Hearts in the Garden

Day 23
The Daily DuBrule

Valentine's Day is just around the corner and everywhere you look you see hearts. I have been collecting heart rocks for many years. It is such a fun hobby. When I am at the beach, or walking along a babbling brook, I am always on the lookout. When I am digging in a new client's garden and I find one or more heart rocks, I think to myself "this person is going to be a joy to work with". I use little ones as decorative toppings for my houseplants. Once you start looking for them, they are everywhere, even in the gravel in a stone path!

One time I went to visit a new client and noticed her gorgeous collection of heart rocks. She invited me to come inside. They had built their house, and their chimney had the most amazing grouping of large, perfect heart rocks I had ever seen. She explained that each one was for a family member. I will never forget how the sight of that chimney made me feel. 

Dicentra 'Burning Hearts'

I also incorporate hearts in the garden in other ways. My friend Kim Kuzina has made some lovely heart shaped troughs. You can see one planted in the picture at the top of this post. She also made a beautiful heart shaped birdbath for my husband and me as a wedding present. The bowl is a heart, and a smaller heart is raised in the center as a perch for the birds. It is reinforced with heavy mesh hardware cloth so it can stay out all year. The birds love it!

Old fashioned bleeding heart with self sown Silene dioica

Our native Viola labradorica has tiny purple heart shaped leaves!

Cercis canadensis 'Forest Pansy'

Of course there are lots of flowers and leaves that are heart shaped. From common Philodendron and Pothos houseplants to bleeding hearts of all sorts, to the gorgeous burgundy heart shaped leaves of Cercis canadensis 'Forest Pansy', it is easy to fill your world with this powerful symbol of love. 

I Wish It Was All About the Plants Sometimes

Day 22
The Daily DuBrule

What's a business owner to do... Yesterday I hit the wall with all of the NON-PLANT responsibilities of owning Natureworks. I spent an hour downloading a new "app" for my Blackberry so I could use it to take credit cards at off-site events. Truthfully, I didn't even know how to do this and had to ask a younger staff person to help me. I had never downloaded an app before. I dealt with anti-virus software that was incompatible with my new computer cash registers. I stressed about bar code labels that wouldn't print on our label making machine. I even considered how to use QR codes (those funny little square black and white things you see on everything nowadays) to market my business.

I am being dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century and it isn't easy. The reality of today's modern business world is that you can't ignore all of this newfangled stuff. You snooze, you lose. You don't change and the world passes you by. Some days I am pretty proud of my nearly 60 year old self and all that I am courageous enough to do.  Yesterday, I needed to be talked down off the cliff. I wanted to jump back to the mid 1970's when a young, idealistic gardener dreamed of growing plants and tending gardens for a living.

A Winter Blooming Wonder

Winter jasmine

Day 21
The Daily DuBrule

I have a plant in my garden that has been blooming on and off since last November. Winter jasmine (Jasminum nudiflorum) is really fun to grow. It is classified as a vine yet it doesn't cling and it doesn't twine. It has long, leafless branches that reach outwards and upwards. You can tie them to a trellis or let them drape over a stone wall. If they touch the ground, they will root.

The flowers open on warm days in late fall, winter, and early spring. If the temperature drops into the low 20's, the open flowers will freeze but the buds will be fine. The next warm spell means more flowers! They are a sunny yellow color that cheers me up every time I look out the living room window.

I never thought this zone 6 plant would be hardy in my Middletown garden but I decided to give it a try anyway. I sited it on the south side of the house, in a warm, sheltered alcove. It has been thriving ever since.

I wish it was fragrant. One would think, being a jasmine, that it would be. Alas, it is not. But, it has one feature that can't be beat in the winter time- it makes a wonderful, long lasting cut flower! Because the stems are green, I cut a bunch of them one day to embellish a bouquet of cut flowers. Imagine my surprise when these branches burst into bloom, lasting long past the daisies I had purchased.

I just glanced outside on this February morning. The sun is rising and the sky is glowing bright pink. It is 27 degrees out and my winter jasmine is in full bloom, backlit by this magnificent sunrise. Life is good. 

Shady Characters

Two of my favorite shady characters

Day 20
The Daily DuBrule

Today I gave a talk to a wonderful garden club in West Hartford about succession of bloom with native plants. True to form, I went on a bit too long since I had SO much to share. Topping my all time favorites for shade is Mertensia virginica, Virginia bluebells. I think I like this so much because it was the first native wildflower I had success with. I planted a few bits of bare root pieces in the Natureworks gardens back in 1990. Today, I have one entire bed filled with this blue beauty in early May. The ground below is carpeted with blue Scilla and Chionodoxa bulbs that have naturalized equally well. Because this plant goes dormant in the early summer, along with the bulbs, this can be a problem. I solved this by allowing my favorite bee balm, Monarda 'Mahogony'  to spread where the Virginia bluebells live. The deep maroon flowers and long lasting, colorful bracts of this excellent cultivar marry with a 'Royal Occasion' deep red daylily and a Weigela 'Wine and Roses' nearby. Yes, I have to occasionally tame the bee balm, but it is worth it for all the hummingbird action it brings me.


Paired with the Mertensia above is a shade plant that many people don't know about. It is not native, but it fares very well in DRY SHADE, a situation that can be quite challenging. It is Lathyrus vernus, also called spring vetchling. I blooms in April into early May with bright purple/magenta flowers that fade to a glowing blue color. Because it is a legume, it seems to tolerate dryness well. The foliage does not go dormant in the summer. The seed pods look like little, upright, twisted pea pods. If left on the plant, they will drop their seeds and babies will appear throughout the bed, always a welcome treat. 


When you love early spring wildflowers that later disappear on you, it is vital that you cover the holes they leave with something that sustains. Ferns are an obvious choice to fill in after Virginia bluebells as they sprout much later in the spring and quickly catch up as the Mertensia is beginning to fade. Always know what your plants do after blooming- that is the secret to an attractive garden every month of the growing season.

Beautiful Blue Flowers

Veronica peduncularis 'Georgia Blue'

Day 18

I am a sucker for blue flowers. I just can't have enough of them. Every once in a while a perennial comes along that is just so easy to grow and so wonderful that it makes its way into my "signature" list- plants that I tend to put into most of my designs. Veronica peduncularis 'Georgia Blue' has made that list.

To be honest, I am not really a fan of the genus Veronica. Despite rave reviews and descriptions for all of the new, upright, spikey varieties that are supposed to bloom forever and be disease free, I have not had that experience. They usually require a lot of deadheading and get leaf funguses that ruin their appeal for me.

Good old 'Georgia Blue' is completely different. First of all, it's a ground cover. The foliage stays evergreen in my garden, actually, it is a deep burgundy red all winter and green in the summer. The blue single flowers appear in April and continue into May, with occasional rebloom in the fall. I have it planted in my hot, sunny courtyard. I have also used it in partial shade with great success. 


I marry this plant with all sorts of bulbs and upright perennials. The picture above is in April, with Iris buccharica and grape hyacinths. As the growing season progresses, it forms the base for cool, white Sedum 'Iceberg', soft pink and mildew free Phlox paniculata 'Tracy's Treasure', hummingbird magnet Belamcanda chinensis, and the unusual dwarf flowering shrub Leptodermis oblonga. 


A great use of this plant is in foundation plantings, as an edging to the walkway. It looks gorgeous when in flower and is a respectable ground cover foliage plant the rest of the time.

It only took a week for my witch hazel branches to open in the house!

 Day 8

Intoxicating. Spicy. The first scent of spring fills my design studio. The 'Arnold's Promise' witch hazel branches that I picked last Wednesday are in full, glorious bloom in a vase on my drawing board this morning. Heaven.

Fragrances conjure up all sorts of things. When I smell witch hazel, I immediately think of the CT Flower and Garden Show. Countless witch hazels are forced for the garden displays at the yearly pre-spring event. I always bring a huge vase of open flowers and display them high up on a book case for all to enjoy. The week that we return from the show, the last week of February, the large 'Arnold's Promise' witch hazel tree right outside the picture window at Natureworks starts to bloom. It gives us color for a month!

Last fall, my witch hazels suffered terribly in the Halloween weekend snowstorm. I never realized that they had v-shaped crotches, which are very weak. The leaves were on the trees and a foot of wet, heavy snow fell. They split apart. I was determined to save them. Based on the advice of seasoned nurserymen after the terrible ice storms of the winter of 2011, I tried bolting them together. I am thrilled to say so far so good. The flower buds on both my yellow and purple witch hazels are plump and healthy.  

As I continue to design and develop my own personal patch of paradise, fragrant plants are high on my list of criteria. Sitting here today inhaling the spicy scent of witch hazel has made a huge difference in my mood. I gives me hope. Spring is coming. The flower buds on the early blooming plants already know it!

The Daily DuBrule

Day 2

My favorite weatherman died yesterday. Dr. Mel Goldstein was an amazing man. He not only delivered wonderful weather forecasts, he did it with complete joy and passion. 

Weather is everything to a gardener. During the growing season, I wake up at 5:30 and immediately check the weather. It determines how my day is going to work. Weather affects which jobs we can do, whether someone has to water the retail store or not, and if we are going to have a busy day. This was a year of ridiculously extreme weather. Ice storms, blizzards, an earthquake, a hurricane, and a foot of snow on Halloween weekend. All that weather meant broken trees, lost plants, and lost time. Never mind lost power and inconvenience.

To have someone tell you what the weather is going to be at 5:30 in the morning who is happy, cheerful, and enthusiastic makes all the difference in the world. I loved Dr. Mel because he was completely, utterly, 100% IN LOVE with meteorology. He shared that love with all of us. That is exactly the way I feel about gardening. It is one of life's greatest gifts to do what you love every day and be able to share that with the world. 

The Daily DuBrule

I just got home from a week in Atlanta, spending time with other Top Revolutionary 100 Garden Center winners for 2012. I was inspired by Jenny Gunderson, co-owner of My Garden Nursery in Mill Creek, Washington. She did a blog called "365 days of Heucheras" in 2011, writing about a different Heuchera topic every day! Wow! I thought, if she can do it, so can I. I LOVE to write. I often feel like sharing my horticultural thoughts but know that my weekly email can be too much for some folks. I am not going to focus on any one plant or subject, just a daily ramble. So...let's begin...

Day 1

The wind is howling but the sun is shining. The only snow of 2012 fell two nights ago, but it didn't pack much of a punch. I was actually relieved because of the open winter we've been having, I thought it would protect the plants. Nope. On the south side of my house, the bulbs are once again sticking up out of the ground. Time to put some more evergreen boughs down. Yesterday, on the way to work, I spotted a pussywillow plant in full catkin! This particular plant is always earlier than most, but this is crazy. So, I am venturing out to my courtyard today and picking some 'Arnold's Promise' witch hazel branches. I bet they will open pretty fast in the house. I will also pick some pussywillows. Mine are starting to crack a bit, and have been since late December. I have black ones, regular ones, and fasciated ones. It's time to get the spring fever going, a full month early this year!