Bloodroot (Sanguinarea canadensis)
I had a ball driving all over Albemarle and Louisa counties the past three weeks, interviewing some of the best gardeners around for my feature in C-VILLE magazine, “Roots: Gardening with Natives in a Time of Change” -Â www.c-ville.com
The dedicated gardeners I met devote amazing amounts of energy to maintaining their landscapes one way or the other – from meticulous weeding to periodic attacks of herbicide – and made me realize how much I prefer strolling about the grounds with a glass of wine. If I squint my eyes just right, I can ignore the mugwort and chickweed in the beds and focus instead on the presence of the great round beech and the fringe tree by the creek that’s blooming a month yearly.
It looks to be a good year for peonies – a perfectly non-native plant born in China – with round fat buds on the ‘Festiva Maximas’ and good clean foliage.
It takes all kinds to have a garden, people as well as plants.
April Beech
Peony 'Festiva Maxima'
Ostrich Fern, Dogwood by Creek