October.

Oct19

To be honest these photos are about a week old, and when I say “about” you could probably add another week on to that if you’re really dotting all your i’s and crossing your t’s but… *edit* Okay so still trying to be honest (which becomes rarer each day that AI creeps further and further into our lives) just editing a few pictures and writing one sentence appears to add another week onto the timeline, so now rather than an update on the autumn garden this is probably closer to a retrospective. Let’s call it a retrospective on fall and hope the next post doesn’t become a retrospective on winter.

The autumn porch decorations. A little more than usual this year with three purchased mums and a couple pumpkins and squash to boost the home-grown display.

As usual no excuses for the delays. The only one I can really put a finger on is the morning when a child asked if anyone was coming with her to a college visit she had set up. Oh really? As the parent who drew the short straw I had fifteen minutes to prepare for a day on campus rather than a day bringing in houseplants and that’s probably sounding worse than it really was since much of my life involves fifteen minutes to prepare for something I either put off too long or forgot about, but it’s an excuse for one of the days at least.

With the return of rainfall the potager is at least green even if it’s not lush and productive. Perhaps it’s time for some potager-love, and next year this area will hopefully get some well deserved attention to weeding, watering, and planting.

Maybe it’s time for a what-you-did last summer retrospective since a true update might need to go back that far. Going all the way back to June the summer was off to a ‘let me just quickly build a shade structure for the deck it will only take a weekend’ start, and news flash *it did not take only a weekend* but it did start off a tropical revival on the deck. Some corner braces for a 4×4 frame with a shade cloth hung between them and voila! an excuse to spend the next two weeks re-painting porch furniture, repotting tropicals for the planters, dragging tables and furniture and a tv out to the covered porch, mosquito netting… way too much, but it was all because I saw the corner braces online and between that and two $15 palms which were too amazing to leave at the store things escalated.

The deck was more foliage than flowers this year and now I’m faced with how to overwinter a pair of palms which were probably cheap enough to leave outside, but I could never do that.

So the deck was an innocent start but then as you may recall there was the bulldozing of the daylily farm which happened as June rolled into July. Things were set into motion. Rather than replant a few daylilies, three unearthed stones became a rock garden and you know about that, but the rock garden needed a coating of sand and of course I got too much because sand is always useful around here. Some of the extra sand was used to level out an area where the kid’s old playhouse, aka ‘spider house’, could be placed. We have no use for a kid’s playhouse currently yet no one to give it to but what if it was repainted and accessorized? Enter a rebranding of spider house to ‘Begonia House’ since perhaps this area provides just the right filtered shade which the begonias seem to enjoy, and “I think pink would be nice for my house” became the color theme. A green roof? We shall try. The results straddle the line between garish, spray-painted plastic garden trash and elite garden whimsy but I like to pretend that it’s whimsy. Several great gardening estates have whimsical garden playhouses for children so there you are. Whimsy in the garden, except my visitors like to over-pronounce the ‘Wh’ as in Cool Whip and I guess referring to it as whhhhhimmmmsy is as classy as we will ever get.

Begonia House’s first year in the Northern corner of the estate. I’m sure the nearby coldframe and leftover lumber pile only add to the ambiance, but the begonias appreciate the new setting. I was able to easily gather multiple large overwintered begonias from around the estate but I’m sure that’s not a problem.

So with some of the sand taken care of it was time to address another bit of daylily farm repercussions. When it happened I lost a lot of plants. I was angry. No I didn’t want the town to replace them but here’s a deal which I could get behind. I have concrete blocks as steps going up the berm which separates us from the industrial park. They’re kind of ugly but they save me from many a twisted ankle and tumble down the bank as I weed wack or do other maintenance. If you can get me stone steps to go up the berm I will stop complaining about the lost daylily farm and even worse, the snowdrops which were destroyed. So there I was for another couple weeks manhandling 300 pound stone treads into the yard and up the slope and then why not add a bunch more stones to the berm and then mulch it all. Extra stones? How about some more square stacks of rocks at the base to put potted succulents on.

I think it looks better. Eventually new plantings should tie the steps into the berm a little better but for now I’m waiting to see all the weeds which return before I go putting too many things in there.

Seems like we’re covering a lot of ground here and I guess we are but remember this is the whole summer we’re looking at so don’t be too impressed. Plenty of time was spent sitting around and doing nothing which is more par for the course, but one more thing before I get back to that. A course of concrete blocks was pulled off the berm steps in order to put in the stone steps so why not make a little sitting area in the ‘waste area’ with the extra blocks. It looks raised but that’s only because the fill here has settled and the area needs just a little more soil to level it up before I’ll be happy with it, so I tried to look ahead a little and prep for that. I’m probably sharing more than you care to hear but the blocks just add on to the leftover soil and mulch from the daylily farm re-do which also ended up in the ‘waste area’. Actually the ‘waste area’ isn’t really much of a thing any more but I’m not ready to post the pictures which prove it so you’ll just have to trust me that daylilies are being rowed out and hopefully it will look nice by next summer…

It doesn’t look like much but the last of the sand was just enough to bring the blocks up to a level which I like. A few more blocks cut in half to square off the patio, some more dirt to level the lawn, dirt to create beds on the sides, mulch, plants…. ok it’s a start at least.

Now it’s autumn though. We had a touch of frost a few days ago and that was just what this gardener needed to remind him that a bunch of stuff needs to come inside and under shelter before the cold becomes more serious. He tried for one night to claim he didn’t care and maybe a serious frost could save him from a bunch of work, but that proved to be false and now we’re at the two hundred pots and counting phase of winter protection. It sounds excessive but most of them are tiny little things which shouldn’t even count but for dramatic effect they were counted and it’s really the one or two or ten bigger things which should come with a warning label. I can’t even speak coherently when I talk about the two most exciting bigger things which I had to go back for since there wasn’t enough room in the car when I first saw them. The might be Kentia palms and they’re too big for my house but I don’t care and have them now anyway.

I love my new palms and they’re totally unreasonable and unnecessary but for $7 each they had to come home with me. I will rearrange my life to make them happy.

As you can see all my projects and decisions are entirely reasonable and well thought out. I hope you’re having the same luck and not wondering how three potted ferns turned into seven even though you gave a couple away in spite of the fear that you might “need” them all after all. I did give a few away and we should highlight these successes as progress and be glad over it rather than worry about some weird fern obsession developing. Actually the speed at which the gardener killed a new maidenhair fern probably did more to nip this possible obsession in the frond than any call for self-control could, but again let me claim it as a success. January is when we splurge on houseplants and I shall wait for that.

Enjoy your autumn! I am days away from the first snowdrop in bloom and any plants not under protection by then might have to fend for themselves since reasonable decisions become even more unlikely once snowdrop season starts. Today I can still search for a windowsill for the new lemon, next week I will probably just lose myself to complaining about needing MORE fall blooming snowdrops 😉

Welcome August

Aug7

After a rough start to the year the garden is about where it’s usually at. I’m glad for that since in June it looked like a year of brown lawn and wilted flowers was ahead, but now things are mostly ok. I’d say totally ok, but when things dry out so much it takes a couple days straight of rain to really get into the soil, and in spite of frequent storms there are plenty of sloped and harder-soiled areas where things are back to wilting. Regardless, things look good enough and I’m happy with that.

The front border along the street is reveling in a full-summer show of perovskia and coneflowers, but sunflowers haven’t seeded in like they normally do. I blame the dry spring.

I’m also happy I put off planting annuals this spring. First of all there’s barely any room in the front border where I normally plant them, and second of all even with the rain here and there I’d still be watering them. One less job fits into my schedule perfectly!

I do like a woolly thistle (Cirsium eriophorum) here and there in the garden. Most visitors would accuse me of letting a weed grow, but I’m sure they’d understand when told it was planted here on purpose.

Maybe someone at some point said a dry summer would be the perfect time to ‘thin the flock’, create some space for mulch, spread some iris around, create a generally less cluttered and wild planting… but I think you know where that idea has landed.

Klasea bulgarica suffering along in a less-fertile and less-watered spot in the border than it would like, but it’s still a cool thing, even at five feet rather than seven.

It would be fun to complain endlessly about jobs not done and tasked shelved for the future, but let me first share a somewhat finished photo of the former construction road alongside the house. Something did get done this summer, and even with its lack of mulch (still hoping to get to that this fall), the emerging grass makes for a more inviting path than an uneven landscape of dumped concrete and roadside weeds.

I’m not sure anymore what the arc of stones was supposed to convey but it’s done and will likely stay this way for years, but at least the new grass makes sense, and will lead visitors up past the new daylily border, and allow them to oooh and ahhhh on their way to the daylily farm fields.

Since I think I heard someone ask why I wasn’t posting enough daylily photos, here are a few still in bloom this weekend. Late bloomers and rebloomers is how it is since the bulk of them wrapped up the show a week or two ago.

One of the nicest ones is this gift from my friend Paula. In theory I should divide it for the farm, but ‘Websters Pink Wonder’ might be something I need to hold on to for “evaluation” until I have a huge, huge, huge clump of it!

Also a gift, from another friend, is ‘Apricot Peace’. As other parts of the garden look a little worn out from the summer, this flower is as refreshing and delicious as any sun-riped summer fruit.

Since daylilies aren’t everyone’s cup of tea, here’s a break to look at the tropical garden. This end of the yard suffered through a lot of neglect as the gardener raced past this construction-ravaged part of the estate to go stick his head in the sand elsewhere, but after some time, rain, and lots of weeding, trimming, and rock-picking it’s at least less than a complete disaster. Actually it was Verbena bonariensis which saved the day. Its pollinator-filled haze of lavender-purple flowers covers up many of the sins of this season even if it does obscure the daylily flowers more than I’d like.

The tropical border. You may notice that the huge mound of yellow pokeweed (Phytolacca americana ‘Sunny Side Up’) is way to big for its space and way too much yellow, but I just don’t have the heart to trim it. You may also notice a lack of tropicals…

If I had to summarize for a sure-fire way of saving the late summer (full sun)garden, I’d say Verbena bonariensis, Hydrangea paniculata, and cannas. The three of them just ask for a little water and maybe some fertilizer, and BAM you’re a gardening rock star. Sadly I didn’t take a photo of the hydrangea this week, but how about this color from the cannas?

‘Cannanova Rose’, one of the newer seed strains of cannas, is disease free and flowers all summer and into fall if you just keep snapping off the seed pods. A plus for growing it in the North is the lack of canna roller caterpillars destroying the foliage, since they (and the cannas as well) can’t handle our winter cold.

What? More daylilies? You’ve got it.

‘Chama’ is a later daylily with a long season and big flowers. I’d say seek it out but with all the hundreds of other yellows out there I’m sure you could find something similar which is just as nice.

This Brookside Beauty seedling is not quite as average as a yellow. I picked it up this summer at my new favorite local daylily farm, Garrett Hill Daylilies, and maybe it’s too much of a lot of things but I’m quite happy with it.

It’s not all rippled edges and intense color. Here’s the more simple flower of a species daylily, Hemerocallis altissima (probably). Fragrant, tall, elegant, opens in the evening and then closes for the heat of the day, this daylily has a lot to offer as well.

Ok, let’s keep moving. The potager is beans, tomatoes and… daylilies now… I was fairly good for three years with my vegetables only policy (plus a few tulips), but that ship has left the pier. The beds are now filling with things like witch hazels and marigolds, cannas and phlox, and quite a few daylilies as well. It was a valiant fight but vegetables really are a lot of work, and the farm stand does it much, much better, so…. maybe we don’t need to grow our own cucumbers just in case we feel like eating a cucumber or twenty.

One of the few sunflowers to seed out this year… and a little short and small… but I’ll take it, as will the goldfinches I’m sure.

Right over the boxwood hedge of the potager is the stone wall which I went on and on about last year. It’s still there and it’s still the summer home for a few succulents, except for as hard as I tried there seem to be even more this summer. Someone will point out that I bought a few more .99 cent treasures on a summer plant trip, as well as a tiny box of cuttings and living stones last winter, but these aren’t even out there (they’re just too cool to put so far away), and all of these are just repots and divisions and cuttings. Someone needs to stop this ‘let me just take a few cuttings’ thing, just like the rabbits stopped the living stones thing. Had I known that the rabbits would consider the pots of living stones to be tasty little green jellybeans perfect for nibbling, I would have put them somewhere out of reach, but I didn’t and now they’re gone. Hmmmm, come to think of it my last living stone was the victim of a chipmunk attack. I guess they’re tasty little things and I should have known better.

Some of the old standbys which are apparently less tasty than living stones (Lithops).

So I guess I killed off the living stones through my own mistake. Actually the bunnies pulled a “propeller plant” off the wall and destroyed that, as well as a “lobster claw” which was also apparently too tasy to resist, so they’re not as cute and innocent as I like to think. Maybe I’ll just accept that and reconsider my succulent vetting process to include ‘easy to overwinter’, ‘thrives on neglect’, and ‘is not yummy for bunnies’ and move on. Trust me that any roadblock to the succulent collection growing is probably a good thing, especially when fall turns to winter and all those clay pots need lugging in.

Further down the wall. It doesn’t look too bad until you do a pot count, and it’s pretty much every last terracotta pot I own so another roadblock I set up is ‘no more terracotta pots’… unless it’s a really good sale… or they’re free… or it’s a really amazing pot…

Maybe you noticed the tiger lilies back past the succulent wall? They’re the double kind (Lilium lancifolium ‘Flore Pleno”) and I suppose I do like them in spite of their messiness, but what I don’t like is the arrival of those bright red lily beetles which eat more lily foliage than they should and produce entirely disgusting young who hide underneath a slimy, wet, bubble of poop as they also overeat their share of lily foliage. Because of the lily beetles I’m phasing out some of the clumps and trying to figure out which ones I can’t live without, and so far it’s the Asiatics, Martagon, and a few of the Regal lilies… only because they don’t handle late freezes well and have died back two of the last five years.

Lilium lancifolium ‘Flore Pleno’ spreading quite well in spite of the beetles and a good amount of shade.

Speaking of supporting more wildlife than I’d like, our ‘Liberty’ apple tree has set a decent crop of fruit this year and just about everyone seems to want a taste. When people ask questions like what to plant for wildlife I always think of things like apple trees, which seem to be under attack from every insect, disease, bird, mammal… it’s amazing they can survive from one year to the next. I wanted to try one though, and in an effort towards compromise chose a variety which was supposed to give the gardener “Freedom” from endless fussing and spraying. I guess nothing but bad taste will keep the animals away, but I think my photo does a good job at representing the cost of freedom.

Not spraying or putting in much effort at all does not produce the best foliage or fruit on an apple tree. How do they say it? Freedom does not come free? Definitely true in the case of this tree, but I think I’m fine with a handful of wormy apples to cut up and eaten outside versus bushels of fruit to deal with.

With an image of a diseased, nearly leafless apple tree I guess it’s not a stretch to go back behind the potager into the waste area. The grass which was seeded for new paths is coming up but only the weeds in the grass need mowing since for some reason the microgreens of the lawn are just one more thing which the rabbits cannot resist. They mow down the grass and leave the weeds. This isn’t how it was supposed to work but whatever, most of the weeds are Verbena seedlings and recent studies have shown there’s a 99.9% chance the gardener would rather have impassable paths of flowering verbena than neat grass.

Entering the waste space. Yeah that sunflower also came up where the path is supposed to be…

Change in plan is more the rule than the exception here, so besides grass paths turning into verbena fields you may recall there was a $3 box of canary seed thrown around back here in order to start a millet patch. Apparently what looked like millet wasn’t actually all millet and when some cabbagey stuff started growing I did some investigating and found out canola is also a seed birds will eat… and if anyone actually read the label they’d see canola right there after millet. So now there’s a millet and cannola patch in the waste space. Two fun facts I discovered about canola when I did my after-the-fact investigating were that 1. ‘Canola’ is short for ‘Canada oil, low acid’, a relatively recent Canadian plant creation of low acid rapeseed which became suitable for edible oil uses rather than industrial, and 2. Canola greens are much sought after by deer… which does not help at all as far as making my yard less-deer friendly.

The waste space has filled in quite quickly with weeds, canola, and millet, plus a bunch of barrow fulls of yard waste which were easier to dump here than on the compost pile. I guess it’s all about bringing life to the sterile fill, and sometimes life is messy.

So here I am talking about growing weeds intentionally again when I really should focus on my garden-rebuilding. Someday I’ll get it. Maybe. At least the waste area takes care of itself, which allows me to return to stone moving and construction repairs. Finally the pond area has been cleaned out, the path behind it returned to passable, and all those stones picked out of the earth-moving process are being put to use… for better or worse…

Shoddily stacked garbage stones line the arc of the curve which will take a grass path around the side of the new addition. I think it looks good enough and hopefully the freeze and thaws of winter don’t rip it apart before it has a chance to settle. More larger stones would have made it more weather-stable I think but you get what you get.

My fingertips are aching from all the stone grabbing and wedging and twisting and I’m glad to say the wall is as done as it’s going to get and only about ten stones remained as extras. These walls soak up a lot of rock so hopefully I have enough left for a few more questionably interesting constructions around the yard 😉

The back deck refuge from it all. I try to give the pots a little liquid feed once a week (and I never manage to keep to that schedule) but other than feeding, the drip lines and a timer take care of all the watering and leave me with nothing more to do than a little puttering when everything else seems like so much work.

I feel like I should be further along with everything but now that we’re into August I’m declaring a pause on projects and a rescheduling of fun. A few gardens have been visited, children have enjoyed day-trips, some lazy pool days are scheduled, and tomorrow myself and my plant squad (or more officially the Plant Posse… a possibly eye-rolling name given by a member’s daughter) are off for a day at Longwood. Severe weather alerts blanket our travel zone for the day but thoughts and prayers will guide us, and hopefully between the four of us the more reasonable will herd us out of the way of tornados, find shelter from strong winds, and a safe spot against hail, lightning , and thunder! Any day with the Posse is usually an adventure 😉

Hope you have a great week with an aggressive scheduling of fun!

Down to 48

Oct25

The ten day forecast looks miserable. All I see is rain and clouds and more rain, and at the moment rain predictions are between three and four inches for the week. But… this weekend was supposed to be a washout, and it kinda was but there was enough dry in between to get a few fall jobs done… if not entirely the ones I should have done 😉

I stumbled across some 50% off ‘Green Giants’ and now the backbone of my berm plantings is mostly complete. Over the last three years I’ve planted about 30 and I don’t think I’ve spent more than $300 which I think compares well to the $550 each Norway spruces the Industrial park planted. We will see what happens as things grow…

One thing which I did need to get done was the planting of the ‘Green Giant’ arbovitaes which followed me home. They were an excellent deal at about $15 a piece and I think they’ll just take off along the berm. Maybe in a few years they’ll completely cover the bare lower branches of the crappy spruce which are there now, and hopefully I won’t even know there’s an industrial park back there anymore… assuming I also lose my sense of hearing and miss the endless vroom… crash… beep… beep… beep… which goes on all day.

Most of the caladiums were thrown into the garage to finish dying back and drying off. New containers from elsewhere in the yard have taken their places. A rough count left me at 48 more pots which still need attention…

For some reason I love ‘Green Giants’. I love arborvitaes in general, but the common and I’m sure soon to be overplanted ‘Green Giant’ is just perfect in my opinion. They’re fast growing and the ‘giant’ part of their name should raise alarms, but just about everything I plant is part of some poorly thought out, regret it later, “plan”, so at least I have friends with chainsaws is all I’ll add.

A second bank of lights is up and running in the winter garden, and a third will be tomorrow. I of course went ahead and made more cuttings, hence the third light, and my wish that you realize this is already the ‘before’ photo.

I probably could have pulled a bunch more containers into winter storage, and cleared myself of any threat of dragging the last stuff in the night before a big freeze, but… suddenly I was convinced I needed to make my coldframe into a sand plunge. The “cold frame” is really just an old shower door set onto a wood frame, and making it into a sand plunge was really just filling it with sand and taking mostly hardy things and sinking their pots into the sand, but they’re cool things. Things which would probably be just fine in the open garden but just wouldn’t be as easy to fuss over. I’m thrilled with the change. They’re so much nicer to fuss over now and I can sit on the edge and just pick leaves out and turn the pots around slightly, just so they look even more special. Obviously it was super important that I got this done today.

Hardy cyclamen, hardy camellias, hardy agaves, and my most recent treasure, a pot full of hopefully-hardy dwarf palmetto palm seedlings (Sabal minor ‘McCurtain’).

So my sand plunge is filled with things which would probably do just as well planted out and just covered or mulched a little. The cyclamen for sure do just fine planted out, but I really like my sand plunge. Maybe next year I can repot everything into the same sized pot and have it all neat and super organized like some garden that pays gardeners to be all neat and super organized. As usual I’m sure that would be the most necessary thing this garden needs. That and a lawn mowing. Who has time to cut grass when there are sand plunges to build?

Hardy cyclamen doing just fine without sand or any kind of cold frame protection. I love seeing the new foliage sprouting up as the temps drop 🙂

So anyway… this long, stretched out autumn is obviously getting me into trouble. Too many cuttings, too much time to drag things in, too many shenanigans in general and on top of all that I bought tulips in a clear violation of my ‘no-new-tulips-this-year’ rule. Just forty. That’s nothing considering a couple hundred are sitting in the garage awaiting replanting, but it was a clearance sale. I’m sure I saved at least five dollars and knowing I won’t be starved for tulips in May is practically priceless.

Have a great week.

A(nother) Rain Day

Sep2

Hurricane Ida is working her way through this end of Pennsylvania today. Some parts of the country need the rain, but we sure don’t since just last week three and a half inches came by here, and another inch and a half the week before that. These tropical storm systems just keep pouring out the love this year and I’m really starting to get tired of the endless gray skies.

But I won’t complain about too much rain. Drought sucks and rain I can deal with, so as long as it doesn’t start raising the river and flooding out my neighbors…

A wet corner of the deck. I think it’s only been dry enough for bench cushions for two weekends, and as a result the ‘Margarita’ sweet potato vines have moved in. Also taking advantage of the endless rain is this pink lantana. I need an overwintering plan for this one, I like it.

With all the rain I’ve been stuck pacing back and forth, looking out the same back windows every ten or fifteen minutes. Sadly that’s the waterlogged view I’ll be sharing today.

I love the bright pink of ‘Alice Dupont’ (Mandevilla), and she doesn’t seem too upset about the rain, just a little windblown. The red geraniums and blue and purple angelonia on the other hand…

The deck plantings looked better in July when the calibrachoas were overflowing with flowers and the geraniums were fresh, but even after a September soak they’re still nice enough. I guess this came to mind since a certain someone who lives next door told me she was planning on ripping out and tossing all her plantings next week since it would be after Labor Day and they looked ‘tired’. I can’t even imagine looking out the window here all September and October and seeing bare earth and barren pots… what a crazy thought…

Some more compact lantanas which I’d also like to overwinter plus a new favorite, ‘Tattoo Blueberry’ annual vinca (Catharanthus). By the way the dead looking plant in the center is carex ‘Red Rooster’, and it’s probably not really dead but I’m never 100% sure.

My deck shall remain filled with pots and hopefully plants well into October and November, regardless of endless rain and even a few ‘tired’ looking plants. Sunshine is actually in the forecast so that’s better, and even though I didn’t mind walking through the garden today (several times) with an umbrella to admire caladiums, I know it will be much more fun and also warmer if my feet are dry while I do it.

Hope you’re gearing up for a nice holiday weekend (Labor Day here in the US) and are enjoying or anticipating weeks and weeks more of beautiful weather. I also hope your container plantings will carry you through those weeks, and I’d love to hear what kind of plants are thrilling you this year. I sometimes like to try new plants… in a very cautious and restrained way of course.. and a few new suggestions couldn’t possibly hurt 😉

Gotta Terra Cotta

Jan24

Terra cotta couldn’t be more earthy, it’s literally ‘baked earth’ according to the internet… not that I know anything about Italian or Latin… and in my most wholesome of imaginations there’s some country artisan scooping up the perfect mud and crafting a pot which eventually finds its way to my garden. In my imagination of course. In reality I can’t afford those fancy things so all mine are off the box-store shelf, but I hope my intentions count for something. The idea was no more plastic in the garden, and I’ve been good for the most part. I traded plastic and resin planters for metal and (the much heavier) terra cotta and ceramic.

The heavy is a problem. Terra cotta is porous and when it freezes the water inside expands and could crack the pot. Filled, heavy pots are a lot of work to move, so I guess if there’s any point to this post it’s to say that some lazy gardeners get away with just pushing them up against the house after frosts kill off the plantings and they end up drying out enough that they don’t crack.

A broken pot on the back porch is the reason winter-cracked terra cotta is on my mind today. It was already cracked in October, probably from a stray golfball or bat, but at the time I took it as an omen to bring in one less succulent pot.

So I’m sure all your terra cotta and ceramic pots have been safely tucked away for months but remember my new blogging mantra is quantity over quality so I figured a picture of a broken pot must surely be worth a post. To be honest as I go through old posts re-sizing photos I have no idea how I ever managed to post so much, so I’m actually a little worried that in order to keep up a steady stream of “content” through February I don’t get so desperate as to resort to babbling about tomato stakes or some other dull topic.

Above freezing daytime highs have brought on the first winter aconite (Eranthis hiemalis). This unnamed pale yellow form is always first, and usually beats the straight species by a good two or three weeks.

Honestly I’d probably gain readers talking about tomato stakes if it meant less posts about snowdrops 🙂

It’s cold and a little breezy with flurries but ‘Three Ships’ is still looking awesome.

Sorry, I know this is supposed to be a helpful terra cotta post, but I couldn’t resist another picture of this winter blooming snowdrop, galanthus ‘Three Ships’. This should be a family friendly blog but seriously I look at this and think “holy s%* I have a f)&%!! snowdrop that flowers here in the middle of January in Pennsylvania zone 6!!! Three years now for ‘Three Ships’ and deep down inside I’m still expecting it to die, but fortunately it hasn’t. Let’s hope for four.

And this is why I have a blog. Trust me that none of my friends or neighbors would make it past even two minutes of January snowdrop talk. Family can barely make it past three and I’m pretty sure they’re not even fully listening. Thanks for listening!

Around and About

Aug16

August always goes too fast and this exceptional year is no exception. I blame the puppy. Hours are spent entertaining and attending to little Biscuit’s whims, and even though I’m sure everyone in the household can hear his 4:30am whimpering, it is only the gardener who fumbles for his glasses and stumbles to the door to let him out. We enjoy the sunrise together but the conversation is entirely one sided and repetitive. “Go potty, go potty…. go potty”. Eventually the gardener gives up and heads inside for his coffee, and it’s usually then that the message clicks, and the paper towels and wet vac come out.

Stubborn little Biscuit the Yorkie

Hydrangeas are much more reliable. Even in a sleep-starved state the gardener recognizes how foolproof Hydrangea paniculata ‘Limelight’ is, and as long as it gets some water, a springtime trim, and full sun, the show is always on for August.

Limelight hydrangea along the street. The rain from hurricane Isaias has everything looking much fresher.

Weeds are a problem when the mulch is thin but you never know what else will pop up on the bare earth. I have no idea what a hydrangea seed looks like, but apparently they happen, and if you ignore weeding long enough they can grow up and turn into something nice. They’re entirely in the wrong spot which is not as nice, but I’m sure the gardener will be right on that and have it moved within the next decade or two.

With so much green this seedling has to be a child of Limelight. Three years is all it took, and trust me, even with the neat mulch and greening crabgrass this part of the border is not typically well cared for and these still succeeded!

Hydrangea paniculata and Hydrangea arborescens bloom every year here on the new wood which grows each summer. The colors are limited to whites and pinks but considering it’s been so long since I’ve seen a flower on the big mophead hydrangeas (H. macrophylla) I don’t even remember blues and purples and miss them about as much as I miss unicorns and rational government. Maybe reliable and the tried and true are boring, but there’s only so long you can listen to how great blue hydrangeas are before you realize it’s all just hot air.

I planted ‘Annabelle’ next door and love it all summer, even now in its all-green phase. My MIL prefers the mophead hydrangeas so that’s what is growing to the right. She claims its flowers are blue although I’ve never seen the proof.

Speaking of next door, for some reason the redone potager construction has gained me the kind of street credit which the rest of the garden never did. Out of nowhere there have been landscaping questions and design ideas for next door, all of which will hopefully include pulling out one of the green mounds of hydrangea and not that much extra work for me…. hahahahahaha, that was fun to write but I know it won’t be the case. The conversations also include filling in the pool and “putting one in your own yard because it’s just too much upkeep for me”. We will see.

The potager is still relatively restrained for August. Vegetables are still visible and a few unwatered pots of succulents hopefully class it up a little… even if all I did was take two pots off the deck and drop them right into the blue planters.

I hope it’s understood that a pool will never go where the potager beds stand. The vegetables and flowers may not be as refreshing as the deep end of a pool but they’re still inspiring in other ways and probably less work. If we actually ate more vegetables that would probably help, but even if all the tomatoes become pizza and all the zucchini gets deep fried that’s a start I guess.

So far so good for the sand paths. I probably rake them more than I need to, and I’m sure next year they’ll make awesome seed beds for weeds, but today they look great, and I’ll just take today.

Since the potager is under decent control I figured it was still hot enough to clear up the mess I refer to as the compost pile. Moving mulch in the heat is fun, but moving compost adds all kinds of spiders, worms, and centipedes into the mix so in some ways it’s even better. My new policy on all things gardening is to do less, so for the compost pile this means putting less on via hiding pulled weeds and trimmings under plants, throwing anything you can onto the lawn and (eventually) mowing it up, and also using one of the raised beds in the potager as a dump for all the local trimmings and waste. Eventually the plan for the raised bed is to coat the debris with some soil from another bed and just plant on top of that. If you want to be fancy I think it’s called sheet composting or hugelkultur, but I’ll just call it a saved trip from across the yard and to the official compost.

A much tidier compost area. I won’t dare show the before photo but just consider that I found a bench, several pots, and a few sections of fence under the mess so it was definitely past time for a cleanup.

I don’t know if you noticed, but outside the compost area is a new planting of nekkid ladies, aka surprise lilies, aka Lycoris squamigeria. They were previously in the potager and after 10 years I would guess I’ve seen all of three flowers come up, so I think they like the new spot. All this in spite of the March transplanting after their foliage had already started to come up. Usually they hate transplanting and out of principle don’t even come up the next year, but six stalks in the one group and two more in another and I’m thrilled. I think they also like the deeper soil and summer shade here as well.

Lycoris squamigera looking perfectly fresh in the middle of August.

I’m hoping the other Lycoris I planted last year do nearly as good as these. They were from an excellent source, perfectly packed, and looked freshly dug but still wouldn’t humor me with a single bloom last summer. At least they sprouted this spring to prove they’re not dead, but I wouldn’t mind a few flowers on top of that… especially since other gardeners are already showing off their plantings in full amazing bloom.

The orange surprise lily, Lycoris sanginea.

So besides finding surprise lilies in the compost area I also found some surprise pots, all nicely filled with potting soil and ready to be planted. The next step was obvious… well maybe not so obvious. In spite of the magic going on I’d had enough of the bugs and heat and humidity, so it was into the relatively cooler winter garden and its dozens of neglected cyclamen and snowdrop pots. I repotted.

The cyclamen have multiplied and are ready for fall while a few cuttings were stuck into a few pots. Look closely and you’ll see my dead New Zealand sedge. Honestly I still can’t be sure if it’s dead or not so I’m not sure how that qualifies as ornamental… but you know…

Adding pots to a garden which already has plenty of pots sounds a lot like just adding work, but it’s really not. In a bit of foresight two years ago I bought enough fittings for a second drip irrigation setup. Last year I found an irrigation timer on clearance. Last week I put it all together and opened up the whole side of the house for shade containers. Hmmmmmm 🙂

The dripline came just in time for Brugmansia ‘Miner’s Claim’. The dead stick from last year has finally put on enough growth to need regular watering in order to continue looking uber awesome. I don’t even care if I ever see another lame pink flower on this thing… although I won’t complain.

Shade containers will be a new thing and I’m sure I’ll be complaining about them by the fall. I’m going to start nosing around for free brugmansia cuttings immediately either by gift or stealth, so let this be your fair warning when I invite myself over for a garden tour. Under the cover of social distancing I’ll try to behave myself but I make no guarantees, only after the fact confessions.

Oh look. There’s already a potted camellia ‘Ashton’s Supreme’ ready to move into the new container garden. I think these are flower buds forming for the autumn so of course I’m super excited it’s forming flowers under my care rather than dying.

Besides being a poor garden guest I’m also starting to go on too long so let me wrap things up. Elephant ear from edge of Florida parking lot. A weed down there but here it barely survives each winter, even when I try to pamper the tiniest bits of life indoors under lights. Sometimes I’ve resorted to dumping out the remains and hoping the water and heat of summer bring some life back to the tiniest bit of living root, and so far it’s worked, but I dread the winter when I finally lose this treasure.

Someone is loving the heat and a steady IV drip of miracle grow and water this summer. I just potted up another offset for the new shade garden.

This potted elephant ear (I’m not sure of the exact species so lmk if you have an idea) looks deceptively tame in the photo, so let me assure you it’s pretty big.

I love the wrinkles and swirls of green in each leaf. At four feet long I still expect them to get a little bigger still before frost.

Oddly enough I didn’t even plant the tubers of the regular elephant ears because… well because I’m fickle. These are bigger and less floppy, so I guess that’s the reason.

The sun containers. Watered via timer every 12 hours and all I have to do is sit with a coffee in the morning, and an adult bev in the evening. I hate watering so this is the only thing which keeps them going.

Don’t let an empty compost bin and a few repotted plants give you the impression I’m just a flurry of activity and hard labor. I’m not. It’s been two weeks since my last post and there’s only so long you can cruise on the high of a mulch job completed, so this is probably the least I could do. Oh, I also mowed the lawn. Go me. At least there’s been no pressure to do nonsense like painting or new closet shelves. The dog has been a handy distraction for things like that since I wouldn’t want to wake the little beast with hammering and stuff.

Hope you have a great week.

A Lot of Work

Jul26

There’s little question as to how I feel about hard work, and this is always the time of year when I start to wonder if it will ever end. Between the pests and pestilence that try to take over every time your back is turned, to the weeds that spring with almost an unholy vigor out of any unmonitored patch of soil, to the searing heat that jacks up the water bill, I just don’t understand those people who smile wistfully and claim to just “love gardening”. They’re probably the same people who put on a sunhat and white shorts, grab a pair of teal garden gloves and a cute little English trowel, and then head out to the parterre to plant a tray of nemesia while birds are singing and a fountain sprays in the background.

The no-work mullein out front has topped 9 feet and greets each morning with a fresh show of buttery yellow flowers. I love it, the bees love it, and sadly the mullein moths love it as well, and have darkened and nibbled a few of the stalks.

Here it’s a different story. Covered in bits of green weed wacking debris, with dirt up my arms and half blind from the sweat that kept running into my eyes, I was wondering if the sore muscles and frequent blood donations were worth it. Someone came by and said “you’re filthy don’t even think of going into the house like that, I just cleaned the floor”, so there I sat dripping even more sweat -since it’s also a billion degrees out- trying to make a little sense of it.

Smarter people just sit on the porch and enjoy the morning light. The porch is easy, plants get dragged out from the winter garden in the spring, and just need a little watering every now and then.

I have nothing against sunhats and teal garden gloves, it’s clearly jealousy, but I can’t help wondering why I keep doing this to myself year in and year out.

July is wrapping up so it’s probably time to finally plant the last of the (even more) perennial seedlings which seemed necessary in February.

…and then it’s a beautiful morning and the light is perfect and the house is quiet and I love it all… well almost all, the front border along the street is too dry and I’m kind of giving up on that, but all that other bother of lugging plants in and out, and dividing and moving and planting, and digging and hauling and weeding and mulching and watering… well you get the picture, I guess it’s worth it.

Things lugged out onto the deck are hitting their summer stride. As usual it’s a bit of a mess, but I love filling the whole place with way too much.

The deck is a safe zone although you wouldn’t think it. I can go out there and just take it all in since the bulk of the work is done in May and June and then it’s smooth sailing until October. Drip irrigation and time release fertilizer make my coffee in the morning and a drink at night much more pleasing than dragging a hose around and feeling guilty about letting them dry out once again.

I DID NOT like ‘Canary Wings’ the first time I saw it, but this spring two of these relatively new begonias jumped onto my cart. Studies show I’m a sucker for anything with yellow leaves.

The biggest success this year has been ‘Alice DuPont’, a mandevilla vine which has survived two winters with me so far and has finally found a place where she can show off her amazingness in a way that does credit. She’s come a long way from the pot of brown sticks which exited the garage in May.

The far corner of the deck. Hopefully the rickety trellis of old miscanthus stalks can carry Alice through the summer.

I’ve added a few new things this year but nothing too exciting. The fruity colors of the lantana and purple angelonia are perfect, but as usual I fell for petunias and calibrachoa again, and after a strong start to the summer they’re already looking a little tired.

Jewels of Opar (Talinum paniculatum) came up in the soil of a gifted plant, and yay for surprises! It’s like a pink baby’s breath, and although it doesn’t wow like Alice it’s good to also have plenty of flowers which don’t yell nonstop.

Something else will take over for the petunias. Nothing in this garden is ever one and done, and it’s the changes throughout the season which keep me interested. Maybe by September even Alice will bore me!

Just kidding Alice, you’ll never bore me.

When things come together you really forget all the grumbling about digging and storing cannas and replanting tropicals each year. While the heat is sucking the life out of the perennials of June, the southerners and tropicals are stepping up. #summerstrong!

Cannas by the street were supposed to be complemented by an airy froth of purple verbena… but then a clowncar of marigolds pulled up and unloaded all the orange. But I really can’t complain about volunteers, so of course they stayed.

Even the tropical garden is back on the love-it list. A lack of rain is stunting a few things, but you’d never know it, and even the sunflowers are welcomed back… although I did pull dozens in May…

The tropical bed looks less tropical and more just bright annuals this year. Still nice to look at as you walk next door for a dip in the pool.

Admittedly I’ve allowed a few more perennials into the tropical garden this year. That’s one less thing to worry about and I’m sure I’ll find something else to overdo elsewhere in the garden. Right now as potatoes and onions come out of the potager I’m fighting the urge to fill the beds with a succession crop of flowers, or use the space for excess perennial seedlings. One year, that’s the goal I have for keeping the new beds in vegetable production rather than turning them over to flowers again, and we will see 🙂

Sunflowers on a Sunday morning. It may be hot and dry, but it takes a lot before sunflowers complain.

Hope you’re enjoying the fruits of your labor, and even if the weeds are starting to win there’s always plenty of good out there.

Have a great week!

Annual is Not a Bad Word

Oct6

Change for the changing seasons always brings an antsy-ness to this gardener, and autumn is one of the big ones. An avalanche of pumpkin spice covers nearly everything and so many people are just done with the summer garden and all its weather-worn tiredness and spent seediness. I’m with you. I keep eyeing the mess and think I might just be better off wacking it all down and calling it a year. It’s been months since the garden had that clean and controlled look when plants were bristling with anticipation, and I miss that, but still won’t give in just yet. Obviously laziness plays a part, but others with more enthusiasm might want to hold off as well. The waning garden has a purpose, and between the full seedheads providing food for birds, and the dried stalks protecting next year’s buds, there’s still something of interest out there. Frost and snow sit more attractively on waving stalks than on dull mulch, and honestly as far as cleanup goes it’s easier to crunch dried stalks in March than it is to wrestle with sloppy, soggy, heavy messes in October.

But it looks dull. and messy. and like you gave up… Unless you planned for it of course, and planted something that carries on until the pumpkin spice gets shoved over by cranberries, and a more relaxed season begins. For me annuals do the trick.

Abelmoschus manihot, an okra relative, soaked up the rain and humidity this summer and has never done better. These first flowers in late August were just the start of the show.

Ok I said it. I plant annuals. Yes, they’re more work, but the right annuals can pretty much take care of themselves, and they don’t have to be the same dull mat of color all year that even the bees get bored with. By their nature these plants just want to grow up and seize the day, filling as much space as possible with growth and flowers until whenever. They don’t care about next year, just flowering and seeding.

The fuzzy okra-like seedpods on the abelmoschatus (aka sunset hibiscus) are cool as well. Sure beats looking at spotty, diseased iris foliage (which is actually hidden behind the planting).

Late season annuals are my favorites. Something like the sunset hibiscus (Abelmoschatus manihot) comes up strong in the heat and humidity and quickly becomes a 4-6 foot presence if it gets enough water and warmth. Just as the perennial garden hits a late summer slump, the sunset hibiscus becomes a star, distracting you from the tired foliage of the June bloomers. This plant was also one of the stars of the book Annuals for Connoisseurs, by Wayne Winterrrowd… which by the way is a fantastic bargain at under $5 used…

Coleus, zinnias, salvia and Abelmoschatus in the front border

Ok, enough of me trying to sound intelligent and write coherently in what could be a useful post. Here are some other annual plantings from around the garden which are distracting me from all the gloomy skies and ever shortening days of really late summer. Coleus feature strongly. Nearly all come from a handful of cuttings I stuck in a glass of water and kept on the windowsill all winter. They look terribly pale and leggy by March but that’s when I pot them up and start growing them on under lights in the basement. By May I have dozens to fill in around the garden.

There were even enough leftovers this spring to branch out next door and fill in my neighbor’s mulch bed. Coleus, cannas, and a nice little single marigold I call “stole a seed head while visiting Kimberley last summer”.

I guess technically a lot of what I’m calling annuals can actually be grown as perennials in warmer climates, so I don’t want to upset anyone who lives and dies by those definitions, but in my garden these plants identify as annuals so I’m going to respect that.

The dogwood may be giving up and putting on some autumn color, but the potted caladiums are holding on a little longer until nighttime temperatures consistently drop below 60F. That’s when their sadly limp selves get thrown pot and all into a warm, dry corner of the furnace room and sit there dry and dormant until next year.

A real annual which has come up well this year is Browallia americana. In well watered spots of bare earth, close to where it grew last year, I keep an eye out for seedlings. All that’s required is take care and not pull them out as weeds, and by late summer the reward is a 1-2 foot bush speckled with flowers a little bit towards the amethyst side of blue.

Browallia americana with just a few tasteful selected marigolds.

A sort-of annual for me which sometimes returns from the roots is the borderline weedy Datura metel (aka moonflower). In good fertile soil it makes a large shrub which in the evening sports pure white, upward facing trumpet flowers. Some people call them angel trumpets, but that’s incorrect. Angels trumpet come from on high with downward facing blooms and are a different group of flowers (Brugmansia). These flowers always come from below and Devil’s trumpet is more accurate. You would think the more heavenly version would be more innocent, but both are extremely poisonous and there are deaths from this plant each year. I remember my mother evicting them from the garden one summer when she found out. I know she told us all how poisonous they were but still I was disappointed to lose them from the garden. I’m surprised she hasn’t questioned my parenting skills since seeing it in bloom here, but I guess there are always plenty of other questionable goings on which take precedence.

Devil’s trumpet (Datura metel) announcing an unwelcome arrival in the vegetable garden.

But there I go babbling again. As long as we’re in the vegetable garden, let me celebrate the pumpkins which have come on strong now that the sunflower thicket has died off from some likely disease. All this took were a handful of seeds ripped from the heart of last year’s halloween decorations.

Now that the sunflowers have died off it looks like the backup plan of pumpkins and glass gem corn might just work out. I love pumpkins and gourds, maybe that’s all I’ll grow next year.

The deck plantings are almost all just annual plantings which aim for all season interest. A drip irrigation system on a timer, a handful of slow release fertilizer, and this becomes one of my least-labor intensive parts of the garden… once it’s planted and set up of course…

The ‘Prince Tut’ water garden is ok. Goldfish have hopefully made a meal of any mosquitos, but a lack of fertilizer has left the papyrus healthy but a little yellowish in my opinion.

I tried for more foliage color this year but still ended up with a few curious flowers here and there. The firecracker plant (cuphea) was a Proven Winners thing that I’ve heard good things about, and here it is three months later still looking good.

Cuphea (firecracker plant) and some purple leaved oxalis. Both have been nonstop color and trouble-free from the day they were planted.

My popcorn plant (Senna… Cassia… corymbosa)? Still awesome 🙂 I was even able to get a few seeds to set, although it did seem to interfere with the flowering for a few weeks.

The yellow popcorn plant, coleus, purple fountain grass (pennesutum), oleander, and a bunch of other non-hardy stuff.

I’ve had that pink oleander for a few years now and was sure I killed it in the garage last winter. It eventually managed to come back, but the sparse branches were just calling out for a vine to cover them up. Black-eyed Susan vine (Thunbergia alata) to the rescue!

Black eyed Susan vine on the oleander. I would agree with the label “cringe-worthy color combo”, so don’t go thinking I have some undiagnosed color blindness that you need to tiptoe around…

The containers at the back end of the deck have officially taken over. The yellow coleus is my one new one for this year, the rest of the mess were just little overwintered sprigs and roots which I put out in May.

The coleus really should have been pinched back a few more times. They’re bushy enough, but even I can see they’re just a little too big.

Oh yeah. The tropical garden. Almost all just annual plantings, and almost all only just a little past peak now 🙂

I didn’t think elephant ears could reach six feet tall but between nonstop rain and a good mulch of grass clippings they and the cannas do seem happy.

So thankfully the garden is still filled with a few exciting things other than the new snowdrops I’ve been planting… oops, there I go mentioning snowdrops again…

Hope your weekend is filled with plenty of more interesting things to do rather than hauling off the tired remains of last summer. If it is, next summer suck it up, plant some decent annuals, and enjoy the slow crumbling of summer into winter which others fondly refer to as autumn. “Friends don’t let friends plant annuals” is only a guideline, I’m sure it refers to flats of wax begonias in one or two insipid colors and not to the range of much more exciting late season things that you have to remember next year. I’ll try to remind you 😉

Deck Season

Jul11

I’m about done with this gardening thing, it’s just so much work!

The deck awaits. Cool drinks, evening sunsets, it all sounds so much better than slaving away in the garden.

We have yet to hit our traditional summertime combo of brutally high temperatures and endless rainless weeks, and for once it seems our climate has decided to make it easy on the garden and gardener. The garden has been enjoying excellent growing weather and perfect transplanting conditions, and I think I’ve done more this year than ever to shape up the yard. The deck has been no exception. Overwintered tropicals came out of their garage storage earlier than ever and containers were put together way before the usual Memorial Day rush. I like the way it came out this year (which was not the case last summer).

My biggest splurge this year, a blue sky vine (Thunbergia grandiflora) which I snapped up the minute I saw it. I was hoping it would take over this whole corner of the deck but for now it’s more intent on sending out more and more of its beautiful flowers. At least the self-sown petunias on the left make a nice color compliment.

In my opinion the whole point of annuals is you can try something completely different each year, enjoy an entire season of noncommittal color, and then count on winter to completely clean the slate for next season. For the most part I started with a clean slate, but this year I tried to bring in a few new things rather than just sit in the rut I felt like I’d been settling in to.

Calibrachoas will always earn a spot in the deck containers because of their unending bloom. As long as the tobacco budworms hold off on their late season attack and I get a little fertilizer on them, they’ll keep going like this for weeks!

My ‘ outside the box’ move didn’t last much longer than putting down the traditional purple fountain grasses and substituting with a couple new coleus. Lots more foliage this year rather than flowers, but for the most part, since I overwinter so many plants, I’m bound to always be stuck in at least some part of the box.

If there was a color theme this year it was orange and purple… sort of… I’m never much good at sticking to a theme, plus I’m always far too easy on the self-sown annuals which show up, such as the pink petunias and red snapdragons in the back.

Cannas and coleus are back this year and doing great. The coleus were all new purchases made to replace those I was too lazy to bring in last fall. Lesson learned with that but now I’ll have to make all new decisions on which ones to take in when frost threatens. Experience shows it will be all of them 🙂

The far corner of the deck. The cannas are just starting, coleus are already too big, the Virginia creeper is creeping over from the other wall, and who would have thought I’d like white salvia?

Since May the plan has been to re-do some of the unfinished ends of the deck. You know how the goes. As of July 11th there’s been no action, which isn’t world ending, but it does mean I haven’t yet hooked up the drip lines which should go to each planted container. The regular rains have been my savior but as things grow that won’t last. I need to get things going!

A little bit of a mess here but the succulents and cacti are enjoying the regular rain. Usually they get nothing but disrespect from me and are lucky to get a haphazard splash from the hose once a month… I wonder if I need a new cactus… I’ve been good all spring 🙂

By all estimates I have about another week left in me before I throw in the towel on whatever projects didn’t get done this year. All work and no play is making me an extremely dull gardener and summer is too short for dullness.

Gotta go, weeds await!

The containers. Meh.

Aug14

Planting the deck always starts out innocently enough but then degenerates into a huge project. This year was no different in that respect, and to even get started with the ritual power washing all the winter debris of kid-play and kitchen remodel-scraps had to be dragged off first.

The entire covered part of the deck is filled with debris and scaffolding in addition to the furniture and terracotta pots which need to be stored under cover for winter (they’ll crack if they freeze while still wet and filled with wet soil). btw the dark gray object is the old kitchen sink, so even that is out here…

So hauling off trash is the first project, then the cleaning, then the decision that all the mishmash of geriatric plastic planters should match, so off for a paintbrush and some leftover paint.

No more black nursery pots, or old teal and faded gray, all the plastic was painted with my trusty mocha-tinted, all surface Sherwin Williams paint.

Our last frost date is around the 15th of May, but most planting jobs are usually procrastinated way beyond that. This year the big deck planting was pushed off until June 8th, which meant a lot of sitting around for the earliest purchases but it also meant clearance sales were in full swing.

I tend to spread out while setting the deck up. There’s a mess everywhere 🙂

So this is where the ‘meh’ comes in, and since the weather is kind of ‘meh’ today as well it might be the best day to discuss… I usually go out with little to no idea or plan and as a result come home with whatever catches my eye. Usually it works out, but this year I just feel like something’s missing. Maybe I need yellow, maybe it’s the lack of sweet potato vines, maybe there’s too much red, maybe it’s the pink… I’m not much of a ‘pink’ person.

One purple fountain grass is nice, three might have been overkill, still the rosemary enjoyed its division and replanting, and most other plantings are hanging in there. You may notice my amaryllis bulbs tucked in here and there. The strappy leaves don’t look half bad in my opinion.

I should be giving things a nice liquid feeding each week and part of the ‘meh’ might be that things are underfed. A rich diet for these flashy annuals is what they thrive on, and upon thinking back it’s possible I’ve missed four out of the last five feedings. As usual I’m my own worst enemy.

I do like how the creepers, in this case cascading geraniums (pelargoniums), work their way through the railing. They’re very popular with the hummingbirds even if the color might be a little too orangey for the companion plantings.

Some other disappointments have been the underperforming vines. My three little babies, the Chilean Glory vines (Eccremocarpus scaber) did not take off as planned. Apparently they are foolproof but this fool will challenge that label since my plants (nurtured along from tiny seedlings) made a go at it but then died off one by one. I did get to see one single bloom cluster of amazing little orange lipstick tubes of color but that was it, and I think if I was brave enough to beat back the grasses, I would find my last glory vine has also passed over. That’s too bad but I’m already excited to grow this plant again next year since I’m sure things will go differently even if I do everything exactly the same… but in the meantime at least my snapdragon vine (Asarina scandens) is coming along.

Snapdragon vine (Asarina Scandens) growing up into the purple fountain grass. At least this one has been a forgiving grower and easy bloomer.

While many of the plantings leave me uninspired, a few things are doing great. The oleander and overgrown spikes are back for another year and the canna ‘cannaova rose’ is again putting on a nice show. The canna just hit a lull (probably lack of fertilizer induced) but I’m sure will return to glory shortly and I’ve divided last year’s roots up between a few spots so it’s likely you’ll see these showing up elsewhere as well.

Those little dracaena spikes which show up in nearly every pre-made container planting seem to turn into something a little more interesting given a few years of growth. My goal is to have a small grove of these some day soon 🙂

There are a few new things this year which did beat the ‘meh-ness’. Gazania are a plant which although they don’t grow consistently for me, do look great when they feel like it.

The unusual colors of Gazania really don’t blend well with any look I’m going for but who cares, they just look cool when opened up for the sun. (just keep in mind that they close when the sun goes away…)

By the way I forgot about the elephant ears and the new crape myrtle, both of which are not ‘meh’. The two are just soaking up the rain and heat and humidity and picking up where the petunias and million bells drop off, but before I begin to sound too positive let me point two things out. First I have too much red, and since the obviously red myrtle was labeled purple I’m innocent there. Second there’s a plant missing out of the small terra cotta pot in the front of the photo. There’s a cute little b***ard chipmunk who decided it would be fun to end my three year relationship with a slowly growing clump of lithops (living stones). After a few days searching I found the chewed up corpse under a nearby shrub. Time will tell if the shriveled bits can recover, my only hope is that they were poisonous.

Blood red crape myrtle and geraniums, pink ‘bubblegum’ petunias, elephant ear (Alocasia calidora?)… an ‘interesting’ look I suppose.

I still need to mention the digiplexis which just came into bloom this week. It’s a inter-species cross between a foxglove (digitalis) and an Isoplexis (Canary Island foxglove) and when it first hit the market in 2012 it immediately went on to many ‘must have’ lists. My must have list is always a few years behind but I was finally able to try it out this year when I found it for a reasonable price.

Digiplexis ‘Canary Berry?’. It’s nice enough but I’m not overwhelmed yet. It’s one of the foxgloves, and I love a nice foxglove, but this non-hardy version might be something left for those everything-grows-for-me San Francisco gardeners who have super mild winters and cool nights which bring on stronger colors.

So there’s good and not-so-good out there and to be honest no matter how it looks it always beats the deck in January. January seems to keep all gardening outcomes in perspective and as I check things out every day and multiple times a day I’m still happy with it. Now if only I could get out there and fertilize, but the lawn needs mowing too and I’m not doing both until things cool off a bit.

sorta like suburbia

more than you ever wanted to know about my garden

Category Archives: deck plantings