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Tranquil Times

Summer and Fall 1998

All plants mentioned in the following articles are available for sale at Tranquil Lake Nursery.

Gilding the Lily

There are few incentives that will stimulate the gardener into a frenzied pace of planting, grooming and weeding, like having your garden on tour.   The invitation to be on public display is really a double-edged sword.  While certainly flattered by the complement to the garden and gardener's hard work, there is also an implied obligation to strive towards horticultural perfection.

At Tranquil Lake Nursery, we took on the challenge of becoming part of a national tour for perennials professionals.  The request came in the summer of 1997, and six buses of visitors arrived during the first week of July 1998.

The microscope of horticultural scrutiny is not new to us here at Tranquil Lake Nursery.  Upon purchasing the daylily and iris nursery and catalog business twelve years ago, we defined horticultural education as one of our primary goals.  We started immediately designing and planting display gardens to feature specific display hybridizers and favorite perennials in mixed border combinations.  The gardens are a perennial propagation resource as well as a sales tool for inspiring our gardening public.  Many visitors tell us how much they appreciate seeing how our gardens have evolved and grown over the past twelve years.

Over the years, we have had the opportunity to judge gardens designed by other at the New England Spring Flower Show, and we have also created our own garden designs that were judged by others.   We have also worked with some of our landscape clients to ready their home gardens for local or regional garden tours.  This has sometimes required that we work through a rainstorm or late into the evening to meet muster.

With all this experience with garden shows and garden tours, being on review for this garden tour should have been old hat for Tranquil Lake Nursery.  One wouldn't expect even a quickened pulse when the Perennial Plant Association called asking that we open our gardens for their national tour.  Not likely!

Last autumn, with less than a year's notice, we started restructuring borders, making paths and even integrating a sitting areas into the garden. Construction continued into a mild December, with the addition of bloodstone walkways to replace trodden turf paths.  Even the moss is newly planted! A new garden space was developed against an existing arborvitae hedge featuring a wattle thyme bench or 'banquette' surrounded with fragrant foliage and flowers.

The production fields have been weeded and rototilled, and the fields are now coming into colorful bloom.   Even with flood waters we worked to meet muster.  We hope you enjoy viewing the gardens as much as we do.  We think that this year the nursery and gardens are truly exceptional.

Fall Fireworks & Winter Silhouettes in the Mixed Border

Those plants that are endowed with ornamental characteristics that shine during multiple seasons are especially valuable in a garden composition.  Spring, summer or fall flowers, autumn fruit and attractive foliage, which provides beauty from spring through fall and even into the winter, are especially desirable.

Typically we think of woody plants, such as viburnum, dogwood or fothergilla, when seeking candidates with late-season flowers, fruit, foliage and form.  herbaceous perennials also offer colorful fall foliage and winter form.  Adding a few perennials with interesting fall foliage characteristics when planning the garden will expand your garden's season of interest.   Then in the fall, you can take a break from the work, and sit back and enjoy the fall fireworks.

Peonies are an all time favorite for this luscious, fragrant flowers in May and displays of handsome summer foliage which turns shades of apricot, pink and red in October.  Peony foliage conditions well and can be used in cut flower arrangements as a complement to fall asters.   Platycodon, the balloon flower, offers foliage that turns shades of orange in the fall.  It's barrel;-shaped seed pods are attractive in the winter snow.  Sedum "Autumn Joy", though ubiquitous in the landscape, is a valuable staple for the fall garden with remnants that provide winter interest.

Amsonias and Asters make a delightful duo in the garden.  The willow-leaf bluestar, Amsonia tabernaemontana salicifolia bears attractive blue flowers in June above lustrous green foliage.  The leaves are iron clad, resistant to drought and scorch.  They turn clear yellow in the fall.  Amsonia hubrectii (ciliata) has the same attributes but is known for its much finer quill-like foliage.  We have combined amsonia's yellow fall foliage with the October blooming Aster lateriflorus var. horizontalis.  The aster is mothered with sprays of small white flowers with pink centers, carried above maroon-green tinged foliage.  The cultivars 'Prince' and 'Lady in Black' sport even darker maroon foliage.

Some perennials, such as heucheras and euphorbias, have evergreen foliage for the winter landscape.  Heuchera 'Dales Variety' has proven to be very evergreen in conditions varying from dry shade to dry sun.  The foliage is lightly mottled with silver.  Many heucheras are more highly pigmented.  Heuchera 'Pewter Veil' sports plum leaves with silver venation and mottling.  Combine these round scalloped leaves with the fine textured tussocks of grasses and sedges. Carex conica 'Variegata' is a fine companion with heucheras for the shade.  Blue oat grass, Helictotrichon sempervirens, is attractive paired with heucheras in more sunny locations.  Euphorbia amygdaloides 'Purpurea' sports beautiful foliage all year round, especially if grown on the dry side in sun or partial shade. 

Geraniums as a genera are especially noted for their foliage attributes, particularly their fall color.  The big-root geranium, Geranium macrorrhizum, offers red fall foliage color that rivals the maple trees. Geranium cantabridgiense 'Biokova', Geranium wlassovianim and Geranium sanguineum are also noted for their exceptional fall foliage color.  For a great fall combination, pair geraniums with fountain grass (Pennisetum alopecuroides.)  The grass family offers great ornamental resources to the late season garden.  Ornamental grasses range in height from the eighteen-inch tussocks of Molinea caerulea 'Variegata' to the towering ten foot stalks of Miscanthus floridus.  Blue oat grass (Helictotrichon) will grow in full sun or partial shade, complementing either Coreopsis 'Moonbeam' or European Ginger (Asarum) and Hosta 'Gold Standard'.   The blue porcupine tussocks of Helictotrichon turn tan in the winter, but keep their form and are early to flush new growth in the spring.   Feather-reed grass (Calamagrostis) is one of the earliest grasses to bloom in the spring and the sturdiest through the winter.  The lavender-tinged plumes of Calamagrostis x acutiflora 'Karl Foerster' bloom in June and stand up through winter snow and ice.

The earliest of the fall blooming maiden grasses is Miscanthus sinensis 'Purpurascens' the flame Miscanthus.  It blooms in early September with foamy white plumes as the foliage blazes shades of orange and pink.   Combine with the stiff goldenrod (Solidago rigida) and Patrinia scabiosifolia.  Patrinia blooms in august with yellow Queen Anne's lace-like flowers and umbels.  The yellow umbels are colorful late into the fall as the foliage turns bright red, creating a colorful contrast of primary colors.

The foliage of Astilbe 'Professor Van der Wielen' turns a clear yellow in the autumn.  Create a colorful fall shade garden by combining it with evergreen wood fern, Dryopteris marginalis and the ferny foliage of Aruncus aethusifolius clad in red.

Observe your perennials and note their multitude of colorful characteristics to make a garden full of late season interest.

Perennials with Colored Fall Foliage

William Lachman Remembered

The gardening world and Tranquil Lake Nursery lost a valued plant breeder and friend with the passing of William Lachman this past June.  Bill's hosta and daylily hybrids area a testament to his creative and dedicated love for plants.  We have been privileged to know Bill and introduce his exceptional daylilies, as well as those of his wife Eleanor, since 1983.   We will miss him.  Bill loved red daylilies, and his 'John Philip Sousa', 'Red Cossack' and 'Red Rosster' are a reminder for us, that lives on in our fields and gardens. 

Plant Profile:  Helianthus angustifolius

The swamp or narrow-leaved sunflower is an exceptional native perennial for the late season garden.  It blooms in October and is frost tolerant.  The six-to-eight foot stems carry sprays of three-inch yellow disks that cover the plant.  Combine it with the stiff goldenrod Solidago rigida for a late season of fireworks.

Tranquil Lake Nursery

45 River Street

Rehoboth, MA 02769-1395

(508)  252-4002    fax (508) 252-4740