Tuesday View: The Tropics 09.06.16

Sep7

One of the benefits of regularly joining Cathy for the Tuesday view has been that little push each week to actually follow up on the observations made the week before. The fear of confessing laziness and sloth publicly has been great for keeping on top of the weeding, deadheading, staking, and planting and it’s also a great regime for someone who goes through bouts of couldn’t-care-less and stretches of I’m-bored-with-this-garden-thing. Now might be one of those bouts, and as the days grow shorter and our latest dry stretch begins to stress plants out again, I look at the water hose and then look at the recliner and typically chose the recliner. So I apologize ahead of time if my mood comes through, I’m sure colchicum season will come along soon enough and snap me back out of it.

A quick picture taken this evening. I find the low sun angles to be absolutely disgusting and far prefer June.

The cannas keep going from strength to strength and I’m glad to see this bit of ‘Cannova Rose’ finally showing off. It went through a rough spot which I suspect were the aftereffects of stray weed killer, but the latest bloom stalks look mostly normal… unless you’re really neurotic and notice that one stalk still has thinner petals and is quicker to fade…

Canna ‘Cannova Rose’, a newer seed strain which grows without complaint (even in cooler weather) but has been pointed out to have somewhat boring foliage. It looks nice with the first flowers of dahlia ‘Mathew Alen’… throw in a few orange zinnias and some purple petunia and you’ve got a nice patch of color.

The dahlias are slowly starting up. They seem late, but that would be because I planted them late, and there’s no sense in complaining about that now. An earlier show would have been nicer is all I’m saying and of course next year none of this will be a problem since as of now next year is still perfect 😉

Had they been staked properly this patch of ‘Sylvia’ and ‘Red Cap’ dahlias would have risen just perfectly amongst the cannas and verbena. Who knows, maybe the red will still rise up a bit, but if it doesn’t serves me right for slacking.

I’m kind of at a loss as to why I’m down to just three or four dahlia varieties. I’m sure in June I had a brilliant plan as to where they were placed and who their neighbors were, but now it seems to all be ‘Mathew Alen’. Vaguely I remember thinking I was bored with a few and felt all empowered when I tossed them onto the compost pile, but naturally I just assumed things would come together later and there would still be a good bit of variety. So much for that. I guess it doesn’t help that several were swamped by other plants… but oh well, another serves me right moment.

Something for the future. If this Colocasia esculenta ‘Tropical Storm’ can get through a serious spider mite infestation I’m sure it will be worth the $2 I spent. My icecream cone was actually more expensive than this soon to be amazing plant 🙂

There’s only about another month and a half left in the tropical garden and it’s absolutely not the time of year to get into a ho-hum mood about things. I really need to treasure every shortened day and to that end will keep reminding myself as I self medicate on fried foods, baked goods and chocolate. Give me another week and I’m sure I’ll have come to terms with the waning season and maybe just maybe I can look forward to autumn. Many people claim to enjoy that season and I guess it’s only fair I give it a try as well.

Have a great week!

Thursday’s Feature: The Three Cousins

Sep2

The story of the three sisters of native American agriculture (corn-squash-beans) is a story which goes hand in hand with almost any elementary school lesson on the Pilgrims or Thanksgiving. Northeastern tribes of Native Americans commonly grew the three crops together in the same mound, and as the corn grew up and the stalks provided support for the twining beans, the squash filled in along the ground and together the three crops coexisted peacefully, each filling their own niche.

This spring I rebuilt the rebar arbor which marks the entrance to the vegetable garden and this summer three vines are working their way up and over the arch. They don’t coexist quite as peacefully as the three sisters and they’re far less useful in the kitchen, but I like them well enough anyway and even if they never make an appearance on the back of a Sacagawea coin I guess we can say they’re close enough to be called cousins at least. The three cousins are Cypress vine, Love in a Puff, and Red Noodle bean, and all I can think of is how great common names can be 🙂

After struggling for four years with an arbor that fell over each spring, I finally put in the effort to set the base in concrete. The jury is still out on whether it will survive this spring thaw or not any better, but since the jury is still also going back and forth between rustic and ugly, survival may not matter either way.

There are many a more floriferous trio for a trellis, but for some reason I love the mixes of foliage, flowers, and fruit of these three cousins. The bright scarlet flowers of the cypress vine (Ipomoea quamoclit) sparkle alongside its soft ferny foliage and contrast nicely with the puffy green globes of love in a puff (Cardiospermum halicacabum) and the dark red pods of the red noodle beans (Vigna unguiculata… aka asparagus bean… aka yardlong beans).

The pale lavender flowers of the red noodle bean only open in the morning but they look just right mixed in with the ferny cypress vine foliage.

I wish I could take credit for this combo, but in all honesty I saw it a few years ago on Nan Ondra’s blog. As it is with these things a single picture got stuck in my head and then over the next several years the radar stayed tuned in to find seed for the three components.

The red “noodles” of the asparagus bean stretch anywhere from a foot and a half to nearly two feet. The arbor is starting to look pretty cool with all these red beans dangling down.

Right now I think it’s the noodle beans stealing the show and I wish I had a few better photos, but the ones from this afternoon just didn’t make the cut and then the daylight called it quits on me.

I think the beans are cool, but the hummingbirds much prefer the cypress vine flowers.

As I think further on it each of the three cousins also provides something more than just looking pretty. The beans are edible (and some say have an excellent taste if picked small), the hummingbirds love the cypress vine, and the kids love picking and popping the puffs. It is a useful trio and it’s likely they’ll show up here for many a year to come… if only because (with the exception of the beans) I haven’t planted a thing on this trellis for three years and there are still more than enough seedlings each spring to fill the ranks.

So there they are, the three cousins as my feature for Kimberley’s Thursday Feature meme, and although they are technically three entries it’s nearly impossible to separate them so I think I’m good to go. If you think you’re good to go might I suggest a visit to Kimberley’s blog? She encourages us to look around each week and find something which grabs our attention in the garden and it’s always interesting whether you’re just visiting or joining right in.

Tuesday View: The Tropics 08.30.16

Aug31

It’s Tuesday again and time to join up with Cathy at Words and Herbs to take a look at the Tuesday view. I’m going to guess that the purple leaved cannas are at full height and full bloom now and things are about as close to a peak as I can imagine 🙂

The Tuesday view this evening. I managed to get the pictures just before dusk, and finally for once the photos didn’t come out all blurry and overexposed. I can see why photographers enjoy this time of day and may have to reconsider my strong commitment to doing nothing at these closing hours of the day.

I’m not thrilled about the sun being lower and lower in the sky each week, but the low evening light hitting the canna tops really highlights their bright little blooms.

The garden has become very popular with the hummingbirds as they go from verbena to canna to salvia to everywhere in between. I wonder if they are local youngsters or just birds starting to work their way south.

In case you’re wondering most of the dahlias have been staked. It was a struggle but since the spool of twine has been sitting on the walkway for days now I figured it was time. Hopefully the dahlias can bloom in peace and sway gently in the wind with their reassuring support system… although now it’s the overhanging canna leaves which threaten their happiness…

I can’t help but put in another photo of the sunflower which came up near the fence. It’s got some doubling in there but I think the dark anthers poking through around the center are what really make it stand out for me.

As long as I’m just putting in gratuitous plant pictures I might as well show my absolutely favorite canna ‘Bengal Tiger’ again. It’s practically stunted in comparison to the others but gardeners all know that the show is always going to be better next year. I’ll just have to get something taller to go with it since right now it matches perfectly with the verbena bonariensis… but that won’t be the case net year if it sprouts up to six feet (which it should have no problem doing).

Canna ‘Bengal Tiger’ with the purple of Verbena bonariensis.

Speaking of plants which are sprouting up, the banana ‘Bordelon’, which spent last summer potted on the deck, has finally recovered from a neglectful winter in the garage and a tough spring with a rough crowd in the back of the bed. I hope this winter I can do better with its care and avoid this setback since I used to be able to just throw the stem with a few roots into a basement and they would survive just fine. Something’s changed though since lately they’ve been just plain struggling.

Banana ‘Bordeleon’ rising up above the verbena and knock out rose. It’s still got a few more weeks before being dug up, so I hope it keeps going strong.

Actually I don’t even want to think about overwintering anything yet, so before I go I just want to point out one of the most enjoyable late summer events which occurs around the tropical bed this time of year. Just across the grass path you’ll find a nice patch of hosta in bloom. I received it years ago as an incorrectly labeled plant but I believe it’s hosta ‘Royal Standard’ and it completely fills the evening and nighttime air with a sweet tropical fragrance which reminds me of gardenias minus the mustiness I sometimes get from them. I love the scent and the plants are indestructible and even if they’re as old as dirt compared to all the new, fancy hybrids I would never consider getting rid of them.

Hosta ‘Royal Standard'(maybe). Full sun and drought fried the tansy to the right of it, but the hosta just trudged along with a small bit of leaf scorch and yellowing.

That’s about it for the view. I was beginning to think there wasn’t much new going on anymore but once you start poking around there are always a few surprises. Hopefully I can keep it up a few more weeks. As usual thanks to Cathy for hosting!

Not a bad morning.

Aug28

It’s beautiful out this morning and I can’t even see problems in the garden. The lawn is relatively under control, some staking and weeding was done yesterday, the soil is damp enough that watering is not an issue, and other than some chipmunk issues the wildlife of the garden is behaving in an entirely picturesque and harmless manner. This feeling may fade quickly but while it lasts I’ll just sip my coffee quietly and hope the kids don’t find me.

Datura metel. I expected an annual but this one re-appeared out of nowhere once the rains came and the soil heated up. It’s doing so much better than last year.

The light is often perfect in my garden but my photos rarely show this. Even with a better half who loves expensive electronics and insisted on a fancy camera there’s still a skill component missing and I often look at what shows up on the computer screen and wonder what happened. Fortunately this morning things just came together and it’s as good as it’s going to get.

Light and shadows on a Datura flower. Even a few dew drops to make it glisten.

Last fall a friend gave me a few seedheads of what is probably Gomphrena ‘fireworks’. It’s supposed to be in the same species as the regular globe gomphrena (G. globosa) but I don’t see it, and even though it loves the same heat and full sun, the flowers are more like yellow tipped pink brushes rather than tight globes.

Gomphrena ‘fireworks?’ in the morning light. Easy from seed (needs warmth and bright light) and loves the heat.

Another annual which catches the light perfectly is amaranthus ‘Hot Biscuits’. Practically a weed, it just shot up when the rain started falling and the humidity shot up. This is another one which came via friend…. thanks Paula!

Amaranthus ‘hot biscuits’ in the front border.

I would have laughed if you told me I’d ever grow (and like) a brown flower but here it is.

A nice late summer show of amaranthus coming up among the butterfly bushes (Buddleia)

I do buy a few seeds here and there and zinnias are one which I like to keep in good supply. Brenary’s Giants ‘Lime’ does NOT show well in the garden but it’s just too interesting to leave out.

Benary’s Giants ‘lime’ zinnia from Fedco Seed. I bet a good designer could do great things with this color… but me, not so much. I think it’s cool regardless.

The birds and bees get the credit for this sunflower as well as whatever religious deity you believe protected it from my weed bucket. I swore up and down I would not allow sunflowers in the tropical bed but there you have it.

A little doubling and a darkly rich center, I’m quite pleased to have this sunflower sharing space with the cannas and bananas.

The Formosa lilies (Lilium formosum) were stunted by weeks of drought back in the no-man’s land which I tend to ignore, but are still forgiving enough to fill the garden with their sweet summer perfume.

Lilium formosum. For some reason I thought planting them where they’d grow up into the branches of a pear tree would be a good idea… but then again why would I think my little seedlings would ever amount to anything?

The meadow got its mowing just in time. The first colchicum blooms were beheaded, but now the others can come up nicely in the short (and for once green) grass.

cochicum in lawn

Back in July we didn’t even remember what rain looked like. Then something happened. August was warm and humid with perfectly spaced rain showers and this blessing from above even resurrected (most) of the phlox bed. If you look closely the damage is still there, but on a beautiful Sunday morning it’s easy to see past that.

Phlox paniculata in the late August light.

Please click on “I hate gardening” to see what this bed looked like a month ago. You could call the change miraculous and I don’t think that’s an exaggeration.

Just in time for Monarch migration, the garden phlox and Verbena bonariensis are again filled with flowers and this bed is a very busy place.

I do love my phlox.

Back from the dead, random phlox paniculata seedlings.

Have a great Sunday and all the best for the upcoming week. I’m going back outside now and suspect nothing will get done other than a second cup of coffee.

Thursday’s Feature: Cardinal Flower

Aug26

It must be the week for scarlet since I see that Kimberley, our host for the Thursday Feature, has also featured something equally bright this week from her garden. Her choice is bee balm (Monarda), but the cardinal flower (Lobelia cardinalis) also gives a bright punch of red to the late summer garden.

My own slightly undernourished cardinal flower.

Cardinal flower is a native North American wildflower and its color and flower shape are tailored to attracting hummingbirds. Red is a color for bringing in these small winged pollinators, and one can see how its bee pollinated cousin, great lobelia (L. siphilicata), would have shorter blooms and a more bee-friendly blue coloring. Both are easy in the garden and thrive in a moist, fertile soil in either a sunny or part shade location. If your garden is well suited to these beauties, the blue version has even been known to border on weedy with its self-seeding ways, but to be honest I can’t imagine them being any trouble at all to just remove. Keep in mind though that the summers in my garden can usually fry and dry even some of the hardiest members of the plant kingdom so I might not be the best judge on if a moisture loving plant is weedy!

Color coordinated seating alongside a nice patch of cardinal flower at Chanticleer.

The straight species of L cardinalis is an excellent flower even straight out of the forest, but over the years hybrids and selections have broadened the range of cardinal flower available to gardeners. Darker foliage is always a popular look, as well as pink and purple hybrids with the great lobelia. They’re all equally easy to grow when given the moisture they need but in my experience the hybrids are no where near as hardy as the straight species(zone 7 versus zone 3). Still I showed no hesitation when I saw this maroon leaved plant for sale this spring. Even as a likely annual it’s worth the money I spent on it… although honestly I expected the flowers to be denser.

A dark foliaged Lobelia cardinalis in bloom on the deck. I’m not totally sure I’ve ever seen the hummers on this one, and I wonder if some nectar production was opted out of when they selected for dark leaves.

I’d love to have a bunch of these scattered throughout the garden but there are only a few spots where I can keep an eye on them often enough to keep them from drying out completely. That’s just me though, if you have a reliably damp spot or even poorly drained spot which kills off many other plants, I would jump on the chance to try out a few cardinal flowers. They may even self-seed and you can imagine the show if that happens.

Give them a try and also give Kimberley a visit to see what other late bloomers are featured this week. It’s the downside of the summer, and a fresh and new bloomer at this time of year is always welcome.

GBFD August ’16

Aug25

They say better late than never, but according to that theory just about everything I do should be better… and I know that’s not the case, so I’ll let you be the judge.

I’ve let a few too many of Christina’s Garden Blogger Foliage Days pass by without a decent post, and that’s a shame since I really enjoy her prodding us to take a monthly step back to look past all the flowers. The flash of flowers often catches the eye and as a result foliage often fades into the periphery of subconscious thought, so on the 22nd of each month it’s not the worst idea to look around and consider what the leafiness of your garden is doing for the bigger picture.

The bed-which-I-can’t-decide-what-to-do-with just before we left on our camping trip.

I showed the above picture just a few days ago and although I knew there were a few weeds sprouting I just didn’t get to them before we left. Let me just insert here that this is not going to be the “decent post” which GBFD deserved this month because it’s a post on only one type of foliage, and that’s the quick growing green of crabgrass and other uninvited leafy pests.

The same bed exactly one week later. A bounty of rain, heat, and sunshine plus a fertile soil (the dumping spot for our rabbit’s used bedding) have greened up everything. Even the clover and creeping Charlie have filled in any last remaining dead patches in the “lawn”.

I spent a recent afternoon clearing out all the lush growth. The bed is empty again but this time I stuck a few stray cuttings here and there and with a little luck perhaps I’ll have some more varied foliage for September’s GBFD. At the very least it might give the weeds a little competition since apparently there’s not much slowing them down now.

Thanks for humoring me with this ‘foliage’ post and if you haven’t already been over please consider giving Christina a visit to see what others have done this month with their posts. You won’t be disappointed.

Tuesday View: The Tropics 8.23.16

Aug24

It’s another Tuesday and although I missed last week due to a quick summer jaunt up to the mountains of New Hampshire, this week I’m back to joining in with Cathy at Words and Herbs in order to look at the weekly progress of the tropical border. Heat, humidity, regular rain showers, and strong summer sunshine in between have brought on an explosion of late summer growth and the purple leaved cannas now dominate the bed.

Purple leaved canna indica, maybe ‘purpurea’ or ‘red stripe’ or ‘Russian red’… I don’t really know since they were given to me years ago as just plain old canna… have now topped off at around 8-9 feet.

You’ll probably notice the small red blooms the cannas have put out. They’re nice enough as a little decoration up top but hardly enough reason to grow these plants. It’s all about the foliage and it’s looking particularly good on this deliciously cool and clear, breezy summer day.

Canna indica ‘purpurea?’ blooms against the bright blue of a clear summer sky. A very popular flower with the hummingbirds.

Have I referenced “summer” enough yet? I’m hoping that if I keep saying the word it will hang on forever, and we’ll never have to deal with the cold little deaths called autumn and winter. Surely it’s a part of life here in Pennsylvania, but I don’t mind if it holds off for another two months at least.

I need to add more coleus to the bed next year. As things grow so does the shade, and this coleus (maybe ‘Alabama Sunset’) fills in nicely rather than fading away like some of the zinnias.

There’s a whole back half to the bed which has been blocked off by the main clump of canna. It’s a little messy but hopefully in the next few weeks a dahlia or two can break through and add a little color as other things begin to fade out.

Is ‘Tropical Weed Patch’ a look? If I can only think of a better name maybe it will catch on but in the meantime you may notice the salvia ‘Caradonna’ which constantly annoys me is still exactly where its always been. Sometimes things don’t move too fast around here 🙂

With such a mess of randomness there’s bound to be a surprise here and there, and sometimes that surprise even turns out to be a nice one. This week it was the salvia which has just come into bloom. My favorite version of the stout, too-red, gas-station salvias (Salvia splendens) are the ones which don’t look like they’d end up in a gas station planting at all. They’re the tall and lanky ones which are sometimes referred to as Salvia splendens ‘Van Houttii’ and up until now I’ve only succeeded with a peach colored one. But last year I did have a short purple bedding type nearby, and apparently things happened at night and lo and behold this year one of their children is a tall, lanky purple.

At about three feet tall this purple salvia bloom has all the grace and style which its shorter cousins lack. Even better was that I found this as a self-sown seedling and was lucky enough to nurse it on to blooming size. This makes me wonder as to what the other seedlings will look like.

I’ve shown it before but have to show one more photo of the castor bean. The bright seed pods look perfect amongst the purple foliage.

The spiky red (and remember poisonous as well) seed heads of castor bean ‘carmencita’

This afternoon the sun hit the back corner of the bed perfectly. You don’t even notice the weeds when the light is like this.

Verbena bonariensis is the workhorse of this bed and although it threatens to swamp everything else here it’s still worth any bit of trouble it causes.

At this time of year it’s easy to ignore any maintainence and just enjoy the plants as they slide on into autumn, but dahlias are yet to come and dahlias need staking. Two weeks ago would have been the best time to do this but things happen and when things happen the dahlias fall over. It will require twice as much time to carefully put them back up and some might just stay where they lie. It will be more of a groundcover look, but with the way they are stretching away from the canna’s shadow nearly all the plants have verticality issues which might not be worth fighting.

There are dahlias in them thar purple verbena, but for now lets just focus on the panicum ‘Northwind’ which is turning into a tight fountain of frothy seed-heads.

Dahlias will hopefully be staked tomorrow… or Thursday. Weekend at the latest. It’s so nice right now with green grass, butterflies, and flowers who wants to stake stuff? Plus I needed to tackle a hedge of crabgrass which sprouted overnight in one of the other beds, it’s an embarrassing mess, but at least it’s green and green is so much nicer than the dead brown which surrounded me last month.

Mess or not I hope you enjoyed the view and if you’d like give Cathy a visit and see what this week has brought to her garden and others. It’s a nice way to keep tabs on things over the season and it’s also a great way to get things staked and weeded. Shame is a great motivator and even if it means I have to stake with one hand and take pictures with the other, the job will get done long before I even consider publically admitting that the twine has defeated me 🙂

The garden of memory

Jan28

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

Does a gardener live here?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

September GBFD: beauty in the details

Sep25

It sounds a bit noble and refined to study the intricate details but in reality the big picture is just a little too ugly to show. Autumn rains have yet to pan out and the bulk of the garden has that end of summer- waiting to die- air to it, so with a garden full of drought stricken, end-of-their-rope plants, close-ups are clearly the way to go.

A wider view of the watered deck plantings. With only a few weeks left before frost I’m happy to see my newest banana nearly doubling in size since its August planting. I love watching those new leaves unfurl!

The closeups will hopefully be a celebration of the late summer contributions foliage makes to the garden. Yes, I know we’re into autumn now but Christina over at Creating my own garden of the Hesperides celebrates foliage day on the 22nd of each month, and since that date is still a summer number I’m going to use that excuse to hold onto summer for just a few days past the autumn equinox…. well maybe just until next week when the temperatures look as if they’ll drop.

Caladium ‘pink splash’ enjoying the unusually warm September weather. Just foliage color here and although my choice might be suspect it really is an easy plant. Best of all no dropped blossoms on the porch to clean up.

Most of the focus right now is on the tropical plants and annuals which are blissfully putting out new leaves regardless of the impending frost-doom. Let me give them their five minutes of fame before they get thrown in the dark garage for the winter again. I think I’ve shown the scented geranium ‘Lady Plymouth’ before, but with a pleasant scent and fine variegation it really doesn’t hurt to show it again. Plus, I am one of THOSE people who think variegation makes everything better, so here she is again 🙂

‘Lady Plymouth’ perlargonium brightening up the front entry with its finely cut, outlined foliage.

Matt over at Railway Parade House and Garden might give a little chuckle to see such a small specimen of eucalyptus, but here in Pennsylvania I’ve struggled to get it this far. Last year it was a small floppy mess, this year it’s a bigger floppy mess. Assuming I can bring it through another winter, my hope is it will show a little backbone and put on some height. The reddish highlights on the silvery coin shaped leaves are completely unique here and I love it for that… even if the color disappears against the gray decking and white railing.

Eucalyptus cinerea, the silver dollar gum. It has a nice eucalyptus scent when you get close enough.

Something else which is starting to grow on me are the cane begonias. They always look good, the foliage is cool, and for me they are completely foolproof to overwinter (in an above freezing spot with no water). All the leaves fall off and they look terrible but come springtime and April showers they leaf out as if only a week has passed. When I was younger and growing up on Long Island I couldn’t understand why the Coe’s of Planting Fields (now an arboretum) would devote an entire greenhouse to these boring plants. Twenty five years later I’ve finally figured it out.

‘Limon blush’ coleus with a silver splattered cane begonia. The silvering may be faded due to too much sun and the lateness of the season, but the flowers still keep coming on this tall (4+ feet) specimen.

I’ll finish up with a few more begonias. September is a few days away from becoming the area’s hottest September on record and practically rainless at just over 1/4 inch for the month, so again the potted plants are helping me keep my sanity.

Someday I hope to rediscover the tags which came with this plant, but for now the finely silvered foliage and discrete blooms earn it a home -even if I don’t have a name.

If I had more shade around here I would surely put these begonias to more use, but siting them is always an issue. This pink speckled one never even made it out of the pot ghetto this year. Every week it was another round of where-to-put-it and now I’ll just have to enjoy it as it is.

Another unfussy cane begonia. Most of it’s winter was spent bare root on a saucer in the back of the garage… which is not exactly what you’ll read in Fine Gardening but I like to test limits 🙂

Well that’s my take on September’s GBFD. It may not be the perfect illustration of the contributions of foliage in the garden but it does show the contributions foliage has made to my sanity lately. Give Christina’s blog a visit and see what others are doing in their own gardens with foliage this month. It’s always a good show!

Stop it with the autumn talk

Sep11

Many people enjoy and claim they welcome the coming of autumn. I want to make it clear that I do not, and although the last few days have been a little too hot and dry for my taste, I would much prefer the relief of a summertime cloudburst rather than any farewell to summer eulogy. So I guess what I want is just a few more days of denial before I’m forced to admit the season is breaking down.

The tomatoes of summer are still going strong even with their new neighbors the fall chrysanthemums.

After a promising start to the summer August went dry and for the past forty days we’ve barely cracked the 1/4 inch mark for rainfall. With high temperatures, thin soil, drying winds, and full sun the life was sucked out of a garden which had been almost carefree at the start of the summer. With a nice rain today we’ll see how fast things bounce back. My guess is it will be a much faster turnaround than the last two summers when things REALLY dried out to a crisp.

One patch of watered soil ready for fall planting. Hopefully cool weather will soon allow for a few broccoli and cauliflower transplants.

In spite of the heat a few things still look nice. The tropical garden got a few minutes with the hose, and that seems to have been enough to keep it from death. I love the colors right now with the purple verbena bonariensis, dark red dahlias, and peach colored salvia splendens filling the bed.

A little orange from ‘Tropicanna’ canna goes a long way in brightening up the late summer salvia, verbena and dahlias.

With the grass dried up to a crispy beige the stronger reds, oranges, and purples really stand out. I don’t think a bed full of lavenders, whites, and pale pinks would be as eye catching…. which I’m going to say is a good thing, since in this world of gray and tan I can use as much eye catching and hold-on-to-life color as I can get!

End of summer color from dahlia ‘Mathew Alan’. As usual the dahlias could use some dead heading.

Even up front a little bold color is a nice thing. The border along the house foundation has a few spots of color from the ‘Masquerade’ peppers I planted out this spring. The true type has purple peppers changing to yellow, orange, and red while a few oddball plants started right off with pale yellow and are now going through the same sunset effect.

‘Masquerade’ peppers from seed with all the fescue clumps I divided up this spring. I finally like this bed… but we’ll see how I can mess it up next year 🙂

Along the street is another story. Even with a few emergency waterings things look end of summer tired.

To water or not to water, that is the question. Obviously I chose the latter, but the ‘Karl Forster’ feather reed grass, sedums, and perovskia are still holding on.

I did give the ‘Limelight’ hydrangea a little soaking, but a few water lovers such as the ‘Golden sunshine’ willow will need a good bit of water before they look anything close to happy again.

I think this border will need a little trimming out of dead things once the rains soak in. No big deal though, a little fall cleanup will carry it on through the next few months.

There are still a few bright spots. Even in the harsh midday sun kniphofia ‘Ember Glow’ looks nice. It could be a little taller but the size actually works well with the peppers and coleus (please ignore the dead rudbeckias and dying zinnias).

Red hot poker (Kniphofia) with peppers and a surprisingly sun and drought resistant coleus. I wasn’t sure if the poker would ever bloom this year but I guess it’s a later cultivar.

Until the garden bounces back the best thing to do is spend more time in the shade, seated with cold beverage in hand. I can ignore the weeds and dead lawn quite successfully on the back deck.

This is a late summer view, not autumn. I’ll keep that delusion up until the first frosts threaten!

Even with a good soaking the lawnmower will still likely be on vacation for another week or two. I’m ok with that. I hope the soil takes in the rain, the plants come back, and I can finally use something other than a pickaxe to dig a hole. Maybe then I’ll start thinking about things like fall while I’m taking care of a little late summer transplanting and bulb planting 🙂

sorta like suburbia

more than you ever wanted to know about my garden

Category Archives: late summer