Spare the rod

My nemesis the sunflower.

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

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

Future birdfood.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Peak bloom on dahlia ‘happy single flame’.

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

Brazilian button (Centratherum punctatum)

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

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

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

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

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

Browallia americana

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

A good foundation

Aug10

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Color for the neighbors

Aug8

It’s a small slice of suburbia in which I live. There’s nothing I consider a city nearby, yet faced by the acres of surrounding forest I guess we do huddle a bit on the outskirts of a sorta urban area in a sorta subdivision…. but even with the lack of a hustle bustle and heavy traffic, I do like to have a little shelter from the street and a little color for the neighbors. Not exactly ‘curb appeal’, a term which makes me cringe when applied to any property not listed for sale, but it’s definitely colorful and whether the neighbors like it or not (they never really say, although I’m sure they talk) it does liven the block up for the half dozen neighbors and dog walkers which actually come by this way.

Butterfly bush (buddleia ‘Royal Red’ and ‘Pink Delight’) are now joining the black eyed Susans which have taken over the border. The bearded iris which dominated in June are all nearly overgrown by this time of year!

Usually this border holds a lot more late summer and autumn color. Annuals such as zinnias castor beans, and tender perennials such as cannas and dahlias, pick up at the end of the year just as the summer perennials are beginning to look a little tired. It’s a different story this year though, as things got away from the gardener and the rudbeckias took over.

There’s nothing subtle about golden rudbeckias, but they do match the brightness of the sun. At this point of the year I don’t even mind the formerly ‘too bright’ orange and pink sunpatients my daughter planted along the front.

And again I won’t complain. I love the color, it looks great from the front porch, and I’ll deal with the ‘going to seed’ phase when its time comes. Right now I’m just amazed we’ve had enough rain to keep the grass green all summer (although the actual work of mowing all this green grass is less than amazing).

The beds do look better framed by green grass. Not bad considering the last two years were both marked by hot, dry, completely dormant (surely dead looking) turf patches…. for three entire months…

You may remember I mulched this bed completely with barely decayed, shredded leaves this spring. It’s worked wonders for the soil quality and number of weeds, but it also greatly reduced the number of self seeders which normally fill the bed. Purple Verbena bonarensis and the brilliant red Ipomopsis rubra (standing cypress) are sparse this year, but Euphorbia marginata (snow on the mountain) has not missed a beat. Even after ruthless weeding there are still plenty of the cool white bracts showing up throughout the border and I can see how this native of the west has naturalized itself all across most of the US and Canada.

The white streaked leaves of snow on the mountain form around the tiny flowers and eventually form a large ‘tree’ of white.

The snow on the mountain will look good until fall, but several of the earlier bloomers might not. The bright magenta blooms of Lychnis Coronaria are long gone, but I can’t bring myself to pull up the nicely branched gray spent flower stalks. I like them and as far as I’m concerned they can stay as long as they want.

Karl Foerster feather reed lychnis coronaria

Even gone to seed some things still look good. I’ll never get tired of ‘Karl Foerster’ feather reed grass in the seedy stage, but this year even the Lychnis coronaria plants in front still look good. Must be all the rain.

A backup plan isn’t the worst idea. In my head these leftover cannas were going to go into carefully prepared spots throughout the front border. They’ve been sitting on the driveway unplanted since April and just go to show how hardy some plants can be.

A clump of roots dumped on the concrete and still managing to grow. A better gardener would cut their losses and move on… I’m still imagining they’ll get planted before frost 🙂

The canna were intended as a replacement for this ‘Blue Bird’ rose of Sharon. I’ve come to the conclusion I just don’t like it and want it out…. no real reason, just something about it bugs me…

The blue flowers are the original ‘Blue Bird’ Rose of Sharon plant, the pink are up and coming seedlings. My question of whether or not they come true from seeds was answered by a no, and I’m glad to now know for sure! btw- the big leaf in front is Angelica gigas, a plant which I’m hoping will be *very* cool!

A plant which does NOT bug me is hydrangea ‘Limelight’. Right now it’s just going from lime to pure white and it’s a mountain of soft flower heads and I admire it every day. Personally I feel like the plant doesn’t like me, since it always seems just a little short of water and lacking just a little bit of fertilizer but apparently it doesn’t hold that against me and blooms reliably each summer. The bush is up to about six feet now and I should really take a few cuttings to try it in a better location and see what it’s really capable of!

Hydrangea ‘limelight’ hanging over into the street.

Something that didn’t need a better location are all the sunflowers which returned. Here’s a 5+ foot tall plant which somehow managed to grow out of a less than 1/2 inch crack in the concrete edging along the street.

Sometimes you can’t hold a good plant down.

The hydrangea isn’t all for the benefit of the neighbors, I see plenty of it from the house as well and its mature size does a good job in balancing out the masses of gold and the large clump of variegated giant reed grass (arundo) at the border’s end. Have I mentioned my love for this grass? It’s listed as invasive in the deep south, but up here in the cold North its vigor is just enough to make it exciting.

The street border from the far end. Golden rudbeckias still dominate but I’m fine with that 🙂

You may have noticed the fluffy white seedheads of one of this years favorite plants (although I may be alone in my favor for this spiny, poky almost-weed). The lackluster mauve, bottlebrush blooms of the Ptilostemon diacantha were nothing to go ga-ga over, but the seed heads are interesting enough and you can still make out some of that awesome foliage as it slowly dies off. I’m going to make a point of collecting these in a few days since the thistle seedheads look suspiciously weedy.

Ptilostemon diacantha. The name is a mouthful and I far prefer the name suggested by Linda B. “Ghost thistle” sounds almost friendly!

So that’s the front border. It takes a little bit of work to get it cleaned up in the spring, I’m always looking for ways to ‘tweek’ the plantings, but for the most part when the perennials take over (like they did this year) it’s one of the lower maintainence areas in the yard. A smarter person would stick with this plan, but I’m already considering removals and bulking up the annuals again. Annuals are a lot of work 🙂

One “maybe” problem could be in the colors. My weakness for yellow foliage is really showing and adding a few darker shades might not be the worst idea. Hmmm, maybe I can replace the invasive burning bush with a nice purple smokebush? Something to consider….

Lots of yellow. I think all the best gardens are avoiding yellow these days….

From the front border we’ll go to the foundation plantings. They’ve taken off a bit as well!

Roadtrip to Long Island

Aug5

Summer always seems to hit like a whirlwind around here, and during the season where the garden is changing and showing off more than ever the blog which is supposed to tell the story always enters a slump. The gardener is busy outside of course, and posting about it falls to the wayside. That’s bad though since going back through the pictures of seasons past is a favorite activity for the desolate dark days of winter and I need that sunny cheerful reminder to keep me going when icy cold locks up everything. So let me apologize for the slowdown and also for the lack of visits to other blogs. I still stop by of course and look, but more in a wallflower way taking it all in but not commenting… oh, and I’ll also apologize in advance if there are too many posts over the next few days. I’m going to try and catch up and I hope I don’t seem like that other party person, the one who just goes on and on 🙂

A prairie planting in Stony Brook NY

I grew up on Long Island and still return as much as I can to visit my parents and my brother’s family. This last time while the kids were playing and others were visiting doctors and shopping, I snuck off alone for a visit to the Avalon Park and Preserve in Stony Brook, NY for a summertime peek at their fields of prairie plantings. I was not disappointed.

In mid July Heliopsis helianthoides (false sunflower) dominates the former farm fields of Avalon. Keep in mind this photo was taken from above since most topped out at around five feet!

This is North shore Long Island, gold coast, old money territory, and with a location approximately 40 miles out of Manhattan it’s retained much of its city escape feel. Think Great Gatsby, and although most of the old mansions have either fallen to ruins or been leveled there are still plenty of old estates and gentleman’s farms. Fences and gates usually separate the common people from these retreats but in this case several tracts were purchased and the gates were opened.

Common milkweed dotted the prairie but I didn’t see a single nibbled leaf or monarch caterpillar.

Avalon is made up of three sections, Avalon Park is a manicured area with woodland plantings, walking trails, and art features, Avalon Preserve consists of hiking trails through woodland, old field hedgerows, and the prairie plantings, and East Farm Preserve is a Nature Conservancy property accessible through the Avalon sections. The three parts combine to form a nice cross section of Long Island’s former wilder self.

Paul Simmons memorial at Avalon Park and Preserve.

Although today the park is a peaceful oasis filled with children playing and friends strolling, the origins of the park are rooted in grief. In 1996, 34 year old Paul Simmons was killed by automobile collision while cycling nearby. To celebrate his life and love of the outdoors the park was created. At the site of a former pre-park residential building a memorial for Paul has been built, with an adjacent meditation labyrinth. On this visit art installations of colorful knit ‘tree sleeves’ and hanging patterns dotted the area.

Meditation circle

The park plantings, buildings, and care reflect a healthy park endowment and it’s not surprising considering that the father of Paul Simmons is one of the world’s wealthiest men. James Simons is a math man who has translated his mathematical talents into the financial markets and stands somewhere in the 70-80 range of wealthiest people worldwide (around 30th for wealthiest Americans). His story is a fascinating one, but his estimated 14 billion net worth surely hasn’t hindered park funding, and is always the subject of whispered stories in the three villages area of who works for his remarkably successful Renaissance Technologies and what their annual take home pay might be.

A second residence on purchased park property has been transformed from a 1940’s ranch to a coastal New England style park office, ready for park foundation functions and always immaculately manicured.

Coming down out of park brings you down to the Stony Brook mill pond. This is the duck pond I loved visiting back in the day and is the power source for the Stony Brook grist mill (c.1751). As recently as 1940 the mill was still carrying on the work of grinding local grains into flour and even today the wheels are put into motion on summer weekends for the sake of tourists. It’s an area rich in history from the sea captains who settled around the harbor, to the colonial farms which cover the rolling hills, to the Manhattan escapees who missed the train to the Hamptons and ended up here.

Cormorants nesting on a mill pond island. These are relatively recent arrivals to the area, only now recovering from their fish-robbing persecution from days gone by.

I love this area for its quiet waterfront peacefulness and many hidden treasures, but on this visit it was the flower filled fields which really made me smile. On a still summer morning the low hum of thousands of native bumblebees visiting the flowers and the less-than-springtime-frantic chirping of songbirds really worked magic to calm the day.

Avalon prairie plantings. Even with the heliopsis blooms dominating early summer, there were plenty of other native grasses and colorful perennials to carry on for the rest of the year.

Good thing the day started out relaxed. Summertime beach visits and afternoons spent barbequing can be so stressful 🙂

Cousins exploring the salt marsh near West Meadow beach in Setauket, NY.

Now back to the garden. We’ve been to Florida and back in the meantime and catching up in the garden has been an uphill battle against Japanese beetles and crabgrass…. but there’s been plenty of pool time too, so I really can’t complain!

Viva la summer 🙂

The sputtering tropics

Jul17

Again I’m trying to recapture the tropical gardens of years past, but again I’m falling short. The fault is entirely my own though and I know that, but in NE Pennsylvania tropical plantings mean around six months of empty planting area and I just don’t have enough self control to keep them perennial and bulb-free. Really… in October how bad can it be to slip in an extra daffodil or lily?

First year blooms on ‘Liberty Hyde Bailey’. Photo credits for this artistic shot go to the wife, to tell the truth I wasn’t so sure she even knew where the garden was, let alone was interested in taking any pictures 😉

To my credit serious mulching with every scrap of mulched leaves and any garden debris I could send through the mower has substantially reduced last year’s problem. The problem was that this bed was overrun with sunflowers, and if we ignore the fact that the gardener himself was responsible with planting them we can pretend that only having a half dozen or so of the plants this year is an improvement. Still a few self seeded anyway and hopefully this more manageable patch won’t again overshadow the ‘tropical’ look with ‘overgrown agricultural’. -and for the record I did rip out at least another dozen healthy sunflower seedlings, and nearly drove myself to drink over the guilt (but after a hard day of work what gardener doesn’t deserve a cool drink?)

A few sunflowers coming up but hopefully enough bright color and big leaves to make it look tropical. I only had enough bark mulch for the outer edge, the rest is lawn clippings.

Mulching has been an obsession lately. I raided the neighborhood woods again and brought home a few wheelbarrows of stinky dumped grass clippings which I used to cover the inner reaches of the bed. It was just in time to smother tons of baby weeds but most importantly the rotting grass was a solid dose of fertilizer for all the little goodies coming up. Within a few days everything turned a lush green and started putting out new growth. It was amazing what a difference the grass made and I’m sure the earthworms are pleased as well. In order to keep it more presentable I robbed some leftover wood mulch from next door and tidied up the edges of the bed with a few shovelfuls of that. It’s the dyed mulch which I’m not crazy about, but it being free really appealed to my budget sense.

I also leveled and set the mismatched stone and paver bits which pave the shortcut between our yard and grandma’s pool. It looks halfway decent now and is much less of an ankle twister.

Even with plants in and mulch applied, the bed is still not out of the woods. There’s always a problem child or two. First it’s the chrysanthemums which I planted and meant to transplant once spring rolled around. That didn’t happen and to add insult to injury they are coming into bloom now…. just when I don’t need fall color.

‘Mammoth yellow quill’ chrysanthemum looking good in July. I guess next year I’ll pinch in May and try to delay bloom, mums in September would have been nicer!

Another problem are the two cannas I bought. They were from a reputable online nursery and were listed as showing no signs of virus, but the first leaves tell a different story. A refund is already on my account but I really wanted to add a healthy canna ‘Musifolia’ and ‘Pretoria’ to the bed. the leaf streaking and yellowing/browning patches are sure signs of canna virus so these have regrettably been thrown to the trash.

These leaves should have a lush, solid green, but instead are showing the streaks and mottling of canna virus.

As usual the third problem child is me. How could I pull out this lusty little bull thistle?

An excellent example of a weed. The goldfinches will appreciate the seed heads of this thistle, and surprisingly enough I don’t get many seedlings even when I let them grow. They seem to need open soil to sprout which is not easy to find around here.

As the tropical garden puts on some weight and gets ready for August I’m going to see if my tidying and weeding streak can finally extend next door to the not-so-red-border. It needs the help, but so far all I’ve managed is the start of an access path which will circle around through the back of the border. I’ve been eliminating the weedy campanulas and moving out other plants but still have a long way to go.

The start of a new path through the back of the red border. Unfortunately that was as far as my free mulch would take me….

What is summer without a few projects? Hopefully my neighbors will oblige me with more grass clippings, maybe temperatures will stay low, and maybe I can blaze a path through the thicket which is beginning to take over. I won’t even mention the water filled hole which has formed where the pond used to be. All the rain we had has made this area into a soggy mess!

hemerocallis altisima and raspberry wine monarda

Topping out at around 5 and a half feet, this daylily (hemerocallis altisima) looks cool with the dark blooms of ‘Raspberry Wine’ monarda and a few other leftovers from back when this bed was loved. The tall grass (Miscanthus giganteus) is thriving on all the extra rain and is at least two feet over the neighbor’s six foot privacy fence.

I guess it’s a start, and time will tell if it’s also an end. With two weeks of vacation coming up and plenty of weekend trips in between, I may just sit back and enjoy summer rather than sweat out another bed re-do. The wooliness doesn’t seem to bother anyone other than myself and digging is always more pleasant in September!

Hello Susan

Jul10

My intention this spring was to keep the front yard a little more organized and really put my foot down against the reseeders which took over last summer….. but then the rest of the world happened and just like many good intentions my organization theme fell to the wayside. This year rudbeckias took over.

Rudbeckias, black eyed Susans, gloriosa daisies, whatever you want to call them these rudbeckia hirta hybrids really bring gold to the front border. Fyi this is as far along the bed as the edging and mulching got this spring. You can see my spade handle just where I left it about two months ago 🙂

For as much as I like the softer yellows, and for as summery a tint golden yellow is, bright gold is probably one of my least favorite flower colors. The golden takeover of the front garden really goes against any design theory I have for this bed and I suppose if I were of the more controlling type it would cause me a little mental turmoil but I think I’m ok with the brightness. It helps bring a little sun to what’s so far been a pretty wet and ‘pearly’ summer.

rudbeckia hirta gloriosa daisy perennial bed

The front border with plenty of rudbeckias. I was firm with seedlings of amaranth, standing cypress, and oxeye daisies but this year the black eyed Susans slipped by.

A casual passerby might think things look well under control and maybe even close to well tended, but just inside the bed turmoil reigns. Here the inner section was supposed to be a restful patch of dark leaves canna…. which it’s not… because too many ‘good enough’ plants came up and the gardener just didn’t have the heart to pull them out. It worked out for the best though, the variety of green centered and brown eyed rudbeckia which grew is a nice tradeoff (as long as you can continue to ignore the unplanted cannas sitting on the driveway).

Mixed shades of selfsown rudbeckia seedlings.

There used to be a greater variety of darker shades mixed in with the straight gold daisies but over the last few years I’ve tended to pull the browned eyed versions. They seem more prone to mildew in my garden and rather than look at that I just pull them and send them to the compost before their seed ripens.

A more ‘refined’ view of the border. Less is surely more with these bright colors but to be honest the patches where the rudbeckia grows and blooms thickest are the patches which make me smile 🙂

A week or two ago would have been a good time to seed out a few zinnias to fill in for when I get tired of the fading rudbeckias but all the rain seems to have drowned my seedling tray, so we’ll see what happens now. Fortunately there are always volunteers willing to step up. Here are a few sunflowers coming along (in a totally inappropriate spot) and I know a few verbena bonariensis seedlings could be found elsewhere.

The future sunflower patch. Goldfinches have already been stopping by but they’ve got a few more weeks to wait before this seed factory starts up.

The entire border hasn’t been given over to gold. Here’s a now classic combination of Perovskia, Echinacea, and ‘Karl Foerster” feather reed grass made famous back in the ’90s by the Washington DC based design team of Oehme, Van Sweden. They were one of the pioneers in publicizing the ‘New American’ prairie style planting style which moved American design away from lawns and English style gardens to a more relaxed look filled with lower maintenance swaths of color and forms which sway in the summer breeze.

My Oehme, van Sweden inspired planting of ‘Karl Foerster’ grass, coneflowers, and Russian sage.

Coneflowers also anchor the far end of the bed, and the golden rudbeckias haven’t quite conquered this far down the line.

This end of the border is were my enthusiasm for weeding and maintenance always wears a little thin. As long as the lawn stays mowed and the edges get trimmed I think the weeds and lack of deadheading aren’t quite so noticeable.

The black eyes Susans which grow in this front border are nearly all the tetraploid version of America’s native Rudbeckia hirta, and for plant geeks such as myself the history of these plants is one of those cool wintertime stories which make gardening just that much more interesting. A version of the story can be found by clicking here, but the short summertime summary involves Dr. Blakeslee of Massachusetts’s Smith College treating seed of the native rudbeckia with the genetics altering chemical colchicine and doubling their chromosome count. Eventually David Burpee got a hold of the new race of flowers and set his company to work refining and selecting for more colors and forms, and in 1957 introduced the plants as we know them today. The tetraploid version is bright and big and bold, but the normal diploid Rudbeckia hirta still has its fans for its daintier, summertime wildflower look.

A straight Rudbeckia hirta which showed up in the back garden. I like the spoon shaped petals on this one and hopefully can save a few seeds.

Rudbeckia hirta comes in two basic forms, the regular and the larger tetraploid version. They’re both short lived perennials which may bloom the first year or may die after blooming, depending on their mood, but they’re both far from troublesome. Don’t get this Susan mixed up with the truly perennial, clump forming Rudbeckia fulgida which is just starting to come into bloom now. This one (usually grown as the ‘Goldsturm’ version, another Oehm,Van Sweden favorite as well as Karl Foerster introduction) is another indestructible rudbeckia but for me it’s just too much of a perennial commitment to gold 🙂

Another wild rudbeckia hirta which I’m keeping an eye on out back. It’s a lighter yellow shade with a spidery inward curl to the petals (which often shows up in the darker ones as well). I like it!

So there you have it, the glory of gloriosa daisies in the garden of a gardener who doesn’t like gold. Some will surely point out that I’m in gold loving denial, but daisies and gold are completely common and unrefined and I’m going to try and claim it was against my will and better taste that they took over this summer. Either that or I just don’t care what good taste and garden trends dictate!

Enjoy summer 🙂

At odds in the meadow

Jul3

For as much enjoyment as the meadow garden brings one gardener here, there is another who despises the long grass and messy arrangement of color. She’s also one who has no interest in snowdrops and can’t tell a zinnia from a marigold, but before the name calling starts lets just say the meadow garden is not as popular as one might expect.

The meadow garden in June with appropriate summer seating.

This “garden” amounts to little more than an area of the yard which has been left to fill in with whatever flowers and grasses can make it in the thin, poor soil. In a normal year this 20×60 ft area is a sea of waving grass gone to seed, but coming off last summer’s drought and this spring’s dry spell the grass is a little threadbare and the rudbeckia and butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa) stand out more. On a whim I allowed a few quaking aspen(?) and staghorn sumac (Rhus typhina) to grow up and screen the fence but now these sun hogs are under the protection of the non-gardener and I worry they will further suck the life out of the meadow.

Pennsylvania is not a meadow state and the trees and shrubs are always making advances. We’ll see how much longer the aspen and staghorn sumac (Rhus Typina) are allowed to stay.

I guess easy come easy go is the theme for this area and there will never be any regret for the time not wasted in mowing yet more lawn so we’ll see what happens. It always gets a haircut by the end of summer but I suspect a few trees will need to go sometime soon.

The far end of the meadow. The ‘Annabelle’ hydrangea is not your typical meadow shrub, but I’m sure it is one plant which does enjoy the growing afternoon shade…. as well as all the rain we’ve had recently.

My apologies for a post which deals mainly in weeds. As you know the garden needs more attention at this time of year than there are hours in the schedule so I’d like to leave you with the illusion that the rest of the garden is well under control. That may or may not be the case, but hopefully with our upcoming holiday weekend a few things will get done. Happy Independence Day and enjoy the weekend!

June. Rained out.

Jun25

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining about the rain, but this kind of weather would have been much more welcome in April or May when things were going brown and shriveling up. Still I love it. It’s perfect for the procrastinating planter and the person who hates to lug the hose from plant to plant (that would be me), and by now even the grass has put on a green color once again!

Green grass makes any color look acceptable. I’m finding that gerber daisies are one of my wife’s favorite plants, so on the rare occasion she comes to the nursery who am I to say no?

The rain is also not a problem bloom-destroying-wise since my garden seems to wade through a lull at this time of year. There are plenty of blooms which could be gracing my beds right now but I just don’t have many of them in the ground. My garden peaks closer to the midpoint of summer and beyond, and I’m fine with the extra wait since this time of year is when I always seem to be ironing out the last plantings and thinking through all the projects which may still happen… such as widening the front border (again).

Up near the house the blue of the ornamental fescue fills in an earlier expansion of the foundation bed, here closer to the street you can’t even make out the extra foot or so I added to this bed, so it barely counts as a project.

Sometimes with your nose to the wheel day in and day out you forget that there’s plenty of good coming together while you slave away at the not-so-good. Here if the viewing angle is just right, the front street border looks fairly well put together. A thick mulch of shredded leaves, a nice edge of shredded bark, and removal of nearly half of everything in the bed gives it an ‘under control’ look for at least one month this year. A clean bed edging always helps, but expanding another foot into the lawn really gave some breathing room… I should remember to enforce this rule next year as everything seeds and spreads out into the newly open space!

The front street border this morning. The dark magenta lychnis coronaria and white oxeye daisies are essentially weeds, but if there are just a few I guess it’s socially acceptable.

A plant which spreads out wherever and whenever it wants is my trusty giant reed grass (Arundo Donax ‘variegata’). I smile and make excuses for it when people comment about its possibly too-large size, but deep down I’m proud of it. I won’t even bat an eye when it consumes the iris and other plantings around it 🙂

Arundo donax ‘variegata’ overcoming the far end of the street border.

Another spreader is the ‘Tiger eyes’ sumac which sits in a couple spots around the yard. For me yellow leaved and chartreuse plants are an addiction and I am constantly in need of reminding of the fine line between a few accents and the way-too-much stage, but the tiger takes care of this on his own. He (actually a she since this clone of cutleaf sumacs produces the colorful red female seed heads when mature) will pepper your beds with small yellow shoots here and there and I suppose someday take over the world, but for now I just pull the innocent little shoots.

Pennisetum ‘Karley Rose’ is putting up the first of many fluffy pink seedheads. They’re always dancing about in the wind and keeping things lively. Maybe a few clumps closer to the light pole would look nice next to the bright mess of ‘Tiger Eyes’ which surrounds it right now.

For some reason this spring the kids have been coming along on nursery runs. I suspect they have some hidden agenda which includes a stop at the Dollar Store but regardless I’m going to enjoy their company while it lasts. Both insist on helping pick their own plants and sometimes even want to plant.

Bright magenta Lychnis coronaria faced down with a few sunpatients. The girl insisted on putting labels front and center, I couldn’t quite get out the reason for it. Also I couldn’t talk her out of the magenta-orange combo. This might have to be replanted once she moves on to other things.

The front borders are looking pretty good right now but there are also a few nice surprises out back amongst the weeds. One of my favorites is the first blooms on this strawberry foxglove (Digitalis x mertonensis). It’s been a struggle getting this one to bloom since the harsh winters seem to do a number on the crowns, but this year a few made it, and I finally get to see the strawberry-ish blooms on the relatively short stalks.

digitalis mertonensis strawberry foxglove

A cross-species hybrid of two foxgloves, the strawberry foxglove should be slightly more perennial than the regular type, and hopefully come true from seed as well.

Another spike out in the garden (I like my spiky bloomers) is this verbascum which hitch-hiked in with a gift plant. You know a plant (in this case a shrub dogwood) is coming from a good garden when two special plants tag along on the root ball. This verbascum (maybe V. chaixii?) is blooming nicely now, and follows up some nice scilla blooms which flowered in spring. It was only the dogwood I wanted, but surprises are always fun as well!

Verbascum blooming amongst the sunflower seedlings which I didn’t have the resolve to rip up….. and yes that’s a huge thistle in front of the fence. I like them, please don’t judge me.

Some would call the uninvited sunflower seedlings weeds, many would call the verbascum the same, and many more would immediately rip out the thistle, but I have a more laissez faire approach to the less invasive of the volunteers. I let plenty of things go, but oddly enough this year the beautiful purple campanula glomerata is what I’m ripping out. I’m trying to reclaim the red border, and it’s the campanula which has made a takeover play. Enough is enough so a few weeks ago roundup was sprayed and it’s only a few pretty stalks which remain. I’ll hand pull these and hopefully with a little summertime vigilance will be able to clear this plant out.

Once the campanula was beaten back I realized there are a few really nice plants in this bed. Clematis ‘Ville de Lyon’ is one of my favorites and it deserves much more than the hardscrabble life of a vine left to struggle along the ground…. but it does look even better with the campanula blooms

Another borderline weedy area is the meadow. Last summer’s dry spell weakened the lawn turf so much that it barely had the strength to send up bloom stalks this spring. That’s a shame since I love the look of the tall grass waving in the wind and enjoy watching the bunnies work their way through each morning filling up on seedheads. But the lazy gardener needs to take these things in stride (I could have made the effort to water last year) and realize the daisies and butterfly weed show up much better in the more open meadow.

The meadow garden with some particularly drought tolerant butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa). Depending on my mood and the weather this area will be mown down in late summer to neaten things up keep the taller plants from dominating.

The butterflies are enjoying the meadow, but everything else is focused on the linden blooms (Tilia europaea I think). The tree buzzes with honey and bumble bees, flies, beetles, wasps, and a load of other things which I can’t even identify, and the scent is fantastic and fills the yard with a soft flowery honey aroma. It’s a decent size tree and I can’t even imagine the number of insects which fill its branches. If only I could follow the bees home and get a cut of the honey they’re making from all this.

June is when the linden tree is in its glory.

Another plant which does its own thing without me raising a finger is my trusty hydrangea ‘Annabelle’. New hydrangeas will come and go, but I can’t think of a reason good enough to cut this one loose. It can flop, but in the spring it’s cut back completely and between lean living and full sun it holds up well enough. If I had the room I’d do a mass of these, maybe under a grove of white birches, but here all I have room for is a few scattered along the edge of the yard. Obviously I love the chartreuse of the opening blooms best of all since the next best thing to chartreuse foliage is a chartreuse bloom!

Hydrangea ‘Annabelle’. You can count on this one to bloom every year.

I’ve seen some photos of the newest ‘Annabelle’ siblings and they’re an amazing range or pinks to near reds in addition to the never out of style whites, so I would surely have to add one or two, but I think I’ll always have room for good old ‘Annabelle’. Speaking of room, it’s still a never ending seed starting and cutting taking rollercoaster here and for some reason I still start more. Hopefully I’ll be patting myself on the back when these late marigolds and amaranthus come into bloom and everything else is looking a bit tired!

Still sowing seeds and taking cuttings well into June. They grow so fast at this time of year, I should have fresh flowers in no time at all!

I better get this posted, it’s been a work in progress since the weekend, not because there’s any amazing content in this post, but because I’m stealing minutes from birthday parties, baseball games, and pool time and would rather sneak in a trip to the nursery than sit at the computer 🙂 But lazy summer days are coming and things should ease up shortly, until then may you enjoy summer as much as I do!

Check one corner off

May28

There were a few cool days last week and I was able to drag myself out into the garden and give the vegetable beds a once over (in spite of the dry soil and high pollen counts). I think it looks as good as it gets, and with all the unintentional flowers it may be fancy enough to call a “potager”, as Annette from Annette’s Garden once called it. I like the name and it’s stuck. It has just enough Continental refinement to make me laugh a little when I look at the plastic fencing, weedy sumacs, chainlink and neighboring industrial park!

The potager with neatly edged beds and way too much disorganization. By now the warm weather vegetables should already be in but with last week’s frost I’m kind of grateful for my procrastination.

The work always goes faster with a good helper or two, but studies have shown that nine year old boys don’t typically fall into that category. Still the company is welcome.

A few edible things are starting to fill the beds but I’m always proudest of the fancy pink marble edging which line the plots. In a former life the stone accented the front of the house, but now it helps edge the beds. The look has been called “deep south cemetery” and I’m sure that’s a compliment.

Ok, so even freshly weeded it’s still kind of messy, but I’m far too proud of the crisp edge along the lawn and the freshly mulched boxwood to let that keep me from posting a photo. Our little Queen of the Prairie” must agree. She overlooks the potager but has seen better days as the weather continues to eat away at her plaster self. Might be time to start hitting the estate sales to find a successor.

A very rarefied boxwood edging lines the outer perimeter and I think it really elevates the standing of my hodgepodge of plants. Hopefully I can enjoy it for a few years now that it’s finally growing in, especially since so many European and New England gardeners are facing multiple boxwood problems … blight, caterpillars, ugh.

The iris are at their peak. I should really evict them but never do.

Seems like for every iris clump I remove a few new ones pop up. The compost usually brings in a few but the gardener also tends to feel bad for spare plants and ends up putting the innocent little fans in here and there.

I don’t know what to say about this clump. Two years ago I dumped them here when I needed their real estate for a tomato planting. I never replanted them but apparently they don’t care. Two years in an iris bed with no bloom, two years of being tossed to the side and they look great. Go figure.

Their identities are probably lost, but I think the apricot-pink to the right is ‘Jean Guymer’.

It’s not all flowers, there are a few cool weather vegetables braving the up and down temperatures. Broccoli, lettuce, potatoes, and garlic all look promising, but here the tomato seedlings still all need to be weeded out. If I knew what they were I’d keep them, but I already have more than enough. They’ll stay for a few days longer to keep the ground covered since I don’t want mud splattering up into the yummy little lettuce rosettes when I water.

lettuce mervielle quatre seasons matina sweet

Two favorite lettuces, the never bitter ‘Matina Sweet’ and the darker ‘Mervielle de Quatre Saisons’… which should get a delicious tender green heart in a few more days.

The heat was too much for the arugula. The flowers are nice enough though, and I won’t mind weeding this one out for salads if it goes to seed.

Chives in bloom and arugula bolting as the weather gets warm. Time to plant the summer crops!

Even with the weeding and watering there’s still a ton to do. Some tulips and daffodils will hopefully start coming out this weekend and that should open up room for beans and squash. It may still be May but I’m going to say summer is here, and the next big project will be summer annuals. Even though the plantlets are anxious to get out from under the growlights, I hope to tackle one last big weed patch adjacent to the potager before all my energy is lost. It’s the on again off again red border/ pond bed, and hopefully in the next few weeks there will be some progress there as well.

All kinds of weeds filling the red border. I resorted to roundup along the fence and that’s the only reason it’s not a sea of campanula glomerata.

Wish me luck. We had a good rainstorm come through this afternoon and everything seems to be letting out a big sigh of relieve (including my water meter). Facing next week’s high temperatures with a still-dry garden was not something I was looking forward to, so I’m thrilled!

GBFD The Promise of May

May23

On the 22nd of each month Christina at Creating my own garden of the Hesperides encourages us to look past all the flowers and blooms of the garden and take a second look at what foliage does to support it all. I’m happy to once again take part in the fun, and what better month to do it in than May, the month where my garden really starts to overflow with the promise of the new season. Lets start with the front beds where hosta and self sown columbine have now sprouted up and covered the snowdrop and corydalis beds of early spring.

These blue columbine were originally found in the woods behind the house prior to its clearing for industrial park. They’re just escaped or dumped aquilegia vulgaris, nothing rare or unusual, but I like to keep them around as a reminder. Plus they’re carefree.

This will be our seventh year here and after a slow, cash strapped and baby filled start I think things are finally beginning to look like something. The colors and shapes of the front foundation plantings are still a work in progress but for now the look is finally something I’m no longer bored or annoyed by. – Cathy here are the variegated iris in bloom, they have a fantastic fragrance 🙂

mixed perennial bed as foundation planting

The just recently mulched, expanded and divided plantings of the front foundation planting.

I love the different colors and textures out here at the moment, but my absolute favorite is the “white frosted” Japanese thistle (Cirsium japonicum). I know I’m in a lonely position here, but the prickly thistles always fascinate me, and in my opinion variegation is almost always a plus!

Cirsium japonicum 'White Frosted' Japanese thistle

Cirsium japonicum ‘White Frosted’ with blue fescue and some just divided sedum ‘Bon Bon’.

Even with the iris coming into peak bloom along the street border (it’s a good year for iris here), my favorite plant in this mix is the Ptilostemon diacantha. Some see a spiny weed in need of pulling, I see some of the coolest foliage in the garden.

Historic iris like the poor soil and hot, dry and sunny front border, and even though the pale yellow iris “flavescens” does not like the wind, the reddish ‘Indian Chief’ and lavender ‘Ambassedeur’ stand strong.

I know I’ve already shown this weed a couple times, but I’ve never seen it looking better…. not a difficult feat since this is its first time growing here! I suspect the actual blooms will be a letdown, but the fine texture and pattern of the leaves…. 🙂

Foliage closeup of Ptilostemon diacantha. A biennial thistle from the Balklands/Turkey region in need of a common name. ‘Ivory thistle’ is the only one I came across and that one kind of bores me…. and with blooms of mauve I don’t see the connection.

There are some friendlier foliages as well. The juicy fat clumps of this unnamed sedum spectabile (apparently Hylotelephium spectabile is its new name) always make me smile, no matter how common they might be.

Spring clumps of sedum spectabile. The common types are unkillable, and one plant survived for two years after I put the clump down on a stone step after being distracted while transplanting.

Another foliage favorite which I’m happy to have again is this plant of Silene dioica ‘Ray’s Golden’ Campion, which comes via seed from the talented Nan Ondra of Hayefield. It’s short lived in my garden but easy to grow once you get the seeds planted. Just rouge out the plain green seedlings.

Silene dioica ‘Ray’s Golden’ campion with Artemisia ‘Powis Castle’ coming up behind. This section of bed is still in need of weeding, fortunately the shredded leaf mulch has kept most of the little guys from sprouting.

When you circle the house to get out back, you pass what comes closest to a shade bed in this mostly sun-baked garden. A leaky faucet (left intentionally so for the plants… and laziness) keeps these ostrich ferns and hosta happy here under the dry overhang of the house eaves.

Hosta ‘Frances Williams’ (just barely noticeable to the right) is the mother to all of these hosta seedlings. I was curious to see if any would pick up mom’s variegation, but no luck. All have a similar bluish tint free of any color streaks, a plain look but still beautiful.

The rest of this month’s foliage celebration are also a celebration of wintertime seed sowing. Lets begin with the seed trays.

rumex sanguineus seedlings with 'sunny side up' pokeweed

My obsession with weeds continues. Here the baby pictures of Rumex sanguineus seedlings with ‘sunny side up’ Phytolacca Americana next door make for a pretty combination. Their common names of bloody dock and pokeweed sound much less special 🙂

Any yellow leaved seedling is right up my alley. Out of my American Primrose Society seeds comes this one little oddball. My fingers are crossed I can nurse it along to adulthood.

Primula polyanthus seedlings with one yellow leaved sister. I hope it stays this way and manages to limp through my on again off again care/abuse. -don’t know why the fly had to photobomb the center of this photo.

Another seedling which has somehow escaped neglect and abuse is this third year Rosa glauca. I’m looking forward to seeing this one take off, it just needs to go somewhere other than the tomato bed. Or not. Maybe it would look nice next to a couple golden cherry tomatoes 🙂

Rosa glauca freshly mulched with a shovel full of compost.

Sometimes neglect pays off. The lovely leaves of this lettuce crop are the result of not removing last year’s leftovers until they had bolted and gone to seed. They’ve even come up in a row as this was a ridge of soil where the mulch was blown off during some winter storm. Dare I say this planting is nearly as nice as the seedlings I fussed over for weeks indoors and then carefully transplanted and nursed along?

The quality of my weeds is really coming along. In this photo there’s lettuce, a nice bunch of arugula, phlox, daisies, a daffodil and sunflower. I must stay strong and remove them all… this really is the only spot left where there’s any chance of fitting in a pepper.

Another weed problem are the many chrysanthemum seedlings sprouting around last year’s plantings. I must rip them out as well, I have no room for more mums… says he who has a dozen more new little pots in need of planting.

Not sure why I’m posting weed pictures, but you can make out the tiny leaves of chrysanthemum seedlings here amongst the dandelions and clover.

Weeds aren’t the only issue this spring. The phlox hate the extended dry winds and droughty soil, it brings on the spider mites and I have no interest in spraying for anything. I’ll make an effort though and spray the foliage off with the water hose while watering (just watering in the first place is probably good start), then give them a dose of liquid fertilizer. That and a few more sprays with the water hose might be enough of a shot of goodness to help them outgrow these annoying pests and save this year’s bloom season. I can’t even imagine a phlox-free summer…

What a difference. Phlox ‘Blue Paradise’ on the left has nearly given up under the spider mite attack, while his neighbor to the right only shows a few yellow leaves and yellowed stippling from the spider mites. I may just trim him back completely and hope for the best with any new growth which manages to come up.

One more bad foliage visit. Sweet autumn clematis (Clematis terniflora) is a pest in my meadow garden and each spring I battle the legacy of the single vine planted along the fence next door. I suppose I could spray the clumps and eventually do them in, but I have to admit liking their patterned foliage and late season blooms…. even though I promptly rip the vines off before seed is set.

Japanese clematis Clematis terniflora foliage

Japanese sweet autumn clematis (Clematis terniflora) foliage. I wish this wasn’t such an invasive thug.

To wrap things up I’ll leave you with something a little cheerier. With the exception of a few rabbit decimated plants, the bulk of last years clearance heuchera have overwintered nicely and are showing off their fresh spring foliage (as well as their bland and boring flower stalks). Honestly I don’t like them all together in one big mess, but as plants grow (or die off) I’ll divide the survivors and see if I can work a few clumps into the rest of the garden and make some nicer foliage vignettes.

Mixed heuchera from last year’s Santa Rosa Gardens purchase. Yes this bed also needs weeding and more mulch…

So those are the foliage highlights from this end of Pennsylvania. If you’d like to see what others are up to please visit Christina’s blog to see what people across the world are seeing in their gardens. It’s always inspiring!

Have a great weekend, here we have three days to observe Memorial Day and in addition to the usual holiday activities I hope to catch up on all things blogging. Enjoy 🙂

sorta like suburbia

more than you ever wanted to know about my garden

Category Archives: garden design