Author: lwcmartin@bellsouth.net

A long time ago, back when I was not a gardener but just a youngster waiting to discover the magical world of gardening, I heard a friend of my mother’s telling her how to grow clematis. She said, “put its feet in the shade and its head in the sun.”

I found the mental image highly amusing and remembered this woman’s advice for decades before I actually grew my own clematis. A couple of years ago I planted the common but oh-so-beautiful Clematis jackmannia, carefully placing it where I could put a two inch layer of mulch around the roots to provide the “shade” and where its “head” would receive full sun. It’s taken a couple of years but this combination of sun and shade has proven to provide just the right growing conditions for this gorgeous vine and this year I had a multitude soft pink blossoms.

Worldwide, there are over 300 different species of Clematis, 11 of which are native to the United States. The ubiquitous and invasive Clematis ternifolia, sweet autumn clematis with its profusion of small white flowers is not a native. It is such an aggressive grower that it has been included in the Invasive Plant Atlas for the United States.

A similar, but native and non-aggressive plant is Clematis virginiana, Virgin’s bower. This also produces a multitude of small white blossoms in late summer but is a welcomed addition to the garden.

C. vitalba, native to Great Britain, grew in the hedgerows during the time of Roman occupation and was called traveler’s joy because its sweet fragrance delighted travelers walking down the roads.

In addition to their specific light needs, most garden clematis also needs support. An arbor or fence will do the trick, giving the plant a place to twine and grow.

The seed heads, which develop soon after flowering are unusual balls of thread-like parts that I find almost as attractive as the blooms. If you decide to collect seeds to plant, be patient! It sometimes takes up to three years for these seeds to germinate and another couple of years to grow into a plant big enough to bloom.

According to the language of flowers, clematis is a symbol of mental beauty and, in case you were wondering, the correct pronunciation is KLEM-uh-tus!

I sometimes dream that I would love a garden that was a sea of blue. With a few lavender and an occasional white blossom thrown in for good measure, I think it would be stunning. Of course for me, this is just a pipe dream.

My garden is primarily perennials, meaning that I have learned to love the “one I got.” And the “one I got” is definitely not all blue. Though my early spring shade garden has an impressive number of blue blossoms from phlox, Virginia bluebells, scilla and forget-me-nots, the front sunny garden, in full glory, will be striped with every color of the rainbow, from red to violet and everything in between.

I’m not singing the blues. I do have pockets of indigo, violet and true blue flowers that make me very happy. One of my favorite plants in the garden, because it is such a pollinator magnet, is the indigo “Black and Blue” salvia. I have to keep it on a leash, though, otherwise it outgrows its allotted space and smothers smaller neighbors.

The smaller mealy blue sage is, in many ways, more satisfactory. It is easier to control and provides stalks of gorgeous blue flowers throughout the summer. Though more purple than blue, Pincushion flower has been in full bloom since early April and will continue to provide its spikes pinkish -blue flowers for another few weeks.

A true-blue plant that I’d not grown before is borage. Each star shaped blossom is sky blue and gorgeous. I started this from seed back in February and it has done remarkably well. However, it’s one of those plants that you have to appreciate each individual blossom because it definitely is not a heavy bloomer. It’s an annual and probably has made its one and only appearance in my garden.

Definitely purple-not-blue, homestead purple verbena has stunned the garden with its neon flowers since late February. It is a sprawling, heavily flowered, low growing plant, often seen growing and blooming on roadsides. Frankly, it’s not my favorite. I have found the color a little jarring and the plant a little coarse for my taste. After its peak bloom, I’ll move it to the back and replace it with a white variety.

Because I love blue flowers so much, I was interested to read that there is actually no true blue pigment in flowers. The blossoms that appear blue actually contain red pigments called anthocyanins that look blue with different pH levels.

Though I appreciate all my flowers for the job they do offering pollen and nectar, beauty and fragrance, I especially appreciate the blue ones. With blue bird babies chirping in the back and waves of blue flowers in the front, I just love being tangled up in blue.

I feel like it’s the morning after. With good reason! Over the weekend my garden was part of the Atlanta Botanical Garden’s Connoisseur’s Tour and almost 2400 people came through to see this space.

In spite of weeks of my suffering through apprehension about the weather, worry that storms would destroy the garden or a freak late frost would kill all the blooms, Mother Nature smiled on Mother’s Day weekend and the weather was perfect.

It’s a little different to see the garden through the eyes of a stranger. Over the past months, I have literally walked hundreds of miles in this space and am intimately familiar with each part of the garden, But even so, any garden is a living, growing thing and mine seems to change daily.

If visitors had come three weeks ago it would have been all blue phlox and soft pink tulips. Three weeks before that it was a sea of blue scilla and snowdrops. And before that? The hardy, indomitable Lenten rose. Three weeks from now? You’ll have to come and find out but I’m guessing that it will be bright from blooms of summer phlox, bee balm, Japanese aster, salvia and Black-eyed Susans.

A garden is so much more than a pretty face – it’s more like an ongoing symphony with its own rhythms and dynamics. Sometimes one section will carry the melody, only to pass it on to a different section later on. Sometimes it is quiet with a soft, steady beat, at other times loud, clanging cymbals and still other times the simple melody of a few beautiful flowers.

Of course, you can plan for and plant a garden with all annuals that will look much the same for the entire growing season. And all those bright blooms would be pretty. But for me part of the magic of the garden is the ebb and flow of bloom, the mystery of the slow growth of the trees, the spread of the perennials.

There were other gardens on this tour, I am sure, that were exquisitely designed, planted and immaculately maintained. My garden is not one of those. It is far from “perfect” but fortunately, “perfect” is in the eye of the beholder and when I behold my garden I see not only what is in bloom today but the seeds of yesterday’s flowers and the buds of tomorrow’s blooms and it all makes me happy. It makes me want to run outside every morning to see what has changed and to sit every evening, in a quiet spot, listening to the birds sing a lullaby to put me and my garden to sleep.

When I look back on 2021 – 2022, I will not think first of Covid, or Ukraine, or abortion rights or the economy. I will think first of the garden and of the exquisite joy I experienced putting my hands in the dirt every day and then sharing this space with so many wonderful people.

My mother used to say if you really wanted to get your house clean – invite company! The same is true of a garden. If you want to spruce it up and make it look beautiful, invite over some people to see it. A lot of people.

So I did! In two weeks my garden will be on display through the Atlanta Botanical Garden’s Connoisseur’s Garden Tour (for information and tickets go to https://atlantabg.org/events-exhibitions/gardens-for-connoisseurs-tour/).

It’s extraordinary what 6 hours a day of gardening will do to a place. My granddaughter seemed incredulous and asked what I did out there all day? Gosh, where to begin? There’s the digging and the soil amending, the planting and pruning, the feeding and watering, the moving and moving back. To say nothing of the dreaming, planning, fussing and cajoling that goes on.

Amazingly enough and of course, knock on wood, thing are budded up and should open into graceful bloom at just the right time. I have big fat iris buds, pointy rose buds, the knobby promise of astilbe, and stalks of foxgloves that are just beginning to open at the base. An unusually cool spring has postponed the demise of the blue phlox and forget-me-nots, though the azaleas are mostly gone.

I have had a fairy god-mother working hard for me, as well she should! I have created a magical and wonderful home for her complete with formal garden and crystal lined walkways. I doubt she’ll have much time to sit and play her tiny piano – or gather friends for badminton – for there is much work left to be done. She and Mother Nature and I (The Mighty Triumvirate) will be busy up until the very last moment. Of course we do have the help of our friendly garden gnome as well.

It’s been an interesting experience, practically living in my garden for the past six months. I am acutely aware of the weather, and of my vulnerability. I watch the life cycle of the plants, particularly when they bloom and how long the flowers last. And, I am intimately familiar with every square foot of this space over which the Triumvirate reigns.

I have fallen deeply and completely in love with this small part of the earth that I call home. What a joy, what an honor to help things grow and bloom. And what high hopes I have that come Mother’s Day weekend my garden will be lush and full and colorful. But of course, Mother Nature has the final say on that.

I hope that you will all come and enjoy the garden May 8 and 9. It’s going to be glorious. And maybe, just maybe, the fairies will be playing a little music.

One of the most beautiful trees in bloom in early spring is the incomparable Eastern Redbud. With its magenta flowers lining the branches, it stands out like a beacon in the forest. Most other trees still without leaves or flowers, look naked in comparison.

Though Eastern Redbud, Cercis canadensis is a native tree, horticulturists have “borrowed” it to bring into the landscape. The species is gorgeous but the cultivars, which display even brighter blossoms or more intensely colored leaves may even be more beautiful.

Redbuds display a unique flowering characteristic. The small flowers grow directly on the trunk and large branches, a trait called cauliflory. This trait is displayed by over one hundred trees, mostly from rain forest ecosystems. Both flowers and fruit develop directly on the sturdy parts of the tree, providing pollinators a stable platform from which to do their job. Redbud is pollinated by blueberry and carpenter bees. It provides food for nineteen species of caterpillars, leafhoppers and beetles.

Not only are the blossoms beautiful to look at, they are also tasty to eat. Try them raw in salads or roasted for an unusual taste treat. Just be certain that they tree has not been sprayed with chemicals of any kind. The flat seed pods, which appear in August and September persist throughout the year. Folk healers used the bark to treat diarrhea and as a remedy for leukemia. The new green twigs were used by Native Americans to season wild game and in Appalachia the tree was referred to as “Spicewood Tree.”

Legend says that Judas Iscariot hanged himself from the redbud tree after he betrayed Jesus and for this reason, the tree is sometimes called Judas tree. But in other parts of the world, more cheerful names are used, including “love tree.”

No matter what you call it, this native tree brings a bright spot of color to the woods in early spring and should be welcomed in all our landscapes.

I always thought that “helicopter parenting” where the Mom and Dad obsessively hover over their children, was a little ridiculous. Especially now that my children are fully grown, it’s easy to hand out advice about raising kids. Don’t hover! Give them room! Let them fail! Let them fight their own battles! and so on.

It’s a little ironic, then, that I have turned into a “helicopter gardener.” First thing every morning I take my cup of coffee out to the garden to look around.

It’s not exactly like I’m checking up on them after a night out in the world, but …..well, okay, it’s exactly that. But they’re so young! and vulnerable! And there are such dangerous things out there – cold weather, voles, squirrels, heavy footed visitors, over enthusiastic weed eaters! Sadie!! (though my dog and I have a pretty good understanding about her need to step lightly amongst the plants.)

I just need to reassure myself that all my plants have survived another night and that they are strong and healthy. I don’t worry about them running off, by nature plants are not very mobile, but I am concerned about their falling in with the wrong crowd. I don’t mean to sound rude, but some of those plants out there are nothing but weeds. I do my best to relocate them – usually to the compost pile – to give MY babies every opportunity to grow and thrive.

I have done a lot of weeding this year, spending many winter hours digging and pulling up unwanted guests. It occurred to me the other day, though, that in my efforts to remove the weeds, I was also stepping all over things that were trying to emerge – hostas, Solomon’s seal, new ferns…..I can’t tell you how many times I said “Oh shoot! (or worse) as I heard the telltale crunch of a newly emerged hosta stalk underneath my feet.

I know I am sometimes overanxious in the garden, which really doesn’t do anyone any good – neither the plants or myself. Like when I dig up a seed to see if it’s starting to germinate – comparable to waking up a baby to see if he’s really asleep.

My excuse, like every helicopter parent, is that I just love my plants and flowers and want them to be the best that they can be. Sometimes I wonder if I’m pushing too hard though. Is it really necessary and good for the long term health of a plant to exhibit peak performance every year? Nooooo, not every year, just this year!

When I’m out in the garden, it’s as if I want to pour my heart and soul into them so that they thrive and bloom. I want to warm them when it’s cold, dry them when it’s wet, coddle and baby them until they are robust. It is extremely gratifying to raise healthy plants.

I know I can’t protect them from everything – after all, I co-parent with Mother Nature and she definitely has her own ideas about how things should be done. She obviously thinks we should just let things take her course.

Probably the plants heave a sigh of relief when I finally land the copter and quit hovering, leaving them alone to go inside and do my human thing. But before I go, I pause at the door and turn to take one long last look around the garden in the gathering darkness, then turn my eyes skyward as I offer up a silent prayer of supplication for the health and happiness of every single plant and every single person that I love.

Saturday

I woke this morning with a heavy heart. I’m pretty sure that tonight is going to be the end of a budding azalea season. The temperatures are predicted to plummet to the low twenties. Numbers like that are not, in themselves, cause for alarm, but for the past several weeks, we’ve had abundant sunshine, ample rain and temperatures routinely reaching the mid-seventies.

The result? A gorgeous mid – March landscape with everything budded up and many things, including pansies, spring bulbs and some azaleas already beginning to bloom. I envisioned a long and glorious spring gardening season – until The National Weather Service sent out their dire prediction for the weekend.

I hope they’re wrong, even by a few degrees, because the difference between freezing – and a few degrees above – will be the difference between things thriving in the garden – or not.

Monday

Unfortunately, a lot of things seem to have fallen into the “or not” category. Our thermometer registered 26 degrees on Sunday morning – six degrees below freezing and cold enough to do some significant damage to early blooms and the tender young growth of perennials and shrubs.

I’m not too concerned about the long term health of my plants, most of the permanent plants have good strong root systems and I’m confident this will only be a temporary set back. The frozen blooms and buds of the early blooming azaleas will simply shrivel and fall off. The tender new growth of many hydrangeas may have been killed back, resulting in reduced blooming this year. Interestingly enough, the new growth on the native Oak-leaf hydrangea seems unaffected.

Diminished bloom from my beautiful shrubs is the price I pay for partnering with Nature. For me, it’s only aesthetics. For farmers and orchard owners, the price, literally, will be much steeper. Peaches are a 240 million dollar crop in Georgia and if freezing temperatures reached these orchards, the impact will be huge.

I want to place the blame on something and climate change seems a likely candidate but really, our temperatures have not been unusually high this winter, and mid-March is definitely within the time frame that we could expect frost. It was just unfortunate timing – the sudden cold sending shock waves through the garden. But it’s all part of gardening and I just have to accept the fact that when I garden, I am not in control.

All I can do is provide a happy place for my plants, tend to them like a mother hen and to make every breath one of gratitude for the gift of my garden, no matter what the temperature is.

While much of the country is still under a blanket of real snow, my Georgia backyard is blanketed with a different kind of snowflake. Bulbs, planted years ago by an unknown but much appreciated gardener, have now spread prolifically under my favorite maple tree.

I had always thought they were called ‘Snowdrops’ but a quick visit to the Internet convinced me that my flowers were not Galanthus, or common Snowdrops, which has only a single flower per stem. Definitely not the case here. A bit more digging, so to speak, convinced me that my plant must be SnowFLAKE, not snowdrop, genus name Leucojum.

Since my flowers bloom in late winter and early spring, of course I thought they were the spring blooming species, ‘vernum.’ But MY flowers occur 5 – 6 per stem, not one or two.

At this point you may be saying, oh what difference does it make? But by now, I had dug in my heels and was determined to figure it out.

Comparing more photographs, I realized that my flowers looked more like a different species – L. aestivum. But wait! ‘aestivum’ means relating to summer and the plant descriptions indicated that these bulbs bloomed in summer, not early spring.

Argh. But a little more research convinced me that indeed, my flowering bulbs have to be Leucojum aestivum, even though they are blooming earlier than the description indicates. There are possible reasons for this – global warming and a changing climate, a protected spot, a more southern climate, a well established root system??

To finish out the mornings’ slightly obsessive search for identification, I further determined that my bulbs must be the cultivar, ‘Gravetye Giant,’ named after a manor house in West Sussex.

I know full well that it doesn’t make a bit of difference but I’m grateful for a life in which I can spend a couple of hours in idle pursuit of an intellectual curiosity. In my research, I read that this is native to Ukraine. I know that people there have neither time nor energy right now to notice if these – or any flowers – are blooming this spring, It is my fervent prayer that soon, very soon, life will become easier again and that the Ukrainians can once again appreciate something as simple as a wild Snowflake. Heartfelt prayers for all Ukranians.

If you’re feeling blue as winter lingers and spring seems a long ways off, go outside and take a look around – especially if you live in a mild climate like we do. When I went into the garden yesterday to scrounge around for some flowers for a bouquet, I was surprised at how much was already in bloom. And, to make it even better, these are things that are supposed to bloom in late winter, not plants that are confused and stressed by untimely warm weather.

Of course the most abundant flowers in my garden in late February are the Hellebores or Lenten roses. These begin blooming in January, putting forth gorgeous white, pink and mauve nodding flowers. If you’ve read this blog before you know that I have a love / hate relationship with my lenten rose, depending on the season. This is the “love” season. Last summer, though, I was so annoyed with them for crowding out other plants, I dug up buckets of them and dumped them on the compost pile.

Since then, I have created a new large planting area in the way back under my 200 year old oak tree. I’ve worked diligently to pull out ivy and mondo grass, privet and vinca to make nice new beds, empty of any vegetation. But, then I had to decide what to plant. A quick trip to the local nursery convinced me I’d go broke trying to buy enough plants to fill the new space.

So, feeling just a little sheepish, I went back to the compost pile to see if maybe I could salvage some of the discarded lenten roses. And there they were, valiantly struggling to come up among the leaves and weeds and other yard trash. Some were even blooming and I didn’t know whether to be impressed or scared of their dogged determination to live.

At the moment they look a little ragged, to say the least. Many of the stems and leaves, buried under refuse, are white with just a tinge of green. Many of the leaf stems are long and leggy. But with a whispered apology, I pulled them all out and replanted them in their new beds. We’ll see if they will forgive me.

It’s sometimes frustrating to use even the healthiest of lenten roses as cut flowers because they tend to wilt and droop when brought inside. If you cut blossoms that have already set seed, though, they are much more likely to stay fresh looking.

A multitude of bulbs offered additional blossoms for my bouquet, mostly daffodils but also some early snowdrops. And my beloved camellia, as beautiful as a rose, provided a focal point for the arrangement.

It makes me incredibly happy to be able to gather flowers from the yard on a cold February day. All that gorgeous pink and yellow helps chase away the winter blues. And, if in the summer I happen to say disparaging things about Lenten Rose, please remind me of this late winter “love season” when I pulled them out of the trash pile and heaped praises on their little nodding heads!

I have become an expert of the use of lichen as a building material not, I may hasten to add, an expert in identification. Since there are over 3600 different lichen species in North America (that have been identified so far) identification to the species level is a bit of a challenge.

No, as part of my ongoing enthusiasm for creating a fairy home and garden to be displayed on a garden tour this spring, I have become both fascinated and appreciative of the gorgeous lichens that grow in our southern woods. And, luckily for me – and the fairies!- lichen provides a fabulous building material for walls and furniture.

Lichen is actually a combination of two different organisms, a fungus and an algae. In this symbiotic relationship, the fungus provides structure and shape and fruiting bodies to the algae. In return, the algae photosynthesizes and provides food for the fungus. It is a beautiful co-dependent relationship.

Lichens are astonishingly diverse, capable of living in environments as extreme as both the Sonoran desert and the Alaskan alpine tundra.

Some lichens are flat and cling desperately to rocks and boulders. Others are more three dimensional, growing on bark and branches and this is what I look for.

It’s pretty easy to pick up lichen covered bark but finding just the right size and structure takes a bit of time. The most useful pieces are large, thin and a gorgeous green-grey color. This often comes from oak branches – lichen on the bark of the main trunk is simply too thick and unwieldy to be of much use.

When I had picked up most of the lichen covered bark in my own backyard, I turned to my friend for help. She and her husband live on a large farm in the north Georgia mountains and I knew that her woodland paradise would yield a lot of lichen. She agreed to help and I invited them to dinner as a “thank you.” She quipped that she didn’t know anyone else who traded food for lichen. I think I got the better end of the deal.

I know that soon my fairy phase will pass and I’ll move on to bigger things – like my garden. In a few weeks warm weather will begin to return and the fairies will have to fend for themselves for a while. But in the meantime, I’m loving the lichen.