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.)

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 like to think that encouragement and praise is the best method for inspiring productivity but must admit that threats and criticism can be pretty effective as well. Spite is such an excellent motivator. Don’t we love to prove someone wrong? – I had a mean as spit English teacher who made it clear that he thought no one in my class could string two words together. I sweated blood to write the finest term paper there ever was and didn’t he have to give me an A? I sure showed him!  I think plants sometimes need the same kind of kick in the pants. All of the roses in the Rose Garden that we threatened with expulsion have never looked better than they do right now. It’s just like last year when Gail and I talked about taking out the moldy phlox in the North Garden and every clump immediately cleaned itself off and rebloomed fit to burst. Of course we still took most of it out… But I can just hear these roses saying “you don’t think I’m pretty? I’ll show you pretty.” And even the blue woodruff that looked like slackers when we planted them perked right up as if they heard us say “We’ll just rip them out if they don’t perk right up”.

The roses we always praise to the skies have never looked better either. It seems like they’re basking in the glow of it like we all do when someone says something nice. They’re totally blushing with pride. I really truly honestly think that plants respond and react to us in a way that seems totally impossible for anything without ears and a brain but I also have to confess that we have physically treated the roses a little differently this year.

We fertilized them earlier than ever (we fertilized them period, full stop!) – right when the experts say we should in April as the buds were swelling – with a slow release organic 3-5-3. We’ve also had a rainy spring into summer, which I guess Gail and I shouldn’t take any credit for, with the magic number of hot sunny days to coax any flower into rapturous bloom. We are being good and sticking to our fertilizing schedule and gave them another round of the same stuff this past Monday as they came into their first bloom. We’ll fertilize again in August right before their next big push. (In case you’re curious, the fertilizer we’ve chosen to use in most of the gardens is Espoma Bulb-Tone because it has the NPK ratio we were looking for plus additional micro nutrients.) We still refuse to use sprays – fungicides or pesticides – and are considering ourselves very lucky that the garden is not infested with the tiny worms that are skeletonizing roses in other parts of the state. We’re also crossing our fingers that the Japanese beetles and black spot won’t be bad this year.

Do you let your plants know when you think they’re doing a great job – and when you’re fed up to here with their behavior? Do you think they listen?

For the first time ever I remembered to pay attention to the Tulip Tree (Liriodendron tulipifera) and caught it in bloom up close and personal. And I’m happy to say that I know now what has been missing from my life. As shade trees go, the tulip tree is certainly stately and occasionally graceful but not particularly outstanding – unless you consider that it has one of the more identifiably distinct leaf shapes of anything growing. I’ve been thinking “flipper” which makes a certain sense now that I’ve read Michael Dirr’s discription of the leaf buds: “entire bud resembling a duck’s bill”. But no one calls it the Duck Tree and that’s probably because the flowers trump all other associations. Is there anything more sublime? (Don’t answer that – or better yet, do!)

I’ve been keeping my eye on the few flower buds that the trees on the property deigned to display at eye level – most are on the second story which is one of the great general complaints – and love that something so indubitably blue could open up into my two other favorite colors. I’m not the only one who is enjoying the blossoms right now – the squirrels seem to find them tasty enough to take at least one bite from each and drop the rest but I can say from experience that their debris is a great way to discover whether you have unknowingly been walking by one of these great trees in your own neighborhood all along. I’m glad that people years ago had the foresight to plant a few in town because there’s no way I could make room for now it in my garden. The tree, in the Magnolia family incidentally, can reach a magnificent 150′. Dirr rates its growth as “fast” especially in rich, moist conditions and it’s hardy from USDA zone 4-9 – though he says it may not reach such extreme heights in the colder zones.

And it’s worth remembering that when the tulip trees are in bloom, so is the Chestnut rose (Rosa roxburghii)- at least this year. Anyone who has persevered through the scavenger hunt of construction detours this week has been rewarded with one of the rarest sights on the property. The Chestnut rose only blooms for a week or two at most so if you’ve never seen it, there’s no time like the present. This is another massive beauty that would eat my own garden so I make a point to enjoy it vicariously here. And I would never ever never plant bamboo either but I love to watch ours (Phyllostachys aureosulcata – yellow groove bamboo) shoot up over the course of a few June weeks.

Do you have a favorite tree or shrub that you enjoy elsewhere because it would consume your own garden?

If you missed Fall Gardeners Day at Blithewold last weekend then I’m sorry to say you missed Mike Chute’s info packed lecture on roses and, I for one, learned something new.  – But then again I always learn something from anyone with a favorite subject to teach.  With roses in particular I feel like I can never learn enough.

Mike Chute has a rose consultation business called Rose Solutions and is producing several of the cold hardy Brownell roses (developed by the Brownells of Little Compton, RI) which will be available for purchase this coming spring.  He spoke to us on how to encourage roses to peak spectacularly for a second time in the fall.  The fall bloom is so different from the spring peak:  Although the flower size may be smaller, cool nights intensify the colors and the mid-day sun doesn’t blanch them.

His methods for re-bloom (on remontant a.k.a repeat blooming roses) are pretty intuitive involving a fertilizing regimen (early spring; just after the June peak; mid-summer; and late summer), plenty of water, and vigilant deadheading.  As for deadheading, he told a story about preparing the Roger Williams Park Victorian Rose Garden for a fall rose festival.  He said that the time required for each rose to set buds and re bloom is dependent on a few factors including the number of petals (more petals = more days) and the weather.  He was able to calculate an average re bloom time for that garden – 50 days – based on the varieties they planted and then he counted back from the date of the festival.  It must have been the hardest thing in the world to do, but sometime in July he and the gardeners and volunteers at Roger Williams cut off every single bloom and bud in that garden until there was nothing left but foliage.  It makes me cringe just to think of it!  But evidently their gamble with the weather paid off and they had nothing but blooms galore just in time for their event.

We traditionally stop deadheading the roses in September so that they can set hips.  Mike said that he’s never lost a rose for not allowing hips to form — he doesn’t like the way they look in his garden.  And seeing the buckets of roses he brought from his own garden reminded me that I’d much rather look at bunches of blooms than hips too!  So we have already changed our methods at Blithewold and with any luck the garden will still be blooming as the volunteers start coming in to decorate the house for Christmas.

How long do the roses bloom in your garden?

Incidentally, the yellow rose pictured above is my current all-time fave (besides Rosa rugosa which has the scent that makes me swoon).  One of the Floribundas purchased ‘Morning Has Broken’ for us because the flowers are gorgeous and sweetly scented and the foliage is glossy and perfect – too slippery for black spot to take hold perhaps – all season long.  Mary wasn’t wrong (Thank you, Mary!).  We’ve only had this particular plant for 2 years (we bought others for the Display Garden this year) but it has only gotten more handsome and garnered more and more praise from visitors.  It’s not an easy rose to find to buy but I think it’s well worth pursuit and perserverance!

Wherever you are, in spring there comes a time when you should really stop avoiding your rose pruning duties. I don’t know what it is about roses but they seem to give people anxiety. I know I’m not the only one who has worried about doing roses “wrong”. People always stop to watch and learn when we’re working on the roses as if we might reveal the secret handshake. But you don’t have to be a part of a club to grow a pretty rose and even if you don’t obey the “rules”, the Rose Society police won’t arrest you for misconduct. (I’m pretty sure.)

The best time for spring pruning is before the buds have broken and on a mild weather day when all you want is to be outside doing something productive. Pruning when the roses are ready to break dormancy will ensure that all of their fresh energy goes straight into the canes and buds that you’ve decided to keep. Most of the roses we grow in the Rose Garden and North Garden are shrub roses and floribundas and those seem to love a heavy hand in the spring. (New roses only a year or two old prefer a lighter touch.) For instruction on different kinds of roses like climbers and hybrid teas, there are shelves of books written by experts – your local library probably has a ton.

We cut most of our roses back by about a third but I have to admit that once I get going, more like half goes sometimes. Cut out all the dead canes and give your rose the hairy eyeball to determine if any of the more elderly canes should come out as well. Take your time and go cane by cane – If there’s a young healthy cane and an old one side by side – maybe go ahead and take out some or all of the old one to give the new one room to grow. Your rose will tell you what to do – if you cut too far above a bud, you’ll find an ugly dead stub there in a few weeks. Cut too low and the bud might die. If you make your cut at an angle the water will run off rather than pool in the wound (who wants that?). Think about the shape of the rose to come. A lot of roses look their best with plenty of air circulation through the plant. If you cut above buds that face out rather than in, you’ll be helping the plant to not choke itself. (The books will tell you to make a V shape.) Crossed canes are another something to look for and cut out.

When the volunteers and I started this year’s pruning with trepidation, Julie reminded us, “Plants are forgiving”. Don’t be afraid. Even if you stand back and think you just butchered your prize ‘Ballerina’, it will probably reward your brutality by growing gangbusters.

Have you worked on your roses yet? Do you have a heavy hand or light touch?

The roses aren’t the only things in the garden ready to grow. We’ve started cleaning up the perennial beds – it’s much easier to cut back the dead when the new growth is still tight at the crown. And the Daffodils are looking like a few warm days is all it would take to bust out singing. I still think the peak bloom will be on schedule during the events of Daffodil Days but some of the ‘Ice Follies’ might start their show this weekend. (The house opens for the season on April 12; the grounds are open now.)

The Sweet Peas have germinated!! And the cabbages, kale, and onions too! Of all the Sweet Peas only ‘Lilac Ripple’, ‘Chocolate Streamer’ and ‘Blue Streamer’ are lagging behind still snuggly sub-surface.

Beverly, one of the Rockettes, came in this morning to start some more seeds – in earnest now – and Gail was back and forth and up and down like a shooting gallery bear moving plants and trays to make room for all the newbies. Today Bev seeded things like snapdragons, Delphinium, Ammi majus, Lavandula angustifolia ‘Ellagance Sky Blue’ (a dwarf that’s supposed to bloom the first year from seed – we’ll see…), and digitalis, laurentia, limnanthus, asperula and glaucium – most of which I have no memory of ordering but Gail said a lot of them were my must-haves. hmmm…

I still have roses on the brain and am getting really excited about everyone’s suggestions. We’ll be ordering from Heirloom Roses because they have ‘Morning Has Broken’ and I’ve added a couple of Buck’s roses to the list as well as ‘Robusta’, ‘Stanwell Perpetual’ (both recommended by Jodi), ‘Autumn Sunset’ because it’s beeeautiful, and maybe ‘Silver Jubilee’ for the same reason. I also got a very nice email back from Alex Withrow who answered my question about AARS winners being sprayed with fungicide. She said the rule allowing for fungicidal spraying was changed in 2005 but they haven’t yet had any winners under the new conditions. Soon, she says and I hope for all our sakes and the rose growers’ that those winners are well publicized for being extra super-duper. In the meantime she sent this list of roses that she says perform well in the north east:

* Carefree Delight
* Crimson Bouquet
* Julia Child (my personal favorite!) – says Alex
* Knock Out
* Lady Elsie May
* Living Easy
* Rainbow Sorbet
* Memorial Day

Alex ought to know because she grew up in Providence. She said, “[I] have many wonderful memories of Blithewold from my childhood. Thank you for maintaining such a wonderful place!” – That’s just what we love to hear! Thanks, Alex and thank you all for sending your suggestions. (If anyone has more thoughts to share, I’m still listening – always!)

I could use some help. Every year about this time I start thinking about getting new roses for the Rose Garden and every year about this time I go certifiably nutty trying to read between the lines of rose catalog descriptions. My kingdom for a disease resistant rose! Some of you already know that we don’t spray the Rose Garden with any kind of fungicide or pesticide – we clean up dead and disease-y leaves and we handpick beetles (though fingers crossed that the milky spore disease that Dan applied a year and a half ago makes a noticeable difference this year). And we’ve begun to interplant the garden with a mixed up mix of shrubs, perennials and annuals so that there’s other stuff going on midsummer besides black spot and beetles.

Traditionally the Rose Garden was a mixed garden heavy on roses. Word is that the family didn’t spend much time in this garden although they had a beautiful moongate built in 1913 and had tall fences erected (similiar to what surrounded their tennis courts) for the climbers to grow on. And Estelle Clements (Bessie’s live-in companion, friend and helper) mentioned in her journal when her favorite roses were in bloom.

June 10, 1922 Most of the standard roses are in bloom and the ramblers are beginning to come out. Kaiserin Augusta Victoria, Waltham Rambler, Goldfinch, Gardenia are flowering and Thousand Beauties is beginning to come out.

(I love the archives!) But the Rose Garden might have been enjoyed even more by the family’s staff. Situated next to the carriage house and barn (where the family wouldn’t have had much occasion to go), and surrounded in the summer by a thorny fence and stone walls, this private eden would have been the ideal place for a smoke break.

Now it’s our entrance garden – a visitor’s first peek at Blithewold’s 33 acres and we desperately want to make a good impression. –Very difficult to do that with unsprayed roses along midsummer! So we asked one of our favorite (retired) garden designers, Ginny P. to give us her thoughts and I’d like some of yours too. I really want to know if any of you have favorite roses that you don’t treat like roses – do you have any that look good even without weekly hosedown of chemistry? I know you do!… One of the Florabundas (our Thursday Rose Garden volunteers) gave us the most perfect rose last year – and just what I’m looking for more of. ‘Morning Has Broken’ is a beautiful butter yellow non-stopper with a sweet fragrance and best of all – not a spot of fungus amongus all summer! And we had it jammed in with annuals probably stifled and it just never stopped or dropped. We also have the ‘Knock Outs’. They don’t knock my socks off but they do seem to stay healthy. Can you recommend any others before I place my order for a boatload more of ‘Morning ..’?

I checked the All American Rose Selections website for recent winners. Winners are chosen based on a list of characteristics including disease resistance. On the page describing their test gardens I found this: “The rose varities in these trials receive only as much care as your average home gardener would be likely to give. In fact, AARS members recently voted to remove fungicidal spraying from the testing process, to ensure that our AARS Winners are natural top performers.” And I have to admit to being irked. Call me naive but I didn’t realize testers were allowed to spray the roses. Just how exactly can they tell if a rose is disease resistant if they’re spraying it? And when exactly did the fungicide ban go into effect? I couldn’t find that information anywhere on their website and so far no one has gotten back to me. I’ll happily try more AARS winners if I know they won the award fair-n-square. Anybody know the scoop?

Weekends seem so narrow to me that, although I truly love my job (and feel my luck for loving it), I still get slightly whiney Sunday evenings about having to get up the next day (already? so soon?!) and go back to work. What can cut my blues off at the knees though is thinking ahead to how I get to spend my Monday mornings. My friends rib me a little about having slight O.C.D. but I say, yeah-who doesn’t? Good news is, I don’t have to do things like spin around 4 times before leaving the house or wash the skin off my hands. But easing into the work week is easier when I get to do one of my very favorite mindless and obsessive tasks first thing. While Monday volunteer, Diane deadheads and de-beetles the Rose Garden, I compulsively de-leaf blackspotty roses and rake up the debris. I don’t know why I have to do it. Operative words here are “have to”. It’s true that removing diseased foliage from the plant (I knock off loose leaves by shaking and wacking the plants) and raking up around the base of the plant is supposed to keep the roses healthier. (Black spot spreads by a rainsplash release of spores). Whether it really slows the fungal spread or not – and it should – the garden just looks better to me when it’s done. So I guess that’s why I have to do it — it’s for my own personal gratification on a Monday morning (the house is closed Mondays and Tuesdays and there are fewer visitors on the grounds so it really is for mostly me!) I’m not alone in having a favorite obsessive garden chore am I? Care to confess a compulsion? What do you “have to” do in your garden?

Honk if foundation plantings make you cringe! There’s no doubt about it, it’s difficult to live in the world and not at least have a neighbor with Yertle the Turtle style bubble shrubberies flanking their front door. (I love Dr. Seuss!…) But there’s definitely a trick to creating a foundation planting that doesn’t say “Hello, folks – I’m a foundation planting!” I can’t claim to know any of the tricks (am currently a shrubbicidal maniac at my own house with no permanent plans for the bare places yet) but I suspect it might be important to think of the house as a garden ornament rather than just a great big thing that the garden bumps up against.

The above editorial is by way of introducing a new planting that Fred and Dan are working on today! The bed right in front of the front door porch was in need of rehab. The Bonica roses were fired (although they were about to peak beautifully, peak has always been followed by peaked) and are being replaced by Daphne burkwoodii, Spirea thunbergii ‘Ogon’ and Picea pungens ‘Glauca Procumbens’. The guys were a little worried that I might claim credit … maybe because they used one of my favorite color schemes… (Notice the colors in the pot on the porch – that I planted… hmmmm…) Anyway, what they came up with for that bed is exciting because it shows that creative use of color and texture doesn’t detract from the house – it enhances it!

In other news, I’m practicing patience. I have to stop myself from bouncing up and down in front of all the recently planted annuals and tender perennials saying, “Grow! Grow now!” Pretty soon the Nicotiana sylvestris which are still only the size of ritz crackers will be a respectable 5 feet tall. Pretty soon. And the dahlia/grass bed will look abundant one day… All in good time…