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.

Tuesday View: The Tropics 11.22.16

Nov22

Following the first hard frost, the tropical view has continued to spiral downwards into the reality of its temperate latitude. Our first significant snowfall came on Saturday night and although snow at this time of year is not unheard of, the long warm autumn and the fact Saturday topped out at 65F (18C) left me in a bit of a shock when I woke up to the white.

I guess it might finally be time to dig the dahlias and cannas.

The frosted annuals and browned cannas are still standing just where they were three weeks ago, and although the mess may look like complete apathy has set in the reality is I’ve been quite busy. There’s been a good amount of earth moving and bed building on top of the required leaf cleanup and bulb planting and I feel pretty good about spring, I just want warmth to return for a few more weeks so I can finish digging and planting.

But if the weather doesn’t change I’ll get over it. No one’s life has ever crumbled over a few unraked leaves or frozen dahlias and as long as there are plenty of snowdrops in April I’ll be fine. There’s always next year 🙂

Tuesday View: The Tropics 11.1.16

Nov2

As you can see from this Tuesday’s view, the weather forecast was correct and Tuesday night we received our first strong frost. One night and the tropical summer was over… but for this part of PA the last week of October is a late frost date, so there are no complaints from this end. It was a great year!

No denying fall is here now. The cannas are browned, the dahlias are blackened, yet even at the end of the season there’s still some color left.

You wouldn’t guess it but I did spend a few minutes cleaning up. The mildewed Verbena bonariensis had been bothering me so those were cut down, and a few large blackened salvias and coleus were taken out as well. For the most part though the rest will come out this weekend (I hope) as I dig canna and dahlia roots and pack them away for the winter, but I have to say even with less color it’s still kind of interesting. I’m discovering things here and there which have been overshadowed by the annuals for the past three months.

A bit tousled by this weekend’s thunderstorm, chrysanthemum ‘Carousel’ is still holding up to the cooler nights. The green nicotina is also doing well, but the surprise was the fat clump of Mexican feather grass (Stipa tenuissima… recently renamed though) which was hiding under the verbena I pulled.

Today I did go ahead and plant a few leftover snowdrops in the tropical bed. The idea of early spring snowdrops sounds nice enough, but I’m pretty sure it will prove to be a bad idea come July when I want to replant all the summer visitors in the same spot. “Oh well” I say. Summer is a long time off and spring flowers are more fun to think of.

So as the season winds down here I’d again like to thank Cathy at Words and Herbs for hosting the Tuesday view each week. It’s been a nice run but I believe winter has most of us calling it quits for the season and our thoughts are turning inside and towards the holidays. Not a bad idea at all, but I might still have another week or two in me, if only to prove that I really did dig up and store all those fantastic roots and bulbs for next year!

Tuesday View: The Tropics 10.25.16

Oct26

It’s a cold and breezy Tuesday this week, with a wind that makes you feel like change is a’comin to this end of Pennsylvania. The forecast tonight is a dip below freezing and there’s a good chance this will be the last week a colorful and lush view shows up in Cathy’s weekly meme. There are still a few weeks left to the season, but after frost hits the view will be decidedly less colorful.

A gloomy, gray Tuesday afternoon. The last of the autumn color has worked its way down the mountains and into the garden and things are entirely autumnal. The wheelbarrow is covering the flowering thistle, I’m hoping to get a few ripe seeds before it freezes.

Whether or not this turns out to be our killing frost remains to be seen, but with the cold wind blowing I’m completely indifferent. Sunday was spent clearing the rest of the garden of everything I wanted to save, so now it’s just a matter of letting nature run its course. Snow is predicted for Thursday so I guess I’m officially giving up 🙂

One last view. The tropics have been good to me this year.

So next week will likely show some serious changes. Once frost hits I like to get things out of the way and cleaned up fast so that I can put down some mulch before winter hits. Any unmulched areas will likely sprout a carpet of winter weeds such as hairy bittercress and I’d rather not start next season with that kind of a mess on my hands. Wish me luck.

After you wish me luck please consider giving Cathy at Words and Herbs a visit to see how autumn is progressing through other gardens in other parts of the world. It’s always a great visit and a fun way to keep up over the season. Have a great week!

Tuesday View: The Tropics 10.19.16

Oct20

I’m a day late in joining Cathy for the Tuesday view, but I think it’s just that time of year when things begin to unravel and go to seed so hopefully my tardiness will be forgiven. Here it is!

Autumn comes to the tropical garden

The view looks remarkably similar to last week’s with just a few more hints of autumn color in the background and a few more tints of brown in the front. We had a slight frost last Monday and again on Friday but for the most part the garden is intact.

The tender new leaves of alocasia x portora took the low temperatures very seriously while the dahlias just shrugged them right off. Serves me right for not bringing this elephant ear in earlier.

Last week’s lows have been followed by a few warm days but I think the damage has already been done. Most tropicals get all miffy once nighttime temperatures drop below 50 and I guess it’s time to start thinking seriously about bringing them in.

My newest elephant ear, colocasia esculenta ‘tropical storm’ is gaining back a little strength following a run in with spider mites. I ended up snipping off all the foliage to get rid of them, now it’s a matter of hoping for the best over winter.

Even with some of the largest leaves showing a little frost damage, the cooler nights seem to intensify and brighten the last of the autumn colors.

‘Knockout’ rose seems to get even brighter as the thermometer drops. It’s a nice mix with the season long color of the Verbena bonariensis.

Although I made a good effort of removing most of the chrysanthemums from this bed, I did leave ‘Carousel’ for some late season color. The plan was for it to carry on after frost blackened most of the other color in this bed, but here it is joining in as just another supporting player. I like it for the long stems and late blooms which last into November but tolerate it for it’s floppy stalks and necessary June pinching.

Chrysanthemum ‘Carousel’ opening up as one of the last floral events of the 2016 tropical border.

‘Carousel’ is pretty much the only thing left to anticipate in the border, everything else is just finger crossing for additional days without frost. We are into a slight Indian summer of warm, hazy days following our earlier run-in with cold, but even that is somewhat irritating as I like the cooler weather for transplanting, bulb planting, and fall foliage enjoying…. not that I’m complaining too much about having a few last drink nights out on the porch sans jacket 🙂

Looking up towards the back end. I love that all 6 feet of that annoyingly bright white vinyl fence is now hidden behind an interesting wall of greens and flowers. And I love that I still have plenty of dahlias!

So here’s to another Tuesday view where the tropics are still green! Long live summer and all the best for your upcoming week 🙂

Tuesday View: The Tropics 10.11.16

Oct12

Tuesday is here and again I’m happy to join up with Cathy at Words and Herbs for the view. Things still look warm, but the lows last night seem to have brought in the tiniest bit of frost which singed a few tomato leaves here and there in the vegetable garden. We’re living on borrowed time!

Still a tropical view. The one kochia has gone brown, but the flowers and foliage of nearly everything else is all autumn abundance 🙂

I wish I had more to say but I’ve been distracted by the chrysanthemums and fall bulbs and time consuming things such as fall baseball and gymnastics. I’ve also had a bulb buying relapse and in a weak moment ordered many more snowdrops than I could possibly need. That and tulips… even though I recently said I wouldn’t buy any new ones this year.

My suspicion is that I’m the only one concerned about this latest purchase, but now that I think about it further (since I have absolutely no idea where to place these latest purchases), I wonder how the tropical border would look with a large swath of tulips and a small throw blanket of snowdrops. I bet it wouldn’t look half bad!

Have a great week 🙂

Tuesday View: The Tropics 10.04.16

Oct5

The nights have taken a turn towards cool here and for the first time it feels like the tropical bed is showing signs of autumn. The winding down of the season is ok by me, but my fingers are crossed we don’t have a repeat of last year when a single 23F (-5C) night in mid October crushed all hopes for a mellow end to the season. Frost is inevitable, but a brutal freeze? Unnecessary.

The Tuesday view on this first week of October

This Tuesday as I again join up with Cathy at Words and Herbs, I’d like to also give a nod to Eliza and copy her idea of showing a flashback to the earlier days of this season. Everything looked so cute and tiny back in this last week of June.

The first Tuesday view. A few perennials making a show, but the only annuals visible are a flat of small orange zinnias, freshly planted out of their six-packs.

Things have grown since then and one of my favorite growers has been the annual burning bush (Kochia scoparia). One by one the individual plants in the seedling clumps I planted out are starting to color and I have to admit I like the look, even though the plants will go brown once they pass their peak of redness.

I love all these colors but last week the kochia at the lowest right of the clump was just at its peak. Only seven days later and it has browned, so I hope the rest of the clump doesn’t follow as quickly.

Sneaking up alongside the kochia is a new chrysanthemum seedling. I evicted nearly all the mums from this bed earlier in the year, but I guess this one was small enough to miss.

Not the greatest photo of it but a nice enough self-sown mum with small spoon shaped yellow petals.

Slightly less impressive are the late season flowers of ‘white frosted’ Japanese thistle. There’s not much to them, and some might mention the word “weedy”, but I’m hoping for seeds since the spring variegation on these is great and my only other plant of this perennial thistle died during our relentless May rains.

The less than impressive flowers of ‘White Frosted’ Japanese thistle (Cirsium japonicum).

There’s nothing less than impressive about the cannas and dahlias. I know I constantly show the same combos, but….

Canna ‘Bengal Tiger’ looking as variegated as ever alongside the deep red flowers of dahlia ‘Mathew Alen’. The purple cloud of Verbena bonariensis has been going strong all summer.

The path up through the center takes a little maneuvering to get through. The purple leaved cannas have pushed most everything out of their way, and the dahlias now sprawl across the path.

Dahlias and verbena up through the middle of the tropical garden.

The resident hummingbirds headed south a few weeks ago and with the exception of a few last stragglers migrating through the flowers have been left to the sleepy bumble bees of autumn. Monarch butterflies still stop in here and there, but it’s getting pretty quiet as things cool off.

Dahlia Sylvia seems to make a nice spot for a bumblebee’s afternoon nap.

Sleepy bumblebees kind of sum up how I feel about the garden these days. Maybe it’s allergies or lack of a good night’s sleep, but if you had to put me in camp grasshopper or camp ant I think I’m more of a grasshopper. I’ll enjoy the sun and last bits of warmth while they last, and just have to hope for the best when the axe of winter falls.

sorta like suburbia

more than you ever wanted to know about my garden

Category Archives: Tropical garden