Last but never least, are the little things I love. You know I am all for outstanding plants – I always have to grow a few big ones that grab attention and don’t let it go for a minute. Fuller’s teasel, castor beans, and my very favorite 6 footer, Gomphocarpus physocarpus ‘Oscar’ (aka hairy balls) should be high on my list because they simply can’t be overlooked.

But flower-an-hour (Hibiscus trionum) can. I know I’ve mentioned it already this year (last year) but I still can’t believe I let this one pass under my radar for so long. This past summer I discovered a love for the way it weaves itself into the August garden here and there and pops open its flowers as if it doesn’t matter who sees how delicate their creamy white flowers are, and how deep their purple throat. But even if I might miss them, the bees never do.

I’m not usually that into purple flowers (or white ones for that matter) but my other diminutive favorite was Cuphea ‘Ballistic’. The ears! We’ve grown C. ‘David Verity’ from cuttings for years and can’t live without it; and we’re becoming just as addicted to ‘Carribean Sunset’ and Mexican giant cigar plant (C. micropetala) – so smitten with that one in fact that despite it nearly breaking our backs we brought our largest specimen back into the greenhouse. But honestly, it’s little ‘Ballistic’ that just gets me. Typical of cuphea, once it starts blooming it never stops and never needs deadheading either.

And what about the plants that would just as soon be walked on as noticed? Gail and I are both consumed with the notion of lawn alternatives and hoping to replace our own sorry looking lawns with anything that won’t waste endless resources – and doesn’t need weekly mowing. My kingdom for a carpet of chamomile underfoot…

Meanwhile, as I look back and we begin to cast forward to next season’s gardens, the eyelash begonias are beginning to bloom, and the maidenhair ferns are sprouting. I simply can’t help focusing on the littlest things.

What little things are you in love with?

As we’re blown toward a new year, I feel bound by tradition – or is it just habit? – to take a look back at the past year and make endless lists of plants to know and grow (and not grow). Below is a continuation of a list I started the other day of the plants I was particularly impressed with and want to see more of. They’re in no particular order, and as always, I hope you’ll click on pictures for a better view or hover over for captions.

Clary sage (Salvia sclarea) stopped everyone in their tracks – not just because at the edge of the path it was in anyone’s way, but with its large fuzzy leaves topped by enormous luminous green(ish-white) salvia spikes. This is an early-summer bloomer with a reputation for being chock full of medicinal properties – perfect for an herb garden. Or a cutting garden if it happens to plant itself there…

Clary sage’s large soft leaves couldn’t hold a candle to wooly morning glory’s (Argyreia nervosa) though. Gail spotted this plant twined 30′ high in a friend’s garden last year and resolved to find one for Blithewold. She planted ours mid-summer, babied it through the heat, and it did its best to cover the vegetable bed arbor by September. It appeared to flower, sort of. We think. But it’s really all about those silver heart-shaped leaves unfolding…

I really can’t believe that Nicotiana didn’t make it onto my Fine Gardening list last year. I am so in love with all of them – maybe I have a thing for large soft leaves. I always thought it was the flowers… Either way, they’re great plants – so easy to grow, so lovely, so long lasting (they only just got hit by an extra hard frost) and so generous with their seeds. I’m always especially thrilled to see N. mutabilis and ‘Lime Green’ come back but I can’t help order more varieties of seeds every year – every available variety, please and thanks.

While I seem to be on the subject of awesome leaves I’ll just add one more (two more) to today’s post. Licorice plant (Helichrysum) is totally in keeping with some of the above for having really great wooly, silvery leaves. What I especially loved about this plant was how it wove itself through its neighbors in the North Garden – it’s never just for containers.

And now for something completely different: We’ve had sweet fern (Comptonia peregrina) in our entrance bed for a few years now so I’m not sure why I noticed it with fresh eyes this year. It could be because the mosquitoes were particularly persisitant and a visitor pointed out how you can use the leaves, lovely leathery, rick racked and fragrant things, as a natural bug repellant (rub on skin). Brilliant. Sweet fern is one of our natives too and if you can give it full sun and terrible soil – say that slope where nothing else grows – it colonizes beautifully.

There are a few more plants on the post-it note next to my keyboard and I have the feeling I’m forgetting something important, so this again is to be continued. Next year. — Happy New Year!

Ever since Gail and I went on a bus trip to Wave Hill – eight or so years ago – we’ve been coveting hypertufa troughs. A year or two after that trip we each made a couple, then a year later a couple more. After that, Fred and Dan made some, including the thyme bench seat in the herb bed and an enormous trough that might never leave the container bed. But we have wanted more. And there’s nothing like wanting something to make you notice it everywhere. They’ve been showing up in every magazine; there are books full of ideas; we’ve noticed them tucked into gardens and out in front and center displays, and they’re all over Kathy and Chris Tracy’s Avant Gardens Nursery, in all shapes and sizes filled with the most luscious combinations of plants.  We’re talking serious trough envy here.

So we hatched a plan to make a bunch more to fill our Display Garden stone bench bed (an abundance of anything in one place can make a gardener feel rich) and if we have enough left over, we’ll tuck them in other beds here and there. We might even leave some on display in front of the pump house because they’re so sweet against the cobbles.

For anyone who isn’t already familiar with hypertufa, it’s a Portland cement mixture that is meant to mimic something called tufa, which is a precipitated limestone (according to wikipedia). Being porous and high pH both real tufa and the ersatz version is a perfect container material for alpines among other little lovelies. It’s also sturdy enough to stay outside over the winter and not quite as heavy to move around as straight concrete.

Gail and I obsessively researched recipes – there are many possible variations – and for our first go we tried two. Both included Portland cement and peat. One batch had perlite, the other vermiculite. To those mixes we also added a handful of microfiber concrete reinforcement and then a whole lot of water. We also obsessively collected molds, everything from a saucer sled to nursery pots to trash cans to jello molds to cardboard boxes.

Now that we’ve done one batch and are preparing for another morning spent wearing rubber gloves and dust masks, we know what we’ll do differently. This time we’ll go with the vermiculite mix – it feels smoother to the touch and more elegant. We’ll also line more of our molds in plastic bags. Even molds heavily greased with vegetable oil didn’t want to give up their stuff. Luckily, almost all of the pots and troughs we made were sturdy enough after curing for 4 days to knock out of their molds. (Only one will live inside its aluminum jello mold forever.) The cardboard boxes were the easiest to release and those troughs are actually pretty cool looking.

Our recipe: 1 part Portland cement; 1.5 parts peat moss; 1.5 parts vermiculite and a small amount of microfiber concrete reinforcement. Add enough water to make mud the consistency of cottage cheese.

Have you made any hypertufa pots or troughs or garden ornaments? Do you have any helpful hints to share – or maybe a different favorite recipe?

When you travel for work or with family, do you try to squeeze garden pilgrimages into your itinerary? This past weekend I had the pleasure of attending my cousin’s wedding in California and although the events surrounding The Event and the happy time spent with far-flung family took up most of the hours of the weekend, I still managed to get in two Blithewold inspired visits. (Many thanks to my easy-going travel companions who graciously handed me the car keys and said, “Let’s go!”)

The last time I visited Muir Woods I was a car-sick and surly teenager stuck on someone else’s tour. This time I went with an eagerness of being reacquainted with the family of a favorite friend: Coast Redwoods (Sequoia sempervirens), which occupy a narrow corridor of temperate and foggy Pacific coast, and may live for thousands of years, are cousin to our Giant sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum) – a youngster by comparison. This time I was properly awestruck and as reverent as a pilgrim (even though I didn’t have to walk there on my knees) in the presence of Nature at its most venerable. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Van Wickle/McKee’s visited these trees too… If you go, go early to find a parking spot and a little silence before the polyglot crowds arrive.

My travel companions were also kind enough – and interested enough – to allow me to drive them deep into the Richmond outskirts to wander Annie’s Annuals. I just noticed this quote on their homepage – ha!

I’m not sure Annie’s would have been on my must-see list if it weren’t for Blithewold but I have been eager to visit ever since I first perused their catalog and found plants we couldn’t garden without. The nursery is huge – must be acres, and as funky as the catalog; every plant is labeled*, grouped by like-types, tantalizingly described and very reasonably priced. If I lived nearby, I’d need a car with a lot more cargo space.

*I didn’t look hard enough for a label on the plant in the bottom right photo – anyone know its name?

While I was away, the gardens here grew! even more beautiful. I’ve talked to visitors in the last couple of days who added a trip to Blithewold to their travel agenda – and their companions seemed as pleased as mine for the detour.

Where would you go – or where have you gone lately – on pilgrimage? (This very minute Gail is visiting gardens near Philadelphia!)

I can’t remember if the honor of choosing Blithewold’s sweet peas was conferred on me or if I grabbed it like a greedy toddler (“Mine!”) but it’s one of those tasks that I enjoy so much it doesn’t feel like work. It reminds me of those years in Seattle when I made special trips to the Pike Place Market in June. I would walk the length at least twice in order to drink in the scent of thousands of sweet peas and choose the very best bouquet from among a dozen or so vendors. My handful of sweet peas had to have a good balance of dark colors, picotees, bi-colors, and pastels and at least a few rare apricot or orange blossoms to give it some pop. And it had to be at least $.50 cheaper than the priciest bunch.

Now I hem and haw over our seed order the same way. There must be a good balance of colors, stripes, picotees, etc; and a decent bargain in terms of number of seeds per packet, shipping rate, etc. I also feel I owe it to our visitors to make sure we have the best varieties: the newest and most interesting as well as the old favorites with the longest stems, biggest blossoms, truest color, and/or highest scent. I research availability, cross reference sources for price and try very hard to narrow my selection down to what might actually fit on the fence.

This year my search revolved around finding my Holy Grail. Back in 2007 I fell for one called ‘Nimbus’ that Sweet Pea Gardens hasn’t offered since. After failing last year to convince Unwins to change their policy about selling seeds to US customers, I thought I had given up. But ‘Nimbus’ will be on our order this year from another source, Enchanting Sweet Peas in CA. Their packets only contain 10 seeds, but their shipping cost is minimal and they offer price breaks the more varieties you order. Such a deal.

Now comes the hard part: choosing between sweet peas we’ve grown and loved, and new temptations. ‘Oban Bay’ I know is a gorgeous pale blue but could ‘Charlies Angel’, another pale blue one, possibly be prettier? Would our visitors appreciate as I would seeing the two varieties “trialed” together perhaps along with another pale favorite like ‘Blue Celeste’ or ‘Chatsworth’? Decisions, decisions… But it’s a difficulty worth savoring and one that, unlike any kind of forced choice made on a sinking boat or in a damaged country, reminds me how fortunate I am.

When you choose seeds do you opt for new varieties, familiar ones, or a bit of both? Do you savor the decision making process or tear your hair out a little? ‘Fess up, do you ever order more than you have room for?