Allium albopilosum

Though yesterday I posted some photos of Aster simplex growing on a roadside in Virginia, I'm not quite done with Blithewold, up north in Rhode Island.  Here's a small bed in the display gardens. with a lovely Agave serving as focal point and anchor for the blue-toned plants surrounding it, including kale and marjoram, to name a few.

 

And perhaps most striking are the Allium albopilosum, or Star of Persia, in front of the Agave.  Like giant onion and chives, the flower on this onion consists of a round ball of smaller individual flowers.  Another name for this species is christophii, though albopilosum refers to the small white hairs that surround the flowers.

 

These flowers dry fairly well - I've encountered them rolling through gardens in early fall, looking a bit like fancy tumbleweeds.  Like the other Alliums this plant is a bulb that can be planted in autumn.

 

I thought it was also worth posting a photo of the detail above.  Corten steel beams shape the bed and the grass risers.  It was a surprise to see such contemporary vocabulary in a garden that is otherwise quite traditional.

Aster simplex

Here are a few shots from this morning's run.  Aster simplex, or panicled aster.  The more current botanical name for this plant is actually Symphyotrichum lanceolatum, but its older name can still be applied.  As I've mentioned before, I think the word 'Aster' is decidedly less of a mouthful than Symphyotrichum. 

 

This specimen was found growing along an unmowed roadside and is very common this time of year.  It blooms in mid to late summer until the first frost.  It's not as showy as other asters, but you can buy seeds of the native plant from various sources.  To me, it's a great addition to a wildflower meadow and the small white flowers would be a great alternative to baby's breath (Gypsophila) for cut flower arrangements. 

Finally, like all members of the Asteraceae family, this flower structure is composed of disc florets and ray florets.  The disc florets are the very small yellow petals that compose the inside 'eye' of the flower.  They are the seed-producing flowers, whereas the ray florets (in this case, the white petals) are decorative; primarily present to attract pollinators.

Blithwold Display Gardens

Certainly, my favorite part of the Blithwold Estate's grounds were the Display Gardens.  These are tucked behind an original 1901 Lord and Burnham greenhouse, that is still being used to propagate the collections today.  The smaller structure below would typically house gardening tools, though equally important, it anchors the garden beds and also provides a structure upon which a pergola can be set.  The gardens were once populated with only vegetables - it was a proper potager - but today it is used to herald the worthiness of various herbaceous plants. 

 

Rare vines such as Nepenthes grow on the pergola with shade-loving ferns (Asplenium, for instance) crowd the stone path. 

Outside the pergola, tables of orange, geranium and Euphorbia milii are lightly touched by the cascading grape vines.

Here's a shot of the display gardens.  It's basically a reverse-view of the first photo in this post.  I think what makes a garden like this a success is not over-planning it.  As a designer, I probably shouldn't admit that, but the joy of a garden like this derives from its unbridled profusion of colors, textures and sizes.  After seeing so many variations of these types of gardens, I think I've become a bit fine-tuned to spot out the ones that are too carefully constructed.  Look at the heights alone: the beds below are lop-sided.  If a designer was obsessively selecting plants, they'd mirror heights, or would have some kind of alternating rhythm (tall-medium-short-tall-medium-short).  Instead, this looks like the person who picked out the species was too excited about the lovely selection to worry about 'coloring in the lines.'