Rainy, warm, thunder rumbling… it’s what I imagine some tropical jungle to feel like, although I’d prefer there to be fewer bugs and exotic diseases. Fortunately I’ve avoided most of the latter but you never know what a few more weeks of this will bring. On day 207 of mowing the lawn and chopping down waist high weeds I might discover some curious rash and then on day 210 I might be facing a doctor in the emergency room stating ‘we usually only see this in people who’ve spent a length of time in the Columbian rain forest’. Ahhh, so much yet to look forward to, but even with global warming I suspect our days are numbered. We’ve had some cool nights. There’s a tint of color on a few of the more exhausted trees. Colchicum are sending up their autumn blooms. The jungle has an expiration date.
Summer on the deck has been iffy this season. A lot of days were just uncomfortable or meh, but at least it didn’t take much watering this past month.
A reader or two might remember that back in the day this garden had a ‘tropical garden’ filled with cannas, bananas, dahlias, and whatever else might be able to pull off “tropical” via too much lush foliage or too-bright flowers, and it was a fun bed but the gardener got bored. Also the gardener might have made greedy decisions where perennials and shrubs were tucked in to the tropical garden because there was nowhere else to put them, and of course they grow, and of course something else loses its place, and so it happens. The tropical garden was abandoned, and for a couple of years things quieted down until a new brilliant idea hatched. “Why not take the shadier side of the potager (another victim of over-zealous shrubbery planting) and put a few tropicals in there?”
Maybe it’s not just the shadier side of the potager that was planted to flowers and tropical foliage. Tomatoes and cabbage have always struggled to find the attention and space they need in this garden.
Technically bananas are a food crop, and angel trumpets might be some kind of traditional medicinal plant, but this year the potager is less foodstuff and more flowery due to a gardener who finally, for this year at least, made an effort to shift the landscaping theme from ‘hmmm, interesting’ to something closer to ‘oh how colorful’.
The tall garden phlox (P. paniculata) is having a second wind after a hot spell was followed by slightly cooler weather and some endless rain.
On some of the less-humid afternoons I’ve finished up the mowing, looked around the garden, and even I thought it’s come together nicely. Yes, it’s not a neat garden, but the plants still look happy even as we slump into September.
Looking across the potager the pink party theme is still evident. Pink New Guinea impatients in case you’re wondering, and yes, the ones bedded out in the nearby industrial park… never watered, unfertilized… are much more floriferous and lush, but whatever, these are fine.
Rebloom on the clematis and a few bur cucumber (sicyos angulatus) vines creeping about. The cucumber is a native weed, but for some reason I enjoy its company even as it romps further than I’d like and irritates me every time I brush against its spiny fruits.
Oh, I almost forgot about the tropical things. The angel trumpets are into a flush of flowers and the potager is adrift with their fragrance each evening as the flowers wake up for the night. I like them and perhaps need more for next summer. Of course I need more because a white one is still missing, and maybe having a white one will calm things down again since this isn’t my first time obsession with the Brugmansia family.
Brugmansia (angel trumpet) in the potager. These were overwintered from last year, but I should probably start some new cuttings now just in case this fall the gardener decides these are too big to take in again.
Bananas are also tropical. Perhaps I mentioned that the one has sent up a bloom. Perhaps it’s the biggest garden surprise of the year, but I’m really trying hard not to post all the pictures I’m taking and go on too much about every new observation on this first-time event.
The ice cream banana is advancing quickly and the flowers have turned into cute little things which even a non-gardener might guess is a banana crop.
Yeah the banana. The main stalk will die after fruiting, so my big hope is that the plant will be as commited as I am to ripening a few of the fruits before it decides to go to the light. My attempts at saving it from winter cold might be way off and delusional but hopefully the choice between fulfilling its fruiting destiny and dying out of spite is an easy decision for the plant to make.
In other tropical news, castor beans seemed like they might be fun and yes, they are. From a few seeds planted back in the waste area they’re at least seven feet tall now.
Speaking of delusions, I’m still nursing the one which thinks that in a few weeks all this wintering over of tropical things will actually happen in a way that works for someone who hasn’t quit their day job yet… especially when that day job doesn’t shower them with the money or labor which might help pave the way. It’s fine, it’s fine, that’s the phrase which echoes in my head.
An overview of the waste area from the top of the berm. The seven foot castor beans are practically hidden behind a wall of eight foot cannas. You don’t even notice the rows of daylilies in there, or the dahlias for that matter.
It’s all fine because I ordered a new lawn edger and it’s supposed to arrive today. Plus I divided two Boston ferns and now have 14 Boston ferns, so adding a new job to the daily lawn mowing and adding a dozen plants to the “bring inside” list will only make things make more sense and not less. Thankfully colchicum season is here to distract me, so in a best case scenario you can hear all about them in the next post rather than a continuous woe-is-me, how-did-this-happen repeating record. On a good note I did not buy a single colchicum or other flowering bulb/root/corm this summer, so kudos to me as long as one doesn’t dwell too long on defining the word ‘buy’.
Have a great Sunday 🙂
Watch out for monkeys! I’d talk about the banana every day if mine were blooming. Your end of summer garden is lovely and colorful. The Brugmansia, if only they’d grow for me. We’re just too dry. Love the color of the castor bean.
Thanks Tracy, and as far as you not being able to grow the brugmansias…. I’d say I can’t grow about 90% of what fills your beds! Well maybe in tiny pots on a windowsill, but that’s not nearly as much fun as mountains of aloes and bushel baskets of cacti!
Love your tropical jungle, Frank. It’s the overwintering bit that has me less enthralled. Good luck! 😎
Heh heh, yeah the overwintering bit. I brought in five plants from the porch today. I don’t think I’ve ever kicked off the migration this early but they needed watering and I couldn’t convince myself to walk out there one more time with a watering can.
Just half a billion more to go!
😀 👍🏼
Please don’t try the medicinal qualities of brugmansia,it is absolutely deadly. But what a magnificent specimen. I don’t envy you getting it in for winter. Every autumn I wonder why I grow so many tender plants and where on earth I am going to put them and I imagine you have the same problem. But your garden looks amazing, so lush and jungle- like. The bananas are magnificent, which variety do you grow? Looking forward to seeing your colchicums.
Yes we’re facing the same winter housing issues. I like to imagine that between grow lights in the garage and more in the basement there’s ample room, but when you’re looking for a spot for a banana tree it really puts a damper on the space. The variety is ‘Icecream’, I think it’s also called Blue Java and it’s supposed to be a dessert type but based on how slow they seem to be growing lately I’m not sure they’ll ever make it.
I took come colchicum photos this weekend. They’re nice but the bed is a mess and for a second I was self conscious, but now I realize everyone who’s opinion I care about has seen worse so no worries!
“The jungle has an expiration date.” An apt phrase. Jungle plants don’t seem to do well here. Cannas often never bloom, and rarely push past 3 feet. Dahlias start blooming a week before frost. Even hardy hibiscus take until mid-September to start showing off. I decided to stop trying to make this garden something that it’s not and stick to things that like it damp and cool. I grow awesome Joe Pye weed without even trying–it grows wild here.
Awesome Joe Pye weed is also a good thing, and the soil here is too dry and poor to grow it well.
If you ever want to try an angel trumpet lmk. They’re definitely not hardy but I don’t think they mind cooler nights and I bet thats what holds the tropicals back up there. Or not. I think you have plenty already to keep you busy!
I saw a variegated brugmansia recently that almost made me reconsider. Almost. Yes, I’m trying to eliminate work for myself, not create more things to do/take care of. Thanks for offerning.
I love it! The late summer garden is overflowing the borders and every plant is crowding its neighbors. There’s a party atmosphere and a bit of drunken wildness, a jungle ambience.
I also once had a potager, a lovely mix of food and flowers. But like you, when I needed a spot for those perennial divisions, or to temporarily hold these saplings until I moved them, the obvious place was the potager with it’s open space. After a few years of growth and “temporary” plantings, the potager had no space for the veggies. So I had to create another whole vegetable bed! And I am strenuously resisting the urge to just use a little of that space for these new grasses . . .
And your banana! I know what you mean about being entranced with every new detail and every new stage of growth, a true tropical experience.
When the potager here was re-configured with raised beds I had to find homes for about three potagers worth of bulbs plus perennials, shrubs and baby trees. Harvesting veggies leaves just too much open ground and in fall the need to just get stuff planted is too much! Currently about half the beds are planted with vegetables. It’s not as bad as before, but I swore this wouldn’t happen again!
Wonderful! It all looks so lush and green! Hope the mosquitoes weren’t too bad. We hardly got any at all this year! Your garden clearly loved all the warmth and humidity. The potager has devleoped beautifully. I also mixed flowers with my veggies this year, but their space is limited as I barely have enough space for all the edibles I want to grow. The cannas and castor plants are amazing! And if you do get any ripe bananas I shall look forward to a report on the flavour, although just seeing them grow like that is reward enough I’d say. Well done Frank!
Thanks Cathy! Yes the warmth and all the rain were nice but now I’m wondering what the winter will hold in store. For some reason I’m expecting a very mild winter which sounds nice, but it always ends with a brutal cold snap which nips back all the early risers 😦
Growing bananas is so much less stressful lol