Round Robin: Garden Sing-A-Long

Article Tools

Print

E-mail

Comments

RSS

DENVER, Colorado—I’m slightly relieved by the close of the active gardening season. This summer, I felt like a tour guide. The feeling was partly my own fault as I opened my garden for several charities. The largest tour was to benefit our local PBS station. Seven hundred people in the garden in one afternoon was a little overwhelming. The visitors were extremely courteous and respectful of the plants, I must say, but at times I had to go inside and chill out. I considered having a good belt of scotch but decided against it. I probably would have started a group sing-along.

At one point, I was surrounded by a solid circle of bodies, all with pads and pens in their hands and questions on their lips. It flashed through my mind that President Clinton has to endure this every day, although he doesn’t have to remember the Latin name of every single plant in his garden, where he got it, and how to propagate it. “Let’s all join hands,” I wanted to say, “and do a rousing chorus of ‘Kumbaya’.”

One of the biggest stars in the garden last summer was Knautia macedonica. Try spelling that out loud a couple of hundred times in one afternoon. This plant (it has no common name to my knowledge) resembles a scabiosa in most respects, except that its pincushion flowers are beet red. It bloomed all summer, and it’s a showstopper, especially with a skirt of deep red carnations and a Blackie sweet potato twining through. Behind the knautia bloomed spikes of purple monkshood and red orach (Atriplex hortensis ‘Rubra’), which has dark maroon leaves. Lest anyone accuse me of restraint, I had also planted the purple-leaf form of garden sage (Salvia officinalis ‘Purpurascens’) with this grouping. It takes a while to explain all this, since some of these plants are not well known. It’s part of being a good tour guide, but it wears me out.

RSS | Comments | E-mail | Print