Favorite Winter Combinations

tillys, I am exactly the same - 6 pages of notes in my notebook!

Working on about the same then look them up to find where they fit best.

Heres a laugh for you. Macho Man, slippers and cleaning. HTL and take a pic

if my dh did ANY housecleaning, I would so take a picture, but unfortunately I don't think that is going to happen.

lol

I'm going to look at those beds again, jeez it makes it seem so obvious, the way everything is beautifully balanced - I'm clearly unbalanced and need structure. Thanks Laurie!

that's the look I'm going for in the front bed. I'll let you know when it happens! I am determined. But right now it just looks like I have a bunch of pathetic little plants all crowded in together. LOL!
I'm reading Beth Chatto's book on the woodland garden. Talk about planting envy! Sheesh! But, after all, she does have a staff. Also reading a book on Clematis by an American gardener, Linda Beutler. Good info, but it doesn't read quite like Beth Chatto's. Something about the English garden writing genre. It IS a genre, isn't it? Both books require a notebook close at hand for notes.

Laurie, love the website! Makes me dream even more about spring! Got the rest of the stuff (shrubs and witch hazel) that I bought at Watson's a few weeks ago planted today. Well almost all of it, I have six varigated boxwood to plant tomorrow afternoon, have to pickup some more topsoil since I ran out this afternoon. I dig a big hole, place the plant and then fill it with topsoil. What I take out - glacial till, is used to fill in an area by the compost pile. I also put some compost over my hyacinths that where peeking there little heads up, it's supposed to get down in the teens tonight.

Here is a picture of one of my beaked hazelnuts with ice on it.

It always amazes me how such a simple thing can be so elegant. Lovely photo RR, you have been hanging out with Pix and the faeries have gifted you to.

tills, I think after all that cleaning, DH can come off the list. Give him a squeeze please.

So glad all of you are enjoying the website - boy I am inspired. make a list RTP, spring is coming! And Beth Chatto's woodland book is fab (definately a genre - its something about the pace of writing). Embarassing I have never gone to her garden and it is less than 2 hrs from me - this is how little I travel. I am putting that on my list so I can return some of the photokindness I get from the dragonfly trip (and to prove I can go!)

You've never been to Beth Chatto's garden and she is less than two hours away?????? This must be corrected! My jaw is on the floor!

I have some friends that went last year and said it was too die for. One question I have do you have deer in england. I see so many roses that you would never see here without 8 feet of deer fence. I heard rabbits are more of a problem. Heidi

I do love the color of my heavenly bamboo in the winter. I am so glad that I put it in a big clay pot when I bought it many years ago (didn't know much about bamboo back then!)

How do you not love our beautiful Evergreens, I'm a sucker for them always.

Nice photos! BTW, if that's 'Heavenly Bamboo', thats a Nandina, not a true bamboo. It won't take over, it's more shrubby. so if it outgrows the pot, you are safe.

Pix, for you, I will definately go to Chatto's so you can return your jaw back to its normal elegant position. I would hate to be responsible for any deformation.

Heidi - I think we may have invented deer - we actually have a herd (numbers just over 20 right now) that wanders round the valley, and all you have to do is look for who's field is in sun and you can spot them - in the autumn we get the stags rutting in our woods - they do this amazing gulping grunt while they challenge each other, and then crash as they head butt each other - its fantastic. We had a gorgeous white stag for the first 4 or 5 years we were here, but alas he seems to have gone. I've only managed to sneak down to the woods during rutting to see them once - they are like lightning as soon as they get a whiff of you.

Although we are deer fenced we only take our wire up to 1.3mtrs/4 1/2' - that seems sufficent (we are also rabbit fenced). there is so much grazing here - both leaf and grass, that they don't bother with the garden. You have to remember they are intrinsically lazy, and all our broad leaf in the woods is so yummy - they just graze that or the grass.

This message was edited Jan 22, 2008 9:19 PM

Thanks for the info Pix, I will have to look it up in the plant files. Thanks, Rach

Okay, jaw in place! I cannot wait to see photos! She is one of my most admired contributors to garden knowlege.

Nice ice pictures, Rach. Thanks.

Rach,
The Nandina will not spread like the real Bamboo, I have just love them, when I went to Horticulture classes in Calif. It was one of many that we learn about. In fact I was going to see if Heidi had some when we go this spring.

Oh, Pix I agree - I saw a gorgeous photo of her years ago, wearing a crisp white blouse with cameo at neck and waders standing in her pond - told my gardening/journalist friend that I was going to be BC when I grew up (I was about 45 at the time) - my friend had the extreme pleasure of meeting her, and told her what I said, and replied "she should find much higher asperations". In love.

Here it is - even if she is very tidy, surely we'd let her come play with us, wouldn't we?

http://www.npg.org.uk/live/images/eden2.jpg

This message was edited Jan 24, 2008 12:32 AM

Hi Tillys I have a nice nandina moyers red. Great winter color and texture and I have plum passion coming. I also have a nice dwarf that has pretty reds and yellow foliage. I use it in some of my designs . It looks nice and soft and evergreen.

Of course she could come play, maybe she could teach me how to stay clean while gardening, haha! She does look lovely, my clothes aren't even that crisp when I attempt to iron them! Here hair is lovely too! What a lady!

Rach....Great Frost pictures so real...BRRRR

I wanna be her when I grow up, too. What a beautiful lady - she just exudes grace. I just 'elude' grace most of the time. LOL

lol, Katie! me too...

I can only dream of looking that crisp and neat.

Yeah, I have a genetically inherited predisposition to wrinkles and spots on my clothing. Yeah . . . I think I'll blame it on my ancestors. :-)

Okay, just discovered this thread:
Heidi, will the liriope 'silver dragon' thrive in full sun? (If so, I need some), and
any idea why I can't get Corydalis to grow? I've tried the blue, the yellow... and nada.

I have planted it in both part shade and sun. I think as long as the liriope get enought water it should do ok. They arein full sun here at the nursery. Corydalis is almost a type of bulb. I have a good patch of purple leaf corydalis in the garden and it is in the shade and no water and goes summer dormant then resprouts in the fall. I noticed in the nusery I have blue heron some of the pots that got too much water died (rotted) Maybe they are getting too much water, Also some varieties I don't think are as hardy as others. Let me know where you had them planted. I like to try to figure out these things.

Okay, I had them in mostly shade and on a bit of a slope so they wouldn't have had too much water. Could it have been lack of water?
We have drip irrigation so I think the Liriope might be okay in the sun then. I have a different kind of Liriope in part-shade.
Are you going to be a vendor at the NPA spring sale? If you are, I could pick up some 'Silver Dragon' from you then.
You are a hardy soul to be out in the garden in this weather! It's way too cold for these old bones!

Thanks Heidi
I would be interested in them, if not to much. You could make me broke in a day, but I can spread it out your to close to me. mmmmmm list getting longer.

If I look that clean and tidy after working in the yard or pond (which I dont have) my DH would say "what did you do all day, watch TV and eat BON BONs) I can't wear white anyway.

Roflol! "I just elude grace most of the time"!! Oh, excellent!! Hey, maybe I can be that BC in another life, because I believe I am so far off the mark in this one that it is too late. Is she the quintessential British lady or what? I completely blame my mother for my lack of grace. She started dressing me up in frilly pants, curled my hair, put little white gloves on my hands, and put petticoats on me from the time I was an infant. I couldn't wait to grow up and wear whatever the he$% I wanted to. Even then, I just wanted to play in the dirt.
Actually, I would also like to have BC's staff. and her land. Yep, the staff and the land need to be part of that deal.

The other British gardener (well, one of them anyway) that I completely admired was Christopher Lloyd. I loved his completely fearless use of color in the garden, and the fact that he had his own opinions about things and wasn't afraid to disagree with others. What a man. He gardened to please himself, and if others loved his work that was great, too.

Here is a secret about all that staff - they work for free.

They work as volunteers to get the training. Most of the well known gardens and gardeners work a system that they take people on and train them up. There are some paid gardeners, but not as many as you would expect for such a garden/nursery/mailorder service.

But Beth Chatto is a very hands on gardener - so I am absolutely puzzled how she stays that clean, may she got scrubbed up for the photo.

there is a lovely collection of letters between Chatto and Lloyd called 'dear friend and gardener' Well worth reading, absolutely charming. and yes, I think both of them could easily fit in with the word Quintessential. They are truely English Gardeners.

Yours, in ever gracious eluding, L

I thought my farfugium (which I can see from the kitchen window) deserved to be posted somewhere, it gets sad in the morning with the cold, but perks up when the sun is out... not a real combination, I know, but there is a barberry sticking his hand in the picture : )

I think Beth's grace is one of those things you can't acquire. You either have it or you don't. Heck, I don't even know the woman, but can tell from one picture that she doesn't spill on her shirt, or trip over her feet, or accidentally sneeze on the person in front of her . . . ever.

The grace seems to exist by itself, no stiffness, no pretention, no effort. It just IS. Sigh. I'm glad to know that there are peole out there like that. My aunt is pretty close. Sadly, we don't share any genes (or jeans). She married my uncle.

I've always hoped that maybe it would come to me with age, but so far, no go. Well, maybe in my next life . . .

I think I'd rather have cookies at your house - she makes me a little nervous with all the ironing and crispiness.

RTP - that's a good point. No matter how easily graceful she seems to be, it'd be a little intimidating to have cookies at her house. Now at MY house, you don't need to worry -- but you do have to eat standing up because of all the dog and cat noses that are interested in what you have . . .

perfect! They can have whatever I spill or drop .. or at least the crumbs I'll leave.

Yeah!! Sadly, that's one of my most-used housekeeping techniques.

Now, when I drop things at the homes of people who don't have dogs, I forget to pick them up . . .

Roflol!!!
I agree that grace cannot be acquired. Look at me! No grace. Well, actually I've never tried to acquire it, but that's because it always looks like too much work. My MIL, now that's a woman who has grace and charm. AND you can eat cookies at her house, or more likely, Pie. She makes a mean pie and she likes to eat it, too. But she never gains weight. Sometimes I wonder what my husband saw in me. I am so completely unlike her that it is astounding. But she and I get along famously because part of her charm is that she does not judge others much. She accepts us the way we are. Plus she is a master gardener and we talk gardening all the time. If only my OWN mother were interested in gardening! I want you to understand what I mean by 'lady' so I'm posting a couple of photos of the inside of her house. It looks like a museum, and yet you can completely be comfortable in it!

Here's her dining room. These are not reproductions, mind you.

Okay, back to winter combinations. I am worried about this hellebore and wondered if anyone could give me an idea of what is wrong. It started blooming and then the flowers just wilted! They are droopy and limp. It's not just the freezing weather, because my other hellebores are not doing this. Even the ones that are responding to being frozen for over a week have more stamina than this. Any ideas? Laurie?

Oh, BTW Laurie your friend Derry Watkins will not be having a booth at the Seattle show, but she will be giving a lecture. I ordered lots of seeds from her and I'm glad I did! She had some things I have not been able to find here and it is such fun to order seeds from overseas! Thank you so much for pointing us in the direction of her website.

Oh, that is a sad sight. I have no advice for you, though.
Which thread was that link on, Pixy? I think I've misplaced it.