What happens when there are no limits on color (and new, very tolerant boyfriend helps pick plants.)

I’ve probably been to Georgetown 500 times, both when I lived here, and since.  Right around the corner from Citronelle, where I had an amazing dinner last fall: the cutest little garden at The Old Stone House, built in 1766. Amazing what you can notice if you really look!

Check out my neighbors’ clever rock garden with the wine bottle border! It was a community sacrifice to drink all that wine, but it was for a good cause. What a fun way to display some prized succulents!

The Leatherleaf Viburnum. Do you know how long I have quested for the name of that darn plant? It has befuddled me since my parents and I visited Vienna last summer.  My dad and I saw it on a wandering tour of Burggarten, across from the Intercontinental. It had been grown into an enormous hedge, and I had never seen a plant like it before… it had buddleia-type leaves, with black berries and inconspicuous flowers. What on earth could it be?

I had pondered it and looked it up, but I couldn’t describe it well enough, and of course I DIDN’T TAKE A PICTURE OF IT, but the darn plant was like a perpetual Outlook reminder in my brain, every morning, “What is that plant?” My curiosity was piqued last fall on a walk through Washington, DC with my Southern Correspondent, who said, “we have a lot of that at home, but I can’t remember what it’s called. It’s everywhere.” An unsolved puzzle, until today.

Having at long last been able to visit a nursery (like a normal person who doesn’t spend all their time thinking of gardening) SC was able to give me a hint today: Viburnum Maresii.  I googled this and thought- not quite, the flowers were too pretty, but SC was right.  It’s definitely a viburnum… but it was the clue that solved the puzzle: Viburnum rhytidophyllum.

A lovely tough evergreen hedge that grows 10-15 feet tall and wide, with unshowy flowers, black berries and is apparently quite low maintenance (hence the city park and the “everywhere”).  Alas, it is only hardy to Zone 6, so I will have to be happy with my knowledge and leave it at that.

Plant name: 10 months overdue.  Dismiss.  At last!

I am so pleased with my flowers for book club. Keeping up with tradition, I couldn’t resist scouring the back yard for some flowers, and alas! Bleeding hearts! Lilacs! Ferns! And trilliums!?

I know you are never supposed to pick trilliums or they won’t reseed, but I’ve wanted to pick a trillium since I was a little girl. My mother forbid this. As I haven’t shied away from “trouble” lately, I did it. Picked trilliums. Don’t tell my mom!

It’s a lovely spring in Wisconsin and it looks like Gwendolyn’s Garden is not moving to Texas or Tennessee or anywhere else for that matter.  I am looking forward to another wonderful Wisconsin summer, and the time when I may have a garden of my own again.

In the meantime, stay tuned for snippets about the beautiful gardens around Madison and the world, and piles of cut flowers.

Don’t forget to keep covering your plants for you folks crazy enough to believe that when the lilacs bloom you are safe from frost!

Gwendolyn

I’ve always wanted to try a rotary push mower, but I didn’t think it was a practical choice for my old lawn.

I moved into this house in October last year and hadn’t needed to mow…until now. I walked into the garage this morning thinking I would quick mow before my conference call…and there it was… A rotary push mower!

On a tiny little lawn like this, it was a dream. It doesn’t work very well on long grass, and it definitely takes a certain technique, but it is quiet, and fun! It’s my new favorite garden tool.

Try one.

Freesias!

It was lovely to be in dc this week…although I missed the cherry blossoms this year, the dogwoods and azaleas look gorgeous this time of year.

It was sunny and cool all week, which showed the gardens at their best. My new friend from Missouri and I enjoyed our stroll through the Senate gardens (above), and I was able to go for a run around beautiful capitol hill…

All gorgeous. Can’t wait to go home and see what’s blooming!

After a great ten mile run, I came home to blooms! Crocus and early daffodils warm the cockles of my heart… ahh, spring!