By Jove, I think I've GOT it!: Describing the late summer garden

14 years ago

All month, I have been trying to come up w/ the right phrase to describe the jungle outside. I have gone through this same brain tease in September -for all the 22 yrs. we have created these gardens. I have heard other gardeners use the words rangy, weedy, scruffy, messy, overgrown, gangly(all the result this year of our amazingly wet June and our month of sun and heat in August.)

The wonderfully talented plantswoman, Pam Frost (who found in her garden, and introduced, the variegated sedum 'Pacific Frost' )uses the word 'blousy'. It's an English expression and Pam is English, though she lives and has created her great garden in Vancouver. I like that word, blousy, but I have come to think it too refined an expression for what I experience in my garden. I want an American expression, one that expresses the bold, adventurous, crowded, imperfect American garden (vs. the British refined tradition of immaculate borders etc.)

Lately when I've been out working in the garden, my welcoming warning has been "It's pretty Up- Close and Personal out here" but today, as I greeted a batch of afternoon visitors to our Cotton-Arbo retum, the right expression finally just tumbled forth : "It's pretty Wild and Woolly out here now!" , somewhat like the American West of old- grown out of bounds and a bit out of control. And now we are the self appointed marshalls, so with snippees in hand, and Y stakes in tow, we do our best to reign things in and encourage the sloppy drunks to stand up (more) straight .

So welcome to the Wild and Woolly season in the Cotton-Arbo retum. Fuller, wider, taller!

best,

Mindy

cottonarboretum@blogspot.com

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Comments (14)

gottagarden
14 years ago
W&W sure beats the "scraggly" term I just used to describe my garden. Someone wanted to come and see my garden for the first time NOW in late Sept. (please, come next year in June)

But I believe Pam means "bloWsy" with a "w".

W&W - will use that expression from now on.
mxk3 z5b_MI
14 years ago
I tend to use the term "ratty"....
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gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9)
14 years ago
Using terms like "blowsy" can get you into trouble :-)

I was helping a rather demanding customer at the nursery pick out some hydrangeas for her garden recently. She wanted a quantity of them to be delivered in full bloom for a function she was hosting. They were large plants with heavy blooms and somewhat floppy stems and I mentioned to the carryout/delivery guys that they were very 'blowsy' plants and would need protection to be delivered without any damage to the flowers, as she specifically instructed and emphasized. She misheard and thought I said they were 'lousy' plants and became incensed that I referred to her plant selections in such a derogatory fashion.

She had never heard the term 'blowsy' used before and it took a lot of explaining to soothe her injured feelings.

"wild and wooly" is a very appropriate description of many gardens this late in the season. I have used it to describe my own garden often.........and not just in late September :-)
aftermidnight Zone7b B.C. Canada
14 years ago
Wild and Wooly for some, mine is more Snag and Snare at the moment but I'm working on it :o).

Annette
arbo_retum
Original Author
14 years ago
you know, i checked the dictionary before posting and both blousy and blowsy are correct.
snag and snare- how appropriate, annette!

gg, fyi, you and the aforementioned Pam have the same attitude; she doesn't allow garden visitors after july.
best,
mindy
treelover
14 years ago
I had some friends over the other night. The gentleman very graciously said that my gardens are looking "lush." LOL! I've been thinking of them as jungle-y . . . but I like W&W better.
gazania_gw
14 years ago
Mindy, "wild and woolly" is great. My 14 small beds sure can fit that caption. In the past I just referred to this season as the "ratty" season. But this year I have realized that there is a much better way of looking at all that rattyness. Since about 90% of all my plantings were to attract the birds, butterflies and bees I leave everything to Mom Natures care and the creatures who are really enjoying it in this late growing season. I now call my jungle "shabby chic". I can't deny it's 'shabbyness' and isn't it now 'chic' to take care of all the creatures in our environment? It gives me such pleasure to look out into my yard and see the seed heads of many varieties of plants bouncing wildly as the birds enjoy the bounty that I have left for them.
hunt4carl
14 years ago
Whatever our term for the look of our late-season gardens, the epithet we chose probably reveals more about our personal garden styles and/or choices
more than anything else. One person's "ratty" or "overgrown" is another
gardener's "lush" or "explosively beautiful" - one visitor actually used that
latter term one early October, and I've never forgotten it !

"Wild and wooly" certainly works for me, although I'm definitely partial to
relatively arcane words like "blowsy". . .but don't you sometimes wonder if
some of this late season "exhuberance" isn't partially self-willed - you know,
minor gaffes earlier in the season when we failed to use the necessary stake
or grow support, or tie something back that we KNEW would pitch over - our
deliberate negligence the result of deeply repressed knowledge that our
shameful failures will bring a certain, well, blowsiness, to the garden. . .and
we LIKE it !

My favorite example of this "lack of discipline in the garden" is a very old,
rangey chrysanthemum (blooms in Oct/Nov here), which tends to send out long stems in its bed and then the flower heads pop in various sunny spots.
For several years now, it has grown over to, and under, a slatted bench on the lawn edge of a bed, and then pops up all around and THROUGH the bench, creating a "seat of flowers" - what's not to love about that? :)

Carl
aftermidnight Zone7b B.C. Canada
14 years ago
Carl, no fair, you've been peeking over my fence :o).

Annette
ego45
14 years ago
Well, English is not one of my strongholds, so I can't participate in a discussion about semantics like all you does, but... today I finaly got a chance to spend the WHOLE day in MY garden first time since early July.
To describe the garden at its current stage I have just one and very simple word: TIRED.
OK, Mindy, if you insist to use two words, Wild and Tired. :-)
cyn427 (z. 7, N. VA)
14 years ago
I love the wild and wooly, blowsy look this time of year! Years ago my mother wrote a poem that started..."My April-lovely garden now/A wild gypsy lair..." Sort of the same idea
diggerdee zone 6 CT
14 years ago
George, I just saw your garden a few days ago and it's still looking great! Maybe tired, in your case, describes the gardener and not the garden, lol?

Great line, cyn427!

:)
Dee
arbo_retum
Original Author
14 years ago
cyn, what a lovely line of poetry. th so much for sharing that,
mindy
buyorsell888
14 years ago
My garden is fried and ratty, wish it was lush and blousy. LOL

By Jove, I think I've GOT it!: Describing the late summer garden

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By Jove, I think I've GOT it!: Describing the late summer garden

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