Alexander the Great! - Little and Lewis Garden Gallery

Little and Lewis Garden Gallery ... gracing the cover of Pacific Horticulture magazine.

Lysimachia punctata 'Alexander'

Here is yet another perennial that I've grown for years, yet it is only coming into flower this summer. I'm aware that 'Alexander' can be invasive in many situations, but in my dry garden setting, with meager hand-watering, it barely survived in the ground.

A couple years ago I lifted and moved him to a large container with a couple other specimens. Here 'Alexander' can get his feet wet: A required condition for good growth. Still, it took time for the plant to settle in, and now, bloom at last!

I've a very nostalgic attachment to this perennial, having been introduced to it in the glorious Bainbridge Island gardens of artist/sculptors/superb plantsmen, Little & Lewis. (Sadly, all my images are 35mm slides that have yet to be digitized, and so can only be shared in garden talks.)

In David and George's incredibly lush landscape, 'Alexander' grew in a pair of handsome urns that 'contained' the plant's exuberance.

Garden Alchemy in a Provencal Setting

Le Jardin de l'Alchimiste

(Above photo courtesy the Garden of the Alchemist)

Revisiting an all-time favorite ... A garden rich with atmosphere,

adjoining a lovely country inn located in the village of Eygalieres,

Update:  Mas de la Brune ~ The garden and inn are no long open, sadly.

I pay homage to the amazing landscape in a long post on:

Alice's Garden Travel Buzz

Weigela 'My Monet' and Geum 'Werner Arends'

Clash of the Wee Ones ...  A Weigela and a Geum!

My tale of woe is old-hat, remarked on countless times as the amount of sunlight continues to decrease in Alice's Garden. Thus, in early Spring I transplanted a few treasured specimens to spots that receive a bit more sun.

The wee Weigela 'My Monet' found itself lifted and moved across the pebble patio to the bed below the back porch - where the blue wall is a preening presence in various photos.

Now, the brilliant, burnt orange blooms of Geum 'Werner Arends' are now popping up through the Weigela foliage in a clashing color scheme that would, doubtless,

cause the long-departed doyenne of British gardening,

Gertrude Jekyll to shudder in her 'wellies' (rubber boots, that is).

Dare I admit to enjoying the cacophony!

Bloom's Bodacious Borders at Kendall-Jackson Winery

A few years ago, one of my San Francisco Chronicle 'Garden Walks' columns celebrated the opening of new perennial borders in Wine Country designed by British horticulturist Adrian Bloom.

(Above: Chronicle photo - All other photos: copyright Alice Joyce)

Son of famed plantsman, Alan Bloom,and author of numerous gardening books featuring Foggy Bottom, Adrian Bloom's personal 6-acre garden in Norfolk, Bloom shared his thoughts on the Blooms of Bressingham borders at Kendall-Jackson Winery. Here: a long view of the garden on a recent summer's day, with bees abuzz, flitting among the bountiful blooms.

I'll be returning to the winery's varied landscape in future posts, to visit K-J's vineyard demonstration & culinary gardens, where visitors can relax and enjoy a picnic.

To find the borders, amble from the formal parterre garden fronting the main chateau, and continue around the side of the building. A signpost heralds the Blooms of Bressingham garden, where drifts of plants meld together in what Bloom calls "macro and micro views."
Reflecting Bloom's refined gardening style, the garden plan revolves upon artful combinations of conifers, flowering perennials, ornamental grasses and shrubs. The tall, vertical shapes of evergreen Italian cypresses draw the eye, and as Bloom shared, "give you a bit of structure... whichever way you're looking.. on either side of the pathway to take the eye through," calling attention to the surrounding plant combinations.

One of the lessons I took home: "Even small gardens must have a vista."

The Kendall-Jackson Winery chateau and formal gardens

appear upon exiting the parking area.

Back to the Bloom Borders! Plant tableaux come into focus as you walk along the curving central pathway, where groupings are linked by contrasts in foliage and flower color, texture and form: Purple-toned leaves of heucheras and phormiums; blue-violet, long-blooming Geranium 'Rozanne;' mounding Anthemis 'Susanna Mitchell;' bushy Coreopsis 'Limerock Ruby.'

Geranium blooms weave through hydrangeas; salvias and feathery silver-filigree artemisias are backed by dark Cotinus foliage and butterfly-attracting buddleias.

A bee feasting on... Asclepias incarnata?

Flanking a bench, fragrant rosemary, lavender & Verbena bonariensis

envelop the visitor who stops here to bask in the setting.

Kendall Jackson Winery - www.kj.com

Rude, Rustic Rose Relative .. Rubus r. 'Coronarius'

Rubus rosifolius 'Coronarious'

Plant lust can make a gardener quite mad. In the early days of Alice's Garden, I would read about an unusual specimen in a gardening magazine and simply have to have it. The photo - scanned from a slide - illustrates a particularly spiny... or let's just say a painfully bristly, barbed relative of the genus Rosa: A Rubus species grown for its fluffy white multi-petaled blooms.

As mentioned, the beauty of Rubus rosifolius 'Coronarious' had been highly touted in-print by a beloved and renowned writer/plantsman. And I did swoon when the glowing flowers of this humble yet elegant long-blooming bramble appeared along the back fence in my secret garden.

Yet after a time I decided to remove it.

Plants come and plants go in the life of any garden, and certainly in the small space I cultivate in Northern California. I often look fondly upon this beauty when perusing my collection of 35 mm garden slides, recalling my tussles with its canes, as well as the excitement of observing the way the flowers would light up an out-of-the-way spot in the garden, alongside a narrow pathway.

Do you grow R. r. 'Coronarious' ... or another ornamental bramble?