A Lot of Work

Jul26

There’s little question as to how I feel about hard work, and this is always the time of year when I start to wonder if it will ever end. Between the pests and pestilence that try to take over every time your back is turned, to the weeds that spring with almost an unholy vigor out of any unmonitored patch of soil, to the searing heat that jacks up the water bill, I just don’t understand those people who smile wistfully and claim to just “love gardening”. They’re probably the same people who put on a sunhat and white shorts, grab a pair of teal garden gloves and a cute little English trowel, and then head out to the parterre to plant a tray of nemesia while birds are singing and a fountain sprays in the background.

The no-work mullein out front has topped 9 feet and greets each morning with a fresh show of buttery yellow flowers. I love it, the bees love it, and sadly the mullein moths love it as well, and have darkened and nibbled a few of the stalks.

Here it’s a different story. Covered in bits of green weed wacking debris, with dirt up my arms and half blind from the sweat that kept running into my eyes, I was wondering if the sore muscles and frequent blood donations were worth it. Someone came by and said “you’re filthy don’t even think of going into the house like that, I just cleaned the floor”, so there I sat dripping even more sweat -since it’s also a billion degrees out- trying to make a little sense of it.

Smarter people just sit on the porch and enjoy the morning light. The porch is easy, plants get dragged out from the winter garden in the spring, and just need a little watering every now and then.

I have nothing against sunhats and teal garden gloves, it’s clearly jealousy, but I can’t help wondering why I keep doing this to myself year in and year out.

July is wrapping up so it’s probably time to finally plant the last of the (even more) perennial seedlings which seemed necessary in February.

…and then it’s a beautiful morning and the light is perfect and the house is quiet and I love it all… well almost all, the front border along the street is too dry and I’m kind of giving up on that, but all that other bother of lugging plants in and out, and dividing and moving and planting, and digging and hauling and weeding and mulching and watering… well you get the picture, I guess it’s worth it.

Things lugged out onto the deck are hitting their summer stride. As usual it’s a bit of a mess, but I love filling the whole place with way too much.

The deck is a safe zone although you wouldn’t think it. I can go out there and just take it all in since the bulk of the work is done in May and June and then it’s smooth sailing until October. Drip irrigation and time release fertilizer make my coffee in the morning and a drink at night much more pleasing than dragging a hose around and feeling guilty about letting them dry out once again.

I DID NOT like ‘Canary Wings’ the first time I saw it, but this spring two of these relatively new begonias jumped onto my cart. Studies show I’m a sucker for anything with yellow leaves.

The biggest success this year has been ‘Alice DuPont’, a mandevilla vine which has survived two winters with me so far and has finally found a place where she can show off her amazingness in a way that does credit. She’s come a long way from the pot of brown sticks which exited the garage in May.

The far corner of the deck. Hopefully the rickety trellis of old miscanthus stalks can carry Alice through the summer.

I’ve added a few new things this year but nothing too exciting. The fruity colors of the lantana and purple angelonia are perfect, but as usual I fell for petunias and calibrachoa again, and after a strong start to the summer they’re already looking a little tired.

Jewels of Opar (Talinum paniculatum) came up in the soil of a gifted plant, and yay for surprises! It’s like a pink baby’s breath, and although it doesn’t wow like Alice it’s good to also have plenty of flowers which don’t yell nonstop.

Something else will take over for the petunias. Nothing in this garden is ever one and done, and it’s the changes throughout the season which keep me interested. Maybe by September even Alice will bore me!

Just kidding Alice, you’ll never bore me.

When things come together you really forget all the grumbling about digging and storing cannas and replanting tropicals each year. While the heat is sucking the life out of the perennials of June, the southerners and tropicals are stepping up. #summerstrong!

Cannas by the street were supposed to be complemented by an airy froth of purple verbena… but then a clowncar of marigolds pulled up and unloaded all the orange. But I really can’t complain about volunteers, so of course they stayed.

Even the tropical garden is back on the love-it list. A lack of rain is stunting a few things, but you’d never know it, and even the sunflowers are welcomed back… although I did pull dozens in May…

The tropical bed looks less tropical and more just bright annuals this year. Still nice to look at as you walk next door for a dip in the pool.

Admittedly I’ve allowed a few more perennials into the tropical garden this year. That’s one less thing to worry about and I’m sure I’ll find something else to overdo elsewhere in the garden. Right now as potatoes and onions come out of the potager I’m fighting the urge to fill the beds with a succession crop of flowers, or use the space for excess perennial seedlings. One year, that’s the goal I have for keeping the new beds in vegetable production rather than turning them over to flowers again, and we will see 🙂

Sunflowers on a Sunday morning. It may be hot and dry, but it takes a lot before sunflowers complain.

Hope you’re enjoying the fruits of your labor, and even if the weeds are starting to win there’s always plenty of good out there.

Have a great week!

Happy Halloween!

Nov1

Surprise of surprises the month of October has passed and there still remains a general air of pleasantness and overall contentment with the autumn season. Even as the wind and rain buffet trick-or-treaters, the gardener has yet to mention death, gloom or futility, in spite of light frosts and dropping leaves and various ghouls and other undead wandering the neighborhood.

Fall color seems especially bright this year. The view towards the tropical garden doesn’t really seem all that tropical anymore but it’s not bad at all in my opinion.

To be honest I’m not 100% sure a ghoul qualifies as undead but I am sure that the garden still has plenty of life in it. Last weekend was excellent weather for outdoor labor and even this gardener got a few things done. Mulching was probably the most rewarding job and being that I love mulching, and free mulch is even better, it was almost a struggle to wait until a respectable 9am before making the first run to the town’s free mulch pile.

The new hellebore garden is finally fit to show. Stepping stones have been leveled, mulch spread, and now all that’s missing is a nice blanket of leaves on top. Nature will oblige I’m sure.

Free mulch around here isn’t the fanciest thing, but I’m still thrilled my friend Paula inspired me to go looking for it again. I can head out, fill a couple buckets and an old trash can, and pull back into the garage in eleven minutes flat, which isn’t all that unreasonable and compares very favorably to the time I would have been sitting around “resting” anyway. In all I made four runs, which quickly adds up to forty minutes, but since two of the trips included picking up or dropping off children I still think I’m not doing too bad.

Orange is the color of the week. Tonight’s wind and this weekend’s frost will change the picture but for now I love it.

Besides mulching and mowing, a few other things were checked off of the to-do list. Stage one of tender plant triage includes cuttings of the most cool-weather sensitive things such as coleus, and that was completed a couple weeks ago. Stage two is dragging all tender potted things closer to the garage and off the deck. Stage three will be the end to procrastination, and means dragging them all in when frost threatens (Friday night), and then Stage four will be all the hardier things such as potted geraniums and rosemary which can handle a frost, but resent a freeze. It’s kind of late for a hard frost this year, so I’ve been enjoying a nice drawn out process where things are a little less hectic, and a lot more organized.

Some late season blooms on the Tatarian aster ‘Jindai’. A delay in a hard freeze means this slowpoke has had enough time to put on a nice show this year.

A beautiful fall, a relaxed pace in the garden, projects getting done. It all still seems so remarkably positive that I almost hesitate to bring up a dark cloud, but it’s there nonetheless. Deer have made my garden a regular stop on their nightly forays. It’s not unusual for them to come through as they grow restless in the autumn, but this year they really seem to like what they’ve found. The little piles of ‘pellets’ seem to tell me they’re spending quite some time here at night and the stripped leaves and beheaded chrysanthemums tell me what they’ve been doing.

I love this tender salvia which went in as part of the autumn upgrade to these containers, but I also loved the purple oxalis that used to fill the front. Stems are all that remain.

This gardener hopes they move on during the winter. Maybe the colchicum flowers they ate will upset their tummies enough to make them wander off to greener pastures, or maybe the cyclamen flowers left a bad taste in their mouth… but I really suspect they just liked adding a bit of exotic flavor to the diet. In any case you can probably guess who has been encouraging the neighborhood hunters to shoot local this year…

There’s been some activity on the berm. A close close look may reveal the small green sprays of new ‘Green Giant’ arborvitae as well as a few other tiny things. In about 15 years maybe I’ll post another picture to see if it’s amounted to anything.

Don’t let a few deer nibbles give off the wrong impression. It’s still a remarkable autumn and I’m quite pleased with the progress and with the garden… even if the days are becoming rudely short and time outside is becoming annoyingly limited. With that in mind I’ll leave you with something exceptionally positive.

The first snowdrops are up. The fall blooming Galanthus reginae-olgae ‘Tilebarn Jamie’ looks fantastic amongst the autumn leaves, and it’s just one of a few which are in bloom this week.

The first of the little snowdrop treasures are too precious to run the risk of facing the elements outdoors, so of course they’ll have to face the risks of a fickle gardener indoors and hopefully that works out well. A few fall and winter bloomers did survive outside last year but not enough to give me the confidence to gamble with these, so in another two or three weeks these will also migrate to the winter garden alongside other plants too special to give up. I’m sure I’ll enjoy the company while we wait for the garden to thaw out again 🙂

It Could Be Worse

Sep19

Things have entered ‘don’t care’ mode around here. The gnats are swarming, the days are warm, the soil is dry, and the nights are cool enough that everyone (plants and gardener included) is thinking about wrapping things up for the year and calling it autumn.

The red onion harvest drying under the back porch overhang.

I make no secret of the fact I dislike autumn. Letting go of the growing season is tough and I try to put it off for as long as possible, but for some reason this year it’s a little different. This year I’m almost looking forward to a few autumnal things, and I barely mind seeing summer 2019 fade into the the history books.

The potager has made its annual transition into an over the hill, flower filled and vegetable-free weedy mess. I love it, and I love all the late season bugs, bees and butterflies.Fall has suddenly become an easier transition, and I think it’s got a lot to do with my super formal program of planting more things that reach their peak after summer takes a step back. In case you don’t know, my ‘super formal program’ translates into going to the nursery each week in autumn and planting whatever looks nice.

The strong carmine color of what’s left of aster ‘Alma Potschke’ is the only reason I grow this plant. To me most of the asters don’t seem to bloom for any great length of time and I’ve actually gotten rid of a few… or I just resent the fact they grow well all along the highways yet struggle in my garden beds.

One fall-bloomer which I don’t ever give enough credit to is the variegated obedient plant which has been bravely plodding along for a few years now in the dry, rooty shade of the north end of the yard. I was given a warning when my friend dropped it off, but apparently the spot where it’s been planted is so terrible it hasn’t even considered trying to spread.

Physostegia virginiana 'Variegata' obedient plant

Variegated obedient plant (Physostegia virginiana ‘Variegata’) bringing a little color to the shade garden.

Other plants giving fall color now are the colchicums. The earliest ones are in full stride, but the mid-season ones are starting up now as well. The heat rushes them along, but they’re still a welcome flush of fresh color amongst all the other fading and yellowing summer things.

Colchicum ‘Nancy Lindsay’ just outside the smothering leaves of a verbascum seedling. Nancy is one of the most reliable colchicums I grow, and quite the looker as well.

A newer colchicum is ‘World Champion’s Cup’ which is officially the largest flowering colchicum in the garden. Although the photo doesn’t do the size justice, the blooms probably span six inches when open in the sun, and of course I love it.

Colchicum ‘World Champion’s Cup’. Not many blooms yet, but if size matters then this is the colchicum for you. The heat seems to have bleached parts of the flower, but that’s a big improvement compared to what the skunks did to them last year.

Fall blooming bulbs aside, the tropical garden is earning its keep as the season winds down. It looks lush enough but it also looks like my complaining last year about digging so many roots and tubers fell on deaf ears. In another month when non-hardy things get cut back and stuffed into winter storage I’m not sure who or what I’ll be complaining about, but I’m sure it will be quite vocal. Only the gnats will be listening though, and their fake concern will only be a cover used to get close enough for an ear canal dive or yet another stealth attack to the legs.

As usual the pathway is nearly impassable due to plants growing just as big as they were supposed to. That doesn’t matter though. What I get a kick out of is the huge goldenrod growing up past the kitchen window of the person who obsesses about dandelions and crabgrass in the lawn.

I can’t take in all the cannas. I already thought I had too many and then planted seeds for even more, and of course they grew even better than they should have. As seed grown plants they’re all a little bit different, so now the struggle is deciding which of my babies is so wonderfully different that I need to dig it as well. Obviously one of the things I’ll be complaining about this fall is my own lack of common sense.

Cannova ‘Mango’ seedlings. Do I save the shorter ones… the ones with a more mango color… the heaviest bloomers…

Common sense also will not apply to the elephant ears. I suspect the tubers will weigh in at close to a ton, and someone said they might want to try one next spring so obviously I should dig another hundred just in case they want more. It should be fun, but I’m not sure if this is really what people who claim to enjoy autumn do to enjoy the season.

Laboring for Labor Day

Sep2

Welcome to September. September is that wonderful time of the year when summer begins to die and the joy of millions of children is crushed as they head back to school. Some people look forward to the end of summer and the roundup of children but I do not. Still as the days get shorter and nighttime temperatures drop it’s time to seriously start the winter denial that comes hand in hand with cooler weather. Summer will last forever, right?

Two consecutive soggy summers have put an end to my dreams of an ultra-drought tolerant cactus garden. Of course the expensive fancy ones all died away, leaving only the generic yellow, and then twenty minutes of pulling spines from my wrist pushed me towards getting rid of that one as well.

Optimistic readers will wonder how all the projects have come along on this Labor Day weekend. Realistic readers already know. In my defense the topsoil which was ordered three weeks ago is still “too wet” to be delivered, and having that would have helped but I’m sure something else could have been worked out. In the meantime I’m fine waiting 🙂

The monarch caterpillars have been evicted from the kitchen counter and are now on ‘vacation’ under a screen enclosure on the front lawn. I knew those milkweed sprouts I’ve been mowing around would come in handy!

So since the official projects have been waylaid, a new project has been started. It was time to weed the rockless rockgarden, so as long as that’s going on why not line it with rocks, pull up the remains of the cactus, trim whatever is left, and then decide that it would be better as a colchicum garden? Ok. So that was done instead, and although the bed was entirely rock-free as a rockgarden, it now has plenty of rocks as a cholchicum garden. If all works out pictures shall follow during colchicum season.

In the meantime here are a few videos I took Saturday morning before any work began. It’s a seedy, weedy, ragged lawn video, but it does give an honest view of the front and back gardens. Pictures always make this place look better, video tells the true story and explains why there’s not a waiting list for tours 😉

I apologize for the grainy quality of the video. I thought my phone would do a better job, but between shoddy uploading and poor cinematic quality the graininess is the least of its problems 🙂 . Here are some cleansing closeup still shots of the garden to bring us back to the way I wish it all looked!

In the tropical garden, the light on ‘Tropicana’ is one of the less tasteful joys of the August garden.

The tropical garden is into its lush phase.

I can never get enough of ‘Bengal Tiger’s foliage.

The front yard is still fairly colorful and moderately well maintained.

Dahlia ‘Happy Single Flame’ has me debating adding more dahlias again. For now I’m resisting, since all the complaining from digging them and the cannas last fall is still fresh in my memory.

The front yard looks nice enough but the photos fail to capture the constant chatter of goldfinch families as they feed on the sunflower seeds. One poor father in particular comes by with his four extremely demanding children and I don’t know how he deals with the never ending begging. That and the frequent hummingbird divebombs keep things pretty animated.

The grasses have been putting on a show lately. As Molina ‘Skyracer’ catches the light and wind, it makes a nice veil to my lovely orange marigolds across the driveway, and mildewy gourds takingover the lawn.

I hadn’t been “feeling” annuals this spring, but fortunately a few salvia and verbena returned here anyway. The pink coreopsis was planted though, if it makes it through the winter and looks this nice again next year I’ll be pleasantly surprised!

I did finally mow the lawn and give things a once over. Here’s a glimpse of the nicer end of the former rockgarden. My hope is that the rocks help with keeping weeds and the lawn at bay… my not-hope is that the rock edging will just make weeding more difficult as grass gets in between all the gaps.

New colchicum garden to the left, my favorite variegated red pine front and center. I’m always happy when a few purple verbena bonariensis come up next to it.

Other parts of the garden are hopeless as far as weeding goes. Along the deck I just gave up and call it a native plant bed. Virginia creeper covers the brick and threatens to take over every time my back is turned, while red cardinal flower is trying to hold its ground against the invasion of jewelweed. Native sweetspire (Clethra) is in there as well as is the ‘Tiger Eyes’ form of staghorn sumac. I guess if you really stretch it, the peach dahlia is a native to the Americas as well… you’d just have to go back a couple decades in breeding and head south a couple thousand miles.

The deck surroundings in need of some lovin’. Obsessive weeders my be twitching to see this, but it’s very popular with the bumblebees and hummingbirds.

If you watched the first video you might have noticed the huge plumes of weedy seed heads which practically block the view from the front porch. They were gone-to-seed lettuce which had filled the front planters and which should have been pulled months ago… but no one complained so I just let them be and wondered to myself just how few people notice anything I do here. But enough was enough, so I pulled them up, transplanted all the lettuce seedlings (bonus!) for the fall garden, and filled the pots up with some new things!

The front walk looks a little better freshened up. The purple oxalis was already there, but I splurged on some red nemesia, blue salvia, and one of those dead-looking grassy sedges which for some reason I had to have. I like it 🙂

And then that’s it from here. It’s a three day weekend, so maybe a little more will get done, but with the rain that’s coming down and the barbecue which is being prepared I doubt it. I’m fine with that though and I hope the coming week brings you nothing but fine as well.

Saying Goodbye to August

Sep1

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

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

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

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

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

euphorbia marginata snow on the mountain

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Canna ‘Bengal Tiger’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Have a great weekend!

Where is Summer Going!?

Aug15

It’s entirely possible that everyone shares this same gripe, but I feel summer has been flying by this year. Even more so than usual. The days go faster, the schedule seems busier, and all I want to do is slow the calendar down. I don’t even want to talk about autumn, but those back to school sales are in full swing, and I saw plenty of plasticky orange and yellow fall decorations lining the shelves of the local mart, just waiting for the summer haters to open their wallets.

In the meantime here’s a quick, picture heavy run-through of the garden in high summer. It’s my favorite time of the year out there.

Annual standing cypress has seeded in nicely anywhere the mulch used to be and brings some bright red to the border.

These photos were taken over the weekend, and it was just the beginning of our latest round of gully ripping downpours that hail from the tropics. Monday I think we topped another three inches and unfortunately that does not bode well for the lower lying areas.

Monarch on Rudbeckia triloba.

The plants seem fine though. Everything is lush and vibrant and other than a little floppiness and extra height it sure beats dealing with another year of soil-cracking drought.

A pale sunflower out along the street. I always love them against the feather reed grass.

Even with the dampness and humidity it’s much more pleasant to dig in freshly-watered soil than it is to pickax your way through a dry and dusty crust. With some time on my hands and a little too much ‘exuberance’ in the front border I did some editing. You barely notice the vacancies.

Nothing like a big dig project on a 90F degree day.

Of course the weeds have been a nonstop battle. I finally broke down and bought a few bags of mulch in hopes of clearing out a spot in back… which is definitely out of control. Needless to say it is still out of control, but I used the mulch to neaten up a couple edges in front and that made me even happier. Maybe I’ll crack open the wallet again for a few more bags. It’s slightly addicting.

My “other” popcorn plant, actually a candlestick plant (Senna alata aka cassia) showing off some of its cool leaves.

In the meantime I just love all the color and the busyness of bees, and bugs, and hummingbirds and goldfinches zipping around from sunup to sundown.

‘Cannova Rose’ highlighting the front border.

Mulching is rewarding, but for the most part for me this part of the year is more a matter of counting your losses, writing them off, and enjoying the successes. I was hoping last year would be my last caladium year, but apparently the obsession continues. They are one plant which has been thoroughly enjoying the rain and humidity and who am I to turn my back on such happy plants?

The caladiums are just happy doing their own thing in a patch of shade.

Something I don’t want to talk about too much are the two new daylilies which have shown up. Apparently people like these things, so who am I to not give them another chance?

Finally, a neat foundation planting and a new daylily. Brighter is better in my opinion 🙂

As I was working through the foundation beds (finally), it occurred to me that many of my weed problems might have something to do with me. Every week or two I rip out a couple more milkweed shoots as they try and take over the entire front yard. Maybe the ‘weed’ part of their name could have been a tip-off but hey, they showed up on their own and the butterflies like them so I figured what’s the harm in leaving a few. I frequently see eggs being laid but as of yet no caterpillars, and I wonder if that’s the down side to having all those bees and other pollinators flying around. I think they might be adding a little protein to their nectar diets.

Milkweed in popping up around the garden. The record so far is 15 feet out into the middle of the lawn!

Around back there is definitely a need for some mulching attention. Your best bet is to ignore that, and just look at how nicely the jungle is spreading.

Looking over the tropics into the backyard. The cannas are starting to really take off is spite of the crowded planting conditions.

As usual there are too many sunflowers, but eventually the cannas and other stuff force their way through and it’s all good.

Canna ‘Australia’ has never looked better. I love the shiny darkness of the leaves and it’s lush growth this summer.

I can only imagine what shenanigans are going on in the interior of the bed.

The cannas in back have barely made it to six feet. I blame the sunflowers of course!

Once you reach the backyard it’s practically a wild kingdom. The potager is now on its own and the selfsowing annuals will take over as I make a weak attempt to save a few vegetables. Eight foot sunflowers and persicaria (kiss me over the garden gate) leave little room for a bean plant.

The potager is on its own now. I just try and get the mower through and call it a success if I do.

There are a few things though. Peppers and eggplants are coming along, but the tomatoes look as if the rain has done them in.

It’s been a good year for peppers!

I forgot the zucchini. There’s some of that in the way back.

The lilies (Lilium formosanum) are starting out back. They’re always a sign that summer is edging past its peak.

Beyond that is just weeds. The meadow needs mowing, and the shade beds are just sitting there (and I’m all for just sitting there) but eventually I hope to whack it back before it all goes to seed. Cool weather can be an inspiration, so we will see if that can snap me out of enjoyment mode and knock me back into taming it for next year mode 🙂

Garden visitors are all offered as many succulents as they want. Apparently I haven’t been getting enough visitors!

In the meantime enjoy August. I suspect it will go even faster than July!

Back to Work

Aug1

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

At least the elephant ears look tropical.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Happy August and have a great week!

Before

Jul19

It appears a little catching up needs to be done. A gardener’s life is always hectic in the spring but for a while I was doing just fine keeping up. Not to brag but this spring was exceptionally well under-control, with weeding and seeding and cutting and moving all happening close to when they should… something that has never happened in years prior here at the sorta ‘burb. I was even halfway close to getting all the new purchases into the ground within days of buying them, rather than nearly killing them two or three times before planting. Let me tell you it’s amazing what a difference that makes! But then the blahs hit. Relentless mowing and trimming and spider mites and weeds and the whole ‘what’s the point’ thought process set in as June turned into July and the temperature and humidity tag teamed each other to new heights. When you reach the end of your ‘around the garden weeding tour’ only to find yourself at the start of the next ‘around the yard weeding tour’ it can get a little discouraging, and to be honest that’s where I left off. Most of the new plants and annuals were in the ground, the automatic drip lines to the container plantings were working, all the insects were well fed… so off to the pool, a weekend at Omi and Opa’s, some porch sitting, and then a week off to Disney to realize how good I had it all along. Miles of trudging through 100F+ heat indices and then waiting on lines for every foreseeable human need can change a person, and I have returned renewed. Here are a few late June/ early July highlights to begin my return to gardening. 😉

Clematis suffer here in poor locations with shoddy supports. I finally moved ‘Ville de Lyons’ to a decent spot and she’s rewarded me with a wonderful show of flowers. Now I just need to move a nice blue to the other side!

This post may seem entirely random because it is. I don’t bother taking pictures when I’m disgusted with the garden so all the last few weeks can offer are a few furtive scurries outside when I felt like I had to get a few pictures onto the camera even though I knew there wasn’t much worth documenting.

Common milkweed right next to the front door. Of course it’s the absolute wrong place for a weed so I trimmed it down to two feet the day after it was flattened by a storm… only to see my first Monarch butterfly 24 hours later.

Speaking of documenting, I do have to tally up another $33 for two amazingly grown, full of buds, Japanese iris which I bought for myself as a Father’s Day gift. I know I shouldn’t count them since they were a gift, but being that I was surprised with an actual gift certificate the next day I guess I shouldn’t push my luck so onto the 2018 tally they go.

Iris ensata ‘Lion King’ is a lot of everything. Maybe this is my own personal point of ‘too much’ because I prefer the simpler purple one I bought the same day, but I guess we’ll see next year… assuming I can keep it alive 🙂

Add on a random tornado that touched down about seven miles down the interstate. That’s the second one in about two years, kind of bizarre considering no one remembers ever having tornados here before.

Fortunately the tornado hit a purely commercial area, later in the evening after things had closed down. Timing was everything.

Then the heat and humidity descended. Heat for us means upper nineties so if the Southerners can excuse a little whining I just want to say it felt really hot. Not hot enough to scorch the lawn yet (and spare me from all the mind numbing mowing) but it was hot enough to wake up every bug and blight and get them energized and inspired enough to take on the plant world.

Apparently thick haze wasn’t enough to mellow out the harsh light of mid-day, but here’s the front border just waking up from it’s June lull. Some color, but still mostly green.

The big grasses are one of the plants which seem to thrive on heat and dry spells.

Along the street the variegated giant reed grass is looking awesome again and the pink fountain grass (Pennisetum ‘Karley Rose’) is flowering up a storm. Last year all the rain had the fountain grass too lush and green and completely floppy.

One plant which did not appreciate the humidity were the hollyhocks (Alcea rosea). As the flowers began to open up from the bottom of the seven foot stalks, the orange spots of rust followed behind, creeping from leaf to leaf. Just for the record I don’t remember rust on hollyhocks being such a plague years ago when my mother grew these. It wouldn’t surprise me to find that this is some new strain which came into the country somewhere along the line, and has ended any hopes of fungicide-free hollyhock growing on the East Coast.

The orange spots of hollyhock rust working their way up from the base of the plant. This will not end well.

A garden which actually enjoys some heat and humidity is the tropical bed. The cannas have yet to take off but given a little water and fertilizer I know they will (and I’m even more confident about that since this photo dates back to the end of June).

The red of ‘Black Forest’ rose continues to heat up the tropical border, but a few other things are filling in. Verbena bonariensis and the first dahlias are just a few weeks away.

I would guess there are plenty of hot and dry spots in South Africa, so it doesn’t surprise me that the prickly daisy flowers of Berkheya purpurea look fresh and happy opening up in the heat. I haven’t quite figured out yet why I like thistly plants, but this prickly, perennial mess is one of my favorites!

Berkheya purpurea looing as good as it gets in the rock garden.

Another mess which absolutely thrills me is the meadow garden. In early July the grass is just beginning to dry off, and the golden rudbeckia and orange butterfly weed fill it up with color -even if golden rudbeckia are one of my least favorite colors.

The meadow garden with a smattering of aspen saplings which have been allowed to sprout up. Of course they’ll end up casting too much shade, but right now I love the rocky mountain meadow look.

I leave you with one last bit of randomness. I’ve been nursing a ‘Chuck Hayes’ gardenia along since picking it up at the nursery late last summer. I tried the same thing the year before but of course killed it just as it was about to bloom, but second time must be the charm. With the new plant I carefully did nothing other than take it into the garage to escape the worst of the winter, and then water just enough to keep it alive. No silly fertilizing, or repotting, or anything else that would mess with the healthy plant that I had, all I did was wait patiently as it set buds and then finally decided to open up a few which had been forming all spring. On the first day of the most brutal, heavy, enveloping humidity ‘Chuck Hayes’ opened a bloom and filled the air with his Southern perfume, and it was just like I hoped it would be.

Gardenia ‘Chuck Hayes’ in bloom. Another catch it while it’s still alive moment in the garden.

And then the blahs hit. It’s really not as bad as it sounds since I’ve already seen the other side, but to make a long story short, the garden survives.

$33 worth of gifts to myself

$738 total so far for the 2018 gardening year.

And Then It Was Summer

Jun9

Well now it’s official, the first roses are in bloom.

Rose, possibly ‘John Cabot’, opening up at the far end of the front border.

I don’t think anyone out there dislikes roses. They might not like growing them, but to dislike them or harbor worse opinions seems out of the question and even borderline suspicious to me. There are a few roses around here but I’ve tried to hold back. Rose Rosette Disease is in the wild roses all around us, and I’d hate to see it jump into the garden and decimate any big plantings I might end up putting in. Unless they’re irresistibly fragrant of course. The workhorses I have right now are barely fragrant, and at the start fo each summer I always give a little thought to adding something with a fierce perfume. This year I’m thinking rugosas, and we’ll see if I can hold strong or not.

A surprising return from last year, ‘Red Rum’ lupine. I still think it’s amazing and of course want more.

The front border along the street is still riding high with the last of the iris and alliums and a returning lupine star from last year. I was sure the lupine would would be a one and done wonder but here it is in year two looking even better. Between the lupine and some new allium schubertii I’m really pleased how it looks. Usually the iris are followed by a lull, but not this year!

A closer look at Allium schubertii. Not super showy, but definitely super cool.

You may have heard it mentioned that someone here is going through an iris phase. It’s true, and I guess it’s been building for longer than I’d care to admit. Two years ago ‘Bayberry Candle’ was added, and this year I’m seeing how a flower which is not bright nor flashy, can still be rich and amazing.

Iris ‘Bayberry Candle’ (1966)

It’s possible there have been other iris as well. ‘Gerald Darby’ was showing off his purple foliage earlier in the year and now has sent up several purple tinged flower stalks topped with several elegant (purple of course) flowers.

Iris ‘Gerald Darby’ in bloom.

These later iris are part of what I call the ‘water iris’ group. That term would likely make a more knowledgable iris grower cringe, but for me it’s one of the beardless iris which do well enough in occasionally soggy, and my always clayish soil, even to the point of sitting in water. I put the invasive yellow flag (Iris pseudacorus) in this group, and although it’s a little too sloppy for me I do have the brown veined ‘Berlin Tiger’ version which will hopefully not seed around and spread as much as the standard variety. This one has the distinction of being one of my most expensive iris, since even though the original plant was free from a friend (thanks Kathy!) I may have been tempted to search out similar varieties, order them from far away, and then add other things just to round out a decent order…. and I’m still thinking I should add a few more this summer…

The finely veined flowers of iris ‘Berlin Tiger’ are pretty darn interesting.

Moving out of the iris world it’s also peony season. On the plus side my garden is too small and this gardener is too fickle to invest in bunches and bunches of these. I’m counting that as a good thing since if it weren’t set up that way I’m sure I could devote quite a few beds to these opulent flowers and surely I’d go overboard.

Peony ‘Do Tell’ wallowing in a weedy side bed. I hope you believe that it’s been cleaned up since this photo was taken 😉

At this time of year the gardener is spending most of his time weeding and mowing, but what he really needs to do is finish planting. Last weekend overwintered bulbs went into the tropical garden, and in an attempt to buy some time from the weeds the lawn clippings were collected and spread around as a mulch.

Not the most attractive soil cover, but it sure beats an ocean of verbena and prickly lettuce seedlings. In a few weeks you hopefully won’t even notice it under all the new growth.

I do prefer thick perennial plantings as a way of crowding out weeds rather than the trouble of mulching and cultivating, but a full bed in June doesn’t leave much room for all those annuals I’d like to still add. Hopefully this doesn’t become a regret in August.

Amsonia hubrichtii in front with its oddly icy colored pale blue flowers, and Allium nigrum rising up in the center. I’ve been warned that the allium will be impossible to get rid of, so I pretend to be happy with its multiplying and just let it be.

Maybe I will whack a few things back today and sneak a few castor beans and cannas in. I also have a few orange marigolds which should really class things up, so maybe this weekend… In the meantime here’s one more picture of my little darling ‘Red Rum’ lupine, I honestly look at this plant a million times a day.

One last view of ‘Red Rum’. The color is exciting, just try to avoid spelling the name backwards.

All the best for this weekend. Hopefully you are either well into it or have already had an excellent time of it, I know I plan to 🙂

I just have to avoid the temptation of nursery hopping this weekend… in the hopes of finding some fragrant rugosa roses. We’ll see.

A Tropical Update

Sep9

While we look to the tropics and wait to see what the latest hurricane brings I think a trip to the milder side is in order. The Pennsylvania tropics are much calmer and even-keeled and if you ignore the heavy hand of winter’s approach I think it’s a nice enough retreat from everything else going on.

The tropical border this summer. The steady rains were a plus but the cooler temperatures held many a hot-blooded plant back.

Even though things were in the ground earlier than ever this year the cool weather made for a slow start. I even lost nearly all the dahlias when my “big patch of ’em” idea didn’t go well with the “all the water drains here” reality. Losing plants to an excess of water is not something I’ve ever experienced here on this thin-soiled hilltop. Fortunately there’s always a backup plan.

The striped leaves of ‘Bengal Tiger’ canna rank as one of my all time favorite plants. To me they seem to go well with everything, especially the purple verbena bonariensis and surviving dahlias.

Verbena. Verbena bonariensis is my backup plan for nearly every plant fiasco/disaster. Any unmulched sunny spot quickly sprouts a few seedlings and all this gardener has to do is stand back. If anything they need thinning since they come up thick and look much better when each has some space of their own.

This might be my most promising red hot poker. Kniphofia ‘Alcazar’ has nice big spikes with just the right glow factor. Last year there were only two flower stalks which faded in a week or two, but this year three flushes of flowerings kept the plant interesting for almost two months. I hope it wasn’t a fluke!

I do tend to let things just happen. Laziness and distraction can do that to a garden, and the far end of the tropical border is mostly foliage.

Leaves aren’t all that bad. Having a spot where color is not entirely in your face is probably a good idea.

The mulch which I smothered this end of the bed with must have contained some leftover autumn decorations so the coleus I planted ended up being smothered by the climbing vines of Yugoslavian finger squash. They seemed to love all the rain and vines slinked and slithered all through the back of the border.

There’s something about the name ‘Yugoslavian finger squash’ which I think is funny. Yugoslavian? The finger? Finger squash? It’s like a teenage boy came up with the name and I guess it speaks volumes for my maturity level.

So while we await our Finger squash decorating bonanza the rest of the border is busy with the bees and butterflies who take advantage of the color.

With any luck this year’s Monarch migration will be a big one, and I hope I left enough verbena to keep them around for a few days.

I’m hoping things work out well for a big Monarch migration this autumn. A few years ago there was a trifecta of beautiful weather, plenty of butterflies, and loads of verbena blossoms and walking through the fluttering garden was almost surreal. Thinking back on it I really feel bad for those people who hire landscape companies, spray for any wildlife which gets too close, and then stare at lawn all summer. Holy boring.

At three or four inches long Katydids are an insect you can have a conversation with. People go on about bees and butterflies but these guys are my favorites… even if they do eat decent sized chunks out of the purple canna leaves.

The tropical garden is not boring.

Too much? Stripes on stripes was not the plan but somehow ‘Tropicana’ ended up in front of ‘Cosmopolitan’ fountain grass. It should look even more tasteful in another few weeks when the grass puts out its pink flower heads.

Hope a good weekend is had by all and a little boring can extend down to the areas in the path of hurricane Irma. The tropics look much better when not ravaged by obscene winds.

sorta like suburbia

more than you ever wanted to know about my garden

Category Archives: Tropical garden