How is it that the 2 leading common names of Aruncus dioicus are Goat’s Beard and Bride’s Feathers? Apparently plants can be a sort of Rorschach test, reflecting great variations in perception within the human psyche.
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Notes from a wildlife-friendly cottage garden
American Fringe Trees (Chionanthus virginicus) and Peonies have little in common, except that they are providing some of the most striking blooms in our garden at this moment.
In our garden, at least, the Tulips in their season are star performers, adding a zingy drama to the area in front of the house.
Every year I like to give a little push for 2 native Currants that, I believe, could be more widely utilized in home landscapes.
We should really tear ourselves away from the Tulips out front and catch up on what’s happening in the Back Garden. For most of the year this is the shady part of the garden, but to date the tall trees have just barely started to leaf out.
A couple of years ago the rabbits in our garden discovered that they had a yen for our Virginia Bluebells (Mertensia virginica). This was more than a little upsetting, as Virginia Bluebells are probably my favorite native spring ephemeral.
A dramatic high point of the traditional Passover Seder is the recitation of the 10 plagues visited upon Egypt. On this last night of Passover, it occurs to me that there were at least 3 plagues visited upon our garden this week. And while they all were a lot milder than the ones cited in …
Bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis) can form extensive colonies of gleaming white flowers, blooming in woodland glades in early spring. They don’t do that for me, though. I mean, they bloom very nicely, but they don’t form big colonies.
Spicebush (Lindera benzoin) is a native alternative to Forsythia that’s certainly worth considering. It’s a shrub that offers much more than yellow flowers in spring.
All this time at home, and it’s been too cold and wet to do much in the garden lately. In fact, it snowed all afternoon today, damn it! So I have not much to do but think up schemes, schemes that will further explode my garden budget deficit.
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