Sway With Me

                                Like a flower bending in the breeze

                     Bend with me, sway with ease

                        When we dance you have a way with me

                     Stay with me. sway with me

                                                 Pablo Beltrán Ruiz

   Gaura or wand flower is a billowing perennial which makes quite an impact.  This somewhat shrubby plant reaches 3’ in height and develops a long taproot allowing it to be heat and drought resistant.  Narrow lanced shaped leaves are sometimes tinged with maroon.  But what makes this plant so wonderful are the  buds along the wiry, wand-like stems which open to reveal its 4-peteled, orchid –like blossoms.   Blooms are either white or pink, in combination or fading from one to the other, and it continues to bloom from spring to autumn.

     Gaura sways with the gentlest breeze, bringing beautiful movement to your garden.  

Butterflies and bees have no problem landing on these swaying arches.   I have mine planted on the stream where it almost seems to keep time with the sound of the water.  This plant also does well in a container, but make sure where ever you plant it, it gets plenty of sun. 

     Gaura is a great plant as a single specimen or its arching wands mingle well with other plants in a boarder.  Add this plant to your garden and I promise you won’t be disappointed.

Making Beautiful Music

      When a garden is designed, certain design elements are used, such as, form, texture, shape, color, and scale.  One of the most overlooked design elements is sound.  Sound is often taken for granted and just assumed that nature will provide, which it usually does, but when you incorporate sound into your garden, you enrich the gardening experience. 

      There are a few types of sound we find in the garden.  Geophony is sound created by geophysical activity in the earth system such as wind, rain, thunder and water flow.   With this in mind, planting certain trees, shrubs, ornamental grasses and perennials can create unique sounds in a breeze, such as, whispering, rustling or rattling.  A fountain or a stream and pond can bring the sound of water to your garden.

     Biophony encompasses the array of sounds generated by the earth system’s living entities.  These include birds, amphibians, insects and mammals.  Planting large growing trees will attract squirrels, which can fill the air with their chatter.  Trees and shrubs offer protection and nesting areas for birds and planting plenty of berry bearing plants seed head perennials will supply winter food.   A pond will attract frogs which not only help control mosquitoes, but will provide a nightly chorus.

     Finally, there is anthrophony, or man-made sounds.  These are the sounds of traffic, lawn mowers and leaf blowers, or rowdy neighbors and playing children.  Some of these sounds we welcome and others we can do without.  Planting a dense hedge not only creates a visual barrier, but it can also block sound.  A well placed water feature can also help to reduce unwanted noise.

    

From the sound of birds and squirrels over head to the sound of cicadas from all sides, frogs croaking or splashing into a pond and the crunch of gravel or crackle of leaves under your feet, the sound of garden music can surround you. 

As July Melts Away

   This is such a miserable time of year for gardening.  I look out the window and see all the plants struggling in the heat, grass is dry and brittle and downright painful to walk on, and if you do venture outside for a closer look, the heat sucks the breath out of you.   Creativity seems to melt away in this sweltering heat. 

     Fading garden, fading spirits and fading energy are all par for the course in July.  But, this is where all your hard work throughout the rest of the season can pay off….that is if you did it.  A plant, planted in the fall, and given the time to adjust and send out some good roots, will most likely deal with this heat by going dormant, as opposed to a plant that was put in the ground in June, which just swivels up and dies.  A plant living in amended soil is much happier than a plant trying to survive in our red clay which is more like a brick in July.  Doing some research and knowing which plants can tolerate hot dry conditions will help your garden survive the summer.

  

   Is it any wonder most people leave town and go on vacation in July?  Most will say it is to head to cooler areas for some relief, but I think it is so they will not have to look at the pitiful state of their garden.  Spend sometime this fall getting your garden ready for next summer and you may decide to stick around next July.

Swimming With The Fishes

June was almost the perfect month.  The temperatures stayed somewhere is the low 80’s, almost no humidity and cool, pleasant evenings to sleep in.   But June decided to end in brutal fashion; temperatures in the 100’s, air dripping in humidity, and the evenings ... well, sleep was elusive.

     My only relief from this miserable couple of weeks has been my pond.  My pond is my obsession.  I can sit for hours watching the fish (and with great envy in this heat), admiring the water lilies and just listening to the frogs, birds and insects which call this pond home.   As tempting as it is, this pond is not for swimming.  The eco-balance took a couple of years to evolve and too much of my presence would disrupt the balance.  However, it can tolerate my being in it for short periods of time for maintenance, and I have been very diligent in my maintenance the past couple of weeks.  I have happily cleaned out aggressive plants, divided and fertilized water lilies, and cleaned out creeping roots from some of the hard to reach nooks.  

 The pond is only 30” deep, so only my arms and legs benefit from the cool water, but I’ll take it.

     It may not be a proven, scientific fact, but ask any pond owner and they will agree, that just the sound of water, seems to drop the temperature by ten degrees.  If you do not own a pond, you have no idea what you are missing.

Maxima To The Max

     

     A member of the Black-eyed-Susan family, this native perennial turns heads.  The name is no mistake, the Maxima does everything to the max.  The powdery-blue foliage produces leaves the range 1’ to 2’in lenth, and not to be out done, in mid-summer, it sends up a flower which easily tops 6’.  The flowers have intense yellow petals which dangle from dark brown seed head centers and the flower stalk is so sturdy it rarely needs staking.  The Maxima can also handle our intense heat and isn’t overly picky about soil conditions.  The plant spreads by underground rhizomes, but not to the sometimes aggressive state of its much smaller relative.  This plant is beautiful planted en mass, in the back of a boarder or as a single specimen, but no matter how it is planted, people will stop and ask about it. 

   I love my Maxima.  When the foliage emerges in the spring, it’s almost like having a blue Hosta in full sun, then when the flower shoots out in the summer,

I am in love with the color and shape, but my favorite time of year is when the seeds have matured and I can sit and watch the goldfinches feast on the seeds as they ride along with the swaying stalks.   

Oh Yeah....Pancakes Too

     

For about 47 weeks a year, I curse the briars which cover our property.  I have numerous snagged sweaters and quickly learned to wear a canvas barn jacket when I wander the fields in winter.  When small, my children would come home with scratches on their arms and legs and tears in their eyes from the rambling thorns.  I could usually keep them within sight by warning that there were ‘briars over there’; that often kept them from wandering outside the confines of mowed grass.

     We are now in that three to four week period where the briar magically transforms into Blackberry bushes.  I have been up very early every morning for the past week, trying to beat the heat and insects to wander carefully through the brambles, picking pails of blackberries.  I have about twenty jars of jam and several bags of frozen berries and am already envisioning blackberry sauce over cheesecake this winter. 

     Long sleeves and jeans in June are well worth the discomfort for these delicious berries and not just for the taste.  Researchers have known for quite some time that berries contain antioxidants which help to fight cancer causing free radicals.  A study at the University of Ohio has found that blackberries are the most potent cancer fighting berries of them all, by nearly 40 percent.

     In another week or so, I will be cursing the horrible briars which bring me so much joy through my morning toast with peanut butter and blackberry jam.  If you are looking to pick some for yourself, you had better hurry, the shoulders of the roads have been busy with pickers and the season is very short.

In Loving Memory

    

 I lost my dear, sweet sister-in-law unexpectedly last month.  She left behind a loving husband, son, family and many friends.  Lil was not just my sister-in-law, she was a sister of my heart, a friend and a gardening companion.  When she and my brother and their son Abe moved from Hickory to Virginia ten years ago, it was hard to see them leave, but we saw each other several times a year and spoke often on the phone.  Our talks often turned to gardening, one of her favorite topics. 

     Lil loved to share plants and advice and she planted what she liked; case in point, the castor beans.   One day while over at her house, I pointed out a plant I was not familiar with, she informed me that it was a castor bean plant.  I, in turn, informed her that the pods where extremely poisonous.   She told me that she was aware of that, but she liked how the plant looked.  I had to agree that it was a very pretty plant, but at the first opportunity, I advised my brother to keep up with the “honey-do” list and to pick up after himself for a while.

     I plan to make a trip to Virginia soon to gather some cuttings and take some plant divisions from Lil’s garden.  I will nurture these young plants so one day when Abe has his own home, I can give him some of his mother’s plants, I will also give some to her sisters and mine.  Lil will be greatly missed in our family, but having some of the plants that she loved growing in our gardens would be exactly what she wanted.

                                  Lillian Nettles Beucus  

                          December 17- 1956  May 6, 2012