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Shaggy elegance or shabby chic? This exhibition mum which I've been training all summer by pinching and removing side shoots to allow only a giant, single bloom, is really performing now in the greenhouse. 'The variety, called 'Paint Box', is available from Kings Mums as a cutting early in the spring. |
The autumn glasshouse reinvigorates my gardening passions causing me to seriously rethink if I really even enjoy outdoor gardening in the summer, especially given this past summers drought and heat here in New England. The greenhouse makes gardening feel fresh and new, as the seasons change and the approaching cold weather means that it is once again packed with plants. Fragrant, damp and feeling alive, it's a second spring, in a way. Certainly a second spring literally, as spring blooming bulbs from the southern hemisphere begin to emerge, but also because fall blooming heirlooms - the old fashioned conservatory shrubs, potted winter blooming trees and shrubs and certainly the tall and cascading exhibition chrysanthemums from Japan and China come into bloom.
Experiencing a greenhouse in full autumn glory is a rare thing in the 21st century. A time when the idea of a 'greenhouse' is either limited to a plastic hoop house on a farm, or a sterile commercial structure of twipolycarbonate at a home center, and at that, it is more likely to be packed with rows of 'hardy mums' for bedding out in that disposable way, or pallets of rock salt and a few mark-down shrubs as room is being made for Christmas Tree's. For many, an autumn or early winter greenhouse, which should be a place of wonder, has become something rather depressing.
The fact that a home greenhouse is a luxury item doesn't escape me, and although I sometimes wonder why they are not more popular in the US (as they are in the UK), the realities quickly become apparent once it snows. Heating costs are high, and maintenance costs often keep the fantasy of a greenhouse in ones back yard, just that - a fantasy. But I do wonder if glass houses at home, in the American back yard couldn't become a reality - even if barely heated, not unlike the glasshouses of a hundred years ago? In these structures, often kept just above freezing, many things can still be raised if the foundation is deep, and the soil exposed. Nature has a way of creating a moist, damp environment - a pit house, a place where scented violets, camellias and other cold tolerant plants can thrive.
Greenhouses like mine are kept at temperatures just above freezing, often dropping to near freezing on the coldest of winter nights, it still brings life to that long, cold season. One scented with Osmanthus, the fragrant olive so omnipresent in old greenhouse in the north, along with a seemingly endless supply of pink, red and white winter-blooming camellias. Right now? It's all about the big, fancy exhibition chrysanthemums and countless varieties of South African bulbs. Enjoy.
As I kick-off this new season of gardening under glass, I can't help but be reminded of the old estate greenhouses here in the North East. Any book about gardening in the 1800's offers a glimpse of just how common a home greenhouse once was. The conservatory was essential to many, if not to raise pineapples and lemons for the winter kitchen, then to force beds of freesias, ranunculus and for tender shrubs to augment floral arrangement for the home. I so enjoy reading about the same plants that Lincoln or Longfellow may have experienced - the tender Asian butterfly bushe that filled the bouquets in fireplace heated parlours and winter weddings, the trays of forced lily of the valley for the Holidays and the Saint Valentines Day traditional tussie mussie of scented Parma violets. Even clay pots of Lachenalia - the Cape Hyacinth, which was more common in 1850 than it is today as a windowsill winter blooming bulb harks back to a time when one only had time to appreciate plants between the stresses and labor of another era.
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Large yellow incurves and other mums are blooming, but I am fussing a little less with them this year. Just trying to get a few varieties which I have not grown yet, to bloom. |
People often ask "Why do you bother?" when they see or read about these plants hidden behind the hedges and fences where I live, but these are all simple the rare experiences I seek. I suppose I don't need to defend this luxury, for I truly can barely afford it. The sacrifices are many. A house peeling without paint, weeds and trees which need to be cut down, older used cars and a never ending heating bill which keeps one storing ramen for those 'just in case' overdraws at the bank. Greenhouses are not cheep, but they do offer more than just flowers. I suppose the cliche is that they are medicine for the soul. Maybe so so they can also be stressful, a constant worry that the fuel will run out, as it undoubtedly will often on that coldest night of the year, but somehow, their therapeutic benefits out weigh the negatives, in so many ways.
Even though the idea of a conservatory may seem to be a relic of the past, I can't help it but try to recreate this experience in my own greenhouse. It's a constant journey, an exploration, really. Sourcing antique and old plant material can addicting, as all collecting can be, but keeping such collections and watching them grow, both in rarity and in number, is very special. It's true, I sometimes am embarrassed to share these oft repetitive experiences here on these pages, but I feel that someone you really don't mind.
Here are a few pictures of what is now blooming in the greenhouse if only because my post on digging and dividing a growing collection of dahlias, is still being composed.
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This neuron is nearly purple, and so bright, that the color is difficult to capture with a camera. |