Unbucketing Day

Feb26

Wow. What a difference two days can make. We’ve gone from winter to spring in just a few hours, and even though I won’t officially call spring until the last snow has melted, I’m practically spinning with spring fever over the thought I might see some more snowdrops unlocked from the ice this weekend.

If you’re not sick of seeing ‘Three Ships’ yet, well you might have some of the same issues I’m dealing with. He looks pristine even after weeks and weeks under a 5 gallon bucket.

In case you’re wondering, ‘Unbucketing Day’ is a relatively new holiday which I only just declared this afternoon. I’m sure there’s a more formal process to establishing new holidays, but I did have some cake this afternoon, and I’m pretty sure eating cake is at least steps one through four of the holiday creation process.

‘Potter’s Prelude’ has gone by a bit under his bucket. Even weeks of below freezing temperatures and a few feet of snow can’t stop the passage of time, since he has been in bloom for over three months now.

Fancier folk might call for an uncloching day to celebrate the day when temperatures seem civil enough to uncover these protected goodies, but I resort to buckets. Ugly buckets. I can understand the attraction of antique glass cloches sparkling throughout the garden but they don’t come cheap and I’m not sure anyone here would appreciate such an elevated level of refinement when autumn’s decaying gourds still sit on the front lawn and an old washing machine still highlights the far end of the front porch.

Even ‘Mrs Macnamara’ has tolerated her time under the bucket. This is the best she’s ever looked, but even with protection a few blooms were lost to cold, so I don’t think she’s an ideal match for my garden…

So join me in the celebration. A little warm weather and the snow can’t melt fast enough. There are a few thin spots where ground is showing but most of the garden is still under nearly a foot of icy, packed snow. It’s still enough to get into nearly every inappropriate pair of shoes I wear, since of course I slog through the snow right after work and don’t bother changing into better footwear first. I really just need to be more patient.

The witch hazel is late this year. ‘Pallida’ is only just today warm enough to uncurl the first bits of yellow thread. Hopefully by this weekend….

Who am I kidding? This is no time to be patient. I guarantee by tomorrow afternoon I’ll be shoveling snow off things, poking through mulch, and being far more nosy about my plant’s personal lives than I should be. I’ll probably even plant a few seeds!

Have a wonderful weekend 🙂

The Potager 2.0

Jul17

When the pandemic first came to our shores and we were faced with a surprise vacation and then a transition to work at home, the non-commuting lifestyle left me with what seemed like a mountain of extra time to spend in the garden. ‘Let me get some building materials delivered’ I said, and ‘build a few raised beds’ I thought. The boss gave her approval and things began to move. Slowly. A thousand things had to be moved first, plans needed to come together, but I think it’s finally at a point where I can show it off a bit, if only to get it over with rather than build some unwarranted, over-blown hype.

The front entrance to the potager. A slight downward slope ends at the pergola, the beds are leveled into the slope, and the blocks will hopefully help with keeping the lawn edge neat just in case we get enough rain for it to grow again.

The first dilemma was choosing lumber. As usual I went with cheap and selected eight foot pressure treated 2x4s, but it wasn’t all that easy. Naturally rot resistant cedar or redwood would have been nice, larger boards would have been nicer, but the costs were way higher than I was comfortable with so it was a compromise between expensive all natural, or cheaper with a vague possibility of copper leaching… well I say that but actually the compromise was lower the cost or it’s not going to happen…

Overall I hope to get at least ten years out of the wood because although it’s pressure treated it’s not rated for ground contact. Eventually it will rot, but the treatment should give at least a few years more than untreated, and funny story… the pandemic caused a pressure treated lumber shortage, so we will see exactly how much faster au naturel rots, since all I could find for the last two beds was untreated wood.

The view from the trampoline. We are into the annual zucchini tsunami and each morning a few more line up on the counter. Someday I hope to level this bottom part of the garden. The beds are built level but the grass paths still need some fill to bring them up.

Besides being cheap with materials, I also got a little greedy with the bed space vs path width. Between beds is about two feet, and even if it were wider there was still no way (add laziness to the growing list of personal faults) that I was going to wrestle a lawnmower between each bed. Enter the wonderfully gritty sand pile. I knew I didn’t want lawn, wood chips need replacing (and why add organic matter to your paths when it should be going onto your beds?), bare landscape fabric is ugly (and violates my no new plastic policy), so I wanted it to be something inorganic and long lasting (and yet again, cheap). So I grabbed my face mask and was off to the quarry to look at stone dust, crusher run, and sand. Surprisingly the sand looked perfect. It was sharp enough to pack down well for a solid footing, and coarse enough (up to about 1/8″ particles) to not wash away in a heavy rain. So far I love it, and in the future I might even get sand to top off beds rather than buying ‘topsoil’ that turns to rock the minute it dries.

I removed the grass from a few of the pathways and used the turf to fill the beds. Sand paths will hopefully be low maintenance with great drainage, and if worse comes to worse I can just dig them over and replant grass.

Cinder blocks are also cheap, and at about $1.20 a piece I lugged a few carloads home to use as edging and to form a little paved area under the pergola. So far I like it. It’s an honest concrete look rather than concrete pavers trying to pass off as something fancier. Of course stone would have been another nice permanent edging but again spending a bunch of money was not part of my pandemic response.

With the beds built and the lawn edged and sand down on the paths I was super surprised to see that I still had leftover sand. I tried to calculate for extra sand for an additional pathway up alongside the fence, but to actually have a plan that worked out was a little bit of a surprise. After years of collecting and lugging random stones I could finally use them to line a sand trail that gives access to the back of the pond.

Finishing the pond is still on the to-do list but for now I think it looks good enough. The shallow end is in constant use as a birdbath, so it’s really more of a watering hole than a pond…

The pond path is surprisingly popular with the kids and our little garden bunny. I’ve caught both zipping back and forth, and in the morning there are all kinds of footprints in the sand.

Pond path’s entrance. Yes those are mostly weeds. Weeding went onto the back burner as I lugged load after load of lumber, blocks, and sand.

To sum it all up I love the new beds and I feel like there’s so much more useable space with it set up this way. I have a total of eleven 4×8 beds and for now it’s all vegetables and I’m trying not to give in to the temptation of planting flowers… except for the one bed which I gave over to chrysanthemums… but my resolve may dissolve since I still need room for phlox and tulips. At least I’m trying to be firm with the usual sunflowers and verbena bonariensis seedlings. -for the record I’m not sure why I needed a bed of chrysanthemum, but after years of neglecting them and abusing them in horribly weedy, infertile, and dry sites, I thought it was about time to do them right. We will see.

Yes, more weeds. The weeds exploded with last week’s rain and this bed was the next one to need attention.

With everything under control in the potager, there was still enough sand to upgrade the dirt ditch of the rain garden with another nice, stone-lined, sand path. If you recall, last summer this area received a small paved area and path with all the leftover flat stones liberated from the industrial park construction. It was nice, but I didn’t like the dirt gully which channeled the runoff, and when I don’t like something I kind of neglect it, and when you neglect a garden the weeds send out an alert, and when they all show up to answer the call things go downhill fast. The weeds are out now, the sand is down, and although I’m short on rocks along the one side, the other doesn’t look bad at all. We will see how it holds up. If you look closely at the paving joints you might notice the joints are neatly filled with sand rather than dirt, and both of those are a pain to keep weed free when all you have is this narrow joint that the roots can hold onto. Truth is I threw some leftover polymeric sand in there, and when you wet the sand the polymer sets up and solidifies it. I don’t know how it will hold up but hopefully I’ll get at least a few years of no-weeds-in-the joints enjoyment. The weeds will be fine elsewhere though, so if you’re worried don’t be.

Another step forward I hope. Mulch would be nice now.

That’s where we’re at going into the weekend. The weather forecast is promising another heat wave so I’m not worried about mowing, but watering will be on my mind. I don’t like watering but it does beat lugging cinderblocks and digging turf so I’ll keep the complaining to a minimum.

Traditionally I usually meet the hottest days of summer with a pile of mulch in the driveway. Hmmm. I hope you have a more relaxing weekend 😉

Three Things

Jul17

Summer is flying by way too fast and fewer and fewer things are getting done. I wonder where the time goes but then remember that afternoon nap which got away from me and then the hour spent just sitting on the porch ‘looking’, and things kind of all come together. Summer is the lazy person’s nirvana.

Still a few things get done here and there. Mulching is one thing which happened, and although it was a half load with more planned for later, it made a world of difference even if most of it is just a foot wide strip edging the beds.

Even with a ruthless hand the purple coneflowers (Echinacea) still seed all over. I’m fine with that of course, although I did yank a few in the way of my mulching and edging.

Mulching would have gone much faster but even a lazy gardener can be a greedy gardener. Beds were expanded, some enough so that the expansion was remarked upon by the housemates. I just explained that the re-edging of the beds was necessary and left it at that. New mulch is always appreciated, so the latest land grab was quickly forgotten.

Grandma’s pool path has been cleaned up, and kniphofia ‘Alcazar’ is still sending up fresh pokers. I’ve shovel-pruned a few varieties which just don’t flower long enough, but ‘Alcazar’ has been a winner.

A second thing of note is lily season. They’re doing great this year and although I’d prefer them towering over the other plants I guess they’re not bad at all considering how thin the soil is that they’re growing in.

‘Silk Road’ gets better every year. Very fragrant, love the color, and she’s no trouble at all.

A few shovel-fulls of compost might be in order for these ladies since they really get no attention otherwise. The only time they caused me any concern was in April when a late freeze damaged a few of the earliest ones. Most of my favorites survived but a few froze back enough to call it a year. Hopefully they’ll be back next spring.

Lily ‘Leslie Woodriff’ is just off to the left. I may have to find a new home for this one since she just doesn’t seem to show off well with her companions. That’s part of it, but truth be told I just wanted to show off the rusty foxgloves and dill 🙂

Just a few more…

Lily ‘Conca d’Or’ is absolutely wow this week. I snapped a potful up on clearance last summer, and this just shows how well the local nursery cares for their stock, even when past prime.

And one more. Lilium lancifolium, the old fashioned tiger lily. I think I read somewhere the garden version is a sterile triploid version and that sounds believable since it never sets seed, but this is the one most likely to be found in old gardens and around abandoned homesteads so it seems to be doing just fine as is. Notice the round little dark bulbils which this lily produces where leaf meets stem. They’re super easy to pluck off and pot up, and in just two or three years you’ll have a brand new tiger lily colony. Be careful though. They have a reputation as a Typhoid Mary of the lily world and are said to carry all kinds of viruses which aphids can spread to their more refined cousins. Of course I rarely listen to good advice and grow them anyway. They always remind me of summers in Maine and my aunt’s old farmhouse garden and I guess I’ll risk the others for that.

Lilium lancifolium the tiger lily.

I also got a hold of the double tiger lily last summer. Beautiful or atrocious is in the eye of the beholder, but it’s just a few days behind the single so you’ll have to wait.

Off to a third thing. The phlox are in bloom and as usual they don’t compare to the very first year I prepped a bed and planted them out, but also as usual I’m willing to forgive many of the flaws in one of my favorite flowers. The fragrance of phlox is another summer farmhouse memory so when they’re in bloom out back even I can be convinced to grab a trowel and pruner and do a little weeding and straightening up just to be around them.

The potager nearly always looks a mess but to me I’m quite happy puttering around looking for surprises… and vegetables… every now and then it produces an onion or something, just enough to retain the ‘potager’ name 🙂

And maybe a fourth thing. The Russian hollyhock (Alcea rugosa) has captured my imagination as easily as their homeland captured the last election. The color is a soft yellow which goes with everything, the plants top out at a decent 6-7 feet, and best of all there’s still no rust to be seen on the leaves. In the front yard the current crop of regular hollyhock seedlings are peppered with orange spots and yellowing leaves, but back here it’s still a clean slate. I hope it stays that way.

Alcea rugosa, the Russian hollyhock. My fingers are crossed for plenty of seeds since I want to plant this thing all over. Please ignore the Japanes beetle nibblings which have ruined some of the show…

So that’s it from here. Hope your summer is rolling along just as nicely as mine (although maybe at a slower pace) and you’re enjoying the sunny bliss of the season. It may all seem carefree wonder but don’t forget to give some consideration to the cooler parts of the year and by that I mean snowdrop season of course. Edgewood Gardens should be putting out a snowdrop list soon and I have no other choice but to wait patiently until it comes to my inbox. There’s already been a species list for the real fanatics (which I won’t answer yes or no to on ordering from) but the named drops list should be in the works as well. When it comes out I like to think of it as Christmas in July, and as it stands right now I’m sure I’ve been very good this year 😉

Let it Grow, Let it Grow, Let it Grow

Jun12

I really can’t complain about too much for the 2019 gardening season. Actually I really don’t have much to say at all about the 2019 season other than I still seem to be in my gardening funk. Last year all the gloom and rain did me in, but so far this year I haven’t been able to shake it (in spite of marginally less downpours and fewer rained out weekends). Don’t get me wrong, I’m still out in the garden any chance I get to check on what’s new and what’s grown, but overall it just seems like a lot of work to me. Maybe I’ll just end up taking a sabbatical this summer and see what fall brings.

What doesn’t help at all is that my work schedule has been really interfering with my garden time. May is a busy time to get planting and staking and I was stuck in Michigan for a week. June is a time to weed and watch things fill in and I’m stuck in Missouri for two weeks. Fortunately things should clear up by next week and garden projects can get going… or things can not get going. We’ll see.

At least I got back from Michigan in time to see the last of the iris in bloom and pull out some of the biggest weeds. Bigger weeds are much easier to find and pull when they get to the two foot stage, so I guess that’s a plus.

The front street border is well on its way to becoming the usual thicket with shrubs starting to crowd out the perennials. One of my favorites is the yellow ninebark (Physocarpus opulifolius ‘Aurea’) in the back.

In the weekend before I left again I tried to triage my way through the garden, chopping what I could, pulling what I should, and planting anything that wouldn’t survive two weeks of neglect (the family is completely unreliable when it comes to watering and such). To be honest I was more than a little sore as I stepped out of the car at the airport Sunday night. I lived though, and hopefully when I return this weekend it doesn’t look too much worse than when these last pictures were taken.

Let’s continue the farewell garden tour along the front foundation bed. Here the plantings are mostly lower maintenance and that’s a great thing this year.

The blue fescue border has come back enough to look acceptable (but a better gardener would probably still dig and divide the clumps to freshen them up). As the plantings settle in here, I’ve finally reached the point were I don’t not like the colors in this bed.

I am a little excited about one of the things in the front. The sweet william seedlings I’ve been nursing along for three years have finally bloomed, and although they’re much too dark to be showy I think they’re absolutely cool.

Dianthus barbatus ‘Sooty’, a dark red selection of the old fashioned biennial sweet william.

We’ll skip the just-planted-the-day-before-I-left-again tropical garden and go right over to the back of the yard. Here the weeds and grass seedlings have covered up the mud and muck of all the construction and we can finally just stare at our row of wind tossed Norway spruce. There will be plenty of time later to complain about how dull and lifeless the new barrier is, but for now I’ll just stick to complaining about how much more grass there is to mow back there. At least the chainlink fence is gone and the area looks neat… maybe too neat… how boring…

You’re looking at all the fill I was planning on using to level my own backyard. It’s all been covered nicely and seeded to lawn and I don’t think my mother in law would appreciate me bulldozering a few yards of it over into my low spots now, so guess who is out of luck…

With the completion of the berm we have far less dust and noise and lights streaming into our yard. Those are all pluses which I need to remind myself of as I contemplate a fast-growing barrier of evergreens sapping the light and view from our back yard. But it does look neat and tidy I guess…

More ninebark (Physocarpus opulifolius ‘Diablo’) in bloom. I love the foliage and shape of these shrubs, and if the garden was bigger I’d add a few more. Hmmmm, maybe the berm could use a couple 🙂

Iris are about the only other thing worth noting in the back. Last year’s swampy soil killed off nearly all the modern hybrids, but the older cultivars just kept doing what they do, and have me considering devoting more real estate to iris again.

The historic iris (these are mostly from the 40’s and 50’s) held on while their modern neighbors turned to mush. Obviously a better spot with improved drainage would be another option, but I like the less is more approach 😉

I guess it’s only been a few years since the last time I decided to devote more property to iris. Things go like that around here, but unfortunately in between planting passions other amazing ideas come up and things get crammed in all over.

This was a decent iris spot a few years ago but plant a shrub or two, some colchicums, some climbers, build a support for the climbers, and before you know it the iris are struggling along in the shade.

Replanting a few iris this summer should be do-able even if it means time away from the pool and a little kick in the butt motivation. Deep down inside I know it will be worth it next June when they crowd the borders with brilliant color.

Now if I can only first manage to get the deck planters planted.

The last bits from under the growlights. There was an abyssmal lack of seeds sown this winter, but for some reason I needed the orange Ornithogalum dubium bulbs, a dozen canna seedlings, and one cool little pink and white alstroemeria seedling that looks dissapointingly similar to her parent.

Who am I kidding. Instead of planting the deck containers I took another round through the garden to make sure nothing new happened without me. The sweetshrub is giving me its first year of decent bloom and I think the flowers are particularly cool.

A hybrid sweetshrub (Calycanthus ‘Aphrodite’). A scent would be nice, but for now the flowers are just fine.

If worse comes to worse I’ll just spend this summer wandering the garden, smelling flowers, and contemplating the life cycle of weeds. New plants are still going to be added, that’s a given, but maybe there’s just going to be a lot more mulch this year. I like mulch so. Mulching can be very zen 🙂

A Return to Edgewood

Feb18

In hindsight the weather could have been better for the two hour plus drive down there, but when you’re matching up three busy calendars you sometimes just get what you get. Fortunately for the most mountainous part of the drive the bulk of the snow hadn’t yet arrived, and for the flatter portions the thermometer was beginning to rise. At least it was pretty to look at…. I guess…

A slow, careful walk up the icy drive gave plenty of time to admire the witch hazels. I believe this is Hamamelis x intermedia ‘Diane’.

We really had to squeeze this visit in because John Lonsdale, Edgewood Garden’s proprietor, was busy loading up trays and packing the truck for the Pine Knot Hellebore festival in Virginia which kicks off this weekend and then runs for the next three. Lucky you if you’re close enough to visit, but for now the seven and a half hour drive is more than I’m willing to consider… you never know though. It’s on the bucket list. >click here< for exact dates and locations of this and other Edgewood sales events.

Cyclamen ready to hit the road. Such awesome foliage you almost forget they also cover themselves with bloom, C. maritimum on the left wouldn’t be hardy for me, but I could easily pick out at least four or five of the C. hederifolium to the right and they’d do just fine here in the mountains 🙂

My friend Paula met up with us and we had a great morning looking at and talking about just about any and all snowdrop nuances you could think of. Then we talked about cyclamen. As usual I overstayed my welcome.

John and Paula working their way through the G. plicatus section of snowdrops.

I honestly intended to take pictures of some of the latest and greatest hybrids and named sorts and share the photos here, but I really do get a little overwhelmed when hit with the variety of species John grows. If you’d like a more focused report I’d recommend clicking >here< to read the recent Washington Post article on Edgewood Gardens and some of John’s work with several of the rarest snowdrop sorts.

Just one of the many pots which made me say “oh look at this one, I like that too”. I believe these were all G. gracilis seedlings.

Of course I like galanthus for the flowers as much as anyone else, but for some reason the varied foliage of the snowdrops had me distracted on this visit.

Curly thin foliage, flat wide foliage with a grey tint, wide apple green… This photo shows some of the range in Galanthus foliage. G. gracilis mostly but also a few other species such as G. plicatus and G. ikariae subsp. snogerupii…. a name which I can never resist saying 🙂

I think it’s a bad sign that I now know the names of more than three or four snowdrop species…

Various pots of Galanthus ikarie seedlings. Such nice foliage, some big flowers here and there, and even one with a nice flush of green on the petal tips.

There weren’t just a few species. I asked which ones in particular he had growing in the greenhouses and his response was just “all of them”. It was very cool to see, but even that was overshadowed by the thousands of snowdrop seedlings coming up on nearly every spare shelf or extra rack.

Future snowdrop flowers.

The incredible diversity of species coming along is staggering but before I was even able to get myself grounded again it was off to the next greenhouse to check in on some hardy cyclamen.

Cyclamen coum filling the bench with an exceptional range of forms and colors.

I took this visit as an opportunity to correct the severe lack of cyclamen coum which my indoor garden is dealing with this winter. For those who need to know, my budget only allowed me to pick four new ones, so you needn’t worry that I made a huge dent in his offerings.

Cyclamen coum ‘Porcelain’, a nicely striped special strain he had coming along, as well as a particularly dark form below it.

Speaking of budgets, since last year was such a success in restraint and control, I’ve decided to leave off on a good note and never mention tracking my gardening costs again. It seems almost pointless to worry about a few dollars here and there when I’m faced each month with writing the checks to put a ten year old girl through gymnastics. All my gardening budget is now officially part of my health care budget, and that would be mental health specifically. Spending money on the garden will hopefully distract me from the endless drain of money going towards filling birthday cards and financing icecream shoppes and filling the belly of a twelve year old boy who always seems inches from famine.

Another Edgewood offering this year, ‘Orange Glow’ winter aconite (Eranthis hiemalis). I could have easily added a few of these to my order, but have to keep faith that my little seedling from a previous year is still just waiting to show itself.

As long as we’re talking about the budget I wasn’t going to talk about, I might as well admit this visit wasn’t all just the usual me inviting myself over to look at plants. John has put out a spring listing of plants and I may have needed to pick up a few snowdrops as well as my new cyclamen. It can be found >here< and although I did save on shipping by picking up directly, you may choose to avoid a five hour roundtrip through snow and icy roads, and just have them mailed to your doorstep.

A large flowered Galanthus plicatus seedling. The rule of thumb here is about one inch for that particularly fat digit, and that puts this well endowed snowdrop at over two inches!

As always it was a great time, and even though the walk out went even more slowly with precious cargo in hand, we still took a few more minutes to again admire the optimistic witch hazels lining the drive.

Icy witch hazel (Hamamelis × intermedia ‘Barmstedt Gold’) in full bloom despite the sub-freezing temperatures. Everyone should have a few of these.

Thanks all around, and since this post is starting to sound like a shameless plug for Edgewood gardens (which it is) I guess I should say I received no compensation for it, and as a matter of fact it was actually a little costly even if you don’t count the stop at IKEA on the way home. Well on second thought that’s not completely true. On a previous visit John gave me an ‘unsellable’ cyclamen which had a few yellow leaves. It’s now growing and blooming beautifully in its new home, so maybe that cyclamen was all just part of some elaborate master plan 😉

Have a great week, and judging by the strength of the sun this morning you can probably guess what my next post will feature heavily!

Bits and Pieces

Nov15

There’s a forecast for snow tomorrow, and in this little slice of near-suburbia things are absolutely not ready. The gardener has been in more of a Netflix mood rather than a slaving out in the elements mood and as a result things are more behind than usual. ‘No big deal’ he says as he dips his hand in yet another vat of overly buttered popcorn, and that pretty much sums up the last few days… except for the weekend. It was sunny yet cold, and after weeks of gloom the sun was a nice change.

Just a few more days and out with the pumpkins and in with the boughs of holly. Fyi I’m thinking of moving the arborvitae… any thoughts on that?

In between re-acquainting myself with a rain-free garden and doing all the fall cleanup in just two days I did a little poking around and tried to find a few things of interest in an otherwise dying garden.

Polystichum polyblepharum 'Japanese Tassel Fern'

Evergreen ferns look even nicer set off by the yellowed hosta foliage. This is the Japanese Tassel fern, Polystichum polyblepharum, and one of my favorites. Thick brown fur covers the newly emerging fronds, and the plant as a whole is much sturdier than you might think.

There are a few last flowers, but many didn’t hold up well to the relentless rain. The chrysanthemums are mostly washed out with the exception of a single stray seedling which snuggles up against the porch. I tolerate its sloppiness all year and then finally reap the rewards in November when its flowers open to signal the end of the season.

My last chrysanthemum.

Out along the street the front border got a clearing out so that the earliest spring flowers can have an open stage for whenever the first warm spell hits. Of course that’s code for ‘I planted more snowdrops here’, but snowdrop season comes on fast and I want to be sure I’m prepared for that at least!

The interior of the bed has been cleared out and a Rolls Royce layer of leaf mulch put down. They’re the shredded Japanese maple leaves from next door, mixed up with a good amount of lawn clippings which should be delicious for the earthworms.

Although I did do some clearing out, the bulk of my fall cleanup is just removing anything which looks overly messy, and then running the leaves over with the mower and tossing the shreddings into select beds. Whatever is left I can just refer to as winter interest and eventually get it come springtime.

Although it was one of the first plants to go when temperatures dropped, the dead stalks of the abelmoschus still look great with their fuzzy seedpods.

Honestly if I had the opportunity I would want about double the amount of leaves that I collect each fall off the lawns. Some would go into the compost, but most just gets thrown back as a winter blanket for empty vegetable beds and sleeping perennial plantings. As it is I still end up volunteering to clean out my Bil’s backyard and then robbing the woods for whatever’s been dumped back there. It’s sad how I covet my neighbor’s fallen leaves.

An Asian spicebush, Lindera glauca var. salicifolia was named as my friend’s favorite shrub and I’d have to agree. The seedlings she shared with me are finally coming along and I love the late season glow of their foliage.

It’s not all about dead leaves though. Snowdrop talk will come up more and more now that the weather is turning cold. This season I am eagerly awaiting the opening of my new snowdrop walk, and based on all the buzz already surrounding it I’m sure it will be an excellent new springtime adventure.

Just in case it’s not obvious the new snowdrop walk enters between the chrysanthemums and carries you across the bed. Most people will need to crawl if they wish to avoid a cherry branch to the forehead, but you’ll be down low looking at them anyway so why bother with a whole bunch of head-room?

In the meantime, a few hardy cyclamen line the snowdrop walk. Cyclamen hederifolium is sending up its winter foliage now and the last flowers look even better against the beautifully patterned leaves.

It appears I’ve lost a few older cyclamen plants this summer, most likely due to all the rain, but there are still plenty left surviving and multiplying.

With the snowdrop walk all prepped and waiting, it’s time to turn towards the next on again off again project.

The land beyond the fence. Years back, before the fence went up, I used to mow around a few little quaking aspen sprouts. They’ve grown since, and are now sporting some attractively bright bark color.

You may remember that my MiL lives next door, and that a few years back I was able to get a bunch of fill dumped behind her house. In the years since, I’ve managed to level and plant the half closest to her fence, but the other half still needs grading and moving. After losing all hope of someone coming and doing the job in a day or two with all the right machinery, I’ve finally decided it will be me who digs and grades and moves all the dirt that remains. My guess is that the rest of my life will be spent digging back here, but I already have a shovel and the dirt is free, so what have I got to lose?

Left side graded and planted to grass, right side still to be done. While I’m at it someone’s mentioned they’d like a screen of evergreens planted, so why not add that to the list as well….

I’ll be using the dirt to fill in some of the low spots in my own yard. It’s terrible soil and a ridiculous amount of work but I find I can only watch Netflix for so long before boredom sets in, and I do like earthmoving projects. S we’ll see how it goes. Maybe I can just rename this part of the yard ‘the gym’ and spend all the saved money on other more exciting things. Now what would that be…. snowdrops perhaps? 😉

Must. Make. Post.

Nov3

The endless gloom of this year’s weather cycle has finally started to get to me. Even in a good year I’m not the most enthusiastic garden worker, but when the overcast and rainy days come one after another, and the ground is in a constant state of squish, I really don’t feel like much of anything. Good thing it’s finally the natural time of fading decay that others fondly refer to as autumn. I guess I can let it all slide without a guilty conscience and then hope that the winter winds do my cleanup for me 🙂

To be honest I did go along the street border and do a little cleaning up of dead things and overly lush grass growth. I feel like the dogwood seedlings have colored up exceptionally this autumn!

A lack of life giving sunshine and constant moisture must favor a colorful death process because whatever the endless rain hasn’t moulded up is showing a wonderful range of pinks and purples. Usually the hydrangeas go straight to brown, but this year even ‘Limelight’ has taken on a bright pink hue.

The colors of autumn with a promise of spring in the tight buds of next year’s dogwood blooms.

Frost has taken down the bright annuals out front, but asters, grasses and plenty of yellow foliage remain.

‘Golden Sunshine’ willow makes a nice yellow accent alongside the pinks and purples. It’s really enjoyed the rainy summer and one in the back yard has probably put on a good ten feet of growth this summer. All of the willows will be cut back to the ground this winter.

All the tropicals which earned a spot indoors have come into the garage, but my one potted candlestick bush (Senna alata) still gets dragged outside for warmer spells. It’s managed to put out a few weak flowers and of course I’m thrilled to get it this far. Maybe I can cut it back and overwinter the plant indoors, but I’ve killed enough plants over the years that I don’t have all that much hope of pulling that off.

Candlestick bush soaking up the last of the above freezing weather.

While we’re over by the garage I can’t help but think that the ‘Green Giant’ thuja is going to need some attention one of these winters. It’s a big tree and I’ve got it planted ten feet from the garage and maybe four feet from the walk. When I planted it ten years ago the plan was for a quick screen from the house next door, and it’s done a great job, but trimming is not something I want to deal with every year. Even with a ladder I can only safely reach about halfway up so I’m considering either leaving them go for the next five or ten years, or topping them and giving them one harsh trim and see what happens. A review of previous experience leans heavily towards doing nothing for the next ten years and then suddenly cutting them to the ground one morning when I need a spot to plant my latest, newest, most amazing plant. We’ll see.

I have to confess a love for arborvitaes. They’re common and maybe even overplanted, but I love them. Here are my ‘Green Giants’ growing just like they should, planted in a spot where perhaps they shouldn’t.

Following the confession of poor planting decisions here are a few autumn colors to distract.

The shredded umbrella plant (Syneilesis aconitifolia) coloring up for the fall.

Following this weekend’s rain I’m sure leaf cleanup will need to begin. I know I claimed to be considering waiting for the winter winds to take care of them all, but I’m far to greedy to give up the leaf mulch. A few rounds with the lawnmower should get me enough to mulch some of my most special plantings.

The compost pile is there to the right, the full wheelbarrow just ten feet to the left…. am I really that lazy that I couldn’t just make it all the way?

More fall color to distract.

Stewartia is always a star for fall color, especially when not coming off months of drought.

Not to change the subject too much, but just as my wonderful teepee of spanish flag vine (Mina aka Ipomoea lobata) was finally coming into bloom, the temperatures dropped just enough to frost the bulk of it, so here’s a single sad photo of all that’s left, rather than a ten foot high pyramid of celabratory oranges and reds. Fortunately some snapdragon vine (Asarina scandens) held up to the cold with their cool little purple flowers, and some chrysanthemum followed along behind, also pretending to be climbers. I may just skip the flag next year and go all snapdragon.

The last lingering flowers in the ‘vegetable’ patch.

Here’s one last treat.

Galanthus peshmenii, new this year and my first attempt at growing a fall blooming snowdrop outdoors.

So that’s it from this end of Pennsylvania. I saw a dash of sunshine just a few minutes ago but just the fact it’s stopped raining is a big step forward in my opinion. Let’s hope at least one day this weekend offers the garden and the gardener a chance to dry out and get something productive done. All the best!

General Seediness

Sep26

The humidity and heat are gone, only to be replaced by on again off again sunshine alongside a repeating dose of rain. Yay. I won’t even try and convince myself summer is holding on. The calendar says fall and I guess the garden is saying it as well this year.

The potager is now an overgrown seedy mess of lingering flowers and floppy overgrowth.

We had company for a week and then I had the pleasure of entertaining a head cold for the following weekend, so if the general decay of the season wasn’t enough then the two weeks of neglect probably did the trick. A few things did happen though, so I guess any attempt by the gardener to keep his head above water is a plus.

The hedge was trimmed. As usual I love it, and of course it’s inspired me to edge and mulch as well.

Before I get too rushed in putting this post out, I suppose some mention of this years budget ambitions should be noted. Weeding was becoming torture so a few bags of mulch were purchased. I find mulching to be slightly addicting so the first load was followed by another, and then another. All said approximately $44 dollars of very cheap and questionably dyed hardwood mulch was purchased, and to be honest I feel really good about my broken resolve.

A weeded, edged and mulched snowdrop bed. Grass clippings cover the interior, purchased mulch rings the edge. The left side is still a work in progress…

While mulching I came across a few colchicum corms and remembered offering extras to some friends last fall. As it is with these things a quick online search for proper names and spellings led me to distraction and also to a few coveted colchicums which I’d been hoping to get elsewhere. For just $63 and a mouse click I didn’t have to worry about elsewhere anymore.

A good example of general neglect. Colchicum ‘Nancy Lindsay’ bravely flowering over a carpet of weedy sedum and other sprouting nasties.

While I’m baring my plant buying soul (with the exception of snowdrop purchases of course) I might as well admit that general colchicum excitement led me to a second purchase, this time from Daffodils and More. I have sworn off new daffodils this fall, but obviously the “More” part was a problem, and in this case it amounted to $65 more.

Nice pink highlights on ‘Limelight’ hydrangea this fall. They may be floppy from all the rain, but at least they’re not heat blasted and brown.

I haven’t been entirely innocent in the plant department either. Most of the summer passed far too quickly to spend time at the nursery, but my foggy memory does recall going over on a gift certificate (the amount of which does NOT count) by about $38 and then returning a few days later to spend another $18. Those plants may or may not have all been planted, but I have to say it would be stupid to buy them and HAVE to have them and then let them sit next to the garage for weeks unplanted.

Each fall I’m fascinated by the variety of mum seedlings which have arisen from the double red ‘Mammoth’ mum towards the back. Each spring I forget about mums and never get around to separating these out.

If I do admit to neglecting full price purchases on the driveway for weeks, I probably shouldn’t suggest that I went back for a 40% off sale and spent another $49. Just in case that happened though I’m going to add it to this year’s tally and not mention that more pots have joined the driveway crew.

The overflowing tropical border. The Seven Sons Tree (Heptacodium) is in full bloom and has put on quite some height over the last few years.

Speaking of pots I bought a nice ceramic one on clearance for $15. Like everything else I didn’t need it but maybe I will, so better to just bring it home.

The Monarchs have surprised me with an early appearance. They’re enjoying the flowers of the Seven Sons Tree, you can almost make out the namesake flower buds which have a number one son bud surrounded by six more sons.

That might be it on budget confessions. Over the last few weeks I’ve probably forgotten a few receipts here and there, but in my opinion a quickly fading memory is one of the greatest benefits of the aging process. Perhaps in hindsight writing it all down wan’t the best thought out of plans. Better to throw in a distraction such as one of my fantastically edited cinematic masterpieces which I call “All the Monarchs which swarmed the Heptacodium last week”.

I loved watching all the Monarchs. My parents were in and marveled at all the bugs and butterflies which they just don’t see any more in their more suburban lot. I hope it’s just a one season anomaly for them, but when you hear the stories of disappearing bees and bugs, and vanishing bird populations, and crashing amphibian numbers, you can really worry. As the afternoon rolled into an amazing sunset, we watched the lingering insects wander off and several bats move in to swoop and ambush the careless, while all the nighttime crickets and katydids started to ratchet up their chorus. It wasn’t bad at all.

September sunset on the deck.

The Monarchs have been just like the weather. They swarmed the yard and then disappeared. A few came back. More came back. They disappeared. Today there are dozens again and the temperatures and humidity make it feel like we’re in the South again. Who knows? At least it keeps me off the streets 😉

$63 for a questionable colchicum purchase
$65 for a quality colchicum purchase
$38 for additional unnecessary plants
$18 for two more unnecessary plants
$49 for clearance plants which also unnecessary, yet irresistible
$15 for a ceramic pot which made the trip to the box store worth it

$992 total so far for the 2018 gardening year.

Before

Jul19

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

$33 worth of gifts to myself

$738 total so far for the 2018 gardening year.

A Tropical Update

Sep9

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The tropical garden is not boring.

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

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

sorta like suburbia

more than you ever wanted to know about my garden

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