May Flowers

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Light and Shade: A Garden Blog

By Marilyn Moore

 May Flowers

In the last post I settled on watering cans as containers for the centerpieces for the spring luncheon.  Now I have to fill them.  I’ve chosen forsythia, ranunculus, tulips, and pussy willows for the bouquets.

I love forsythia—it is a reliable and honest harbinger of spring—and look forward to its appearance in the landscape. One of forsythia’s characteristics is that the flower clusters bloom before the leaves.  Thus, a branch of forsythia is wrapped top to bottom in bright yellow blossoms. I’ve driven by and walked through the woodlands of southwestern Michigan for years now, and each spring the sight of those bright yellow branches against the gray of the still dormant forest restores me.  Yes, forsythia looks lovely in your front yard, but the busyness of a suburban block obscures.  It is not until you see the height and depth of color floating in the black and white forest that you understand yellow.  You understand then the drive of the bee to wake from its winter torpor.  You understand the grit of the crocus or the snowdrop—seemingly delicate—but what nerve to rise out of the cold ground like that.

There is a more practical advantage to including forsythia cuttings in the centerpieces.  Forsythia cuttings will take root.  If you think forsythia will enhance your garden, just leave the cutting in water until the roots sprout.  Then plant it in full sun, if possible, although it can tolerate light shade.  Forsythia is fast growing and is a good choice if your garden needs a hedge to establish a boundary or to create privacy.  It is not care free; but with regular pruning you can expect it to fill in nicely and flower attractively.

To soften forsythia’s spikiness, I’m adding ranunculus to the centerpiece.  Ranunculus is round and layered.  It is like a peony, only smaller, finer, more intricate, and denser.  My favorite ranunculus is the apricot blend.  I love the pale coral color on the blooms.  White is the better choice for these centerpieces, however.  White will buck up the yellow forsythia blooms as well as please with their own luminosity.  And white ranunculus will be the perfect admirers to surround the tulips.

I don’t know if there is any more that I can say to persuade you of my love for the Queen of the Night tulip.  I fear I bore you now.  I cannot write without imagining this flower, however.  I expect nothing in return from it now; but my imagination requires it. Just let me cultivate my meaning.  Just imagine one sturdy stem of this admirable bloom—the idiosyncrasy of its dark purple to black color in the early spring garden—surrounded by soft white ranunculus and flanked by forsythia.  Beautiful.

 

Of course, the only thing flowers really demonstrate is reproduction.  I can write at length about emotion and epistemology, but the purpose of a flower is to ensure the reproduction of the plant on which it blooms.  An apple blossom appears on a tree.  Its color and fragrance attract insects whose need for pollen and nectar results in the fertilization of the flower.  From the fertilized flower comes the apple.  The point of the apple is the seeds.

Which brings me to pussy willows, where I’ll close.  According to the language of flowers, pussy willow symbolizes “motherhood,” a whitewashing if there ever was one.  Why on earth would someone look at a pussy willow and think, “motherhood”? The name alone is a linguistic barrier.  And the catkins—those are the furry, white, blooms on the branches in early spring—the catkins most admired by gardeners and naturalists and everyone else, the big showy ones, are those on the male plants.  One should think, “fatherhood,” at least.

The pussy willow grows wild in wetlands, but really thrives under cultivation.   All you have to do to propagate the pussy willow is cut a branch and stick it in the ground, and it takes root. It yields.  Carefully pruned, it can be a great asset to a garden. It requires two trees, however, male and female, to produce flowers

I’ll finish the bouquets with pussy willows.  They’ll balance the forsythia, complement the ranunculus, and highlight the tulips.  And they’ll take root.  Plant them in full sun, if possible.  A little shade won’t hurt.

Watering Can

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 In January, in this part of the country, the garden is dormant.  Snow covers the ground.  The temperature has dropped below freezing.

The adjective “dormant” is derived from the French verb ” dormer” and the Latin “dormire,” both meaning to sleep.  Dormant plants are inactive and latent.  They undergo minimal metabolic activity and stop growing.  Dormancy, however, is not just a response to harsh conditions.  For perennial gardens dormancy, or vernalization, is essential to plant growth.  Perennial plants and bulbs must be exposed to the cold in order to flower again in the spring.

According to a 2004 article by Dr. H. Marc Cathey, presidnt emeritus of the American Horticulture Society, “A major discovery was that many plants require vernalization–or exposure to a period of low temperatures–in order to break dormancy or to flower.”  This discovery revolutionized the floral industry, and is worth reading about: http://www.ahs.org/publications/theamericangardener/pdf/0405/EverydayGardenScience51.pdf

In other words, winter is doing us a favor.

To keep busy, I’ve been planning the Garden Club’s annual spring luncheon.  For centerpiece holders, I chose watering cans.  Quaint, sure.  But then I did a little research.

Lord Timothy George of Cornwall apparently coined the name “watering can” in 1692 in a diary he kept, according to Wikipedia.  I googled the words “Lord Timothy George Cornwall diary,” and about half a dozen other combinations of keywords that I hoped would produce a copy of this diary, but found nothing beyond the Wikipedia reference.  So I don’t know.  I would certainly like to read it, given the chance. 

In case you don’t know, during the late 17th century and throughout the 18th century, English gardeners revolutionized landscape design.  Throughout most of the 17th century, all of Europe aspired to the brilliant formal gardens of Louis XIV’s Versailles.  Seeking a return to nature, English gardeners such as William Kent, Charles Bridgeman, and Capability Brown studied nature, and then perfected it in their designs.  Employing principles of landscape painting, those designers fashioned nature to add depth, perspective, expanse, and humanity.  Using lakes, forests, lawns, temples, and “ruins” in their designs, they cultivated nature, maximizing its beauty while downplaying its harsher realities.  Could Lord Timothy George have shared in this new vision?

That he lived in Cornwall also interests me.  Cornwall is a region rich in history.  Legend has it that the Celtic King Arthur was born in Cornwall.  The Anglo-Saxons gained some foothold there.  In 1066 the Normans conquered, importing their French culture.  The meeting of Norman and Celtic cultures resulted in the creation of the Arthurian romances and a flowering of medieval literature that still stirs the imagination today.

During the 17th century Cornwall was also a haven for pirates.  As www.thisiscornwall.co.uk points out, “17th century Cornwall was a dangerous place to be.”  It was also a time of civil wars and unrest in Cornwall and throughout England.  It is no small accomplishment that Lord Timothy George gardened, and kept a diary, and enriched the English language during such uncertainty.

With hoses and rain barrels and sprinklers and underground sprinkling systems, a watering can, as I said, is achingly quaint these days.  Yet it holds evocative power, which I”ll leave you with:   First, there is balance.  The handle and the spout of the watering can have to reach an agreement, they have to correspond, so that the can doesn’t tip over and spill every time it is set down.  Just so the garden:  without balance the garden is only a random collection of plants, or worse, an untamed mess.  And it is pleasing the way the curve of the base of the watering can balances the jut of the spout  In this same way gardeners strive to pair plants to draw out each plant’s best features.  Moreover, there is completeness to the watering can.  It both contains and pours out–female and male–like the pistil and stamen of flowers.  And it holds and pours out water:  symbol of life, emotion, fluidity, intuition, salvation, relief, renewa, relaxation, and ease.  Most of all, ease.

 

 

Deb Cullen wows Garden Club audience

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December 7, 2011 Deb Cullen, aka the Container Nanny, amused and informed the Garden Club audience with her how-to demonstration for an outdoor container to drive away the winter blahs.  The results were stunning!

 

 

 

Almost everyone went home with either a door prize, a centerpiece or raffle prize!  Proceeds from the container raffle went to the Garfield Park Conservatory for their damaged roof.

King Alfred decendants find a home at OP fire station

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  About 150 descendants of King Alfred (daffodils) recently moved into the ground at the Central Fire Station in Oak Park courtesy of the Garden Club.  Watch next April for their grand appearance and for years to come as they naturalize and spread.

Although King Alfred is no longer in commercial

Garden buddies dig it!

production, the power of the name lives on.  In the late 19th century  these golden trumpet daffodils were all the rage and commanded a high price.  Today these bulbs are sold as” King Alfred type” or” King Alfred Improved” and are often “Dutch Master”.   In competition with the golden trumpets are a variety of color combinations of white, pink yellow and orange, minature to giant sizes and  shapes such as split cups and doubles.  Its not just your Grandma’s daffodils out there these days.