Saturday, 6 June & Wednesday, 10 June, 2009
Visits to the Leonard J. Buck Garden
It's a great place to visit at any time of year. There's something about Spring that really puts a polish on the Leonard J. Buck Garden in Far Hills, New Jersey, so it really shines. June would ordinarily be a little late. However with all the rain and temperatures 15 to 20 degrees Fahrenheit below typical for this time of year we're having a really loooooong Spring.
My first visit was on Saturday, 6 June, to teach a class on Herbs for Flavor and Fragrance. What fun! Good registration of about 16 people. I came with bunches of herbs and samples for tastings: tarragon mustard sampled with pumpernickel pretzels; basil pesto smeared on slices of baguette; a thyme / rosemary infused olive oil for dipping into with baguette slices; a Boursin-type cheese with herbs, black pepper, and garlic smoothed onto crackers; and last but hardly least, a lavender shortbread I made the night before after cleaning the kitchen.
We discussed how to best store fresh herbs, freezing herbs
and drying them, and using herbs in all sorts of delicious ways.
I provided handouts with recipes, and there was a whole lot of
note-taking going on. An informative, delicious time had by all.
Photos Credit Tricia Scibila 2009
And after the class was over, at noon, I took some time to enjoy the garden.
Big, old, stately specimens of Rhododendron maximum,
their rosy red buds opening to apple blossom pink
with golden freckles dusted across the upper petals.
.
The steps down into the garden, with a sturdy, rustic handrail
embellished with bright hostas edged with dark, somber ivy.
Down the steps, arriving at the lower level of the garden, at Big Rock.
All sorts of plants enjoy growing in the crevices, and
spilling over the rocks. Blue stars of campanula, trailing,
and glaucous blue-silver sprays of an attractive sedum.
.
And at the base of the cliff, a colony of nodding onion, Allium cernuum.
It was nicely paired with Geranium 'John Esley', whose flowers,
of a more intense and deeper rose-pink made a lovely contrast.
Just in front of Big Rock is a protrusion, an extension, an awkward
eruption in the landscape. Short of dynamite, what to do?
Using the "lemons become lemonade" principle, add rocks
and voilą, here's the Bit-O-Rock, an attractive little planting bed.
There's a wonderful, weathered, gray Monet style bridge across the pond.
It is draped with our native Wisteria frutescens, which I seem to see
everywhere I visit this year, such as Twin Silo Farm and again during
A Visit to the Arboretum at Temple University Ambler .
The pond's outflow winds its way to the lower pond and another, more rustic bridge.
.
The next visit to Buck Garden was just a few days later, on 10 June.
The occasion was the June meeting and evening soiree of the
Watnong Chapter of the North American Rock Garden Society.
Not much had changed in the scant handful of days from my last visit,
just the wonderful differences from morning to evening to be seen.
And all my friends also to be seen enjoying the garden. What fun.
A good time had by all: my students and their instructor,
my fellow Watnong chapter members and their madam chairman.