In Our Garden

I love the phrase, “You should have been in our garden last week when it peaked.” Each garden has its best time. A beauty of them is that they evolve constantly.

A marker in the entrance path of our garden reads, “Don’t piss off the fairies.” This is just a word to the wise, don’t you think? Our garden welcomes all the help in can get.

One of our prized plants, a Clerodendrum trichotomum tree, begins blooming in July and continues into September. The early blooms are white as seen in the picture below. As time goes on the white blooms gets bigger and red petals develop in the center, which are followed later by a small round purplish/blue bud. During this time butterflies and bees are abundant. Last year I counted a dozen butterflies at time. The aroma is heady.

A common name for this tree is Patriot Bush, because of the final colors in the bloom. It is also known as Peanut Butter Tree because the leaves when rubbed smell like peanut butter.

We are fortunate to continue to enjoy this 10-year-old specimen each summer. At this latitude they are a little iffy unless they are protected from the cold. The biggest one in the County at the Holly Point Middlesex Museum Children’s Garden did not make past January a couple of years ago. As you can see this one is backed by other trees, which have fostered its longevity.