Positive visualization is a skill we gardeners get a lot of practice in. I think for any of us, whether we’re planting one or two things or designing beds, visualization goes way beyond garden-variety optimism to a creative knack for soothsaying. We totally have ESP. Gail, Lilah and I placed “the big empty” yesterday for the volunteers to help plant today and we talked about how we can actually see in our minds’ eyes what it will look like in August. Never mind that the plants that will grow the tallest, widest, burliest are the wee-est, spindliest specks now. We can see them in their ginormous glory.

I have heard that there are people in the world willing to pay an arm and a leg for an instant garden – and I freely admit to having a gracious plenty of impatience for a gardener – but would gardening be as gratifying if there wasn’t a process from dream to fruition? In any case, for us this was a really exciting part of the process. It’s one thing to have the plants on lists of paper and randomly scattered throughout the greenhouse and quite another to see how they’re all going to fit together in a big showy – soon to be purple-centric – bed. And if there are surprises and changes along the way, so much the better. (The gardener’s mind’s eye must always allow for some unpredictability.) I know I’ll talk more about our lavender/purple experiment as the garden grows but I can tell already (because I can read the future) that I’m going to love it.

We can see the future too in caterpillars munching on their favorite butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa) and we can predict that Fred and Dan’s new creation in the container garden will be one of the visitors’ favorite spots. Lilah has dubbed it “The Tanning Bench”.

Do you foresee your garden’s glory as you design and plant it?

One morning, as Gregor Samsa was waking up from anxious dreams, he discovered that in bed he had been changed into a monstrous verminous bug. -Franz Kafka

The Japanese beetles arrived last week and as Lilah and I were on patrol yesterday armed with cans of soapy water, she started reciting The Metamorphosis. (Cheeky girl.) We proceeded to have a showdown to see who could capture the most beetles. – I think it was a draw…

As gardeners we live and work amongst all walks (and flies and crawls) of life and as conscientious gardeners I think we do our best to do no harm. As Gail tells her kids, “we don’t hurt nature”. But then there’s things like aphids and Japanese beetles and white flies and scale and I seem to have no compunction at all about squarshing them. But we ought to practice at least basic integrated pest management. The more diverse the wildlife population is in the garden, the healthier and more balanced the garden is. It’s worth encouraging (just by not discouraging) natural predators – like ladybugs who eat aphids and praying mantises who eat everything (including fellow mantises). And as for the Japanese beetles whose only real predator is Lilah, we have tried dosing the grubs with Milky Spore Disease which is harmful to nothing else. — I think it might be working too. Dan treated the lawns two falls ago and so far this year (knock wood) the beetle population seems ever so slightly diminished. I’ve heard other theories that last year’s drought did them in. Are any of you seeing fewer this year than last?

Over the last few years I have learned to love and be less skeeved out by the creepy crawlies in the garden – even the giant spider web I walked into headfirst this morning didn’t set me shrieking. The more I’m around these guys, the more fascinated I become. It helps that I work with Gail who I think is an entomologist in a parallel universe. I can’t be too neurotically phobic when she’s saying “Wow! Look at this one!” She has an amazing box full of bugs and it is extra special for being a no-kill collection. It takes dedication and an extra keen eye to find the bugs that are already dead!

I’m content to watch the live ones. How do you feel about the wildlife in your garden?

This week we’ve had cool nights, a little rain, and no frost yet but the garden is just beginning to have a tattered Fall fading Miss Havesham Raggedy Annie sort of look to it. I’ve always had a soft spot for those characters and I am as facinated with the coming apart at the seams Fall as I am with the fresh flush of Spring baby growth. I spent days watching this fellow (left) – a monarch who has obviously been around the block and has lived as fully as flutterbyly possible. Right near where it was anchored, a butterfly’s worth of wings were on the ground looking for all the world like there had been a bar brawl. Gail watched our guy gimp off flying out of reach yesterday. (Amazing that it could still get loft with all those holes!)

The excuse of rain gave volunteers their first days off in a while and kept us in the greenhouse. I finally potted up some things that have been making me cringe all summer. The Container Bed was short shrifted this year because of other garden projects. We didn’t buy any new special specimens and potting-up the ones we already have was not a priority (can there be more than one priority?) and was so far down the list of things to do that it just didn’t happen. Now though, I’m putting potting-up at the top of the list (priority number 2 or 3 at least)! This Agave americana ‘Mediopicta Alba’ was heaving itself out of its pot (like this bromeliad had) and you can see why – the roots had nowhere to go but up and the babies were hurling themselves up and out. Mother and children should be happier and healthier now.

I love and covet things like Agaves but have a slightly conflicted feeling about keeping them even in a greenhouse. Are potted plants like caged animals? Do they long to run free? When I see pictures of Agaves in their preferred environment I think “yeah – that’s a happy plant!” But then I want it and the cycle of guilt and plant torture continues… I know there are some gardeners out there (who are you? – speak up!) who won’t keep plants indoors. As conflicted as I am sometimes, the pleasure I take in green growing around me (especially in the winter) outweighs the guilt and I know I will always bring the garden in.

And speaking of gardening in – Gail and I are teaching a terrarium class tomorrow and that, I think, is one of the best kinds of indoor gardens. It’s self-contained, pretty self-sufficient and the plants seem to not think it’s torture – actually any diminutive plant that likes a warm, moist environment thrives on jarred benign neglect – now that’s my kind of garden!

I plan to post about jar garden how-tos next week (the class is full) but first stay tuned on Monday for Blog Action Day (thousands of bloggers around the world -plus me- will be writing about the environment) and Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day.

I can’t imagine being the kind of person who already knows it all. I spend almost every moment trying to catch up – if I’m not finding something new to know, I’m quizzing myself on what I thought I knew and being schooled again on what I’ve already forgotten. I opened my eyes in the Rock Garden this morning and saw Toad lilies (Tricyrtis hirta) that I don’t ever remember noticing there before. As a matter of fact, I read a post about them recently (can’t remember where … whoever wrote it, please send a comment and I’ll plant a link! -click here and here) and I thought (or maybe even said in a comment?) “I wonder why we don’t we have those? – Gotta put them on the list…” A new (old?) path has opened up in my brain!

And how could I forget Thistle (Onopordum acanthium) – an outstanding biennial - in the Idea Beds? (oops! Gail took one look and said “but it’s not a thistle! – It’s an artichoke.” duh. !) It took a monarch to remind me.

Speaking of biennials (plants which grow leafy the first season then bloom, set seed and die in their second season), I’ve learned a good trick for more-blooms-no-waiting. We appropriated some foxglove (Digitalis purpurea) seedlings to flower in the North Garden and Cutting Garden next year: In July we sowed seeds from the Dry Shade Bed foxglove and dug seedlings from around other mother plants by the Summer House. We grew the babies on in the greenhouse and planted most of them out in the Cutting Garden yesterday. Gail chose Cutting Garden beds with good winter drainage and we’ll move any survivors from there into new locations next spring. We’ll also plant some in the North Garden in a few weeks when we remove and divide some of the Phlox. With any luck we’ll have flowers and new biennial banks to draw from next year.

Diane, one of the Florabundas, is learning something new today too. DJ Garrity, Mt. Rushmore artist in residence, is teaching Diane and a few others how to carve stone. Over the next couple of days Diane will release the person she sees inside her block of marble (Move over Rodin!).

And what did you learn today? (By any chance, have you learned what this vining weed is??)

At the end of August I swivelled around the garden trying madly to take pictures of all the dozens of hummingbirds. Two weeks later it’s the monarchs distracting me from my work. They’re like a pure fall color concentrate or tiny drunk polka-dot fairies – completely captivating either way. (speaking of fairies – something tells me they’re going to be busy this weekend…)

So in honor of Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day (a day early to the party) here’s what’s blooming with a particular focus (and soft focus) on what the monarchs like.

When I could drag myself away from the butterflies, I found Autumn crocus (Colchicum) at the Bosquet entrance,

Begonia grandis in the Rock Garden,

Seven-son flower (Heptacodium miconioides) near the wedding tent,

and on the Cutting Garden fence, Clematis ‘Roguchi’ is still blooming – I think it should get the “employee of the year” award for being super productive (it will take a vacation finally come winter), efficient (the plant blooms away without growing out of bounds), and for having a terrific attention to detail (just look at that beautiful blue!).

(hover over pictures for names/titles and click on for larger images)