May is one of those idyllic months ranking right up there with September but, to make an inevitable play on words, there’s nothing idle about it. We are kept constantly on the move trying to stay a step ahead of the weeds (impossible) and on track with the planting (2 cart loads per day). The plants are almost alarmingly hasty in their growth and apparently I forget the sequence of events from one May to the next. I was a little shocked to see the Dove tree in bloom – and isn’t it early for the Father Hugo’s rose? It isn’t. They’re right on schedule. I’m glad that May still takes me by surprise and keeps me on my toes – I think that must be what makes it one of the most anticipated months of the year. In honor of Garden Bloggers Bloom Day in the middle of this, our host Carol’s (from May Dreams Gardens) favorite month, here’s a selection of Blithewold’s blooms (and one bud).

Hover over for captions and click on for larger image. Open your scratch-n-sniff application to view the daphne.

What have you been surprised by this month?

One of the most frequently asked questions lately is “what is that pretty groundcover that’s … everywhere?” Some people seem to ask the question with the “I want that” eye twinkle. (You don’t really want it.) Others appear to cringe as if they’re afraid to know the answer. (Be afraid. Be very afraid.) Goutweed (Aegopodium podagraria) is a scourge and a plague on all our houses – if we have been unlucky enough to inherit it. Bishop’s weed was introduced in this country by early European settlers as an ornamental groundcover and quickly established itself as a weedy invasive capable of out-competing our natives. (It is described only as “weedy” on RI Natural History Survey Invasives List because it hasn’t escaped cultivated areas here. Yet. It is listed as an invasive on Connecticut’s Invasive Plants List.)

It is pretty, no doubt about that and some nurseries actually sell an even more attractive variegated variety (Aegopodium podagraria ‘Variegatum’) – which, like many variegateds may be slightly slower to establish but may also at any time revert to plain green and perform a hostile takeover of your garden and the neighboring woods. In the AHS A-Z Encyclopedia the plant size is listed as 12-24″ x indefinite. That kind of says it all.

Goutweed is blanketed throughout Blithewold, particularly in the Bosquet and continually inserts itself in the gardens where we declare War. When the Idea Beds in the Display Garden were first designed (before my time – and before our current redesign of that garden) the beds spent an entire growing season beneath heavy black plastic before anything could be planted. The North Garden was entirely un-planted and replanted (also before my time) to remove the weed from infested perennials and volunteers combed roots out of the beds. And still it emerges where it isn’t welcome. The roots, bright white and as easily recognizable as the equally obnoxious bright orange bittersweet, break with the merest tug and resprout. For that reason it is uncompostable and evicted from the property.

Fred (dir. of hort.) and Dan have been waging their own war with the goutweed. Each summer they weedwhack it all before it can set seed – the flowers are pretty little white lace flower umbels – and wherever they’ve been able to beat back the goutweed, they plant creeping myrtle a.k.a. periwinkle (Vinca minor) and other less aggressive groundcovers, like this patch of native creeping phlox (Phlox stolonifera) and foam flower (Tiarella cordifolia) behind the summerhouse.

Groundcovers are generally thuggish by nature – we want them to be to a certain extent – and goutweed is certainly not the worst of what can be found infesting the property – we’ve got English ivy and lily-of-the-valley too. And we all have different demons. I could tolerate the spread of creeping phlox for instance, and others I know abhor it as a menace. Do you have goutweed in your garden? Are you plagued by it or something else? How do you manage your overtakers?

I’m not sure I should admit to how much time I spend thinking about my own garden while I’m working in this one. I can’t help but distractedly eyeball all of the plants that I want for myself. Why is that? I’m surrounded by thousands of beautiful plants here at work – why do I have the burning desire to have so many of them at home too? I guess gardening must be more obsession than profession – probably people in other lines of work are more able to separate themselves from it when they go home. (Booksellers might have a tough time too, come to think of it…)

But then it can hardly be helped – what is a public garden for, if not to bring home ideas? Right now Viburnum carlesii (Koreanspice bush also known as Mayflower viburnum) is at the top of the list of plants on the property for which I would pay full price. Michael Dirr, in his Manual of Woody Landscape Plants says, “A garden without a viburnum is akin to life without music and art.” – so obviously my garden shouldn’t go another day without one.  Dirr does imply in Viburnums: Flowering Shrubs for Every Season that the Koreanspice is rather pedestrian as viburnums go. But with such a perfume, who wouldn’t want one of their very own?  The shrubs are also pleasingly rounded, dense and typically 4-8′ tall – ours are in the 6-8′ range. They can take sun or shade (I imagine they are more floriferous in the sun) and a range of soil conditions – excepting wet according to Dirr. They are hardy from USDA zones 4-8ish. A couple of years ago we planted V. carlesii ‘Compactum’ in the Rose Garden and that’s the one for me. Not only is it a dwarf that grows only to 3-4′ but it was introduced by my great-grandfather’s friends and colleagues at Hoogendoorn Nurseries in Middletown, RI back in 1953.

Anne Raver, mentions Koreanspice bush in this NY Times article about attracting pollinators.  She noticed that as delicious as the scent is to us, her bee population was not as hungry for it. I feel strongly, like she does, about planting natives – which are generally more attractive to our wildlife – and so my plan is, for every exotic I plant in my garden, I’ll plant two natives. How’s that for justifying some serious plant shopping this weekend?

Do thoughts about your garden distract you while you’re at work? What’s at the top of your full-price wishlist right now?

“There is of course no such thing as a green thumb. Gardening is a vocation like any other – a calling, if you like, but not a gift from heaven.”                                            – Eleanor Perenyi (1918-2009)