Less Work

Aug6

Every August there comes a point when I realize the garden is a lot of work, and as I stand there with itchy bug bites, sweat running into my eyes, and dirt all over (with a little blood here and there too) I realize it’s not always fun either. To that end I told the boy that on second thought he’s got to take out a bigger loan for college, and I was going to go ahead and use that budget line to buy some mulch after all. Mulch is a labor-saver, it looks neat, saves on watering, and keeps the weeds down and would be an excellent way out… until it was dumped in the driveway and someone had to spread it. More work, and the boy was oddly standoffish when I suggested he help.

Agapanthus ‘Blue Yonder’ has survived transplanting and division, and I was even able to split a bit off for a friend… although deep down I still wanted to keep it all to myself since it’s such a cool plant!

So for the last week there’s been more sweat and blood given for the garden, and again I’m wondering why I’m allowed to make these decisions without any real adult supervision. It’s obviously my own fault, but in the meantime there’s been more rain (and a relentless blanket of heat and humidity) and even with additional purges for the mulch to go down the garden does look pretty good and at least now the suffering isn’t all a wasted effort.

Holy color! My latest crape myrtle addition (Lagerstroemia ‘Tuscarora’) has burst into bloom and I think it’s the greatest thing. Southerners will yawn but I’m quite pleased. Fingers crossed it can overwinter decently enough to bloom again.

Besides making my life easier by having a well-mulched garden, I’ve also continued on my quest to add an increasing number of border-line hardy plants which will need more coddling than usual in order to do well, and obviously this goes against any less-work initiatives. “Zone Pushing” is what some people call it, but I’m going to go all silly on you and claim it’s just me getting a jump on global warming. Argue any point you’d like but when each ski season is worse than the last I would suggest the zones are creeping North and sooner or later will match my horticultural hopes. Agapanthus have been doing well for a number of years (hardy deciduous forms, not the evergreen types), hardier forms of Crinum lilies have had no problem overwintering for three years, and now I’m trying Crape myrtle again. The ones I planted years ago at my parents’ house on Long Island used to freeze back regularly but are now taking on tree proportions, so I think I can at least get away with them being root-hardy if not top-hardy. The two dwarf ‘Barista’ series shrubs I planted last summer are back this year and full of buds, so there’s hope.

Our hot and dry stretch has singed most of the lawns, but for a sunflower in a crack at the end of the driveway? No problem. I’m stupid for not just growing a yard full of sunflowers.

Something which seems like it should be a lot of trouble and work, but really is not… and is also absolutely hardy as well… are the Cyclamen purpurascens which are coming into bloom now. Unlike the other species of winter-growing hardy cyclamen, these tend to be evergreen and will bloom in August over a nice cover of patterned foliage. I’m tempted to go on and on about them but I’ll spare you the rambling and just say give them a try, and if they’re not happy try them somewhere else since these took a while to find their happy place. The best patches are under the carpenter ant infested cherry tree where it appears the ants have tossed the seeds they collect after they’ve eaten off the sweet coating at the nest, and the seeds happily germinate and grow in what would seem like a terrible spot.

Cyclamen purpurascens coming into bloom in the shade of a weeping cherry. They should continue flowering for several weeks, regardless of drought or heat or humidity.

So that wasn’t bad. I was barely distracted by the first cyclamen coming into bloom, and I also didn’t even mention that I’ve been digging and examining and dividing clumps of snowdrops as I mulch my way through the garden… but I will mention the waste space instead. The weeds were neatly mown for June’s graduation party and then mown again… and again, alongside the rest of the lawn since I guess that’s what one does when you’re trying to keep things neat, but of course that’s boring. And work, and it being work isn’t a deal breaker, but when it’s also boring and pointless as well, then I must object. Better to pickaxe a shallow hole in the horribly poor soil and throw in a few pumpkin seeds. Or ‘maybe-pumpkin’ seeds since they’re seeds which have been sitting in cups on a garage shelf for years and I can’t remember which amazing pumpkin or squash or gourds contributed the seeds several autumns past.

The waste space is now a pumpkin patch. If the rains and heat keep up there might still be enough time for some kind of late season squash to ripen, and if not… squash are always fun to watch grow.

Starting a pumpkin patch wasn’t much work at all but then when the anonymous seed actually started to grow, I felt guilty that the soil was so bad. When it dried out, any attempts to water would just run off, so maybe a mulch of free municipal compost could help. Then another two runs for compost happened because there’s no sense in being skimpy with free compost… and might as well scratch in a little 10-10-10 since this is all just construction fill and even maybe-pumpkins need some help to not look anemic… and then when you’re not mowing the weeds they grow tall and might shade the maybe-pumpkins, so better pull a few… and here we are. I don’t suggest you reduce your workload by starting a pumpkin patch.

And with a pumpkin patch to distract, and maybe even a few more spur of the moment crape myrtles ordered and in need of planting, you can see how well the mulch is reducing my workload this summer. Tomorrow marks one week of it sitting in the driveway and all I did yesterday was buy another bromeliad, and all I did today was repot a begonia. I guess I’ll have to get back at it tomorrow. Or not. There are just a few more snowdrops to attend to before I can mulch, and snowdrops can’t be rushed. It will all be worth it though, no more weeding and I’ll finally be on easy street… right?

Oh those lazy days of summer. I hope you’re enjoying them as well!

The Daylily Farm

Jul7

Summer is going swimmingly, and although it’s been hot we’ve been fairly lucky with rain so the plants are holding up well and the gardener is glad he doesn’t have to drag a hose around any more than he has to. Not that he would, since our gardener tends more towards lazy than to ‘an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure’, but he does feel guilty every now and then when the same plant cries out for help each time he passes and he has to mumble a “sorry, I know this wasn’t part of the deal when I brought you home”…

The daylily farm

One plant which does seem to take all the neglect in stride is the daylily (Hemerocallis). Like dahlias and cannas, they’re not everyone’s cup of tea, but since the gardener is a coffee drinker anyway, it was just a matter of time until problems developed. A visit to a real daylily farm two years ago triggered the problem and of course with no friends willing to step in and squash it, things escalated. Actually friends suggested more visits, friends dropped daylilies off, friends invited the gardener over to ‘dig a few’…

Some goodies in the beds of the daylily farm

A few friends shook their heads and recommended counseling, or more finishing up of home improvement projects, but the gardener enjoyed visiting these daylily farms and with new plants rolling in left and right it seemed only logical to start his own. Sensible people pointed out there’s no room for a farm. The gardener laughed.

A friend gave me ‘Hawkwoman’ and she’s a star. A heavy bloomer with flowers nearly a foot across!

So now I have a daylily farm. A friend implied madness when confronted with several beds of daylilies filled with dozens of varieties in a garden which recently held only three, and I had to somewhat agree although he’s not one to talk with his house full of thrift store finds. Mine is clearly a business venture, so it’s ok. Small businesses are ok and so are entrepreneurs, and although the flow of daylilies is still only a one way stream into the garden I’m sure it will be turning a profit in no time. Think of how many farmers you know buzzing around in expensive sports cars and sipping lattes all summer. That could easily be me.

‘Nona’s Garnet Spider’ in one of the production (not sales) beds.

But until I decide to sell something the ‘sales beds’ are still just an excuse to line out daylilies in big blocks just because it’s cool as well as the other big plus. Having a daylily farm in your very own yard also keeps the gardener in the garden, since apparently it’s frowned upon for him to be off visiting other daylily farms every weekend in July.

‘Cosmic Struggle’ is another reliable, heavy bloomer who reblooms later in the season.

Maybe I will have a sale day this summer. Even after just two years they’re multiplying and maybe I don’t love every one as much as the next or I don’t need a row of ten plants of the same variety. It would be nice to have visitors at least since they do look nice this year and I think other plant nuts would enjoy it. In the meantime here are some more pictures of the madness. Not to single anyone out, but a blogger in Germany who might be named Cathy may have said they would welcome photos of daylilies a bit more than snowdrops and I didn’t know how to take that. How can you compare the diversity of shapes and colors and inherent grace of the snowdrop to that of the daylily? I don’t get it but here are a few more daylily photos with a little less babbling.

From a local breeder, ‘Brookside Mystery Date’ is a good growing, shorter plant with deliciously colored and textured blooms. I begged a friend to stop by the grower on their last open weekend to grab it for me since I was tortured by regret over not buying it earlier in the year.

Also from a local breeder, one of the unnamed Brookside Beauties which the farm offers. They’re seedlings they chose to leave unnamed, but couldn’t bear to toss out onto the compost pile.

For local people, the Brookside hybrids are the work of June and Dick Lambertson of Lambertson’s Daylilies. They were the farm which (unknown to them) started this all, and as they move into full retirement, Joann and Brad Lamberton (a coincidentally similar name but not related to the Lambertsons) of Garrett Hill Daylilies are picking up the legacy. And just to support my main supplier and dealer, I’m glad Garrett Hill has taken this on. They are building a beautiful spot and although I’m sure they question jumping in with both feet like this (on top of their day jobs!), a visit to their farm outside Honesdale Pa is a treat worth the trip.

Unnamed daylily seedlings purchased mailorder from Petal Pusher Daylilies in Fort Wayne Indiana. Some really cool forms came in my mixed box!

Green throated flowers are always interesting. Also an unnamed Petal Pusher seedling.

And “blue”? I’m not sure how I feel about this type since the color varies so much depending on the weather, but on this morning I was a fan!

One last unnamed seedling, possibly my favorite from Petal Pushers.

I could go on but I shall not. Just two final daylily confessions, the first being the Facebook page which was created to pollute the internet with even more daylily photos straight out of the farm here, and the second being the fact I’ve grown a few of my own seedlings here just to see if I could. You’re more than welcome to ‘like’ the Facebook page but the seedlings thing is a shady endeavor. With just a small patch of seedlings in bloom I realize I lack the vision and passion to produce anything which amazes anyone but myself, and of course I’m pleased with them, but they’re nothing special. Good news for the farm I guess, since it lacks the room for rows of seedlings, but on the down side it doesn’t stop me. I have dozens of new seedlings which need planting out this summer and I’m already eyeing pods forming on this year’s stalks 😉

One of the Sorta Suburbia seedlings

Gosh did I go on this morning, and still the house is quiet and breakfast has not been served so here’s the rest of the garden:

The potager is looking inviting and even a little under control. Vegetable plantings are sparse this summer, but you know something is always brewing 😉

The entry arch has clematis ‘Sweet Summer Love’ in full bloom. I was lukewarm the first year, but now that it’s hit its stride I’m a fan

I’ve finally managed to get a few nigella (aka love in a mist) seedling going, I don’t know why it took so long but I’m liking the airy look and the interesting seed pods which follow the bloom. It should be an easy reseeder now.

Blue hydrangeas are in bloom everywhere this year, since the non-winter failed to kill them back and a lack of late frosts spared the flower buds, This is hydrangea ‘Tuff Stuff’ which claims hardiness but has never bloomed like this before. I wouldn’t mind if this happened again some time.

The meadow garden is too shady now that the Aspen suckers have grown, but the rudbeckia is having a good year regardless. This area will be mown in August and kept cut until the fall.

I’ve been dabbling in red hot pokers and finally have a few which bloom reliably and for more than a week or two. Kniphofia ‘High Roller’ is just starting with several later buds still to come for an extended show.

The oxeye daisy season is getting a little messy and floppy, so out they come. The mower will take care of this mess, and hopefully the lawn can overwhelm the seedlings which this mess shall produce.

Still no sounds in this house, so I’ll end with just one more photo. The gardener added a few concrete blocks to the deck supply delivery and now it looks like there will be no new raised beds, rather a set of steps leading up the berm. That of course will involve more blocks, more leveling, more digging, and far more work than the gardener will consider on a day of rest but it’s going to sit in the back of his mind as a new source of guilt over an unfinished project which wasn’t even a project the week before. I’m sure it will be an excellent way to reach the top of the hill for weed control purposes.

That hill isn’t even safe. You almost broke your ankle last time you were strimming it.

So that’s pretty much the update from here. I shall now make some noise so someone feeds me and then spend the rest of the day either immersed in cooling water, hidden in the shade, or comfortable in the embrace of an air conditioning vent. Summer is pretty good and I wish it didn’t race by.

Enjoy your week!

Bring it on

Jun25

So if you see this post and think it’s been a while you’re right. Two months of silence is an unprecedented void on this blog, and I’m a little annoyed with myself that this winter the blog review will go straight from early spring bulbs right into summer… but that’s something to worry about in January. Today we’re just past the summer solstice and it’s midday with the thermometer at 95F (35C) and apparently that’s just what it took to get me inside and in front of the computer again.

One of the opium poppies (Papaver somniferum), probably a ‘Laurens Grape’ seedling, is looking exceptional in spite of the heat. The opium poppies are safe, but the Shirley poppies (Papaver rhoeas) became rabbit food once the bunnies developed a taste. They were looking so promising…

So where was I? Here of course. Partially busy, partially lazy, going to work, and then off to Iowa for a week at the end of May (also for work). Things were transplanted, things were weeded, regular rains helped everything immeasurably, and then a load of mulch helped me immeasurably in keeping the weeds from returning… once it was spread of course. I think the garden looks nice, and if you can remember one of the reasons I wanted it to look visitor-nice was for a high school graduation party that would take place here. It did take place. Last weekend when the weather was cooler and excellent we had food and fun and about 70 people over to celebrate. Last minute projects went until the last minute of course, but overall the scars and construction of the last few years have been erased and the garden is finally back.

All the rain was a blessing for the lawn, with newly seeded areas sprouting well, and zero-topsoil areas growing as if their roots actually had something healthy to live on. This is the side of the house where two years of concrete trucks and work vehicles had been accessing the addition. I now call it the daylily walk.

To be honest the garden has been here throughout, but there was a lot more ‘interesting’ than anyone but myself would appreciate. Buggy borders filled with weeds and waste spaces overflowing with seediness are the first things I’d check each morning, but others would likely hold a different opinion. The fact that there were little to no complaints about the mess and in particular the lack of steps down from the deck for several years is quite amazing now that I think on it. I should really do some before and after posts.

Currently the beds on the side of the house are overfilled with the common oxeye daisy. It’s a weed but it’s a weed which I’d take over empty mulch beds any day, and until better things get planted… or the heat wipes them out… I’ll take it.

A before and after would be great for one of the big surprises this summer. Little seeds sprout and grow and suddenly one afternoon you’re amazed by a huge flower on your baby Southern Magnolia (M. grandiflora). Yes, trees have been growing from seeds for eons, but when it’s by your own hand that’s something else. I would have to check, but I suspect the tree is somewhere around ten years old.

The first of five flowers which this Magnolia grandiflora has set. This and one other seedling have flower buds, the third still has some growing to do.

Perhaps the mild winter helped the Magnolias along, since they’re borderline hardy in this zone, but I’ll take it regardless. Another thing I’ll take is the nearly 100% overwintering of all the purple Verbena bonariensis which has come up just in time for the party. There are seedlings (still too small to flower) as well, but for the party a few big patches of purple really make things look much better than they are!

The path sloping down to the backyard and potager.

In between small talk and second helpings a few people noticed the garden. “Wow, that’s a lot of plants”, “it looks nice”, and “that must be a lot of work” were some of the comments and they were all quite nice to hear but I kept shooting myself in the foot by pointing out how many of the plants were actual weeds. For the oxeye daisies I kept telling people to look alongside the highway later and notice the same exact flowers, and for the verbena I pointed out that they’re all self-sown seedlings, and for the milkweeds I just highlighted the ‘weed’ part of the name. I do like the milkweeds though. They are a weed, but an interesting one and not as unattractive as many of my other “interesting” plants.

Alongside the driveway the showy milkweed (Asclepias speciosa) is flowering for the first time. It struggled to get started but apparently all the growth was underground since it’s sprouting everywhere this year!

Right now it’s the showy and the common milkweed which are putting on the best show. They’re somewhat similar but the common is much taller, especially this year with all the rain. Once they finish blooming I’ll wack em back since a six foot tall clump of m’weed by the front door is not the curb appeal our mailperson needs to see every day.

Common milkweed (Asclepias syrica) pops up throughout the garden because its roots go everywhere. In okay spots it will be cut down to about three feet after bloom, in not-okay spots I pull them out, and usually they break off neatly at the root and I can ignore what must be a massive root system.

So as usual I started this post with high hopes, but now it’s six days later and still not done. Let me try and get moving. A short summary (which is what I should have started this all with) is party was good, garden was decent, massive projects were finished enough, and summer is off to an excellent (although slightly exhausting) start.

No one complimented the Japanese iris but I thought they were nice. Please note the brick piles which still remain. I can’t do everything!

So in the week since the party I’m less focused on plumbing and deck reconstruction and more focused on finishing up on the garden to-do list. I’ll hopefully get another post up one of these days because the daylilies have started, the tulips have been dug, the annuals planted, and things look even better, especially since the heat broke yesterday and we had a nice downpour to water things.

The weedy end of the potager. More milkweed and still a few beds of bulbs to dig, but a mown lawn goes a long way in making any corner of the yard tolerable.

The cooler weather has been a nice break from the smothering heat and humidity, and yesterday I was able to work outside without the waterfall of sweat and overall homeless in Florida look which has been the rule for the last two weeks.

Part of last year’s ‘waste area’ became a firepit. It looks so much more purposeful than a patch of weeds but with the hot nights there have been no demands to give it a try.

When I said the garden looked good enough I wasn’t kidding. We were focused on other things, and other things always end up taking longer than expected and you don’t always get around to yanking out the dried up tulip stems. Weeds can wait when it’s a couple hours before the party and you’re setting pavers at the base of the new deck stairs while someone else is asking if she could powerwash the stairs so that she could set up tables and chairs since she thought that would be an important thing to do as well. She was right. It all came together and no one openly questioned the plethora of exceptionally healthy no-doubts-they’re-real-weeds and the embarrassingly undug tulip beds.

Someone with more sense might have focused on this bed in the very center of the yard, but…

Let me reassure you that in the days after the party the tulips have been (mostly) all dug and some of the biggest weeds are gone. There’s hope, and in another week or so I won’t need the distractions of food, beer and lawn games to keep people from looking too closely since hopefully there will be far fewer ‘ouch’ parts of the garden!

This driveway loudly announces ‘projects not done’, and no one said a word about it. I guess we have some decent friends, or at least friends who know better than to get me started on some long sand moving explanation.

So summer 2024 is off to an excellent yet tiring start. There shall be droughts and bugs and deer attacks but with any amount of luck there will also be garden harvests, bird-filled mornings, flowers, fragrance, and fun… and daylilies. I’m still kind of into the daylily thing, and with them opening up new blooms every day I have to make a decision on the daylily farm plans. It started as a joke, people were enthusiastic, and now I fear they were just joking along with me! We will see.

Thanks for reading and it’s good to be back!

Spring on Pause

Mar24

You may have heard that a bit of chilly weather has rolled across North America. Our lowest low of the last few days has been just five degrees below average, but after months of non-winter it feels downright arctic. I even put the winter coat on for yesterday’s garden stroll!

The front border is beginning to come to life. ‘Tweety Bird’ is my earliest (and dare I say favorite?) daffodil and has never flinched due to cold or ice or snow.

Yesterday was a complete wash out with about two inches of rain filling my rain gauges (aka work buckets which litter the garden) and now it’s all locked in cold. For the last four nights I’ve even returned the pots of rosemary and dracaena back to the safety of the garage, and put off evicting the hardy cyclamen from the winter garden, but the pansies I planted out are on their own. Right now they’re face down in the frozen dirt, but by late afternoon I expect to see their cheery faces again. If not, I’m sure they’ll send up new blooms and that should ease any guilt I might have over not bothering to cover up and protect these little greenhouse divas at all.

Upward facing blooms on a hellebore are nice, but the cold rains of spring are a good reason to hang low and protect your pollen. These are also kissing the dirt right now, limp until the freezing weather passes.

Although we didn’t need another foot or two of rain it has been good for the transplants. Maybe even a little too good since I noticed a few leaning spruce and tilted hazels, but a quick stomp of the foot should rectify that and the water also helps since I didn’t water anything when they were moved since they’re all nice and dormant and the ground is wet enough. I had planned to spend the entire month moving snowdrops, but these woody plants were calling, and if I can make these moves quickly hopefully they can work out the transplant shock somewhat in the last few weeks before leafing out and pushing new growth. Maybe next week the snowdrops will have a chance… unless concrete calls and I finally work on the deck steps…

Snowdrops are fading and the next wave of spring bloomers are on their way.

Whatever happens, this is also the time of year when between jobs I question the number of other bulbs in need of moving and dividing. Actually I sometimes just question the number of bulbs here. Dividing and moving requires a spot to move things to and at the moment I’m at a loss. There’s already a new colchicum bed for divided colchicums, there’s a new tulip bed for moved tulips, and nearly every other somewhat-appropriate ground location has a few snowdrops growing there. Hmmmm.

The “vegetables only” policy for the potager did not age well. Four years later and there are a few garlic sprouts in the closest bed, but everything else is more flower than edible…

I of course am innocent in all this. One new allium and two new snowdrops came home with me from the Gala this spring. Last autumn only a “few” new snowdrops went in the ground, and seriously how big is one snowdrop? I didn’t buy a single daffodil or tulip. I am a victim.

I bet you also know that people who claim persecution and innocence most loudly are not and I think I’ll stop right there. If it gets warmer soon enough maybe I’ll spread a six inch clump of snowdrops into a four foot patch, or maybe take another dozen coleus cuttings in the winter garden, regardless of where things end up here I hope your Sunday goes well and you have an excellent week 😉

Ins and Outs

Dec10

Today was a day of steady rain. It’s been in the forecast for several days so that’s no surprise and we’re getting maybe an inch or more before it changes over to snow in the wee hours of the night. Of course the kids are excited, somehow the word got out even though temperatures today and yesterday were downright balmy in the 50s so we will see what the morning brings. Today was all rain though, and definitely an indoors day, so I was a little smug in the fact I have a winter garden that I can retreat to.

This florist cyclamen followed me home back in mid-October and is still going strong two months later. They’re not as addicting as the more graceful hardy types, but I wouldn’t turn my back on another one or two 😉

The winter garden is unusually under control this year, and all I really needed to do was shuffle a few more-dormant things away from the light, and move a few more-active things closer. The succulents have dried out enough to qualify as dormant, but cuttings like geranium and fuchsia are rooting and starting to grow. It looks nice. If it’s a cold January I’m sure more will show up here.

In the outside garden the warm weather has brought on the last of the fall blooming snowdrops. This one, (Galanthus elwesii ssp monostictus ex Montrose…) is doing well although the intended backdrop of variegated sedge has been nibbled back by the bunnies.

The winter garden is nice today, but yesterday outside was great. I cleaned up a few more things, wandered, poked, and generally enjoyed a day in the sun rather than a day of cloudy, chilly gloom. The warmth opened up the fall snowdrops and encouraged winter blooming sorts such as ‘Mrs Macnamara’, ‘Faringdon Double’, and ‘Three Ships’ to start poking out and show their flower buds. I’m still amazed these plants can make a go of blooming in December here in Pa, even just a few years ago they’d be locked up in frozen soil until spring.

So we will see. Even if there is some snow on the ground in the morning there’s still not much in the way of cold for the next few days, so I shall enjoy it while it lasts. I hope December is going great for you as well.

A Test

Oct29

I ran a little test here over the last few weeks, but before getting into that let’s just enjoy the 28 minutes of sun which coincided with the weekend and matched the glow of the final color on the dogwoods (Cornus florida).

hydrangea paniculata limelight fall color

The neighborhood dogwood trees are down to their final autumnal glow after first russeting up in September.

Actually (and as usual) these photos are from earlier in the week when nicer weather prevailed and we were able to enjoy some sunny and perhaps too-warm weather for the few minutes when I wasn’t stuck at work. It’s only now that I’m getting around to celebrating the glowing colors of this past week as I sit inside again, not due to work but due to the typical weekend rainy weather which is feeding the swap again with even more moisture. Whatever though, the plants carry on and I don’t remember the Hydrangea paniculatas ever showing so much pink before… and I’m contemplating maybe adding one more, something which is nice and late and intentionally turns pink each year. The ‘Vanilla Strawberry’ I gave to my mother in law could be a match, but it’s a little earlier than I’d like and because of that might go brown before the season wraps up.

Hydrangea by the street, also brighter than ever.

Speaking of the season wrapping up I just looked at the ten day, and it looks like frost might finally be on the way. We’ve had a mild October again, but it looks like November will come in with a light frost at least, and clear the way for tulip planting and final cleanups.

Aster laevis ‘Raydon’s Favorite?’ (Smooth Aster) is my best aster. It tolerates drought, blooms late, blooms long, and requires no work other than a chopping in half in June. It’s a star of the late autumn border.

Frost won’t be the worst thing. The garden starts to look uncomfortable once the leaves start falling and everything goes to sleep, but the marigolds are still going strong. A good frost moves everything along and puts the lingering things out of their misery while reminding the gardener that there’s a due date approaching for his project, and things need to wrap up before a solid freeze locks everything down.

I still haven’t found the perfect spot for this salvia, possibly a form of Salvia splendens van houttei, but it seems to enjoy a bit of shade to grow best around here. Cuttings have been taken again regardless and it always makes a nice show under the lights… even if it looks a bit cramped in there.

I guess this gardener is ok with an early November first frost. Tender things are mostly indoors and now just a few heavy pots remain to be considered. Having a few extra weeks to bring in pots two or three at a time is so much less stressful than running around the night before an early frost and making the hard decisions all at once.

The delphinum is a lingerer. From a decrepit, summer-weary husk a few perfect flowers are up and open. Had the gardener trimmed it down a few weeks ago, the husk might have been cheerier, but I’ll take this.

The downside to a lingering autumn is that the number of plants saved goes up with each frost-free week. Oh well. Have faith in me that I’m quite capable of killing things off with neglect during the winter 😉

The lingering autumn and on and off gloomy skies have the evening primrose (Oenothera biennis) open all day. It’s a lovely weed which fits in well with the verbena.

Besides the annual ‘to save or not to save’ questions there’s also the ever-too-long ongoing dirt moving projects. I’ve reached the point where backyard fill has reached the meadow, and I’m into the phase where fill is being graded down to the level of the meadow, and basically that means I’ve filled in as much as I wanted to and there’s an end in sight for this back part of the yard.

There’s almost enough level ground so that I can run a grass path from the house all the way back to the berm. That was an important thing back in the day, but as I look at it now I’m not sure why… maybe it was more work than it was worth…

If the back part of the yard is leveled and almost done, does that mean the hill of construction fill in the middle of the yard is gone? Haha, of course not! There’s still a nice bit sitting in the middle of the yard, just waiting for a poor soul to dig it all up and wheelbarrow it to other far reaches of the garden. The last few tons of dirt and rock are destined for the side of the yard, to level out along the fence and around the coldframe area, and hopefully provide a nice spot for the homeless camellia seedlings.

There’s only a little bit of the mountain left. We are almost at the two year mark for when the digging first began, and I am hoping for less strenuous days ahead.

So besides impending frost and ongoing earthmoving there’s still the small matter of a test. I really did have a point in that title and it refers to new lighting ambitions for the always expanding winter garden. We are going LED and moving on from the fluorescent shop lights which have served their time.

The product. Four foot LED shoplights from Harbor Freight. On sale for $43 but I see they’re up to $54 again, and that’s not in the budget for additional sets….

It seems like everyone has an opinion on using LED lights for raising plants, and I blame the basement growers of ‘medicinal’ crops for all this info and interest. There’s the science of specific wavelengths for the efficiency of photosynthesis but then there’s an avalanche of weakly proven theories on what’s best for what kind of growth and how ideal certain setups are and and and…. I tried to follow along but after numerous attempts came to the conclusion that LED lights specifically for plants were far outside my budget, plus many were a pinkish sort of light, and even with the current mania for Barbie and pink, I was not down with that. I finally stumbled across someone with some growing experience who stated that general LEDs, although they don’t emit light at the wavelengths specifically matching the preferred wavelengths for chlorophyll peak efficiency, emit light which is good enough for the range, and with that in mind just get something bright enough. So that’s what I did. The price and brightness were there but my confidence wasn’t, so I decided that a simple test might be a good idea before full commitment.

Corn, arugula, and calendula seedlings grown under LED (left) and fluorescent (right). If anything the LED seedlings look better, if not at least they’re on par with results from the old system.

The test was a few pots with corn, arugula, and calendula seedlings sown and grown completely under the two light sources. It was an experimental setup which would make a real scientist cringe, but conditions were mostly similar for both lights and they were just a few feet apart in my garage workshop but not close enough to overlap. Without making too much of the results it looks like the LED worked just fine in growing the seedlings. The corn was indifferent but the arugula and calendula actually seemed to grow faster and more strongly than the Fluorescent plants. I’d show the calendula but of course a slug found the pot and trimmed them back to the size of the other pot before said slug was dispatched. I guess I shall consider that when analyzing my experimental error.

Snowdrops? Yes! It’s that time of year again and Galanthus bursanus is leading the way. Please ignore the slug damage, I first blamed rabbits but when all the rest of the blooms disappeared with near surgical precision I think the bunnies are innocent for once and slugs are the true culprits.

That’s the first of what will surely become too many photos of snowdrops, but I’m sure you knew that. There should be more, but in addition to slugs hitchhiking their way into the winter garden they’ve been extremely active in the garden and have mowed down more than their share of the earliest of the autumn flowering snowdrops. Snowdrops in the fall is a new thing for me, I never thought is could be an option this far North, but with every winter less enthusiastic than the last it’s becoming a possibility. I just have to figure out how to grow them. They survive, but there’s still something (other than slug attacks) which doesn’t let them grow as well as the others already here. Don’t you worry though, rather than discouraged I’m even more enthusiastic about them and just keep trying them in new spots until they find something to their liking!

Hopefully we all find something to our liking. Have a great week!

Everything

Oct7

It was the driest of times, it was the wettest of times, it was the age of motivation, it was the age of laziness, it was the epoch of brilliance, it was the epoch of more dumb ideas… it was just about everything and as usual you’ve got to take the good with the worse, so when the light was nice this week I got some photos, and now as rain and gray rule the day I’m posting.

The summer annuals are fading fast. Even a week of non-fall-crisp air didn’t convince them summer had returned.

Something about a tropical weather system escaping the tropics and taking a trip to Canada (which we couldn’t work in this year, so good for the storm) has us pulling in cold northern air with a swirl of tropic downpours, and I’m not thrilled to see cold and wet arrive for a holiday weekend. This comes after an overly-warm week also gave an excuse to stay inside, so as you could guess the pace of work is close to an all-time low.

The succulents are starting to migrate into the winter garden to spend the next few months under lights. It looks so innocent at first but by the time the last pots need to be crammed in here….

Other than the usual excuses I have brand new ones to add to my list, both of which caught me off guard! Last Saturday, overly enthusiastic sandwich chewing left me with a nice bite to the tongue… nice enough that I didn’t eat for two days and was barely able to speak when Monday rolled around… and then an achy knee on Sunday turned into a limp and pain which only ramped up through the week as the mouth began to get better. What a mess. Fortunately I work with a nice group of kids this year, who reassured me it’s not my fault, it’s just that I’m so old and this was bound to happen sooner than later as I pick up speed on the downhill side of life.

In July all the hanging baskets of dichondra ‘Silver Falls’ were going to be overwintered and come back even stronger for 2024. In October… well that’s a lot of baskets to overwinter…

So maybe the rain is a blessing. I can slow the pace, rest up a little, maybe help clean inside??? -hahahaha, just kidding- there are a billion things to clean up in the garage and the winter garden is starting to fill up, and today is an excellent day to sort and put away the dozens of empty pots (which will likely fill again this winter), and make sure there is ample potting soil etc for the upcoming months.

Before being sidelined for injuries, the daylily farm was tended and replanted for 2024. Sometimes it looks big, other times it just looks like a silly example of why I need adult supervision, but in either case it should look nice in bloom.

So some progress is happening as far as preparing for colder months, but I was most pleased to get the daylily farm in order. I still have this delusion people would come if I opened the garden for a weekend or two, and I also have this idea that everyone would be super-nice and just as excited about plants as the farmer is…. until I have my doubts… Then all of a sudden I’m wasting day after day wondering why no one is interested in a daylily or two, and I’m either making pity-sales to friends, or fielding ‘can you do better on the prices’ questions from someone who pulls up in an Escalade. I guess it can’t be any worse than the garage sales we used to have, where a day in the driveway maybe cleared 10 or 12 glasses or purses or whatnot out of the basement.

Whatever happens, at least this side of the house looks somewhat presentable again. New beds have been made, lawn has returned, and if you can ignore all the clutter, it almost looks garden-ish.

Even if the farm never works out, there’s still all that amazingness in the back yard. Overgrown potagers, weedy and unmulched beds, and waste areas where weeds are actively going to seed highlight the garden once you pass beyond the curb appeal of the front yard. I would swear that 90% of garden advice for maintaining a beautiful Eden of your own includes the statement ‘make sure you get your weeds before they go to seed’, and when I look around that’s all I see. “Wildflowers” going to seed, grass going to seed, perennials and annuals going to seed, it’s all a seedy mess and if it weren’t for the constant back and forth of birds and other wildlife coming in and out of the yard I’d have reached for the string trimmer weeks ago. I’ll accept the curse of future weeds in order to enjoy this. One of the few apps on my phone is the ‘Merlin Bird ID’ from Cornell Labs, and what it does is pick up the bird sounds around you and runs a list of what species are calling. Last Saturday morning I cracked open the back window and let it run for about ten minutes and it tallied up 21 different species of birds in the yard. Birds are migrating through this month, and I see them in and out of the weeds, picking up their breakfast and now I have an idea of who is all there. Just in the LBB group alone (Little Brown Birds) I have Song Sparrows, Chipping Sparrows, White-throated Sparrows, Field Sparrows, Lincoln’s Sparrows, and Swamp Sparrows. Trust me that if left to my own, I’d barely recognize one of them, and even then I would have doubts!

Weedy asters (or whatever they have been renamed as) filling in wherever they can.

‘Hopi Red Dye’ amaranth alongside a bunch of other things blooming and seeding around the potager.

‘Happy Flame’ dahlia looking excellent for the shorted days and cooler temperatures. The orange marigolds are still going strong!

The afternoon light on ‘Limelight’ is always a treat, especially this year when ample rain and cooler weather have brought on a pink flush rather than the usual end of summer tan.

Obviously I’m a few weeks too late in doing anything about the weeds, and that was never the plan anyway, but there are still plenty of other things to keep in mind. If my knee and the weather cooperates, there are still a few colchicums in need of moving so that’s always a fun little project. The colchicum have been nice this year, and I’m glad their flowers have brought me through the doldrums of September into the season of fall foliage and chrysanthemums.

A bunch of colchicum, an un-named kind from a friend which I call ‘Frau Becker’ because that’s a much better story than calling them ‘Probably The Giant’.

The colchicums are still holding their own and a few of the fall snowdrops are beginning to peek out. As would be expected, the most promising one, even though it’s a half cm sprout in the middle of a thicket inside a jungle, has been found, singled out and nipped off by a bunny or bird. I would complain, but after years of this I’d be a little self conscious when the same people politely offer the same good advice of covering the sprouts when I first see them… so instead let’s just visit the waste area of the garden again.

The waste area from the side where its weediness shows off best. More ‘Hopi Red Dye’ and a plethora of lambs quarters going to seed. The birds love the lambs quarters but I always see it and think back to my allergy tests and how this weed showed up as a top culprit. Hmmm. Maybe not the wisest thing to leave…

Regardless of what is happening with the hard-core weeds, the verbena bonariensis taking over the lawn is still on the list of too-pretty to say a single bad thing about. I was hoping this would pull in hordes of migrating Monarch butterflies as they pass through on their way to Mexico, but so far it’s only been dribs and drabs. On a few occasions there have been three or four, but sadly never the dozens of years past.

A green nicotina is also a welcome weed. This flower is the favorite of any hummingbirds which happen to pass through on their way South.

I’ll leave off on the October project. Assuming my students are wrong and my injuries aren’t really the beginning of the end, the next thing on my Summer of Labor list will be a return to earth-moving. There’s still a mound of excavated rock and dirt behind the new addition, and surprisingly the plan has always been to tackle this in October/November once the weather cools and the ground is wet and soft again. Also surprising was a special treat which showed up and will hopefully make the job much more enjoyable. Here’s the background to that…

What do you want for Christmas? “a new wheelbarrow but I guess these new work slacks are nice too”

What do you want for your birthday? “a new wheelbarrow but I guess all these socks and a sweater are nice too”

What do you want for Father’s day? “a new wheelbarrow but I guess going out to the restaurant the kids love is nice too”

Random weekend when a hardware store closes? “A new wheelbarrow!!? How did you know!?”

A waste area in the middle of the back yard? I guess it isn’t the most aesthetic development of this spot, but I have enjoyed the progression of weedy flowers which have moved in. Right now frost asters dominate with a forest of white, and I’ll feel slightly guilty ripping them out to level the area again.

Even in my decrepit state I am still a rich man.

Have a great weekend!

Summer Blinks

Sep22

For a minute it was summer and then not. Our warm weather has faded and we’re getting a taste of autumn, with chilly nights and dewy mornings, and temperatures which make a gardener think about what’s to come.

The bulldozer path to the back of the house is fading away as new lawn sprouts and the new daylily border fills in. A purple mound of Lespedeza ‘Gibraltar’ fits in nicely with the pink and purple theme.

What’s to come? Snowdrop season of course, but not until a thousand things get done and a million plants move indoors, and a billion weeds get pulled.

I went to a snowdrop gala in March and of course ended up with a daylily, in this case ‘September Sol’, off the sales bench of Matthew Bricker. It does indeed come into bloom during September and brings a nice shine to the purple verbena masses.

So those are the good intentions, and hopefully they still amount to something because although I need more hardscape in the garden, I don’t want my paths to be paved with the good intentions which never became. Walking down that path would not make for a nice garden tour and I’d rather just stick to gravel if that’s the case.

The new grass path behind the potager is officially over-run with verbena bonariensis. I think this is far nicer than lawn would ever be so obviously I’ll wait until November at least before running the mower through.

Perhaps it’s obvious, but thankfully this will be a brief post rather than the usual babbling on about all kinds of unrelated topics. These photos were taken last week, and I hate to not remember these last joys of summer just because I was too distracted by other nonsense to get a post up. So come February hopefully a thrown-together post from a lush September will at least be better than nothing.

The potager has officially gone to seed. We’re down to a few rotting vegetables and the flowers have completely taken over.

For obvious reasons my garden never reaches the well-tended, beautifully curated stage which many of my friends’ gardens become at this time of year. There are no clumps of shapely mums and vignettes of asters and ornamental grasses, instead it’s a weedy wave of viny tangles and seedy remains… and it really suits my tastes 🙂

The ferny tendrils of cypress vine (Ipomoea quamoclit) go from soft and innocent to smothering within days if the heat and humidity are there for it.

Or perhaps it’s possible I’ve convinced myself over the years that this is how I like my garden to look by September. There’s just no time for immaculate care when thoughts are turning to the bulbs which need planting and the cuttings which need taking, things end up getting neglected, and for the sake of the gardener’s sanity it’s better to just think all is as it should be.

This year the ‘Terrace’ was almost tame in how many pots ended up there. A summer of dirt-moving has a way of dampening the urge to pot up hundreds of cuttings…

So with everything going according to plan maybe a few considerations towards the future are in order. Lots of things should come in for the winter… but there’s only so much room…

Fuschia ‘Gartenmeister Bonstedt’ does very well in the cool winter garden but needs to be watched for spider mites. Blue Streptocarpella will also come in, and is carefree if kept on the dry side.

Going around the garden and making a plan for it all is a terrible idea. Better to start small and ignore the scope of it all until a sudden cold night forces your hand. Nothing like going around with a flashlight on a 33F night and making on the spot decisions about what you can and can’t live without. The desire to lug in a 100 pound pot filled with sharp agave foliage drops quickly when your fingertips are numb and your pajamas are soaked.

Maybe the passion flower ‘Kew Gardens’ deserves one more year. The flowers seem to only open in the evenings and I often miss them, but they are pretty cool, and I always have a weak spot for vines.

Coleus cuttings in water will be first, and then maybe I’ll drag a few caladium pots in closer to the house so they can dry off a bit. Maybe. Some lantana cuttings is another option. Eventually…

For all the effort some things get, it’s often a stray seed or corm in some leftover potting soil which does best. A handful of Bessera elegans corms were carefully potted up and then promptly rotted. Here a stray corm in some re-used potting soil is thriving.

Bah, it’s still the middle of September, there’s plenty of time. Let me just enjoy the summer flowers while I can.

This ‘Sun Parasol’ “original dark red” mandevilla or whatever they’re called right now is surprisingly easy to overwinter. Cool spot, some light, easy on the watering, and it will even try to flower all winter… unlike others (do you hear me ‘Alice DuPont’?) who promptly drop all their leaves and go dormant…

Enjoying the lingering summer flowers is even better when you can enjoy a few colchicum blooms at the same time. This month I started an incentive program where the gardener gets to transplant a few colchicum on each day he reaches his to-do list targets. To-do list targets are obviously less fun than transplanting colchicums, and they include debris hauling, concrete setting, and the endlessly boring task of lawnmowing. I think it goes without saying that my teenage children are essentially worthless for everything on the to-do list…

The always fun, tesselated flowers of Colchicum x aggripinum. It’s a neat and long blooming smaller type and I wish I had as many as I used to, but one year they decided they didn’t love it here anymore so far I’ve been unsuccessful in winning them back over.

Here’s just one un-glamorous view of the colchicum progress. The no-rocks rockgarden along the house is becoming a rocky colchicum bed, and before each new clump gets moved and planted the truck ruts need digging and loosening, and the rocks which were dumped in the ruts so the trucks could make more ruts, needed prying out and hauling off. Just to be clear, this is the reward part and not part of the to-do list, so having this fun has been a slightly drawn out process.

After division and some compost I’m expecting great things from ‘Nancy Lindsay’ and her friends. I hope to get the whole bed mulched this autumn, and maybe in the spring add a few sedum and thyme starts to fill in the bed while the colchicum go dormant.

The colchicum project seemed much more innocent when the first bulbs were getting their new spots, and it still seemed fun after the second and third clumps, but today while replanting ‘Spartacus’ a little tinge of concern came over the gardener. There appears to be a colchicum collection developing. For years I’ve been adding one or two, just to see how they compare, and as you know one or two little bulbs really don’t amount to much, but one day they do… assuming (and this takes me out on a limb) they don’t die, and apparently enough haven’t. Maybe a more honest confession would be excitement rather than concern, but let me just say next autumn should be colchi-rific and that’s a good thing, not a medical condition.

Hope your September days are full of good things and you enjoy the weekend!

Still Dull

Jul29

Here in the sorta mountains of Eastern Pennsylvania, summer has taken a turn for the wet. I always prefer wet to dry, but others are complaining about bad pool weather and an endless train of cloudy weather that seems to be tracking here. Honestly I’m not sure what they really want though, because yesterday when it was over 90F (33C) and humid they complained about the heat, so maybe they shouldn’t talk about their dream of moving to Florida.

Fortunately the garden doesn’t go on and on with complaints. A once-over to remove the browned stems and shriveled dreams of a dry spring and we’re back in business, with lush flowers and even lusher weeds.

The front border is at a summertime peak with the yellow lily ‘Conca d’Or’ taking center stage.

I will also try not to dwell on complaints. Summer is going too fast, not enough is getting done, and I don’t have enough space for my daylily farm, but at least I’ve finished clearing the dirt away from the side of the house.

All the dirt has been removed, now it’s on to doing something with all the stone, and then figuring out the grass path which will lead around the corner.

To celebrate this dirt moving milestone I decided to tackle the mass of concrete down by the street and finish cleaning up the front of the yard as well. It was as much fun as you can imagine. At first I thought I was overdoing it by bringing the jackhammer back, but when the concrete turned out to be a foot thick in spots I guess the pickaxe wouldn’t have been enough.

All the concrete has been broken up and the chunks are ready for hauling away. They’re bigger (and heavier) than the photo suggests…

Don’t let the pictures scare you. Last week I not only moved the concrete out of the way, I also graded the path, but in a few stones, seeded grass, and planted out a tray or two of coleus cuttings. It looks much nicer and I hope to share those photos as soon as I get out there and take them…

Enjoy the weekend! I’m hoping for enough of a break in the rain today to fit in a garden visit and a daylily farm trip with friends. I guess it’s not all work and no play in spite of what I like to pretend 😉

Before the Rain?

Jun27

Three weeks is a long time to go between posts, especially if you’re one of those bloggers who keeps saying they’re going to step it up this year with a flurry of uplifting, timely and engaging content that… I guess I say that every year… June is a busy time, and sometimes things get done and sometimes nothing gets done, and both take time. Time that you think you’ll have back in March, but when summer rolls around she always proves you wrong. Better to just move on and give the usual apology for ignoring many and hope that July will be different, which is usually not the case 😉

Let me again brag about the delphinium patch. In spite of the drought they came up well and now that they’re entering their most fragile state the forecast will obviously call for severe weather. This always happens. My fingers are crossed this week’s staking efforts will be enough to keep them safe.

So the last post on this blog was a depressing litany of drought, smoke, hopelessness, and most of that was accurate, but as any good gardener will do you assess and move on. Sometimes moving on means a big icecream and lots of pool time, but this June the weather was more campfires and sweatshirts so I was at a loss. Turns out cool weather and dry soil is an excellent combination for bulb digging, and if I can’t have a nice garden at least I can try for neat, so many bulbs are dug and much of the potager is an empty yet well-kept space, and most of the garden is in fact somewhat weed free and waiting. Waiting for the rain I guess, since nothing much happens when it’s dry.

I was seeing photos online of Crinum bulbispermum in bloom and mine was not, but now it is. Within days I went from calling it lazy to calling it amazing as three stalks came up on this one and two on the other. The season is short, but the flowers are worth it.

So I had a plan. Neat was in and after putting in the work I decided I loved the look even if the grass was browning and the perennials were yellowing and wilted. I even spent an afternoon weed wacking the berm which usually doesn’t happen until August, and honestly that looks much better as well.

A neat yet somewhat empty potager. A few tomatoes went in as well as beans, but no masses of self-sown flowers since the soil is too dry. There is a little color though, last fall larkspur seedlings filled in the edges of the tulip beds and are now putting on an awesome show.

As is always the case as soon as one thinks they have a handle on things, the path changes. This week the forecast is filled with rain and humidity. We’ve had rain over the weekend and cloud bursts here and there, but so far none of the amounts have lived up to expectations, and they’re still far short of what we need but they’re enough to bring weed sprouts up in the neat dust, and triple the size of the innocent weedlings which two days ago looked as if they were too small to bother with. I suspect even the lawn will need mowing again if the forecast holds up.

Clematis ‘Venosa Violacea’ has been getting some water and is completely worth the attention. Clematis are amazing and I’m worried about all the cute little ones I keep looking at and wanting 🙂

If this summer turns into a good-for-growing summer my earth moving projects might take a hit. So far cool weather and a few bug-free hours in the evening are revealing new planting areas up along the addition, and new level ground back behind the potager. It was a big day when the leveled areas were up where they were supposed to be and the first new paths were raked and seeded with grass. There’s suddenly hope that the garden will return to something more attractive than rubble piles and trip hazards and that’s a great thing.

The area behind the potager is where all the construction fill is moving to. It used to slope down to a low spot but is now mostly level, which is quite an accomplishment considering that the area around the white bucket was about three feet lower when I started this spring. The tan section going back to the berm, between the buckets, is where grass seed has been put down and it’s an extension of the path which runs through the potager.

All the dirt moving is a win-win scenario. As the back of the yard fills and levels off, the area surrounding the new addition is also coming back to a finished level. Soon I hope to put grass paths back in where concrete trucks once stood, and work something out with all the rock I’ve dug up. Give me another two weeks for this part of the garden and I promise a better scene, although I can’t make a similar promise for the foundation. It might be a year at least before the brick situation is figured out.

The area to the side of the house is almost fully graded and the plan is for the grass path continuing all the way down. I had been thinking of a sand path where all the weeds are coming up on the right of the picture, but I think it will also be grass again, so there will be two strips of grass leading down to the back.

Wow that all seems like a lot of work. I better wrap this post up before I start thinking too hard on what all needs to get done before I can do even more of the stuff which needs to get done. Fresh mulch would be nice. That would be even more of lots of work, and clearly not better than pool time, but at least it keeps me off the streets and out of the gym.

The deck plantings are one thing which is looking nice this year. The drip irrigation was set up earlier than ever and this has been my escape from the mess in the rest of the yard. Surprisingly most of this is from dried plants which came back to life once I drug them out of the garage. The large pot of pink and purple was supposed to be an overwintered rosemary, but calibrachoa seedlings took over and I don’t even care if the rosemary comes back or not. I found it very interesting that calibrachoa roots can survive more drought than rosemary, and from now on I might be throwing them in the garage as well to overwinter.

Thanks for making it this far. It’s still gray and gloomy outside, but I might brave the gloom and take a second coffee outside to see how things are going. It would be nice to get two more days worth of shoveling in before the the rain brings on an explosion of weeds and the lawn gets out of control, but as always it’s still better than snow and ice 😉

Have a great week!

sorta like suburbia

more than you ever wanted to know about my garden

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