Liberated Gardener

Cedar Arbor

My last project before taking my summer break from garden-making, included this arbor built from cedar trunks and branches.

The clients asked for something that looked like elves made it. I also drew on my memories of beaver lodges, with branches twisted through each other and loose ends sticking out. 

 The arbor also serves to define a transition from the public space to the private space of their front yard garden.  A transition from the everyday space of the neighborhood into the magical space of the garden. 

 

Salt Cedar Likes it Sunny and Dry

Tamarisk (Tamarix spp.) is a risk if you plant it in the southwestern US. It evolved on floodplains in Spain and spreads along creeks in dry country. In higher rainfall areas it's not a threat and is in fact terrifically drought hardy and has tiny pink blooms in summer. 

 

Called salt cedar because it pulls salts from deep in the soil and then spits it out from its leaves as a way to discourage competitors. Haven't noticed that effect in our garden. Our salt cedar has an underplanting of leadwort that looks happy and is blooming too. I cut the salt cedar back hard every other late winter or whenever it looks ragged. It's a small tree, but I treat it as a large perennial and whack it back as needed.

With winter pruning it only gets about 8'-10' high and about 3' wide. Very light and airy appearance, good contrast for low-growing, horizontal plants like the leadwort. It's also next to a gardenia and the frilly foliage and blue-green color make a nice contrast. We just give it mulch in winter and no fertilizer. And certainly no water after it's established. I think there's no risk of losing it in summer. 

 

 

Free-Ranging Formosa Lily

When other plants in the summer garden look like they want a vacation, Formosa lily launches a fleet of bright white flowers. With fragrance. 

 

The stalk in full sun is about 6'-7' tall. It gently seeds in around the garden so plants in shade are appropriately shorter. Sometimes 2'-3' high. Blooms through the month of August and into Sept. here in NC piedmont, zone 7. Once the 8" long flowers pass, their drooping form is replaced by upward facing seed pods that look like a candelabra made of skinny gourds. Seeds ripen by fall and seedpods can be left to dress up the winter garden or cut and sown wherever you need something upright and drought-hardy that blooms in summer.  

Originally from the island of Taiwan, their latin name is Lilium formosanum. Some varieties have pink or red color on the outside of the petals.