When a Lovely Scheme Emerges, Record It

Pruning a shrubby rose the other day revealed the deep, velvety-red flowers of a winter-blooming cestrum named ‘Bacchus.’

This South American cestrum had been there all along but was barely noticeable until I gave the rose bush its winter haircut. Suddenly it was the most visible thing in the garden with cascades of rich-red, tubular flowers, dramatic against the dark, drifting clouds of a departing storm.

I had planned on this cestrum to eventually grow taller than the sprawling Lavender Dream rose, but it never occurred to me that it would be so visible behind the bare, pruned bush.

Just when the rose was at its lowest point in the year, the cestrum was at its best, one neatly taking the place of the other.

Sometimes garden schemes like this just work out. You don’t plan them, sometimes you don’t even plant them.

The seed of a dainty, daisy-like flower sprouted in the midst of bearded iris foliage a few years ago, and the combination of tiny white daisies with the blue-bearded iris flowers was stunning.

The seed had come from a rare South African plant given to me by a friend, but, unfortunately, I had never written down the name, so when it died, I could not replace it. I suspect that really good gardeners make notes about fortuitous combinations, so they can learn from the experience and perhaps repeat.

I planted a special variety of apricot right after moving into our house. After five years of anxious waiting for the first fruit, I gave up and took it out, realizing this variety was not going to fruit in our mild climate.

Early one morning last week, hands gloved against the cold, I dug a huge hole and planted another apricot, but, when I was finished, I wondered whether I hadn’t planted the same variety that I had already tried many years before.

I don’t think so, but a garden log or record book could have told me for sure.

Plant labels can record names--even planting dates--but they often get lost, blurred or buried, and when the plant is taken out, the labels often get tossed out too.

What’s needed is some kind of written record, where you can also note what blooms when, what looks good with what, how big things get and other information.

In the last few years, I’ve begun keeping better records, scribbling a note that camellias look really good with bamboo growing between and behind them. That was also an accidental combination that I plan to try elsewhere in the garden.

I’ve noted that the coleus with the deep burgundy foliage looks spectacular around the mounding Fuchsia arborescens with its purple-violet flowers. And that the true geranium named Biokovo may be the best of all things to grow under a rose bush with flowers in the pink to lavender range. And, I’ve noted that the Biokovo doesn’t seem to compete with the roses.

I’m about to write down that a new apricot-flowered bearded iris that a friend gave me (but without a name) is in full flower in the middle of winter and that it looks great in front of the lavender-flowered Heliotropium arborescens, which is also in bloom. I want to make sure that I never prune the heliotrope in fall, when the iris is just about to bloom.

Garden logs don’t have to be fancy. Any notebook will do. I prefer small artist’s sketch pads with no lines or rules so I can also sketch ideas and combinations.

It’s important to keep a garden log handy, and not to have one so fancy that you mind it getting soiled. You’ll only keep it up to date if it’s close to where you’re working--say, on the patio table.

That way you can plant an apricot in the middle of winter and write down its name right away, even if your hands are covered with mud.