Wild thing, you make my heart sing

The other-worldly Indian Pipe

 

One amazing thing about living in the mountains is that just about every time I walk out the door I see something new and different.

After missing a number of cool photo ops because I don’t like to drag my heavy Nikon around, I invested in a small pocket camera I carry with me all the time. It’s the best $99 I’ve ever spent.

The other day I was out walking when I spied a most unusual plant growing underneath a fern. From afar it looked like a skeleton’s bony fingers. I incorrectly assumed it was a fungus.

Some stems have a pinkish hue

After consulting my trusty wildflower book I learned this unearthly looking specimen is called Indian Pipe (Monotropa uniflora.) Unlike most plants it doesn’t have chlorophyll so the stems and “flowers” are white and waxy.

Small wonder it is also referred to as the corpse or ghost plant.

Experts reckon the plant evolved during the Jurassic period at the peak of the dinosaur era.

Although I’d never seen one in all my years visiting the mountains, this relative of the Rhododendron can be found throughout the country with the exception of the desert southwest. (However the US Forest Service says it is not commonly encountered.)

Indian Pipe provides food for small bumblebees and food for thought for those of us who stumble across the mysterious plant for the first time.

Emily Dickinson, called the Indian Pipe “the preferred flower of life” and used an illustration of it on the cover of her book Poems.

North Carolina mountain folklore tells us Cherokee Indians believed that plants appeared where the ashes from peace pipes had been scattered.

Another legend says Indian Pipe emerges in woodland locales where relatives have quarreled without resolution.

I’d love to know what happened on the site where I found this perennial wildflower.

Lilies and Orchids…

The Carolina Lily

Further down the road I saw what looked like a Turk’s-Cap Lily growing all by itself in a wooded grove. 

Once again my research showed it was actually the Carolina Lily, also known as Michaux’s Lily, named after the French Botanist who made many expeditions to the mountains and discovered the Catawba rhododendron.

Carolina Lilies are much smaller than the Turk’s-Caps and produce fewer flowers –sometimes only one or two.

It isn't a plantain at all but a wild orchid

Heading home I noticed the Downy Rattlesnake Plantain I pass each day had thrown out spikes of tiny white flowers.  Some say the striking plant got its name because the spike looks like a rattler’s tail. Others say the silvery markings on its leaves resemble snakeskin.

No matter how it got its name, this member of the orchid family is easy to spot because of its distinctive leaves -- each one can live as long as four years. The flowers supposedly look like tiny orchids but I’d need a magnifying glass to prove it.

 Perhaps because of the unusual markings, early medical practitioners and Native Americans used the leaves and roots to treat snakebites. Native women thought rubbing the leaves on their skin made them more beautiful (in the interest of science I must give this a try.)

… and Bears (oh my!)

After a long day of finding, photographing and researching local wildflowers, I like to sit on my deck with a large glass of shiraz and listen to some of my favorite tunes.

Recently, just before pouring my adult beverage, I heard something strange going on outside and saw the head of a black bear appear just over the deck railing.

Junior had climbed up over 30 feet to see what hors d’oeuvres were being served. He placed his order for bird seed and I gladly let him pull the finch feeder out of the wall and take it away.

Sometimes the things I see in the mountains make my heart sing.

Other times, they make my heart stop.

Not your Granny's hydrangeas

Developed over 50 years ago, Glowing Embers only blooms once but is still a favorite

Colorful, low maintenance and long-flowering, hydrangeas have all the qualities you could ask for in a garden plant.

They aren’t fussy as long as you provide sun and moisture as your zone dictates. They aren’t plagued by pests or diseases for the most part. They’re attractive at virtually every stage, even aging gracefully. And they display extravagant clusters of delicate papery flowers that light up the landscape between June and October. 

Endless Summer

Small wonder these versatile shrubs have long been stalwarts of the midsummer garden.

 An old favorite is transformed

The hydrangea family is a relatively small one with around one hundred species in existence. For most people, the French hydrangeas with their bright blue and pink flowers (determined by the pH of the soil) have been the most familiar.

Then in 2003, a Midwest plant breeder introduced a new repeat-blooming variety and the hydrangea world was forever transformed.

The bigleaf hydrangea Endless Summer not only produced billowy blossoms from early summer through fall, it was also exceptionally hardy blooming reliably from zone 9 to 4.

On the heels of Endless Summer came more tantalizing hydrangea varieties including the Forever & Ever series, Invincibelle Spirit and Incrediball.

Annabelle was a parent to both Incrediball and Invincibelle Spirit

Forever & Ever hydrangeas bloom on new wood so if they die back to the ground, they will return to bloom again the next year.

Invincibelle Spirit is the first arborescens variety to produce pink flowers. It was developed by Dr. Tom Ranney who works at the Mountain Horticultural Center at North Carolina State University, and a then-graduate student, Richard Olsen.

Lacecap hydrangea Twist-n-Shout

While hiking through the Blue Ridge one day, Mr. Olsen spied a pink lacecap hydrangea that became an important part of their hydrangea breeding program. The eventual result was a spectacular rebloomer that produces 8-inch bright pink flowers for four months or longer.

Doubilicious

These new varieties are just the beginning.

Today, nine years after Endless Summer arrived on the scene, you can find hydrangeas in tempting shades of white, cream, pink, blue, amethyst and red. And you'll find lacecap and oakleaf shapes as well as the familiar mophead.

Starting over with fresh, new faces

 Nikko Blues were showoffs in our Maryland garden

We didn’t know it at first but while we were living in Maryland, boaters going up and down our creek dubbed our place “the hydrangea house. ” It’s funny because I thought of it as a rose cottage, but from the water, they saw a solid hedge of blue blooms all across the back of our white Cape Cod from June through August.

I can’t take much credit for the display because we inherited most of the bushes. They weren’t anything special – mostly the old fashioned Nikko Blue. But despite bitter winter winds and summer droughts, they were always spectacular.

Forever & Ever Red

When we moved to the mountains we brought some of the Nikko cuttings with us and also added the original Endless Summer along with Forever & Ever Red and Fantasia.

The first year I wondered if we’d made a mistake with the newer plants. The Nikko cuttings took off like crazy but every afternoon I could hear the blooms of Endless Summer hitting the ground as they wilted in the afternoon sun.

 This year has been a different story.

Yummy Vanilla Strawberry

The Endless Summers have tripled in size and are covered in showy blue powder puffs. Forever & Ever Red offers vivid color against dark green leaves and makes a great combination with the new Raspberry Dazzle dwarf crape myrtle.

I had a space available towards the back of the border and decided to try a variety other than mopheads. Vanilla Strawberry is a relative of the classic PeeGee hydrangea and grows to 7 feet in height with a spread of 4-5 feet.

It is said to deliver a summer-long parade of huge flower heads that change from white to pink to strawberry red, sometimes with all three shades showing off on the plant at once.

It sounds like it's going to be a refreshing summer sorbet.

My grandmother would've thought it was delicious.

A closer look at the Royal Barge roses.

40 garlands with over 50 roses each adorned the sides of the Royal Barge

 

Recently I wrote about the seven-mile flotilla of over 1,000 boats that escorted the flower-festooned Royal Barge down the Thames as part of Queen Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee.

Over a million onlookers viewed the floating pageant as it traveled along the river to Tower Bridge, which was opened to allow the Queen’s barge to sail through.

Dozens of gardeners and hundreds of plants turned the Royal Barge into a floating botanical garden

In all, the floral display included over 4,000 red carnations, 2,100 Darcey Bussell roses, 1,000 Patience roses and 500 purple and red sweet peas. 

There were 40 garlands, each created with more than 50 blooms of Darcey and Munstead Wood, all supplied by David Austin English roses.

My Munstead Wood

Twenty gardeners spent seven months planning and growing plants for the special event. It took seven days for 45 florists, gardeners and flower arrangers to decorate the barge.

Photographs of the extravaganza prove all the work was well worth the effort.

There has been nothing like the river celebration since the flotilla honoring King Charles II in 1662, when diarist Samuel Pepys wrote that there were so many boats he could “see no water.”

The pageant was a feast for the senses.

Roses, carnations and sweet peas created a floral scene fit for a Queen

Cheers rang out along the shore out as the vessels passed by, church bells chimed and bands played selections including Handel’s Water Music. 

The James Bond theme could be heard in the distance as the procession passed the MI6 spy agency headquarters.

It appears a jolly good time was had by all.

What you didn't see in Southern Living

The cliffs at Whiteside Mountain are 390 to 460 million years old

One of the unexpected pleasures of writing this column is I get a chance to see who in the world is taking a look.

According to Blogger audience statistics, I have a healthy following in the UK, the Netherlands and as of yesterday, Romania.

So to all the readers in far-flung places, let me begin by telling you Southern Living is a classy magazine that covers culture and travel in the southeastern United States. It also features a variety of mouthwatering recipes.

Now on to the subject at hand.

The foxgloves are volunteers

A recent issue of Southern Living includes a very nice article about a lovely mountainside garden in western North Carolina.

“Grow Roses with Ease” talks about the creation of the garden, which included schlepping 2,500 bags of cow manure and mushroom compost down a steep slope to build the walled terraces that are now home to his 300+ roses. I wondered how easy it could be to take proper care of all those bushes as well as an untold number of perennials.

Hardy, non-grafted shrub roses thrive on high

My husband Chris and I visited the owner* Doug,  last Friday and discovered what we already suspected: caring for this garden isn’t exactly like laying back and eating bonbons. There is always something to be done; the deadheading chores alone take hours.

But the hard work actually becomes a labor of love, especially when the result is this amazing garden.

A treasure trove of plants and ideas

Both Doug and his wife Shari warned me the roses were a bit past their best but believe me, they were still impressive. And there were many other treats aside from the Queen of Flowers to be savored in this ¼ acre garden showplace.

For example, to help keep the weeds down, Doug has cleverly planted all manner of groundcovers under the roses and other tall perennials. Sedum spurium ‘John Creech’ (named for a past director of the US National Arboretum) forms dense mats of scalloped green leaves that will be covered with mauve pink flowers in the fall.

Sedum John Creech

It’s taken many years for this weed-smothering sedum (also known as Stonecrop) to spread, but it was definitely worth the wait. John Creech will tolerate drought and poor soil but it doesn’t like wet feet.

Lamium White Nancy

Lamium maculatum ‘White Nancy’ (Spotted deadnettle) is another tough plant that makes an ideal spreading groundcover. Nancy is also a showoff -- her eye-catching silvery white leaves are edged with a dark green margin, and she sports clusters of white flowers beginning in the spring.

Evergreen Lamium is tolerant of dry shade and spreads easily without being overly aggressive. Plants can be divided in spring or fall.

Hens and chicks ramble when planted in rock crevices

Doug has also planted several varieties of creeping thyme that spill over his walls and line paths. Sempervivum live between the cracks of the stones. I was so taken by this idea that I rushed to the local garden center and have started my own brood of Hens and Chicks in our newly created rock planters.

Amazing photo ops

The Gifford’s garden faces Whiteside Mountain. The cliffs there are the highest in Eastern North America rising to an elevation of 4,930 feet.

When Doug first built his house and expressed an interest in starting a cut flower garden for Shari, he was told roses wouldn’t grow there. Undaunted, he started out with six bushes and through trial and error discovered non-grafted roses could take the wind and cold.

Now hundreds of bushes live happily on high, some in partial to full shade.

But the truth is, you can’t take in the entire panorama in one visit.

 Shari's studio

I understand the photographer for Southern Living came down from New York and spent an entire week capturing the garden in different lighting at different times of day.

Not wishing to take up too much time (both Doug and Shari are artists), we stayed for just over an hour.

I can’t wait for a return visit.

* I am not disclosing the last name of the owner since they have had uninvited guests, including a busload of people wanting to see the garden.

English Roses (including two I grow) perfumed the Thames during the Queen’s Jubilee

Each floral swag on the Royal Barge was over six feet wide

 

The Queen of Flowers played a glamorous role during Queen Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee celebration.

Last Sunday as part of the festivities, the Queen’s Royal Barge was escorted down the Thames by a seven-mile flotilla of over 1,000 boats, including 40 of the “little ships” that were used in the legendary evacuation of Dunkirk. It was the largest river pageant in 350 years. 

A floating botanic garden

 

Flowers from the Queen’s gardens and her 16 Commonwealth realms decorated the Royal Barge including English roses, Irish shamrocks, thistles from Scotland, Welsh daffodils, wattles from Australia, silver ferns from New Zealand and Canadian maple leaves.

A traditional knot garden was also planted on board.

Rachel de Thame of BBC Gardener’s World created the floral designs in the royal color scheme of red, gold and purple. She used the Queen’s 1953 Coronation gown with its intricate floral embroidery as an inspiration.

Renowned florist Kitty Arden spent six months planning for the garlands that would festoon the barge. Her preparations, carried out along with 18-time Chelsea gold medal winner Mark Fane, included several dry runs to assure the flowers remained fresh and secure in case the royal party encountered rain or heavy winds. The flowers stayed put and remained vibrant for three days.

In all, over 7000 cut flowers, 140 plants and 90 garlands (approximately six feet in length) turned the Spirit of Chartwell into a floating botanical garden.

And no flowers were more impressive or fragrant than the 2700 cut flowers and 60 rose bushes supplied by David Austin English Roses.

Darcey Bussell is always in bloom

According to Michael Marriott, David Austin’s Technical Director, the roses for the swags included 1800 raspberry-red Darcey Bussell blooms and 900 blossoms of creamy white Patience.

 To mesh with the color scheme, 60 bushes of Darcey Bussell and the crimson-to-magenta Munstead Wood were placed in a bed in front of the Queen. 

Munstead Wood has won international awards for its fruity old world fragrance -- its delectable perfume delighted members of the royal party and onlookers alike.

Fragrant Munstead Wood ages to a deep purple

Painstaking preparations

To get the rose bushes looking their best, the Austin team forced them in a greenhouse usually reserved for their Chelsea Flower Show display.

For the cut flowers, they sent two of their expert florists to London to look after them in a building right by the Thames. For three days before the event, they turned them and and babied them, making sure they were exactly at the right stage for the special day.

The result was a smashing success and a feast for the senses. The perfect outcome for a celebration fit for a queen.

Dear Dirt Diaries friends, I wrote this article for the The Christian Science Monitor and thought you might like to see it. We will be posting more photos of the Royal Barge (and the Queen) on Monday.

Rose Fever is back (and hotter than ever)

 

Young Lycidas snagged the top prize for fragrance in Barcelona

When I’m giving a lecture on roses I often begin by telling the audience my presentation could be hazardous to their health. You see I know better than most that once rose fever sets in, there is no cure. No matter how many roses one has, there will always be a more appealing one coming up in the next gardening catalog.

   

 Which means rose fever can also be hazardous to the pocketbook.

Tess of the d'Urbervilles

I myself contracted a rare strain called English rose fever while living in London in the early 90’s. It was there I discovered many of their rose gardens looked nothing like the one I once created in Virginia. 

There were no boring rectangular beds stocked only with prissy hybrid teas. There was no calculated spacing where bushes were lined up in rows like dutiful soldiers. No naked canes to stare at all winter.

An old favorite, Jude the Obscure

Instead, roses were a part of the overall landscape. There was an understated accent here, a flashy punctuation point there. And oh, what wonderful blooms! Some the size of a dinner plate, with a fragrance that took me back to summer days on my grandmother’s farm.

I assumed many of these roses I’d come to admire in British cottage gardens were antiques, Comtesse de something or other. However it turned out they were actually a new class of “old fashioned” roses hybridized by the creator of the English rose, David Austin.

Amazingly prolific Sir John Betjeman

As a result of a hybridizing program initiated in the 1950’s, he captured the appealing features of Old Garden Roses (roses introduced prior to 1867) such as cupped or rosette-shaped flowers and strong fragrance in bushes that have the repeat bloom and vigor of modern roses.

That appeal was not lost on admiring Americans who stood in line to add roses with names like Shakespeare, Chaucer and Wise Portia to their gardens. More than 20 years later, many of the initial Austin introductions have fallen out of favor. But passion for the newer, more disease-resistant varieties remains strong all across the country.

Especially in my North Carolina garden.

Gardening with a British accent

Out of the 40+ bushes I’ve planted in my new garden, more than half are David Austin roses. There are many reasons why I am partial to the English beauties, but since a picture is worth a whole bunch of words, you’ll be able to see for yourself.

Crocus Rose

Two-year-old Sir John Betjeman is currently sporting 20 blossoms and 65 buds.

Crocus Rose (just planted in April) is covered with gorgeous soft apricot rosettes.

Lady Emma is always turning heads

Lady Emma Hamilton is literally stopping traffic as walkers stroll by and are gobsmacked by her charms.

Deep crimson Darcey Bussell not only has glossy, healthy foliage but also displays resistance to damaging insects like rose midge.

Exquisite Darcey is one of my new faves

And need I mention fragrance?

Of course everyone who grows English roses has a favorite, some of which are no longer in the good graces of the great hybridizer himself. Each year the Austin staff looks at their roses with a critical eye and decides which plants are no longer considered up to snuff. In the catalog, those that make the grade have a small flower next to the name.

St. Swithun can also be trained as a climber

I was relieved to find one of my favorites, soft pink St. Swithun, still gets the official seal of approval. I planted it in the early 90's during the first flush of English rose fever.

And I jolly well hope to grow it again on high.

Tapping my my foot, waiting for the roses

A rare mountain beauty, the Pink Lady Slipper.

 

In the 1849 book A Tale of Manchester Life, author Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell observed that a watched pot never boils.

Apparently the same theory holds true for plants we yearn to see flower: A watched rose never blooms.

My roses have been teasing me for the past two weeks, displaying a bit more color every day. But thanks to an unexpected cold snap, the buds have now decided to stay tight indefinitely.

So I turned my attention to the woods.

Since this is our first spring in the mountains, I wondered if there might be an interesting wildflower or two lurking just beyond the garden path.  And the answer was Yeah buddy!

Orchids in the wild

Spotting one Pink Lady’s Slipper on the property was a treat, but I actually discovered four! 

Like some other members of the orchid family, these Lady Slippers (also known as Moccasin flowers) will only grow when certain fungi are present in the roots. Obviously whatever it is, we have the right stuff.

Sadly wildflower experts report these exquisite plants are becoming more rare each year. Despite warnings, people continue to pick the flowers or dig up the plants, in which case the orchid is almost certainly doomed. I will be watching my quartet very closely.

Doesn’t pass the sniff test

Look, but don't take a whiff.

Trilliums are members of the Lily family and are among the showiest of springtime wildflowers. The local natives sport three distinctive leaves and when they bloom, the flowers have three petals.

American Indians used the plant as an eye medication and women boiled the roots to make a love potion. Mountain folk say if you pick a trillium you will bring on a rainstorm.

Although I’ve seen a number of white and pink trilliums growing nearby, my favorite is the burgundy Wake Robin. Apparently that is the “nice” name because it’s also known as Stinking Benjamin or Stinking Willie because of the putrid smelling flower. Early herbalists used it to treat gangrene.

 I’ll take an expert’s word for the aroma and just admire it from afar.

The bee’s knees

Blue-eyed grass is actually an iris.

 Entomologists studying bees have learned they can see four colors – yellow, blue, bluish green and violet. (If I ever meet an entomologist I’ll be sure to ask how they accomplished this feat.)

Sporting flowers of both blue and yellow, Blue-eyed Grass is not only a bee magnet, but a favorite of wild pigs.

This charming little plant isn’t a grass at all but the smallest member of the Iris family. And even though the flowers last only a day, established clumps put out blooms for several weeks.

Back to the roses.

As if trilliums, Lady Slippers and blue–eyed beauties weren’t enough, I’ve spied three native Flame Azaleas on my one-acre patch. The neon orange flowers can stop traffic.

But I digress. The subject was roses, was it not?

And impatience.

However now with all these regal jewels at my feet, waiting for the Queen of Flowers is no longer a hand-wringing, drawn-out ordeal.

It's an adventure.