SPRING ORDERS
Spring is leaping up from the pages of the catalogs that arrive by snail mail every day. The e-mail traffic from the plant vendors is also surging, with new offers and enticements appearing on an hourly basis. My head spins at the color and the variety. My heart sinks–but only a little–at the thought of what my garden fantasies would cost if allowed to go unchecked.
But now I have to get serious. The plant ordering season is upon us and if I want to have my pick of in-demand varieties, now is the time to narrow my wish list and brandish the credit card.
I will start where I always start–with snowdrops. I am not a galanthophile or snowdrop fanatic. However, the bees that dare venture out in the early spring are as happy as I am to see the snowdrops emerge, so I add a few every year. I order from the fascinating Hitch Lyman of Trumansburg, New York, proprietor of the Temple Nursery. Mr. Lyman specializes in exotic snowdrops and has an interesting array of species and varieties, many of which have intriguing histories. The plants are expensive, but a happy snowdrop multiplies, and, in general, snowdrops seem happy in my garden. I love the double-flowered varieties and those with yellow, rather than the typical green petal markings. For size and vigor, nothing beats Galanthus nivalis ‘S. Arnott,’ which has blossoms that are about twice the size of ordinary snowdrop flowers. The Temple Nursery does not supply an order form, does not have an internet presence and does not accept credit cards. I don’t care. The snowdrops are worth taking up the checkbook and typing out the order.
After I finish with the snowdrops, I’ll turn my attention to adding to my supply of ground cover plants. Tough, hardy groundcovers increase the overall beauty of beds and borders and decrease the need for mulching. Installing this kind of “green mulch,” is much easier on the back than hefting up bags of shredded cedar bark. I have been involved in a longstanding love affair with hardy geraniums, sometimes known as cranesbills, and there are several recent introductions that have caught my eye. I love Geranium sanguineum ‘Elke’, which is rose pink with a narrow white edge on each petal. ‘Elke’ is a sun lover, with nicely dissected leaves that look good whether or not the plant is flowering. I generally order odd-numbered lots of plants, as they work better in garden groupings. Whether I order one or three “Elke’s’ depends on the amount of temptation I find elsewhere in plant vendors’ inventories. Two other cranesbills, ‘Dragonheart’, with dark-centered magenta flowers; and ‘Butterfly Kisses,’ featuring late blooming pink flowers and good fall color, have also caught my eye. If finances permit, the garden will be chock full of cranes–or at least their bills–come spring.
Though I grow relatively few edibles, I am intrigued by the idea of edging my beds with colorful basils. This will supply me with lots of pesto, but it is also a form of decorative companion planting. Basils, with their strong minty fragrances, deter some kinds of predators and insects and are valuable even if they never make it to the kitchen. I especially like the purple-leafed types, like ‘Red Rubin’ and ‘Aromatto’ for color, taste and scent. These are good for pots as well. Basil is ridiculously easy to start from seed, so it is a good investment for me to sow my basil indoors in March and set it out when the weather gets warm.
What else do I need? Realistically speaking, nothing. My beds are full of plants that can be divided and spread around to fill any gaps. Many of them are both exceptionally worthy and in desperate need of division. Still, I can’t resist some new introductions. Weeks Roses has introduced ‘Sugar Moon,’ a French-bred hybrid tea rose with a lemon scent and big, white blossoms. Despite my reservations about hybrid teas, I would love to try it. Seeds of Change, a terrific purveyor, is offering a pale yellow cosmos called ‘Yellow Garden.’ It would look lovely amid some blue-purple flowered cranesbills. I saw an irresistible, shell pink, semi-double peony with the improbable name ‘Spumoni Whisper’ in the pages of the Klehm’s Song Sparrow Farm and Nursery catalog. The inner petal bases have just a hint of green, hence the “spumoni” in the name. It is ravishing and I need it in my garden, though at the moment I can’t think where I will put it unless I appropriate my neighbor’s yard.
Every year I entertain that possibility.
So the winnowing process continues, as does the reconciliation of needs and wants that is part of every garden fanatic’s planning strategy. My neighbor had better watch her property line. She may find the fence moving.