Feeling stir crazy with a major project I needed to wrap up, I decided that a bit of fresh air and a walk would do me good. Just starting our second year, we’ve got a few hellabores in our garden, which we’re getting to see bloom for the first time. This got me thinking about the Arboretum’s Winter Garden. In particular, I’d always admired the shocking silver explosion of the Ghost Bramble, Rubus thibetanus.
Parking the car at Fuel and walking into the garden, the witch hazels were backlit; their vibrant yellows and burnt orange colors set off by the large evergreens that surround the garden. Once inside, it’s the small plants that really captured my attention, the large hellabore bed and a mass of cyclamen.
Our garden is, of course, small by comparison, and in my over-exuberance have bought perhaps too many different types of plants, leading our home garden toward a schizophrenic species garden, instead of a pleasing repetition that mass planting gives. This year’s project is too tone it down a bit and create a better sense of pattern. Of course, at the Arboretum, the hellabore bed alone is the size of our entire front yard!
Unfortunately, the plant I’d gone to see is no longer there. According to the volunteers, it proved difficult to maintain as it was wont to spread and was perhaps invasive, so the rubus was removed.
Of course, it’s always worth a quick peak in the greenhouses near the visitor centers to see the plants donated for sell by members. I’ll likely go back to pick up some iris for the front porch.
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