Why is it that, on this date every year, time always seems to have flown by? Looking back at calendar entries and scrolling through pictures I can start to recall interminable weeks of rain and quite a few endlessly beautiful and eventful days. But it’s only when I think about all of the changes in the gardens that it really starts to feel like a very full year has passed. To celebrate 2009 here are 9 of my favorite plants that were, in one way or another, new this year (or if you’re reading this tomorrow, they were new last year). In alphabetical order:

Agave americana This plant was not new to us but planting it in the garden was. And despite the excessively rainy start to the summer, it thrived. As a matter of fact, it was so happy planted in the ground that Gail and I had to ask Fred and Dan – two very strong men – to dig it up in October and pot it into the most enormous container they could find. By the looks of the before and after, it must have nearly doubled in size.

Red peacock kale (Brassica) This about as ornamental as a vegetable can get, I think. It stood a good 2′ tall and was covered in blue and purple rosette frills by the end of the season (I wish I had pictures of the whole plant but as you see, the “flowers” were what captivated me.) It was tasty too! And by some miracle, the aphids and cabbage moths didn’t love it as much as I did. Close second in the ornamental veg category was Deadon Hybrid cabbage which would have been even more beautiful if the bunnies, slugs and moths didn’t love it too. Sweet and delicious!

Coreopsis ‘Sienna Sunset’ has that perfect soft orange color that just gets me. And it bloomed from the day we planted it in June until sometime in September or October without ever crying out to be deadheaded as some coreopsis do. (Our volunteers cringe to recall the punishment of  ‘Moonbeam’.) Fingers crossed that it survives the winter…

Dahlia ‘Pale Tiger’ and ‘Teesbrooke Redeye’ Gail and I were both really impressed with the dahlias we bought as cuttings from Corralitos Gardens and if I had to choose favorites, these would be them. (Today anyway. Ask me again tomorrow. ‘Florinoor’ was gorgeous too…)

Echinacea ‘Green Envy’ What can I say? I know this isn’t everyone’s cup of tea but I love love love it!

Gladiolus There’s not much new about glads – they’re about as old-fashioned as you can get. But it’s been a long time since we last used them, and I just loved seeing something come up so fresh and new in the late July heat. Two of the varieties that we planted in the North Garden were ‘Green Jade’ and ‘The Blues’.

Gomphrena ‘Fireworks’ is a seed annual we purchased from Burpee because it was “NEW” and “Unlike any Globe Amaranth ever seen!” And it was, without a doubt, a winner. It grew to about 3 and a half feet, was really nicely branched and chockablock full of blooms all summer. The flowers were an indeterminate shade between pink and purple (difficult to photograph) and studded by yellow-orange tips – very cool.

Rhus typhina ‘Tigereye Bailtiger’ – Tiger eye sumac I’m not sure how I missed this plant when it lived in the nursery bed but it got my full attention this year. Fred and Dan planted it for us on the shady edge of the “kid’s bed” where the foliage stayed a lovely chartruese rather than shifting to the citronella-yellow it wants to be. And then the fall color knocked us over. It might run like sumacs do, but somehow I don’t think it will be hard to find homes for any babies.

Rubus odoratus – Flowering raspberry or eastern thimbleberry This is another plant that wasn’t on my radar at all until a visiting editor from Fine Gardening magazine asked me about it. To find out why I think it’s a great plant, check out the Plant Picks section of the latest issue!

Out with the old? Not always. In with the new? You bet. Happy New Year!!

I am always blown away by the extravagant abundance surrounding the holidays – even when my family makes the annual decision to “go easy this year”. But it occurs to me that I should really feel accustomed to bonanza. Whether we gardeners grow plants for their flowers, foliage or food, we  are daily blessed by an embarrassment of riches – one I am never the least bit discomfited by.

Like many of you, I am taking a little time at the turn of the year – and the decade – to organize pictures and take a reassessing look back at the whole season. In a series of New Year posts I’ll list a Top Nine plants for 2009. I might even do a Top Ten for the whole decade (with Gail’s help) in order to list a few plants that have really stood the test. And unless I get distracted by other shiny topics, I’ll take a good look at whatever didn’t work so well in the gardens too. In the meantime though, while I do some more sorting, here is a year in pictures of extravagant abundance from all over Blithewold (in order from January to December, 2009):

Gail and I want to thank everyone who helped make these gardens and grounds so richly abundant and beautiful this year. Some of you know who you are – Fred and Dan, Lilah and Cathy, Julie, everyone in the house, all of the volunteers. Blithewold members, supporters and visitors, we couldn’t do it without any of you either. (And what would be the point?) Thanks go also to Blithewold’s virtual visitors. – I couldn’t write this without you. (Fellow bloggers, I have recently updated my blogroll – if you’re not on it and would like to be, please let me know.)

Are you reveling in or reviewing a year’s worth of your garden’s abundance too? If you have posted pictures, please send along a link!

This weekend’s blizzard dropped an immeasurable foot or two of snow at Blithewold and sculpted it in great drifts and wavelets. No need for dreaming (though the song is spinning endlessly in my head) because we’ve got the real deal – more white stuff than we’ve had all at once in a while and it looks like it will stick around for the week. With any luck, Christmas will be just like the ones we used to know.

And the darkest day is so brilliantly bright! Today the sun stands still before it begins it’s optimistic climb back north to June. You probably already know that this is my favorite holiday – or second favorite anyway, after Groundhog’s Day. I always like to think that the shift away from the shortest day will be immediately noticeable even if the coldest day is still a month or two away. (-Relatively warm ocean temperatures traditionally keep any day in December from being the very coldest – although with this wind, it feels like it’s right down there.) So I’m wearing my sunglasses and celebrating the solstice: I’m listening to the carols of ice sliding off the greenhouse panes; I’ve looked for tracks in the snow; and I’m going to wrap my mind around the toasty-warm promises of spring and summer. How do you celebrate the solstice?

Happy Holidays everyone!

Before doing anything that takes significant creative energy it usually feels very important all of a sudden to make sure that the closets are clean and the dishes have been done. That’s my preferred procrastination technique anyway and I know I’m not alone. (Though given the state of my own closets and the perennial sink-full of dishes, I think my ability to resist the muse must have many complex layers.) But Gail and I have important garden design work ahead of us and because we absolutely must be able to hear the muse when she speaks, this week Gail set to quieting the noise of the mess in the pumphouse.

The pumphouse (so called because it houses the pump for the well) is our tool shed and growing season catch-all, full of left-hand gloves, empty cans of string, stakes, dirty kneelers and squares of burlap – just to name a few of the items one can plainly see through the open door. In the latest issue of Gardens Illustrated, Frank Ronan wrote an essay about garden sheds – he describes them as places that are generally off limits to visitors where the behind-the-scenes machinery that makes the garden grow is stored out of sight. You can have a garden without trees, he says but not without a shed. I’m sure that’s true in a way – in order to really garden, one must have things like loppers, mowers, spades and rakes and they must be kept somewhere within reach but out of the reach of the elements so that they don’t become useless lumps of crusty rust. The shed itself is a necessary tool whether it takes up a wall in the garage or the bulkhead stairs. Of course, the quintessential garden tool shed is a separate little outbuilding tucked into a dark corner of the garden.

Ours is dead central within the Display Garden and an integral part of the visitors’ experience of the garden, whether the door is open or not. When the door is open, our behind-the-scenes hard work is visible and I have to say that I’m not really bothered by that even when it looks a little cluttered. Spades and digging forks and bags of fertilizer and muddy footprints are irrefutable evidence that the garden didn’t just grow out of a puff of fairy dust and elf spit. (I’d much rather that we and the volunteers get the credit.) But over the course of the season, the usefulness of the shed degrades as the clutter becomes more congested.

We’re lucky to have such an attractive tool shed; so lucky that it was recently restored with fresh paint and a gorgeous new roof; and lucky that Gail had the energy and drive to make it tidy and spacious again. And because it’s so well organized now, I like to think that it will be much easier to keep it that way.

Where do you store your garden tools? Are you able to keep everything organized and tidy throughout the season or is it still a mess? (My own shed is a windowless prefab shack with so much stuff on the floor, I can’t walk in without tripping. Maybe I’ll work on organizing it the next time I have the urge to paint…)

Mid-December blooms shouldn’t be easy to come by. I’m actually pleased to report that the kniphofias have finally fallen and as you can see the astrantia, sturdy old thing, is looking a little on the done side finally. But I can hardly believe that I found a dianthus in the just-past bloom stage in the Rock Garden. I refuse to show its picture even if it is Garden Bloggers Bloom Day (visit Carol at May Dreams Gardens to see what’s in bloom around the world). I’m even disinclined to show our greenhouse beauties although the Ponderosa lemon is just getting going and the enormous Impatiens sodenii is quite spectacular. I’d much rather scout around for bloom-ish sorts of things, and things that maybe once were blooms, and things that resemble blooms, and things I might not have thought to notice if there were other things actually in bloom.

So without further ado, Mid-December (not) blooms:

(hover over for captions and click on for a larger view.)

And because they are so pretty and I just can’t help myself, here are pictures of the lemon’s flowers and the impatiens too.

What’s (not) blooming in your garden?