According to legend, the Rock Garden was Bessie Van Wickle McKee’s favorite place on the property and it’s easy to see why, especially this time of year. But it is a very different garden than when she was alive. Like any garden will, it has changed over the years. By the looks of some of the earliest pictures of it in the archives, she planted a rock garden – emphasis on the rocks – and it looks like it was out in the open, in full-full sun. But Bessie was an enthusiastic plantswoman. Using Louise Beebe Wilder’s Adventures in My Garden and Rock Garden as a reference, Bessie planted a lot more than rocks as time went on. Later pictures show a growing garden with a woodland wildflower feel – with rock paths around good-sized shrubs and under shady trees.

Today’s Rock Garden is one of our best challenges. The amount of sun that reaches it is one part of the puzzle. At least 75% of the garden is shaded at least partially – although since a large English oak was removed recently, some of the shadiest bits are suddenly seeing the sun. And we worry over drainage issues. The whole garden becomes an island in a flood tide – it is located in one of the lowest portions of the property, a stone’s throw from the bay. Most of the garden is wet through the winter and spring but even the soggiest parts of it can bake dry in the summer. It has the potential to be not just one kind of rock garden, but every kind – from mountaintop skree to woodland wildflower showcase to watery bog.

But whatever kind(s) of rock garden it is, scale of it is one of its most important aesthetic considerations – not only because rock gardens typically hold diminutive specimen but also because of the view through the garden’s keyholes. From here Bristol harbor looks like a miniature diorama inside a Fabergé egg. So we’re focusing on making changes that will keep the garden in scale, sweet and low and delicately ornate. This week, with the Rockettes’ help, Gail and I moved some larger scale plants like geranium and heuchera from front-and-center spots to make way for tiny lovelies such as Saxifraga dactiloides and alpine poppies and more campanulas. We’ve added sand to some of the planting pockets to sharpen drainage and a little lime for the saxifrages in hopes of tricking them into thinking they’re at home among the rocks.

As we stand back and look at our work we can tell that we’re not finished adding and editing – for this year, or maybe ever. But we can hope that Bessie and our visitors might approve of the recent changes. I wonder what Bessie’s opinion on metal labels and plants with yellow foliage might have been… (Most of that is Spirea japonica ‘Golden Elf’.) What’s your opinion?

It’s easy to see why people have gone crazy for these flowers. One visitor this week commented with amazement in his voice about the variety of colors available in this one flower. It’s true – they come in almost every color – all but the truest of blues. In that way they’re a little like roses. But roses, when they’re healthy and happy, come back the same every year and for better or worse, we’re stuck with our choices. Tulips give us a built in excuse to be fickle because aside from the species tulips, most bulbs weaken over time and quit flowering. We try new ones every year and can’t keep up with the breeders’ variety.

This year we were lucky: they weren’t grazed by the deer. We sprayed almost weekly as soon as the leaves emerged with concoctions of “Oh no Deer Repellent”, “Deer-Off” and “Deer Stopper” – all commercially available and all a little stinky. (“Deer-Off” was the only one that smelled revolting to me and “Oh No” smelled deliciously like Big Red gum.) Not only did all the tulips bloom but they’ve almost all bloomed at once – that’s a rare sight since they’re bred not only for color, size and shape but bloom time. The late ones opened right along with the early ones this month and as luck would have it, they’re all hanging on despite rain squalls, wind and sun. Fingers crossed for the weekend and into next week…

I have more favorites this year than I usually do. (That’s not true – I always have a long list.) In the Rose Garden I can’t help but love ‘Rococco’ and ‘Snow Parrot’ (shown in an earlier post) because they’re so over the top fancy-pants. But it’s little Tulipa clusiana ‘Lady Jane’ that really takes my breath away.

In the North Garden, I’m thrilled with the whole show. We chose ‘Amazone’, an orange with a green flare; ‘Jackpot’, the longest lasting tulip ever, based on last year’s trial in the cutting garden – I love how the white edge really makes it show up; and ‘Pimpernel’, a raspberry red lily flower. The whole garden glows.

My faves in the Cutting Garden are ‘Viri Chic’, and ‘Green Wave’ even though it hasn’t opened yet. We’re all enjoying ‘Big Chief’ (shown in the foreground and at the visitor’s fingertips in the top picture). We had it in the Rose Garden last year and I think it is even bigger this year (same bulbs, replanted).

Do you have favorites this year? How often do you plant new tulips?

… and you never know what you might find. If I had to give a reason for why I garden it would have to be because of the new growth on plants. I’m much more fascinated by a baby leaf than almost any bloom. So, this morning to start my week off right, rather than scout for flowers – which I feel like I’ve been doing a lot of lately just to keep up – I focused on the emerging leaves instead. And because there’s poetry in nature, it was a flower that made my day.

I have never seen the dove tree (Davidia involucrata) flower in its infancy before – probably because the tree only goes on my radar when the ghostly pale flower bracts drape the tree in an un-miss-able display around the middle to late May (earlier this year if I had to guess). Now that I know that the bracts around the flowers emerge green and wrinkled with the leaves, I will pay close attention early again next year.

For those of you who are still on the lookout for daffodils, they may be going by but are still putting on a gorgeous show. And besides all of the flowers on the property there’s so much more to see – especially if you turn over some new leaves.