I promised a post on the decade’s best plants and after making an enormous list with Gail’s help, realized that it was too hard to narrow down our favorites to a mere ten. So, because our favorite perennials and shrubs are essentially permanent fixtures in the gardens (if I haven’t talked about them all already, you can be sure I will), and we’re heading into full-on propagation season, I thought it would be much better to give you a list of plants that we actively choose to grow every year. Below is a probably very familiar looking gallery of 10 of our favorite seed annuals and tender perennials that will follow us into the decade. Gail and I can’t imagine the gardens without them. (I know I’ve already talked about a lot of these guys too so I’ll try to be brief…)

5 favorite seed annuals: Nicotiana (sylvestris, mutabilis, ‘Tinkerbell’, ‘Lime Green’…) I love them all and don’t mind doing a little editing whenever they seed themselves around. Asclepias physocarpa ‘Oscar’ (a.k.a. Gomphocarpus physocarpus ‘Hairy Balls’ – Swan plant) I’ve already gone on and on about this one – sturdy, 6′ tall with delicate flowers and weird puff ball seed pods. Pennisetum ruppelianum a.k.a. Pennisetum setaceum – Fountain grass – we love it because it’s a good looking grass that grows into a large graceful clump by August. Gomphrena - globe amaranth. I heart polka-dots and these are just the best cut flower. Zinnia. No garden should be without zinnias. They’re too easy (7 weeks from seed to bloom) and too beautiful. We especially love the Benary series (for tall) and Profusion (for short).

5 favorite tender perennials: Stachytarpheta - Porterweed. On a fast-growing to 3′ plant, inconspicuous flowers climb a green stem spike. Weird = love. Plectranthus fruticosus – we grow it for matte green foliage with purple undersides and love it for the very late (Sept/Oct) luminescent flowers. African blue basil – you already know why I love this plant – scent + bee-magnet blooms + vigor = love. Salvia guaranitica – It’s Gail’s and the hummingbirds’ very favorite and I’m sorry I didn’t take a decent picture of it this year! And Cupheas, which are also high on Gail’s list. – We’ll take any we can get our paws on but especially love ‘David Verity’ because it’s never not blooming.

What annuals and tender perennials can’t your garden grow without?

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!

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…)

As a New Englander I can be pretty certain that the garden will be hit by a frost … sometime … and over the course of the fall, we coastal New Englanders can reasonably expect high tides, rain, big winds, Indian summer and even snow. But I wouldn’t have guessed that we’d have all of that within one December week. The fall has dragged on so interminably mildly that I’ve heard stories of Star Magnolias opening up (ours is still closed, thank goodness) and many annuals left to their own devices have continued to bloom like it’s their job and a few perennials have started working again. Even the roses haven’t been saved by the bell. (Fred and Dan lament that the roses are stealing their Rose Garden light-show – shown above, unlit. The roses enhance the show, says me, but it must also be said that Rosa ‘Champlain’ is working very hard to earn everyone’s undivided attention.)

Last Thursday dawned with a windy deluge, (not so) perfectly timed with high moon tide and once again (see last year’s pictures here) the Rock Garden became an island and yards of shore were swallowed by the bay.  And when the sun came out later that day, the balmy tropics blew in with it. Does anybody recall it ever being 65 shirt-sleeve degrees in December before?

And then Saturday night it snowed. I’d expect a heavy, wet, bone-chilling snow to qualify as a killing frost but it looks to me like some of our plants need further convincing. Hit or not, snow equals winter in my book – as does the month of December – and I’m chagrined to confess that, at home, even with plenty of time over a long and temperate fall, I was still caught with a few bulbs unplanted. Please tell me you’ve planted bulbs in the snow too! (I believe everyone should have that story to tell. –That must be why I waited.)

It is generally acknowledged that the difference between being temporarily pretty and eternally beautiful has something to do with bone structure. Like our own skin, which may or may not be wrapped around a Katherine Hepburn-esque skeleton, our garden hangs on its bones too. But although no plastic surgeon is truly capable of changing those of us unlikely to age gracefully, I think it is possible for everyone to have a garden every bit as timelessly handsome as, say, Gregory Peck. All we need, aside from a plan, is … time. Plus patience. (Isn’t it interesting that, when it comes to standards of beauty in a garden, age is usually a benefit rather than a liability?)

It’s easy to recognize an eternally beautiful garden. During the height of a colorful summer, you might not even be aware of why it’s so beautiful. But over the winter it hits you that the garden is every bit as stunning, stark-raving naked. Some properties (like Blithewold) are sublimely situated and while, like the curl in one’s hair, that’s definitely part of beauty, it’s not the be-all and end-all. What the garden really needs is structure within its perimeter and view to keep it from being as boneless and boring as our cutting bed in winter. It needs permanent elements – trees with muscles, rocks maybe, buildings (most of us have a house in the middle of our garden if not a garage and sheds too), and some might say to include a water feature – anything worth looking at even after the summer’s skin is shed. And those features should fit the scale of the garden’s face like expressive eyebrows and chiseled cheeks.

The last leaves haven’t even fallen yet but I’m already jazzed to think about Gregory Peck – I mean the gardens’ bone structure. The Display Garden still has a ways to go before it’s truly handsome in its own right but now it’s much easier to see what it needs. — My own garden at home cries out for eternal beauty too and there is where my patience will be truly tested: Good bones take such a long time to build.

Does your garden have good bone structure? Do you have plan(t)s to improve it?

I think I probably speak for most gardeners in four-season climates when I say we don’t really mind if our first, second and even third favorite season lingers a bit longer than usual. It gives us a chance to remember to revel in the change and pace ourselves as we complete the season’s tasks. I also think a late start to the next season makes us all the more ready for it and I would go so far as to say that a late start might bump the coming season up in my estimation – even if my least favorite season is up next. (Generally speaking, the season I’m in is always my current personal favorite but Gail might tell you I shiver more and complain of cold hands during the winter.)

As we head full-steam into late November I’m thrilled over the idea of Thanksgiving roses but I’m also starting to feel a little disconnected from the calendar. It doesn’t quite jive that there are dahlias still blooming outside and Christmas decorations up already inside. (The mansion is very nearly fully decked out for the holidays – the garden volunteers trimmed the big tree yesterday!) But I suppose that kind of juxtaposition isn’t at all weird for gardeners with a longer growing season. Do you – or would you – prefer colorfully blooming summer-like winter holidays?

In honor of Garden Bloggers Bloom Day, better late than never, here are some of Blithewold’s better-late blooms. Although frosts have been only patchy so far, I think we’ll go back to the calendar today and finish putting the dahlias to bed. As sweet as a lingering fall is, it’s time for us to get inside.

I know I’d be complaining bitterly right now if we had had a frost or (heaven forbid) a snow but it would be so much easier to let go of the gardens if they looked melted and awful. The title I chose for this post is misleading – I can’t begin to tell you how to let go because I’m having the hardest time this year. Truth be told, I think I have this very same challenge – Gail might call it a mental toughness test -  every year. And to make matters worse, Gail and I both weaken when the other starts to slip. Gail might come in blazing, “It’s all coming out! It’s time!” but if she catches me looking wistful, her resolve turns to mush. I’m every bit as soft even when I think I’ve finally steeled myself. (You can tell by how the greenhouse is filling up with 2 of each plant I claimed we didn’t need… It’s like Noah’s ark in here.)

But we’ve got this window – this beautiful week – and while nearly every cell in our bodies cries out that the gardens look beautiful and should remain so for visitors’ sakes, we also know down to our bones that next week could be too awful in some rainy miserable way to do a lot of work outside. We’ve got to let go.

With every sad ending we can only hope for a sweet joy to make it feel worthwhile. It definitely helps that as we and the volunteers (all of us cringing) take out still-blooming annuals and start cutting back perennials, we’re making way for the tulips to go in. (But of course we must wait, if we possibly can, for a killing frost before taking out the dahlias…)

Are you having trouble letting go too or has the weather made it any easier on you?

It’s a big day in the blogosphere. Not only is the fifteenth of every month Garden Bloggers Bloom Day but the fifteenth of October also happens to be Blog Action Day. Thousands of bloggers around the world are chiming in about climate change and by all accounts it’s a huge success (even though my post isn’t published yet) – which must mean we’re on our way to reversing the global warming trend.

My favorite bumpersticker (from a local wholesale nursery who prefer to remain incognito) says it all. “Increase Your Oxygen Footprint – Plant the Cosmos!!” Gardeners certainly don’t need to be told twice to plant plants. Check out this fascinating post over at Garden Rant for part one of the nitty-gritty science on your garden’s carbon footprint. All I’ll say (and I could say a lot but hope to spare you a sermon) is that I like to remember that it’s the small everyday decisions that bring change – and haven’t we already learned that the hard way. I know gardeners will keep planting. Keep composting. Keep buying locally (-and that includes patronizing your local nurseries who in turn patronize the local growers. We know that box store prices are much costlier than they appear). And think of all of the ways we can make our garden be more sustainable: We can plant native species – or simply the right plant in the right spot; replace lawns with garden beds; make compost; choose organic fertilizers – or our own compost tea; capture rain in barrels and cisterns; just say No to pesticides… What have I missed? – Please add to the list! All of the little decisions we make add up, you’d better believe it. Amen.

Now please open your hymnals to page 10-15-09 (where we haven’t had frost yet but we have managed to meet our mostly-moved-into-the-greenhouse-by-October-15th deadline!). As always, thanks go to Carol from May Dreams Gardens for hosting bloom day.

Mouse over for captions and click on for a larger view.

It’s certainly not over (there’s truly no such thing as over in the garden – slowed down maybe; hushed a little; moved inside, perhaps) but the blustery winds of change have made the seasonal shift much more perceptible in the last couple of days. Gusty October gales have scattered the first major leaf drop and flipped up the skirts of late bloomers in the gardens making everyone look a little wild and disheveled as if they all stayed up too late and really need their beauty sleep now.

In one way our season at Blithewold is coming to an end. After this weekend, the mansion will be closed until the day after Thanksgiving (when it reopens transformed). The grounds remain open all year but we take the house closing as our cue to get into the gardens to dig up, divide, reorganize and plant bulbs. If you haven’t been by lately and want to see how the colorful the gardens still are – just before they are put to bed, don’t let this weekend blow by.

It’s amazing to me – I could say I’m blown away about how the palette of colors in the garden and greater landscape really changes in the fall. If spring is generally pastel-y and summer is electric Technicolor, fall is definitely deep earth tones, 70’s style. Even the colors of everything still blooming in the garden, dahlias and roses particularly, intensify in a way that works with the fall palette of oranges, avocado greens, maroon browns and mustard yellows and help to keep it all up to date. And the chrysanthemums, like ‘Sheffield Pink’, ‘Clara Curtis’ and the mystery burgundy one in the North Garden, that are just beginning to come into bloom jive perfectly too.

There’s something mysterious and beautiful about the angle of light. The angle itself is similar to spring but the feeling of it is so different maybe because of deeper shadows of lush foliage – spring light is bare and wide open. Gail and I were talking the other day about the seasons and she determined that I am definitely a spring person. I’m full of energy and go into raptures about a single unfurling leaf and the color chartreuse just gets me. She on the other hand loves autumn the best partly because of the abundance of blooms and the satisfaction of seeing the spring’s hard work truly fruitful. I can totally follow that. I know she’s right about me and spring but I want to call fall my favorite too.

Have you been blown away yet this fall?

Bonus question: Do you have a guess on the identity of the burgundy chrysanthemum pictured above, left? (We think it might have been planted in the North Garden by a bride looking for late season color a few years back and it’s grown into a handsome clump that’s just perfect in the North Garden!)