Callie's Memory

The bounty of early summer bloom is upon us... it would be easy to feature a wide range of blossoming plants on this Fertilizer Friday (see link on the right), but I thought it better to choose one plant group to share today. The intersectional peonies (originally Itoh hybrids after the hybridizer) are just now coming into bloom.

Intersectionals are crosses between tree peonies which just finished blooming in the gardens, and herbaceous, also pretty much gone over in my gardens with the exception of my large Tinka Philips.

Pictured above and below is Callies's Memory, the first plant of which first bloomed in 1990 and was registered in 1999. It is one of the intersectionals that can have different pastel colored blossoms on the same plant... this has to do with aging of the blooms but it occurred almost immediately with my plants this season, making me wonder whether the blooms sometimes open in different shades and colors. Note in the second photo below that one bloom opened with only the bright burgundy flares.

Callie's Memory

Callie's Memory

Another intersectional which shows more than one color of bloom on a single plant is Pastel Splendor pictured below. My friend Bill Seidel introduced this plant from Roger Anderson seed in 1996. These blooms can get up to 10" wide although I haven't had that yet... perhaps it takes a few years of plant growth to achieve blossoms of that size.

Pastel Splendor

Pastel Splendor

Cora Louise can be stunning when the blooms fully open... my first blossom of the season is pictured here...

Of course my all time favorite and perhaps the best known intersectional is Bartzella... I like it so well that I have four plants and plan on getting more eventually, or dividing some of what I have. Here are the first two blooms of this season, with many more to come. Bartzella also reblooms some giving us up to six weeks to enjoy its beauty. It was developed in Wisconsin by Roger Anderson. It is a plant that should be in every garden, holding its blooms high through wind and rain. With age, a plant can easily exhibit 100 blooms.

Bartzella

I'll close with a few long shots of this portion of the gardens... Take care, Larry

Garden update

Cornus x rutgersensis  'Celestial' ('Galaxy')

Hot and dry days add to the work of preparing and maintaining this season's gardens. Work often begins at 5:30 a.m. and continues until lameness sets in... that can vary with the tasks being undertaken, so some days it's dawn to dusk while others are shorter because there is little energy left to continue.  The days go by fast and I love every minute of it. There is little time to blog as glass work has a higher priority, with customers waiting, when not working in the gardens. I can't resist taking pictures however, and I'll once again share a few here... 


A combination that I really like involves the dogwood 'Celestial' also known as 'Galaxy', and the tricolor european beech, Fagus sylvatica 'Tricolor' sometimes called 'Roseomarginata'. To the best of my knowledge, there is some question as to whether these latter two are the same tree or not.

Elsewhere in the gardens most of the rhododendrons are ending their bloom and pushing new growth...

Cornus alternifolia (Pagoda Dogwood) is in full bloom...

... as are a variety of weigelas and viburnums...

Viburnum sargentii 'Onondaga'

With the exception of several magnolias (including the Little Girl's series) that tend to rebloom some, one of the latest to bloom in this garden is tripetala (the umbrella tree)...

Among the perennials, are the following...

Dictamnus

German irises Stepping Out/ Praise The Lord/ California Gold

All manner of dianthus...

Hostas are doing their thing... mainly getting bigger every day!...

My favorite allium (Globemaster)...

With that I bid you farewell for today from Oak Lawn CheeseFactory... Larry

No picture can do this plant justice...

I grow hundreds... maybe even thousands of blooming plants in my gardens.... to my mind none can compare with the tree peony pictured here.

It took twenty years from the time I started it as a graft, to get to this place where it is laden with eight to nine inch blooms... it's all been worthwhile.

Today's 93 degrees brought it to its peak of perfection... it causes a sensation to the depth of my soul with its perfect color and form. I am overwhelmed by its beauty.

I took a hundred pictures, experimenting with the light until I got close to its actual color and richness.

Hesphestos has outdone itself... if I were not to experience another bloom this season, I would consider this gardening year a success... Larry