Kew Gardens

"People who have extensive grounds themselves are always pleased with any thing in the same style."

—The insufferable Mrs. Elton, Jane Austen's Emma

I just spent ten days in England with my family. As my own garden looks as if it's been neglected for at least ten days, I'm simply going to revisit the trip and deal later with daylilies that need deadheading and weeds that need uprooting.

On our last day, we took a train from London's Waterloo Station to the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew — or Kew Gardens. We have been twice before and have now explored most of it. Being at the end of our trip and being a bit tired — and perhaps a bit tired of each other — we kept this visit short and saw some things we've missed in the past: the Palm House, Kew Palace, and the Queen's Garden.

The Palm House

The Palm House is a steamy tropical forest of sorts. At the base of the higher section at the center of the glasshouse is a balcony that follows the perimeter and that you reach via spiral staircases. The balcony offers great views of the treetops and plants below. Clark liked the view, but not so much the oppressive heat. (This balcony strikes me as exactly the kind of thing that would be off limits in the States.)

Kew Palace

Kew Palace is one of the Historic Royal Palaces, which are no longer residences and are maintained by a nonprofit organization. The formally designed garden in front of the palace and the Queen's Garden behind the palace feature English lavender. Although the beds are very symmetrical, the lavender has this charming, whispy character that seems relaxed and comforting. The colors are striking and uncomplicated.

The less formal garden is planted with vegetables, herbs, and medicinal plants. And these beds offer somewhat of a riot of colors and textures.

The grounds at Kew Gardens are extensive, but I think the compact and isolated gardens of the palace are my favorites. I am not sure why I haven't planted lavender in our garden. Perhaps I can remedy this after I rescue the garden from its current state.

The rest of Ophelia's garland

There's rosemary, that's for remembrance;

Pray, love, remember:

and there is pansies, that's for thoughts.

—Ophelia, William Shakespeare's Hamlet

And here's a bushel of chives, that's for shame.

—Jay

When we first started a vegetable garden six years ago or so, my neighbor asked if I would like some chives. Of course, that sounded delightful, and she gave me a couple clumps.

I plopped them in the ground along the sidewalk where I had planted a few other herbs for easy access to the backdoor. I had no idea at the time that chives are the horticultural equivalent of rabbits: they multiply like crazy and are more than happy to consume a garden.

The growth of the chives patch — it's a patch now — was a little alarming at first, and I felt a bit ashamed for how little I was using this bountiful crop. I would sprinkle a few chives on top of a frittata or in a potato dish. But I have enough chives to open a dumpling stand at the Taste of Chicago.

A few summers ago, I noticed a large swath of chives in the landscaping around the Harris Theater in Millennium Park. They were quite lovely in bloom. I'm not sure why I needed someone else's garden to validate my own, but it was a comfort. I now embrace the chives, with no shame, as simply another flowering perennial — and occasional herb.

I now plant the other herbs in raised beds. I've allowed the chives to fill in most of the space beneath our crabapple tree and to blend in with a few Johnson blue geraniums in the same space. They seem happy enough together. Chives that show up where I don't want them are easy enough to pull up.

While thumbing through a magazine at the doctor's office the other day, I came across tips for the herb garden. The writer suggested deadheading chives vigorously to keep them under control. It's a shame there was no mention of not deadheading them to create a lovely, carefree flower garden.

And chive flowers are edible, you know, like pansies.

Peonies, or ignoring unsolicited advice

"In the eyes of the editor of Cottage Gardening, it was the very absence of a 'pretentious plan' that lent the charm to the cottage garden, leaving the 'flowers to tell their own tale.'"

From The Cottage Garden, by Twigs Way

I can claim little to no responsibility for the lovely peonies in our back garden. They were planted along the north side of the garden by a previous owner, whose father grew them commercially.

I water them, throw a bit of compost around them every spring, mulch heavily, and use grow-through cages to hold them up. I have also ignored unsolicited peony advice:

·      Do not move them

·      Cut off the smaller buds to make the larger buds get even bigger

·      Do not use them as cut flowers in the house because of the ants

Well, I couldn't leave them along the fence. I'm not fond of lining up plants (except the vegetables). Once we decided to rip out the entire back lawn, I felt at liberty to move things about with reckless abandon. And the peonies survived.

This is my evolving "unpretentious plan" — with the peonies in bloom.

I toyed with the idea of cutting off the smaller buds, but after the first year of picking up soggy blooms following a heavy rain, it seemed silly to make them bigger and heavier. And I rather like the little blossoms and even the buds that never open. They're the charming introverts in the Paeoniaceae family of divas (or tenors).

Now about the ants. I think a vase full of peonies is one of the best reasons to have a garden. My ant-reduction strategy is to cut the flowers in the late afternoon or early evening when the garden is in the shade. Or I cut them, put them in a vase, and set them in a cool shady place outside for a while. (This was solicited advice, but I can't remember who told me this.) I still get a few ants, but not enough to worry me.

Clark wanted to help me with a vase of peonies on Sunday. He cut the flowers, and I trimmed them for the vase. I explained my peony-arranging philosophy: put as many flowers in the vase as possible and then add a couple more. I hope these are the kind of things he remembers.

Hostas — Chicago-style verdure

"I shall soon be rested," said Fanny; "to sit in the shade on a fine day and look upon verdure is the most perfect refreshment."

— Jane Austen's Mansfield Park

Gardening in Chicago requires one to come to terms with shade. And shade in Chicago means hostas.

I'm not sure what this green-and-white variety of hosta is called, possibly 'Kenzie' or 'Earth angel,' but it might as well be called hosta 'Chicago.' This is the shade plant of choice on narrow, tree-lined streets and in the slivers of garden beds tucked between houses standing just a few feet apart.

The ubiquity of hosta 'Chicago' is a wee bit tiresome. And the hosta hedge — the crowded straight line of hostas — doesn't do anything for me. But I completely understand the appeal, because not only do they favor shade, but also they propagate quickly and tolerate a great deal of neglect.

When we bought our house, the side garden had nothing but lots of hosta 'Chicago.' So I've been learning how to live with them. As I've added things to this garden, I've used it as the hosta nursery for the rest of the shady places.

A few years ago, I read an article in Fine Gardening in which the author recommended that hostas look best when you plant a mix of sizes and colors. I'm not sure why I didn't figure that out myself. Anyway, I finally bought a variety with large, heavy, solid green leaves.

My real find, however, was a blue variety. I bought three plants at an annual plant sale held by a local garden club to support the volunteer gardening program at nearby Indian Boundary Park, which we love and frequent.

This is the third season of dividing and shuffling the new hostas about. In the front garden, they are mixed with ferns, astilbe, and a dwarf red-twig dogwood shrub.

And for the first time this spring, I moved some of these varieties into the hosta nursery in the side garden. The hostas on the side are mixed with ferns, bleeding hearts, and painter's pallet.

Of course, this now means I am well on my way down the garden path of always needing more hostas . I'm thinking 'Blue Mouse Ears' and 'White Feathers,' both of which look pretty much as they sound.

And now a confession: One might conclude from the quotation that I love Mansfield Park, but it's not so — and not for a lack of trying. I read it the first time in grad school during the quarter from hell. Thinking that quarter might have clouded my judgment, I read it again a few years later. Meh. 

After reading a biography of Jane Austen, I decided I should read it one more time. I think I simply prefer my Austen heroines a bit more flawed than Fanny Price. But I do welcome her appreciation of verdure. 

The Cottage Garden

"He who persuades a man to garden [will have] transformed a drone into a bee, and . . . done more to keep his brother from drunkenness than all the pamphlets that were ever printed . . . He will have added not only to our respectability but to our food supply."

Samuel Reynolds Hole (1819-1904), Dean of Rochester, quoted in The Cottage Garden (2011) by Twigs Way.

Some English Victorians apparently expected the cottage garden to feed the body, promote character, preserve the soul, and keep one away from the local pub. I like to imagine our little house in Chicago as a bit like a cottage, and the small garden plots I've created around the house have a nice cottage-like blend of the practical and the decorative.

Gardening has not, however, done much to promote a spirit of temperance. Whenever I call it a day in the garden, I stand around sipping wine — fussing, scheming, and admiring. And a primary purpose of the back garden is to create a good outdoor dining space.

I started gardening, at least in part, because keeping a descent looking lawn seemed hopeless — and somewhat pointless considering how small our lot is. But after more than ten years of puttering, I suppose I have become slightly obsessed with the whole thing.

That's not so say I'm a master gardener. My gardening habits are a constant tension between getting it just so and not making my family crazy. I'm unwisely optimistic when the garden catalogs appear in January, and I usually concede defeat in mid-August when it's too damned hot to deal with weeds.

Therefore, if I'm going to share my gardening adventures with a wider audience, I should probably establish some expectations, so that readers are not too disappointed when they discover the paucity of horticultural wisdom to be gleaned here.  This is probably what one needs to know:

·      My husband, Greg, and I bought our house almost 11 years ago. We have an 8-year-old son named Clark.

·      My real job is stay-at-home dad and part-time freelance writer (mostly medical writing).

·      The entire property — not the garden — is 25 feet by 100 feet.

·      I'm not a super urban-gardener who provides a substantive amount of my family's food supply, but I have a few friends who are such gardeners.

·      I have canned exactly once in my adult life (rhubarb chutney).

·      I have three rain barrels and a small rain garden for overflow, but until we manage to put in some pebble walks, the entire back garden will continue to serve as overflow during downpours.

·      I have a plastic compost bin that looks a bit like an oversized kimchi pot.

·      I don't use chemical fertilizers, but I can't claim to be strictly organic, because not all the produce I buy is organic. That would mean, of course, the compost bin has nonorganic vegetable peels and whatnot.

·      I really do like gardening — and wine.

Here are photos of the gardens in their current state.

The front garden

The right side is in the shade almost all day. The left side gets hot afternoon sun. The parkway suffers a great deal of abuse.

The side garden

This tiny plot of land actually belongs to the neighbor, but the neighbor has no compelling reason to deal with this. The entrance to our house faces this shady area, and the neighbors let me do as I please with the space. 

The back garden

This is the back garden as seen from the dormer window in Clark's bedroom. The peonies and irises were lined up along the fence when we moved in and the rest was a lawn, by which I mean creeping Charlie. We planted the crab apple tree and the rest. The two boxes on the right toward the back are Clark's. The mulched area may be a pebbled patio someday — after Clark is out of college. (The Cavalier King Charles Spaniel is Nala.)

The bottom of the garden (where the fairies live)

This is home to an amethyst beautyberry shrub and enough rhubarb for me to be dubbed a "rhubarb supplier" by my friend, Marie. It's also where I grow asparagus, two or three tomato plants, and sugar pumpkins, which grow up the trellis. Clark's collection of crabapple limbs and branches is on the right. Last year we made a rough lean-to.

So this is gardening with wine. And I should probably mention I'm also not a wine connoisseur.