Tuesday View: The Front Border 8.1.17

Aug2

It’s been a busy week so far with a return from traveling and now a busy afternoon prepping for something new… an open garden! I’ve been toiling away all afternoon and just had to join up with Cathy at Words and Herbs for her Tuesday view even though the garden itself hasn’t changed much. The neatness is what I had to show off, it doesn’t happen much that the garden is surrounded with such a green, trim lawn with crisp, freshly cut edges.

Plants are deadheaded, the lawn is mown, edges are clean, and walks are swept!

As far as open gardens go I think I’m making it sound like much more than it really is. It’s a mid-week visit by the local garden group, the Back Mountain Bloomers, and I don’t expect much more than a dozen or so people. Numbers like that probably make other open day veterans chuckle but for me it’s some serious pressure. It’s rare that my garden is visited by anyone with more than just a passing interest in plants, so hopefully they don’t judge my “in progress” areas with too critical an eye 🙂

Holy neatness… and the ‘Limelight’ hydrangea isn’t looking too bad either.

There’s a good chance I brought this on myself. After a less than subtle post titled “Come Visit”, and several other comments such as “stop by if you’re in the area” and “so when are you coming?”, I think people felt obligated. I’m fine with that and hopefully can corner at least one or two people to talk way too long to about plants with. Now I just have to hatch a plan to trick someone from Philly or upstate NY to drop by, since I’m sure I can bore them for hours since they won’t have as easy an escape as the locals do!

Along the street I’m a little surprised by how all the fennel seedlings have exploded into bloom. It’s one big airy thicket of licorice scented bee feeders and I should probably trim it back a bit before the mailwoman starts clutching an Epipen each time she needs to deliver a letter.

In the meantime let me introduce you to a few of the newest arrivals on the scene. The first is an uber cool Rudbeckia triloba ‘Prairie Glow’ which is blooming from seeds started last year. I love it. Thank you to Chanticleer Gardens since it’s entirely possible a seed head from one of their plants found its way into a pocket on my last visit.

Unlike the more common yellow/black centered Rudbeckia triloba, ‘Prairie Glow’ has varying degrees of a rusty orange with just the faintest hints of yellow at the tips of the petals. These are a little over five feet tall so it’s more than capable of holding it’s own in the depths of the border.

The second is ‘Strawberry Vanilla’ hydrangea. White panicles of bloom and a pink tint which will hopefully deepen as the flowers age are what make this one special. I have it on good advice that this will only get more impressive over the years, so it’s another plant I’m pleased with this week.

Everything was glowing in the evening light. The ‘Annabelle’ hydrangeas in the background have faded green, ‘Strawberry Vanilla’ is still a bright white with a touch of pink, and canna ‘Cannova rose’ and Verbena bonariensis really add a lot of color.

I think in the front yard there will be a few things worth seeing this week, so hopefully it’s enough to keep a gaggle of gardeners interested for at least a little while. The tropical garden is looking decent as well but beyond that things get a little iffy. Wish me luck that by the time people are walking past the pot ghetto they’ll be focused more on lunch plans than the unplanted chrysanthemum cuttings.

Tuesday View: The Front Border 7.18.17

Jul18

A Tuesday greeting from humid and damp Pennsylvania. I love it. The garden has never been so lush and vibrant, and until the mold and fungus kick in I’ll enjoy every minute of it, even the downpours. Here’s the view this Tuesday.

The pink coneflowers and lavender perovskia are really kicking in now.

In all honesty this is actually a Monday afternoon view since the lawn was freshly cut that afternoon and strong storms were on the way, but close enough, right?

The view from the street. I started out trying to keep it shorter and neater here but the perovskia and coneflowers seeded in and I’m pretty sure nothing I could think up would look better.

This is the time of year when this border really hits its stride. For the next few weeks it should be just full of color… maybe too much color, but if you think back to our bleak months of winter I think you’ll be able to ignore much in the way of poor design and less than perfect color combinations!

A closeup of the middle. I see plenty, but the yellow of my absolutely favorite new plant ‘Axeminster Gold’ Comfrey is all I want to talk about.

The variegated comfrey has been something I NEEDED for a few years and finally got a hold of this spring. It’s everything I like in a plant, big, bright, and variegated, and although it will likely scorch in this normally dry, full sun spot any other year, this season it’s doing just great. If you need any other reason to grow this plant check out Nancy Ondra’s Hayefield blog for one of her posts on this plant. I make no secret out of the fact it was her photos which ignited my plant lust for this goodie, and honestly it’s been at least a year since I last plugged her awesome blog or books or just plain good person-ness so I think it’s about time I mention her again.

What? More yellow? You bet! The tidy little grass is miscanthus ‘Gold Bar’.. which (after three years) is much shorter than its predicted 4-5 foot height, and some Agastache ‘Golden Jubilee’ which comes nice and true from seed, as these have.

I’ll finish up with the far end of the border which is looking much nicer this year than normal. Part of that has been the rain, but the other factor is I’ve been making a point out of starting at this end and working my way over to the mailbox rather than the other way around. With my attention span it really makes a difference which end you start from 🙂

I don’t think anyone will be copying this mess, the only colors missing are a true red and blue, but it sure is “interesting”. Please take note first of the amazingly neat mulch and second of the hydrangea peeking out from the center. It’s a clearance ‘Vanilla Strawberry’ from last autumn, and although it starts white I’m hoping it develops a nice strawberry blush soon after. We will see.

So that’s where we’re at for this Tuesday View. If you’d like, give Cathy at Words and Herbs a visit to see how everyone else is doing this week, it’s a great way to keep tabs as the season changes, and even better if you join in with your own view… plus you can’t go wrong on any visit to Cathy’s!

Have a great week, and wish me luck. I started tidying up a few shelves in the garage on Friday and the weekend turned into a full blown garage cleaning, rearranging, repairing, and repaint-a-thon. I’m not even halfway done. It was needed.

Tuesday View: The Front Border 7.4.17

Jul4

Its mildly disturbing how quickly the weeks roll by, but once again it’s Tuesday and time to check in on this year’s view. This week marks a new month, a definite turn to summer, and for those in the US it’s Independence day so bring on the picnics and barbecues and fireworks 🙂

A lush, robust Tuesday view. We have not wanted for water this year and many of the plants are bigger than I’ve ever seen. The bugs are thrilled as well, and I don’t recall any other year which had this much buzzing and flitting and fluttering .

I’m declaring this the year of the lily in my garden since it seems as if bulbs all over are putting out more blooms than ever. I have special to me seedlings which have surprised me with their first flowers but I also have some of the fancier hybrids which have finally settled in.

Lilium ‘Red Velvet’. It may not show well in the garden because of its dark, saturated color, but check out that dark, saturated color!

The Asiatic hybrids are some of the most popular of the early lilies, but I’m not all that crazy about the shorter, upright facing forms. I like the tall downward facing ones, and if I had more room I think I could easily collect a few… hmmmm… new bed idea?

‘Red Velvet’ is in its second year here and about five feet tall. That’s an excellent eye level flower for me, and perfect for close inspection.

Now I won’t go on about the scarlet lily beetle, since as of yet they have not reached our little valley, but for those of you afflicted by this pest I extend my sympathies. I dread the day they reach here and that will likely be the year the lilies are given away to better homes. I’ll just grow sunflowers if it comes to that.

The mailbox is destined to be engulfed with sunflowers this summer (they’re the big leaves in the center). No idea what kind they are other than birdfood leftovers, but I do know they’ll be awesome 🙂

The street side of the border is beginning to show some color again as the lavender colored perovskia, pink coneflowers (Echinacea), and a lonely yellow rudbeckia open up.

Weedy or wildflowery? If I ever get around to mulching I’ll try to neaten up the first foot or so of the edge so it looks like I planned all these plantings… which I didn’t 😉

A few years ago I tried adding a few named varieties of Echinacea purpurea to the border… well actually it was just two, and neither were the more exotically colored forms which you see out today… the plants seeding around now are just more of the average form, which in my opinion are still awesome, but don’t be fooled into thinking you need every seedling which comes up. I rip out plenty each year, and if I were smarter I’d do it again now while they’re in bloom in order to select out the smaller, less exciting flower forms.

Sometimes it amazes me that flowers this nice just grow all by themselves in some midwestern prairie.

As you probably know, these coneflowers (Echinacea purpurea) are North American natives and not far removed from the wild forms which dot the prairie landscape. For a minute I might ask myself why I bother with other more troublesome primadonnas from landscapes far removed.

More coneflowers

Have I mentioned spring and now early summer have been perfectly watered? They have, and the hydrangeas and pretty much everything except for a few iris and dahlias are looking all the better for it. Plants are lush this year and on top of that it seems all the good bugs are swarming while the bad are sparse. You know that won’t last, but for now the only thing which seems too lush are a few of the ornamental grasses and this Eryngium.

Maybe it’s just early but this normally steely blue and gray Eryngium (species unknown) is just mostly green *yawn*… we will see how it progresses…

The late planting of annuals is also a work in progress although I have high hopes for a later season of full plants and bold colors… if not entirely tasteful or well thought out colors 🙂

The newest bed expansion is still filling in. I believe there’s already plenty here and just needs to fill in, but it makes me anxious to see open ground in July.

I guess the only thing left work-wise for this summer is mulch. I couldn’t garden without mulch and this year I’m treating myself to a load of shredded bark mulch rather than a temporary bandage of grass clippings or shredded leaves (which were used up elsewhere months ago). This time of year I only cover the outer most foot or two of beds since the inner sections are already covered in plants. It’s not that I wouldn’t mind mulch there as well, but for as much as I plant and replant, this perfect coating of shredded neatness would be dug in and over within a few months and for me that doesn’t sound like a worth-it kind of investment.

A common upright sedum with a few small up and coming coleus and a patch of rose campion (Lychnis coronata). To me a sunny garden without sedum is just nonsense.

So that’s a pretty full Tuesday View. As usual thanks go to Cathy at Words and Herbs, and I invite everyone to give her site a visit to see what her view and others around the world look like this week. It’s always a treat and I’m sure they probably mulched weeks ago. Happy fourth, and have a great week!

Tuesday View: The Front Border 6.20.17

Jun21

The summer solstice is just a few hours away and this week’s Tuesday view should fit right in. The abundance of summer is starting to show, and it shouldn’t be long before the next flush of color begins.

Things aren’t that different this week but I did get the chance to do some major weeding and cleaning out, and (to me at least) it shows.

Besides thinning the iris and removing their spent flower stalks -a brutal process of ripping nearly half the plants out- I’m also well into filling the empty spots. Each summer I make room for plenty of annuals and tropicals (or they make room for themselves) and this year I have an additional two or three foot wide expansion strip which needs filling.

A few healthy sunflower seedlings have popped up near the mailbox and I’m going to call that perfect. It’s one less space which needs manual filling.

Filling the new bed is much less trouble than I thought it would be. There are always a few spare canna roots which get planted, plenty of reseeding annuals which come up on their own, and this year I’m adding bunches of coleus cuttings which I started off of the four new-to-me mother plants which I picked up here and there.

Verbena bonariensis transpants look terrible for the first day or two after transplanting but bounce back quickly. I didn’t even bother watering these and I’m sure most will turn out fine.

So this year’s main annual color will be coleus, cannas, dwarf zinnias and plenty of other odds and ends which tend to follow me home, and as far as following me home this spring may have been an all time record as far as high numbers of purchased plants and low numbers of self grown seedlings. I still think I stay well on the cheap side of frugal though since the majority were either six packs or clearance purchases, but I do snap every now and then and end up with something exciting or new. To ease my conscience I try and take cuttings or overwinter a few bits, so I guess it’s the horticultural version of reuse/recycle.

A few hot days and the Arundo donax variegata has burst on up out of the ground. It does makes a statement I think.

As I continue to add and add and add I hope the bed takes on that super full, overflowing with color and texture look. For that to happen I’ll need a few more things, and there are still no signs of anyone starting zinnia or gomphrena seeds (my reliable standards), but I’m sure something will work out. In my opinion annual plantings should be a little more spontaneous and different each year otherwise what’s the point?

As usual thanks to Cathy at Words and Herbs for hosting this weekly update, and if you have a chance to give her blog a visit please do, it’s always a pleasure and I’m sure you’ll enjoy reading about other Tuesday views from around the world… or even better yet consider joining in!

Tuesday View: The Front Border 6.13.17

Jun14

Welcome back! That’s what I’m saying to myself as I get back to posting Cathy’s weekly view… after an *ahem* three week absence…

This afternoon’s hot and muggy Tuesday view. The iris are faded, summer has arrived, but the border is looking slightly less than interesting.

There are the usual being busy excuses, the typical computer broke problems, and of course home improvement projects which take on a life of their own, but today I’m more interested in letting you in on a little secret. For as much as this might shock you, this blog is not as highly trafficked as the witty dialog and artistic photos might indicate. Posts over the last few weeks have been down, and to be honest there’s not much pressure to post when your daily view count averages in the low 20’s. As I think on it and ponder the reasons I’m starting to wonder if it’s the raw realness which is turning people off.

Although I’m completely distracted by the second, third, and fourth bloom stalks rising up from my precious red lupine, others might see faded iris stalks, yellowing tulips, overly vigorous weeds, and stray play equipment… I guess in an attempt to mend fences I should apologize for the mess 🙂

Maybe this upcoming week I can pretty things up and polish up on the blog’s readability. Zinnia seedlings are just a seed packet away and the unusually reliable rains this spring should be very forgiving to late plantings. In the meantime looking at the far end of the border should cheer someone up.

I forgot which red hot poker (kniphofia) this is but I have yet to find one I don’t like. Sure this one is over in something like two weeks, but I keep holding out hope I’ll find one with a longer season. The rose is ‘William Baffin’ by the way.

‘William Baffin’ is taking over the end of the border and I’m just fine with that. No disease problems, absolute hardiness, a nice 6 foot height, and even a little rebloom makes it a decent rose… but stronger fragrance would make it an awesome rose. I bet all the better blogs have fragrant roses.

‘William Baffin’ rose, hordes of fennel, and the first blades of the variegated Arundo donax grass coming up and swamping what used to be an iris patch back in May.

Who am I kidding? Summer is finally here, the grass is a color other than its typical June brown, and there’s always a ton of new things to admire. Maybe a little less admiring on my part and a little more work, but I’m quite pleased with (most of) the garden and even though I can’t go around the table asking cabinet members to tell me how amazing I am, at least I can look through older posts and hear myself remind myself how amazing I am.

The roses are coming on in the tropical bed as well. Plus three days of heat and humidity have done more for the cannas than three weeks of sitting in the cool dirt. Finally they’re sprouting.

So it’s an optimistic Tuesday view, and as long as I don’t dwell too long on all the other even more excellent blogs out there, I should be able to make it through the week without regretting the $3 a month which “Sorta Suburbia” demands.

Speaking of other more excellent blogs I’d like to mention and thank Cathy at Words and Herbs for her continued support of the Tuesday view. She and other more excellent bloggers can be found there each week and come Tuesday it’s always a pleasure to see the seasons have progressed another week. Enjoy!

Tuesday View: The Front Border 5.23.17

May24

So Tuesday is here again and although I just posted the view last week it would be a shame to ignore the irises which have come along since then.

The Tuesday view showing the beginning of iris season. Still lots of green but the iris are peaking!

Bearded iris are a favorite, and the older “historic” types just beg to be planted en masse in this full sun, often dry, and always exposed, location. There’s little I have to do for them other than give them a little attention in June when I remove the spent flower stalks and pull up any borer infested plants I find.

The view from the other end. For now iris ‘ambassadeur’ is center stage, but will soon be swamped by the variegated arundo donax grass which is only just beginning to sprout.

Besides the color these older iris also are also very generous with their lemony and grape fragrances. My favorite is this bitoned iris which was growing in my parent’s garden when they bought their first (and current) house back in the 70’s. After years of wondering, this spring I am officially naming it ‘Folkwang’, a German iris introduced in 1925 by the nursery of Goos & Koenemann.

My newly named iris ‘Folkwang’ plus a lonely little lupine and a few alliums.

To search for a name for years may be a little obsessive, but it’s not like I was at it 24/7. A little looking here, a little looking there until finally I found one which really looked close. To seal the deal I searched high and low for a source, ordered myself a rhizome, planted it out last fall (and a few others of course), and finally this spring got to compare the named one to my own.

I think it’s a match. Iris ‘Folkwang’ on the right and a flower of my unknown to the left.

So maybe naming an unknown iris does border on the obsessive, but in the grand scheme of things it’s nothing when compared to how much time I spent this week planting dahlias and cannas and getting a garden ready for the whole half dozen people who might notice… yet again I digress. It’s iris season, it must be enjoyed.

Iris ‘rhages’ looking a little pale this year. Usually the flowers show much more spotting, but it’s still a beauty.

There are a decent amount of iris around the garden but to be honest I think I could use a few more. In past years I spread iris ‘Rhages’ to the other side of the driveway, and they’re now the more impressive clumps compared to the little batch I have growing next to the mailbox.

Iris ‘rhages’ plus more iris next door in my BIL’s garden. I wonder how he’d feel if I added a few other colors…

I am trying and trying so hard not to give in to the temptations of the newer, bigger, flouncier bearded iris. They’re so much more of everything, but I just don’t find them as carefree and reliable as the older sorts, and in my garden once the pool and lawn chair start calling I need a certain amount of carefree.

An unknown modern iris which a friend forced onto me. I couldn’t just let it die so in an out of the way corner of the garden it flowers and offends only me.

I’m trying to decide which other iris I should add to the front street border. Should I stick with the blue tones or just throw everything out there?

I go back and forth between love and boredom on the mustardy reds of iris ‘Picador’. I’m just not sure if this color will work out front so in the meantime it stays out back near the meadow.

I might have to make an exception for a cousin of my newly named ‘Folkwang’. Iris ‘Vingolf’ is also a product of the breeding program of Goos & Koenemann and was introduced a year earlier in 1924. I’m sure I could fit a clump of these out front.

Iris ‘Vingolf’. A shorter stouter iris, perfect for along the edge of the bed where the foliage will pick up once the flowers fade.

In this dry and sunny bed the foliage of these historic iris usually holds up well and looks decent throughout most of the summer. It reminds me that with all this focus on grass trimming, canna planting, and Tuesday views, I’ve missed another monthly focus on foliage with Christina at Creating My Own Garden of the Hesperides so I’ll try and sneak that mention in as well. Here’s a bed across the lawn from the street border, it’s highlight are a few lusty verbascum ‘Governor Aiken’ seedlings which appeared last year and were just too healthy to pull.

Verbascum and a whole bunch of other things looking Maytime fresh. The ‘Tiger Eye’ sumac suckers look so innocent right now and of course there are more iris, variegated this time.

So there it is, the Tuesday view and a few other things all still posted on the appropriate day… assuming you are visiting from the Atlantic time zone… I suggest you take a look at Words and Herbs and see what others around the world are seeing this week. Maybe it’s iris season there as well and I can’t help but say that’s a good thing.

Tuesday View: The Front Border 5.16.17

May18

The spring bulbs are over. It was up to 92F (33C) today and suddenly the feel of summer is in the air and there’s a new rush on planting and trimming and all the projects which were on the to-do list. I wasn’t going to post this week, but with iris season fast approaching it’s probably better to at least look a little level-headed for another week or so before going completely off the deep end again with the next big flower flood. Right now I think of this as the green phase, and with the lawn freshly cut and the beds not yet overrun with weedlings I think it looks springtime calm.

Not much color. Tulips have faded and been deadheaded but other than that it’s been a no-work week.

I continue to border on sainthood as more and more days go by without any major plant purchases, but make no promises about the next week or two. I do have to confess one moment of weakness though which happened a few weeks ago. It was during pansy season so I don’t think it counts but I am concerned that I would have tried to hide it had I not been busted by a visiting blogger last week. This plant really is an example of giving in to temptation.

Lupine ‘Red Rum’. Perfectly grown, budded, and the tag promised a color which easily breaks through my steeliest resolve. I resisted also buying a purple, but this one was too tempting and even if it does die in another year or less I’m still sure having it here now makes me a better person.

Otherwise nothing else is putting on a show, even though a patch of ‘Gladiator’ alliums looks decent enough.

Allium ‘Gladiator’ and a solitary bee. People are worried about bee populations dropping but I feel like all bugs (other than gnats and mosquitos) are becoming scarcer.

I shouldn’t go on too much in a post about nothing. In an attempt to leave you with a bit of substance, here’s a flashback of last year’s Tuesday view, the tropical border. The bed seems to have picked up a number of perennials and hopefully that’s not a problem now that it’s warm enough for the tropicals to go in again.

With a fresh border of mulch the tropical garden is beginning to get its summer residents. Oranges and yellow zinnias are the first to go in and I guess that means it will be another bright planting 😉

The tropical bed didn’t take nearly as many zinnias as I thought so it looks like we’ll also have a nice orange theme when the extras go into the front street border. I’m not sure how that will work out but as usual I’m not too concerned.

Thanks again to Kathy at Words and Herbs for hosting this weekly view, and please consider giving her blog a visit to see what others are talking about this week. I hear she’s also dealing with the first warm spells of the year and it’s exciting to think summer is just around the corner…

sorta like suburbia

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