Design

A trip down the 'hill' (actually the Blue Ridge Escarpment) to celebrate an evolving garden ( the Cherokee Worldview Garden ) at the botanical garden where I work had a variety of extra pleasures. First was seeing some of my friends, but it was also an opportunity to check on our garden here, and do a bit of tending. Our landscape in the mountains is great, and we're so fortunate to have both, but it doesn't present the nice connection with the earth that the physical activity of gardening requires. (Plucking a stray nutsedge from a raised bed isn't much of an effort). I love the satisfying feel of pulling up crabgrass rosettes (at least in moist soil) and tidying beds and hanging up garlic to dry. And in the process, I can muse about what to plant for a fall garden. I harvested the last of the garlic beds, and amazingly, I think I'll have enough garlic to last through mid-spring (uh, and more than break even on my purchase of garlic to plant, too!) The bluebe...

A sweet Iris cristata surprised me yesterday in a spot we'd forgotten we'd transplanted it, near the backyard gate. And the Florida azalea ( Rhodendron austrinum ) and Pinxterbloom azalea ( R. periclymenoides ) are looking lovely at the Garden.

Our deciduous native azaleas in the Southeastern U.S. are wonderfully garden-worthy, and happily are appearing more in local gardens, and perhaps other parts of the temperate gardening world! They've all been flowering in the last few weeks - some of the nicest are Pinxter flower (a common name used for Rhododendron periclymenoides and R. canescens ), both of which are lovely, and Florida azalea ( Rhododendron austrinum). Florida azalea flowers vary in color from yellow to orange, sometimes quite vivid. This one was flowering behind my office building awhile ago. They like filtered shade, and reasonably moist soil, similar to their natural habitat in the understory of mixed hardwood forests. They're definitely not in the category of adaptable natives, being fairly specific in their requirements!