Ever changing
One of the charms of such a garden is its dynamic change through the growing season. It is now relatively bare. By late summer, the snapdragons, tulips, alliums and larkspur of spring will be a memory, replaced instead by walls of flower-rich vegetation. Along with the dahlias and sunflowers, these include four varieties of amaranth and the balloon flower, Asclepias physocarpa.
When it served Hillwood’s owner, the cereal heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post, the garden was utilitarian and out of the way; it didn’t have to look particularly beautiful. Today it has a more prominent role, and Asbury is sensitive to its look. Instead of just planting in blocks, he has intermingled some of the blooms so that their seasonal ebbing and flowing is not as obvious.
Weeds are ever ready to sprout in the bare soil of the garden, but the flower beds are closely monitored by members of the gardening team, who watch for unwanted germination. Their seedling identification skill is tested because some of the tiny plants are returning annuals — cleomes and celosia, for example — and some of those are left to grow.
Some winters, dahlia tubers will survive in the ground in Washington, but last winter featured a prolonged end-of-year freeze that left much damage in its wake. My inground tubers perished, but Asbury’s seem to have survived, and here’s why:
The prominent ginkgo tree on the edge of the garden presents thousands of leaves in November. He used these golden fans to create a 2-inch-thick mulch over the dahlia beds, covered them with plastic and laid another leaf layer that was 6 inches deep. The whole blanket was held in place by bird netting.
Recently, he could see the tiny sprouts of this season’s dahlias poking through the ground. “I don’t know if I’ll get 100 percent, but it’s very exciting,” he said.
The garden stands before an ornate greenhouse, now whitewashed for the hot months. More than a backdrop, the glasshouse provides the perfect environment for starting many of these flowers from seed or growing on plug plants.
Now, young chrysanthemum cuttings are rooting away within, and they will see out the garden in the autumn.
Should you try this at home? Yes; it doesn’t need to be on the scale of Hillwood. Start small and see how it goes. Another option is to sign up for a community plot and grow your flowers there, but check the rules first. Some community gardens want you to grow vegetables and limit the number of blooms.