Today I worked on the perennial/alpine/small stuff garden on the north side of the house. This section of our yard is over the septic field, so I chose non-edibles with small, uncomplicated root systems for that location. I flunked the “root” test by planting a ground sand cherry here almost a decade ago and by the time I got wise to its evil, septic-tank-clogging ways the trunk caliper was 4″ and its root system was immense. Digging it out was a nightmare.
After that I thought I was being very conservative with my plant choices for this garden: daylilies, heaths and heathers, varieties of sedum and geraniums, candytuft and anise hyssop. Today while cutting stalks and mulching for the winter I noticed that the Sweet Cecily (Myrrhis odorata) had spread to a dozen new plants – it’s easy to see this time of year because it’s still green and ferny after the frost. I dug some out to transplant and surprise! A very impressive root system.
Cecily, or Sweet Cecily, is a member of the family Apiaceae and the only species of the genus Myrrhis. There is a North American relative, but my plant is the variety native to Central Europe. The leaves stay green and fresh almost all year round and the whole plant is highly fragrant of annis. The unripe seeds can be offered as an after-dinner mint, the dried leaves make an excellent mothproofing sachet, the root – along with dill and caraway, is used to flavor akvavit. It would probably make a nicely flavored vodka, too, if it wasn’t growing over the septic tank.
I’ve transplanted six “daughter” plants around the yard, and next year I may try flavoring vodka for Christmas lunch, when the Swedes say the herb “helps the lutefisk swim down to the stomach”. Skål!
Campenula growing between seedum and dianthus in the alpine bed.
Astilbe and gunnera growing in the lower garden, near the swamp.
Elecampne growing on the stairs, over a tree peony.
They also mitigate our harsh climate, parceling out the change from 10 degrees to 40 over the course of a January afternoon into smaller, gentler increments.
Some of the rocks are spectacular specimens all on their own. . .
. . . and some are simply a sturdy, not unattractive place to put your foot while weeding.
I found this beautiful pale upright while digging a carrot bed. It has taken a few years of wind and weather to expose its true colors.
Heath and heather require top-notch drainage. In this climate it’s not even the cold that kills these plants, it is wet roots and layers of clay. I dig a fairly deep hole (2′ for a 4″ pot) and fill it with large rocks and sand before planting a member of this family in a peaty hollow at the surface. My oldest plants have survived 15 winters here and thrived.
This rock isn’t really visible in the summer, hedged in by daylilies and Bouncing Bet. In this season it’s sculpture.
Generally, the best plant combinations in my garden are unplanned. Not the plants, but the size, texture and color of the picture they make together, which is something I don’t see until they have grown together in a way that one day, has become exciting and attracted my attention.
Heather, rock cress, emerging day lilies and the bright note of Siberian draba in a shaft of sunlight making a promising beginning for the season. In August this garden is a mass of foliage, but right now each color and texture sits in a frame of wood chips and gravel. This is probably my most successful garden and I could spend all my time here, convincing all these plant forms to live together and share territory. Humans tend to see vegetation as benign, but Napoleon had nothing on a healthy stand of rock cress.
Common Sorrel or Garden Sorrel (Rumex acetosa) Sorrel has been in cultivation for centuries. It has a strong lemon taste (some people think it tastes like kiwi) due to a high concentration of oxalic acid. I picked about 2 cups of leaves (packed), sauteed chopped onions and garlic chives (also up in the garden) in butter, made a roux with a little flour, added chicken stock and white wine and added the chopped sorrel. Serve on buttered toast points.