Enter Summer

Jun17

Well well well. The lull is over and with official summer starting in four more days I’m completely ready for days to last forever and I’m completely ok to never put on a real pair of pants again. Sorry, please forget that visual. I’m thinking shorts and bathing suits and whatever else kind of clothing you would wear to the park, not the gray polyester blend pants you’d wear to meet your lawyer. Lawyers should only be dealt with in the winter in my opinion.

The front border is full of early summer color and a remarkably well-tended assortment of plants.

Following a bump in the road it looks like garden work is back on track around here. Planting weather continues and I almost feel guilty about putting it to good use when so much of the country sits under stifling heat and relentless drought. But trust me, if not doing work would mean relief for the hot and dry, you know I would do my part.

I kind of missed the flowery peak of the roses, but there’s still plenty of color. Also nice is how much those little spruce and juniper twigs have grown. It seems just yesterday I had a four inch pot in hand looking at the spot where today a six foot white spruce (Picea glauca ‘Pendula’) stands.

Roses are still obsession du jour, and the greatest tragedy this summer will surely be that I was not able to get up to Ithaca’s ‘Der Rosenmeister‘ to see hundreds of roses in full bloom, filling beds and covering arbors and wafting their various fragrances across the garden as I secretly inventory all the ones I’d like to cram into my own little yard. I guess there’s next year, but in a strange turn of events I’ve turned into a very not-patient person, and I want it all now. I can still be understanding and wait for things like small children, tree seedlings, and dogs, but the cup of you-go-firstedness has run dry and my filter is breaking down as I age. I guess you can start calling me Karen.

Here’s ‘Westerland’ again. Today it’s my favorite rose.

I’m Karen with a spade, and many of the less inspiring plants in my life are paying the ultimate price. “oh it’s a good doer’ might save it in your garden but here it’s good night and good bye unless I love it or unless it saves me from even more work. I’m thinking groundcovers with that last one, ajuga may not be inspiring but it does fill in between the giant reed grass’s stalks and saves me from crawling through there looking for prickly poppy seedlings.

The giant reed grass (Arundo donax variegata) is on the love list, but the clump looks deceptively small in this photo. I may trade in the spade for an axe on this one, the inch thick roots are not something I’m looking forward to, but the clump needs reducing.

Weeds and plantings I’ve tired of might sound bad, but overall I love the garden right now. A thick wall of weeds won’t win a magazine cover, but honestly I’ve been looking at them (every day of course) and all it takes is one plant doing well in there for me to think ‘wow, that’s #@&^ing awesome’.

A weed I love, common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca), looking and smelling great this week. Three tips: be prepared for it to spread, chop it down to two feet after bloom, and just yank up all the suckers without worrying about the roots below (you don’t even want to know).

So as usual I’m babbling about nonsense when I should be finishing this up and ferrying kids to a dental appointment. More pictures, less blah.

More strawberry foxglove (Digitalis x mertonensis) appearing out of the mess. These don’t mind the droughts and spider mite attacks which do in the common foxgloves.

More of the foundation plantings. As you can see the blue fescue border has not been divided and replanted, and still has way too much thatch built up, but…

The former rock garden, now the colchicum bed. I’ve resorted to roundup once or twice a year to keep the stone border clean and it’s actually working out very well.

Did I mention I needed more roses? I do, and it might be time for more clematis as well. Finally I have a few spots for them to climb up and show off rather than making them crawl around in the dirt… which is not the kind of treatment they deserve.

Clematis ‘Ruutel’ doesn’t get much taller than this, which normally wouldn’t thrill me, but the dark red color is still a win.

A friend of mine grows more clematis than she should and that’s probably why she’s such a good friend, so I’m sure if I mentioned cuttings… hmmmm. That would sure help cool off the credit card from plant purchases.

Clematis ‘Ville de Lyon’ does get taller, and I always like flowers at eye level or above.

So the rest is just a mix of unconnected things which are interesting this week. We could call it a four on Wednesday but of course that’s got zero ring to it 🙂

Even in an overexposed photo Calycanthus ‘Aphrodite’ looks pretty good. I never expected it to become so showy.

Aralia ‘Sun King’ is still doing well in a cramped, too dry, unfertile, location. Nine out of ten garden designers despise how I left the rose campion nearby.

Further into the shade the martagon lilies are blooming. ‘Sunny Morning’ had a string of bad years with late frosts and swampy soil but then for some reason decided to send up three flower stalks and look amazing. I don’t get it. She’s been dormant by July for at least the last two years so I suspect this is a swan’s song kind of show.

The meadow is developing behind the neighbor’s house. Oddly it’s one of my favorite spots and has gone from pure turf to a mass of bird’s foot trefoil, other clovers, and a few daisies.

So I have to stay focused. I want to go on and on about the butterfly weed and rose campion that needs to be seeded into the meadow, and the merits of adding native penstemons but in a purple foliaged form… but the spring stuff still needs to get planted, beans need to go into the ground, and daffodils dug and a million other things and there will be time to babble on about uncut meadows in August.

Hope you’re enjoying all the too-much as much as I am. Have a great week!

Start Your Engines!

May26

Something odd got into me last week. After what has probably been months of the usual laziness I started a few tasks. Then I went on to new ones. Before I knew it I was being productive, and although I feel more sore than accomplished, I do feel like I finally made a little headway.

I took a break on Sunday from porch cleaning to get a few photos. Here’s the front border with the pale yellow, single blooms of the rose ‘Aicha’ mixed in with the blue of colombine (aquilegia)

This weekend I spent Friday digging trade plants and opening the pool, Saturday traveled on a gardening adventure, and then Sunday tried to make the yard more summer-friendly since it was awfully hot and that seemed the right thing to do. Monday it was lawn mowing, trimming, watering… and I even started to pickaxe a few holes into the berm for more arborvitae plantings. Finally today I finished the planting (just four bushes) but it felt like a major accomplishment since the hard-packed, rocky “soil” fought me all the way.

‘Aicha’ is a beauty. I hope she gets just a little taller so I can thread a small clematis through her for the ‘off’ season.

Tomorrow I’m home for a “Dr’s appointment”. I’d also like to spend some time outside and see if I can get the vegetable garden moving, but we will see if new ambition beats the forecast heat. In theory I could spend the day by the pool with just a few breaks to admire the iris, but for now I’m hoping ambition wins, since wouldn’t that be just terrible to waste a day off swimming and doing next to nothing?

The historic iris ‘Sunol’ (1933) growing in the foundation beds. Usually it has a bronze flush to the falls, but perhaps that faded this year in the heat.

Speaking of the lure of sloth, last summer I had hoped to reclaim some of the front border for more iris plantings but once things filled in it was a struggle to find open spots and as usual I resorted to edge planting. Edge planting lets me shoehorn in a couple more plants along the outer fringes even if the outer fringe looks better empty. If never looks that great having plants hanging off the edge of the bed like that, but when the place is filled that’s as good as it gets.

Historic iris ‘Romeo’ (1912) has a cool look to the falls which is different from the others I grow.

So (again) the plan is to clear a few swathes where iris can go. It’s been dry, which is good for bearded iris, but if the summer turns wet this gardener might be tempted to fill in with all kinds of annuals and various other showier things which are great in the fall… but are not iris.

‘Elsinore’ (1932) is another somewhat unique historic iris which I like very much 🙂

Regardless, I have faith that a few iris will again fill a sizeable chunk of the border. I may have to resort to a few of the hardier ones which don’t mind some summer shade, but it needs to be done since a May without an overload of beaded iris is completely unacceptable.

‘Indian Chief’ (1929) is not my favorite color, but the plants handle competition and some shade quite well, so of course it gets an invite.

So iris are on the to-do list… somewhere… and in the meantime I need to focus on planting and watering…. and weeding of course, but I think you know how I feel about a strong commitment to weed-free beds vs saving a few of the more interesting ones 🙂

A big Scotch thistle(Onopordum acanthium) has come up in a spot reserved for phlox and snowdrops. It’s as prickly as it looks and of course I love this (listed as noxious in several western states) weed.

Even if the weeding doesn’t happen, hopefully I can at least show off a respectable vegetable-filled potager in another week or two.

From a distance of greater than 20 feet, much of the garden doesn’t look bad. I just wish it passed the five foot rule!

Wish me luck. I’m already thinking that the best plan is to head to the nursery in the AM and start the day with new vegetable transplants… and likely a few more flowers… Obviously deep down inside I know buying more plants doesn’t help the four new rose bushes, various overwintered tropicals, trays of sprouted seedlings, and the haul from last weekend’s rock garden society sale that are sitting on the driveway, but it’s more fun and I’m always up for that.

Hope you have a fun week 🙂

A May Lull

May18

A cool and rainy week with a busy schedule have kept me out of the garden for a few days. By that I mean there were enough weather and work excuses to avoid any real work, since even a rainy day does not cancel the daily garden tour. In other gardens the lilacs overhang azaleas, with dogwoods and redbuds shading the lawn, and banks of rhododendrons exploding in color… but I’ve only a few dogwoods and little of the others, so here the spring crescendo of tulips is followed by a slight lull of green.

The blue camassia are a flash in the pan here and only seem to flower for a week or so. It’s a nice show, but the blue columbine (Aquilegia vulgaris) is just as nice and lasts longer so I may (again) try and dig all the camassia to get rid of them. This time I’ll try and get all the bulbs…

Right now there may be a lull in the flowering, but after several months of white and brown, green is still an excellent color, and with its various shades and shapes, and the surprise of variegation and chartreuse or purple tints, even a green lull makes for a nice show and it should really be enough.

Blue columbine (Aquilegia vulgaris) was originally found in the woods behind the house, and rescued when the bulldozers came. It’s not native and fancier colors and forms exist, but I like it well enough.

Most people can stick with well enough, but I admit to a short attention span and fickleness so of course I want other things to follow up as the tulips fade and the bearded iris are yet to come. The columbine is good, and usually moneyplant (Lunaria annua) fills in with a nice purple, but I think I need more alliums.

Tulips and daffs have all been deadheaded and are disappearing under the next wave of growth but just the columbine and a few moneyplants (it’s a down year for this biennial) are in bloom. The blue is nice, but note the bold little ‘Candy Corn’ spirea in front. I can’t believe I planted it, usually spirea disgust me, but this one is so offensively bright there was no resisting.

Back in the day the budget was much tighter, and a few flowering onions always seemed to be just too much when a big bag of tulips could be had for the same price. Today it’s a different story. A couple new alliums are just pennies once you’ve paid off the monthly gymnastics bill and bought a couple pricey snowdrops.

Allium ‘Gladiator’ was my first big allium. I was hoping for bigger, but tall is good too! Over the last 15 years one bulb has become many.

So I will see what happens. The problem is settling on just two or three rather than a dozen, and I of course will be looking for suggestions from my friends. I already have a few leads 😉

‘Gladiator’ is also doing well in the potager. Phlox and other perennials are coming up just in time to (mostly)cover the allium’s yellowing leaves.

Yeah, the yellowing leaves. Just as the flowers open and draw a little attention, the foliage starts dying back to compete with the show. Trimming them back or hiding them in a border are two options for better gardeners.

The green centers are cool.

The yellowing allium foliage can be a deal breaker for some, but here it barely registers. I run a messy garden and fortunately some delusion of diamond in the rough or some bizarrely inflated ego syndrome allows me to still share photos online. I should be embarrassed most of the time, but luckily it’s a rare day that I see some perfect garden photo and suddenly question my entire gardening hobby (as well as the public settings on this blog).

The mountain of snowball bush (Viburnum opulus ‘Roseum’) is probably the only perfect thing about the potager right now. It should be weeded. And planted. And tended. One of these days…

Ah, whatever. Let’s finish with a disclaimer on the potager. The raised beds are excellent, the sand paths are perfect, the whole idea of the potager is much better than the usual mess, but it’s still just a mess. “It’s not you, it’s me” I tell the garden and I suspect the garden understands. My weaknesses is a love of interesting, and it’s just too interesting to see if the resprouting cabbage stumps from last year will form heads or if the missed potatoes from last year will amount to anything. Good thing no one expects this garden to feed a family.

A few parsley seedlings went into this bed, but I’m still working myself up to weeding out all the rest. Besides obvious weeds there’s a nice clump of lettuce, many tomato seedlings… random hellebores…

So what did I do today? Clear a bed and plant beans? No, of course not. I was working in the front border dividing tulip clumps. Just for the record, it’s too early to divide tulips. The foliage should be yellowing and it’s not but whatever. Dig up a clump, shake and pick out the smaller bulbs, and replant. No careful soil improvement, no watering in and I guess we will see what comes of it. Smarter gardeners would have pulled them all and tossed them after flowering, it’s just a few dollars to replace them, but I don’t think it will surprise anyone if I admit my gardening is more of an ADD drifting through ideas rather than a focused plan with a to-do list. Reinventing the wheel has always been a passion of mine.

Have a great week, and I hope it includes plenty of plant-time 🙂

Spring!!!

Apr29

This is the time of year when I like to complain about how terrible my allergies are. The burning eyes and runny nose and sneezing… they’re really not all that bad but it’s the only season when I have something to blame my general laziness on. It’s not aimless sloth, it’s dust and pollen. I’m a victim I shout but then someone suggests I come in out of the polleny wind and clean the basement. As if.

A few primrose have not only survived, but have even prospered in the dry shade which has suddenly appeared in parts of the garden. I swear I just planted those trees a year or two ago.

Saturday was actually a pretty busy day around here and things were weeded, mowed, pruned, and a few things were actually transplanted. That’s good but in the sprit of easing into ‘hard labor season’ the gardener took Sunday off and photographed a few things. The photo shoot was followed by much sitting around, and then the week since has been much of the same.

More shade treasures, Lathyrus vernus was mowed by rabbits in March, but fenced in April. This spring vetchling could have been nicer but at least a few flower buds survived.

My excuse the past two days has been heat. 79F yesterday and 84F today. The warmth was such a shock today I almost started an inside cleaning frenzy before coming to my senses. Fortunately things didn’t have to go that far since the house is again super neat with both kids home all day in a return to online learning. I’m sure every parent recognizes the sarcasm dripping off every word in that last sentence.

The pink form of Lathyrus vernus, ‘alboroseus’, was fenced before the rabbits got to it. Anyone else would recognize that fencing should be done each spring but I like to surprise myself anew each year.

So now I’m trying to burst on past this wall of laziness and at least get a blog post up. My garden has a springtime peak as the tulips and dogwoods come into bloom, and I’m absolutely ready to devote hours to just wandering around admiring bloom after bloom. It’s similar to snowdrop season except there’s more than one color and I don’t have to crawl around on my hands and knees.

Some of last years divided and replanted daffodils, this one a nameless double which looks similar to ‘Tahiti’ but just a bit more yellow and slightly smaller.

The daffodils are really in full swing and the Darwin tulips and other early season tulips are opening to join them. I know I brag about it all the time but this mostly exposed and summer-dry garden seems to be just what these tulips enjoy.

This is what the snowdrop bed degenerates into as other things come up. The daffodils are intentional but only the reddish ‘Spryng Break’ tulips were planted, the rest came in via compost or squirrels.

The vegetable garden had been a major tulip stronghold, since every batch of compost and every turning of the beds seemed to spread them a little further, but last year’s raised bed project cleaned that up a little. Many bulbs were collected, flowering plants potted up, and some were just lifted to new spots, but I did try to reduce the numbers…

The front bed is filled with bulbs collected during construction. For some reason I hate the color mix and every day I am just minutes away from pulling the short purple and white tulips and tossing them… it may still happen. The back bed just needs emptying out… way too much yellow 🙂

Once the flowers are over and the foliage yellows, the bed above will be lifted, dried, stored, and replanted in the fall. The flowers are sparse and small this year, but next year they’ll be fine again having spent the whole spring growing rather than suffering a mid April move. I just need to get a few more pinks into the mix and get rid of the dumpy little purples.

I probably planted these tulips as well. I probably even thought it was a good spot and I wouldn’t need the room for more brocolli and lettuce tranplants.

Although the raised beds… I mean ‘Parterre’… is having a down tulip year I still think tulips are a far better idea than just planting more cabbage. More leftover and stray bulbs were planted in the concrete bed and (1) they did fine in a kinda exposed bed and (2) prove I need more red as well! I can honestly see a day when the entire parterre is filled with tulips 🙂

I gave away some ‘Spryng Break’ bulbs but these were deemed “too small” to pawn off on unsuspecting gardeners so they were replanted. Now of course I’ll have even more and still not know what to do with them all… but I do know they’ll have to be planted next to something other than the short and moody burgundy ‘Muvato’ now behind it.

Yes. I do like tulips. Tulips and only the occasional deer make for a wonderful spring and I don’t know what I’ll do if the deer start making a habit of visiting.

The fine red outline of this Darwin hybrid will slowly bleed into the flower until it becomes completely orange. I love it but have just too many of this one.

A lack of deer does not mean complete bliss. Some parts of the garden are plagued by tulip fire, which infects the foliage and blooms and makes overcrowded and damp bunches turn to mush. Th parterre re-dig helped immeasurably as did mulch and thinning, and this year I’ve been spraying with Neem oil and between that and a drier spring it all seems to be helping. A better gardener would destroy the infected plants and not replant for five or so years but…

Some tulips seem more susceptible to tulip fire. This orange late tulip has practically melted away while ‘Pretty Princess’ seems untouched.

I could really go on and on about tulips but I’m just about blogged out for the night and I’m sure you’ll be fine without my babbling. I’ll just leave you with some tulipomania from the front yard.

Tulip ‘Pink Impression’ on the left, and a few not-pink impression on the right. All are excellent.

Tulip ‘Burning Heart’. A big beauty who keeps coming back just as huge as they were in year one.

The star magnolia is finished but I think this end of the front border still looks decent. It could use a few more tulips of course, and more daffodils won’t hurt either!

Tulip ‘Beauty of Spring’ anchors the other end of the front bed. The red on this one will also spread as the flower ages. With all the yellow daffodils I don’t know why I needed more yellow tulips, but there they are.

Fun fact. As I was double checking the name on ‘Spring Beauty’ I came across an online site using an older picture of my clump to sell their wares. I wonder if this entitles me to some kind of site discount…

Anyway it’s bedtime, so I hope these past few days also have you out enjoying the garden and reveling in the explosion of color called spring. Perhaps it’s not spring in your neck of the woods, and in that case I hope there’s plenty of other joys to discover this week, in any case the key word is ‘enjoy’ 🙂

Untitled

Apr12

Spring has taken an odd turn here. The weather has been fantastic and there’s been time to spend in the garden but I have absolutely no interest in doing anything. Maybe it’s the lull effect. Snowdrop season come on so fast and was over so quickly, it was hard to keep that high going. Then the warm days were followed by two nights of hard freeze which singed the corydalis and melted half the hyacinths, but oddly spared the magnolia buds. This has become the norm lately, but for some reason the freeze-damaged flowers have me a little bored, and the return to warm days has me hesitant about starting too much transplanting. Fortunately the front garden looks ok with some spring daffodils, and my little twig of a magnolia cutting has grown into something which finally shows off.

Magnolia stellata, probably ‘Royal Star’ anchoring the far end of the front border. You can see the mother plant from which this plant came from to the right of the neighbor’s house.

I’m 87% sure last week’s freeze again killed all the barely pea-sized wisteria buds, but the almost open magnolias are fine. Go figure.

This year the flowers have a flush of pink to them, but that will fade to white in a couple days.

Right now, with a nice cover of shredded leaves, the front border seems optimistically weed-free, so even if there is transplanting and thinning to do I can still pretend it’s all under control for a few weeks longer. A gardener with more foresight and enthusiasm would probably scuffle through the mulch with a hoe now, before the onslaught of seedlings put down roots, but…

The daffodil ‘Tweety Bird’ flopped a little for the 21F night but has bounced back without a second thought. I’d say it’s one of my absolute favorites.

As I said, the hyacinths are probably the one bulb which took the biggest freeze-hit. Some are fine, but many either melted or suffered freeze damage to the flowers. Of course with all this pessimism running through my veins all I see are frosted flowers, even though I know I’m the only one to see it.

It saddens me to see the damage on ‘Woodstock’, but maybe a lost year of flowering will just mean a bigger show next year!

The hyacinths usually lead the garden into full daffodil season, which is also normally a big thing, but last year’s purge of the narcissus beds has left a noticeably smaller show in the back yard. Again, I’m the only one who notices these things, but I do miss them.

Maybe “MORE!!!” is the solution I’m looking for. I could divide up the hellebore ‘HGC Silvermoon’ and spread hyacinths all over… and then wonder how I ended up with so much pink 🙂

Actually the daffodils will be back next year, they just need a year to settle in and bulk up, but what I still want to celebrate is my first self-sown daffodil!

‘Holland Sensation'(supposedly) on the left, and a nearly identical seedling to the right.

I had been watching the daffodil seedlings for a few years and of course had all these amazing possibilities in my head, so it was a little bit of a surprise to see a nearly identical child show up. It’s going to be interesting to see what the others turn out to be since there are quite a few ringing the mother clump… all about a daffodil stem’s length away from the seed source.

Tulips will be next.

Honestly there are still plenty of daffodils to come. They’re later than normal from the digging and drying and storing process, but there will still be enough. Tulips on the other hand, there are never enough tulips! I replanted some of the ones I dug last year, but they were stunted from the ‘in the green’ transplanting process so only about half will bloom this year. But that’s not a bad thing since the transplanted tulips are showing perfect foliage, and that’s not been the case recently. The foliage is usually scarred with the pocks and streaks of the tulip fire fungus, and the tulips I didn’t get around to moving are again showing this kind of damage. I considered fungal sprays, but they all sounded so toxic I was going to just try digging these as well until I saw Neem oil spray. An organic option which doesn’t sound too eco-toxic so I’m going to give that a try on top of moving them. I’m not 100% sure when is best to spray, and I’ve never used it before, so please let me know if you have any suggestions.

Cleaning up the pond. Of course the pump broke halfway through.

Since we ended up on the repulsive subject of tulip fire, let me just stay with the theme and say that pond cleanup is also repulsive and probably the most disgusting part of spring cleanup. There was a slimy layer of rotten leaves coating everything, with a robust algae population and who-knows-what-else ecosystem of muck. Even with gloves it would be super-gross, but of course I was too lazy to go find them, so into the unknown my fingers went. The best part though was when the dog found something delicious in all that muck to chew on. What a disgusting little beast. Yuck.

So sorry about that segway into grossness. It’s probably just a symptom of my dark mood which will evaporate just as quickly as the first tulips open. In the meantime I wish you all a wonderful and safe week!

Fall

Oct9

So here I am, finally forced to use the new block editor for WordPress. I don’t like it. Everything is adrift in a sea of white and I can’t fix how the photos and captions are displayed. There is no desire in me to be a web designer, I just want to post a couple pictures and write a few comments and since I’m struggling with that I’ll just assume it’s too smart for me.

Feather reed grass along the street. Things are looking autumnal.

I just want to complain. I don’t like it. I want menus and boxes and structure, not symbols and icons and dots that I somehow have to know to click on… or double click on… or whatever alt hold and click combo I’m supposed to just know or remember or whatever.

The front border from the other side. I’m quite pleased, but this is all the beginning of the end, as things color up, dry up, and die off…

Why the heck does everything need to be in stupid blocks!? I don’t like it. I just want it to be intuitive and let me write and I can throw in a picture whenever I want. Now I have to add a stupid photo block and then start a paragraph block and then go on to the next block. I seriously had less trouble editing html code than I do with this cloud of one size fits all.

chrysopsis Heterotheca villosa ruth baumgardner — Heterotheca(aka Chrysopsis) villosa ‘Ruth Baumgardner’. Still glowing brightly from the end of the front border.

I’ll stop now. I don’t like it. Maybe what doesn’t kill me makes me stronger, but that’s not exactly the kind of win-win scenario I strive for either so… on to the fall garden. It’s here. It’s winding down. Still colorful, but fading fast. All the smarter plants are packing it in for the winter they know is coming, but the foolish tropicals are still carrying on like there’s always a tomorrow.

dahlia happy single flame — Dahlia happy single flame. This one always seems at its best during the last weeks of fall.

The tropicals were saved at the last minute by some rain and an almost-but-not quite-frost. The rain was just in time, but late September would have been tragically early for a frost date. Only a few things were touched though so I’ll count my blessings, especially since others North and South of us were not as lucky.

white cactus dahlia — The last big hurrah for dahlias and the red rose ‘Black Forest’ isn’t doing too bad either.

I’m enjoying the final flowers, but I’m afraid sometimes the impression is that everything is an overflowing wonder of color and interest in this garden. Angles and cropping make a big difference. The photo above vs the photo below shows how the full clump of big white dahlias looks much thinner and poorly staked from a different angle.

autumn dahlia garden — Things look a lot gappier from the back. Honestly everything is too close to the path and a mess, but at this time of year who really cares? I’m just enjoying the color.

The lack of big tropicals in the tropical border this year bothered me for a little bit, but I’m not going to miss all the canna root digging and elephant ear lugging that normally happens in October. It still looks fake-tropical lush with grasses and pokeweed, but my big plant of happiness is the non-tropical ‘Michigan hardy’ cardoon seedling which will hopefully prove to be more hardy than previous seedlings. It’s become a monster and I wonder if I’ll ever hope that winter takes this one out like it has all my others.

hardy cardoon — This is another really nice camera angle. All year I hated how this combo worked (or didn’t work), but here at just the right angle the cardoon is nestled in perfectly between grasses, pokeweed and dahlias.

I reeeeaaaallly like the cardoon although again it’s one of those spiny, pokey, too-big, weedy looking, things that takes up all the room that a peony could shine in, but… let’s just move on. The potager still looks respectable even if a few too many ‘Hopi Red Dye’ amaranthus were allowed to grow in all the wrong places.

the potager pergola — Parts of the potager are still neat and weed free. Let’s hope I can keep this up for a second year!

We’re still picking a few things such as eggplant and tomatoes but for me the chrysanthemums and gourds are so much more entertaining. Now that fall transplanting season is upon us it will take resolve of steel to keep from filling all the beds with tulips and transplants of everything which would likely do better in more cultivated soil.

diy pergola — The raised beds are nice, but my favorite spot is the pergola. Already I’m wondering what to do with the four corners next year!

A bed or two of phlox, multiple beds filled with tulips, a few for chrysanthemums, maybe just a few coleus here and there 🙂

hardy chrysanthemums — Last year annual salvia dominated, this year the dry weather stunted the salvia seedlings and left an opening for mums and verbena.

Just is case you’re wondering how my feelings towards the new editor are going… I don’t like it…. but what I do like are colchicums. And just typing the word immediately lowered my blood pressure a bit and made the three days I’ve been screwing around with this post seem just a little less wasted.

colchicum flowers — The last of the colchicum with a leaner sister of the big lusty cardoon that’s growing in the tropical bed. I think this is mostly ‘Nancy Lindsay’ and maybe ‘Lilac Wonder’?

I really try to avoid showing the same plant again and again, but the dry, cool weather has the colchicums lasting and lasting. So here again is my group of C. speciosum giganteum group.

colchicum speciosum gigantea group — Colchicum giganteum still looking good after two weeks.

And although my friend Cathy grows this one much better than I do, Colchicum autumnale album plenum is slowly spreading into a small clump that will hopefully some day become a small drift of white.

And one more. C. speciosum ‘Atrorubens’ came up pale but has now darkened down to a rich color which bleeds onto the stem almost to the ground.

colchicum speciosum atrorubens — Colchicum speciosum ‘Atrorubens’

Oh and one other announcement. After about ten years of holding onto an old shower door, two years of thinking I should use it for a coldframe, and four weekends of staring and planning and considering, the coldframe is finally done. “What took so long?” you ask… well I don’t know. I’ve just been lazy.

diy coldframe — It took forever for me to figure out how to use the hoarded door, wood scraps, and salvaged pink marble to build… but once the last screw was in it took me about 15 minutes to fill it with plants.

In case you’re wondering, the door slides flat in order to cover the plants, it’s just folded up right now to enjoy the sun and breezes of autumn… and since I look at it multiple times a day, I might as well leave it open anyway. I like it. I’m happy it’s done, and with that albatross off my neck I’m free to do more fun-erer things until the next simple project weighs me down.

homegrown gourd harvest — As soon as I finished basking in the glow of a project done, and congratulated myself one last time, it was time to harvest the gourds. An excellent haul me thinks!

I noticed the pink marble of the coldframe isn’t quite as pink as it could be and what’s the sense of a marble coldframe if everyone doesn’t realize it’s marble? I worry that garden tours will pass by and think it’s just fieldstone or any old stone block or something, and that could be embarrassing… especially after they’ve experienced the fancy that is our potager. Perhaps this weekend’s to-do list will have to start with some powerwashing. I’m sure in the grand scheme of gardening tasks which I neglect, powerwashing the blocks under a crusty little coldframe is the most effective use of my gardening energies. On a side note, it’s obvious why I could never do this professionally.

new england aster alma — “Alma Potschke” New England aster along the runoff path for the gutters. I should call it the ‘rain garden’, that has a nicer ring to it.

Honestly there are so many more important things to do, such as replanting a couple hundred daffodils or bringing in dozens of potted plants or doing all the other fall prep, but I suspect I’ll start the weekend off with powerwashing. Ok, full honesty means that I also looked at the birch trees and decided they should be whiter and cleaner as well. If you never see another photo with the birch trees in it you’ll know how that went.

Hope your weekend turns out more productive, but even if it’s not have a great one! -btw I think I survived the new editor…

Let’s Pretend

Sep9

They say summer ended last weekend and we’re now into fall. I saw pumpkins on porches and people buying chrysanthemums and I thought I’d be ok with a switch in seasons but apparently I’m not. Regular rains have made the garden green again, and although it wasn’t enough to penetrate the maple foliage and give relief to my dry shade, nothing really looks like it’s at death’s door, so it’s unfathomable for me to understand why anyone could wish for it all to be on it’s way out. I love summer. I love the longest days of the year and warm nights filled with crickets. I love saying it’s too hot, and then sitting around for an hour instead of working. I don’t want it to end.

An oddly neat and green scene. I’ll call it the Covid effect meets moisture laden tropical storm systems.

Today after getting home from work we closed the pool. My mother in law can’t wait to get the cover back on as soon as Labor Day is over, and I’m surprised she hasn’t already yanked all the New Guinea impatients out of the planters and tarped all the porch furniture as well. I don’t get it. I’ll milk this weather for at least another month and a half and then hope for two, since in my opinion winters are far too long around here to rush this warm weather out the door. Still, no amount of sarcasm or complaints of sweatiness and hot forecasts could change her mind.

It may not look it, but along the street is also exceptionally neat, considering the usual sunflower and fennel overgrowth.

So in her mind summer is dead, but I disagree. My garden seems to peak towards the end of August, and then lingers through September with all the bright colors of summer keeping it hot and vibrant in spite of the fact you can’t cool off in the pool any more.

Rudbeckia triloba ‘Prairie Glow’ may be a little stunted from July’s dry spell, but it’s still an excellent show in the depths of the front border.

I deadheaded butterfly bushes and whacked back fennel last weekend, and the garden looks pretty good again. I highly recommend plenty of late bloomers to keep things from going to heck once August rolls around.

One of the older butterfly bushes, Buddleia ‘Royal Red’ has a nice height and grace that many of the newer hybrids lack. Yes, I know it’s not really red.

Even if you can’t keep things in full bloom, there are always grasses. They look good on their own right, but also do a good job covering up the less than impressive June and July bloomers.

Along the street, Pennisetum ‘Karley Rose’, ‘Karl Foerster’ feather reed grass, and russian sage (Perovskia) have enjoyed the drier weather and lack of towering sunflowers… plus I ripped out a ton of echinacea and mountain mint.

I guess late summer grasses are a seasonal look.

Geranium ‘Rozanne’. I’m about ten years late in raving about how nice it is, but it is.

When everything dried out I thought this would be the year I replant bearded iris all over again, but only a few went in before the rains returned. Maybe next year I’ll be more firm. Come to think of it the Arundo donax grass at the end really has become a little overwhelming, and groundcover junipers? So boring when a big patch of iris in bloom could give me some inspiration (says the person who will be grateful in January when the juniper is green).

I like certain dead and dying things, but not until November! Much was chopped back and I think the less is more look works out alright… although my neighbors would laugh if I tried to convince them this is a “spare” look 🙂

New iris or not, the front border looks ok but the tropical border isn’t even close to calling it quits. I was hating it in spring, and cut way back on the spring planting here, but it’s still plenty of too much. Maybe not tropical, maybe more just a mess of annual color, but just think of how much more tolerable it makes the September Slide.

The cannas are practically dwarfed this year, but a few other things enjoyed the drier soil.

Honestly I can’t believe I made it through all the work of prepping, planting, staking, mulching, deadheading, weeding… but I did. Most of it was just a matter of putting my phone down for a while and getting off my lazy….

A gift last year, this year I’ve finally given ‘Tsuki-Yori-No-Shisha’ the care and attention this dahlia deserves.

I’m down to just a few dahlias and it’s so much less work. Thinking about more is a terrible idea and so hopefully I get at least one more year of freedom before another bout of weakness in February strikes.

I do like this peach cactus dahlia. Others have come and gone, but this one is probably pushing fourteen years with me.

Dahlias, cannas, elephant ears, bananas… I never know when the addiction will flare up again.

Dahlia ‘Mathew Alan’. As you may have noticed I have a weakness for the cactus style.

For now I won’t even worry about digging or cooling night-time temps or shorter days. I’ll just enjoy it while it’s here and maybe start thinking about autumn in another month.

A very subtle, peach colored Salvia splendens. Growing from seeds can always leave you with surprises.

Have a great week! The weather here promises to get hotter again tomorrow before cooling off for the weekend. Not cool enough to make me think closing the pool was a good idea, but at least cool enough to sit in the sun and do nothing rather than sit in the shade 😉

Imma Savage

Aug4

The weather is hot, the weather (was) dry and the gardener spent a three day weekend spreading mulch. He was not lazy. He showed no mercy. Sentiment was shed like a stream of sweat as plants were moved, underperformers were whacked, and all the mistakes and shortcomings of 2020 were buried under a fresh brown frosting of shredded bark mulch.

Edged and mulched, the front yard looks very... neat. — Edged and mulched, the front yard looks very… neat. Not bad considering the lawn has only been cut once in five weeks.

There was actually more involved than just three days of hard labor. The weekend before I had the gardener start ripping out and chopping down anything which didn’t please me, stunted things, dried up things, things which were just too crowded and taking up too much space. A few runs were made for free township compost, and the most promising plantings got some pre-game mulch to hold the moisture and give a good shot of nutrients going prior to the big event.

Along the street there’s no towering wall of sunflowers this year. Even the purple coneflowers were stunted and about half were pulled due to the lack of rain. Thinning, some compost and watering, and then a coat of bark mulch really made a difference.

Transplanting annuals in 90+ (33C) heat should be frowned upon, but since the gardener was not smiling anyway it seemed appropriate. The zinnias and verbena survived.

About two wheelbarrows full of fennel left the front border, plus a bunch of other dried stalks from June. Now I can almost see the stunted cannas and butterfly bushes.

I have to admit I’ve been watering the zinnias and a few other things for the last few weeks. It’s been worth it, and since I’ve been informed on exactly how much the water bill has gone up, I can tell you exactly how much it’s been worth. No doubt it will be worth even more next month when an even higher water bill surprises the mailbox.

Agapanthus ‘Blue Yonder’ has earned its regular watering. Perfect foliage and at least three weeks of this strong blue color is quite awesome, and I hope no one is tiring of seeing this same plant every year.

When I went to order the mulch, my mulch guy said “that’s a lot of mulch”. He was right of course and the price was not so I cut back to the smaller truck and still had plenty. Several areas remain which could have used a coating, but as I filled the last load into the wheelbarrow I was thanking my mulch guy again and again for saving me from myself.

Around the side of the house and into the backyard. Moisture from the neighbor seeps down through the tropical garden and from a distance it looks almost lush 🙂

Mulching in August is probably a stupid move, but I wouldn’t expect anything less from my gardener. It takes forever for him to work mulch in between plants, and of course things need clearing out, pruning, and edging and all that adds to the work involved. On the plus side, there’s less mulch needed since a full flowerbed usually doesn’t need mulch extending any more than a foot or so in from from the edge. Less mulch means less money and I think you know where I stand on that.

Most of the best gardens boast classic topiary in one form or another. Obviously we would expect no less here in almost suburbia.

The potager did not need mulch, but that of course did not spare the vegetables from my savagery. Potatoes were dug, onions harvested, and another few tons of zucchini were brought into the house for processing and gifting. A woodchuck was trapped. The trap was brought over to the car for a trip elsewhere. The woodchuck escaped… fortunately just before the trap was placed in the car…

Cabbage transplants are in although this family rarely eats cabbage. Perhaps the woodchuck will return and take care of that, just like he took care of the broccoli (leafless stalks, lower left corner) and parsley (leafless stalks alongside orange marigolds).

I took my woodchuck frustrations out on the boxwood. Even in my most savage moments there’s a calm satisfaction in seeing an unruly hedge go from wooly to neat, and although the zen of trimming with expensive hand shears is extremely overrated, I did survive.

The potager is too neat. Trimmed hedges are nice, but I think it needs more jungle so perhaps this week’s rain will do the trick.

As the gardener continued to mulch past the potager he could feel his will to live slowly begin to fade. Fortunately the pile of mulch remaining in the driveway was also fading, and with just a few more edges to do that works out just fine. More mulch might have tempted me to just bury the entire shade garden and put it out of its misery since the weak little rain showers which almost kept the lawn green never penetrate the red maple canopy which shades this area.

Everything looks wilted and sad, but for the most part nothing ever dies. Of course it never really looks good either, but…

Dry beds and dry mulch did have the advantage of being easy to clear, and easy to shovel and spread, but the dust was terrible. Normally I’d just put on one of my dust masks, but since the mulch was in the front yard I didn’t want the neighbors seeing and thinking I don’t support our leader, so I suffered my way through and tried to cough it all up later.

So the job is now done. We are expecting around two inches of rain today as the remnants of Isaias pass through and the view will likely change, but at least the mulch should look even nicer as plants (hopefully) burst back into life. The gardener will need a few days to rest up and rehydrate as well, so that works out… although there are still bags and bags of daffodils to go through and cyclamen need repotting.

Fortunately it never ends. Have a great week!

Curb Un-Appeal

Jun27

A few weeks ago I was next door talking to my neighbor. The iris were in bloom and he’s got a few clumps of a rich purple iris in his front yard (‘Lent A Williamson’ is the ID I gave them although I’m sure he doesn’t care) which were putting on an excellent display. A car slowly pulled by and after a polite wave the driver opened the window to say “I love your iris, I drive this way just to see them”. I bit my tongue. After a couple seconds passed, my neighbor realized the compliment was directed towards him, and said thanks. He looked at me. It just about killed me, I have iris too.

The house from the street. I believe one of the first rules of curb appeal is to compliment, not block, the house. Also large thistles should not become focal points.

We got a good laugh about it once she left. I do like to show off my most exciting plants, but I realize they’re not to everyone’s taste, and the “overflowing” look of the plantings is focused more on the plants than the setting of the house. Even the 12 year old said she doesn’t like it when it all gets so big, but when I mentioned moving out she gave me her pre-teen eye-roll of disgust… which I’m sure will only develop more as she finishes up middle school.

More thistles around the corner. Cirsium eriophorum is the European woolly thistle, and I just came up with the brilliant idea of pulling a few coneflowers out from along the street and planting the newest batch of seedlings there.

Before selling our previous house I spent a few weeks ripping things out and simplifying plantings. If I ever cared to impress the neighbors or list this property I’d surely repeat the process here. Lots of mulch, a clear view of the house, and sheared foundation shrubbery would put an appropriately sterile stamp of conformity onto the real estate head shot, and I’m sure it would scare fewer people away.

Look at that mullein, it’s a keeper! Eight feet tall and counting, the blooms are opening nice and large and I’m hoping it keeps going all summer. The mullein, along with poorly trimmed and poorly placed trees and shrubbery, all add to the screen that blocks the curb view of our house.

Just to be clear there is no talk of moving. We have to stay at least 30 more years in order to reach the point of break-even on all the lumber purchased for the potager re-do. For the accountants out there we finally went over the hump and added about $6.75 to the plus column for the salads we’ve picked in the last few days, and $6 worth of cauliflower as well. Those were some exciting first harvests, so obviously we’re not going to dwell on the $89 which went into the liability column for a new hose and additional lumber.

Delphinium in bloom are often enough of a distraction to keep people from noticing the bags of drying colchicum and narcissus bulbs lined out along the front porch. **please note the snow shovel was just put there recently and hasn’t been sitting there since last winter**

So even if you can look past the unpruned, questionable design, and overlook the stray bags of bulbs and garden tools, there’s still always that massive pile of sand blocking the driveway. “You’re always busy doing something” was the polite way another neighbor dealt with that topic.

The common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) by the front door is in full bloom. I’ll cut it back by half once it’s done flowering, not just to keep it neat, but also to invite the Monarchs to lay their eggs on the new growth that sprouts up.

A myopic view of things lets me enjoy things anyway, and in my opinion when everything else is going to heck there’s always plenty of little things to be thrilled with. Like milkweeds. They’re much more interesting than people give them credit for, and far more useful in the garden than just caterpillar fodder. This week I have a new one in bloom… finally… after years of trying seeds and nursing seedlings.

Asclesias purpurascens, the descriptively named ‘purple milkweed’. This one’s been tricky for me and maybe that’s just because it refuses to put up with the abuse and neglect which I leave it to. I love the dark color though, and did water a little after seeing its leaves curling up from the dry.

I hope the purple milkweed continues to grow in spite of this shift to drier summer weather. There was brief consideration given to trying it out in a new spot but after reading online that it can be hard to get established it’s staying put. I’ve killed it in other spots already so why rush.

The first of the Verbena bonariensis filling in. The verbena is a great drought tolerant filler for years like this, and I might transplant a few out for color in August.

There are plenty of other things to do rather than kill off new milkweeds. I spent Friday night weeding and “editing” the front border and was planning on finishing today but surprisingly enough there’s been some rain and it’s now too humid and sticky to work. The rain only took the edge off the dry soil and refueled the gnats but it was a good excuse to go for icecream instead. I don’t think that’s a bad tradeoff.

Have a great weekend!

Into Summer

Jun20

This might be the driest this garden has been in about four years and that’s ok. Warm and dry means the lawn stops growing, and unless I’m being really obsessive about clover flowers, I can just leave it unmown for a week or two and it doesn’t look much worse for the neglect. Obviously my vote is always for less work, and the few bees which forage the lawn seem happy with this arrangement as well, but I do notice that none of the other lawns look as nicely “decorated” with flowers. Again, that’s ok. It’s dry, but not too dry, and although a few wilted things here and there tug at my conscience as I walk by, it’s not enough to bring me down. When things go crispy that’s when I start mumbling and luckily we’re not there yet.

The front border is again being dominated by the more drought tolerant plants. No jungle this year.

Weeding has been a breeze with less water around. I just hit the sheets of verbena and fennel with the hoe once and most dried up in the sun the next day. The prickly lettuce is stunted, the crabgrass is anemic. It’s kind of quiet out there.

A few years old from seed, kniphofia caulescens is finally putting on a nice show this year. I love the color and shape, but they pass so quickly so I’m pleased there are still a few more stalks on the way.

There was a decent scattering of clouds yesterday morning so I hurried out to see if I could get a few photos before the glare of the sun returned. My photo skills are like that and I don’t think I’ll ever amount to anything more than a point and shooter, so I just wait for overcast moments and then take as many as I can. Funny how I always seem to end up admiring the weeds more than anything else.

Yes, I still love thistles. These approve of the drier soil and the stunted sunflowers. (Scotch thistle, Onopordum acanthium

So I’ve recently gone on and on about my mullein and I’ll spare you from that for a few more days, but there are some nice thistles around the yard and I’m thinking I need more again. Obviously they’re easy to grow, so a good choice for me, but other weeds are also doing well.

The fresh chartreuse of ‘Sunny Side Up’ pokeweed (Phytolacca americana) coming up strong in the front border. I apologize to those of you who are tired of seeing this amazing plant yet again.

Just for liability reasons, let it be known milkweed should never be planted in a perennial border. It will spread all over and you’ll regret it.

Common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) spreading throughout the border and welcoming guests to the front porch. It’s a few days away from blooming and I’m looking forward to enjoying the scent as it drifts through the air. Maybe I’ll pull a few shoots after the bloom ends… maybe…

I wonder if any of my neighbors realize just how many of the plants here are considered weeds. A parent came by to pick up a child and said the yard looked nice and it seemed like I had quite a few unusual things growing. That could be good or bad, but I chose good, and hoped she didn’t notice afterwards that the daisies are remarkably similar to the ones all along the highway and filling every vacant lot along the way. I suspect nothing was noticed. Actually my mother in law asked me later that day if she should plant a few in a problem spot behind the house. Not a bad idea I said, but then shot myself in the foot when I pointed out the dried remains of all the daisies she sprayed with roundup the week before. She told me to forget it, she’ll see what they have at Lowes…

Something else. Sand. A couple tons of it.

Having several tons of sand sitting in your driveway can go a long way towards distracting people from the fact you’re growing a lot of weeds. It’s a big pile and that hasn’t changed much since it was delivered Monday, but I’m quite happy about it, and the sand has me feeling rich because (1) there’s so much of it and (2) it’s soooo nice and clean and gritty, and (3) it’s part of the finishing touches for the potager reboot.

Here’s where we’re at. It looks terrible but I’m blessed with the gift of seeing things how I want them to be rather than what they really look like. Give me another week or two and maybe I can explain my “vision” 🙂

In spite of how it looks, the potager has been on the receiving end of most of the attention and fussing that the gardener has been passing out this year. Everything else has been forced to tough it out sans water, but the veggies are weedfree and irrigated, and I even had to drag in seating so I could just sit and admire the new space. Sadly this enthusiasm doesn’t extend past the raised beds, and if you look just two feet over, all the promise of a bed filled with poppies and garden phlox is yellowing as it awaits moisture.

A little water would have gone a long way towards making this bed a showplace…. but it didn’t happen and the ‘Patty’s Plum’ poppies are starting to dry up just when they should be covered in flowers.

Sorry poppies, you’ll have to set your seeds and hope for better year in 2021. I hear that’s a common sentiment. In the meantime, other plants are ahead of the game and have already gone through some funny business in regards to seed setting. The yellow foxgloves (Digitalis grandiflora) took advantage of some lazy deadheading and then some lazy weeding and have formed a nice patch of seedlings where there was but one yellow foxglove last year. A curious thing happened though. I believe Mrs. Yellow Foxglove has not been faithful to Mr. Yellow Foxglove and instead has been entertaining Mr. Rusty Foxglove (Digitalis ferruginea) from down the street. The proof is in the shading, and I’m sure the delivery room was quite the agitated place as Mrs. F tried to explained all the rusty children to her equally pale husband.

Yellow foxglove in the back with various hybrids in front. I don’t think it’s uncommon for foxgloves to cross like this and of course I like the diversity it adds to the garden.

Another blooming surprise is taking place on the swingset. The native Dutchman’s pipe (Aristochola macrophylla) has taken off this spring and is full of the curious little pipes which this vine family is named for. They’re not the showiest things and I think the only reason my attention was drawn that way was through the overheard conversation between my daughter and a friend about the plant taking over her playset. I think it’s just fine but apparently they think it’s a little too much, so I guess some day soon I’ll be giving it a trim. Maybe. Probably later rather than sooner since right now I’m quite pleased with all the big felty leaves hanging all over the place. No surprise there since the species name macrophylla means just that, big leaves.

The oddly shaped flowers of the Dutchman’s Pipe (Aristolochia macrophylla)

The Dutchman’s Pipe family is quite the group with annual and tropical members and even more bizarre flowers being the rule rather than the exception. The tropical Pelican flower (Aristolochia gigantea) is the gigantea version, complete with face-sized fleshy looking flowers. Very cool to see… and look at that, it’s available online for a click… but let’s stop there before I get into trouble. There’s another native macrophylla in the yard this year, a magnolia in this case.

Magnolia macrophylla, the Southeast US ‘bigleaf’ magnolia… planted way too close to the house of course.

Three or four years from a seed, this magnolia has recovered from a late spring freeze and is now enthusiastically putting out a few of the huge leaves this species is famous for. Famous might be an overstatement, but I love it, and right now while it’s still below eye level and looking all cool I’m not even thinking about its mature height or its very inappropriate placement.

Big hand on big leaf. The underside of these leaves also have a cool fuzz, and in the fall they dry and curl and the fuzz is even better, and they’re still big, and….

There’s a more dwarf form of the bigleaf magnolia (Magnolia macrophylla ssp. Ashei) that would surely have been a more sensible choice for this garden, but again I digress. Let’s just abruptly end here since after all these photos were taken the sky became even darker, thunder began to rumble, and we enjoyed a nice summer downpour… which oddly enough was just a few days too early to destroy the delphinium show.

Also unaffected by the storm were the pseudata iris (Iris pseudacorus x ensata ‘Okagami’).

So the ground is refreshed and now the lawn needs mowing, vines needs trimming, the weeds will erupt, the sand is heavier, and the bugs have been energized. Actually it’s pretty awesome even with all the additional work, so let me go and get busy out there before the sunshine and pool distract. Hope it’s a beautiful weekend where you’re at as well.

sorta like suburbia

more than you ever wanted to know about my garden

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