Gorgeous enough to make an angel’s heart run wild

This post originally appeared in Emily Stashower's always-interesting garden blog, Roots in Reality.

 

Growing up in Minnesota, azaleas were a rare treat generally limited to visits to my grandparents in the South.  Azaleas can be grown in Minnesota, if your level of commitment is high and your expectations are low.   I’d been spoiled during my childhood days in the Smoky Mountains, where azaleas grow wild.  The flame azaleas, the best known being the orange variety, are an extraordinary sight.   It seems hard to believe that they (along with their white and pink siblings) were never cultivated. They’ve along the Blue Ridge Parkway; you can see them across the mountains; it feels like God just put them there. Nobody else did.

 

Washington, DC is a lot closer to North Carolina than it is to Minnesota.  The official flower might be the American Beauty rose, but, in reality, it should be the azalea.  Washington is wild for azaleas; and surrounding Maryland and Virginia follow suit.  (Which leads me to wonder why Maryland picked the Black-Eyed Susan.  Colorful and native, yes, but they hardly leave me breathless.  Virginia chose the native dogwood, an area favorite, which looks lovely with azaleas.)    But there is trouble in paradise: the Washington Post’s garden columnist has actively campaigned against azaleas, saying “Florally, it's a binge banquet for three weeks followed by a diet of gruelish greenery the rest of the year.”  The word “nauseating” was also thrown around.  (Probably  directed toward the “Pucci color combination,” which I love.)
 

I suppose that to some extent that it is true.  My garden, in suburban Maryland, has more azaleas than any other shrubs.  The home’s original owners, enthusiastic and skilled gardeners, replanted a large slope covered with honeysuckles and poison ivy with over 100 varieties of azaleas. This wasn’t an arbitrary act of an ordinary azalea enthusiast; the previous owner was Head of USDA’s Soil Conservation Service (as it was known then) and took the selection of plants very seriously.  Although many shrubs were lost over the years, the variety astonishes me.

Not knowing their proper names, I’ve given them nicknames.   The soft red is the first to arrive.

 

The “orchid” is a delicate lavender number that lights up with sunshine from behind (and looks rather like a real orchid up close).
 

 The apple blossom azalea is consolation for my lost apple trees, chopped down by a subsequent owner (If only they’d been cherry trees, how poetic it would be!)

 

The pink-throated azalea has a very distinct look, carrying two shades.  Near the center of the bloom, the pink deepens.

 

The largest of our blooms is the giant magenta.

 The hot-pink bee azalea makes me wonder what azalea honey would taste like
 

 And there are the whites and the corals, the cherry red and the deep-purple…

 

So, yes, everything is in one basket.  We have a couple of glorious weeks in which I can hardly believe that all this beauty belongs to us.  Then, the azaleas fade away, as they are now, with a few remaining reds and pinks.  All will settle into “gruelish green” soon, but the memory of that smashing, unphotographical vista will stay with me. 

When I was child, I heard the term “Georgia Peach” from my aforementioned Southern family.  I assumed that it meant a sweet and pretty woman with a nice complexion.   That is, until I had a truly fabulous Southern peach bought from a roadside stand.  This was a rich, pure delight with a flavor that knocked my socks off.  All peaches before and all peaches since have paled in comparison.  I remember this peach like a soldier might remember a beautiful, charming, compelling woman.  He’d spend his three weeks of leave just trying to be in the same room with her, and she’d be worth it. 

Death of a Daphne

One whiff of a daphne and I was hooked.  As I waxed on about the fragrance, the pinky-purple blossoms, the variegated foliage, somebody said to me, "You know that they die, don't you?" 

 

No, no I didn't.  But I do now.  It's even got a name: "sudden daphne death."  I was told not to get attached to my plant, wisely it seems.

 

I'd like to consult Rex Stout's famous detective Nero Wolfe (Death of a Dude, Death of a Doxy), but he stuck to orchids.  Wouldn't it be ideal if plants existed like they do in books: impervious to bugs, disease, and weather?  I remembered a passage by Barbara Pym (one of my favorite authors) in The Sweet Dove Died (not one of my favorite books).  The heroine (so to speak) is the elegant Leonora.  She displays a Victorian book of flowers, changing the page each day to display a different flower.  While Leonora left me cold, I did admire her ability to surround herself with beauty.  Why didn't I own such a book?  Well, actually I do, thanks to a friend's thoughtfulness.  So, to console myself, I put it out and turned it to a non-daphne page.

   

 

This was more like it.  Actually, I own a lot of gardening books,  On my coffee table is a beautiful trio of books.  Capital Splendor was given to me just last week.  It describes various gardens in around Washington, DC, which are gorgeous, varied and all the responsibility of people other than me.

 

Another stack of encouraging books is in the sun room.  On top of the pile is Down the Garden Path by my favorite garden writer of all: Beverley Nichols.  To me, his candor, ambition, imagination, and knowledge (not to mention his love of cats) are reassuring and inspiring.  (For more information on Nichols see Belle, Book and Candle's wonderful post Ten things I adore about Beverley.) 

 

 

 In fact, there are encouraging images all over.  Even historical and practical books look good (though I admit The English Garden, on the book stand, is neither.)

 

 

 Few things influence my thoughts more than the books next to my bed.  The Bedside Book of the Garden lies here. It's a lovely book: a pretty dust jacket embellished with gold, a matching placeholder ribbon and illustrations throughout. But the jacket liner sums it up best: "Here is a book that will not send you outside, or reaching for gloves and boots.  Here is a book to settle back and enjoy."  Perfect for the wounded gardener, no?

 

 

 My quest for beauty got a bit out of hand when I started to create a desk arrangement that would please even Leonora.  My grandmother's desk fascinated me when I was young: a desk and a bookcase, complete with Gothic-like glassed doors.  She gave it me, along with the chair, several years ago (her green thumb did not pass to me so easily.)   The books on the writing surface are festooned with flowers.  One of them, written in the 1930s, is about a young couple falling in love as they restore the fantastical garden behind their group house (who knew such places existed back then?)  My best friend gave me her copy simply because I liked it so much. Even the pen, yet another gift, is covered in flowers.

  

 

I will end this flight of fancy with the admission that I don't actually write at this desk (or do anything else, for that matter).  Like the state of my daphne, real life can be anything but flawless.

 

Jasmine on my mind

March came into Washington as neither a lamb nor a lion.  It came on little cat feet.  Grey followed by more, well, white and grey.  Throughout the neighborhood, daffodils are in bloom (or at least flaunting a little bright yellow).  Unfortunately, my yard runs 3-4 weeks behind most of my neighbors (I’m caught in some strange microclimate here.)  Add a couple of inches of snow and I’m confined to indoor gardening for now.  A lush spot of green or a blast of a fragrant plant can keep me going.   But I live with a major limitation, two of them in fact.  Their names are Lionel and Marmalade and they cannot be trusted. 

 

The forbidden list of plants toxic to cats is long and enticing: sago palms, cyclamen, amaryllis, kalanchoe...  Those pretty, cheap house plants at Trader Joe’s?  They’re almost always a no-go.  (We won’t even get into the cut flowers – the fatally beautiful lily…)

But, nature gives the cat lover a few breaks.  The gardenia, temperamental though it may be, has glossy foliage, velvet blossoms and a spell-binding fragrance.  I have struck a bargain with my gardenias, as I have with most of my plants.  They make it through the winter, I let them spend the summer outside.  That doesn’t mean that my gardenias won’t turn on me and die for no apparent reason.  (If you have an interest in gardenia, or simply difficult houseplants, you might enjoy GardenWeb’s infamous suicidal gardenia thread http://faq.gardenweb.com/faq/lists/calif/2004035908004767.html )  But a single blossom in the winter season pays their keep.

(Needless to say, this is not a photo of my gardenia; no gardenia would be so cooperative as to bloom on demand.  Credit goes to russavia, via Wikipedia.)

 

Another blooming plant that is safe, sightly and a bit tougher: the Thanksgiving or Christmas cactus, both cultivars of Schlumbergera.  This was given to me by grandmother almost 20 years ago.

 

 

African violets are another safe bet.  The giver of this African violet described it as a weedy version of flower shop varieties; it’s a generous repeat bloomer, as the catalogs say. I can tell that it is trying to escape its pot, perhaps even my house, but I love it nonetheless, especially those translucent blossoms.

 

Of course, God’s greatest gift to cat lovers is the orchid.  They are extraordinarily beautiful.  Currently, there are white, pink, apricot, yellow and one variegated purple orchid around my house (all from grocery stores!)

 

 

They are a decorator’s dream, as long as you aren’t planning on seeing any blooms for a year or two.

 

And last, but by no means least, the extravagantly scented jasmine.  Mine bloomed its heart out for two glorious weeks.  Every time I came into the room, I stopped momentarily and wondered why there was perfume in the air.  Clearly, I wasn’t the only one enjoying it.

 

Around the world

Having lived in Washington, DC for over 20 years, I've seen people come and go.  Given the ever-changing nature of government both here and abroad, I know a lot of well-traveled people who have lived across the globe.  With our ever-shrinking electronic world, I can see a secret garden in Charleston, a rosaria on the Italian coast, or even a friend's creeper-covered wall back in Minnesota.  Of course, these experiences are not the same thing as being there.  But what if travel is not in cards?  I, for one, tour my garden.  Even a suburban yard has roots all over earth.

We begin with my earliest bloomer, the lovely, delicate winter hazel (in this case, Corylopsis paucifloris).   Like Emily's bewitching witch hazel, it comes from Asia, in this case probably Japan (though plants, like people, are happy to cross political boundaries!)  The blooms are followed by pleated leaves.  After the fall, the twisted branches add a striking and amusing quality to the winter landscape.  I envision it around the boundaries of a Japanese tea garden.  I will watch the beauty of the tea service, and swear to myself that I will start living mindfully…

 

Another plant from Asia offers less drama in its flowers, but has the most amazing fragrance.  Daphne odora earns its name, transporting me to another place far outside of Washington DC’s infamous beltway.

 

 

The Purple Plum tree first grew in East Asia and South East Europe.  It has rich purple foliage that contrasts wonderfully with all the green of summertime; I assumed that it was planted by a previous owner solely for that purpose.  Imagine my surprise when I saw this during springtime in a Washington suburb.

Few plants evoke Asia quite like the camellia.  It was originally cultivated in China and Japan.  Camellias are often seen in art from these countries: paintings, screens, and porcelain objects, and de Gournay appropriated it for my dream wallpaper.  While I’d prefer to see them in their native land, to hold one in your hand is a tangible connection to an elegant world.

I have a beautiful fall bloomer, which I had referred to generically as an aster.  A friend (a horticulture professor, no less!) informed me that it was, in fact, a Chrysanthemum zawadskii, also known as a Korean Chrysanthemum.  It begins with small flowers and, in time, becomes a huge, pale peach-colored puff.

Turning my attention to Europe, the magnificent saucer magnolia was developed in France by a retired veteran from Napoleon’s army.  Perhaps the process of developing such a beautiful ornamental tree gave him peace after battle.  I prefer to think of myself gazing at them in a Parisian café, with a fresh croissant, apricot conserves, and a generous gift certificate for Givenchy.

But I am not picky.  I happily take my mind to the Mediterranean, where I will see the blazing colors of snapdragons.  I will gaze upon the sea, hopefully clad in Givenchy from the trip to Paris.  (The cat came, originally, from Africa.)

 

Southern Africa is the source of the graceful Calla lily.  I’ve heard a lot about the beauty of South Africa, especially Cape Town.  Apparently, seeing Table Mountain should be on all of our bucket lists.   But it’s a very long trip, and I have my own associations with calla lilies.  When travelling in Portugal, we visited Óbidos, where clumps of calla lilies grow outside the city walls.  We stayed in a castle that night – a proper 13th century castle built for protection with thick walls and fortifications.   My own calla lily is a small reminder of that romantic time.

 

 

 

Plants can be globe trotters themselves. The dainty scilla comes from both Europe and Asia.

 

Climbing hydrangeas likely orginated in the Himalayan region, and are native to China, Japan, Korea and, most surprisingly, Siberia.  My climbing hydrangea is, year by year, conquering the back of my house.  I am a little concerned about its weed-like exuberance and will happily pass on the trip to Siberia. 

 

My favorite world traveler is the azalea, which is found in Asia, Europe and North America.  The diversity of its flowers, the shading of colors from pale pastels to fluorescent pinks, purples and oranges make it welcome everyplace.   According to Wikipedia, the Chinese refer to azaleas as siangish shu or the "thinking of home bush.”

 

That seems a good place to stop my travels – for now.