{"id":178,"date":"2009-11-02T05:34:15","date_gmt":"2009-11-02T13:34:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/garden\/?p=178"},"modified":"2015-11-24T07:32:59","modified_gmt":"2015-11-24T15:32:59","slug":"seasonal-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/seasonal-success\/","title":{"rendered":"Seasonal Success"},"content":{"rendered":"

SEASONAL SUCCESS
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\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 We had a rainy growing season in much of the northeast this past spring and summer and I have heard a lot of garden horror stories about blighted tomatoes, drowned roses and the epidemic of fungal diseases.\u00a0 I’ve told a lot of those stories myself and my fellow gardeners are almost always sympathetic.\u00a0 In fact, at a recent party, I broke the ice with a garden horror story and before long, the people around me were unveiling their own tales of nature’s perversity and chatting like long lost relatives.\u00a0 Misery truly loves company.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 But even now, as the cold autumn rain comes down in buckets, I can also recall the successes of the past season.\u00a0 Gardening, after all, is a positive, progressive activity and you can only have so much gloom and doom.\u00a0 Reflecting on the triumphs also keeps me from thinking about all those spring-flowering bulbs that have yet to be planted.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The following are my personal triumphs over the forces of horticultural adversity:
\nPeegee Hydrangeas: <\/strong>The water loving Hydrangea paniculata grandiflora or “peegee”\u009d hydrangeas bloom late–late enough to avoid the water-soaked, brown-stained fate of some of the earlier blooming hydrangeas.\u00a0 The flowerheads were huge, turning slowly from cream to pink and bending the slender branches.\u00a0 I dried big bunches of them by hanging them upside down in my garage and cut even more for fresh arrangements in the house.\u00a0 Many of my neighbors also have peegees, which are often grown in standard or tree form.\u00a0 Theirs looked equally splendid, depriving me of exclusive bragging rights but improving the appearance of the neighborhood.
\nJapanese Painted Fern: <\/strong>Athyrium niponicum var. pictum, otherwise known as Japanese painted fern, is a gorgeous, low-growing fern with swirling, silvery-purple fronds.\u00a0 I have one that has languished for years by the side of our unfortunate ornamental wishing well.\u00a0 Though the fern refused to die, it also refused to flourish and I had visions of transplanting it last spring.\u00a0 Like many visions, that one did not turn into reality, which proved to be a blessing for the fern.\u00a0 Invigorated by all the rain, it quadrupled in size and put on a great display for the entire season.\u00a0 It still looks good.\u00a0 I may transplant it next spring, but now I at least have reason to believe it will survive the transition.
\nJapanese Anemone<\/strong>: This is another late bloomer that benefited from all the rain.\u00a0 Japanese anemones are members of the buttercup family.\u00a0 They are wonderful fall flowers, especially the white variety, ‘Honorine Jobert’.\u00a0 Rising to three or four feet tall, the plants feature five-petaled flowers with clusters of golden stamens in the centers.\u00a0 They are relatively long-lived in a vase and have dissected, deep green leaves that enhance rather than detract from the plant’s charms.\u00a0 A happy Japanese anemone will increase over the years with no help at all. \u00a0If the flowers happen to get drenched in heavy rainstorms they do not turn into a sodden mess, a trait that has come in very handy this year.
\nRosa Mutabilis: \u00a0<\/strong>While the many-petaled rose varieties tend to ball up in rainy weather, single-petaled types like Rosa mutabilis shrug off the drops.\u00a0 Mutabilis means “changeable”\u009d and the name refers to the fact that the blooms are cream in bud, pink when they first open and age to a rose color before they drop from the plant.\u00a0 Because of its color-changing nature, a mature Rosa mutabilis looks as if it is covered with multi-colored blossoms.\u00a0 The plant blooms almost continuously from May until frost and requires no fussing.\u00a0 Rosa mutabilis is large for some gardens–mine is five feet tall and at least four feet wide–but is worth the investment of space.\u00a0 This year the mutabilis seemed not to notice the absence of sun and lapped up the abundant water.\u00a0 It is still growing and blooming even though the nights are growing colder and the days shorter.\u00a0 It has been an unqualified success this year.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In general, anything that rambles–vines, roses, ajuga plants–has prospered in a big way.\u00a0 Rhododendrons, azaleas and other water hogs have been in heaven and this will pay off next season.\u00a0 My privet hedge was rambunctious as ever.\u00a0 The successful plants, in fact, have been so inspiring, that I may just forget about the ones that didn’t perform well last summer.\u00a0 The Mediterranean species, succulents and lavender will probably do better next year.\u00a0 Until then I will think of my Japanese painted fern and smile.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SEASONAL SUCCESS \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 We had a rainy growing season in much of the northeast this past spring and summer and I have heard a lot of garden horror stories about blighted tomatoes, drowned roses and the epidemic of fungal diseases.\u00a0 I’ve told a lot of those stories myself and my fellow gardeners are almost always … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1611,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178\/revisions\/1611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}