Tending to Plants, After the Snow Melts   

By Mimi Dekker        

This time last year, I had little work to prep my gardens for spring. With the open, "warm" winter, few of my plants required any serious tending. But this year, after 36 inches of snow fell on us overnight in February, I was anxious to see how my plants would fare. During a snow storm, I gently shake off light accumulations of snow from the boxwoods and dwarf conifers, but there's only so much you can do when the snow arrives overnight in a blizzard.

Most healthy, established trees and shrubs will weather a severe snowstorm. In fact, the snow cover helps insulate root systems and micronutrients in the air, which come down with the snow, and slowly leach into the soil. But many needled and broad-leafed evergreen trees and shrubs get hammered with high winds and heavy snow, and large branches or entire specimens may be lost. You don't have to look far to see large limbs of Pinus strobus (Eastern white pine) littering the ground and taking out power lines during and after a storm. Dwarf conifers and Japanese maples don't necessarily fare any better, and can suffer split and broken limbs and branches. A young Buxus 'Green Velvet' hedge enclosing my terrace was still buried at the end of February, and I feared it was flattened. After a few sunny days, the hedge miraculously fluffed back into shape. Not so lucky was a young Acer palmatum 'Garnet.' Two of its three main limbs were last seen rolling across the lawn like tumbleweeds.

A Wikstroemia under the packed ice is better left buried. After the thaw, all is fine.

Even if a tree or shrub looks like a "goner," consider your alternatives before removing it. Damaged or discolored leaves and needles don't always indicate the plant is dead. Wind and sun reflecting off the snow can burn leaves. Scratch the stem, and if the cambium is bright green, the plant should show signs of growth when the weather warms. If you're not sure, get professional advice or wait until mid-May when new growth really starts to take off. Many shrubs and trees will recover from heavy snow loads when their splayed branches spring back naturally. Some, like Thuja occidentalis 'Emerald Green,' may need a little help. You can tie their branches up to regrow normally. On any shrub or tree, split or torn branches must be cut back to remove the damaged parts to prevent disease.

In summary:

• Know where your plants are. Don't walk on or otherwise compact the snow over your plants.
• Talk to your snow removal contractor. Make sure your contractor knows where you want snow pushed and piled on your property.
• Place plants out of harm's way. When planting a garden, keep in mind where you'll need to push or stockpile snow, and avoid these areas or use herbaceous plants (with top growth that naturally dies back every winter).
• Clean up gardens in the fall. Cut down herbaceous perennials and grasses. Keep gardens tidy and well pruned and stake young plants, as needed.
• Prepare for the worst. Secure trees and shrubs prone to splitting or splaying in the fall.
• Be patient. Resist heroic measures to dig plants out from underneath heavy snow. Once the snow has melted and your plants are freed, begin assessing each area of your garden.

A Beautiful Rock Garden   

By Lori Chips

If there's one private garden in our area that you shouldn't miss seeing it is Anne Spiegel's in Wappingers Falls, New York. And you're in luck, because it will be on the Garden Conservancy's Open Days tour this spring. Winner of the prestigious Linc and Timmy Foster Millstream Garden Award, and a reasonable drive away (not far off the Taconic Parkway) it will open your eyes to possibilities whether you are a rock gardener or not. Be assured that I don't make recommendations like this lightly. I have known Anne and Joe Spiegel since the mid-90s and I can still recall the first time I viewed their incredible garden. As I remember it wasn't even "high season" at the time, but it was a humbling experience nevertheless.

Looking down at the house from the top of the cliff. The crevice garden to the right is only partly planted in this picture.

It is relatively challenging to make a rock garden look natural in New England. The site is usually not dramatic enough, nor mountainous, craggy or steep enough. Anne's site is all of these - the impact of it is breathtaking as you step out of the car. The height of the cliffs and outcrops she has planted are taller than her house by a good measure and, by the way, this is not a good place to visit in high heels, not if you want to get close to the plants. And you'll certainly want to do that. (As always though, be sure that where you step is a pathway, and one that your host wants you traveling).

Notice the skillful integration of troughs, man-made steps, and the natural rock outcropping.

This garden is a wonderfully harmonious collaboration between nature and the nurturing gardener. The balance achieved is intrinsically beautiful. What Anne has brought to this striking topography is the art and abilities of a true plantswoman. Due to an inadequate well, this windy sunny garden is never watered, and Anne has logically focused on xeric plant material, growing many of her favorites from seed. She sources these from our own dry land in the American West, and other low rain areas like Turkey. Many are rare endemics. You will see plenty of examples from one of her favorite plant families, Fabaceae (the peas), including Astragalus and Oxytropis. A profusion of Phlox carpets certain areas in the spring, and Eriogonum, the western buckwheats, are another well-loved genus.

 

Spring Phlox below a natural ledge.

Penstemon are also particularly well represented. With a plantswoman like Anne, though, it can be difficult to pigeonhole her "favorites." That is because you are just as likely to find a monotypic species thriving in an alkaline bed here, an endemic from the Caucasus tumbling out of a wall there. Collomia, Phacelia, and Vitaliana hunker in among the stones. There are pygmy Daphnes in this landscape, and I have spotted the impossibly silver leaves of rare hardy Convolvulus and Helichrysum. Here is a gardener who has flowered Eritrichium (one of the rock gardeners holiest of grails) and she has a soft spot for Gentians. It is a rich and varied planting, often full of surprises. When I was a relative novice at this, I recall Anne telling me that such-and-such a seed exchange was listing Smelowskia. In my ignorance I thought she was making a joke (and making up a word). These days Smelowskia is on my wish list when ordering seeds.

Troughs along a span of wall garden. The white flowers are Potentilla davurica var. mandschurica, we got our first cuttings from Anne.

These choice plants have been carefully seated in a series of stone-walled raised beds rhythmically stepped up the cliffs, or tucked into beautifully developed crevices. The visitor will get to see and learn what performs best in specialty beds such as tufa, limestone or pure sand; the examples here are of the highest caliber. She has, by the way, been a long-standing and loyal customer of Oliver Nurseries. Besides plants, many of our troughs have made it into her growing trough collection, and are handsomely integrated into the garden. She has chosen to display a number of rectangles in various sizes, plus ovals, and a couple of unique free-form troughs. I have found Anne to be a rock gardener always willing to share her areas of expertise and answer questions, especially if the visitor is genuinely interested. (This is a hint, by the way. Pulling out a notebook and pen for the answer is the height of garden etiquette wherever you happen to visit.) Your host and you both know that a method, a source, or a botanical name is as likely to stick in your head as last year's annuals will in your garden.

 

 

Deep, gravel filled crevice garden for choice alpine subjects.

 

 

After this gorgeous alpine tour-de-force, it may seem a touch anticlimactic to mention that far away down the driveway a fenced stream garden has been developed, squishy enough for the water lovers. And remember to visit what is now referred to as "The Last Outcrop" being populated with shade plants like anemones, hellebores and hepaticas.

 

Rivers of Phlox out the back door of the kitchen.

 

This is ultimately a garden in which the needs of the plants come first. Designers take note! It is not about bending the plants to our will. If we fulfill what they need first, they thrive. A thriving vista is generally a beautiful one. What Anne has done, however, is to satisfy the needs of these alpines in a sweeping, massive, stony, stunning setting. Experimentation is always ongoing here, to the benefit of the landscape, but also for the close-up inspection of the visiting horticulturist. In our time as garden lovers, there are plenty of gardens we visit and forget. This is not one of those.

© 2013 Lori Chips 

Anne, Joe and the late beloved Ranger, one of the best dogs I ever met.

 

The Spiegel garden will be open for visitors on Sunday, May 5, 2013, from 10:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m., 299 Maloney Road, Wappingers Falls, N.Y. 12590. So make a note on your calendar, and set your GPS. You will not be disappointed.

 

   

Roots to Branches:

This three-hour educational community forum is designed to promote networking and gather the community's input in order to develop priorities for defining and achieving our vision of the future of our urban forest. The forum will be held Saturday, April 13, 2013, from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. at the CT Audubon Society, 2325 Burr Street, Fairfield, CT.

For more information: call the Fairfield Audubon Center at 203-259-6305.