Garden Tour

The weather which has been on a continuous rollercoaster mode relented Sunday for the Proud Neighbors House and Garden Tour. Although it sprinkled in the morning, we were spared from any rain during the entire 5 hours of the tour; however, it was sweater weather. First to arrive were two volunteers who came to drop off supplies and place the garden tour sign and bows to indicate participation to the visitors. Just before noon, two young lady volunteers and their adult supervisor arrived to take tickets and greet guests for the first shift. Later, two young men would take the closing shift. As you might be able to figure out, it takes a well organized and caring community to put on this kind of an event.

Two dear friends came to supply moral support, answer questions and photograph the event. I knew that I would be greeting and talking with visitors and wanted to have a different way of later remembering the event. Julia Coombs and Vori Kriaris took turns at recording the garden and the day's events. I am indebted to their great appreciation of the garden, their different sensibilities and how wonderfully they photographed it and me.

You might note I am slightly older that the profile image with my dog Taxi. She was very much part of this garden and it is hard of think of one without the other. As a tribute to her I use that dated image when we were both a little friskier.

The garden was bursting at the seam with flowers. The roses have started their first flush. Although all plants are not in bloom yet there were enough plants to wow the visiting public. The threat of weather kept some people away so the numbers were less than expected. This was also due to difficulty that not everyone manages to see it all. In five hours, visitors were expected to see six houses and four gardens spread out around all over town. Some came by their own vehicles, others walked and others used the trolleys that visited all the locations. As I said before: this is well organized! All in all, I figured we had slightly less than four hundred people in the garden. By the end of the day I was exhausted.

The visitors were great, and thrilled with fragrant roses in a world that has gotten accustomed to the lesser fragrant varieties. The roses in my garden are mainly of Austin, Meidiland and Guillot varieties. These are English and French in origin and are based on hybridizing antique roses that have such beautiful flower shapes and fragrances. I also have a few antique roses and all are fragrant. I don't spray for anything and just use compost as to fertilize (and do very little of that). I will identify as many roses as I can. There are many, some which have lost their tags and others which the gray cells in my brain fail to remember anymore.

More people were interested in what they did not know rather than what they knew. They marveled at the roses but really focused on a few plants that are not used as much in gardens these days. As a consequence the number one question involved Weigela, followed by Amsonia hubrichtii, a Missouri native commonly referred to as Blue star.

There are many photos of the day's events in the blog but there are many more that display the talents of my two friends at http://picasaweb.google.com/renelctorres

Vori's Dreamy look of my cottage

Visitors queuing to enter

One of two Rhodies framing the house

Entrance to wooded garden


Wooded plantings Solomon's Seal and Hay Scented fern


Main garden with two lucky visitors who got it to themselves

Weigela is a hardy deciduous flowering shrub it comes in a variety of species some can grow as large as 15 feet massing. Mine are medium size at about 5 feet balls, I have three which I bought in a grocery in one of those plastic packages used to peddle cheap roses. These were cheap and have grown into marvelous plants that bloom like fountains and of small trumpet-looking non-fragrant flowers. They are pest free and require no fancy upkeep other than a heavy pruning every three years or so. They are originally from Asia, but have been in gardens for sometime. I suspect that in Victorian times they hit their peak of fashion that has long petered out. Today you find them in fancy catalogue that are always looking to make a statement with something new and good nurseries that know plants.

Baptisia australis (False indigo)

Greeting and answering questions with Garden Visitors (I am the one wearing red pants)

Amsonia hubrichtii or Blue Star is a perennial plant hybridized out of an American Native to Missouri and other midwestern states. The leaves are narrow and feathery and grow that grow in clumps. The stems get up to about three feet. The flowers have the slightest tinge of blue that appear along the stems. The show comes in fall when they turn all shades of gold and brighten any corner of the garden. These are pretty hardy and disease and pest free. The nicest display I know is at Chanticleer Garden in Wayne where they line a circle that separates the parking areas. Mine were a gift from one of their gardeners.

Austin's Gertrude Jekyll

Meidiland's Madame Curie

Visitors catching a little fragrance

My friend Vori forcing a shot

Austin's Heritage

Austin's Abraham Darby

I don't know any of my irises. They were gifts from many collectors who are as passionate and as confused as me.

More questions and answers and nice conversations

Dreamy shots

Julia's masterpiece photo of Acorus in the pond (Yellow Flag)

Julia and Vori having fun before the visitors arrived

After the Visitors departed. Guess who?

Proud Neighbors sharing stories and nourishment at the end of the day

Once Upon a Garden Clean-up in a heat wave!

Front yard in bloom. Ahead of schedule, but it is nice.

Gardens, like every place we occupy require the occasional cleanup. It is necessary to deal with plants at least once a year. You clean up debris, prune, replant, relocate, split, these are the basic yearly requirements. I don't know how you can get away from doing it unless you happen to be an absolute master gardener that planted every plant in the right place so that as it grows it never gets in the way of another plant or grow beyond the limits of the space you allotted it. If you are such a gardener you may skip anything I have to say. Even so, all gardeners will have to remove debris or a dead plant, or even an odd branch that grew left when everything else was going right.

Lilac in front yard was a purchase from a neighbor at a garage sale. Great fragrance and buy! Any idea which lilac it might be?

For the most part, the rest of us are guessing at how we do it. Don't get me wrong, this is not a shot in the dark approach, but often times it is a educated process based on outright education or repetition that we learn by seeing a garden go through its cycle season after season and if you are lucky, year after year. Repetition teaches us what to expect, how far a plant will grow in a season, how long will it be around, what might eat it and how to react. So it possibly goes without saying if you have been gardening many years you have more experience than someone who just started. Needless to say older gardeners have more experience but possibly less energy and weaker knees! Sounds like something I read along the way to becoming the gardener I am.

Lily of the Valley escaping its bed. Now I dig all this up and start another patch somewhere else.

Bridal Veil Spirea, an original plant in my garden that I have propagated throughout. No fragrance but great look and I have never seen in it in a nursery.

I digress, my garden has already been through it first flush totally provided by hundreds bulbs and a few shrubs and trees. Now comes the real work of getting the garden ready. Everything has budded and whereas before the focus was on a few plants because the rest was just sticks and mulch, now everything is green and anything that is a brown stick should be suspect. Unless you have some late budding more unusual plants. I have a Vitex ( I will tell you about in when it blooms) that is all sticks but will be solid blue flower clusters in Summer. Elsewhere in my garden is a Fruiting Fig that has not even considered sending the slightest chlorophyll into its brown red branches. For the rest the garden is a sea of green with many plants beginning to bloom ahead of schedule.

Viburnum opulus building up steam.

This is the time to check out and prune away dead wood and sculpt crazy hairlines of hedges into whatever shape you have chosen for them. It is the time to prune your roses and get rid of all those skinny twigs that will never support any buds. It is time to put in the ground whatever you spent Fall and Winter deciding to purchase from the many catalogues that we Gardeners receive. If you have any room that is. Many of us, yours truly included have way too many plants even though it is hard to admit, and the only way to make room for a new garden look is to move some plants out. This is why gardeners are such generous people. We are forever sharing plants. You would think it is our generosity, but it might just be that we want to make room for new varieties or our latest passion.

Fruiting Fig still very dormant (yes, I have to paint the back of the garage).

We have gone from weeks of cool gray weather(when many of us turned on our furnace back on) and rain into a bright sunny and very pleasant heat wave for the last four days with ninety degree temperatures ( 33-37 Celsius). We shall soon be cool and wet again, but for now the damage has been done, if you want to call it that. These four days of sun and heat have forced plants along possibly as much as a week or two. For me this is a bit of a disaster.
The reality is that I am on a deadline. I have to get the garden cleaned, pruned and planted or relocated before May 17. On that day our biggest local volunteer organization in Collingswood, Proud Neighbors, a not-for-profit group in existence since 1983 and who has hosted its annual Porch Brunch and House and Garden Tour for almost as many years will include my garden on the tour. The organization promotes historic preservation awareness and education and supports these ideals with financial contributions to a variety of projects throughout Collingswood by hosting many fundraising events throughout the year. This event is an amazing feat of coordination that occurs because of the generosity of the entire community: those that volunteer and who participate in everything from selling tickets to cooking, to volunteering their porches for the Brunch, to the house owners who open their homes and or their gardens, to those who monitor the public and take the tickets and finally to the curious and interested visitors from everywhere. This year they anticipate about 350 people for the Brunch and, weather depending, as many as 800 people who will tour the houses and gardens. It is all a lot of fun as neighbors visit one another and others get an insight into one of New Jersey's most talked about community.

Vitex (Chaste Tree) after pollarding. Will not bud for some time, but then presto, instant shrub.

Vitex hair cut remains.

For me, I have pruned and cleaned up and will be transplanting just a few things this week. I am concerned that all this heat will have pushed the garden ahead, way ahead of where I expected it to be on May 17. With any hope there will be plenty in bloom for all my future guests. Oh well, Qué Será, Será!