GardenBook

 Celebrating the return of my camera from the the hospital , and jumping on board with Loree ... I do love her fave plant posts and what a great way to ensure weekly blogging. Win-win !  I am thrilled with the Persicaria amplexicaulis 'Rosea' , purchased last year from Digging Dog on our Mendocino Coast. These large imposing Persicarias are not seen much around here, and I was triumphant to find this one when I visited the nursery last summer. It's comforting to have something that isn't bloomed out and flopping in the garden this time of year.  The foliage can get a tad ratty late in the season, but looks great right now, and after the ratty period, (which mostly involves the leaves near ground level) I get some nice fall color. Pleasantly architectural.

 We are in the awkward stage here..overgrown and bloomed out. The mistakes of fall and spring are clearly evident; planted too close, unfortunate color combinations, wrong exposure etc etc. My 'real' camera is still in ICU, so I went out with the trusty old point and shoot and got a few images of the carnage. As all good gardeners, I didn't photograph the very worst areas. Lily flops onto (and clashes with) reverted P. Norah Leigh while Salvia 'Black and Blue' looks on . From another perspective.  Moving a little further west, 'Black and Blue ' has it's way with with Phlox and Autumn Joy, while Aster frikartii peeks out at the bottom of the pile. In the upper third, you may notice that Eupatorium 'Gateway' has engulfed an entire rosebush. That's Austin rose 'English Garden' barely visible just above the Phlox 'David'.  A Robin Parer Geranium , Santolina  'Lime Fizz, Teucrium all hang out tog

  I don't recall when I first read about Madoo, but I would guess it was a magazine article or perhaps a review of 'Notes From Madoo' , Robert Dashes' book published in 2000. How I wanted to visit , but at that time in my life it seemed quite impossible. But opportunities sometimes present themselves and this summer my friends and I stepped through the portal into a garden I  thought I would never see.   Visiting dozens of gardens every year puts you in a position of  discernment. It's easy to be disappointed when the garden toured  lands under the ever-rising bar. The more gardens , the higher the bar climbs. As grateful as I am for the existence of the venerable Garden Conservancy, there are invariably  duds on Open Days .Sometimes the garden is just not to my taste, sometimes it's just not that great--and how subjective our vision of gardens is! These gardens all belong to someone,  someone loves them, cares for them or hires someone to do so . As the report

My camera malfunctioned at the end of day one , Garden Bloggers Fling . I have added the point-and-shoot to the Permanent Electronics Packing List . It was somewhat liberating to be camera-less for 2 days of garden touring, but now that I have been liberated once, I don't care to be so again. Thanks to Alison at Bonney Lassie who did in fact have the forethought to pack an extra camera , and kindly allowed me to borrow it for Saxon Holts' photo workshop on Saturday morning. Are there any people better than gardeners ? How splendid it would be if we ruled the world.  The point here is that I was unable to take images at The Hall of Flowers in San Francisco so I am reverting to the previous weekends visit to New York -my camera was fully operational at the Planting Fields Arboretum , and this is my substitute conservatory gig.Over the years I've visited a fair number of conservatory facilities, and it seemed that they were uniformly dusty and ill-maintained spaces , full

  There has been a frenetic pace this June , visiting gardens from coast to coast . Denise and I speculated on the Fling bus Saturday...were we 'gardened -out' ? Just a little I think, though the freak heat-wave may have been a contributing factor. Just for the hell of it I totted up the numbers : 11 gardens on the east coast starting the 19th , fly home on Monday the 24th, go to work for a couple of days , and then 13 more gardens over the weekend in the Bay Area. Whew ! Looks like Sue up there ...  ...taking a photo of this...  The walled garden featured classic perennial borders , and hardscape I can only dream of. My travel companions taking in the views.   The childrens garden was tastefully cute . How about a folly and a lake in your back yard?  Not in the budget this year I'm afraid. Old Westbury Gardens is in Old Westbury New York, on Long Island.