{"id":2672,"date":"2015-08-23T17:49:44","date_gmt":"2015-08-23T17:49:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.siteandinsight.com\/?p=2672"},"modified":"2015-08-23T17:49:44","modified_gmt":"2015-08-23T17:49:44","slug":"the-dragons-tail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/fr\/the-dragons-tail\/","title":{"rendered":"The Dragon’s Tail"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the first flower beds I added at Glen Villa was The Dragon’s Tail, a line\u00a0of grape hyacinth (Muscari armeniacum<\/em>) that sweeps across a flat grassy area like a child’s scribble.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"This<\/a>

This photo is from 2007, the spring after we planted the muscari bulbs for the second time.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

I laid out the shape with a lawn mower, cutting\u00a0a gentle curve, then altering it slightly to add a bit more movement. A friend named it — he said the shape looked some wild animal, a dragon maybe, flicking its tail. The image\u00a0stuck and the planting became The Dragon’s Tail.<\/p>\n

The area where the muscari is planted drops off sharply at one side — you can almost\u00a0see the edge on the right in the photo above — so the beginning and end of the line disappear, making it look as if the line continues forever. It switches back and forth in a loose ‘S’ curve that I find very appealing. And when the muscari blooms at the same time as the crabapple trees flower, it is truly a magical sight.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Sadly,<\/a>

Sadly, this is the best photo I have that combines the crabapple and muscari in bloom. So you’ll have to take my word for it — it is spectacular!<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

I wanted a strong contrast of colour, and the blue muscari against the bright green of grass in the spring gave me that. But once the muscari flowered, nothing was left.<\/p>\n

To add summer colour to this shady area, I planted astilbe.\u00a0I chose ‘Veronica Klose,’ a sharp pink variety that blooms in late summer. Here is how it looked yesterday, under \u00a0perfect summer conditions.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The dragon’s tail in August is a scribble of pink.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

The muscari doesn’t bloom well anymore. I fertilize the area regularly and leave\u00a0the foliage to die back\u00a0on its own, but gradually the bulbs are petering out rather than becoming stronger. Earlier this year I dug up some bulbs and there are no signs of rot or other problems, but there aren’t any bulblets, either. \u00a0Is the astilbe causing the problem? Is there something I should be doing or not doing that will help the muscari to thrive?<\/p>\n

Advice is welcome!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the first flower beds I added at Glen Villa was The Dragon’s Tail, a line\u00a0of grape hyacinth (Muscari armeniacum) that sweeps across a flat grassy area like a child’s scribble.     I laid out the shape with a lawn mower, cutting\u00a0a gentle curve, then altering it slightly to add a bit more…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12694,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[38,21],"tags":[465,466,37,100],"class_list":["post-2672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-glen-villa","category-plants","tag-astilbe","tag-dragons-tail","tag-glen-villa","tag-muscari","category-38","category-21","description-off"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2672"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2672\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}