These last two days have been so spectacular — soft, sunny, and warm — that I can’t stand the thought of anyone being stuck indoors. I know I’m lucky (in a previous life I worked in a windowless office) and I wish you all could be out here with us. (If it’s any consolation, I’m inside now to work on this. But the door next to my desk is wide open and the greenhouse is behind me. I’m totally lucky.)

I had to include the above daffodil pictures in this post — they’re on their way towards peak — but before they blare every trumpet I feel justified in focusing on the spring tinies. Ephemerals like the trout lily (Erythronium americanum) that has speckled the Bosquet and every garden and is just beginning to bloom; tiny primroses (Primula veris vulgaris), and European ginger (Asarum europaeum) blooming almost invisibly in the Rock Garden; weird octopus’ garden foliage and buds of Muscari armeniacum ‘Valerie Finnis’; and the innocent-looking flowers and newly emerged foliage of butterbur (Petasites japonicus). There’s no indication that in 2 or 3 weeks time the butterbur’s leaves will be as big as tea tables…

(Click on any picture for a showier show and/or mouse over for captions.)

Speaking of innocent-looking, we started taking out, dividing, and moving around perennials that have grown close together in the Idea Garden. Everything is still so tiny that it’s hard to believe they’ll ever be shoulder height (some of them) and a lot of them look exactly alike (to me) at this stage. It was like a memory test to remember what’s what. And in fact it was hard enough for me to distinguish between the mountain mint (Pycnanthemum verticillatum) — which we want to replace with a showier P. muticum — and the Monarda fistulosa ‘Claire Grace’, planted side by side that I had to resort to the sniff test. Mountain mint definitely smells mintier… And we had to do some fancy footwork to avoid stepping on all of the perennials still so tucked in that we can barely even see them. But this is the perfect time to start to play musical perennials. We can even get away with stashing The Unplanted in bags in the shade for a week or two (I don’t mind making daylilies and rudbeckia wait even longer) until we figure out where they’ll live next.

Please tell me you were able to get into your garden to dig into (or just enjoy) spring’s tinies. (I’ll feel better if you have.)

It seems impossible to speak or think about anything else right now. The news is too full of horrific loss and our hearts are too broken. I won’t claim to have a clue about how to fix anything – as if there is a fix – but I know I’m not alone in believing in the healing power of nature. In cathartic walks in the rain. In the deep inhale of a favorite fragrance. In a handful of potting soil. In the obvious preciousness of all life.

Are you finding solace? Where?

There’s a particular scent in the air evocative of childhood and candy treats: grapes are ripening on arbors all over town. Almost every garden in Bristol has at least one grape arbor and Blithewold is no exception. Our grape is an one-hundred (plus) year-old Concord, bred from native grapes and selected for early ripening and the sweetest flavor, growing from gorgeously gnarled trunks (I could only hope to look that cool and have a fern growing out of my knee when I’m 100) wrapped around the arbor next to the pumphouse. Despite its age, our vine is healthy, taking the vagaries of the weather on its chin.We have never (not in my time anyway) sprayed it to combat the kinds of fungus that seem to plague other gardens’ grape vines. It gets pruned in late winter and harvested now and has only been unproductive in rare years (last year for one). Most of the time Gail and I beg certain volunteers and staff members to take as many grapes as they’d need to make just enough jelly to share a couple of jars with us. (We’re further benefited by the fact that harvesting greatly reduces the number of funky past-ripe grapes that fall on all of the plants we keep in the shade under the arbor.) This year we were also able to share the bounty with the East Bay Food Pantry. As I picked them today – and sampled – I was struck as I am annually by just how intensely sweet the grapes are. And by just how much grape soda  – my memory of it anyway – tastes like actual grapes.

I also couldn’t help vaguely remembering, as I always do, the story of Ephraim Bull, the unlucky breeder Concord grapes, told in Paul Collin’s book Banvard’s Folly: Thirteen Tales of People Who Didn’t Change the World and wishing I could remember the details of how someone named Welch came to make berzillions on that grape while poor Bull died a pauper. I’ll have to go back and reread…

Do you grow any grapes in your garden? What kind? Do you make wine from them, like my neighbors do, or jelly?

I am as fickle as any gardener. I’ll pick a new favorite color, fragrance, leaf, flower, and plant habit every other week (or day) and reserve the right to change my mind over the slightest disappointment. That said, the hyssops, which have been blooming since June, are vertically eye-catching, and smell like candy, have managed to stay at the top of my favorites list for months now. I also think they deserve the  “Most Attractive Plant” award in the 2012 Blithewold yearbook superlatives.

Agastache, which is pronounced ah-GAH-stah-kee or aga-STAK-ee depending on who says it (tomato, tomahto), is Greek for very much (agan) spike (stachys) according to Allen J. Coombes’ The Hamlyn Guide to Plant Names. (He pronounces it the first way.) Very much spike is right. And probably because their native habitat is sharply drained hillsides they’re fairly sturdy, unfussy, and drought tolerant. They are also hardier than I ever thought. Around here anyway, wet winters and poor drainage are more likely to do them in than cold temperatures.

We are growing North American native anise hyssop (A. foeniculum, zone 4-11) because it seeds itself all over the Display Garden. Its spikes start out a lovely dusty blue and deepen over the season and are more slender than its hybrid child ‘Blue Fortune’ (zone 6-9; crossed with Korean A. rugosa). That’s the one we’re growing in the Rose Garden this year and the bees can’t get enough of it. My personal favorite, planted in the Display Garden and North, is ‘Black Adder’ (zone 6-9). The deep indigo bracts are spectacular especially now that every plant is also decorated with its own klatch of a half-dozen or more American Lady butterflies. (At least I think that’s what they are.) All 3 are standing a good 4-5′ tall now and need propping – particularly top-heavy ‘Blue Fortune’ even though we lopped them back by half in late May or early June. In my own garden, I grew ‘Golden Jubilee’ (zone 5-9), which has brilliant chartreuse foliage through mid-summer and pale grey-blue spikes. The best thing about that plant is that its seedlings have already started to pop up. The more the merrier. We have no intention of deadheading any of these because we’re looking forward to their structure over the winter, but we have used some stems in flower arrangements.

I always though that the cultivars of hummingbird mint like ‘Heatwave’, ‘Acapulco Orange’, and ‘Summer Glow’ were tender but they’re at least as hardy as ‘Black Adder’ and ‘Blue Fortune’. Both ‘Heatwave’ (zone 5-10) and A. mexicana ‘Acapulco Orange’ (zone 5-9) came back for us this year but last winter was unusually dry and mild so it probably wasn’t a good test. We have our fingers crossed for ‘Summer Glow’ (zone 6-9) in the North Garden, which in its first year isn’t as outstanding as the others but certainly could be the prettiest of all with one more season’s growth. We’ll probably take cuttings and overwinter a stock plant in the greenhouse just in case it doesn’t make it outside. The slightly contrasting bracts on ‘Acapulco Orange’ and ‘Summer Glow’ make those my faves over ‘Heatwave’ (plus they’re orange) but the hummingbirds probably have no preference at all.

Are you as in love with agastache as I am? Which ones do you grow?

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?