Corydalis and then Some

Apr14

Warmer weather has finally reached NE Pennsylvania and within days buds are swelling, sprouts are showing, and the earliest spring bloomers are putting large swathes of color into beds which have spent the last few months exploring black and white themes. Finally I can take those nice leisurely garden tours and not have to harass the same old snowdrop shoots every few hours, looking to see if they’ve changed at all. New things are coming on faster than I can keep up with and all I can say is it’s great 🙂

Sitting on the front porch step is my favorite way to take in the front garden. Right next to the step is where I plant many of my smaller treasures, but in the past couple years the pinks and mauves of Corydalis solida seedlings have started to crowd out just about everything else.

Depending on what the thermometer does we’re just a few days away from bunches of hyacinths and the earliest masses of daffodils, but for the moment Corydalis solida dominates the front garden.

Corydalis solida ‘Beth Evans’ spreading out along the street border. It’s a lot more pink than I prefer but after months of brown and snow who cares.

I’d have to look, but it’s only been a few years since I planted about 15 tubers each of pink ‘Beth Evans’ and redder ‘George Baker’, and from there on they’ve exploded across the garden. They seem to enjoy the better-drained garden beds, in particular spots where other perennials will come up and cover them after they go dormant in a few weeks. Restraint is not something I think of when these come up, and if you’re of the type who prefer a more ordered garden I would highly recommend avoiding them. Corydalis solida does its own thing and if they’re happy in your soil you’ll have them showing up everywhere.

A weak attempt at adding named varieties has left me with just one survivor… and possibly a bunch of just-as-good seedlings. Keeping named plantings “pure” requires much more diligence than I chose to pursue so of course I just let them go.

In a few days all this color will fade away and the plants will quickly ripen seed and shrivel away to disappear underground for another 11 months. If I’m on top of things (which has NOT been the case so far this year) I’ll dig a few of the more crowded clumps and tuck them in to all kinds of new territory… or just do it accidentally in August when I dig up a shovel full of the little round yellowish tubers. In the meantime here are two other surprises from the earliest of spring garden.

Drumstick primrose (Primula denticulata) were a steal off the late fall clearance rack. I have no idea if they’ll last more than a year, but right now I’m thrilled by how early they are and lucky I was to find such well-grown plants. -Thanks Perennial Point!

Near the shelter of the house the hyacinth have started. This wimpy, washed out pink is my most exciting hyacinth ever since it’s the first to flower of a bunch of seedlings off the clump to the left. Six or seven years is all it took which sounds terrible but since I never did a thing for them other than leave them alone it hasn’t been bad at all.

Pink. My favorite color. Still it’s my firstborn hyacinth and I love it, and look forward to seeing how it develops over the next few years.

So that’s it. Spring is exploding so that’s really not even close to what’s going on, but like you I’d also rather be in the garden versus on the computer so off I go! Hopefully after missing most of yesterday for all kinds of events, and today for more events (and plenty of rain in the afternoon), something valid gets done in the garden before the work week returns, but you never know. I’m fine with just sitting around taking it all in. Plus, as I discovered yesterday, parts of the compost pile are still frozen so I guess we’re still just starting.

I love the start. Have a great week!

Like the Little Train That Could

Mar4

I have faith in March this year. I think he’s a changed month and there will be none of the shenanigans he usually throws our way in terms of weather extremes and spring crushing snow loads. I think.

Up by the shelter of the front porch, this clump of snowdrops and winter aconite are always first in bloom… even if for only a few hours between snow melts…

It’s only just the first week of course, and this optimism is based entirely on the few hours between Saturday’s snowfall melting off, the sun coming out, above freezing temperatures for just three or so hours, and then the next snowstorm rolling in Sunday afternoon. I was quick to run out though and take a few pictures while the flowers were also feeling optimistic.

I went ahead (perhaps foolishly) and planted out the new witch hazels in whatever decent, unfrozen, spots I could find. This is ‘Diane’ crammed into a spot close to the street.

Most of the garden is still fully winter, but if I crop out the patches of snow and focus on the few patches of early snowdrops, winter aconite (Eranthis hyemalis), and witch hazels, well I guess you can have a little hope for spring.

Hamamelis ‘Barmstedt Gold’ a little further down the border with the earliest snowdrops to appear in the open garden. ‘Gerard Parker’ is the name of the snowdrop in case you’re wondering, and yes, I still need to do a little cleanup here…

This is the time of year which consists of me shuffling back and forth between the same few spots and poking and prodding every last shoot in an attempt to get them to sprout faster. I doubt it helps, but on a “warmer” day I’m out there way more than the weather deserves and I’m sure it rolls some eyes. My neighbor refers to it as ‘you’re out taking pictures of dirt again, aren’t you’ season, and that always reminds me that I should really find a more private spot in the backyard to raise these plants.

Also in front amongst the shelter of the foundation plantings, galanthus ‘Diggory’ is just coming in to bloom with ‘Wendy’s Gold’ behind.

The thrill was short-lived. We ended up with about six inches and although it’s pretty and not all that cold I won’t be sharing any of those pictures. Im huddling indoors and for my plant-fix it’s back to the snow-free, yet underwhelming winter garden in the rear of the garage.

The last of the woodshop nonsense is finally out of this area and I’m making it 100% plants. Nothing too exciting going on, but new seeds and cuttings are exciting enough for me, and I’ll show more of that in time.

So just a couple more days and I’m sure March will be showing his more personable side. I don’t think I’m asking for too much, just no hailstorms or blizzards this year please.

On a side note, this upcoming weekend (Saturday, March 9th) marks the third annual Galanthus Gala, hosted by David Culp of Downingtown Pennsylvania. This event is sure to thrill snowdrop lovers and plant lovers in general, and is normally one of the highlights of my late winter snowdrop-a-thon. Alas this year I cannot attend, and the thoughts of missing out on seeing friends and browsing sales tables and talking gardens would have me depressed if I happened to dwell on it too long, so I won’t. I will just recommend that you should go if you can, stop by, rub elbows with the garden obsessed from the US and beyond, sit in for a few talks, and maybe leave with a few new goodies. I hear that besides a healthy supply of snowdrops and such, there will be even more hellebores and also a nice haul of witch hazels this year. Perhaps my wallet will appreciate missing out on more witch hazels but I’m going to be a little crabby about that for a while.

In any case, all the best for March and have a great week!

Bits and Pieces

Nov15

There’s a forecast for snow tomorrow, and in this little slice of near-suburbia things are absolutely not ready. The gardener has been in more of a Netflix mood rather than a slaving out in the elements mood and as a result things are more behind than usual. ‘No big deal’ he says as he dips his hand in yet another vat of overly buttered popcorn, and that pretty much sums up the last few days… except for the weekend. It was sunny yet cold, and after weeks of gloom the sun was a nice change.

Just a few more days and out with the pumpkins and in with the boughs of holly. Fyi I’m thinking of moving the arborvitae… any thoughts on that?

In between re-acquainting myself with a rain-free garden and doing all the fall cleanup in just two days I did a little poking around and tried to find a few things of interest in an otherwise dying garden.

Polystichum polyblepharum 'Japanese Tassel Fern'

Evergreen ferns look even nicer set off by the yellowed hosta foliage. This is the Japanese Tassel fern, Polystichum polyblepharum, and one of my favorites. Thick brown fur covers the newly emerging fronds, and the plant as a whole is much sturdier than you might think.

There are a few last flowers, but many didn’t hold up well to the relentless rain. The chrysanthemums are mostly washed out with the exception of a single stray seedling which snuggles up against the porch. I tolerate its sloppiness all year and then finally reap the rewards in November when its flowers open to signal the end of the season.

My last chrysanthemum.

Out along the street the front border got a clearing out so that the earliest spring flowers can have an open stage for whenever the first warm spell hits. Of course that’s code for ‘I planted more snowdrops here’, but snowdrop season comes on fast and I want to be sure I’m prepared for that at least!

The interior of the bed has been cleared out and a Rolls Royce layer of leaf mulch put down. They’re the shredded Japanese maple leaves from next door, mixed up with a good amount of lawn clippings which should be delicious for the earthworms.

Although I did do some clearing out, the bulk of my fall cleanup is just removing anything which looks overly messy, and then running the leaves over with the mower and tossing the shreddings into select beds. Whatever is left I can just refer to as winter interest and eventually get it come springtime.

Although it was one of the first plants to go when temperatures dropped, the dead stalks of the abelmoschus still look great with their fuzzy seedpods.

Honestly if I had the opportunity I would want about double the amount of leaves that I collect each fall off the lawns. Some would go into the compost, but most just gets thrown back as a winter blanket for empty vegetable beds and sleeping perennial plantings. As it is I still end up volunteering to clean out my Bil’s backyard and then robbing the woods for whatever’s been dumped back there. It’s sad how I covet my neighbor’s fallen leaves.

An Asian spicebush, Lindera glauca var. salicifolia was named as my friend’s favorite shrub and I’d have to agree. The seedlings she shared with me are finally coming along and I love the late season glow of their foliage.

It’s not all about dead leaves though. Snowdrop talk will come up more and more now that the weather is turning cold. This season I am eagerly awaiting the opening of my new snowdrop walk, and based on all the buzz already surrounding it I’m sure it will be an excellent new springtime adventure.

Just in case it’s not obvious the new snowdrop walk enters between the chrysanthemums and carries you across the bed. Most people will need to crawl if they wish to avoid a cherry branch to the forehead, but you’ll be down low looking at them anyway so why bother with a whole bunch of head-room?

In the meantime, a few hardy cyclamen line the snowdrop walk. Cyclamen hederifolium is sending up its winter foliage now and the last flowers look even better against the beautifully patterned leaves.

It appears I’ve lost a few older cyclamen plants this summer, most likely due to all the rain, but there are still plenty left surviving and multiplying.

With the snowdrop walk all prepped and waiting, it’s time to turn towards the next on again off again project.

The land beyond the fence. Years back, before the fence went up, I used to mow around a few little quaking aspen sprouts. They’ve grown since, and are now sporting some attractively bright bark color.

You may remember that my MiL lives next door, and that a few years back I was able to get a bunch of fill dumped behind her house. In the years since, I’ve managed to level and plant the half closest to her fence, but the other half still needs grading and moving. After losing all hope of someone coming and doing the job in a day or two with all the right machinery, I’ve finally decided it will be me who digs and grades and moves all the dirt that remains. My guess is that the rest of my life will be spent digging back here, but I already have a shovel and the dirt is free, so what have I got to lose?

Left side graded and planted to grass, right side still to be done. While I’m at it someone’s mentioned they’d like a screen of evergreens planted, so why not add that to the list as well….

I’ll be using the dirt to fill in some of the low spots in my own yard. It’s terrible soil and a ridiculous amount of work but I find I can only watch Netflix for so long before boredom sets in, and I do like earthmoving projects. S we’ll see how it goes. Maybe I can just rename this part of the yard ‘the gym’ and spend all the saved money on other more exciting things. Now what would that be…. snowdrops perhaps? 😉

Must. Make. Post.

Nov3

The endless gloom of this year’s weather cycle has finally started to get to me. Even in a good year I’m not the most enthusiastic garden worker, but when the overcast and rainy days come one after another, and the ground is in a constant state of squish, I really don’t feel like much of anything. Good thing it’s finally the natural time of fading decay that others fondly refer to as autumn. I guess I can let it all slide without a guilty conscience and then hope that the winter winds do my cleanup for me 🙂

To be honest I did go along the street border and do a little cleaning up of dead things and overly lush grass growth. I feel like the dogwood seedlings have colored up exceptionally this autumn!

A lack of life giving sunshine and constant moisture must favor a colorful death process because whatever the endless rain hasn’t moulded up is showing a wonderful range of pinks and purples. Usually the hydrangeas go straight to brown, but this year even ‘Limelight’ has taken on a bright pink hue.

The colors of autumn with a promise of spring in the tight buds of next year’s dogwood blooms.

Frost has taken down the bright annuals out front, but asters, grasses and plenty of yellow foliage remain.

‘Golden Sunshine’ willow makes a nice yellow accent alongside the pinks and purples. It’s really enjoyed the rainy summer and one in the back yard has probably put on a good ten feet of growth this summer. All of the willows will be cut back to the ground this winter.

All the tropicals which earned a spot indoors have come into the garage, but my one potted candlestick bush (Senna alata) still gets dragged outside for warmer spells. It’s managed to put out a few weak flowers and of course I’m thrilled to get it this far. Maybe I can cut it back and overwinter the plant indoors, but I’ve killed enough plants over the years that I don’t have all that much hope of pulling that off.

Candlestick bush soaking up the last of the above freezing weather.

While we’re over by the garage I can’t help but think that the ‘Green Giant’ thuja is going to need some attention one of these winters. It’s a big tree and I’ve got it planted ten feet from the garage and maybe four feet from the walk. When I planted it ten years ago the plan was for a quick screen from the house next door, and it’s done a great job, but trimming is not something I want to deal with every year. Even with a ladder I can only safely reach about halfway up so I’m considering either leaving them go for the next five or ten years, or topping them and giving them one harsh trim and see what happens. A review of previous experience leans heavily towards doing nothing for the next ten years and then suddenly cutting them to the ground one morning when I need a spot to plant my latest, newest, most amazing plant. We’ll see.

I have to confess a love for arborvitaes. They’re common and maybe even overplanted, but I love them. Here are my ‘Green Giants’ growing just like they should, planted in a spot where perhaps they shouldn’t.

Following the confession of poor planting decisions here are a few autumn colors to distract.

The shredded umbrella plant (Syneilesis aconitifolia) coloring up for the fall.

Following this weekend’s rain I’m sure leaf cleanup will need to begin. I know I claimed to be considering waiting for the winter winds to take care of them all, but I’m far to greedy to give up the leaf mulch. A few rounds with the lawnmower should get me enough to mulch some of my most special plantings.

The compost pile is there to the right, the full wheelbarrow just ten feet to the left…. am I really that lazy that I couldn’t just make it all the way?

More fall color to distract.

Stewartia is always a star for fall color, especially when not coming off months of drought.

Not to change the subject too much, but just as my wonderful teepee of spanish flag vine (Mina aka Ipomoea lobata) was finally coming into bloom, the temperatures dropped just enough to frost the bulk of it, so here’s a single sad photo of all that’s left, rather than a ten foot high pyramid of celabratory oranges and reds. Fortunately some snapdragon vine (Asarina scandens) held up to the cold with their cool little purple flowers, and some chrysanthemum followed along behind, also pretending to be climbers. I may just skip the flag next year and go all snapdragon.

The last lingering flowers in the ‘vegetable’ patch.

Here’s one last treat.

Galanthus peshmenii, new this year and my first attempt at growing a fall blooming snowdrop outdoors.

So that’s it from this end of Pennsylvania. I saw a dash of sunshine just a few minutes ago but just the fact it’s stopped raining is a big step forward in my opinion. Let’s hope at least one day this weekend offers the garden and the gardener a chance to dry out and get something productive done. All the best!

Saying Goodbye to August

Sep1

September is here and to be honest there aren’t a whole lot of nice things I can say about the month. September means fall is close, and I dread watching the garden shut down for the winter. You wouldn’t guess it from the thermometer, since last week was up into the 90’s again, but the sun is setting noticeably earlier and the mornings are much more dewy than any self respecting July morning would be.

The sunflowers along the street keep a steady stream of birds flying across the yard. Between ripe coneflower seeds and juicy sunflowers there’s plenty for them to munch on.

I managed to make a tour of the garden Wednesday evening after the worst of the heat had passed and since it was far too hot to actually do anything else I at least managed to take a few pictures in between waving off gnats and swatting at mosquitos. That was no small feat considering the mosquitos these last few weeks are the worst of the season, with a thirst for blood unparalleled outside of a salt-marsh, swampland or the great North. They like coming in straight for the face, and as a wearer of glasses I’ve never had to slap at myself so many times while struggling to keep dirty fingers from knocking the glasses right off my face.

The front border in the evening light. I’m pleased to have amaranthus ‘Hot Biscuits’ return from last year’s seed, I always like it when it catches the last of the day’s light. Poor hydrangea ‘Limelight’, he’s had a bit of a flop with all the rain…

With all the rain we’ve had this year, the front border and most of the garden in general looks very similar to last year’s extravaganza. I would apologize ahead of time for showing the same old plants again and again, but I’m pretty sure that’s just overestimating how closely anyone other than myself follows this blog. So in addition to the sunflowers and amaranthus, here’s another perennial annual which keeps coming back, snow-on-the-mountain (Euphorbia marginata).

euphorbia marginata snow on the mountain

Snow-on-the-mountain is putting out its bright white bracts to coincide with the opening of its tiny white flowers at the center. These always seem to find a perfect spot to place themselves.

Other annuals took a little more work to get started. The coleus and ‘profusion’ zinnias were planted out in the spring and fussed over for a few weeks before they came into their own. I tried to step outside of my little box by trying some ‘profusion apricot’ zinnias, but really just spent the whole summer missing my usual orange or hot pink zinnias 🙂

Zinnia ‘profusion apricot’ looking ok once it’s out of the bright sun…. In full, hot, blazing sun it looks a little washed out though.

I have no cardoon this summer. I miss it. After nursing a potted cardoon along all winter in the garage, and carefully keeping it in the Goldilocks zone of not-too-hot, not-too-cold temperatures while the weather outside came and went, I promptly sent it to its death once it went back in the ground. Too much rain and probably too much freeze one night did it in, but at least my candlestick plant (Senna alata, aka Cassia alata) has come along to fill the void.

At five feet and counting there are still no signs of flowers on the candlestick plant. It will be stupid of me to try and overwinter this thing, but studies show….

For as much as I love the foliage on the candlestick plant, I really shouldn’t thumb my nose at the other leaves in this garden. On the way back towards the tropical garden my Charlie Brown Christmas tree is finally looking a little better now that this year’s new growth has replaced the scorched brown needles from last winter.

Pinus densiflora ‘Burke’s Red Variegated’. It’s a big name for a little tree, but I like the ‘character’ this tortured little thing is developing. Unless it dies… then less character and more growth would have been a better thing.

Can I show off the tropical garden one more time? The cannas are fantastic this summer. A few in the back have been stunted by some I’m-sure-they-won’t-get-too-big sunflowers, but the rest have really enjoyed the steady rain and generous heat and humidity. Yellow striped ‘Bengal Tiger’ is my absolute favorite.

Canna ‘Bengal Tiger’

Coming in a close second are the deliciously dark and glossy leaves of canna ‘Australia’. I’ve grown this one for years and it’s never looked this nice before, and it kind of makes me regret all the years I’ve been doing this plant wrong… and then I look back at it again and I’m just happy 🙂

Canna ‘Australia’ with a mess of just about everything else.

As usual the tropical garden has become an eruption of growth but unfortunately this year it’s about as far as I get when it comes to maintenance in this part of the garden. Out of curiosity I let the neatly upright switchgrass (Panicum ‘Northwind’) seed out along the border just to see what turned up. Turns out a mess is what showed up. The seedlings are beautiful and graceful, but just too big and broad compared to mom. I’m thinking they’ll disappear this weekend, but my to-do list always has a way of evaporating when I actually get out there.

A froth of switchgrass where a neat little heuchera planting used to be. It would really be a shame to toss them all…

I’m not saying I have a tendency to let things get out of hand, but what used to be neatly mown weeds and grass under the deck has turned into a mass of jewelweed (Impatiens capensis). I like jewelweed. Something about it makes it seem so harmless even when it’s pushing five feet and has covered up every other weed in the bed. Maybe the fact it’s a native wildflower that wins me over, or the cool exploding seed pods or itch-relieving sap the plant produces, whatever it is I don’t miss wrestling the mower around to get under the deck.

Jewelweed filling in under the deck. It does fill the space nicely, and its small orange flowers are popular with the local hummingbirds.

Harmless giants seem to be a dime a dozen out back. Throughout the potager (looming over the last few vegetables) are more yellow sunflowers plus the dark garnet of ‘Hopi Dye’ amaranthus. pink kiss me over the garden gate (Persicaria orientalis) dangles down from 8 foot plants, and annual vines creep all over.

One sunflower managed to place its main stalk perfectly inside the wire of the trellis. I wish more of my plants self-staked.

The potager really only has a few peppers, zucchini, and eggplant remaining. The tomatoes are just a thicket of foliar diseases and a halfway decent patch of celery has rotted away from too much rain. Fortunately there’s always verbena bonariensis. It’s filled in many of the vacant spots, and I hope come September and October the Monarch butterflies find it to their liking. Last year was an excellent butterfly year for us, and I think this year’s migration may be even better!

The garden rarely makes it into September this lush. Green all over, and much of it isn’t even weeds!

One last thing to mention, if only because I think it’s a cool thing. The salvia splendens seeds started in spring were supposed to be a dark purple just like the purples who’s seed I’ve been saving and who’s seed I’ve been sowing. Every now and then one comes up a less interesting, paler color which I get rid of, but this year one showed up with a little more red, maybe a garnet color if you want to call it that. I’ll have to save seeds of course.

Salvia splendens plants in purple and a slightly shorter plant with garnet flowers. They’re late bloomers and I look forward to having them come along at this time of year.

Seed saving and bulbs, I guess they’re the next big cycle in the year of the garden even though I’ll try and put them off as long as possible. It may be September and there might be pumpkin spice showing up all over the place but I’m not giving up on summer until at least the leaves start dropping and I’ve got a windshield to scrape. Yes it’s denial. I’ll think about facing fall in October and to be honest that’s still plenty of fall for me.

Have a great weekend!

Back to Work

Aug1

The rain last week did wonders for the garden and it’s become as lush as last year. Lush is sometimes code for overgrown, so I spent some productive time trimming and weeding this weekend and I’m happy to say it appears to have paid off. With pictures taken at precisely the right moment, from just the right angle, within hours after the lawn was mowed and edged, the yard finally looks nice. I guess it’s about time considering we’re about four months into the growing season.

The lawn cut and edged. It looks almost parklike, just ignore the yellow spots… the kids were playing with a metal detector and searching for treasure in the turf…

I’ll try not to dwell on all the flaws I see. The front border has much less color from annuals this year because of beetle attacks and a dry spell, but there’s enough which has come along regardless. From the street side it’s really filled in, the usual perennials and random sunflower make a nice barrier between us and the road.

The border does its own thing along the street with just an occasional whacking back when things get out of hand.

From the lawn side there’s also a good amount of perennial color, but not as much as I’d like. I do prefer my plantings on the brighter side 🙂

This picture is 100% showing off the lawn. It’s a rare day when a well watered, green, freshly cut, neatly edged, lawn shows up on this blog.

Speaking of too much color, it’s not an official policy but in general I don’t have many daylilies in the garden. I don’t like the way the leaves on so many of them look all beat up by the end of the year and for that reason got rid of most of them. That may be a-changin’ though. I spotted this one next door and there’s a good chance I may rationalize an emergency dividing, so I can sneak a few pieces over onto my side of the property line.

Orange and pink. This might be just what my border needs… or it might be one more piece of evidence in the case against any good taste in my garden.

I’ll have to be sure I don’t give in to the temptation of bringing a few bright daylilies into the tropical border. It’s supposed to be all big leaves and bright colors thanks to explosive, non-hardy southern plants, not steady reliable things like daylilies.

A late start means the dahlias are only just now starting to flower, plus an unusually lazy May meant three or four were all that ever got planted. Maybe less will be more this year…

The top part of the tropical border is again nearly overwhelmed by 8 foot tall sunflowers among other things. This year I thought for sure I’d have the upper hand after pulling nearly all of them up but of course with more space the remaining plants grew even bigger. I guess I could have worse problems.

At least the elephant ears look tropical.

The lawn isn’t the only thing enjoying some maintenance love. I pulled out the hedge clippers and started doing a little trimming and was able to re-meatball all the lumps of yew along the house. I don’t completely mind trimming hedges, but rounding off the same yews every year just to have the same yews rounded off every year seems incredibly pointless, so by the time I got to the big one at the end I was more than a little bored. We’ll have to see where this ends up.

Maybe I can call my yew balls ‘topiary’ now. Of course I have yet to clean up the trimmings or get a ladder to reach the top…

Out back the potager is particularly lush. I’ve been relentlessly pulling sunflower, verbena, persicaria, and amaranth seedlings but plenty remain. Through July I still pretend to be the one in charge, but by August I lose the urge. From here on things will be getting messier and messier, with all kinds of halfway attractive flowers sprouting up and taking over as the phlox fade or the vegetables are picked.

It’s phlox season, and each day far too much time is spent checking them out.

I do like my phlox, but experience has shown they don’t like me. The list of named varieties which have perished in this garden is pretty embarrassing, so of course we won’t talk much about that, and hopefully more observant readers won’t notice that I again spent a decent amount of money on new ones earlier this spring. They’re not dead yet which is a good sign I think.

A mix of seedling and named varieties of tall garden phlox (Phlox paniculata). To my eye gold and pink do not mix well… in fact I hate the mix… but I need marigolds and I need phlox, so there you go.

From further away the phlox look colorful at least. Close up the foliage looks abused and there are plenty of other issues, but the flowers keep coming, and it makes me wonder if they think this is their last hurrah before they kick the bucket. I hope not, but I’m not going to fool myself into thinking they like it here.

I feel like it’s a requirement to grow marigolds in your vegetable garden, even if it’s so fancy that you call it a potager. Sorry about the white buckets littering the view, but this photo is to prove that there really are vegetables in here.

One last phlox photo. I wonder if they’d like me more if I dug up a whole new bed and devoted it to even more phlox and more new phlox? A few more reds would be nice and how much room do a few tomatoes need anyway?

I definitely need more phlox, and I also won’t rule out bigger clumps of the good ones like this white seedling. They’re native plants by the way, so maybe this is helping make America great again.

I’m sure by September I’ll be wishing for fewer phlox and more colchicums. Maybe. Hopefully it’s not chrysanthemums though since I’m this close to yanking most of them out in spite of the fact I needed bunches of them just a few years ago. I hope not everyone is as fickle as I am.

Happy August and have a great week!

During and After

Jul21

Summer vacations and gardens gone wild are two things that seem to come up regularly each year, and I’ve noticed many of the better bloggers will do posts on preparing your garden for a longer absence. Here’s my two cents. Do everything you know you should have done already but have been putting off, and then go enjoy yourself.

Florida in July is not enjoyment. The kids seem to like it but my only moment of ‘not bad’ was seeing the new Pandora section of Disney’s Animal Kingdom. Cycads, fantail palms, tree ferns, massive rock outcroppings on what used to be flat sand…

It was as hot up in Pennsylvania as it was in sweltering Orlando but fortunately a well timed rainstorm kept everything relatively happy. My plants are used to hit and miss attention so one more week wasn’t all that big a deal.

The deck containers would have fried without watering, but an automatic drip system makes them almost carefree, even with a full sun baking each afternoon.

I guess I can just pick up where I left off.

These are my new phlox. Only the most adept word-find champion would be able to find any phlox in this mess, but trust me I managed to dig them out yesterday afternoon 🙂

For some reason this year seems like so much more work than any other. I suspect it’s the result of my cheap nature and the way it’s keeping me from buying a nice, luxuriantly rich, delivery of shredded bark mulch (and its lovely weed smothering qualities), but it could be anything. My deepest fear is that I may in fact be getting old, and I may in fact have a more ‘intense’ garden than I should. My daughter informed me last week that all I do is look at plants or go on the computer and look at plants and maybe she’s not all that far off. I kind of pointed out that I also brought her to her friend’s, picked up her brother from somewhere else, went to the store, met mom for lunch, picked her back up, went for ice cream with her….

The potager in need of a grooming and a hedge trim. Growing vegetables might be the most time consuming component of the garden… even if you’ve only got my word to go on when it comes to there being any actual vegetables in there.

So now I’m working through the garden one more time to get it presentable. Throwing lawn clippings down as a mulch is helping, here and there the weeds might be slowing down, and overall the flowers are trying to make a go at it. At least the bugs (both good and bad and indifferent) don’t seem to mind a little ‘woolliness’.

I’d like to think this beautiful yellow swallowtail is the child of one that was hanging around the garden a few weeks ago. I like that there is so much life sharing my garden.

Some of the woolliness comes from my weakness for self-seeders. With phlox season ramping up there’s the excitement of new seedlings which snuck in while I wasn’t looking, and the surprises that come with new faces.

It takes plenty of diligence (maybe more than I have) to keep your phlox colors pure. This may look like the same clump but it’s actually ‘Cabot Pink’ in the back right half and a stray seedling to the front left. Slightly different petals and a tiny bit shorter, but the real giveaway comes on cool mornings when the seedling takes on a blue tint.

The phlox might look nice but they’ve been giving me trouble this year, even with decent rains and halfway decent care. Spider mites are swarming and the usual sprays of water and fertilizing haven’t done the trick. For as much as I like tall garden phlox, they really only tolerate me. Maybe someday I’ll make them happy.

My failed poppy patch. You may be able to spot a few purple blooms in there but for the most part it’s weeds which seemed to have sprung up overnight. Hopefully I can get at this today before the rain hits.

Relatively speaking the front border is doing much better than the back. It’s not nearly as colorful as last year, but it’s far less work than the potager, and only needs a strong beating back every now and then to keep looking decent. Last year I expanded it out as much as two or three feet and worried about what to do with the space. This year the perennials have rolled in and I barely have a few spots for annuals. Hmmmm. Ten minutes after saying I want less work I’m considering ripping out perennials to make more room for annuals.

I feel like the border is dull this year. The coleus I usually count on for foliage color have been brutalized by beetles and other less interesting things are trying to take over their space.

Don’t worry. This should be the last post where I whine about how much work gardening is, and go on way too long with the woe is me theme. It’s really not that bad and since I took these pictures I’m nearly all the way around the yard with the straightening up. Plus there’s plenty of stuff to admire while I’m trudging on 🙂

‘Silk Road’ might be my favorite lily. It fills this whole end of the border with fragrance, doesn’t need staking, and gets better each year even in a terrible spot. My dream for the future is that it becomes a clump of several bulbs and adds another two or three feet in height!

Enjoy your weekend, the weather here has been excellent for time in the garden and in spite of my daughter’s harsh assessment I’m still planning to do a lot out there today.

sorta like suburbia

more than you ever wanted to know about my garden

Category Archives: front border