African Garden + winter

Seasons of the Garden
Campanula persicifolia 'Blue-Eyed Blonde' in June 2010

The thick plaster of snow has muffled the voice of the garden, making it difficult to recall its form and color of the growing season. Shockingly cold temperatures have descended for the week, so there's no chance of seeing it anytime soon. To refresh the memory, I search the photos I took that seem so long ago. The garden has been frozen, locked in cryogenic stasis for the past two months, casting the changes of the growing season into sharp relief.

I am called to wonder at the seasons of the garden. Have you ever thought about what season garden you have? There are gardens that are best seen in the spring (the easiest season), there are summer gardens, where things really don't get rolling until July, such those on the Buffalo Garden Walk. There are some gardens that are best appreciated in the fall, such as those long on tall grasses and asters. There are fewer gardens for winter interest, such as the Japanese island garden Sansho-En at the Chicago Botanic Garden.

There are gardens that have it all. I want Squirrelhaven to be one of them, with the whole garden interesting all year long. I don't know whether I have achieved, or ever will achieve, that desire in this garden. Squirrelhaven ebbs and flows with the seasons.

I had thought spring would be Squirrelhaven's season with the woodland at its peak, bursting with wildflowers and the fabulous tree peony,

Paeonia suffruticosa 'Ofjui-nishiki' in May 2010

but then I thought the Nanoprairie lacked oomph. The photos tell a different story.

Yes, there's a bit of a lull after the daffodils, Scilla and Magnolia finish blooming in April, but in May there's the smoking Geum triflorum, the Baptisia and the Practically Perfect Phlox, as Gail likes to call Phlox pilosa. The Nanoprairie just gets better from there.

Then, I thought that summer definitely can't be the best season here, because the woodland garden has fallen into its summer torpor, with only the bugbane (Actaea racemosa) doing much of anything. Wrong again.

These pictures were taken in the middle of June.

The front of the woodland garden is ablaze with color in July.

'Black Beauty' lilies

In addition to the imposing presence of the lilies, Geranium 'Gerwat' (Rozanne) reaches its peak of floral exuberance at the front of the woodland garden in July.

It really makes no sense to have too much going on at the back of the woodland garden, because no one wants to spend much time back there in the middle of July. That's where the mosquitoes hang out. Despite the biting nasties, I make the daily trek to the compost pile back there, so I do enjoy seeing the Lobelia siphilitca blooming there, in front the Hibiscus syriaca and of several Hostas which also bloom in July.

Lobelia siphilitica in July 2010

And why should a garden be deemed "boring" just because it lacks blooms? Many berries ripen in the summer shade, such as these of Cornus alternifolia.

The berries of the pagoda dogwood turn dark purple in July.

And then there is the beauty of foliage.

Hakonechloa macra 'Aureola'

So Squirrelhaven still has much to delight the eye in July. By August, all the Lobelias, Tricyrtis, and woodland ex-asters are in full bloom and the Japanese anemones are coming into bloom. Meanwhile, out front in the Nanoprairie, the coneflowers and Phlox paniculata are still going strong and the ex-asters are just starting.

Autumn at Squirrelhaven is wonderful, with the return of cooler temperatures. The woodland garden is filled with the scent of Actaeas, and the Japanese anemones command attention, while the toad lilies just keep going.

Tricyrtis 'Gilt Edge' (toadlily) with Actaea (Cimicifuga) 'Black Negligee' and buds of Aconitum in September

The ex-asters in the Nanopraire burst into bloom and the grasses color up; the whole garden sings with fall color.

Symphyotrichums (ex-asters) tower over the Nanoprairie in October

The show doesn't end until late in November.

So, is Squirrelhaven a spring, summer or fall garden? If you want to see if it's a winter garden take a look at my last post, or this post from 2008. In which season does your garden shine? Did you plan it that way?