What we do in the heat

People ask what we do when summer arrives. After the explosion of spring annuals fades, we close the garden to visitors. The days turn humid and the sun glares more strongly, so we put on broad brimmed hats and continue our work. We welcome this quiet interlude of June and July.

First there were seeds to collect. There's nothing more important than collecting and keeping seeds for next year. We marked the most desirable poppy and larkspur plants with string and collected their seeds as they ripened. Then we began clearing the beds for new planting. This is hot, methodical work that takes many weeks. We prepare the ground for tender salvias, our favorite colors of lantana, tropical plants of all kinds, and annuals that will bloom through summer and into fall. We weed and plant, plant and water, water and spread mulch.

© Allison Donnelly

As we work, we watch and wait. We wait for breezes to dry the sweat from our backs, we wait for rain to bring the new plantings into growth, and most of all, we wait for signs of change in the season. These signs come sooner than we expect. By the middle of July, the last of the spring bulb plants have gone down. The buds swell and open on the Lillium michauxii in the woods. Prospero autumnale comes into bloom below the Cedrus deodora on the front lawn. Mostly middle purples, we dig and pot the prospero plants with blooms tending to white or pink, hoping for true whites and true pinks in the future. We long to finish our work in the sun so we can return to the woods where Cyclamen purpurascens is already in full bloom and Cyclamen hederifolium shows more flowers each week.

This summer, like last summer, we continued our most exciting new planting. A collection of magnolias, given by our friend Tom Krenitsky. The trees will line the western edge of the field by the entrance to Montrose. The collection includes exotic species, favorite cultivars, and selected hybrids resulting from crosses Tom has worked on for decades. Unlike other trees which we plant in autumn and spring, Tom advises us to plant magnolias in the heat. This allows their roots to settle and grow into warm summer soil before they face their first winter. As we, and the new trees, stand in the harsh July sun, we welcome each rainfall. Now we look forward to the storms of August and September and the mild weather that must follow.