Road Trip

On a lovely summer Friday, I took a day off so we could go on a garden-related excursion.


Usually we make a couple of pilgrimages each season to what has been until now our garden mecca -- Whiteflower Farm.  Located just south of Litchfield, Connecticut, Whiteflower is well known both for its encyclopedic seasonal catalogs of available plants and for its spectacular gardens. It's not inexpensive, but the plants are always healthy and we always misbehave badly there.  


A few years ago, good friends of ours moved to Salisbury, Connecticut, about 1/2 hour from Whiteflower, giving us an additional reason for visiting the area.  On one of those trips, they introduced us to a craftsman in nearby Falls Village who does custom metalwork. Battle Hill Forge is owned and operated by Israel Fitch.  And while his trade is welding, he truly is an artist, making remarkable garden structures and even more remarkable entries into an annual Halloween welding contest!  

Prize-winning entry in Halloween  Contest!

One of the really fun parts of gardening is sculpting the landscape with various shapes and sizes of plants, as well as varying the color. There are spots that cry out for something vertical, and those better suited to low growing horizontal shapes.  Climbers are great upright accents -- as long as they have a structure to cling to. So when we first found Israel, we bought several of his simpler pyramids to anchor our raspberry patch and a clematis or two.

Plant support systems

Really cool structures

We continued to visit each year and continued to be amazed at the craft and inventiveness, and behaved ourselves pretty well.  Until this year.  We had no choice, really.  The two clematis that flank the opening into our front garden have totally overgrown the dinky little trellis we started with.  There they were, grasping futilely for some support and encouragement, only to have to fall back upon themselves in a tangled heap.  How could we not help?

Clematis in need of support

So we commissioned two six foot tall trellises which we can use next year to give these clematis more room to climb.  And we made our trip last week to pick them up from the forge, planning to stop by Whiteflower Farm on the way home.

As we pulled in, we interrupted one of Israel's partners, Willy, who was literally putting the last few welds on the trellises.  He suggested that to kill some time (and give the metal time to cool!) we make a quick trip to Falls Village Flower Farm which was just around the corner. We had heard of this particular nursery, but hadn't visited it because -- well, what could be better than Whiteflower, we foolishly thought.

All I can say is that the scales have fallen from my eyes, and I now have a new favorite place to misbehave.  Falls Village Flower Farm is a much humbler mecca.  All the plants are propagated there, and the proprietess, Roberta, will spend as much time as you have walking through the display gardens to share location and growing tips.  She also has varieties and plants I've never seen anywhere else, and you can choose from 1- 2- and 3- year old plants depending on just how impatient you are.

Many varieties of interesting plants

Display gardens

I could have done an awful lot of damage there.  But as luck would have it, we had Mr. Mulch's truck with us, and the bed was reserved for the trellises, so we had only the limited space in the cab to work with.  I made the most of it -- 6 ligularia in two different varieties -- 5 low growing, with thick burgundy heart shaped leaves, and one taller green variety with almost palm-frond like foliage -- and 10 Jacob's Ladder -- a lovely variegated grass-like plant which will send up flowers late in the summer.  They all fit -- just barely.

Misbehavior tucked into the cab

Roberta calculating the damage

 I'll have to go back there again for the 6 foot tall Thalictrum Rochebruian -- a crazy gorgeous purple stemmed part shade plant that forms tall bamboo-ish stands and flowers with wispy purple blooms in late summer.  They will look perfect lining the inside of our deer fencing. And though they're supposedly deer resistant, I wouldn't want to tempt fate. But they'd have had to go in the back of the truck and that was already reserved.

So... we headed back to the forge, where Israel was ready for us.  It's hard to see in this shot, but he really outdid himself.  The trellises are rectangular, with a series of vine-like branches winding their way up the middle.  What you can't see is that he actually made them dimensional, so that they not only twist side to side, but also have movement front to back.

Israel and his trellis

When you look at them close up, you can really see his artistry.  Instead of welding the supports at the sides, they twist onto the frame just like the vines that will one day twist around the trellis.  They almost feel alive.  

Detail of the handiwork

We were delighted with them, and being impatient as we always are, wanted to get home with our booty in time to lay it all out and see how it would look.  

Which we did.  So here's where everything will go...

Trellis in a temporary spot in the front garden

Jacob's Ladder in its new home on the hill

Detail of Jacob's Ladder foliage

Big momma Ligularia surrounded by smaller friends

Oh, and we never did make it to Whiteflower Farm.  And I'm thinking we might not for quite some time.  After all, now that the truck is empty, maybe it's time to head back to Falls Village for that Thalictrum...