The gardens were a little soggy yesterday.  I could hear the ground actually percolating in places where it wasn’t ankle deep in mud.  There’s nothing like a weekend of non-stop rain (the rain gauge overflowed at 5″…) to make little fungi-brellas pop up everywhere and some plants looked like someone extra large had sat upon them. It’s a good thing Kyle didn’t come any closer!

Dan pointed out these tiny parasols (right) on a Norway maple (Acer platanoides) – a tree I walk by daily without giving it so much as a hug.  Some of the roses and zinnias looked like used tissue and a couple of the asters flopped face down in the soup but overall the grounds and gardens fared pretty well, considering.  And Gus-Gus made a rare appearance after the rain – I must say he’s looking quite fat and happy.  I think our fish population might be dwindling…

I did as much tidying of the Rose and North gardens as I could by teetering in from the very edge. As you know, it is never a good idea to tromp around in freshly rain soaked beds:  Not only does it cause soil compaction but you’re bound to get drenched and cranky too.

I never even came close to cranky yesterday because right as I was finishing up for the morning, I was joined in the North Garden by none other than Rhode Island’s Best Layanee from Ledge and Gardens and the famous fabulous Gail from Clay and Limestone who blogs all the way from Tennessee.  Inspired by the Garden Blogger’s Spring Fling in Texas, we had an impromptu mini-fling — a fall fling-let, if you will, at Blithewold.  Wish you were here too!  We meandered to the Display Garden, stopped for an “irreverent” discussion at the Cutting Garden asclepias and several missed photo ops of the hummingbirds that are still twittering in the bamboo and swooping on the garden.  Everything under the sun and Salvia uliginosa was enthused over and even the possibility of a full fling in the future was mentioned – although Layanee and I couldn’t agree on an ideal time.  Blithewold may be super pretty in the fall but Layanee seems to think her own garden is past its peak.  I’ve seen pictures and beg to differ!  (But I do have to admit that I certainly wouldn’t want anyone to see my own garden right now – I’m more inclined to create a traffic diversion and some sort of commotion just to distract my neighbors.)

Gail and Layanee finally stood still just long enough (as we grazed on ground cherries) for a quick portrait before moving on to the watery Water and Rock Gardens.   I was very sorry to see them go.  As everybody knows, it’s the best kind of inspiration to talk with others who share your passion.  No wonder people join garden clubs, host flings and pot lucks and write blogs!

Today the Deadheads worked on propping up and tidying the Display Garden even though in a short couple of weeks we’ll start to tear it apart.  The mansion closes right after Columbus Day and we’ll be swinging into high holiday gear all too soon.  Gail (from Clay and Limestone) asked what these gardens look like in the winter:  Stay tuned!

If you missed Fall Gardeners Day at Blithewold last weekend then I’m sorry to say you missed Mike Chute’s info packed lecture on roses and, I for one, learned something new.  – But then again I always learn something from anyone with a favorite subject to teach.  With roses in particular I feel like I can never learn enough.

Mike Chute has a rose consultation business called Rose Solutions and is producing several of the cold hardy Brownell roses (developed by the Brownells of Little Compton, RI) which will be available for purchase this coming spring.  He spoke to us on how to encourage roses to peak spectacularly for a second time in the fall.  The fall bloom is so different from the spring peak:  Although the flower size may be smaller, cool nights intensify the colors and the mid-day sun doesn’t blanch them.

His methods for re-bloom (on remontant a.k.a repeat blooming roses) are pretty intuitive involving a fertilizing regimen (early spring; just after the June peak; mid-summer; and late summer), plenty of water, and vigilant deadheading.  As for deadheading, he told a story about preparing the Roger Williams Park Victorian Rose Garden for a fall rose festival.  He said that the time required for each rose to set buds and re bloom is dependent on a few factors including the number of petals (more petals = more days) and the weather.  He was able to calculate an average re bloom time for that garden – 50 days – based on the varieties they planted and then he counted back from the date of the festival.  It must have been the hardest thing in the world to do, but sometime in July he and the gardeners and volunteers at Roger Williams cut off every single bloom and bud in that garden until there was nothing left but foliage.  It makes me cringe just to think of it!  But evidently their gamble with the weather paid off and they had nothing but blooms galore just in time for their event.

We traditionally stop deadheading the roses in September so that they can set hips.  Mike said that he’s never lost a rose for not allowing hips to form — he doesn’t like the way they look in his garden.  And seeing the buckets of roses he brought from his own garden reminded me that I’d much rather look at bunches of blooms than hips too!  So we have already changed our methods at Blithewold and with any luck the garden will still be blooming as the volunteers start coming in to decorate the house for Christmas.

How long do the roses bloom in your garden?

Incidentally, the yellow rose pictured above is my current all-time fave (besides Rosa rugosa which has the scent that makes me swoon).  One of the Floribundas purchased ‘Morning Has Broken’ for us because the flowers are gorgeous and sweetly scented and the foliage is glossy and perfect – too slippery for black spot to take hold perhaps – all season long.  Mary wasn’t wrong (Thank you, Mary!).  We’ve only had this particular plant for 2 years (we bought others for the Display Garden this year) but it has only gotten more handsome and garnered more and more praise from visitors.  It’s not an easy rose to find to buy but I think it’s well worth pursuit and perserverance!

Down by the compost enclosure and Dick’s vegetable garden, there is a bed dedicated to Julie-favorite eats and I got caught there on my walk this morning.  I must confess that I probably stopped for a full 10 minutes to graze on her ground cherries (Physalis sp.).  Last year, Julie bought ground cherries (also known as husk tomatoes) at a farmers market, managed somehow to not eat them all and saved some seeds to plant along one edge of that bed.

We’ve all been (im)patiently waiting for the little green lanterns to ripen and now that they’ve begun, I seem to be willing to drop everything to catch them – as they drop everything.  For any of you who have not become addicted to the miracle of ground cherries, they are tomato’s kissing cousin; little sister to the tomatillo and they taste, as Gail says, “like a whole fruit salad in one bite”.  They are wrapped in brown paper packages like little Christmas presents and at their very ripest they fall off the plant and onto the ground – or into my greedy paws.

This is the first year that Julie has grown ground cherries and I’m pretty sure it won’t be the last.  Even if I don’t make sure they’re sown next year, likelihood is they’ll sow themselves.  I have them growing by my front stoop at home and no memory at all of planting them.  I’m very glad I waited to see what the heck that weed was!  I can only figure that sometime last year I must have sat on that stoop eating my own farmers market haul and allowed one or two to drop to the ground.  Have you grown ground cherries?  Are you hooked?

Another Julie-favorite ready for harvest are her citron melons (Citrullus lanatus).  Every year Julie puts a label next to them that describes the flavor as tasteless so that no one will be tempted to liberate the handsome fruit from the vine.  And they truly are tasteless watermelons at least until she works her chutney magic.  They are the perfect vehicle for spices and pickling and I am so addicted to Julie’s secret recipe chutney that if I don’t have at least a jar and a half in the fridge, I start freaking out.  One of Julie’s requests upon retirement was space to keep growing her melons.  Fine by me!!  They are an heirloom melon and she saves seed every year.

Blithewold’s figs (Ficus carica) are also planted in Julie’s bed.  These are cuttings from the original figs that grew in the greenhouse floor before the restoration and had been planted there by the Van Wickle/McKees.  They are probably Italian White figs and since they’ve been planted outside they have not ripened in time for frost.  Others nearby – they’re abundant in Bristol – seem to have better luck with ripening perhaps by planting their figs in a hotter spot such as against a sunny south wall.  We wintered them over last year by cutting them back to about 3 feet and hilling up the crown with compost and leaves.  The year before that, when they were still fairly small plants, we bent the plants to the ground, pinned them down and buried them in shredded leaves.

Sungold tomatoes, a hybrid cherry, are also always given a spot along the compost fence.  There they grow gangbusters, producing more bright orange sweet tastiness than any of us can keep up with.  Please help yourself!

What are your traditional favorites?

We know a gardener whose most sublime view of her garden is from the bathtub on the second floor of her house.  From there she can look down on her borders laid out like blankets of color.  The last time we took a bird’s eye look at the Display Garden was in 2005 when the greenhouse was being restored.  Gail and I perched on the storage container that was parked next to the cutting beds and for the first time we really saw the patchwork laid out.

From our own eyeball height off the ground we generally see the gardens as waves of horizons and as precious vignettes but from a second story the character of the garden totally changes.  From fifteen or so feet up, we can really start to see the whole rather than just garden parts.  We see different patterns from up there and all the threads that stitch the garden together.  It’s really helpful and I’m not sure why I haven’t asked to borrow the ginormous pruning ladder before this!  (No, I know why:  I’m a little bit afraid of wuthering heights… – but the view was well worth the teetery feeling and adrenaline rush.)

The Display Garden is very different from what it was in 2005 and the changes Fred has made in the last couple of years are even more apparent from above.  The grid of small rectangular Idea Beds (just visible on the middle left of the first picture above) has been replaced by a couple of large beds with paths, a fountain, game table and crowned by a gracious shady sitting area.  The cement pond is surrounded now by a spacious lawn rather than narrow beds and the other beds in the Display Garden have been recreated to better tie to the whole quilt.  The layout of the Cutting Garden is the only piece that hasn’t needed to be resewn.

I don’t have a second story on my house and am certainly not inclined to go traipsing around on my roof – but if I could get an overview of my own yard (which is still rather blank-slate-ish) I think I’d be better able to wrap my mind around how to knit the whole thing into a garden.  Can you view your garden from above?  Have you used that vantage to the garden’s advantage?  Have you designed any part of your garden (like our friend with the bathtub windows has) to enhance your view from upstairs?

It’s time once again for a blooming Blithewold inventory and a mid month visit to blooming gardens around the world.  Garden Bloggers Bloom day is still graciously hosted by Carol at May Dreams Gardens (Check out Carol’s Bloom Day post and scroll through the comments section to visit other gardens).  I took a look at my post from last year and of course I’m going to repeat myself.  It’s inevitable really:  Some things – like ragweed and my sneezes – are as reliable as Swiss clockwork.  And some things change.  I’m disappointed to be reminded that this is exactly when the monarchs were so abundant last year.  There aren’t nearly as many looping through the gardens right now.  But last year I didn’t see a single orb-web spider and this year I’ve been scared half to levitation by several.  The Moral of the Story?:  In any garden over the years there are new surprises and fresh photo opportunities (even when it’s of the same old favorites).

Here are some repeats, and some things that were most likely blooming this time last year but were upstaged by the butterflies, and as usual, at least one Bloom Day Worthy that is not a bloom at all:  (hover over for caption and click on for magical photo enhancement)

What’s new in your garden this year and what do you miss madly?