Saratoga Secret Garden Tour, July 11, 2010

Sunday, July 11- The Saratoga County Soroptimist chapter puts on a "Secret Garden Tour" each year.  It's a great way to get behind the scenes of some homes that you've admired and compare their gardening skills (or their gardener!) to your own.  This year, one of the public gardens included Yaddo, the artists' retreat near the grandest entrance to Saratoga Springs. The rose garden looked very well kept and was a reminder to me that I will never be able to keep up with a formal style garden.  As for the private gardens, one could see that the current trend of inside/out living was in play as several homes had very comfortable outdoor furniture to enable  the enjoyment of their gardens.  I did see a couple of varietals of ligularia, some jack-in-the-pulpit, ginger, solomon's seal, and false solomon's seal.

Most of the gardens had water features and mostly were well done, very impressive.  The most amazing one ran as a stream from the top of a hillside, splashing and crashing into a very nice pool at the bottom.  In short, I recommend this tour to get some plant and garden ideas, as well as some ideas to spruce up your castle.  See you next year!

Japanese Larch, Larix kaempferi

We have a large tamarack larch, Larix laricina, at the end of one of our gardens. It's about 80 feet tall and straight as an arrow. Larch are deciduous conifers, meaning they shed their needle-like leaves in the Fall and start anew in Spring.

The Japanese Larch is a fine specimen tree for your landscape or garden project. The tree has 4 seasons of interest: Winter's bare branches and open cones, Spring's chartreuse new needles and purple cones, Summer's blue/green needle color, and finally, Fall's spectacular gold/bronze coloration. The tree can reach 80 feet and about 1.5 feet diameter at the base of the trunk.

False Sea Onion

(Ornithogalum caudatum)Also known as Pregnant Onion is a very interesting easy to grow plant native of South Africa. Not really an onion, the plant starts with a bulb that grows on top of the ground. Long, ribbon-like leaves will grow forth from the top of the bulb, eventually arching back toward the ground. The bulb will reach up to 4 inches (10 cm) in diameter. The strap-like leaves are semi-succulent and will grow up to 36 inches (1 m) in length. It is an easy plant to grow and it is well suited for containers. Blooming Time: The small white flowers with a green stripe usually flower from May to August. There may be as many as 50 to 100 flowers per stalk. Culture: Ornithogalum caudatum are easy to culture. They need light shade to full sun with a well-drained soil. In the greenhouse, we use a soil mix consisting of 1 part peat to 1 part loam to 2 parts sand. The plants are allowed to dry slightly in-between waterings. If the plants are allowed to dry too much, they will go dormant. In Zones 4-8, this plant would be good to bring outside on the shaded deck or patio for the late Spring and Summer months. Use caution here: if nights will be down into the mid 30's, bring them back inside. In the winter, you will see the bulb go into a dormant state. You can store the bulbs in a dark, cool basement until Spring or just let them be. Propagation: Ornithogalum caudatum is propagated from bulbils that are formed on the sides of the main bulb or by seed.