We’ve all been busy at Blithewold decorating for the holidays and Gail and I have had the particular pleasure of being reacquainted with the abundance of evergreens on the property.  The other day we walked all over dragging a cart and a ladder and picked for wreaths and outdoor arrangements.  (For last year’s DIY wreath post, click here.)

During the spring, summer and fall, trees like this Cryptomeria japonica (right) are like background music to me.  If the evergreens suddenly disappeared from the landscape I might think, “Huh.  Seems like it just got a little quieter in here…” but now that the leaves are off the deciduous divas, the evergreens’ volume has swelled and their tune has become the title theme.

Here are some of the trees we love to pick from:

Any Chamaecyparis (False Cypress) we can get our paws on.  Especially:

Chamaecyparis pisifera ‘Filifera Aurea’ (Golden threadleaf cypress).  Ours glows a gorgeous limey yellow in partial shade.  We have picked from this tree for so many years that it has developed a sort of scoop out of the sunny side so we’ll give it a bit of a break this year.   This photo on the right is of the straight ‘Filifera’ which is loaded with tiny soccer ball cones.

Chamaecyparis pisifera ‘Squarrosa’ (Moss cypress) has soft frothy gray-blue tufts at the branch ends and an airy openness to the tree.  This one is my favorite for making a fluffy wreath.

Chamaecyparis obtusa (Hinoki cypress).  I love this one too because it’s a thick green-green with a certain weightiness and the foliage looks to me like plumage.  (The photos just don’t do it justice!)

I walk by this Thujopsis dolobrata ‘Variegata’ (Variegated Hiba arborvitae) in the Enclosed Garden nearly every day and it’s only when I go to pick from it that I remember to notice how spectacularly special it is.  And I do love variegated things with leaves shaped like lobster claws.  This tree grows slowly to about 30′ and needs wind protection.

Juniperus virginiana (Eastern red cedar) is nearly everywhere around here (I have 3 in my own tiny yard!) and looks great in a wreath or arrangement even if the birds have gotten to the berries before you.  I found one last cluster of berries – and aren’t I nice because I left the branch for the birds…

Do you cut greens (or buy some) for wreaths and arrangements?  What are your favorites?  And what are your favorite evergreens in the landscape?

Picking greens always brings out the forager and hoarder in Gail – she’s every bit as happy as anyone at Filene’s Bargain Basement who’s just found the best deal on scarves.  She collected some excellent cones and pods which I’ll have to show you in a later post…

Meanwhile have a very Happy Thanksgiving!  And if you’re ready for Christmas, Christmas at Blithewold is ready for you. “This Bright and Merry Wood” was the inspiration for the volunteer decorators who decked the halls like never before – there’s even a fairy room!  The mansion opens for the holiday season the day after Thanksgiving – for more info click here.  (and, of course, the grounds are always open!)

We’ve been hit.  And just like back in June with the sucker punch heatwave, there hasn’t been a chance to acclimate.  All of a sudden in a bitter wind, the plants have turned inside out and I have frozen solid.  There’s a crust over frogs and underfoot and a biting cold that probably has massage practitioners working overtime to un-hunch shoulders.  We’re not ready for this!  It did finally dawn on me this morning, after a week of shivers and complaints, to wear more clothes… And I do think the one way to get used to it is to get out in it.  — I’m working up to that, I really am.

We still have outdoor projects that we’re tackling in mad dashes between restorative cups of hot tea:  We could cut down all of the plants, like this Nicotiana mutabilis (left) and Salvia tingo (right) that we left standing until the bitter end.  Our landscape is no longer graced by their presence and for the sake of public garden tidiness we’ve gotta get ‘em out.  (That’s not to say you shouldn’t procrastinate clean-up until spring.  You certainly could and the critters will thank you for the extra cover.)

Today we busted through a crusty earth skin to heel in the last few frozen plants we had left over from our North Garden furniture rearranging.  I can say that it’s not too late to do this because there have been times our plants have stayed in bossbags under the arbor – and by some miracle (you can’t kill a daylily) they lived to be planted in spring.  But these plants are happier in the ground now, no doubt about it.

We’ve still got veggies to pick – the Swiss Chard and beets have a few tender leaves left, and the Brussels sprouts will be even sweeter for the hit.

When it’s cold out it really takes determination to slow down, breathe deeply and open your eyes from a squint.  But there is so much beauty in the unfolding death of winter and it’s too easy to overlook – especially if you can’t see out from under your hat or swivel your neck inside scarf layers for fear of a draft.  But getting out, for starters, and breathing deeply will help your wimpy autumn skin to acclimate.  – Just think, soon anything over 32°F will feel pleasant!  And if you bring your camera, like I did, you can gaze leisurely at the pretty things while wrapped in a blanket with a cup of tea in your hands.

What are you doing to get acclimated to winter?  Do you still have last minute garden chores?  ‘Fess up now – are you still planting?

What have you done with all of the tender perennials you bought this summer?  Are they in the compost heap?  Have you left them where they were planted in hopes of a mild winter come-back?  Did you take cuttings?  Have you filled your garage/basement/livingroom with plants in pots and roots in bags?

We can answer “Yup!” to all of the above but obviously we have the big advantage of a working greenhouse that we can fill with stock plants, cuttings and more phormiums (a.k.a. New Zealand flax) than any garden could ever need.  When Margaret Roach came through the greenhouse, she noticed the phormiums (that Gail so cleverly tried to hide behind other plants so it wouldn’t look like we’re hoarding them) and mentioned that she winters hers over in the basement.  She also winters her cordylines (Cabbage palm/Cordyline australis) in the basement and I’ll bet you a dollar that her plants look a lot healthier than ours.  I have always suggested a cool but bright winter spot for things like phormiums. – Not that I don’t believe Margaret, but has anyone else kept them in the dark?

Geraniums (Pelargonium) are another plant that can go “down cellar” (as we Rhode Islanders say it).  You can leave them in their pot, cut them back a bit and allow them to mostly? dry out.  Or you can un-pot them and hang them upside down by their naked roots – but that sounds a little like hortitorture to me.  I have a vague repressed memory of losing geraniums that I kept (forgot) in the basement and wonder if anyone else has tried either of these methods successfully?  We take cuttings earlier in the fall and keep a few stock plants in the greenhouse where they inevitably get leggy or weird from growing when they’d much rather slow down.  [Here's a tip you probably already know:  When you take geranium cuttings, let them callous overnight in an open plastic bag before sticking them in the rooting medium.]

Gail loves tender salvias more than anyone else I know so we winter over as many as we can make room for – mostly by taking cuttings.  She’s had some luck with salvias like S. guaranitica and S. uliginosa wintering over in her own garden so we’ll leave a couple in the Display Garden this year too.  You never know – every once in a while even a forgotten dahlia comes back after a mild winter.  We will leave the Savias standing for now with all their own woody protection and we’ll mulch them with shredded leaves.  Fingers crossed.

The potting shed cellar is fairly warm (around 60°F) because of the furnaces but we do keep 4 o’clock (Mirabilis) tubers, gladiolus bulbs, dormant lemon verbena plants and dahlia tubers (in paper bags this year – fingers crossed) down there.

So, what have you done with your tender perennials?

“Nothing lasts.”  That might sound pessimistic to the average bear but to a gardener it’s a liberating, life affirming and exciting truth.

Yesterday a lucky group of gardeners and Blithewold supporters had the pleasure of listening to and laughing with Margaret Roach (former editor of Martha Stewart Magazine) as she talked about 365 days of gardening on her property in the Berkshires.  She showed slides of her garden’s transformation from a steep hillside populated with fallingdown outbuildings and plastic lawn furniture to a steep hillside of gorgeous gardens, meadow and fabulous mountain views.  We were treated to full disclosure of hilarious rookie mistakes, tragic losses, happy accidents and sublime moments – what gardening is all about.  Margaret encouraged us to defy “conventional wisdom” whenever our gardens require us to be more creative.  Question authority (even when the authority is Martha Stewart)!  Be willing to learn from and laugh at the mistakes you make along the way.  And suffer the failures and losses with the hope and optimism of fresh opportunity (new plants!).

Margaret also gently chided us for saying “the season has ended”.  For her, and you can read her philosophy on her blog A Way to Garden, the garden year begins with “conception” and continues through to “senescence” and death.  Nothing lasts – but the whole process is precious.  To ignore or deny the truth and beauty of the garden’s decline is to miss part of the point of gardening – as much as denying a bud in spring.  We gardeners know it’s true and yet it’s a good reminder to hear a kindred spirit say it out loud.  Maybe don’t be in such a rush to clean up, she says and enjoy the fade.  And even if you’re like me – ready for a break, inclined to be indoors when it’s cold out – go back outside – in your p.j.s if that’s what you’re wearing, and take another look at the garden.

This year’s Garden Design Luncheon was a roaring sold out success – everyone involved with organizing it did a fabulous job – and I overheard all sorts of buzzing about how wonderful Margaret’s talk was.  For me, the day was extra special:  Not only did I have the honor of walking around Blithewold with Margaret (sadly, the frogs were chilly and anti-social), but I also sat in the fun-seat next to Layanee and her friend Lois at lunch (it was like being at the kid’s table).  Layanee promoted the luncheon on her radio show (The Garden Guys – and Gal), gave away tickets and also took the beautiful portrait of Margaret shown above.  Thank you, Layanee!

In honor of Margaret’s visit, for Garden Bloggers Bloom Day (hosted by Carol at May Dreams Gardens), here are some of mid-November’s gray hairs at Blithewold:

What’s growing old in your garden?

I think I promised an Ode to Maple Trees post during one of my fall color raptures and let me just say again that this has been the most stunning year for fall color that I can remember.  (Granted, I’ve only been back in Rhode Island for 5 years – but still! And everyone is saying it.)  The Japanese maples in particular have outdone themselves and are going through the final act of their strip tease now.  They’ve flung their clothes in great heaps on the ground like untidy teenagers but even though we have a compulsion to clean up after them, it’s a pure pleasure to tramp through their room picking up socks.  I remember as a kid I would scan the ground on the way to school looking for the most beautiful, most perfect, orangest, redest, yellowest leaves and I would gaze at my loot and wish I could own/be/eat the color somehow.  This year I had a bit of that same sensation walking under our maples – at times, with the sun at just the right angle, it was like being inside a tube of paint (Alizarin Crimson) and I wish I could “keep” the color somehow – maybe if I repainted the potting shed …  I’m always a little disappointed to watch intense colors fade but I do also love seeing the musculature of the trees uncloaked and stark raving naked.  More on beautiful nudes in a later post, I’m sure.

Hover over images for caption and click on for larger view

Things are really looking up around here.  I have to say that I still have goosebumps and this weirdly giddy feeling that must be called “hope”.  Rhode Islanders, regardless of a devastatingly stinky economy (did you know that we now have the embarrassing distinction of having the highest unemployment rate in the country?), passed three expensive ballot measures that all look toward what I think must be a brighter future.  (Hope is our state’s motto, by the way and any gardener’s word to live by.)  So don’t let rough roads and bridges keep you from visiting Blithewold – they’ll be fixed and we have even allowed funding for the purchase and protection of open spaces!  And near and dear to my heart, Bristol voters have willingly increased their property taxes to pay for a new animal shelter (all three of my kids used to reside in the current shelter building which is like a festering sore.  Now these two scamps live in my aspidistra.)  It seems to me like a gardener’s mentality has taken hold in the general populace – we gardeners know that we have an active hand in making things grow and thrive and even when we’re at our most cynical, we’re optimistically planning for the future.

Things are looking up here at Blithewold too.  The roofers have arrived with scaffolding and slate and will begin the first phase of a project that will ensure that the house and archives will be protected from rain and snow for another 100 years at least.  The good news for me, selfishly, was the excuse for a panoramic photo op with side order of vertigo.

And there’s so much to look forward to next week when Margaret Roach, famous fellow blogger from A Way to Garden and former editor of Martha Stewart Magazine speaks to us at our annual Garden Design Luncheon.  Again, selfishly, I’m hoping for a photo op and a chance for some heart to heart girl talk about frogs.  It looks like registration for this not-to-be-missed event is filling up so pull up a chair while you still can.  (click here for more info)

Some of what is up must come down:  Nick the Willing shredded the majority of our first fall of leaves yesterday.  The pile pictured is the pathetic looking result of the 2 or so hours of shredding I did earlier in the week.  Nick’s pile is much more impressive and I think we’re well on our way to having enough.  Although, Gail always says “That’s it?  We need MORE!”  And of course she’s right.  Gail and I will use Nick’s leaf pile for mulching all of the Display Garden beds next year and if we’re on the ball, we’ll get some leaves down soon on the paths in the Cutting Garden.  We also spread a leaf and grass mix from the mowers all over Dick’s vegetable bed – he thought it did wonders for the soil last year and was easier to deal with than sowing and tilling winter rye.  In the Rock Garden I spread a thin blanket of pine needles which makes the garden look tucked in for the winter even though we traditionally don’t put that garden “to bed” by cutting things back.  We’ll have to keep an eye on the pH of the soil though since pine needles are especially acidic.

Do you use shredded leaves or pine needles as mulch or do you add your leaves to the compost?  (Don’t tell me you put them out with the trash!  -Some of my neighbors do that and it’s all I can do to not trash pick – I need MORE!  They already think I’m nuts.)

I will also pitch, shred, and rake on election day.  The morning is gloriously warm and delicately sunny but I woke up tense and nervous and am still having trouble relaxing.  I won’t be able to head to my favorite polling station until much later so until then my remedy will be to throw myself heart and soul into the garden.  For anyone else suffering as I am, I would also recommend a long walk away from TVs, computers and radios and towards the sounds of crows and crisp leaves and the scent of cinnamon fern.

We’ve still got gardens to put to bed – the last of the dahlias came out yesterday and we’ll work on taking out more melted annuals from the Display Garden beds today.  Yesterday too, Fred and Dan brought me a beautiful pile of dry leaves – twig and dog poo free! – to shred.  I can think of no better way to clear my mind than to hurl leaves into a noisy shredder.  I know that I won’t be able to really rest easily until I can cast my vote but I hope at least I’ll be too exhausted to still feel the nervous jitters.

What do you still have to do in the garden?  And what will you do to relax today?

Go vote!