Stop it with the autumn talk

Sep11

Many people enjoy and claim they welcome the coming of autumn. I want to make it clear that I do not, and although the last few days have been a little too hot and dry for my taste, I would much prefer the relief of a summertime cloudburst rather than any farewell to summer eulogy. So I guess what I want is just a few more days of denial before I’m forced to admit the season is breaking down.

The tomatoes of summer are still going strong even with their new neighbors the fall chrysanthemums.

After a promising start to the summer August went dry and for the past forty days we’ve barely cracked the 1/4 inch mark for rainfall. With high temperatures, thin soil, drying winds, and full sun the life was sucked out of a garden which had been almost carefree at the start of the summer. With a nice rain today we’ll see how fast things bounce back. My guess is it will be a much faster turnaround than the last two summers when things REALLY dried out to a crisp.

One patch of watered soil ready for fall planting. Hopefully cool weather will soon allow for a few broccoli and cauliflower transplants.

In spite of the heat a few things still look nice. The tropical garden got a few minutes with the hose, and that seems to have been enough to keep it from death. I love the colors right now with the purple verbena bonariensis, dark red dahlias, and peach colored salvia splendens filling the bed.

A little orange from ‘Tropicanna’ canna goes a long way in brightening up the late summer salvia, verbena and dahlias.

With the grass dried up to a crispy beige the stronger reds, oranges, and purples really stand out. I don’t think a bed full of lavenders, whites, and pale pinks would be as eye catching…. which I’m going to say is a good thing, since in this world of gray and tan I can use as much eye catching and hold-on-to-life color as I can get!

End of summer color from dahlia ‘Mathew Alan’. As usual the dahlias could use some dead heading.

Even up front a little bold color is a nice thing. The border along the house foundation has a few spots of color from the ‘Masquerade’ peppers I planted out this spring. The true type has purple peppers changing to yellow, orange, and red while a few oddball plants started right off with pale yellow and are now going through the same sunset effect.

‘Masquerade’ peppers from seed with all the fescue clumps I divided up this spring. I finally like this bed… but we’ll see how I can mess it up next year 🙂

Along the street is another story. Even with a few emergency waterings things look end of summer tired.

To water or not to water, that is the question. Obviously I chose the latter, but the ‘Karl Forster’ feather reed grass, sedums, and perovskia are still holding on.

I did give the ‘Limelight’ hydrangea a little soaking, but a few water lovers such as the ‘Golden sunshine’ willow will need a good bit of water before they look anything close to happy again.

I think this border will need a little trimming out of dead things once the rains soak in. No big deal though, a little fall cleanup will carry it on through the next few months.

There are still a few bright spots. Even in the harsh midday sun kniphofia ‘Ember Glow’ looks nice. It could be a little taller but the size actually works well with the peppers and coleus (please ignore the dead rudbeckias and dying zinnias).

Red hot poker (Kniphofia) with peppers and a surprisingly sun and drought resistant coleus. I wasn’t sure if the poker would ever bloom this year but I guess it’s a later cultivar.

Until the garden bounces back the best thing to do is spend more time in the shade, seated with cold beverage in hand. I can ignore the weeds and dead lawn quite successfully on the back deck.

This is a late summer view, not autumn. I’ll keep that delusion up until the first frosts threaten!

Even with a good soaking the lawnmower will still likely be on vacation for another week or two. I’m ok with that. I hope the soil takes in the rain, the plants come back, and I can finally use something other than a pickaxe to dig a hole. Maybe then I’ll start thinking about things like fall while I’m taking care of a little late summer transplanting and bulb planting 🙂

A hot day in Philly

Sep6

The calendar is beginning to insist that all things summer will soon come to an end, so when a free day presented itself I made my best to take advantage of the last weeks of warmth. A quick call to a friend near Phillidelphia and I was on my way to one of my favorite gardens, Chanticleer. As usual the visit did not disappoint, and despite a mental note to just enjoy the visit I did break down at the end and went a little camera happy. Hopefully I can show some restraint with the length of this post even if I couldn’t with the camera.

Red and purple as you come around the house. Coleus ‘redhead’ and the awesome canna x ehemanii… rounded out with a few random bananas.

I like to stroll around pretending this is my own estate, and if by chance if I do win millions (I’ve given up on earning them through hard work, marriage, or genius) I feel like this is the kind of garden I’d create.

Many exotic and unusual container plants are scattered around the house and terraces. All appear perfectly grown and cared for.

The tropical plantings around the house are some of my favorite plantings, although even away from the house a random banana or elephant ear may turn up (Chanticleer refers to itself as a ‘pleasure garden’… so I guess anything goes!)

This year’s teacup garden plantings. Fiddlehead figs and canna ‘Ermine?’, plus many others.

I’m guessing on almost all the IDs since the gardens are for enjoyment and inspirations and not so much for the down to earth realities of botanical labeling, but there are plant lists available both in the gardens and online. I apologize for being too distracted to look while there and far too lazy now to look them up online.

Potted dwarf giant papyrus. I love the pot in pot planting with a ‘groundcover’ of duckweed, and I’d love to imitate, but… no pot and no dwarf giant papyrus. Maybe the plain old giant papyrus will work, at least that’s finally become easy to find in the spring.

I can feel the banana itch coming back. I was given one and bought another this summer….

Canna x ehemanii, various bananas, red and purple dahlias, and a few tall salvia splendens varieties.

…and how can you not like dahlias at this time of year.

A respectable boxwood border holding back a wave of visitors from the south.

On a hot day the dry, full sun, gravel garden was not the place to linger… but we did, and while sweat beaded we enjoyed the waterwise plantings and the mix of dryland perennials and tropical cactus and succulents.

I think the yucca rostrada (hardiest of the trunk forming yuccas) stays here year round, but I’m not sure of the agave. I do know I wouldn’t want to be the one to lift it come autumn.

All the rain earlier in the year probably helped most things, but some I’m sure didn’t appreciate the reminder they were in Pennsylvania and not Southern California.

Artichoke blooms? Not the best leaf-wise, but the color of the flowers almost glowed in the heat.

Or South Africa…

Kniphofia (a species I’m guessing) along the dry slope. I love this plant family, but never get decent flowers on the ones I’m growing.

The bulk of the grounds around the house are open grass and trees, and this was the beginning of the colchicum season.

Some of the colchicums just beginning to bloom in the lawn at Chanticleer. Form what I’ve heard there are many more to come.

And then there were the pond gardens…

Chanticleer koi

With lotus and water lilies.

One of many lotus flowers. My photos never do the blooms justice.

And then there was the cutting garden. My favorite canna ‘Bengal Tiger’ (Pretoria) was the star, and in my opinion everything looks better when it’s next to this beauty.

The cutting garden. Summer annuals, dahlias and cannas were at their peak.

It’s just pictures from here on.

Cosmos and dahlias with canna leaves.

The beds threaten to swamp you in a tsunami of plants. Still to come were all the hardy sunflowers and other native prairie plants which filled the inner portions of the bed.

Dahlia with gomphrena ‘fireworks’ (I think)

Dahlias again (it’s the season!) plus more awesome canna leaves. I think the ferny foliage belongs to the SE native dog fennel (Eupatorium capillifolium).

Nice right?

Summer zinnas and cosmos. Who says fall is near?

I didn’t realize it’s been two years since I last visited (click here to see that very pintrest-popular post), and I’m glad to have had the chance to do it again. The gardens are on a scale that really seems approachable, yet aren’t filled with how-to beds or dull bedding. It’s really a place where you can enjoy the art of gardening, and if you get the chance I would absolutely recommend a visit, but for those further afield there’s also hope. September 23rd marks the release date for a new Timber Press book on the gardens and I for one am looking forward to it. It has an excellent pedigree across publisher, author, and photographer and what I’m most looking forward to are the interviews with each area gardener. I saw them at work during our visit but was a little too shy to bother them with an endless gushing of praise or question after question. Hopefully the new book will pacify me. 🙂

Thanks for meeting me there Paula, and I wish everyone a great week!

Time for a haircut

Aug29

As you may know there’s a small section of lawn out back which I let go over the summer. It’s what I call the meadow, and the goal is to have a spot where I can play around with a few bulbs in the lawn and also give the crickets and bunnies a spot to kick back in.

Over the last six years wildflowers such as rudbeckias and goldenrod have moved in and (to me at least) the meadow is an interesting place.

I love the meadow in early summer when the grasses go to seed and daisies spot the amber waves, but now it’s starting to look tired, and I have to remember what the plan is here. Although the native little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium) is beginning to invade and I like it elsewhere in the yard, it’s not a prairie I want here so in late August I finally mow.

Little bluestem with a mix of rudbeckia and other wildflowers (weeds?). I love the look, but it’s time to move on.

Tuesday evening I went through. The crickets dug into the turf and hid, the rabbits ran off, and the katydids and mantis were old enough to fly to safety. I’m not completely committed though, I left a few patches of bluestem and mowed around some butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa) since I was too weak to enforce my “it all just gets mowed” program. Maybe next year.

The meadow returned to respectability…. and boredom.

It looks neat again which is a relief to the better half, and the midyear trim actually seems to encourage the earlier bloomers such as daisies and rudbeckia, and discourages the goldenrod.

I don’t know if it looks better cut, but tall grass is a no-no in suburbia, so I’m sure the neighbors are somewhat relieved. They’re probably itching to finish things off with a string trim and weed-b-gone 🙂

So I’m back to the mowing routine for this area, but only for another two or so weeks until the colchicums begin to sprout. They look better blooming in shorter grass, and if truth be told I do have a bias towards doing what it takes to keep them happy.

Have a great weekend!

Legalizing pots

Aug28

In hindsight I may have gone a bit too far, but last year when my better half suggested we could use a few more plants out on the deck I ran with it. She’s not known for her appreciation of things chlorophyll so this was unprecedented, and I’m sure you could understand my enthusiasm for encouraging an interest. For her I thought potted plants were a big no-no, and I’ve found this becomes an even stronger no-no when their planting and repotting takes place on the kitchen table… which is kind of close to the deck table… so perhaps this new interest in the deck plantings was the first step in easing the household ban on pots.

A few of the planters which were put into service this year on the deck. This photo might be two weeks old and it’s interesting to see where all the golf balls which I picked up out of the lawn today came from…

Before this garden I used to have quite a pot habit. The small balcony of my apartment was filled and overflowing with any container I could find and any plant which I thought would be interesting to grow out there, and at one point I was a little worried all the extra weight on my second floor balcony might one day come crashing down. But it didn’t, and I kept on happily planting until finally purchasing my first home.

Coleus are perfect for containers, but I far prefer the sun-tolerant, slow to bloom, cutting grown plants rather than any strains from seed. The salvia (Wendy’s Wish) is also doing well enough, but I suspect she would prefer a roomier root-run and not sit in a cramped pot.

When the deck was opened up to planting I scoured all corners of the yard and garage for any container which might still be able to hold a plant. Many of the old plastic pots from my balcony days came out of retirement and were slid right in next to my pretentious Italian terra cotta and glazed ceramic. I’ll see if I can do something about that next year, but this year most of the budget went to new potting soil. Potting soil has been a sticky subject around here since most of them stink, but I found Jobe’s Organics Potting mix and love its price and quality. It’s made with quality ingredients, it’s airy and loose, and it’s just what I wanted for filling large planters.

Slowly but surely the Spanish Flag vine (Ipomoea lobata) is beginning to drape the railing. It had a late start since this was first a spring pansy planter, and they had to bloom out before I was allowed to squeeze in the vine and grass plant. The blue salvia self sowed in from last year… thanks mother nature!

I have plenty of favorites which I either overwinter or buy, but this year’s big treat was the Cannova Rose canna which I bought already in bloom and already nearly bursting out of the pot it came in. It’s only done better since, and if you ignore some leaf damage from Japanese beetles and a few sloppy spent blooms dropped on the deck, it’s my idea of a perfect summer container plant. This canna is a seed strain and because of that should be virus free, also the breeder claims these plants have been selected to thrive in cooler temperatures, which is another plus for Northerners such as myself.

Cannova Rose canna. It keeps sending up new stalks and they keep on blooming. Between it and its overgrown spike neighbor I don’t know which I like more… although I do like the spikes!

I lost a few of my older spikes (dracaena) last year to a surprise late freeze but I’ve got a few new ones growing along. The little ones are all over in the spring but what I really like is when they put on a few year’s worth of growth and become these big grassy exclamation points. They’re relatively easy to overwinter and my goal is a whole patch of them towering over the other plantings 🙂

I need to dig out the label for this lantana. My daughter picked it out and I reluctantly added it to the cart as I thought about lantana failures in my past. This one keeps blooming though and never looks bad. I wish I could say the same for the ‘Troy’s Gold’ plectranthus on the right, it apparently does not like full sun here.

The one pink and gold and lavender corner is dominated by another favorite which I nearly left to die last fall. In the late spring last year I picked up a clearance oleander, and this summer it’s really come into its own. Nonstop bloom on the single pink, but there’s a double in there as well, and that one is always a mess with few blooms open and always a few brown soggy spent flowers hanging from the branches. I try to ignore it.

Oleander on the deck. It’s been in bloom since June and I love the bright pink in front of the white railing.

As we go around the deck there’s another favorite which I always end up buying new each spring. The purple fountain grass (Pennisetum setaceum ‘Rubrum’) is a pain to overwinter but worth adding new every year for its dark leaves and light airiness of the seedheads. This year I put it with a new rose and although I paid way too much for the rose, and really questioned the decision to plant it on the deck (mostly due to all the blood it drew while planting), I love the effect.

Purple fountain grass with rose ‘Black Forest’, ‘zahara sunburst’ zinnias, and ‘double hot cherry’ zinnia.

Not to name too many favorites but sweet potato vines always show up in my planters. Some years they cover the deck, some years they hang through the railing, regardless of where they grow I like them and I like them large. There are dwarf types but for me I far prefer the far-ranging ones like chartreuse ‘Margarita’ or the dark purple ‘Blackie’.

A scented geranium growing up, a ‘Margarita’ sweet potato hanging down, and New Guinea impatiens filling the pot. Also making a showing is my newest banana ‘Bordelon’, two weeks in the pot and hopefully on the verge of some nice new leaves and rapid end of summer growth 🙂

I apologize for going on so long, I’m going to try and be a little less wordy as we go around to the front door plantings. They’re much less floral, but still a mess of color.

The hellebore and variegated boxwood are in the ground, but everything else is potted…. not that you would know since the planters disappeared a few weeks ago.

I wish I could explain my thinking out front, but it was really just a matter of using up stray coleus cuttings and overwintered tropicals.

This pink coleus is my problem child. While all the rest are happy growing colorful foliage the pink one insists on forming flowers. I just keep pinching them out, hoping someday the plant gets the message.

This unknown to me creeping houseplant threatens to take over the pot as well as the porch. I’ve had it for a few years now and love the way it bleaches to a bright yellow wherever the sun hits. Unfortunately if the sun hits it too hard the leaves burn…

Every couple days the begonia needs to be dug out of a yellow landslide. I suspect there’s at least three pots buried under all this.

The other side of the front entry is also a horticultural tsunami. Vacationing amaryllis (hippeastrum), a few geraniums, and some on again off again gerber daisies are trying to fend off the looming sunflowers and an uninvited pumpkin. Serves me right for letting the pumpkins rot on the front steps all last winter, but the new pumpkin forming is almost like a self renewing Halloween decoration!

The left side of the front entrance walk. Nothing pretentious about this entry, it’s all a comfortable hodgepodge of color and texture (including mildewed pumpkin leaves). The lighter, divided leaf is the old (1800) scented geranium ‘Lady Plymouth’. Obviously I haven’t had it that long…

So after all of the mess at the entry our hanging porch planters are fairly plain. The asparagus fern gets thrown in the garage each winter, nearly dies by April, and then springs to life once regular watering resumes. It doesn’t drop faded flowers on the porch, doesn’t mind a week or two of forgotten waterings, and cost me about $1 a piece several years ago. I appreciate all these strengths yet she who judges doesn’t like these pots at all. Flowers would be nicer she says.

Asparagus fern, just the kind of hard to kill plant which survives under the shade of the porch, out of the reach of any saving drops of rain.

Now if I replaced the ferns what would I put there? Maybe she means add more pots all around the porch, that’s probably what was implied, and that might be a good starting point for next year. Come to think of it she did say she wouldn’t mind even more potted plants out back, and contrary to what I thought, she said it’s not too much back there on the deck. This of course kind of encourages me to find out what too much is, and it’s these kinds of challenges which fuel your imagination in February. I did still want to add a small eucalyptus tree after all, just a small one.

GBFD Finishing August

Aug24

Yesterday was the 22nd, today the 23rd, and by the time this post is finished the date will probably flip on to the 24th, which will make me two full days late in joining Christina in the celebration of Garden Blogger’s Foliage Day. I’m sure she’s fine with my tardiness but I’m also sure I didn’t want to miss this month’s opportunity to look past flowers and recognize all the contributions foliage makes in the garden.

In the vegetable garden the broad leaves of late planted summer squash threaten to swamp their less edible neighbors. I love how fast they grow in the heat.

I’m a big fan of large leaves and whether they’re squash or cannas or elephant ears, the more enthusiastic a grower the better! While some plants did not enjoy the recent spell of hot weather, a newer resident of the garden did.

One of the larger elephant ears, Alocasia ‘Borneo Giant’, is finally putting out some more enthusiastic growth. The leaf is still barely larger than my hand but the giant part of the name gives me hope for the future!

Summer is when I really enjoy the potted plants on the deck. Not only can they be enjoyed from the window, they can be enjoyed as you walk by, as you sit in a comfy seat, or from below. It’s as if you’re multitasking your enjoyment!

The rich foliage pattern of this coleus sometimes gets lost in a planting, but against the white railings the colors really come through.

Besides showcasing my favorite plants close up, the deck is also a great place to show off the little things which get lost out in the garden.

Little cacti and succulents which don’t mind a few missed waterings or weekend road trips. They’re all foliage and make great deck plants… which look even better if the gardener finally repots them into roomier quarters (as I did this spring, although one of this bunch already needs a bigger home).

As I was walking about trying to focus on foliage, I realized this collection at the end of the deck steps doesn’t rely on a single flower to bring in the color.

More succulents as well as ‘Alabama Sunset’ coleus, ‘purple flash’ pepper, and my belovedly spiny porcupine tomato.

It’s really way past time to do a catch-up post on this year’s deck planters (and hopefully I can come clean soon) but there’s only so much time tonight, and there’s still plenty of other foliage to consider in the garden. For as exciting as flowers and color are, sometimes the eye needs to rest on a little green. For me chrysanthemums are a nearly indestructible planting for some of the hotter, dryer, tougher-to-fill spots which could use a soft mound of green.

Usually the iris in the back has nothing but sad, browning and yellowing leaves, but this year the rain has been enough to keep it growing strong. The chrysanthemum on the other hand looks respectable for the entire summer, even when the crabgrass gives up.

Dry sun is bad, but dry shade is worse, and this year I’ve been surprised at how well variegated obedient plant, (Physostegia virginiana ‘Variegata’) has done. In moist soil it may spread a little too enthusiastically, but here it seems downright demure, and I wonder if the straight green type would be as restrained.

Physostegia virginiana ‘Variegata’ lighting up the shade. It’s a dry spot full of maple roots, but the foliage on this plant still looks great.

In my only bit of non-rooty shade I can always count on the calm contrasts of foliage form and color via evergreens and hostas. Although things are beginning to get crowded here, I won’t mess with this planting until it starts to look desperate.

Along the porch the hostas cover the spring bulb plantings and dwarf conifers shelter the porch without overwhelming it. They’re all slow growing plants, but not too long ago I remember being able to easily plant between these shrubs.

The calm of the shade garden is always appreciated in summer, but in sunnier spots August means flowers, and I do try for plenty of that as well. Even with all the flowers though, a good foliage background can make a world of difference.

The rich red flowers of dahlia ‘Mathew Allen’ set off even brighter next to the solid mass of the red-leaved cannas.

I’m all for the masses of flowers but you sometimes need a rest here and there and a mass of foliage can be just the ticket. For next year I’m already nursing along a few new bananas and elephant ears and I think things will look a little different in this border. If worse comes to worse though I can always replant sunflowers 🙂

More cannas trying to keep their chin up against the tide of sunflowers which still swirls around the tropical garden. In my opinion this bed could have used a few more masses of foliage to balance out all the bloom.

So there are some August musings on foliage from my neck of the woods. If you’d like to dabble a little deeper give Creating my own garden of the Hesperides a visit. Each month on the 22nd Christina provides the platform there to host a foliage review, and I’m sure you won’t be disappointed by the foliage musings of bloggers from around the world!

Wordless Wednesday: Lilium formosanum, two years from seed :)

Aug19

Down on the farm

Aug19

Late August is bathing us in heat this year and the steady rains have brought on the harvest. We modestly refer to our garden as “the farm” or “potager” and this is the time of year when it shines. Produce begins to trickle in and suddenly there’s a little more interest in the backyard.

The picnic table is the place to be for drying off and cleaning up before the kitchen. Garlic, potatoes, and the first of the onions started the month off.

Eggplant and peppers have been going out, onions are always popular, tomatoes are on their way, and beans are yet to come. The harvest is late due to planter’s procrastination but who out there hasn’t ever fallen behind? At this time of year even I fix up a plate of veggies, and they aren’t even deep fried 🙂

I grow red cabbage just for the looks, but there’s a good chance these heads will disappear soon and show up again later as rotkraut. Fine by me, but in the meantime they look nice with the verbena, eggplant, and marigolds.

I admire a neat garden with raised, raked beds and straight rows of perfect plantings, but that’s nowhere even close to my garden. The potager is tumbledown mix of flowers, crops, and all kinds of odds and ends that found an open spot of soil and made it their home. Phlox are never turned away, and earlier in the month they started their summertime concerto and the music still plays on through the heat. For this I consider myself lucky, since earlier in the spring between spidermites and drought I got the feeling it would be a down year for the tall garden phlox (Phlox paniculata).

Phlox paniculata ‘Dorffreude’ (Karl Foerster introduction, 1939) making a good argument that newer isn’t always better.

The phlox make me happy, but the other flowers which add to the non-agricultural chaos also make me smile, and the tall Verbena bonariensis leads the way with their bee and butterfly attracting bloom heads.

Now’s the time when the verbena becomes too attractive to pull. It’s a fair trade-off since the flowers draw in nearly every passing butterfly.

One area of responsible neatness is the boxwood hedge which edges the two forward sides of the garden. After three years the small plants have finally begun to look nearly respectable. To celebrate this milestone I spent way too much money on what I hope will be a set of premium hedge shears. The electric trimmer has been shelved and I took the quieter, more contemplative path of manual trimming. For me it’s relaxing and I think I’m one of the few who actually enjoys this job.

Slowly the boxwood hedge fills in. I can still remember the summer day way back when me, a bucket of boxwood clippings, a few trays of potting mix, and a couple beers started this all.

Besides boxwood and phlox, chrysanthemums (ok, new name dendranthema) are starting to make a serious play for potager real estate. This spring I added even more of the larger flowered football types, trying to stick with anything which might be hardy through the winter. I’d try to explain this growing obsession with mums but honestly after just admitting I enjoy hedge trimming I’m not sure there’s much I can say to defend this last quirk.

Hardy (hopefully) football mum. If the mood strikes next year I may even try disbudding a few of these to see if I can force all the plant’s energy into one single, perfectly large, perfectly perfect, bloom.

Dahlias. I like dahlias. I think I’ve already confessed to that. Of course a late planting gives late flowers, and you know me and late.

Dahlia ‘Moonstruck’. This is its third year and it has yet to let me down, although I suspect it carries a virus which causes the leaves to yellow and die way too early in the season.

Sometimes late isn’t anyone’s fault. For the second year in a row I’ve had these gladiolus bulbs overwinter in the open garden. Against better advice I even transplanted them in June and look at that, the clump still managed to send up two bloom stalks. If this keeps up I’ll need to divide the clumps next year since the other clump is up to 8 flower stalks!

Just your average hellebore-gladiolus-rudbeckia-tomato planting. I don’t think you’ll find this combo anywhere else… probably for good reason 🙂

But procrastination does have its down side. Although the persicaria and rudbeckia have never looked better next to the potager, the light green ‘turf’ in the bed is 100% weeds…. and this is still supposed to be a red border, which rudbeckia is not. Also the trellis never received a solid footing, and was never officially planted. I guess that’s what the plans for next season are made of!

persicaria red border

Enjoy your own harvest, whether it be fruits or flowers, contentment or excitement. The season is here and as long as the heat doesn’t kill you first you can shelve these moments away in your mind for those dark days in January.

Spare the rod

Aug14

My nemesis the sunflower.

Self sown sunflowers from birdseed backed up by variegated giant reed grass (Arundo donax ‘gold chain’).

Harmless and full of promise is how they appear in the spring, now two months later they’re acting more like closing time at the bar. Sloppy drunks hang all over one another, sprawl across the beds, and smother the other sober little plants which have yet to grow. If it weren’t for their summertime good looks and the goldfinches they pull in I would compost them all!

Future birdfood.

It doesn’t take many sunflower seedlings to overtake a bed and between the extra mulching and copious rainfall they’ve had everything they needed to explode. It’s like a lovely tsunami of sun looming over the plantings.

The sunflowers do look pretty with the purple verbena bonariensis, striped leaves of ‘tropicanna’ canna, and the first of the peach colored salvia splendens.

From the top of the bed it still looks pretty but only after I cut down two of the sunflower trees and chopped the rest back in order to clear the pool path again.

The tropical border looking colorful, but as usual not very tropical.

The inner depths of the tropical bed are beyond reach, I’ll have to wait for frost before I can get in there again. Fortunately it’s well mulched and doesn’t need much of anything for most of the summer, so as long as the cannas and reed grass don’t get completely swamped I guess I can turn the other cheek and let chaos rule.

There’s a giant thistle in there as well, I see a steady trail of goldfinches flying in and out feasting on the seed.

Really. Next year will be the year when this whole mess gets back under control. The sunflowers will have to go as well as the chrysanthemums which never did get moved like they were supposed to. In spite of the overwhelming agricultural look of the sunflowers (and I have to admit I really love the show right now) there are a few tropical highlights which have flickered on. The cannas may not be as big as in years past, but I would never go without them.

Healthy ‘Tropicanna’ canna leaves in a sea of green with only a touch of gold.

They’ve still got a good two months of growing before frost threatens and hopefully everything will still have plenty of time to fill in. While other parts of the garden might be taking on a weary look this time of year, these tropicals are just going from good to better, and it’s not just the cannas. The dahlias are beginning to come on as well. The flowers are what I’m waiting for, but on a few the foliage show is even better.

Dahlia ‘happy single flame’ with the dark purple spires of ‘Lighthouse purple’ salvia behind. I wish those salvia were just a tiny bit taller, right now this low planting looks closer to Victorian bedding than tropicalismo!

Although the foliage is fantastic, I wish I could say the same for the blooms of dahlia ‘happy single flame’. They don’t last long and never really make the ‘wow’ impression most of the other dahlias do. The color is great though and I’ll try to hold on to this one for another year or two, even as the others bloom their heads off in comparison.

Peak bloom on dahlia ‘happy single flame’.

One plant which I had high hopes for but is now slightly underwhelming is the Brazilian button. New this year from the HPS Mid Atlantic seed exchange, the buttons are nice enough but there could be more flowering at one time and most importantly have a color less like the verbena which I already have filling in all over. You just don’t notice them in the mix.

Brazilian button (Centratherum punctatum)

But I’m being too negative. The sunflowers are awesome and the patch is full of flowery interest, and whenever I get the chance I sit (with a drink preferably) and watch the comings and goings of the goldfinches, hummingbirds, and bees.

The pink salvia splendens are only now starting to flower having spent most of the summer putting on weight. The large leafy bushes should put on a great show for me and the hummingbirds.

I’m sure there will be more to come from the tropical garden, and if I can only keep a firm hand next year it might even look tropical-ish as well. Right now I’m just happy enough it’s mulched and weeded from the topside all the way down to the low end. Last year the low end was pathetic with its drought crisped annuals and struggling heucheras (is that the correct plural for heuchera?) This year it’s much improved and I can see this becoming a nice transition to the pond garden…. once I get a non-leaky pond in!

Next year the new divisions will fill in and there should be a wall of panicum ‘northwind’ separating the tropics on the left from the heucheras and pond garden on the right.

In the photo above you can barely make out the blue mist of Browallia Americana hovering above the hosta. It’s an easy enough annual (native to Central and South America and across the Caribbean isles) and each year I like it’s nearly true-blue flowers even more. Too bad I can’t get the camera to agree on the color, it always washes it out to a violet.

Browallia americana

So summer is still in full swing here, and for someone who prefers to ignore the calendar there’s not even a hint of the season winding down yet. I like this sense of denial and will hang on to it for as long as I can…. but if pushed I will admit to thinking about next year already. Ok, so I don’t even need a push. I stumbled upon a summer sale at the nursery and took home a cool little banana plant. It’s been a couple years since my banana growing days but I can feel the itch again and who knows what this means for next year’s plantings 🙂

Wordless Wednesday: Solanum pyracanthum, the porcupine tomato

Aug12

A good foundation

Aug10

Normally pictures of the front foundation border are avoided. This area qualifies as one of my least favorite views probably because the plantings do little to set off or relate to the house. They’re kind of a mess come to think of it, but believe it or not they’ve come a long way <click here to see>. Our visit starts with a stroll up the front walk past the welcome squirrel and edging by the ‘Tiger Eyes’ cutleaf sumac, which threatens to engulf all visitors.

Which is too much? The overwhelming yellow, the tacky lamp décor, or the too-red petunias?

The right side of the house is fronted by the porch, and in front of the porch is a pretty generic planting of evergreens and hostas. They do a great job of being green and covering up the beds which house my favorite snowdrops and corydalis earlier in the year.

Of course a rudbeckia would show up here as well. This is one of the completely perennial and later blooming R. fulgens types, and I make an effort each spring of ripping it out only to have a few stray shoots survive anyway. btw, The pink of the phlox ‘Laura’ with the gold of the rudbeckia is one of my least favorite color combos.

The left side of the house is my problem bed. I tried ironing out a few of its problems earlier this year but it still makes me raise an eyebrow each time I pass. My first after-vacation task was to pull up all the massive crabgrass plants which were taking over, and while doing this I couldn’t help but wonder why I can’t show this same resolve against the inappropriately large sunflowers which sprout up each year (in my defense I did rip most out… but once they get past a certain size it just seems wrong to yank them).

Weeding crabgrass in August. What gardener doesn’t know this story?

If I could only get visitors to crawl around on their hands and knees I think the impression this bed makes would be infinitely improved.

The low view: Larger evergreen would probably do a better job of connecting the house to these beds, but a couple agastache, a verbascum, stray sumac suckers and a bunch of other stuff are a lot more interesting 🙂

I like how the blue fescue is filling in along the edge, it goes well enough with everything and seems to be doing ok. I wish it would do better, but I haven’t yet cracked the fescue code on what really makes it clump up and fill in.

For some reason peppers seemed like a good candidate for a foundation planting this year. Last summer I bought a single ‘Masquerade’ ornamental pepper and these are its seedlings. The purple fruits should go to yellow then orange then red as they mature, but a few plants are starting out yellow, and I don’t know what they have planned.

My unknown biennial eryngium turned out to be a perennial and is back for another show this summer. If you can avoid the masses of wasps and bees the flowers attract it’s really a pleasant all summer cloud of blue-grey.

The mix of colors at this end of the border almost looks tasteful if you ignore the sunflowers peeking in on the right.

Most of the plantings here are haphazard and either work or fail by luck, but the pairing of the blue fescue and pinkish ‘bon bon’ sedum was intentional. I’m pleased with the contrast of the sedum coming up out of the fescue and it’s just what I was hoping for… as long as you overlook the sorta sparseness of the fescue.

Sedum ‘bon bon’ with blue fescue and iris pallida aureo-variegata.

Things which didn’t work out quite as well were the cobweb thistles which drowned in our rainy July and the variegated St. Augustine grass which looks just a little too weedy. I know it’s me though since I’ve seen it growing awesomely elsewhere and as a result I’m considering digging it up and trying it elsewhere, like in a pot… maybe even scissor trimming it for a neat little pot o’lawn 🙂

Variegated st Augustine grass, ‘Alabama sunset’ coleus, more sumac, and an up and coming cardoon seedling.

Now off to the backyard! My fingers are crossed we can get around the whole house by September 😉

sorta like suburbia

more than you ever wanted to know about my garden

Author Archives: bittster