september open garden tour: a giant botanical birdfeeder
I WASN’T CERTAIN everyone else would share my enthusiasm about what really amounts to a giant birdfeeder: grasses and forbs setting seed; hollies, aralias and viburnum fruiting up; the last migrating hummingbirds dive-bombing the self-sown Nicotiana. But I opened the garden anyhow one more time, on September 20, and I’m glad I did. A slideshow of highlights.
For a Garden Conservancy Open Day here, it was relatively sane and quiet: just 175ish guests, and no lectures or workshops on the agenda, the way there usually are. Just the garden, and the plant sale by Broken Arrow Nursery–our fourth time this season together.
Visitors, and many bumblebees and other pollinators looking for a late-season meal, were attracted to easy-to-grow ‘September Charm’ anemone, which has been in bloom for at least six weeks already.
My houseplants, including various bromeliads and many large fancy-leaf begonias, will soon head indoors for winter, with colder nights approaching.
Even though relatively few leaves have their fall pigments on display yet, there is always plenty of gold at my place, from my favorite gold foliage plants, and now from gold fruit of yellow winterberry holly (Ilex verticillata ‘Chrysocarpa’) and Viburnum dilatatum ‘Michael Dodge.’
Have a further look around:
the slideshow from sept. 20
MOVE FROM SLIDE TO SLIDE by hovering your cursor over the middle of the right side of an image, then click to advance.
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- Welcome! The Korean maple, Acer pseudosieboldianum, alongside the driveway is already in full red fall color.
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- You’ll see a lot of self-sown Nicotiana everywhere, which migrating hummingbirds stop in to sip at for weeks in August and September.
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- In between sips, they like the telephone wire nearby as a vantage point.
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- (Across the yard at the vegetable garden, they check out the Mina lobata, aka Ipomoea lobata, too.)
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- The well-named ‘September Charm’ anemone on the way up the path has been blooming for six weeks or more already, and many insects love it.
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- Just up the path a little farther on, many of my “houseplant” fancy-leaf begonias are still summering outdoors in the bright shade, but will come back in the week for winter.
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- Take a right turn at the top of the walkway, and the small backyard, with frogpond, reveals itself — with a steep, looser field that includes little bluestem, asters and goldenrod above it.
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- Everyone always remarks on the century-old apples, underplanted with shade perennials.
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- Various panicle hydrangeas are colored up now, along with Aralia (including a variegated A. elata, top left corner).
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- The golden Tiger Eye cutleaf staghorn sumac catches the eye even from far across the garden.
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- Besides lots of gold foliage, I like gold fruit, too — including yellow winterberry holly (foreground) and ‘Michael Dodge’ viburnum.
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- A mass of ‘Michael Dodge’ in full glory.
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- On the far edge of the garden, long shrub borders with red winterberry (foreground), and hydrangea and Physocarpus in the distance.
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- Aralia elata ‘Silver Umbrella’ attracts attention from a great distance. It’s starting to fruit, which thrills many birds.
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- A native herbaceous Aralia, A. racemosa, has bird-friendly giant trusses of fruit. (Click the photo to see the whole vertical slide.)
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- “What’s that pear?” everyone asked, but it’s not a pear. It’s a seedpod of an Aesculus pavia, the red buckeye.
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- Aesculus pavia, a small tree, was positively covered in them. Crazy.
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- This family of snakes in the terrace wall (I’ve seen five faces at once!) greeted many visitors.
Beautiful and I loved your snakes! Please be careful when mowing!
Agree, Sheri — the frogs and toads and snakes have to be alerted when it’s mowing day, for sure. :)
.. I almost can feel the chilly fresh autumn air you get first thing when opening the doors in the mornings !
It all looks so beautiful! Can you please tell me what the variety of pink panicle Hydrangea is in the photograph of the golden sumac?
Love your photos! Can you tell me where Korean Maples might also grow? I am in zone 5 in Indiana. Thanks, for sharing the beauty of your gardens!!!
Really very peaceful and beautiful. An inspiration for all. You make it look so easy.
Thank you so much for the tour, living in northern Mn our color is coming fast and I fear it well be gone too early. It is so beautiful. I enjoy all your posts and learn much, thanks again.
You’re welcome, Sharon. It’s starting to accelerate color-wise here, too, but even more than fall color I am hoping for R-A-I-N. It has been dry since mid-August here.
So lovely except for the snakes though they make an interesting photo.
I love your garden! It is absolutely gorgeous. I have never been to New York, but from the pictures, it is very beautiful. I live about 90 miles southwest of Houston, TX and it is so much fun to see gardens in other parts of our beautiful country. You are able to grow many plants that would not be able to stand our heat and humidity. I am a national Daylily garden an exhibition judge and sometimes get to travel to other parts of the U.S. For conventions. So much fun! Your blog is so informative and helpful. I read it word for word. I miss JACK very much. No garden can ever be complete without a cat. And…..a dog is an added bonus. Thank you so much for sharing. You’re amazing!
You have created beautiful gardens, Margaret!
Your gardens are truly spectacular! I think autumn is my favorite time of year… with the foliage taking on reds and golds, and the gardens are mature and transitioning. I love the berried trees and shrubs.. the winterberries and viburnums are showing the beautiful colors of the fruit. I also love the wildlife on your property.. the frogs and snakes and varieties of birds. Thank you for sharing your garden.
Margaret, thanks for always sharing the beauty of your garden.
You make me sad my Michael Dodge didn’t live! Thank you for sharing your beautiful garden. Hopefully one day I’ll get to see it in person.
Wow, I just found your pictures, and learned of you from Growing a Greener World. Right now, on the cool rainy first day of Spring on Virginia’s Eastern Shore, your Sept 20 pictures sure look wonderful! Thanks for sharing them.
You are welcome, Ron, and thank you for visiting. Congratulations on another spring…not here yet! :)
Margaret, I’ve been driving myself crazy going through your entire website, trying to find my very favorite photo of your garden, or yard (the best garden I’ve ever seen, in my opinion). It’s a photo I’ve been going to so often in the past, maybe once or twice a year, just because it’s really, my ideal of serenity. It’s a view overlooking your house and pond, from a hill or incline.
I did find a nice sort of primitive style painting depicting it, sent to you by someone, with the words from the title of your book, “And I Shall Have Some Peace”. So I know I’m not crazy; I didn’t just dream it.
If you can direct me to the photo on your slideshows, I’d really appreciate it. And if it’s reproduced in one of your books, tell me and I’ll buy it. Even though I will never have a garden like yours, it’s so fine to know that something like this does really exist somewhere.
Most sincerely,
Carol S.