I used to really enjoy the challenge of staking top-heavy plants in such a way that their crutches were as invisible as possible but this year, maybe because the ground is dry enough to make shoving bamboo poles in nearly impossible, I’m kind of over it. I’ve discovered (or maybe rediscovered) an appreciation for plants that still look good when they slouch like lazy teenagers. Some of them, like yarrow have a way of leaning on their neighbors that, from some angles (perhaps not this one – below), doesn’t look like they’re a great crushing weight. I’m also kind of in love with plants that don’t have what I think it was Anna Pavord called “weak ankles.” Agastache ‘Black Adder’ and Stachys officinalis ‘Hummelo’ might be my favorite regimental soldiers ever. And if I can get away with not staking — by cutting something back instead, I will. Any Gaura lindheimeri or nicotiana that flops in the way of the mower is getting offed. No more propping.

We missed our chance to put peony hoops around the Veronica longifolia in the North Garden so each clump splayed open and leaned like drunks all over the back and middle row. Usually we carefully deadhead that one to prolong its lovely blue spikiness but I’ve taken to whacking most of the stems back to a foot or two in hopes that it will shape up for a sturdier show later. Perhaps next year we’ll add it to the list of plants that need to be lopped in late-spring early summer. I’m all for a slightly later bloom especially if the Coreopsis x ‘Full Moon’ never looked like this again. We did remember to cut back Rudbeckia ‘Henry Eilers’ and Boltonia ‘Nally’s Lime Dot’ and although they’re both already about 5′ tall, at least it doesn’t look like they’re about to fall over. Last year I constructed a web of stakes for the great burnet (Sanguisorba tenuifolia) and this year we smartly moved it back to lean against a fence again, this time in the Cutting Garden.

So that just leaves the biggies that can’t be encouraged to branch in early summer or cut back now without tremendous sacrifice. I don’t mind if the cardoon lean a little bit but they could fall like trees in a gale. Dahlias too are so brittle that if they flop, they’re down for good, like it or lump it. Sometimes I don’t mind if they fall over because their flowers always manage to face forward but when we’ve planned for their bright shiny faces to show up in the back of a border, they’ve got to stand up straight and that means tying them up to a stake long before the wind blows. And we’re still using concrete reinforcing mesh in the Cutting Garden to hold up zinnias and amaranth and anything else that might topple under its own weight. We lay the grids down on the beds before planting, using the openings as planting guides, and then raise the grids up to provide support as the plants grow. (We really should raise them up early to let the plants grow through them but — call me crazy — I don’t like it when the garden looks like it’s wearing its foundation garments on the outside.)

How and what do you stake – and what do you do to avoid staking?

I’ve gotten a couple of questions in the last week or two about what we do in the gardens to manage pests and diseases. Although a lot of you already know the answer, I don’t seem to mind repeating it for anyone who doesn’t. The short answer is: Nothing! We do not use any kind of chemical pesticides or fungicides for the sake of our own health as well as that of our volunteers, visitors, members, camp kids, pollinators, beneficial insects, birds and other wildlife. (That said, I believe Dan has sprayed some sort of bunny deterring pepper concoction in the Vegetable Garden. Not that it has worked. Also, the trees, shrubs, and lawns are managed differently.)

The long answer is: In the gardens, we try to keep plants healthy and stress-free by providing them with fertile soil (easy because the soil here is lovely) and adequate water. We amend the soil with compost, both our own and the biosolid and yardwaste mix (top grade and certified pathogen-free) made by Bristol’s composting facility, and we mulch with shredded leaves and buckwheat hulls, both of which add organic matter and aerate the soil as they break down.

We welcome insects, and the birds that eat them. We do minimal clean-up of seedheads and stalks in the fall to leave some habitat and cover for birds and insects over the winter. We have even started construction on an insect apartment house. (They’re all the rage in Europe.) It’s made of white oak, faces south for winter warmth, and we will continue to fill it with bits and bobs that that will provide nesting sites for solitary bees, lacewings, spiders, and any other critters that might find it cozy. The section with the slots is intended as a butterfly shelter but I read recently that they don’t really use those. Looks cool though.

It’s the visitors to our Rose Garden who have the hardest time believing that we don’t spray fungicides, etc. Honestly, we don’t need to. I know I’ve said this a million times already but here it is again: along with choosing disease-resistant roses, and giving them great soil and adequate water (about an inch per week), we also fertilize them 3 times over the season (in April as they break, in May/June just before peak, and in August for their last flush) using a slow release organic granular fertilizer (Espoma Bulb-Tone); we rake out the spotty leaves twice weekly; and we hand-pick Japanese beetles. But the real reason the roses look healthy is because there are other beautifully blooming plants in that garden that draw everyone’s attention away from a few yellow or lacy leaves.

In the gardens, we live and let live. Don’t you?

It’s been really hard for me and other people I’ve talked to not to lament that the summer is flying by. There just doesn’t seem like there’s going to be time to take it all in and enjoy it. But of course there’s time. We have the whole summer starting today and it just gets better from here.

For a long time, the Display Garden was primarily a late-season garden, full of tender perennials and annuals that carried us blazing into fall. We still plant those plants down here (and in every garden) but since we also planted more perennials for pollinators in the last couple of years, it’s turned into a stunning early-summer garden as well.

One of our favorite new perennials (new last year) is betony – Stachys monnieri ‘Hummelo’. It’s knee-high knobs of luminous purple are butterfly and gaze magnets. Last year we cut a few down after they finished blooming to see if they would send up another set. They didn’t so this year we’ll enjoy all of their the Piet Oudolf seedheads instead. Eryngium planum (sea holly) is another bee and butterfly magnet that looks as fabulous now as it will when the flowers fade to beige. The stems have weak ankles and need propping either between sturdier plants or resting on pea-stakes but it’s worth it for the pollinator extravaganza. (There are usually an easy dozen different species of bees and wasps on the flowers at any given mid-day moment.) And early summer wouldn’t be the same without cone flowers. Echinacea purpurea ‘Virgin’ is one of my favorites and keeps blooming for months. Months! – We still have months of summer left to go! And as the flowers go by we have their fabulous goldfinch-attracting seedheads to look forward to.

Visitors always seem surprised to see “asters” blooming this early. Kalimeris incisa ‘Blue Star’ is such a lovely long-blooming look-alike (on sturdy 2′ hedges of grass-green foliage) that I’m surprised it’s not more popular. But then maybe not everyone wants to be reminded of summer’s end right in the beginning.

Do you feel like summer is passing by too quickly or are you able to slow down enough to focus on appreciating every little bit of it?

Today is the official start of summer (Happy Solstice!) but we have been celebrating the season for weeks now. Everybody around here calls it summer when sailboats fill the harbor and beaches start charging for parking, but we gardeners are also tipped off by the summer annuals blooming their heads off. Some early annuals, like the oxeye daisies, have already started to go by but they’re really a transitional flower along with silene and Minoan lace (Orlaya grandiflora).The true summer daisies are chamomile, feverfew and tansy. (Don’t get me started on the differences between the different Tanacetums or my head might explode. I’m pretty sure the one in the picture – below, left- is feverfew or Tanacetum parthenium.)

Larkspur (Consolida ambigua) should be blooming out by now but ours are still only budded. If they get a chance to seed themselves around without us gardening them right back out of the soil, they’ll be more timely next year. Love-in-a-mist (Nigella damascena), which started blooming weeks ago, never looks more fabulous than when its blooms arrive beneath thickets of seedheads. I can only hope they’ll keep on trucking into mid-summer but since they’ve just about completed their task of making seeds for next year’s show, the flowers will probably quit soon. At least we can keep their court-jester seedheads as reminders. 

We also know it’s truly summer when we plant the last of the dahlias and the large potted tender perennials we kept for cuttings all winter. Yesterday while I was wedging dahlia tubers into tight spaces in the Cutting Garden I was nearly knocked over by the scent of the sweet peas. Their moment starts now and for us only lasts a few weeks into summer.

The same is true of blue honeywort (Cerinthe major subsp. purpurescens). I’m not sure as many visitors will notice them — their shrimp-ish purple dangles are plenty weird but in a subtle sort of way. Like the sweet peas, they appreciate rich soil. In fact, the healthiest clump I’ve ever seen planted itself next to a compost pile. I’ve heard that in some gardens they’ll sow themselves into a summer-long succession of blooms. Fingers crossed.

We also call it summer when the first heatwave hits. It’s perfectly timed this year (today is already a sultry 91; tomorrow is forecast to be 99…) and might shatter our gorgeous stands of pink peony poppies. No matter. They’ll go to seed; we’ll save millions because we can’t help ourselves, and something else will take their place by mid-summer.

What annuals help you celebrate the start of summer?

This week we had every intention of planting another big batch of seed annuals in the Display Garden but the weather had other things in mind for us. It insisted that we take the time to really think about where we wanted to place everything: it gave us the chance, in between downpours, to take out more forget-me-nots (which incidentally none of us will ever forget because their seedheads became one with our shirtsleeves and sweater-fronts) to open up even more spaces for summer bloomers. If it weren’t for rain-sogged ground, we might not have had time to weed and mulch the Rose Garden corners, and the tulips might still be sitting wet and funky on the floor behind my chair instead of drying and tidy on greenhouse benches. And we might not have made time to walk through the new tall-grass meadow or remembered to pay attention to how beautiful the gardens are as they burst into bloom – and to catch them right before. Gail, Tricia and I were especially taken with buds in the cutting garden, poised to open. They’re almost prettier now than when they’re fully open.

And even though we waited so patiently for the ground to dry out a little before planting (wet soil is too easily compacted and damaged), today we just couldn’t take it any more. We had to pick our battle – the choice was to leave plants over a hot weekend in pots they’re growing out of, or compact the soil here and there. We opted for the latter and a few willing volunteers came in for an extra shift and very gingerly tucked another few hundred plants in the Display Garden beds.

Have you been fast-forwarded through a rain delay too? Are you getting things done or noticing anything that you might not have otherwise?