Welcome to Havenwood!
Lovely to have you here for Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day that is held each month on the 15th and is hosted by Carol. Pop in over there to see more lovely US gardens and see what is blooming around the country.
I have plans to make a map of Havenwood for you all, but did not get to it yet this month with garden design client work picking up. I will organize this GBBD into a path around our home so that you can begin to orient yourself a bit!
The Cottage Garden
The Japanese anemones in our Cottage Garden this week are just humming with bumblebees. I thought you might like to hear, and I happened to catch a hawk calling as well…
The Birch Walk
This garden is next door to the Cottage Garden, and includes hundreds of self-sown native asters all in white under the birch trees in September. The first one to begin flowering here is the Calico Aster which has little pink and yellow centers. It is such an endearing plant, though not little so I trim them down to about 2’ each year in July/August.
The Parterre, Hot Border and Fruit Tunnel
After you come through the Birch Walk, you come up the hill to the level surface of the Box Parterre and a view of the Fruit Tunnel. To the left is the Hot Border, which still looks quite good this year with its tropical Abyssinia Banana. All of other plants are hardy perennials in shades of reds, oranges and yellows - hot colors.
Hydrangea heaven
When you walk through the Fruit Tunnel, you come down to a little spaces that is surrounded by Hydrangeas. There is an arch there too with a Clematis flowering enough to create a cloud - thankfully not a reseeding cloud in our climate.
The Pond
A few steps down to the lawn and you are walking towards our garden pond in the lowest corner of the property. The dew was sitting all over the plants by the gate in the morning and the last of the blue Pickerel weed flowers was floating above the pond water.
The Long Border
If you walk to the left passed the pond, you will see the old foliage on the Iris bed right now, and hurry over instead to see the bright flowers in the long thin path with exuberant planting on both sides. At the closet end of the Long Border is a lemon yellow flower native to Texas that sits so nicely with the pinky purple of the Bush Clover.
The Kitchen Garden
If you keep walking down the Long Border, you will pass through the Kitchen Garden which still has Dahlias in bloom and is over flowing with tomatoes.
The Woodland Garden
When you come out of the Kitchen Garden, you pass into the shade of our half-acre of oak trees. This is the Woodland Garden which has a network of paths all around it, including four long walks down its length from east to west. At the end of the first path is St Francis’ garden which is again clothed in white this month as it was in spring with the Mountain Laurel. And there is a special flower in the Woodland this month under the Beech tree!
Thanks for joining me on a quick walk around our gardens at Havenwood!
This monthly practice of recording where things are in the garden is so good for me. I have not really felt like it was September outdoors yet, but this morning with the cobwebs and the dew it really felt like autumn was in the air and on leaves.
You have a lovely garden, Julie. Thanks for leading us through it. I wish I could grow Joe Pye weed and Patrina but unfortunately neither is suitable to my climate (coastal southern California). I've currently got my fingers crossed that my Japanese anemone comes through but it's not flowering yet. I have to look into the compass flowers to see if I have any chance of growing that - I love those pale yellow blooms.
Julie, your garden is so various and lovely! How many years have you been working on your garden "rooms"? Is the calico aster a wild native or a cultivar? Among the only flowers the deer haven't eaten in my garden this year are the aromatic aster (Symphyotrichum oblongiflolium), very similar to the "Monch' aster.