Author: sparky

Interested in a seminar on hellebores?

Where: Carolyn’s Shade Gardens

325 S Roberts Rd

Bryn Mawr, PA 19010

610-525-4664

carolynsshadegardens@verizon.net

When: (Select One)

Saturday, March 21, from 10 to 11:30 am

Sunday, March 22, from 1 to 2:30 pm

Saturday, April 4, from 10 to 11:30 am

Sunday, April 5, from 1 to 2:30 pm

Cost: $25 per person

Attendance is limited to 15 people

Content: Using examples from my own gardens, Carolyn will cover everything and anything you ever wanted to know about hellebores, including:

• How to grow and maintain them

• How to propagate them by division and seedlings

• How to pick the best plants

• What makes a superior hybrid hellebore

• What is special about the different species hellebores

• Some of the interesting new species crosses available

• A special selection of hellebores will be available for purchase, including rare plants potted just for the seminars

The seminars are suitable for any level gardener as long as you can listen to discussions of the most esoteric qualities of hellebores without your eyes glazing over. Questions and observations from the group are encouraged. Feel free to bring samples for identification and discussion.

Registration: To register, please send Carolyn an email with your name and phone number. You will receive a reply confirming your registration and containing further details. Registration is on a first come, first served basis. Carolyn has added a fourth date this year because, last year, the three dates filled within a day of sending the email out.

If you like reading The Garden Lady’s blog, then sign up to get posts delivered straight to your email. All you have to do is type in your email address where it says “Feed It!”.  This is located in the right sidebar of the main page of the blog.  Then click submit.  That’s it!  It’s as easy as pie. Once you do this you will no longer have to check the blog to see whether TheGardenLady has put up any new posts.

For you lovers of interesting gardeners, you should read the post about Barry Glick and his Sunshine Farm and Garden, which will be coming out in about 9 hours.

TheGardenLady thought you would enjoy these photos taken from The First Post.

                                         Photo by Will Stuart

This is an invitation for an open house to a beautiful shade garden owned by a woman named Carolyn.  It is this Saturday, September 27, from 10 to 2, rain or shine (checks and cash only).  Directions are below.  If you can’t come that day, please feel free to schedule an appointment during the preceding week, 9/22 to 9/26.

Carolyn has some beautiful plants available to transform your fall garden with showy flowers and ornamental leaves.  Don’t forget that fall is the best time to plant because soil temperatures are elevated into December, but new plantings don’t have to contend with hot weather.  This is the year that your fall garden will be as beautiful as your spring display!

This open house will offer blooming, specimen size:

• Pink turtlehead/Chelone lyonii ‘Hot Lips’ (native)
• Red and blue lobelia/Lobelia cardinalis & siphilitica (native)
• Toad-lily/Tricyrtis ‘Sinonome’, Miyazaki’, ‘Samurai’, & ‘Taipei Silk’
• Garden phlox/Phlox paniculata ‘Laura’, ‘Nicky’, Starfire’, ‘David’, ‘Blue Paradise’, & ‘David’s Lavender’ (native)
• Japanese anemone/Anemone x hybrida ‘Pamina’, Honorine Joubert’, ‘Queen Charlotte’, & ‘Robustissima’
•  White and pink hardy begonia/Begonia grandis, B. g. ‘Alba’, and B. g. ‘Heron’s Pirouette’ (selected as a superior form by Heronswood nursery in WA)
•  Unusual ferns—Autumn fern, Tassel fern, and Japanese holly fern
• Purple, peach, caramel, and lemon coral bells/Heuchera ‘Citronella’, ‘Crème Brulee’,  ‘Peach Melba’, & ‘Plum Pudding’ (native)
• Foliage plants like bear’s breeches (acanthus), silver-leafed brunnera, native Jacob’s ladder ‘Stairway to Heaven’, pulmonaria ‘Bertram Anderson’ & ‘Diana Clare’, and the golden-leafed St. John’s Wort ‘Brigadoon’
• Hellebores– large specimens of ‘Pink Lady’ and ‘Ivory Prince’
•  Butterfly attractors—Tartarian aster ‘Jindai’, Ironweed (Vernonia, native), Hardy ageratum ‘Cory’ (native), ‘Little Lemon’ goldenrod (native), and Joe Pye Weed ‘Little Joe’ (native)
• Chinese astilbe ‘Visions’—late-blooming, drought tolerant, and covered with buds
• And many more!

Reusable Plant Crates, Boxes, and Pots:  If you took a plastic crate at a previous open house, don’t forget to reuse it on Saturday.  Please continue to bring cardboard boxes–we always need more.  I am happy to reuse my pots and similar sizes.  Please don’t drop off any pots that aren’t black or contained shrubs, trees, houseplants, or annuals.

Questions:  Carolyn’s catalogue is an excellent resource for information about the ornamental characteristics and cultural requirements of the plants I offer.  Carolyn often finds incorrect information on the preprinted plastic plant tags and recommend that you go to my catalogue first.  Printed copies will be available at the open house.  If your question is not covered in the catalogue, please feel free to consult one of her knowledgeable open house “volunteers” in the yellow hats.

Continue reading “Open House for Carolyn’s Shade Garden”

                                             Photo taken by Bill Leaman

American Goldfinches, Carduelis tristis, have been sighted recently in TheGardenLady’s garden and other local gardens. The Goldfinches have been sighted on TheGardenLady’s sunflowers – those sunflowers in my garden that the squirrels, in their eagerness to eat the seeds, haven’t knocked down.

Goldfinches live much of the year in most of the country – going to warmer areas in the winter. Since they breed in late summer and fall, the males now have on their beautiful bright yellow feathers that must make them especially attractive to the female and are busily gathering seeds for their females and chicks. This late breeding may be related to the abundance of seeds in the late summer months.

Continue reading “American Goldfinch”