Viking Gardening
To most of you, I realize that this will look pretty much like one of those pictures everyone takes at least once of a squirrel, in which there's a dot in the middle (if one's lucky) that gets pointed out as the subject. But, what I want you to see is, indeed, the expanse of dirt, the lack of tall weedy things, and the bare brick wall.
Those of you who have visited us here at Björnslottet will recognize our "yellow garden"; for the rest of you this photograph might speed recognition when you do finally visit. This is a small space in front of our house formed in the crook between the garage (extending outward on the left) and the walk that leads to our front door (on the right). We decided about 10 years ago to plant it in a "yellow" theme. On the left you can see a nearly bare but overgrown Japanese Spirea, soon to be pruned. In the front there's a prostrate yellow juniper. At various times of the year you can see yellow scabiosa, yellow stokesia, daffodils, chrysanthemums, and such like. Prominently featured was our planting of Graham Thomas roses (a David Austin introduction and probably one of the most beautiful roses ever).
Also present was a trio of shrubs, foundation plantings put in by the builder. They have a name, but only a long and unpleasant Latin name that I can't remember but wrote down once. I claim they don't have a "common" name because they're not liked enough by anyone to give them one. They were uninspiring foliage things that grew long (as in 15 feet) branches in the summer and took far too much attention. I've hated them since we moved in and I've wanted them gone, gone, gone for years.
As you can see from the photograph, they are gone and I couldn't be happier about it.
Sometime a year or two ago I finally gave some concerted thinking over to the question of what shrub would be nice there. I finally settled on mahonia as the shrub I wanted there. Then last year we were in the back yard / garden of our friend Pete S., and noticed that he had several mahonia growing there and that they had offspring. Aha! Since I thought I wanted as many (ultimately) as 8 or 10, the price would certainly be right if I could get some of Pete's backyard babies.
Pete is a inspirational, do-er kind of guy. Late this summer pots of baby mahonia magically appeared in the front of the house. Later on I heard from Isaac that Pete had promised to come over soon and help rip out the hideous shrubs ("Won't take half an hour!") so I could plant the mahonia.*
Okay, it took a little longer — Pete has a hectic schedule, as often happens with retired people with lots of things to do — but we did the yellow-garden renovations some 10 days ago on a mild Friday afternoon.
As I knew it would, it took somewhat longer than half an hour, but Pete was still remarkably productive. With shovel, ax, and bare hands he single-handedly ripped out the hideous shrubs along with lots of other volunteer weed-trees that had been trying to take over the space† and then, since he wasn't sweating yet, he planted all five mahonia that were waiting, plus he put in three nandina that he'd brought over that day in case the mahonia got lonely. I helped by watching, providing effervescent conversation, and carrying things away.
Pete is of Norwegian descent, taller and much bigger boned than I, and I'm not a tiny person. Now you'll understand why we describe the transformation of the yellow garden as being effected by Norwegian gardening. Take no prisoners!
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* Identifying exactly which kind of mahonia they are is opaque to me right now. When we looked at nurseries, we typically saw a standard Mahonia without further qualifier, and a more rare Mahonia aquifolium, which had a noticeably softer leaf. But now as I read it seems that Mahonia aquifolium may be the common variety, The USDA lists Mahonia nutt. as the standard, apparently. I'll have to do more research to distinguish them.
There's more confusion because some sources classify Mahonia as a barberry, others disagree. It may have been reclassified in the last 2 decades–further research is needed. Then there's the question of common name. One or another or all varieties are sometimes known as "Oregon grape", or "oregon grapeholly", because of the clusters of dark purple berries they get. Pete says the plants have yellow flowers, but that doesn't seem to distinguish the varieties. Further research….
† Alas, the Graham Thomas roses were a casualty, but they had gotten seriously tired trying to grow in that milieu, so we'll replace them, possibly with a different rose that, I suspect, will still be a David Austin variety because we're quite partial to those.
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I welcome comments -- even dissent -- but I will delete without notice irrelevant, rude, psychotic, or incomprehensible comments, particularly those that I deem homophobic, unless they are amusing. The same goes for commercial comments and trackbacks. Sorry, but it's my blog and my decisions are final.
on Wednesday, 17 December 2008 at 15.54
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Oregon grape grows wild here, one of my favourite plants — its holly-like leaves that are ever green, the yellow flowers, the fruit. It makes quite a nice, rather tart, jelly.
on Wednesday, 24 December 2008 at 10.08
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Thanks for settling the question whether the berries are edible. Perhaps someday we'll have enough for you to whip up a batch of jelly when you're here. I am so happy to have them planted there finally!