Saturday, May 31, 2008

The Creepy Garden


After exiling the foul-smelling arum dracunculus (of yesterday's post) to a suitably distant spot, I decided to make a "creepy" garden. Spurred on by the memory of a Charles Addams cartoon in which the elegantly creepy mother of the Addams family is writing to her absent husband, "The garden is at its best now --the dealy nightshade and belladonna are in bloom and the little toads have hatched." ( Or words to that effect -- it's been a very long time), I tried to think of plants that looked creepy or had creepy names. I tried toad lily, but it died. I planted every thing black or near-black, that I could find and also Crocosmia "Lucifer" and spiderwort.



The creepy garden is not yet a visual success -- things bloom at different times and there's no real focus. But I keep fiddling with it. I'm open to suggestions for additions -- this is very rich soil, mostly sunny all day.
The black pussy willow is a delight in spring -- but the rest of the summer it's just a nondescript shrub.


That's the problem: things come and go and there's never a moment when it all works as a garden. I think as things grow and multiply, if I can have bigger stands of each individual plant, it will have more ooomph. Till then, I'll just have to keep explaining it.


Picture of other plants in the creepy garden are here .
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2 comments:

Susan M. Bell said...

What about black calla lillies? Calla lillies are my favorites, even though some associate them with funerals, and the black ones look pretty creepy.

Vicki Lane said...

Good idea!! I love callas -- have one in a pot right now. Actually, even the white ones or the purple would work -- because of the funeral connection.