鼠尾草,你是我最好的舞伴(3)

鼠尾草,你是我最好的舞伴

It is possible to take cuttings of these tender plants in the late summer and grow them in pots in a greenhouse or sunroom in the winter. You can also dig up the root ball before a hard freeze and store the potted plants in a basement or garage. John Whittlesey, who founded Canyon Creek Nursery in Northern California 20 years ago and now runs it as a design-build landscape firm, explains how in "The Plant Lover's Guide to Salvias," published this spring by Timber Press.

　　Of course, once we garden nuts fall in love with a plant, we want them all. Or at least all the ones we can grow in our area. So I wasn't surprised when Allen Lacy, whose garden books line my shelves, emailed me recently to mention casually that he and his wife and tireless sidekick, Hella, had planted 100 or so salvias at the Linwood Arboretum in Linwood, N.J.

　　"The smallest arboretum in the world," as Mr. Lacy calls it, was once an electrical substation cinched in by three streets. That was before Mr. Lacy got one of his green visions and helped found a public garden there five years ago. The scant acre now has 1,000 trees, shrubs, perennials and annuals, including a bog for pitcher plants.

　　Mr. Lacy, 79, is a former garden columnist for The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, and a professor emeritus of philosophy and horticulture at Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, and he shares my loathing of those squat little red-and-blue salvias you see in all the garden centers every spring — "the torrid red annual bedding sorts that pain the eye and made me long for a black freeze in early August," he writes in "The Garden in Autumn," one of his dozen or so excellent books.

　你可以在夏末將這些柔弱的植物剪下 ，扦插到花盆中，冬季就把花盆放到溫室或日光房里。你還可以在嚴寒的冰凍期來臨之前，將根球挖出來，把盆栽放到地下室或車庫里。約翰·惠特爾西(John Whittlesey)在今年春推出的新書《植物發燒友的鼠尾草種植指南》(The Plant Lover's Guide to Salvias)(Timber Press出版)中講解了具體做法。惠特爾西于20年前創立了坎寧克里克苗圃(Canyon Creek Nursery)，如今已將它作為一家園林景觀設計與建筑公司來運營了。

　　當然，一旦我們這些園藝癡愛上一種植物，就會想要得到它的所有品種。就算得不到所有的，也會想要得到所有能在本地種植的品種。因此，當艾倫·雷西(Allen Lacy)——我書架上還有他的園藝書——最近在郵件中偶然提到，他和老婆以及兩人不知疲倦的密友赫拉(Hella)，已經在新澤西州林伍德(Linwood)的林伍德植物園(Linwood Arboretum)里種植了100來種鼠尾草時，我并不感到意外。

　　林伍德植物園被雷西稱為“世界上最小的植物園”，它曾是一個由三條街道圍起來的變電站。后來，雷西萌生了建設綠地的想法，并幫忙于五年前在那里創立了一座公共花園。那一小塊地方如今已種植了1000株樹木、灌木、多年生植物和一年生植物，還有一片生長著豬籠草的池塘。

　　雷西現年79歲，是《紐約時報》和《華爾街日報》的前園藝專欄作家，也是新澤西理查德斯托克頓學院(Richard Stockton College of New Jersey)的哲學與園藝學榮譽教授。他跟我一樣討厭每年春天充斥在園藝商店里的那些又矮又小、紅藍相間的鼠尾草。在他已出版的十幾本杰作之一《秋天的花園》(The Garden in Autumn)里，雷西寫道：“我一看到這種紅得像火一樣、又矮又小的一年生品種，眼睛就痛得厲害，恨不得在四月初就迎來一段肅殺萬物的冰凍期。”