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LAST SUMMER, furry, bluish, flat-to-the-ground rosettes erupted in my backyard, creating a sort of lake effect in the sunniest section — a section that was then, and still remains, an untamed wilderness. I let the rosettes be, even though they are weeds, sort of, and easy to pull out. I wanted to see what would happen, and I had no other plans for that space.
I knew they were called mullein and recognized them from roadsides and other ‘waste places,’ as the Connecticut Botanical Society would have it, although I resent them for implying any part of my garden is a waste place.
This summer, they’ve shot to a height of 6 feet or more, sending up flowering yellow spikes. They are, properly, verbascum thapsus, a snapdragon relative, and they are biennial, forming rosettes one year, flowering the next, then going to seed and dying off. They have a long history of being used for everything from medicinal teas, yellow dye, and lamp wicks to (since they can be slightly irritating to the skin), ‘Quaker rouge.’
Clearly, they’re sun-loving, and I’m watching where they spread to determine the sunniest part of the yard — which right now appears to be a diamond-shaped space about 20 feet across and equally long.
I recently thought of fencing in just that area and growing whatever I damn well please there, be it tomatoes and other veggies, or roses and all the sun-loving, deer-attracting flowers I haven’t been above to make happen elsewhere in the yard. I would love to have a cutting garden; and I wouldn’t have to fence in the whole half-acre, which was going to cost about $5,000. That was one strike against the deer fence concept I’ve been ruminating over for the past two years. The other was that I haven’t been able to come to terms with the prospect of losing my uninterrupted view into the woods and replacing it with a network of posts and wire mesh.
Whether my cutting garden is a workable idea remains to be seen. I’m starting to track the hours of sunlight on paper, and I’m not sure there are really more than 3 hours even there. Meanwhile, I’ve grown to appreciate the verbascum, and if a fenced cutting garden doesn’t come together by the summer of ’12, I’ll get to see what happens next.
THIS FROM Fine Gardening magazine’s website…I’m going to Montauk to eat lobster. Happy 4th, everyone.
Q: I just moved into a house built in 1740 and was hoping to put in some annual and perennial beds that reflect that era. Could you recommend some historical plants that would fit with the character of the house?
A: Dr. Denise Adams, a landscape historian and horticulturist in Dillwyn, Virginia, responds: A 1740s garden in Connecticut would have emphasized plants of a utilitarian nature, as opposed to strictly ornamental flowers. Herbs with decorative flowers or foliage performed both functions, such as chamomile (Chamaemelum nobile), valerian (Valeriana officinalis), feverfew (Tanacetum parthenium), lavender cotton (Santolina chamaecyparissus), and thyme (Thymus vulgaris).
Discussing the vagaries of New England weather 80 years earlier, John Josselyn reported that “lavender is not for the climate.” Roses were also grown. Some very early varieties include the sweetbrier rose (Rosa eglanteria), Rosa ‘York and Lancaster’, and the Four Seasons rose (Rosa ‘Quatre Saisons’).
Among perennials and annuals for mid-18th-century New England gardens, you might use single hollyhocks (Alcea rosea), money plant or honesty (Lunaria annua), gillyflowers or pinks (Dianthus plumarius), double balsam (Impatiens balsamina), native columbine (Aquilegia canadensis), gasplant (Dictamnus albus), fleur-de-lis (Iris pseudacorus), sweet iris (Iris pallida), Maltese cross (Lychnis chalcedonica), white lily (Lilium candidum), and lily-of-the-valley (Convallaria majalis).
For spring beauty, American colonists relied on bulbs, as we do today. Eighteenth-century selections include the diminutive hoop-petticoat daffodil (Narcissus bulbocodium), poet’s narcissus (N. poeticus), Van Sion daffodil (N. ‘Van Sion’), “muscary” or grape hyacinth (Muscari botryoides), crown imperial (Fritillaria imperialis), and snowdrops (Galanthus nivalis).
~ SOURCES FOR ANTIQUE PLANTS ~
Old House Gardens – Heirloom Bulbs
536 Third St.
Ann Arbor, MI 48103
734-995-1486
www.oldhousegardens.com
The Thomas Jefferson Center for Historic Plants
PO Box 316
Charlottesville, VA 22902-0316
804-984-9821
www.monticellocatalog.org
Perennial Pleasures Nursery
PO Box 147
63 Brickhouse Rd.
East Hardwick, VT 05836
802-472-5104
www.perennialpleasures.net
Select Seeds – Antique Flowers
180 Stickney Hill Rd.
Union, CT 06076-4617
860-684-9310
www.selectseeds.com
Pickering Nurseries, Inc.
670 Kingston Rd.
Pickering, Ontario, Canada L1V 1A6
905-839-2111
www.pickeringnurseries.com
Illlustration: Jennifer Blume
WANT TO RENT my bright and comfortable 1940s cedar-shingled cottage in Springs, N.Y. (5 miles north of East Hampton village) August 1-31? It’s on a landscaped half-acre with a view into peaceful woods from the back deck.
The house is half a mile – a 10 minute walk, 5 minute bike ride, or 2 minute drive –from the beautiful, unspoiled, never-crowded Maidstone Beach on Gardiner’s Bay.
- 2BR (one full bed, two twins), 1 bath
- High ceilings, skylights, screened porch, huge deck, best outdoor shower ever
- ½ mile to Maidstone Beach, 1 mile to Louse Point (another spectacular beach on Accabonac Harbor). Superb swimming, kayaking, paddleboarding, etc.
- 5 miles to ocean beaches at East Hampton and Amagansett
-Under 1 mile to Springs Historic District, including Jackson Pollock-Lee Krasner House and Springs General Store
- 10 minutes East Hampton Village, 10 minutes Amagansett, 20 minutes Sag Harbor, 25 minutes Montauk (restaurants, bars, stores, art galleries, historic houses, movies, etc.)
- 2-1/4 hours from NYC, barring traffic
- Washer-dryer in basement
- Flat-screen TV, DVD player, Wi-Fi, printer, iPod dock
- A/C in living room, ceiling fans in LR and MBR
- $7,000 August 1-31
To see more photos, go here. Email caramia447@gmail.com if interested in renting, or for more information. Thanks!
I HAVE IT ON GOOD, IF THIRD-HAND, AUTHORITY — from the friend of a friend of a friend — that the 1970s modernist gem, above, on Hog Creek in Springs, N.Y. is highly, highly negotiable. I think the place is pretty fabulous in a Hamptons kind of way, harking back to the boom building years of the 1970s and ’80s.
Cube-like, cedar-sided houses with expansive decks like this one are more common near the ocean, in the former potato fields south of Montauk Highway, than they are here, five miles north of said highway, where the beaches are those of unspoiled and uncrowded Gardiner’s Bay.
So I was sitting at one of those beaches the other evening, watching the sun set and running my mouth to a friend about how I’d still love to trade in my cute ’40s cottage for either an old farmhouse or a place with some kind, any kind, of water view.
My friend said she knew of a house nearby that was still on the market after a year, and that the owner, now elderly and fed up with it all, was very eager to sell. She put in a call to her friend — the friend of the owner — who gave us the address. “It’s a square box,” he said dismissively, and we went off to look at it with low hopes.
In fact, I found the house — on 2/3 of a wooded acre, with frontage and a boat launch on Hog Creek, above, which leads into Gardiner’s Bay — very attractive. I have no objection at all to the architecture. I like its symmetry, proportions, and wraparound decks. We couldn’t access the upper deck, which would have provided a better view of the creek, but peered into the windows of the three bedrooms on the lower level.
Pay no attention to the original ask of 825K. I’m given to understand an offer of 500K would not be unreasonable under the circumstances. The house is part of the Lion’s Head neighborhood association, with its own bayfront marina and beach, a mile or so north of Maidstone.
The house is not for me, after all; I’d still rather have a 19th century farmhouse. But I can’t help fantasizing furniture from Design Within Reach (or its ilk), rya rugs, super-graphics on the walls, great modern lighting.
For those who embrace such a vision, the listing, with interior photos, is here.
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