GBFD September – out with the old

Sep22

Each month Christina at Creating my own Garden of the Hesperides asks us to focus on the foliage backdrop which fills any garden display. Christina has a subtle blend of foliage form and foliage color in her (usually) warm, sunny, and windswept Italian paradise. My garden is not so subtle, and the (usually) reliable rains and humidity give me a completely different plant palette to work with. With frost only a few days away (anytime from early to mid October) I wanted to take a last look at the gaudy tropicals and annuals before they become a soggy frozen mess…. and then in with the new season!

Coleus ‘Limon Blush’ with a few late season delphiniums and cane begonia.

This might be the first year I didn’t buy any new coleus. I wonder if I’m moving out of that phase….

An unidentified yellow “sun” coleus. In full sun it bleaches to a pale yellow, in shade it will stay a chartreuse color.

It wasn’t too long ago that I filled the late winter windowsills with pots of rooted coleus cuttings. From October to March the snow refuges would sit in a glass of water, but in early March I’d pot them up and start the production line of clipping off even the smallest shoot for rooting. By May and June I’d have dozens of plants for the garden.

Rooted coleus cuttings in June

It’s easy enough, but there’s only so much room for them to grow on and if my interests take me elsewhere….

Coleus ‘Alabama sunset’ and a dark leaved (something with Lava in the name) coleus which have been with me since the old house (8 years ago?)

I’m sure I’ll save plenty again, they’re no fuss, tolerate drying out and add such bright color….. it just depresses me a little thinking about taking cuttings and ending the season. But for a few more weeks the foliage will continue to do a good job of creating patches of brightness in the borders.

Without the aging sunflower stalks, the front foundation planting looks much neater. Coleus “Redhead” fits nicely into a color scheme which I’ll pretend was planted intentionally here, and mums and sedum ‘Autumn Joy’ echo the coleus and compliment the blue fescue.

I don’t know how this will go over, but I’m going to confess to being a coleus thief. To the embarrassment and disgust of my wife I’ve been known to nip a cutting here and there when I linger too close to particularly nice municipal plantings. I try to rationalize my way out of the theft by looking at the damage done by unwatched children and careless pedestrians, but I guess it’s theft nonetheless even if park employees have laughed at me for asking permission or have pulled off way more than I even wanted when aiding and abetting. Just for the record I would never do this in a nursery!

I like to call this yellow cutleaf coleus “Entrance to Epcot”

There seems to be a heavy criminal theme to my posts lately. I suppose that’s what happens when your workplace is closed for nearly a week as authorities mount a massive manhunt in the surrounding woods and residential areas.

This coleus likes a little more shade than the others, although it can handle full sun too. I call it “Hershey Park”.

The subject of ownership of living things is a lot more than I want to get into in a foliage post, but I’ve seen plenty of tempers flare over the subject. I hope my rare coleus clipping has never caused anything worse than additional branching of the plant, but I know the argument well which starts with “what if everyone did it…” and I know there are cases where nicked cuttings do cause damage. I envy the people who live in such a simple black and white world. I wonder if they return the piles of autumn leaves which blow into their yards each fall, or bring back the dead limbs which happen to fall over the fence.

The Virginia creeper and wild asters were ‘gifts’ from next door. I don’t think I’ll return them, they look nice here with the ‘tiger eyes’ sumac.

Next month will have a show of autumn colors and the coleus will be gone. I’ll miss them but would never give up the changes in seasons. Fortunately there will be plenty of perennials and shrubs to pick up the foliage-slack.

The Virginia creeper was just starting to color on Saturday and this morning I see the color’s spread across the wall.

Some perennials which I’m looking forward to seeing change are my new-this-year heucheras. The cooler nights are already bringing out new patterns on the leaves.

We will see who does the best in this mixed heuchera planting. The gaps are already widening as other plants (mainly primulas) die back or die out….

To round out the post, here’s the weedy iris bed which was the recipient of all that thick and rich (and smelly) lawn clipping mulch last week. I’m going to try my best to plant nothing here until the weeds are under control…. except for a few daffodils and transplanted iris 🙂

Miscanthus sinensis ‘Zebrinus’ might be too tall a grass for here, but at 8 feet tall and several feet wide I’m not too keen on moving it. (plus I do like my tall plants!) -and notice the shop-vac. The gnats drive me nuts this time of year, and I get remarkable pleasure in sucking them out of the air with the vacuum!

Ok, moving along. Here are the last bits of foliage which will be gone from the garden in another couple weeks.

Alocasia “calidora”… just when I was getting tired of lugging it in and out each spring it explodes into leafy greatness. This year I’ll just wheel it into the garage, stop watering, and clip off the dead leaves as they yellow.

…and another pot for the garage. After suffering all winter and spring in their cramped clearance sale pots, this purple dracaena and fuzzy leaved succulent have finally found a home. Hopefully they can handle each other’s watering requirements.

I think the relief of actually being in a real pot has made this succulent happy enough to throw off a few blooms. I have the name somewhere, but love the foliage mix and bright flowers just as much without a name!

So that rounds out the end of summer foliage news. Much is set to expire, but the colder weather should bring a whole new set of players. If you can, take the time to visit Christina’s blog and check out what other bloggers around the world are finding in their own gardens. Enjoy your Garden Blogger’s Foliage Day and have a great week!

End of Summer for the (not quite)Tropical Bed

Sep19

Today surprised me with a completely free afternoon. There was plenty I should have done, but nothing I had to do, so I spent all afternoon in the garden. I actually worked too! Usually when it’s dry and it’s warm I tend to just sit around, but the grass was due for a cutting and one thing lead to another and before I knew it I was sore and sweaty and satisfied. The following pictures have little to do with anything that got done, but they’re more interesting than edged lawn and mulched beds!

At the very end of the former tropical garden the heptacodium is actually looking good for once with a decent shape and nice blooms.

The sunflowers which took over the tropical bed are looking a little worse for wear but I’ll leave them till spring since they’re visited daily by several families of goldfinches and other songbirds. Dahlias, cannas and now mums are picking up the slack, and if I get just the right angle without the dying sunflowers everything still looks fresh and lush.

At the top end of the tropical bed this clump of ‘mammoth mums’ adds to the already-too-much-color theme. L-R the mums are bronze, pink, coral, red, and yellow quill. They’re colorful and great growers, but nothing exciting.

I broke down and ran the sprinkler out front again. The grass was curling up and I can’t deal with brown lawn in September. I’m letting the vegetables dry up but the lawn and perennials out front need to stay green for a little while longer or it will all be too depressing. I also watered some in the back, the tropical beds are so dry most of the water just runs off, but I hope it’s enough for a few of the surviving treasures.

I would call this one of 2014’s treasures. It’s a pink salvia splendens grown from seed. The only one to sprout and the first one I’ve grown that didn’t turn out to be another red when it bloomed. I have my fingers crossed for seed!

One of the happiest finds of the day (and one that only a gardener could even come close to understanding) was that I found where a neighbor’s been dumping lawn clippings in the woods. I lugged back about four wheelbarrows full of clippings and spread them out around the bed I’m slowly reclaiming from bellflower and other weeds. This should go a long way in bringing in the earthworms and smothering the last sprouts, and my fingers are crossed that this same neighbor will also dump nicely shredded autumn leaves in the same spot. What a bonanza that would be 🙂

Red zinnias are bright enough to distract you from the other tired perennials and vigorous weeds. This area is just past the tropical bed and I cling to the hope that someday it will be a red garden. So far these zinnias are the only plant which has worked out -even though I almost quit the watering this week!

With all the new mulch and (I hope) smothered weeds I feel like for once things are almost under control in the garden. I still hope there will be at least one more nice load of grass clippings to feed the tropical border but the fact that there are no four foot weeds is a first here for this time of year. Now if we could just get some rain then maybe I could get some transplanting started!

The tomatoes are one thing that did get away from me. I froze a bunch of nicely prepared San Marzanos last week, but these “Sun Sugar” tomatoes are too much of a good thing. They look nice though.

While taking the tomato picture I was surprised to find a cicada clinging to the trellis. I love cicadas and this closeup was a treat for someone who usually only hears them.

cicada

With all these beds under control the smart thing would be to regroup….. but Santa Rosa Gardens has a great fall sale (plus 10% more off with the code FALL10), I want to place a Lily Garden order for lilies, there are a few shrubs which are tempting me at Lazy S’s Farms, and my favorite local nursery has an open house (and sales I’m sure) this Saturday. Plus I have a snowdrop order to pay. My checkbook is saying no but I keep disagreeing with it. Oh what to do, what to do…..

Resist temptation

Jul24

Summertime DIY projects are an awful thing, and not just for their interference with pool time. This beautiful time of year with its warmth and sunshine is also the time when nurseries and box stores try and clear out their inventory, and as long as I’m at the store picking up lumber and sandpaper I might as well take a stroll through the plants to see what’s going on. So far an oleander and golden arborvitae have joined the screw and hinge purchases, and under the relentless strain of repeated returns to the store it’s no surprise my resistance wears thin and a small eucalyptus or succulent falls in the cart too. Some people buy chocolate, I buy plants, and at a midsummer 50% off sale I run the risk of getting fat.

The DIY store is not a nursery. The plants are not well cared for and are right in there with washing machines, pipe, and soda coolers…… but sometimes you get lucky. Sometimes you don’t though, and it bothers me that they sell diseased and dying plants such as these ‘Tropicana’ cannas.

Canna ‘Tropicana’ should be a gaudy blend of yellow, pink, and red stripes on a purple leaf, without breaks and mottling of color. You’re looking at canna virus.

I would guess the store doesn’t know and doesn’t much care to know but the grower should, and to send out plants looking this bad (and to then sell them for nearly $15!) seems irresponsible. Reputation must not matter much as long as the bottom line keeps looking good.

Back in the day people went crazy over the wild colors which would show up in virused tulips….. but they learned the lesson and dumped the plants. ‘Tropicana’ growers didn’t get the memo, and each year I see these deformed offerings.

I would think if it’s your business you would want to send out the healthiest plants possible, and I’ve seen several online sources openly discuss the canna virus struggle, but some don’t seem to care. ‘Tropicana’ can be a really cool plant…. if not entirely tasteful 🙂

Tropicana out by the mailbox last year. Maybe not virus-free (I’m back and forth on whether or not it’s clean) but it sure looks better than the store version.

I like my cannas and try to toss anything that looks suspicious, but I hate to see the pros doing a worse job than me.

I’d also hate to leave on a down note so here’s another lapse in judgment that you might enjoy. Santa Rosa is an excellent online source for plants, and they run some amazing sales, here are the goodies which arrived last month after I fell victim to their online summer clearance.

I wasn’t even aware of my heuchera addiction until this showed up. My collection of one plant just increased by a dozen more….

The sale is still going on by the way, and if you use the coupon code of JULY10 when checking out, another $10 will come off your $35 minimum order… that’s practically giving plants away and I’m not going to go there (but I would never judge others who lack my amazing will power!)

The garden formerly known as tropical

Jul23

There’s a spot in my yard (actually most of it inches over into my Mother in Law’s yard) where I like to indulge in a little of the tropics. Last year it was full of cannas, sweet potatoes, and other warm weather friends, but this year it seems to have lost some of that bold tropical flair. As usual it’s my own fault, and as usual it’s a long story, so I’ll try to keep it short. It all begins in April when mulch was purchased for next door, and a willing volunteer was needed to spread it. I foolishly agreed, but the deal was to add a couple tons of topsoil (I said I needed it to fill in along a sidewalk). “I’ll spread all your mulch if you buy me even more stuff which needs spreading”. Let me just say I run a hard bargain.

Look at that three inch drop from the sidewalk into the tropical bed. Clearly an ankle twisting lawsuit in the making!

So the mulch was spread, perennials divided, shrubs trimmed, weeds pulled…. the deal kept getting better and better it seems, but then it came down to the heap of topsoil sitting in the driveway. I used a few wheelbarrows to raise the soil along the walk and was still left with plenty. Finally my plan was coming together hah hah hah. I’m pretty sure I mentioned I might use the topsoil to expand the bed a bit, so that’s what I went ahead and did 🙂

Line the edge with a hose, cut in and dig out the edge, smother the grass with about two inches of topsoil… wow did I hate mowing this sloped little patch of sickly grass!

No one said a word about the tripled in size, very empty bed. I think people around here may be a little wary about asking questions for fear I will plant up a field of dandelions or something. Some people have said I’m stubborn and criticism may tend to encourage me even more. I like to think of it as proving a point 😉

A huge empty garden bed in May. What could possibly make a gardener happier (other than a few loads of compost mixed in)?

The last bits of mulch made the bed a little more suburban-friendly and a few paver scraps thrown down along the center made an acceptable shortcut for the kids. Then on to the real fun! Canna and dahlia roots were lugged out and planted, and that was well enough, but then trouble started brewing. A box filled with a dozen or so rooted chrysanthemum cuttings showed up at the door. I can check on them constantly if they’re right along the edge of the new bed, so that’s where they went. Don’t ask me why I needed a box of chrysanthemums, February is a tough month.

Somehow random perennials invaded the tropical border, that and chrysanthemums….

Then of course I tried to make the front yard more respectable by not having sunflowers all throughout the foundation plantings. Out they came and into the new bed they went. I have a serious problem in trying to show any kind of resolve against sunflower seedlings, they’re all summer and sunshine and it seems borderline criminal to pull them as weeds.

Peony “Do Tell” can’t seriously expect to be the only plant using this spot of sun all year. The sunflowers should take over by July and the peony will just hang out in their shade until next year…. that’s the theory at least.

Things still look awfully barren but until the heat of summer hits it’s all kind of just biding its time. Looking over from my yard you can see the bit of slope which made me hate mowing this spot. Plus I’m not all that crazy about lawn to begin with *yawn* ….. it’s only really good for walking around on while checking the plants out!

Year two of “I should give the table another coat of pain” -June 10th

My grass just doesn’t have the strength to come up through the soil (southerners may have a different experience), and even without soil improvement the new plants are still doing well as they feed off the decaying lawn underneath. A month later and things are looking better. The cannas still give a tropical look, but all the sunflowers are giving more of a neglected-agriculture vibe!

July 13th, about a month later and the cannas are up, the sunflowers are growing, and I still keep looking at the bare dirt wishing for some compost or mulch to cover it up with.

As the sunflowers come into bloom they’re pretty and cheerful… but they’re not the tropics.

It looks lush and green, so I should be happy. Also it’s not the color disaster I grew here last year, another reason to be pleased!

Besides it being a non-tropical border, a few other problems are coming to light. The first is that some of the chrysanthemums relentlessly insist on setting buds and blooming for summer instead of fall. I think I failed to pinch them back enough when planting them out in the spring, but I just don’t have the heart to do it now.

Chrysanthemums blooming in July, hopefully they’ll be on the correct schedule next year…. but they’ll need dividing by then, so I have no idea where to put them all!

To me a more insidious problem is the sunflower blooms. When the first flower opened I cringed. They’re completely pollen free, and because of that they don’t offer much to pollinators, and even worse they don’t set seed as well as the normal types. I thought for sure since they were selfsown from last year’s plants that they should be normal functioning sunflowers but that’s not the case. These all appear to carry the pollen-free gene, a gene which I’m sure came from the birdfeed seed. I’m not big on all the seed conspiracies, but this looks like a genetic insurance policy that keeps farmers coming back to the seed supplier each year, and keeps them from replanting their own crop. Good for a seed seller but not so good for me and all my now genetically tainted sunflowers.

Not much here for the bees.

Luckily there’s a small patch of sunflowers out front which still grow normally. Once these started blooming I noticed a few seeds starting to form in the other patch (I guess a little pollen goes a long way throughout the garden!). I need to make sure I get my seedlings from this area next year.

This sunflower looks like it’s full of tasty seeds, not full of empty husks like over in the other patch.

The sunflowers look pretty enough, but all I see are the black soulless eyes of the walking dead…. ok maybe not that bad, but they lack the busy bees and bugs that usually do laps around the big open pollen filled flowers. The goldfinches have also been very insulting as they touch down to check on the seed supply and come up empty. Hopefully pollen from the front yard will work it’s way back here to at least make the birds happy. Just in case, I planted a patch of heirloom sunflowers in the now completely dug up daffodil patch. They’ll be late, but they’ll have pollen, and I think they’ll still make it before frost.

Sunflowers coming on strong.

I’m still holding out for a few tropical effects. One castor bean seed came up and is now taking off, and “tropicanna” canna is looking healthy. Also if I have nothing better to do this week, a few coleus and sweet potato cuttings can fill in one or two of the still empty spots, and maybe by late August ‘tropicalismo’ will revisit this bed once again.

Castor bean “carmencita” and a few over-fed “Tropicana” cannas. The cannas seem to get much brighter colors when grown on the lean side, or with just a little 10-10-10 fertilizer. This batch has a lot of green in them due to higher nitrogen, probably from some miracle grow.

I don’t know if they say tropical to everyone, but dahlias never fail to bring brightness. This peachy pink with yellow cactus flower makes me think of some overdone tropical drink. Yummy!

Unknown dahlia which I keep saving from year to year. This spring I tried to show some restraint with them since last season planting a dozen or so might have been overkill 🙂

One plant I still need to plant out more of is verbena bonariensis. In almost all my other beds it can be counted on to show up and make a play for taking over any open spot, here in the new soil it hasn’t had a chance to seed in yet. Any transplants made this time of year will shrug off the shock of moving quickly and should be blooming up a purple storm in no time at all so I better get moving.

The grassy tropicalish leaves of arundo donax “gold chain” make a great mix with the sunflowers and verbena. I might have to plant this combo on purpose next year to make sure it happens again!

The tall old fashioned red leaved cannas always make me happy. They’re super easy to overwinter, never look ratty, and always grow as fast as the fertilizer and water will take them. The small reddish blooms which come later in the season aren’t much to talk about, but the hummingbirds love them.

Maybe canna “red Russian”? We call them Polish cannas after the old Polish woman who years ago gave the first ones to a friend of mine.

So that’s the latest from the ex-tropical bed. It may still heat up as the season progresses, but for now it’s decidedly temperate and might remain so for a while. No amaranthus or salvia seedlings showed, and this spring was a bust as far as all the seeds I started, so many of the brightest colors from last year are hushed. For now I’ll have to keep satisfied with my little bit of the tropics in containers.

A couple real tropicals planted in containers where I can best keep an eye on them.

Not to go on any longer than I already have, but those weak little pots of tropicalismo surrounded by weeds and dead grass aren’t just a bad planter arrangement. To me they’re the accent on a new gavel terrace backed by a low stone wall. Maybe a fire pit. I think one of the reasons my garden looks the way it does is because I have a bit too much vision, but we’ll see. I do tend to work backwards and always find the plants first…. who cares if the seating area is still a little “in development”?

Hunkering Down

Nov8

Last weekend was the finale of the fall color. By the end of this week most of the leaves will be down and the doors will be open for winter to make its arrival.

I’m not rushing it out but I think I have to call a time for the 2013 growing season. It’s lost its joie de vivre and from now on until snow flies it’s all downhill. So far so good though. I’ve been remarkably organized this fall and had most of the tropical were safely under cover a few days before the first frost. This year I’m putting some under lights, maybe it will help them look a little less pathetic come March. overwintering tropicals under lights

The rest will sit out winter in the back of our semi-heated garage. No watering, little light, but it should be enough to bring them through the winter. When I get the motivation I’ll move them back away from the door…. just like I’ll move all the other crap that tends to accumulate and fill the spot where my car should be. overwintering tropicals

Weekend plans include digging up dahlia and canna roots and finishing winter cleanup. So far it hasn’t felt like much work and maybe my early start and the late frost date worked in my favor, but usually things happen at a different pace. My usual method is wait until I’m in bed, see a freezing weather report, grab a flashlight, and then stumble through the dark in my pajamas, flashlight in mouth and a load of cold wet plants in my arms. Good times, good times.

The freeze-dash makes you grateful for hardy “tropicals” such as musa basjoo. This one is going on winter #3 here by the porch. I think the protection of the house helps bring it through the winter, although a little extra protection would probably give it a much stronger head start in the spring.Now that the summer garden is packed away and additional rain has finally made for good planting soil I’m thinking about bulbs. I bet I could hit a few clearance sales and add a couple more bulbs cheaply before the ground freezes. I bet I’d be real proud of myself come May….. I just have to remember the time change has me leaving for work and returning home in the dark, and that doesn’t make for good bulb planting. Oh well. I already know how this is going to turn out 😉

A Hawaiian Shirt

Aug30

Normally I try to give this flower bed a little respect, calling it the tropical bed instead of just “the mess”, but for whatever reason this year it really is a mess. The usual tropicals went to fill up new bed space this spring and I didn’t save enough goodies for here, plus it was planted late too…. (more excuses)…. and about half the plants are volunteers that just came up on their own, so it’s a patchwork of screaming colors.

Red salvia is loved by the hummingbirds, but the color really asserts itself. Some people have poo-pooed this pairing with the violet verbena as too “bleech”, but I think it could have been worse. The bigger view shows the weediness of the planting…..

I suppose I could have ripped out the amaranthus plants that came up (they’re the tall leafy stalks) and the squirrel ravaged sunflower is no beauty…. and the white buddleia in front of the white fence…. I could go on and on….

But it’s bright and colorful and it was meant to be vibrant. Next year I’m hoping to add a little green to calm it down and going back to more cannas to make it a little more “solid”. The white will be moved out.

The “summer poinsettia” is actually starting to grow on me, it’s the dark purple leaf which is developing the red tops. I like its lushness and maybe if I can just find some good neighbors it will really make a statement…. not that it’s keeping quiet now 🙂

Viva la Tropicalismo!

Jul23

“Tropicalismo” is so very ’90s but being in style was never my strong point. I still love the tropical look with big leaves and bright colors and lush happy growth right during the months when everything else looks a little tired and faded. Too big elephant ears, too bright cannas and just a little too tall grasses always make me smile when the bleeding hearts are dying in the heat. I even like the bright red salvia that is normally reserved for gas stations and trailer parks. Feel free to judge me, here’s a picture of the tropical bed last year.

This was a new area that was the perfect match of big space, full sun, and no planting budget, so I pulled together the leftover canna roots, popped in a couple sweet potato cuttings, and scattered some annual seedlings and with plenty of water and fertilizer it all came together.
As usual this year I’ve fallen behind, and the tropical bed is still a weed infested patch of leftover perennials, a few nice salvias, and an appropriately bright knockout rose.

I finally got around to weeding, mulching, and planting. It may seem like all is lost with such a late planting date, but the experience of a chronic procrastinator has taught me things will still work out fine. Also the late planting allowed several self sown red salvias and amaranth to make themselves known. All good things since I used up all the spare annuals when I expanded the front yard border.
So here it sits, still a little sparse, but ready to take on all the drought and heat summer throws its way.

With any luck I’ll still have the same tastelessly colorful display as last year, minus a few of the exceptionally colorful and tacky tropicana cannas.

sorta like suburbia

more than you ever wanted to know about my garden

Category Archives: Tropical garden