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.

The garden of memory

Jan28

I used to be a balcony gardener. After a stint in Texas my next job took me back to the Northeast, and rather than commit to a house I opted for an apartment. My choices were narrowed down to a roomy bachelor pad with an excellent nighttime view of the city lights or a smaller two bedroom apartment in a quiet residential area. I chose the quiet life. My choice was partly because it was half the rent, but mostly because of the small balcony which came off the kitchen and overlooked the side yard. I knew I needed a spot in the sun but just wasn’t ready to buy and didn’t want the responsibility of taking care of someone else’s yard again. Who would have thought my stay would last over three years, and who would have suspected I could fit so much more than just the grill and a few chairs.

Does a gardener live here?

By the third summer things were completely out of hand. I tend to like fast growers and big leaves and none of those are a logical fit with a small balcony… but what the heck, I usually just grow things because I can and not for any well thought out plan or agenda. A rooted cutting turns into a butterfly bush, a trip down south adds a banana, a clearance sale brings in a staghorn sumac. Things add up quickly, but mercifully winter would usually wipe the slate clean. Plants have a hard time overwintering on an exposed, second floor balcony.

These caladiums went out for the summer and came in for the winter for three years straight without a problem. Nine years since moving and I’ve killed more than I care to admit.

If there was any secret to how my garden grows it was the drip irrigation which snaked out from the laundry, slipped between sashes of the window, and clicked on every 8 hours and saved me from the boredom of daily watering. With the automated watering my plants were also saved from the almost certain neglected death due to a weekend away at the shore, a week traveling for work, or that gardener’s nightmare of a two week midsummer vacation. No returning home to fried and dead plants for me!

Strangely enough my landlord never questioned the green tsunami which overwhelmed my small balcony, and we all ended up becoming good friends. Coincidence that he and his wife ran a landscaping business? Who knows.

One chair. I guess this did turn into my bachelor pad after all, and with just enough room for a seat this became my preferred spot for a summer book and a icy cold beverage. There’s a grill in there as well, I guess it goes without saying that for a couple months each year it was out of service.

Eventually it became time to move on and the balcony garden was traded in for the next adventure. There’s an actual yard involved in this one but as usual delusions of grandeur made for a bumpy road. Live and learn I guess 🙂

Hope your winter is going well. It’s set to get warmer again this weekend and with snow melting almost as fast as it came my spring fever will be worse than ever. I’ve been sowing seeds again and a sensible person would have stopped this nonsense a few dozen packets ago.

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 🙂

sorta like suburbia

more than you ever wanted to know about my garden

Category Archives: deck plantings