Now that my blue-flowered deinanthe is in bloom, I can relax on being cool or not. I am, and that's that. I can enjoy The World Of The Cool with a more casual knowingness.
I can wear my status with ease but also lack of fear. I know what a deinanthe is now; it's a friend, a companion that can be greeted with confidence and affection.
And so now that I can recognize deinanthe (and not just in the sense of identifying—yes, this is a deinanthe—but also in the sense of acknowledging, of giving respectable welcome into the world of the good and the quality and the hopeful—this is one of the wonders of the plant world, that now I have brought to happy reality in my very own garden) I can greet this gorgeous clump of its white cousin, Deinanthe bifida, with calm accuracy. And the knowledge that, Garden Gods willing, my own juvenile clump of it will also flower—oh yes, will flower, without question—in due time.
Yes, bugs may descend, unspeakable heat or cold may roll in, money may run out, fashionability may slide past. But since I've managed to nurture a blue deinanthe from starter plant to blooming maturity, I can probably nurture a white deinanthe to blooming maturity too. We all take calmness and certainty and security—delusional or not—where we may.
In advance of visiting my own fabulous white deinanthe, in bloom of course, in, say 2013, you can check this one out at Chanticleer, the peerless (and bottomless) estate gardens outside PHilladelphia. So worth the trip, and from anywhere.

Time and again I'm taking a look at the years of thought, effort, and money that can create someone else's garden. Most of the time I wonder how and why there are so few kinds of plants. Even when the owner loves plants and shopping at nurseries, even the more obscure ones where all the good plants are. How do they not choose to have more? Is it a very specific, even narrow, definition of Good Plant or Good Taste? Possibly. Hesitation created by unhappy experiences with trying different ones? Probably. Having a life that isn't centered on cool plants, at least not to the extent mine is? Absolutely.
Even so, how can they stand not even having the opportunity of enjoying the countless plants that even they, if they knew about them, would declare to be thrilling and hardworking? It's abstention that is, to me, incomprehensible. From their vantage, no doubt, I have no sense of restraint in my own garden, no sane grip on practical realities like:
If every other month I get yet another Quartet Of Something That Will, Someday, Look Incredible In Pots, eventually I'll need to find, rent, afford, handle an additional greenhouse just for them. One more espalier, then another, then another, and eventually I won't have time to give each the pruning and tieing-in it needs. Another kind of canna (dahlias I seem to be able to call a limit to), and then another, and then another, and eventually there won't be room in the basement for twenty more crates of overwintered tubers. One of the gardeners I'm most in awe of has plants each of peerless quality as well as obscurity, and many of them. (She grows her never-before-seen-in-this-Time Zone tree peony species from seed for God's sake.) And with here, there are always more seeds, more seedlings, and so, finally, the small greenhouse-like structure (but with shade-cloth instead of glazing) just for germination of said seeds, and hence (because she seems to succeed at everything she does) ever more essential plants to fit into her garden.
But although she has the room to add another bed and then another— and all without a weed in sight even she does it all herself, jeez it's amazing —she hardly ever does. And although she's also an astounding baker— no sane friend ever refuses her offer to bring desert to the dinner. Deeply flavorful, unflinchingly including every possible yummy butter-and-cream-laden calorie, perfectly frosted or crusted or crumbled or drizzled. A recipe that nobody else, just yet, had tried or maybe even heard of. In short, each desert is a revelation, revealed with flair (such a seriously purpose-built holder to bring the desert over in the car unscathed), "plated" with evident practice, and devoured with gusto —she's not overweight in the least. And neither are her gardens.
How, I ask. How?
Walking around the garden with her one day, part of the answer tapped me on the shoulder. Time and again when we were looking at plants that I was respecting and even craving, she would caveat, "Well I think it's about time to get rid of that one", pointing out some fatal flaw that I, with my (apparently) cruder blurred vision hadn't even noticed. Sometimes she was just acknowledging a change in affection; the plant was fine, doing well, but she'd moved on regardless. And by next visit, or at least by the next year, it was gone. Mattress-vine, which, it turns out, alas, I don't seem to have had luck establishing even in one of my most-favored spots, was an invading nightmare for her (and a perfect mattress- or at least footrest-sized pad), and it was ripped out with relief as well as enormous effort. "If you don't get every little piece, it just comes right back. I was on my hands and knees for a couple of hours with that one."
Her hardy crepe myrtles, which I was stunned to see thriving in wide-open-to-Winter-winds spots, and so crowed in excitement at first glance (and then bought for my own garden ASAP)? Gone. All the troughs of alpines? As a past president of the North American Rock Garden Society, not just the local or even state-wide or even regional Rock Garden Society—surely she had enduring interest in them? Gone. Editing, culling, killing—the essential balance to experimenting, acquiring, and dreaming—she's remarkably pro-active about it. I tend to yank something out only after it's already dead, and only after I've already tried to grow it a couple of times before too, with some years of coddling and willful ignorance along the way that, actually, it looks like shit even though, yes, you have to admit, it is actually alive. Right now, my experimenting, acquiring, and dreaming are out in front of my editing, culling, and killing. (Less charitably: my plant-lust isn't very restrained by my plant-wisdom. My plant id is on the loose.)
As with, here, one of the hardy orchids. Oh yes, some orchids can be grown right outside in the garden, in the year-round dirt of New England. (Yes, the other thirty-thousand species and hydrids are only viable outside year-round if you live subtropically at the worst.)
So to have an orchid in your garden here in New England? How can anyone resist? The shock is that I, somehow, have resisted until know.
I think because I'd never seen one, and so assumed they were shy frail little things. And ou know how little lust I feel for shy little things. But then I saw one in the pot at one of my favorite nurseries, Broken Arrow. And I had to have it.
Bletilla striata is the species, and it's the sane first hardy orchid to start with, primarily because it's one of the hardiest: Zone 6. That's hardy even up to coastal Maine.
Yes, it has actual orchid flowers...
...but for me it was the foliage.
Pleated, distinctive, there even when the flowers aren't. (Don't be thinking that this orchid is evergreen too. Not up here. But still, to have that foliage even during the warm months: I couldn't resist.)
Plus, this ground orchid is clearly no shrinking violet. It's muscling right through the pot.
It's the Incredible Hulk, splitting the pot wide open.
Cutting carefully down, what's inside only seems more incredible.

Writhing, questing roots and rhizomes. Wow!
This is a plant that, at least in a congenial spot from Zone 6 and warmer, is a fabulous thug.
Into the ground with it!

I'll worry about having two many hardy orchids another day. (And, oh yes, there are other shades and species to dabble it.) Right now, I've at least got this one. Thank goodness.

Today, at last and finally, I am unimpeachably sophisticated: My deinanthe is in bloom.

And deinanthes are the ne plus ultra of cool.
First, they are hydrangea cousins, and in the hierarchy of garden taste hydrangea cousins are far more important than hydrangeas themselves, whose ease of cultivation, availability, and—perhaps worst of all—unashamedly big and noticeable flowers mark them as likely favorites of children, neophytes, and peasants everywhere. Which they are. (Nonetheless I plant a lot of hydrangeas in my own gardens and my clients'; we'll get to The Unforgiveables in another post.)
As I say, though, the blooms of hydrangea cousins are generally more subtle then, uh, garden-variety hydrangeas, so they are more boring for children, neophytes, peasants and not a few clients. And so they are the province of fellow plant geeks, who are at pains never to be mistaken for any of those other folks.
Deinanthe, then, is the perfect taste marker, the perfect gauntlet thrown casually to the ground. And so beware, Philistines: You are now in the presence of a subtle aesthetic. Not only is deinanthe a hydrangea cousin, it's an herbaceous one. (Bush hydrangeas? So common, so, well, bushy.) And it's native to Japan. (Native plants? Such a convenient bandwagon for xenophobes and the timidly political-correct.) It requires part-shade and good moisture. (Full sun? So blatant. Self-reliance and drought-resistance? For those who are serious enough to make the commitment for regular care.) And best of all, almost: The flowers don't even face up.
They droop more reticently than a perfect Victorian child that looks shyly to the ground, one immaculate finger touched to the cheek. Flowers you can actually see without stooping and gently tipping one face-up, like Cary Grant putting his finger under Tippi Hedren's chin so he can look her in the eyes?
The effrontery, the moral laxity. Flowers should dip respectfully until summoned.
And now best of all: The flowers are sort-of-blue. Not a deep blue. (Too obvious.) A pale pearly blue, shading lighter here and, a bit, darker there.
Oh yes: The foliage. Large-ish and (now that you think of it) hydrangea-like indeed, although instead of the one point at the end, there are two. But just a mid-green, in truth. And not large enough to be make a name as one of the cherished Big Foliage perennials (which we'll get too in time) that sophisticates also cleave too. (In the case of dienanthe: Big Foliage? So simplistic, so at-a-glance. In the case of the other Big Foliage: So NOT the ferns and ferny wannabes that people who aren't yet secure in their Ultimate Taste yearn for to assure everyone that they are, in fact, Tasteful.)
And I forgot: The name. Deinanthe caerulea. First word first, pronounced "die-NAN-thee". Uncommon indeed, not one of the usual suspects, English, French, Italian, or German. Not even Latin. Tut tut, children: It's Greek, and it means (somehow) that the flowers are unusually large. Well bully for that. Some of us knew it was Greek from the sounds alone, because we have that worldly-wise ear for foreign languages even though, like EF Benson's Lucia, we usually can't manage more than a phrase or three in any of them. No matter: We just know, and that's what counts. And the second name doesn't let us down either: Caerulea; pronounced "suh-RULE-ee-uh", and referring (of course) to the complex and literate "caerulean" blue. Not sky blue, not robin's egg, not sea-blue, not even delphinium blue. Not, in fact, any kind of blue you could identify with a simple word in English. Ah, caerulean blue. It's Latin of course. Even the repetition of "oo"—"suh-ROO-lee-un BLOO"—so satisfying in a pursed-lip, not-smiling way. There you have it: Rarity, tempermentalness, subtlety, difficult (for some) to pronounce: Deinanthe caerulea is an orgy of discretion, a multi-lingual profusion of exclusionary detail. Heaven!

Almost done with drooling over that garden in Little Compton, where the last three posts have all been GottaGets.
Chinese Mayapple is a fourth.

Look at those immense fat-star-shaped leaves. A presence in the garden that is prehistoric—and I mean that as high praise. I'm cursed with a vast swathe of native mayapple, which is common enough in general, let alone widespread enough in my own garden, to have long ago lost its charm. Ah the thrill of the exotic, though: Chinese mayapple, here I come.

No really, that's the a good "common" name. Palm-like single leaves, erupting in Spring just like mayapples—but opening out to these cut-to-threads discs. Shredded umbrellas: much more descriptive. As ever, my question is how had I not beforehand understood that this plant is irresistible, essential, exciting, not to mention easy?
Not rip-snorting when it comes to forming a big colony in a hurry, true. But otherwise easy.
And so of course, did I plant it a decade ago? Then I'd have had a big colony by now too.
But no. Life is a series of humbling moments interspersed with some joyful ones, then some horrible ones. But mainly, humble moments. So I'm picking myself up and getting over this shocking omission from my own gardens. I've had decades of practice at the humble thing. No, let's not consider for a moment that a horticultural society is coming to tour my garden in a week. An expansive colony of shredded umbrellas like this one says (but alas, only to the cognoscenti), "Yes, I knew what this beauty was that long ago, so long that my colony is now this big, truly huge. But you?Your best hope is to start now. Even so, you'll never catch up."
Ugh: to be seeing the front end of Sixty and seeing that, truly, I'll never catch up. (Let alone facing that I'll be seeing the front end of Seventy by the time my colony of Shredded Umbrellas can humble visitors.) Humble humble humble. But after all, just knowing what Shredded Umbrella plant is, is in itself a victory. Yup, I'll keep telling myself that.

I thought I knew hellebores: Evergreen foliage, flat or feathery. Flowers in early Spring and sometimes right in the dead of Winter that are never less than intriguing and sometimes colorful too. And with veins pumping with Deer Don't Like Me, so critters don't chew them. Let's not ignore the affection of the snobs or the gratitude of the multitudes either: Hellebores are popular with both camps so I can ally myself with either as the moment demands.
And now I see that hellebores can beyond what even snobs can dream up, where rarity and foliage frisson turn the corner and—surprise!—head smack into Disneyland or is it Dr. Seuss?
What plant is this, with leaves so divided and so thick that they feel more like quills than frills?  In fanning clusters of up to one hundred a stem.  Looking like the explosion of a mole's green- fireworks factory.  (Hey, you never know what they're really doing in those underground tunnels.  That burrowing-and-root-eating business could just as well be a smokescreen to hide the real work that gets done down there.)  It wasn't a grass, a shrub, or a fern.  Was it some primitive rush or leafless oddity from, oh, high-altitude slopes of South Africa.
On Saturday's garden tour to Little Compton, Rhode Island, this was one of the plants that not only startled cognoscenti, it also roused their patient spouses and companions into "What is it?" attention.
As luck would have it, I had planted three myself barely a month before, so was able to exclaim with sincere enthusiasm as well as dead-on accuracy:  "It's Helleborus multifidus subspecies hercogovinus" and just to keep myself humble, I could add, truthfully, "and they clearly aren't kidding about those multitudes of 'fiduses'.  What the hell's a fidus?"
I see that "fidus" in Latin means loyal, trusty, faithful.  Dogs are named "Fido" because that means "I will obey."  Well well.  And I see that there's the multifidus muscle, with loads of parallel strands of sub-muscles, each "sub" connecting this vertebra to its immediate neighbor on each side as well as a couple of other near neighbors up and down the line, group after group, vertebra after vertabra.  Spines are much more durably flexible because of the multifidus.
Thinking helleborically, then, a fidus is one strand of something that "stays faithful" to another fidus.  On this hellebore, each fidus would be each quill of the leaf, a multifidus the whole cluster of them (up to 180 a stem says the expert),  so stiff they aren't likely even to wave in the breeze, let alone tangle in it.  Each stays near its nearest neighbors—and only them—but keeping its distance all the while.  No entwining or knotting up like worms in the can. Click on the picture, and then click again to really zoom in. Those quills may be joined at the bottom, but they are resolutely independent thereafter. Well OK:  Glad we've got that all figures out.
When you've only seen a plant's picture before, not the plant itself, the 3D presence can be—damn well ought to be—a burst of information and affection on a much deeper channel or much higher plane, for a more direct penetration to that part of the brain that says, "Yes, this is what you've been waiting for".  Helleborus multifidus provides that 3D thrill, oh yes indeed.

Perennials that die to the ground each Fall (which is most but not all of them) have to start from the ground-up again each Spring. If getting taller and taller is on your agenda (sometimes it isn't, as with the dwarf Solomon Seal that started this series), that means bigger and sturdier growth the taller you want to go. Unless you've realized that you can lean on your neighbors on the way up. Then you don't need to put as much energy into all of that bigger-and-sturdier growth, because you can borrow it from your friends.
Here, then, is just such a Solomon Seal,'Siberian Group'.
It's narrow flexible stems feel outward and upward for support that (true) I haven't yet provided. I'll partner this with a sympathetic "ballet boy" plant—one that's eager to stand there patiently while hoisting the more exciting ballerina ever higher.
Look at how Siberian Group gets and keeps ahold: The ends of the needle-like leaves elongate and curl into gentle hooks and handles....

...ready to accept the assist, willing or not, of anything nearby.
'Siberian Group', then, is a willowy sister of Blanche DuBois, also depending on the kindness of strangers.
Oh yes, Vivien, you've got more company than you know.

I think of this as the my "Mannerist" Solomon's Seal...
...similar in willful exaggeration to people in the paintings of that post-Renaissance,
pre-Baroque period: elongated and leggy.
Like the swan-necked couple in this Cellini salt cellar.
Or the impossibly (but deliciously) long-limbed Susanna in this creepy fresco by Allesandro Allori.

The learing gropiness of Susanna's two lechers is also part of this Solomon's Seal's appeal too. Don't you just want to get down and fondle each stalk?




Compared to more realistic (you could say, as they did in the 1500's, "classical") proportions
and perspectives of the Renaissance, Mannerist dimensions are wild indeed.
The Virgin in this Renaissance fresco by Raphael is so normally-proportioned that she seems positively Midwest and dumpy compared to Susanna. You might also call her wholesome and sane too, even happy. Depending on what you need out of your art (or your garden), that could either be a welcome stability or a boring stasis.

The plain species of Solomon Seal has the "classical" look too, yes?
Positively well-fed and comfortable with the world as it is. A conservative Solomon's Seal in all senses of the word.

But I digress: Back to this post's sizzling, anything-but-normal Solomon's Seal.
I'm using the picture from Plant Delights, where I got mine, and you can get yours too.

It's both taller than the normal SS, and each leaflet along the stem is excitingly, dramatically longer too. Plant Delights says it can get up to four feet tall; I'm still hoping for three, but the proportions are such that the plant looks taller than reality anyway. That's the Mannerist way!

PD also says it's only hardy down to Zone 6, but if you live in Vermont all that means is that you mulch like hell or you do what I do with so many of my tender-in-Rhode Island stuff: grow it in pots. Like all Solomon's Seals, this one is completely dormant all Winter. So it would be happy in a pot that's stashed in your basement by December and brought up into the chilly excitement—again, so Mannerist—of your early Spring.

Of course, you yourself need to have a taste for Mannerism before you'd want to start buying Mannerist plants. (You already do? Fabulous: I'm available for lunch next week.) And if not, no time like the present.

Lily-of-the-valley is sensational to cut—both foliage and flowers—but it can be a patchy scroffle in the garden. Soil to dry? Too much sun? Who-knows-what bug is hungry? Then the foliage gets brown-edged and chewed-through. And besides, the plant goes dormant in Summer anyway, so even if it does do you the favor of retreating underground, then you're left with a weed-friendly bare patch.
LotV is great for an out-of-the-way spot, where it can be an ankle-biting cutting garden. Or as just a foot or two, here and there, in any garden you need to look at beyond Memorial Day. The plant's sheer persistence even in the less-than-optimal conditions that make it so unattractive, coupled (I guess) with the mooshy-romantic "Lily of The Valley" name, have made the species itself far too popular. Even if it doesn't look quite like you'd hoped, there it is, year after year. And you can still get an adorable bouquet or two from it. Lily of the Valley is one of our most cherished eyesores.
In gardens where you need to look beyond an appealing (to some) name, and bring a frank, clinical, even cynical judgment to bear on if a given plant is really, truly, worth a damn the second after the flowers fade, Lot V doesn't cut the mustard. Unless, that is, you grow this one:
From the moment the leaves spear-up in early Spring, they aren't just the ten-millionth Lily of the Valley leaf in your state. They are striped, and with rhythm and regularity. And, so to speak, a narrative arc: They start from the same spot at the base of the leaf, and merge into the same spot at the tip of the leaf. It's a controlled performance, with none of the wild-man cavorting of striated Solomon's Seal.)
The flowers themselves are (I admit) lovely, but they are a bonus not the only thing worth a damn about the entire plant. My colony is still young—I think this is it's third Spring—and I only sprang for three of them to start with. Controlled performances, with narrative arc too, don't come cheap. And it's already clear that, at least for me, this beautiful show isn't from a plant that has any prowess as a groundcover. Yes, the species can colonize so thickly it's a decent (but not great) grondcover. But striped leaves mean a more modest performance. It must take a lot of energy—and should—to bring narrative arc to each and every leaf. So I'll weed my patch of yellow-striped Lot V, and ponder if there's a tinier-still, but much more effective, groundcover it would consent to cohabit with. I need to respond in kind, and bring to it the controlled performance it's bringing to me. The gauntlet is thrown, or at least tossed. Let the games begin.

In contrast to Striatum, the classic variegated Solomon's seal is discrete and elegant.
Just a thin orderly perimeter of white to each leaf, not the jubilant and vivid markings of Striatum: Stripes, please, and not strident ones either, thank you. And with that double-strand of pearls, I mean flowers, running down the underside of the stem? Elegant indeed.
Not a problem with me: I've got that elegant-and-subtle gene too, and sometimes even let it out to play. And to work: Unlike Striatum, Variegatum is thick-growing. Combine that with its larger, rounder, and overlapping leaves, and diligent outward growth—all the stems face outward, to the ground that will shortly be colonized—and you get an excellent and even large-scale groundcover. Just don't plant it near anything smaller, which the overhanging and overlapping growth will effectively smother.