GardenBook

The garden of Marcia Donahue  defies description-in a good way. Mature, lush, playful..these are the best words I can come up with on a Friday , though they don't quite tell the story. A return visit is on the agenda here-with  care taken to produce photos that will speak more eloquently to the atmosphere of this unique garden. Does it get much better than being an artist  and a gardener ? 

  Here we have a garden not for the faint of heart, nor for the minimalist, nor for the aficionado of a lawn surrounded by a retinue of 'foundation shrubs' - this garden is about color, and by god, it's about every color, can't think of one that's not represented. The Garden Conservancy provided my 2nd visit to Keeyla Meadows garden this summer, and I came away with a smile on my face and about a hundred photos on the memory card.  It's all va-voom, something to see everywhere, not a white wall in sight.  See Keeylas website here for information about her open days and her latest book 'Fearless Color' ..Fearless indeed !

 The freshman class of 2010 has been installed long enough for it's mid-term evaluation-still to come are the fall interest trials, and the winter hazard testing. ---and I know there will be some late enrollments as well,  courtesy of (but not limited to) a September Open House at Digging Dog  and the annual fall sale at Cottage Gardens  . The Sedum tapestry for which hopes were high  was not a complete failure, but has performed poorly enough to require a revision. Some were killed with kindness, some were crushed by the incessant rolling action of the Remarkably Lazy Cats(telltale fur was found on the remains)  some were smothered with over zealous mulching in their immediate area, and another is soldiering on despite it's almost total encapsulation by Geranium sanguinium.  In fact the design of the entire bed is a daily subject of second thoughts.   The honor students of 2010 :  The fabulous Arabella . Caryopte...

Collecting seems to just happen to me in a spontaneous way-I perform a 'garden audit' and find that I have 7 varieties of Penstemon, 14 Salvias, 10 Euphorbias ..you get the picture. Space is always an issue, thus no trees or large shrubs are collected -though I confess to the ownership of 60 plus roses. Starting last autumn I have fallen prey to every Oregano that has crossed my path. I already owned the basic culinary form , the golden model (which has colonized the lawn-but who needs lawn anyway ?) and Kent Beauty--oh, and a Hopleys Purple which was naughty and has been banished to an area surrounded by concrete where it can flop and spread at will.

I don't seem to tire of endlessly reviewing photos from the last visit to this garden, and plotting the next. What a gem, how lucky to have it so close.