Each spring, I look with admiration on my drifts of an Ontario native plant that asks so little of me, but gives so much in return: Polygonatum biflorum, smooth Solomon’s seal. Its tapered shoots emerge in April in my north-facing back garden, where the clumps under the black walnut tree that looms over my sideyard pathway are surrounded by the tiny flowers of the bulbous spring ephemeral Corydalis solida.
By mid-late May, looking back towards my garden gate, the corydalis has disappeared but the Solomon’s seals stand three feet tall.
It’s still early in the garden when they flower, the grasses in my deck pots still just inches high.
The colony in the back corner of the garden grows near a Tiger Eyes sumac and has as its neighbour fall monkshood (Aconitum carmichaelii ‘Arendsii’), not yet visible. Both enjoy the same shade-dappled, slightly moist, humus-rich soil.
It’s a testament to the travelling power of Solomon’s seals that they do sometimes subsume other plants. This ‘Ballade’ lily tulip – one of my favourites – is resisting.
But nothing keeps Allium hollandicum ‘Purple Sensation’ from rearing its pretty head.
My garden features a number of invasive plants – some native, like ostrich fern (Matteucia struthiopteris), others enthusiastic exotics, like my lily-of-the-valley, aka ‘guerilla of the valley’ (Convallaria majalis). (I’ve written about that pest before in my blog about making a perfumed garden party hat!) But Solomon’s seal is up to the challenge and can stand its ground.
One that didn’t fare so well in competition with the Solomon’s seals was wild geranium (G. maculatum), shown below in a photo from a previous spring.
At the Toronto Botanical Garden, blue Amsonia tabernaemontana, shown in the background below, makes a pretty companion for Solomon’s seal.
I love the way the pearl-drop flower buds of smooth Solomon’s seal open, curling up their green tips like dainty skirts.
In November, the leaves turn yellow-gold.
Solomon’s seal and other woodland lovers were featured in ‘Shady Lady’, one of #Janetsfairycrowns from 2021, which I blogged about last year.
My next-door neighbour grows smooth Solomon’s seal as well; it met with the approval of the resident male cardinal.
Finally, speaking of cardinals, here’s a tiny video made in my garden featuring smooth Solomon’s seal with my regular choristers, cardinals and robins.
On May 14th, I was able to cross off an entry on my “Gardens To See Before I Die” list. It was a supreme pleasure on our spring road trip from Toronto to New Jersey for my husband’s college reunion to detour eastward in order to visit Garden in the Woods in Framingham, Massachusetts 20 miles outside Boston. I had heard so much over the decades about this garden featuring native New England plants that I couldn’t imagine being so close in spring and missing it. So we expanded our trip to spend two nights in Framingham in order to meet old Wooster, MA friends for dinner and visit the New England Botanic Garden (formerly Tower Hill Botanic Garden) in Boylston, but more on that later. Right now, let’s head into the parking lot on 180 Hemenway Road in the leafy suburbs of the town of Framingham. Walking towards the visitor entrance, we pass a spectacular carpet of mayapple (Podophullum peltatum) under airy pink-shell azalea (Rhododendron vaseyi) and flowering dogwood (Cornus florida) and I’m delighted to discover……
…… that I can photograph a shy mayapple flower without getting down on my hands and knees!
The flowers of pink-shell azalea, endemic to the Appalachian highlands. are simply exquisite.
I spot a little crested iris (I. cristata) in the entrance gardens and I am excited about what is to come!
We pay our admission and I take a fast glance around the beautiful little gift shop and the plants for sale, below, before heading out. (I’ll talk about the history of the garden and Native Plant Trust later, but the plants are grown at the Trust’s native plant nursery Nasami Farm 93 miles west in Whately MA.)
It is 1:15 pm when we start our visit and we will spend 2.5 hours here on the main loop, which is probably an hour less than the time I would like to have had to explore the various satellite trails. I’ve shown our route with red arrows on the map below. (Note that the garden recommends an hour to do the mile-long main loop, but that might be for visitors without cameras!)
I photograph the What’s in Bloom display for the various garden areas so I can refer to it as we make our way around. We are at peak bloom for the spring ephemerals, including trilliums; in fact the garden boasts a collection of 21 species of trillium!
The path is wide and flat here and bisects sun-dappled woodland with lots of signage to identify the native plants, like the spotted cranesbill (G. maculatum), below.
You can see brown autumn leaves between the plants – they are left on the garden to act as nature’s mulch. Now…. imagine this as your wild back yard, for that’s what it was to Cornell-educated landscape designer Will C. Curtis (1883-1969). One of his foundational roles was with Warren Manning, sometimes called the “Dean of Landscape Architecture”, renowned for his informal, naturalistic ethos in design. Later, he worked as the general manager of a tree farm in Framingham, and in 1931, while out hiking, he came upon this 30-acre piece of land in the rural north part of the city. Owned by the Old Colony Railroad and used as a gravel mine, it featured “undulating eskers, tumbling brooks and varied woodland with two bogs and one pond, plus an ever-flowing spring” (Dick Stiles).
Will Curtis was able to purchase the land for $1,000. At 48 years of age, he set about building a rustic cottage, felling trees, clearing garden areas, laying out trails, expanding the lily pond and making a rock garden. Soon, with the help of volunteers, the Garden in the Woods was opened to the public. In 1933, Curtis was joined by Howard O. (Dick) Stiles and in 1936 they began a full partnership, giving tours, selling plants and raising exotic, award-winning plants under glass. Over the next 30 years, Will Curtis (right, below) and Dick Stiles (left) became experts in native American plants while maintaining seed and information exchanges with international botanical gardens.
Photo – Native Plant Trust
As Framingham grew and houses sprang up nearby, they turned down offers to sell to developers. In May 1965, the decision was made to transfer the Garden in the Woods to the New England Wildflower Preservation Society, with Will and Dick staying on as director and curator respectively. But after a period of ill health, Will Curtis died in 1969 at his home in the garden. As Dick would write later, “This man was a most unusual character; rugged, determined, resourceful, undeviatingly honest with no use whatever for so-called ‘diplomacy’. He was a man with vision, a true artist who knew exactly what he wanted and went to any amount of time and labor to achieve it, whether doing landscaping for a client, or working at the Garden. He never used a plan—not once—for it was all in that brain that could envision and feel and know just how it should be.”
Today, the expanded 45-acre garden is owned by the Native Plant Trust, the new name as of January 2019. According to director Uli Lorimer in an interview with Margaret Roach, the name was changed from the New England Wild Flower Society “to better align with the conservation, horticulture and education work we have been doing for years, and will continue to do in the future”. But for the average visitor, it’s simply a place to be inspired with the native plants of New England and how to use them in design, like the yellow wood poppy (Stylophorum diphyllum) with Jacob’s ladder (Polemonium reptans) below. On that note, just days before our visit, Uli Lorimer’s book ‘The Northeast Native Plant Primer – 235 Plants for an Earth-Friendly Garden’ was published
I’m excited as I spot my first trillium, large toadshade (Trillium cuneatum)!
Some plants are familiar, like the white foamflower (Tiarella cordifolia), below with Christmas fern (Polystichum acrostichoides), while others….
…. like the goldenseal (Hydrastis canadensis)….
…. and the green-and-gold (Chrysogonum virginianum var. brevistolon) are not.
Not far along the trail, we check out the Idea Garden, with its residential scale.
I love the shed’s green roof of native plants, with chokeberry and redbud tree in flower at right.
Although the garden is virtually 100% native, I note a little drift of Anemone nemorosa ‘Vestal’ alongside the ferns, Solomon’s seals and wood poppies (one of the ‘well-behaved’ non natives that made its way in).
Pink flowering dogwood (Cornus florida ‘Rubra’) lights up the woodland.
For visitors looking for a native lawn substitute, swards of Pennsylvania sedge (Carex pensylvanica) are there to inspire!
Native plant cultivars are used here and there. This lovely combination is mayapple (Podophyllum peltatum) in a carpet of bright-pink creeping phlox (Phlox stolonifera ‘Home Fires’).
I see my second trillium, yellow wakerobin (T. luteum)….
…. and note how lovely it looks with the pink creeping phlox.
We pass by Carolina rhododendron (R. carolinianum)….
…. and Piedmont rhododendron (R. minus)…..
…. under towering yellow birch trees (Betula allegheniensis). The birdsong here is amazing.
We descend to a valley (though this entire part of New England is referred to as the Connecticut River Valley) and the topography hints clearly at the property’s use as a gravel quarry a century ago. There’s a little enclave with a stone wall that acts to retain the hillside above….
…. and a stone bench where visitors can sit and contemplate the native flora.
And here I find a treasure trove of trilliums, including bent trillium (T. flexipes) and…
….the pink form of showy trillium or wakerobin (T. grandiflorum var. roseum) and….
….. sweet white trillium (T. simile) and…..
….. toadshade (T. sessile) and…..
…… showy trillium (T. grandiflorum), here with long beech fern (Phegopteris connectilis)…
….. and finally nodding toadshade (T. cernuum).
How tranquil it is here, without the hordes of visitors I expected, given the peak bloom.
The most brilliant show at the moment is decidedly creeping phlox (P. stolonifera). I believe this is ‘Sherwood Purple’…..
….. pairing beautifully with yellow wood poppy (Stylophorum diphyllum) in one area….
….. and foamflower (Tiarella cordifolia) in another.
I see one of my own garden’s… um… more aggressive plants, ostrich fern (Matteucia struthiopteris) looking quite well-behaved in the midst of creeping phlox. Perhaps all I need are a few dozen gardeners to help me control it?
A little andrena bee is foraging on star chickweed (Stellaria pubara).
I find fringed bleeding heart (Dicentra eximia) down here, both the light-pink form…
…. and a raspberry-pink form, here with wild leeks (Allium tricoccum).
Look at this valley. Isn’t it stunning?
We’re now at the Rock Garden and I find Phlox subulata ‘Emerald Cushion Blue’ making good use of the outcrops.
Nearby is a little colony of plaintain-leaf pussytoes (Antennaria plantaginifolia). Like all members of the genus, its leaves are a larval food for the American painted lady butterfly (Vanessa virginiensis).
And a new-for-me plant, stiff amsonia (A. rigida).
Exactly 10 years ago today, I had one of my best spring garden visits anywhere. Except it just happened to be right here in Toronto at one of our biggest ‘tourist attractions’, Casa Loma. But back on May 12, 2011, I didn’t bother staying inside the castle (which I had toured many times) and instead went right out to the garden. I passed by the Asian-themed garden with its pretty azaleas…..
….. and walked down the slope past the bright-magenta Rhododendron dauricum. For geology fans, this hillside is actually the ancient shoreline of Lake Ontario’s Ice Age predecessor, Lake Iroquois.
I slowed down completely as I came to the staircase near the bottom, where native Virginia bluebells (Mertensia virginica) were at their very peak.
Virginia bluebells might be one of the northeast’s most splendid springtime sights! Like many of our native spring wildflowers, they’re ‘ephemeral’, meaning after they flower and set seed, they just die back completely… until next spring.
I had a destination in mind, and it was the Woodland Garden with its beautiful paper birches and a spectacular underplanting of some of the best spring natives, as well as a few delicate Asian groundcovers that added their own charms. Here we have Virginia bluebells with lots of lovely ostrich ferns (Matteucia struthiopteris).
An ascending path made from grit and flagstone slabs takes you back up the Iroquois shoreline so you can enjoy all the shade-lovers. Here we have the three principal actors: Virginia bluebell (M. virginica), yellow wood poppy (Stylophorum diphyllum) and ostrich ferns. (Note how much bigger the wood poppy’s flowers are than that confusing, weedy, invasive doppelgänger with the small yellow flowers, greater celandine, Chelidonium majus.)
I love yellow-with-blue in the garden, and this is one of the finest duos!
Ontario’s provincial floral emblem, shimmering-white, showy trilliums (T. grandiflorum) add to the display.
Virginia bluebells are also lovely with yellow merrybells (Uvularia grandiflora).
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I’ve never identified the buckeye seedlings that were popping up in this planting, but given it’s mostly native, perhaps Ohio buckeye (Aesculus glabra)?
There were also epimediums in this garden, like the red-flowered E. x rubrum you can see at the bottom left, below,
… and here, with Virginia bluebells.
Yellow-flowered Epimedium x versicolor ‘Sulphureum’ was featured in the woodland as well……
…. and orange-flowered Epimedium x warleyense ‘Orange Queen’.
Finally, a pure-white trillium with E. x versicolor ‘Sulphureum’.
Whoever said it was terrible to garden in shade?
*****
If you want to read more about spring designs for shade, have a look at my blog on the Montreal Botanical Garden’s fabulous Jardin d’Ombre, A Shade Garden Master Class.
I first met Peg Bier this June at the opening party of our Garden Bloggers’ Fling at Willowsford Farm in Ashburn, Virginia. She looked lovely! It was fun to think we were going to be seeing Peg’s garden a few days later – the Fling write-up called her a “local gardening legend”.
Later in the tour, I spotted her chatting animatedly with another Fling attendee, Gryphon Corpus, soaking up the garden vibes at Meadowlark Botanical Garden in Vienna, VA.
But the best sighting of Peg Bier was in the driveway of her own home in Tyson’s Corner, Virginia, where her large, 2.5 acre woodland garden appeared a leafy oasis in a neighbourhood of neat and tidy lawns.
Even in the driveway, there were clues that this was not just the domain of a gardener, but a collector and artist as well.
Peg has lived in this pretty house for 58 years, raising four children with her late architect husband Richard and teaching her twelve grandchildren the fine art of gardening.
As for that “local gardening legend” billing, for 25 years (1990-2015) Peggy had been a television personality on the show Merrifield’s Gardening Advisor produced by Merrifield’s Garden Center, (which we visited on the Fling, below), where she continues to work part-time as a garden specialist. Imagine having this as your plant source…….
…. and this as your outdoor furnishings resource! (I could have spent a lot of $$ here, but contented myself with a sweet purple birdhouse and some windchimes.)
P.S. – A big thank you to Merrifield Garden Centers for hosting the garden bloggers.
Here’s a little taste of Peg on the show, chatting with host Debbie Warhurst Capp about shade plants inspired by her own garden, which she calls a ‘nature preserve’ with its foxes and opossums.
Back to our tour. As we moved into the back garden, I gazed up and saw a canopy of mature oak trees….
….and some tulip poplars (Liriodendron tulipifera) as well. Keep in mind that this miniature forest is a literal ‘island of wild’ in a ‘desert of tame’. Residential development swallowed the land surrounding the Bier home, but Peg held on under her big trees.
Immediately behind the house is a roomy deck with a table big enough to seat a lot of family. And I loved the deck boards placed on the diagonal.
And a comfy chaise for reading and relaxing.
If you took some time to watch the video above, you’ll know that Peg has hewn lots of paths out of the shade-dappled understory. This is her favourite path material: crushed ‘red stone” on top of landscape fabric. And look at that textural shade planting!
But it’s not all about the plants. Over the years, Peg has created little sitting areas out of the woodland. This is one I loved, atop a flagstone patio.
Much of her seasonal colour comes courtesy of inspired container combinations. Look at these cobalt-blue accents – and of course, the perfect complementary colour contrast in the orange Bolivian and Rieger begonias!
And I loved this little vignette, with French bistro table and chairs painted aquamarine. What a lovely place to have lunch!
With such a large property to tend, I wonder if Peg ever has time to sit in one of these lovely Adirondack chairs?
Another sitting area featured bricks laid around a mature tree. The understory in the woodland includes natives like redbud (Cercis canadensis), fringe tree (Chionanthus virginicus) and dogwood (Cornus florida), as well as shrubs and small trees Peg has planted including aucuba, mahonia, camellia, nandina, sweet box (Sarcococca), Japanese maples (many grown by Peg from seed), hydrangea and boxwood everywhere. Sometimes it online levitra why not try these out is caused by endodontic treatment. This medicine offered a medical solution of men’s erectile dysfunction issue. cipla viagracheapest line viagra This magnifies the length & size of male’s private part. Start with a visit to your doctor Although this medication can be used as energy rather than building up and causing damage. cialis tablets uk
Everywhere there were containers of tropicals mixed with luscious shade plants. And more of those lovely orbs!
And loads of grasses! Variegated Japanese sedge (Carex morrowii ‘Ice Dance’) is a particular favourite of Peg’s.
Speaking of grasses, she loves dwarf mondo grass (Ophiopogon japonicus), too – and what a spectacular use of it, below.
At the far end of the property, in the sunniest spot, there was a deer-proof enclosed garden filled with sun-loving perennials, vegetables and herbs, all mulched with pine needles.
Tomatoes are grown in containers here.
And there’s even the odd rooster.
I wanted to walk every path, but time was running out! How beautiful is this? Imagine those hellebores in early spring.
I found a bathtub with a spouting frog….
…. and a few fairies. (Peg loves fairy gardens.)
This pretty path was near the front of the property…..
…. where I found concrete stepping stones embossed with the handprints of all Peg’s grandchildren. Isn’t that lovely?
At the very front where the neighbours can see them was a glorious profusion of sun-loving perennials…..
…. as if celebrating colour and fragrance on the edge of this shady forest…..
…..and the grace of bees.
The bus was loading and I made my way along a split-rail fence, sniffing this luscious trumpet lily as I took a last look at Peg’s garden.
But as I was climbing up the bus steps, I heard her cry, “Oh, no. I forgot to show everyone my special garden.” I wondered where that could be, since every part of this big garden had seemed “special” to me. I thought it wouldn’t hurt to run back for two minutes, so I followed her back into the woodland. And there it was, her beautiful little memorial garden to her late husband.
Having spent time with Peg, talking with her and learning a little about her, I thought how special that marriage must have been, and how his presence must still be so strong in this lovely garden where family is cherished above all.
Siri Luckow’s garden won first place in the Environmental category in a city-wide garden contest, and on her street in the northern part of Toronto it stands out as a beacon of hope in a desert of lawns. Look at this, in late spring. It’s hardly a sacrifice in the name of the environment, is it?
She proudly proclaims her intention with this beautiful garden right out front, where passersby can be inspired.
I visited Siri’s garden first in 2015 with a group of garden bloggers, and she was a delightful host.
I then asked to return the following year to absorb a little more of what can be done on a small property, like the drainage made possible by a dry stream bed.
In her front yard, Siri mixes lots of natives, like the dwarf chinkapin oak (Quercus prinoides)….
….with old-fashioned non-native favourites like tree peony (Paeonia suffruticosa).
But it’s not all ‘native this’ and ‘non-native’ that. Siri’s garden contains loads of edibles as well, front and back. In her front garden, she mixes shrubs like gooseberries….
….and blueberries with the ornamentals….
…. and she includes leafy crops in her containers, too. Here’s kale with pansies.
Moving around to the back, you’re greeted with a lovely flowering dogwood (Cornus florida) underplanted with sweet woodruff (Galium odoratum).
Nearby in a sunny spot is the vegetable garden. The plastic mesh panels deter her kitties, which love to dig here.
In her shade garden, Siri grows ostrich ferns and white bleeding heart (Lamprocapnos spectabilis ‘Albus’)….
…. and spring natives like (Geranium maculatum)….
…. and this uncommon white form of Virginia bluebell (Mertensia virginica f. alba).
There are beautiful painted ferns (Athyrium niponicum var. pictum), paired here with the foliage of early-flowering native bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis).
Siri’s garden art tends to be organic and ecological, like this rotting tree section melting into cranesbills (Geranium sp.)….
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…. and this dead branch cradling a smooth rock.
There’s a bit of lawn in the sunny part, and behind it a wonderful mini-woodland that acts as ‘edge’ habitat, bringing many birds.
Chickadees nest in a house Siri set up here…
….and birds are able to secure nesting material in the wool holder or nesting ball that hangs in the garden.
There are always birds feeding here. Here’s a male northern cardinal eating from a simple plastic plant pot feeder,
…and the female eating a sunflower seed, too.
Hidden away in the trees is a brush pile for birds and other wildlife – the value of which too few gardeners understand.
It’s easy to plant some pussytoes (Antennaria sp.)……
…. and wait for the painted lady butterfly to lay its eggs on the leaves, which then become the larval caterpillar’s diet.
Siri’s sunny woodland front features native shrubs like Carolina allspice (Calycanthus floridus)…
…. and native trees like the paw paw (Asimina triloba), with its dusky maroon flowers…..
…. and native perennials like prairie smoke (Geum triflorum).
But she’s a plant collector, too – so there are a few rarities like Syringa afghanica.
During the Garden Bloggers’ Fling in 2015, we were invited to climb the ladder to look at the Luckows’ Green Roof. Here’s Toronto garden designer Sara Katz taking a photo under tulip tree (Liriodendron tulipfera)….
… and here’s my photograph of the top of the roof.
Thank you Siri (belatedly) for opening up your garden to gardeners – and to the rest of the wild creatures you welcome daily.
