sea over the cliffs of Källskär.

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I sometimes get the question of which garden that I have visited I have liked the most and I always have found this a very difficult question to answer; an old-fashioned cottage garden can just as wonderful, even if in a different way, as a magnificent palace garden, an avant garde modern garden or a spiritual Japanese one... It all depends on the feelings the garden is able to awake. But yesterday, while shuffling some old photo albums on the bookshelves, I randomly opened one of them and flipped through the holiday photos in it dating from 1994, from a sailing trip with my parents in the archipelago of Åland in South-Western Finland. Looking at them, I think I found the answer to this puzzling question; for despite having visited so many beautiful, serene, bountiful and/or impressing gardens, the garden in Källskär near Kökar represents for me the garden as an ultimate haven; a perfect escape, a shelter from storms and an improbable dream that became true.

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Källskärskannan

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The little island of Källskär is mostly known for its natural beauty, the special stone formations and flowing cliffs shaved smooth by the ice age and the sea. Particularly well-known is a stone pillar called "Källskärskannan", "the pot or jug of Källskär", named after its rounded form. The natural meadows were used as summer pasture for sheep until 1958, when Baron Göran Åkerhielm from Sweden sailed in and fell in love with the island. During the following years, he built a low log house between the huge cliffs, and started to build a garden with the help of sheltering stone walls. The people from the surrounding islands like Kökar, always called him "the Count" and helped him to carry soil to the barren island, and for several years, the young people were employed by him to help with the garden. He used sculpture as a contrast and complement to the wild surroundings of the garden, and he loved especially Rhododendrons and roses, getting them to thrive in this harsh and remote environment. In 1983, "The Count" donated his summer residence and garden to the county of Åland, and since then it has been used as a retreat for guest artists and cultural persons, one of the most famous of whom was Tove Jansson, the author of the Moomin books.

A stone path to the log house.

The main house of "The Count", who's real name and title was Baron Göran Åkerhielm.

Källskär is open to the public but visiting it is quite an adventure; the sea around is shallow and full of stones. My father has always loved sailing, and has taken us to most islands in the Archipelago of Turku and Åland, but if you are not an experienced sailor or/and boatman, it is best to travel there with a fishing boat from Kökar that traffics the island daily between June 25 and August 7.

Unfortunately, my holiday pictures were not of a very good quality and when I took them, I was still at the stage where somebody has to be standing in the middle of the picture, smiling. So the only picture here that is taken by me is the first one with the statue of Mercury, which I scanned in. Fortunately, I found some wonderful photos at FlickR taken by Daniel Frigo and Megan and Murray McMillan. Copyright is theirs, even if I have loaned their pictures here; please visit the links above for more beautiful pictures from Källskär and Kökar.

Huntington Garden

Two Polish chicken picking around the garden.

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Last Thursday, I had the luck to be invited by Marian to join a group of Washington Arboretum volunteers on a field trip to a couple of nurseries and to Darlene and Dan Huntington's private garden in Snohomish, about half an hour's car trip from Seattle. It was a shining day with full sun, which means that my photos look quite white-washed, but they still give an distant idea about how beautiful their garden is.

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The little garden house, complete with two brown nesting boxes for bees under the eaves.

Juicy buds of Papaver 'Patty's plum'...
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A back-lit 'Patty's plum' in full sun.

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A sitting group and steel sculpture under two Robinia pseudoacacia 'Friesia', shining like gold against the shady forest.
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Darlene and Dan started gardening some twenty years ago, after an inspiring trip to Norway, Wales and England, where they were following the tracks of Dan's ancestors and relatives. Over the years, they have visited hundreds of gardens, tens of which are in England, and turned their five acre land into a luxuriant garden of winding paths and richly planted borders with well-selected and -combined plants and shrubs. The amazing difference between the beginning and the results twenty years later were presented in a photo binder, but as Dan and Darlene told, the excellent, rich soil of the area gives an extra explanation to the abundancy of their garden.

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Philadelphus 'Natchez'.

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Browsing through the garden and talking about the plants with Darlene and Dan showed their deep love for them; many of them were cultivars with special colours or leaf forms. The paths led past several vistas with specially built benches and sitting places, giving a harmonious and relaxed feel to their surroundings. Darlene has a history of restoring Victorian houses in the Snohomish area, which could be seen in the many recycled antique objects, scattered in the garden as focal points or special features between the beautiful plants. The view to the valley beyond the garden boundaries adds also to its beauty, creating a pleasing variation between the close and the distant. The result of Darlene and Dan Huntington's work is a garden full of beauty, knowledge and personality.

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A shady walk to the house, with grouped Hostas and recycled objects.
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The Huntington garden is a private garden, but it is sometimes open through the Northwest Perennial Alliance Open Garden Days. Marian told me also about a Seattle Times article from 2007, written by Valerie Easton, which presents Darlene's and Dan's garden.

There is also a famous Huntington Botanical Garden in California.

Quote of the day

What is a garden but a species of desire?

Such a short sentence, containing the true essence of gardening... I love how it leaves everything open for the reader to interpret the meaning of "desire" - for some, it might mean aesthetic issues, for other, practical or ecological; so many possibilities in one short question. This quote is by Bonnie Marranca in her preface for American Garden Writing, an Anthology (2003), in which she has chosen more than fifty essays from travel journals, letters and personal essays of the country's most famous gardeners and garden writers. Some of the writers included in this highly interesting volume are internationally well-known like Thomas Jefferson, Frederick Law Olmsted, Henry David Thoreau and Beatrice Farrand (well, at least if you are interested in garden history), but some of them are probably known to the American public only. The range of the essays is wide, from aesthetic considerations to growing beans and the morals of composting. This excellent collection has given me many new writers to study further, and I recommend it warmly for anyone who would like to get a glimpse at the ways in which Americans have worked, thought and written about their gardens from the earliest Colonial days to the present.

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The Stewartia pseudocamellias are just starting to flower in my garden. I am totally taken by this beautiful plant that has so many virtues to recommend it: lovely, round buds that open to delicate flowers with white, fringed petals and bright yellow stamens looking from them; glossy, healthy-looking leaves which turn to a lovely bronze red in the autumn, and a grey and reddish bark that looks stunning all the year. Stewartias are quite hardy and can be grown even in the Scandinavian, cold climates up to the Swedish Zone 3, which is about as far North as Stockholm, but I've never grown them myself; in Sweden they were very pricey and the nurseries always warned about the long time they take to establish and flower for the first time, which could be up to 5 or 7 years. It is lovely to "inherit" plants like this, getting to enjoy them directly without the long wait...

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Walking under a sea of nodding belles

Magnolia wilsonii is almost past flowering in Marian's garden; its nodding flowers still hold to their pure white petals, showing off the dark, maroon centre contrasting so effectively with them. And there are still some buds left, hanging like little eggs from the branches. Walking under this sea of lemony-scented flowers is a real treat to somebody like me coming from a colder climate; so generous and exquisite. Looking up at the almost 20 feet high tree (6 m) makes me think of my mother, who for 15 years has lovingly coddled her little Magnolia stellata, one of the Magnolias hardy enough to barely survive in the cold climate of Turku in Southern Finland. It now reaches up to maybe 4 feet, despite my father's kind help of building it a sheltering tent for the winter every year.

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Once I showed a picture of my mother's Magnolia for a gardening friend in Australia, and she (quite correctly) asked why my mother bothers with a plant so obviously not suited for the climate. And despite my strong conviction that plants should be chosen after the conditions of place they will be planted in, I still find my mother's effort deeply touching. All her work just to be able to enjoy the dainty, star-like flowers for two weeks (at most) shows so well what gardening can and should be at its best; a real labour of love, to use the old, worn expression. And at the same time, a bit of rebellion against the odds, being the one who decides what to grow in one's own little piece of paradise. The gardens of Marian and my mother, so far away and in so different circumstances, still sharing some of the same ambitions...

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The "Dame Ednas" of a garden...

Pink is quite a dividing colour in garden. Maybe not as much as yellow and orange, but still one of the colours people often do not like to get planted... Last week, I made a garden plan for a friend here in Seattle, and she commented the planting plan positively as "not containing any pinks or yellows" - something I hadn't even thought about while choosing the plants. The site faces South and is quite dry, so it just felt natural to go for gray greens and bluish shades for flowers. Normally I do more research about the client's wishes and favourite colours, but as this was not a "commercial project", I ventured to choose everything myself and accidentally "hit the nail" directly.

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In my new garden, I'm both glad and also a bit troubled (only slightly, though) by seeing what opens and comes up. For the moment, I have some real "Dame Ednas" around, and I don't quite know what to do with them. I try not to be too opinionated about colours as most of them can be incorporated in a garden given them right companions, but a sea of bubblegum pink is a bit of a challenge for me. There are a couple of old, double Azaleas (above), some quite plastic looking Kalmias (first picture above), and then several 3 meters (10 feet) high Rhododendrons (below) on the outer edges.

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It might, of course, seem a bit unfair to call these plants for "Dame Ednas", that wonderful, politically totally incorrect figure played by Australian comedian Barry Humphries ("I am a lucky, lucky woman, because I was born with a priceless gift; the ability to laugh at the misfortunes of others" - one of his subtleties on the video above...). But somehow, these real pinkies are not very humble either, crying for attention with their almost fluorescent flowers. Taking out such big plants would mean that I would need to replace them with something else, as they provide a good screen towards the neighbours. I could, of course, do the Japanese way and nip off the flower buds before they open (and get the extra benefit of a growth spurt as they could use all their energy for growing the new shoots...), but that is a huge task given the size of the plants. Maybe I should try adding shrubs with dark, maroon leaves, like the Smoke bush, Cotinus coggyria (below), and perennials with bright white flowers, that come out the same time, to dilute the bubblegum effect?

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Learning to know each other

Stewartia pseudocamellia buds, like little peas waiting for June and July to come to show off their pure white contents.
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No, this time I won't be rushing to move and replant and dig up. I promise. I will take it slowly (which, according to my husband, does not come naturally to me...), get to know my garden better and see, what I really needs to be done. And then, in a well-planned way, go to action during the autumn and early next spring. This is the plan, at least. And so far, being busy with other things, I've been really good at adhering to it. I dug in the Anemone nemorosa 'Vestal' plants that I had in pots. And I have been dead-heading numerous Rhododendrons, just out of pure stress. I like the popping sound of the spent flowerheads when I nip them off just above the juicy, new shoots. And it makes a big difference to the look of the garden, when the old flowers are not hanging around like used handkerchiefs.

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A flowering white Dogwood, Cornus florida, above some old Rhodos. They grow actually over a meter below the stone terrace with Spanish lavender in the front...

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Buzzing activity in the lavender hedges; there are at least twenty meters (60 feet) of them...
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I took some shots of some plants in the garden that I like. There is (luckily) no structural work to be done and I really like the overall plan of my new garden. But there is a circular lawn surrounded by a flowerbed, now filled with Spanish lavender, that I would rather see filled with lovely, flowering perennials in cool tones. And I could move the lavender to the front, where the cold winter took many of the large, established plants... Also, there is a large area in the back that has been left totally unlandscaped. It does not show from the actual garden as it slopes downwards (towards South), but why waste such a large area of land? Maybe this could be a perfect place for a kitchen garden? Or a jungle for the girls, who still love disappearing in the bushes and playing fairies? All these possibilities...

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Azalea 'Everest' is now covered with almost luminescent white flowers; it looks almost bridal while flowering. It has been used throughout the garden, and I love it.

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The "island bed towards the street, with three big Magnolia grandiflora 'DD Blanchard', Euonymus alata 'Compacta', Sedum spectabile 'Autumn Joy', Iris sibirica 'Ceasar's Brother' and Lavandula stoechas 'Otto Quast'. A nice, draught tolerant combination together with several large stone boulders.

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Hello, old friend

Things are definitely moving in the right direction... Just look what I found in one of the boxes; my favourite garden trowel, from my house in Saltsjöbaden. When we moved there, I found this wonderful tool in the garage, with other old gardening tools that nobody had cared about for years. There they laid, in the middle of mouse drippings and spider webs in the unrenovated and dirty crawling space behind the garage.

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Later, I learned and noticed, that an earlier owner of my house had been a passionate gardener, and that the garden had even been voted as the most beautiful garden in Saltsjöbaden in the early 70's. Unfortunately, the next family in the house had no interest for plants or gardening and when we came, only some of the toughest survivors gave me clues about the former glory of my garden; a peony in the edge of a meadow towards the sea, spreading its frilly, shockingly pink petals like an old primadonna amongst its plainer sisters; a double Anemone of an exotic sort, surviving between the cracks of the cliffs towards the sea. And all the Hellebores, only managing to send up a few, thin leaves though the wirelike mat of roots of the ground-elder. After cleaning the beds from this nasty intruder, I re-planted the roots in the middle of June (!) and got my reward already the next spring, when the Hellebores flowered with large bundles of dark Burgundy flowers. And this lovely old trowel was with me through the whole journey, always there, often hidden in the soil so that I had to spend long times looking for it (I understand that the new, bright coloured ones are better in this sense, but I still prefer mine...).

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So you can surely imagine my unease about not knowing if my trowel had made it into the moving boxes; it really felt like an old friend had gone missing. And at the same time, I felt a bit embarrassed (why, I don't know) about asking the people renting our house to look for it and if finding it, sending it to me. And now, here it is, together with me taking on a new adventure on the other side of the Atlantic; surely a sign of more good things to come? And this time I might tie a colourful ribbon on it, just in case...

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(My trowel is taking a well-deserved rest on a bed of Blue star creepers, Pratia pedunculata, in my new garden. More about it soon - it seems that I'm getting over the busiest part of this moving project!).

Stealing time for things you love

In front, Disporum sessile 'Variegata', with Primula Sieboldii ’Alba’ and Fritillaria meleagris 'Alba' behind.

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Somehow I feel that I'm getting less and less effective with things I don't especially love to do. Like moving between houses. Of course, I'm excited about getting into a new home, and my brain is already working on a plan for making the garden more "mine", but I still would already like to be at the stage when all those boxes were not staring at me demanding attention. I've always been a pretty effective person while moving, sorting out things and getting 90% done within the first two weeks, eager of creating an illusion of normality around me. But now that energy seems to be eluding me; I start my days with good intentions, but loose myself to daydreams about plants and writing that I would love to be doing instead of unpacking things.

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Last Thursday, while I should have been packing the last things for the movers to take with them on Friday, I visited Marian's garden. And some time later, came back home, happy and refreshed and with over 140 pictures in my camera, many of plants that I've so far only seen in foreign gardening books and magazines... I still can't quite get over the huge possibilities for growing things here in the Pacific Northwest. Marian's garden is such a wonderful place, an acre of winding paths and a stream of water running besides it. The plants just seem to enjoy themselves so much, they mingle with each other and behind every nook there is somethings special and rare to see. I was laughing on myself when I saw thousands of Anemone nemorosa 'Vestal' flowering here; this rarity has actually become a bit of a thug in Marian's garden. We were wondering about the claimed sterility of these white ladies; here they seem to be much more promiscuous than their namesake virgins... And there are so many other Anemones; the yellow A. ranunculoides that I remember from my childhood gardens in Southern Finland, A. n. 'Monstrosa' (above) with frilly green sepals, A. n. 'Robinsoniana' with lovely pinkish-purple flowers.

Polygonatums, Solomon's seals, have for a long time been one of my favourite woodland plants, but Marian had some close relatives with name Disporum sessile 'Sunray', now called 'Kinga', that very really lovely too, with their greenish-white flowers hanging from the "joints" of the stems. Other beautiful Disporums in her garden were D. sessile 'Variegata' (first picture of this post) and D. cantonense, my photos of which unfortunately did not turn out well.

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Trilliums, the handsome woodland plants many of which are native to this region, didn’t seem to like getting their photos done, especially the dark velvety red T. chloropetalums just seem to sulk in them, but all of them looked lovely in the garden. The yellow ones with beautifully freckled leaves are called T. luteum. There was even a double variety, T. grandiflorum 'Flore pleno', shining in the shade with its clean, white flowers.

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The Arisaema's were flowering too; greenish white ones, and ones with dark maroon, striped blooms. I have to learn more about them, as they are not hardy in Stockholm, I haven't been paying them too much attention so far, but they really make an exotic looking addition to a woodland garden. Above Arisaema sikokianum.

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Two very interesting new acquaintances were Cardiocrinum giganteum, the Giant Himalayan lily (first picture above), several of which were showing off their lush, shining heart-shaped leaves shooting up from the bulbs, and Podophyllum pleianthum, the Asian Mayapple (second picture above), which was hiding it's rounded flowers under the umbrella-shaped leaves, both of which I had never seen before. I can't wait to see the large trumpet-shaped flowers of the Giant Himalayan lily to show up later in the season, and it will be so interesting to get to smell them for the first time!

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Fritillaria pontica, the Balkan fritillary (first picture above), had spred itself freely around, with it's nodding yellow and greenish flowers. Fritillaria acmopetala had alread flowered, so I took no pictures, but as all Fritillaries, they are a wonderful springtime addition in a garden. I had tens, if not hundreds of the common Fritillaria meleagris, both purples and whites in my garden in Sweden, and the combination of them coming up from a sea of Forget-me-nots was one of my true spring time favourites there. A yellow flowering Magnolia, 'Elizabeth', was still in flower in the shade of the bigger trees, spreading its branches above a sea of Anemones.

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Some of the paeonies were already flowering or even past flowering, but more of them later... I just decided to show one more interesting small plant friend, namely a small, delicate Bergenia omeiensis, that I also hadn't seen before. Marian told that the flowers start as little bells, and open up to resemble pinkish white geraniums. As Bergenias are one of the few hardy and evergreen perennials in Scandinavia, this might be an interesting choice to grow there.

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It is just amazing to see all these plants in their woodland surroundings in the middle of the suburban Eastside of Seattle... And I can't help thinking of and admiring the amount of work that has gone to get everything in place and keep them thriving; years and years of interest and dedication; composting, mulching, weeding, and then planting, re-planting and dividing them to keep them growing. Marian's garden is a real pearl, a document of a true gardening life.

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Read about my first visit to Marian's garden, the magic carpets of spring here.

New beginnings

Flowering Pacific native dogwood, Cornus nuttallii

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I am too excited to concentrate on writing; I just "got" a garden and we are moving in already in the end of next week. For the moment, it is all happiness; the spring is here, everything is blooming and I am walking with my feet barely touching the ground. The new garden (it feels odd to say "my" quite yet) is far too well-manicured for a person like me, which gives me something to work on. I like my gardens a bit wild and not too proper; I prefer admiring formality somewhere else than in my backyard (for it truly can be beautiful, too). I am already making a list of "must-have's" (oh, here we go again...) and plants of nostalgia to be included in this garden. After having made two gardens, I hope I know how to edit my plans and not to overdo things, however enthusiastic I might sound. But my main project will be planting a kitchen garden, the girls are just in the right age to enjoy growing their own veggies and flowers. And since we are not travelling anywhere this summer, there is a chance we get to enjoy the results too. So, being mentally too busy for anything else than family-centered thoughts, I just wanted to give a short update with some pictures from gardens around me, full of blooming beauties.
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The excitement, the true excitement, is always in starting again. Nothing's worse than an accomplished task, a realized dream.

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- Marilyn Harris -
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Thriving forget-me-nots, Myosotis sylvatica

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Species Rhododendron, with nodding, pink bell-formed flowersK

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Blooming white lilac, Syringa vulgaris 'Alba'
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Blooming lilac, Syringa vulgaris