Lush Heritage

Celebrating a conservation-leaning approach to living well and the DIY spirit.

Decluttering a Triangle of Trees

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As you know, I am a very big fan of old trees – maple, birch, willow, linden, to name a few. Mature specimens of many of my favorites dot the property. Luckily, I can enjoy their unparalleled beauty through virtually every window in the house. I’m very grateful to the prior owners of the past 200+ years who cared for these trees so they could reach their full potential or who selected species of trees that have so enhanced my little patch of green.

Keeping these trees clear of underbrush and vines is an ongoing priority as they add a graceful grandeur to the property that I doubt any manmade feature could.

Two weeks ago, I finally cleared beneath a stately old maple that lies west of the house and fire pond. 

Doing so emphasized two nearby accent trees, a golden arborvitae and bald cypress that together with the maple form a lovely triangle. One that was overdue to be decluttered.

The Maple

It’s one of the grandest trees here and has survived decades of vicious New England weather with very little damage. However, an unsightly “bracelet” of underbrush had grown beneath it, diminishing its presence. I strongly believe that a tree trunk should be largely unobstructed in order to properly showcase the tree.

It took only two hours to cut and remove the unwanted vegetation. I was very pleased with the result which is shown in the featured image for this post.

Why did it take me three and a half years to finally do this? Well, a major reason is that I was worried about cutting any deliberate understory plants. I could identify only invasive bittersweet and burning bush and a deciduous azalea which was almost completely hidden by mystery greenery (even when loaded with gorgeous lilac blossoms). Fortunately, my two neighbors whom I’ve known for most of my life are very knowledgeable gardeners and have been answering my gardening questions.

Green Trash vs. Green Treasure

Two weeks ago, one of them kindly walked with me around the maple and identified the only other keeper hiding the trunk:  fothergilla. I’d never heard of it, couldn’t remember it looking or smelling spectacular and would have cut it, if she hadn’t told me what it was.

Based on my quick research: fothergilla is a shade-tolerant North American native and has wonderfully fragrant bottlebrush-like white flowers in spring; it also pairs well with azaleas and rhododendrons. I don’t know which variety grows here, but given its size I suspect it’s Fothergilla Major (Mountain Witch Alder). If that’s what I have, it’s also the recipient of the Cary Award which recognizes outstanding plants that thrive in New England. As I’ve noted in other posts, I think it’s a good idea to postpone cutting a plant until you know what it is! Of course, if the plant poses an imminent threat, then it should be removed as soon and as safely as possible.

What else did my neighbor identify? Invasive honeysuckle. As soon as she said it, I was itching to cut it to the ground! No doubt, it and the burning bush had outcompeted the fothergilla. As we pushed back the invasives we also discovered lovely stonework, a clump of yuccas, and what appeared to be a type of geranium (or, possibly violet) ground cover. Such lovely surprises. We’re both eagerly awaiting next spring to see what other desirable plants may be growing there.

No Herbicide Yet

In this location, I would have preferred to eradicate the invasives permanently by dabbing the cut stems with an herbicide that I’ve had great success using. However, once plants go dormant in the fall, they likely absorb less herbicide, rendering it much less effective. Cutting and dabbing is slow work so when I do it, it needs to count. That means spring and summer. Also, my tree guys were scheduled to be here in a few days to do another big job of sawing and chipping leaning dead trees and big cracked branches, so I wanted to clear as much as I could before their arrival. They chip and remove everything – or, at my request, dump the chips in a big pile at the edge of a hayfield.

Golden Arborvitae (of Some Sort)

Once I begin clearing around one tree, I seem to see underbrush and fallen or dangling dead branches everywhere.

After I cleared around the maple, I examined the nearby golden arborvitae. I don’t know the exact type, but it’s about twenty feet tall with an oval shape. It was a mess.

The poor thing was swamped with bittersweet on top and crowded by aging lilacs at the bottom. I hadn’t really noticed the tree until my neighbor pointed it – and its snapped branch – out to me.

I regret not removing the bittersweet vines when I bought the property; their heaviness likely contributed to the central leader succumbing to one of last year’s snowfalls.

Many lilacs were growing almost parallel to the ground. My neighbor identified them, but I’ve forgotten their name. She also told me that they had stopped blooming some time ago; she has the same ones growing on her property and they have also petered out. I cut the lilacs to two feet, in the hopes that they will generate new growth that I can keep at about six feet tall.

The Remains

As soon as my tree guys cut and hauled away the refuse, the shape of the remaining arborvitae was evident. Sadly, I could see that at least one-third of the central leader had been lost, bent beneath a blanket of bittersweet. A few branches had been badly damaged as well, leaving one side somewhat sheared. The photos below show the dead leader section (with berry-laden bittersweet) next to the surviving arborvitae; the lilacs, prior to cutting; the tree from different angles; and the awful jungle of thick bittersweet snaking out of the ground and onto the arborvitae. I hope this upland neighbor of the maple can recover over time and may consult with an arborist to improve its chances.

Bald Cypress

The golden arborvitae’s dramatic reveal led me to survey the surrounding area. What else could I cut while my tree guys were here to haul it away? I settled on one of the two biggest bald cypresses. Its splaying trunk was hidden by weeds, and a few bittersweet vines had climbed almost to the top of the tree. Just ten minutes of cutting resulted in another welcome sight:

Later this fall or winter I will cut the bittersweet from the other trees in this area. Once spring arrives, I’ll do a fresh cut and dab the bittersweet with herbicide. Then, monthly brush hogging and weeding will need to occur so that these lovely trees (and the foot bridge in the above photo on the right) are clearly visible.

I’m grateful that the maple tree and bald cypress are healthy and that the golden arborvitae still shows such promising signs of life. As with all of the trees here, I look forward to enjoying their beauty for many years to come.

Fall Preparation of the South Garden – Peonies’ Progress

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I am still weeding the South Garden! As I wrote last month, this 11′-13′ W x 106′ L space is quite overgrown, but that didn’t stop me from buying the following 358 bulbs for fall planting, including eight glorious peonies:

  • 50 Romance daffodils (the cup opens peach to coral)
  • 100 Louise de Coligny daffodils (apricot)
  • 200 Gypsy Queen hyacinths (apricot)
  • 3 Frances Willard peonies (cream/blush)
  • 5 Hermione peonies (apple-blossom pink)

Peony Dreams

Peonies are my favorite spring flower (possibly my absolute favorite flower, period). In order to indulge my passion for peonies and have year-round interest in front of the house, I’m creating a large peony patch within the south garden. It will have pride of place in the center front, away from the shrubs and specimen trees that will throw too much shade on it.

However, over the last few weeks, I’ve cleared only enough space for twelve peonies, including the eight listed above. The “foundation” peony, a mystery non-bloomer, is well-positioned for full sun but had been smothered by a (now removed) thicket of weeds. Next to these nine beauties, I transplanted three more unknown, non-blooming peonies from the south garden into this weed-free section.

Fragility

Peony blooms are so fragile and short-lived that I dread their end even as they’re just beginning to unfurl. And I was nervous that I’d done everything wrong as I handled their rootstock:

  • I’d waited much too long to plant/transplant (but I’d only received the new bulbs in October)
  • Though the soil is moist and well-drained, I didn’t add any kind of fertilizer to it
  • Maybe I damaged the roots as I dug them out
  • I planted all of roots shallow, but maybe they’re really more than two inches deep, in which case they won’t emerge

Perhaps most importantly, peonies just don’t like to be transplanted. Even under ideal conditions, they may not bloom their strongest for 2-4 years after transplanting. I’d still like to transplant the few struggling peonies from the west side of the main house as well, but I think it is too late in the season to do so.

The above photo is of the west end of the south garden, where the Japanese maples would create too much shade for these sun lovers . This area just looks better than where the peonies will reign supreme one day.

So, why have I made so little progress despite hours and hours of weeding for the last several weeks?

Phragmites.

My Worst Invasive Grass

The prior owner thinks the phragmites somehow took hold in the hayfield south of the south garden. Although the garden bed drains well, sections of the hayfield sometimes have standing water after prolonged, heavy rains. This is the perfect invitation for this reedy nightmare. Phragmites’ rhizomes grow vertically and horizontally. Once they take hold, they will dominate every other nearby plant.

Since October, I have been removing this invasive wetland grass from the south garden with small hand tools and a shovel. Unfortunately, its rhizomes are intertwined with specimen tree and flower roots. The result: I’ve dug up several day lilies by accident, and more than a few daffodils.

And I thought the bamboo were tough to eradicate.

Phragmites removal may end up being the most difficult landscaping task I’ve undertaken, but it cannot be avoided if I’m to have a successful flower garden. So, I’ll continue to shovel and bag their underground canes and dead surface debris then learn how to properly dispose of them. Maybe it’ll be something straightforward like burning.

I suspect it will take years and a few different eradication methods to rid this garden of phragmites. Luckily, it has not extended beyond about half the footprint of this flower bed, even after several years of unchallenged growth.

For now, though, I must wait once again for several days of rain to end then continue my work in the south garden. I’m definitely behind schedule but ever hopeful that I’ll plant the other 350 bulbs before the ground begins to freeze.

No matter how tough it gets, I’ll still be excited about those twelve peonies and eagerly await their red shoots next spring. They’re the start of a wonderful centerpiece of the south garden that will thrive for many decades to come.

How to Rejuvenate an Overgrown Flower Garden – Fall

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I am not an expert gardener and don’t pretend to be, but I do own two old homes that are graced with mature gardens that I’m in the midst of rejuvenating. Throughout her life, my mother always had flowers growing all around the house and until my late teens, my parents (and us kids) grew a large vegetable garden each year. While I learned about gardening back then, I’ve had to learn a lot more as I rejuvenate the overgrown flower gardens on my own property.

Here are some simple guidelines for anyone in a similar situation.

Basic Tips

  • Determine your landscaping aesthetic
  • Discover what’s present and what you want to keep
  • Be ruthless and thorough in removing/suppressing all unwanted growth (which doesn’t mean the automatic use of herbicides)
  • Learn the sunlight amount, wind exposure, and soil characteristics in the specific gardening area(s)
  • Apply soil amendments, if needed
  • Find your planting zone
  • Learn what will thrive naturally in your local conditions (there’s a lovely shrub/tree/flower for just about every environment)
  • Select the greenery you want to introduce (there are fall-planted and spring-planted specimens so if it’s too late to plant, it’s never too late to plan)
  • Work really hard
  • Don’t stress
  • Be eternally optimistic

The Reality

As I wrote last month, this year’s main landscaping goal is to rejuvenate the overgrown front flower garden at the main house. It measures 11-13’ W x 106’ L and is probably a bit longer due to the garden’s undulating border. I’ve run into headwinds, as any gardener can empathize:

  • The weeding seems endless.
  • I dread digging out yet more bamboo roots that are as thick as sweet potatoes.
  • I ran out of wood-chip mulch very early.
  • Weeds poked through it just weeks after I’d set out wet cardboard and what I thought was a sufficiently deep layer of mulch. Chopped leaves to the rescue!
  • But that entails a whole other time-consuming (and dusty) process of chopping leaves with the bigger mower, collecting them with the smaller mower with bag attachment, then depositing them.

So, how am I keeping myself motivated to rejuvenate this formerly glorious flower garden?

My Ideal Garden

I keep envisioning a lush, beautiful space, one with a limited palette. Hopefully, it will provide year-long visual interest and attract pollinators, too. A simple aesthetic always appeals to me most – repetitive stretches of form and different hues of a few colors create a calming environment. This works for me even if the colors are vibrant and saturated, like the iconic red tulip. Calming doesn’t mean boring! To achieve this, I selected three fall-planted flowers: daffodils, hyacinths, and peonies.

Then I ordered more than 300 heirloom bulbs, 358 to be precise. 

Why these flowers and why so many?

A Sea of Heirlooms

They’re beautiful, long-lived, hardy perennials that are deer resistant, and some are deliciously fragrant. The cultivars that I chose are cream, pink, or coral. I love these tones in a spring garden, especially coral which I don’t see very often.  Although peonies can take a year or two to settle into their new home, they’re so exquisite that they’re worth the wait.

I ordered 358 bulbs just in case burrowing critters try to spoil my grand plan and also to avoid the appearance of what I call “pimple planting,” the effect of too few plants studding a wide swath of mulch.

Here is what I selected:

  • 50 Romance daffodils (the cup opens peach to coral)
  • 100 Louise de Coligny daffodils (described as apricot, but I consider that to be in the coral family)
  • 200 Gypsy Queen hyacinths (apricot; I wanted to dot them with dark purple hyacinths, but they were sold out)
  • 3 Frances Willard peonies (cream/blush)
  • 5 Hermione peonies (apple-blossom pink)

First, though, I have to finish preparing the bed which is going to be a slog.  And keep reminding myself to be patient since this flower garden rejuvenation is a years-long project. After this week of rain and yesterday’s snowfall, I’ll be out of the garden for the next several days, but that’s okay. My goal is to complete my fall planting by the first week of December.  Fingers crossed that Mother Nature cooperates!

Overgrown Gardens – Honoring the Past, Designing the Future

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When I bought the little house and the main house, both had stunning flower gardens that were no longer at their best. An avid amateur gardener and professional landscape horticulturist/garden designer created them, respectively; their exceptional taste is still apparent amidst the weeds. I recall seeing these overgrown gardens in their full glory, such a great inspiration. They deserve to be reclaimed; it has never occurred to me to rip them out and grass them over though that would be the far easier course of action.

While I’m grateful for the prior gardeners’ expertise and efforts, I have to decide how much of their aesthetic to keep and still realize my own. Among homeowners who are living with someone else’s extensive landscaping, I suspect I’m not alone in this predicament.

I’ve selected the flower bed pictured below for my first, multi-year garden reclamation project. I’ll discuss the specific plantings in a future post.

The Garden Details

Location: The garden lies between a lawn and a long stone wall; hayfields stretch behind the wall. Since it’s toward the bottom of a gentle slope the ground is slightly moist and well-drained.

Dimensions:  11-13’ W x 106’ L (probably a bit longer due to the garden’s undulating border)

Sun exposure:  full sun

Level of difficulty: 4 out of 5 stars

The Plan

First, remove the debris and weeds on both sides of the stone wall. Then lay down mulch. Lastly, install 350+ bulbs (hyacinths, daffodils, and peonies) this fall; this phase will be detailed further in a future post.

My debris and weed removal has been inefficient.

In Summer 2017, my sister and I spent several weekends cutting and removing weeds and Phragmites that bordered the hayfield side of the stone wall. Without clearing this area, there is no sight line from the house through the lawn and garden into the hayfields which is one of my main goals. We should have used mulch after we cut everything.

Then, in Fall 2018, I hired the main house’s wonderful garden designer to remove a few years of dead growth and weeds and do a hard cut back of certain specimen trees. I didn’t quite know what was in the garden and didn’t want to remove anything by mistake. I had him use mulch on another garden, but not this one. Bad decision!

The following spring, a dense wall of weeds and Phragmites sprouted once again.  However, I was busy working on other outdoor projects last year so I didn’t tend to this garden.

Which brings me to this spring and summer – and the pandemic which has forced me to work from home since mid-March.  In April and May, I cut back the bamboo, grasses, and weeds. Then the heat and humidity of summer drove me out of the garden.  From June through August, the bamboo shot back to almost four feet and a sea of tough grasses returned.

This month, I returned to the garden, determined to stop endless weeding by using the one thing that I have an almost irrational dislike of: mulch.

Mulch

I generally dislike mulch because I think it’s too visible in most gardens or it’s an awful color. However, I’ve accepted that it’s an essential for me, and I can control its visibility and color in my application.  Given the number and size of the gardens at both houses, I just don’t want to spend a fortune every year to replenish it.

Luckily, I have access to a yearly supply of free mulch but didn’t realize it until this year.

Wood Chips

When I pruned and cleaned around a row of maple trees two years ago, my tree guy chipped all the branches then hauled away truckloads of wood chips. One pile was left on-site for my sister’s gardening needs, but she never used it.  The wood chip pile sat, a slight eyesore under a layer of fallen leaves, for two years.

You may have guessed correctly: that wood pile decomposed into dark brown mulch. I found compost in the center, presumably the hottest section.

It takes an hour to shovel it into a cart attached to my riding mower, ride it back to the garden then shovel it in the garden. But, it’s so worth it!  I love that the land is giving back to itself – and it’s at no additional cost to me.

I’ve just bought a wood chipper, which I’ll discuss in a future Lush Heritage product review.  I’m very excited to make my own mulch and compost annually and keep the property neater looking at the same time.

Fallen Leaves

Chopped leaves are another good (and free) mulch and will be my second choice here. One benefit to owning so many big deciduous trees is that I have easy access to a huge amount of autumn leaves.  I only need to chop and bag them with my riding lawn mower, or shred them with my DR Leaf and Lawn Vacuum. I think I’ve timed this project just right – leaves have already begun to turn and fall.

Perfect Mulch Partners

Mulch can be even more effective when used with other materials. Plain, brown cardboard boxes and black-and-white newspapers provide an inexpensive, opaque layer beneath mulch and an extra assurance that no sunlight will penetrate the mulch. Also, unlike plastic landscaping fabric, as they decompose they’ll add beneficial organic matter to the soil.

I remove all tape and sticky labels from the boxes, break them down flat, then soak them with water using my garden hose. When they’re good and soggy I lay them on the freshly cut weeds in the garden, overlapping as I go then cover them with my wood-chip mulch.

The garden is so big, that I’m sure I’ll run out of cardboard long before I’m done covering the weeds. 

When that happens, I’ll lay down 6-8 sheets of water-soaked newspaper (black-and-white only), then cover that with my mulch. I may resort to plain brown shopping bags for the base layer before I start mulching bare ground.

That’s it for now.  I’ll update this project over the next several months.

Good luck to all of you who are also doing fall preparation in your flower and vegetable gardens!