Where Did August Go?

Aug24

How is it the last week in August. Seriously? I still have a spring to-do list and now I’m realizing the fall to-do list should have already been started and well you know how it goes. At least the garden looks good and should look good until frost… assuming I continue to mow the lawn every other day because it seems neverending.

It’s a sunflower year in the front border. The birds left a few seeds and the summer rains have brought them along and now the goldfinches are as pleased as I am.

We have been very lucky as far as rain goes, even if some would note it hasn’t been a good summer for sitting around outside due to heat and humidity and smoke and haze and clouds, and in hindsight that sounds like a terrible summer but there have been moments.

Annuals in general are having a decent year. I wouldn’t mind if the snow-in-summer (Euphorbia marginata) would seed around more, but it doesn’t always get an open patch in April to sprout up into.

I guess I have no complaints other than the pace at which summer flew by. From one thing to another and it’s been an experience but it does make the days fly. To see the late summer flowers, buds on the colchicums, and morning fogs off the river is a little discouraging, but I can convince myself it’s late summer rather than anything more ominous. The summer looks so nice and although unfinished projects abound, on a nice breezy afternoon I would sit for hours rather than do anything… especially if facing the reality of autumn is what’s on the next to-do list!

The last lily of the season, Lilium formosanum, is one you should grow if you can. It’s not your typical lily, it doesn’t clump up but it does seed around nicely, usually blooming in the second year from seed.

The fact is I’m a grasshopper, not an ant. Ants are busy gathering seed, pulling weeds, and getting ready for mums, and I’m staring at a hibiscus. I like hibiscus and find mums to be boring so let me stare away until reality hits and my garden is a mess. Already the weeds are spreading and vines are creeping, and the tropicals are much bigger than they need to be, but in my opinion that’s excellent. I like a summer garden that surrounds you and towers over you and even has a few vines grabbing at you. There will be plenty of time for contemplation and starkness when cold, and hopefully some effort on the part of the gardener, clears things out.

Dried weeds and prickly cucumber vines are exanding by the day, in this case over the blooms of ‘Ruffled Satin’ rose of sharon, one of the few rose of sharons which isn’t an overwhelming weed of a reseeder.

The tropicals will take me through to mid October and then I might just skip autumn and head right into winter. Most of the tropicals are programmed that way, genetically they don’t even know what winter is so they just keep going and going and couldn’t care less about pumpkin spice and chrysanthemums and the grim reaper of a hard frost.

The waste area has become even more colorful as cannas join the zinnias in bloom. I had to trim back most of the forest of Jimsonweed since it was overwhelming even the cannas and I do like my cannas 🙂

All the color in the garden is mostly rain, but also the graduation-party effect as I tried to weed and fertilize and plant more annual color than usual. The graduate is now off to South Carolina but the plants remain, and I’m sad but enjoying the aftereffects of all the springtime gardening effort.

This one bed outside the potager has terrible soil because I’ve done little to it since unearthing it after our construction project. One day I rounded up all the sad overwintered geraniums (pelargoniums) and as many containers as I could muster and this became the geranium bed.

There is one tropical visitor who has me exceptionally excited this summer, and that’s the bananna. The banana (‘Icecream’ I think) has been bravely overwintering as a decapitated and nearly rootless trunk for the last three winters in our mildly heated garage, and although she made me a little grumpy most of June and July, eventually I realized her anemic growth was due to a flower bud pushing up and not some other fault in my banana husbandry. Although I expect tiny banana blooms within the next week or two, there’s zero chance they will have enough time to grow and ripen before winter descends upon this frosty Zone 6a Pennsylvania garden. That is a tragic fact, but not one I can except, and I know there will be many bad decisions made in an attempt to get this plant through to a warm enough space where it can finish fruiting and ripen and give me a January home-grown banana for a waffle Plantness-week celebration.

I shall not count my bananas before they hatch, but my fingers are crossed something cool happens. Even just getting a bloom is more than I expected for a tropical eating banana in NE PEnnsylvania.

So while I’m considering another addition to the house to provide the sun and heat and headroom for a ten foot banana plant I guess I should mention the growing unease I feel when wandering the rest of the garden. Weeds and decay don’t bother me, but there’s a suspicion that I’ve added some plants which need overwintering, and there’s also a perception that some of the houseplants have grown in size. Grown in size sounds somewhat heart-warming, but when I say grown in size I mean five foot macho ferns, six foot begonias, and seven foot shefflera. Also it’s plant cruelty to not divide and propagate things which are doing well, so one Boston fern becomes six before you know it… and for the record I didn’t start the season with just one Boston fern…

I will blame Begonia House. Sure it sounds whimsical to paint the kids’ old playhouse garish colors and try a green roof and then surround it with summering plants from inside the winter garden, but when you take care of it and fertilize, the plants respond and if it keeps going until frost we might have to rename it Jungle House… hmm that sounds fun too, next year I could drag the house over to the potager and surround it with banannas and cannas and brugmansia and let annual vines run amock and… well first things first.

‘Begonia House’ in the shaded side of the back garden surrounded by overwintering “houseplants”, which would never fit in a normal house, even one where the part-owner, subordinate decision-maker thinks a basement full of grow-lights is normal.

Hahahaha, you made me smile if you thought I was even close to considering what to do with things and where to put them this winter. I’m a grasshopper! Nothing to worry about here until it’s too late and it’s still another month at least before the inkling of danger becomes an actual thought. I’m still planting coleus cuttings like it’s May 🙂

Have a great week, nothing to see here it’s all fine.

Colors of Summer

Aug6

Unlike many parts of the world our area has been getting rain this summer, and if I can just review my mental records of last year’s weather, the pattern hasn’t been much different than this year. Last year we had cold, crap, crap, crap, a nice day, too dry, dry, too dry, rain, crap, and then rain, and I think this year is similar. Maybe more humid but I don’t keep as accurate records for the humidity. In any case the plants, both good and not-so-good, are enjoying this summer growing weather, and the gardener is sick of mowing. He loves the green sward of lush turf when freshly mown but that lasts two days out of six, and on the seventh day he can’t rest because he’s mowing again. But green is a nice setting for lush and colorful flowers, much nicer than straw is.

The border along the street is wild and buggy and probably messier than a border along the street ought to be. Maybe it should be shorter with more mulch. One out of one teenagers will agree.

With all the focus this year on getting the garden to a point where it looks nice, plus rain helping with the annuals and a decent mulching last year to keep the weeds at bay, I have to say the garden looks nice and sometimes on a cooler, bug-free afternoon with the light just right it looks amazing, but that’s one biased viewpoint. That same person can ignore a bunch of messy spots and unfinished projects, but as long as the sun hits the rudbeckia at just the right angle and gives them a summertime glow… that’s amazing.

Brown and orange are not my go-to colors,and this might not be the perfect lighting, but when they show up in these comfortably warm temperatures I’m 100% on board. Rudbeckia triloba ‘Prairie Glow’ is currently in the lead for orangy, although I do need to pull out some of the plain yellows, particularly the shorter-petaled, rounder flowered ones… which I do not like…

There is plenty of color this week, in multiple shades, on plants which are not wilting and browning, but even in a normal summer there are some plants which I’m always happy to see rolling into August. Agapanthus are on that list. If you’ve followed this blog you might be tired of the bragging but here they are one more time. My growing clump of agapanthus ‘Blue Yonder’, fully hardy with no protection down to winter lows around zero F (-18C), and carefree in a full sun spot with decent soil.

Agapanthus ‘Blue Yonder’ in full bloom with another week or two to go. A deep color and plentiful secondary buds to extend the show, but not as fertile as some of the other hardy agapanthus and as a result I haven’t had any seedlings from this one… yet…

There’s a good chance I’m just lucky with this agapanthus, but I’m seeing a few more of these around as more cultivars have been introduced. A gas station had two huge clumps of probably ‘Galaxy Blue’ and ‘Galaxy White’ planted along the street and based on nothing else remaining of the rest of the landscaping, I think these are pretty carefree… until they’re not, and I’ve heard of others having mixed results so…

Windblown black eyed susans and the cannas and coleus I planted just before heading out to Buffalo. Not impressive but I think in another month they will add to the list of AMAZING 😉 -apologies for the trashy mulch of lawn clippings.

Speaking of mixed results, border phlox (P. paniculata) were a favorite here until they decided they hated me, so since then I’ve been through anger, denial, acceptance, and some serious self-reflection as I try my best to figure out how it’s my fault. I don’t know. All I know is they’re relatively awesome again this year even if I lost most of the heirloom named sorts which I had spent years collecting. I did rip out two of the three ‘Limelight’ hydrangea which were taking the bed over, and I did toss some fertilizer their way this spring. I think, because like many things here they’re done by the seat of my pants.

Phlox paniculata seedlings taking their rightful place in the summer border. Better gardeners may scoff at the unimproved colors but I’m pleased.

Since I’ve lost most of the named forms, what I’m left with are the terrible inferior forms which garden books, and probably the internet too as AI steals mankind’s knowledge base, warn you about. “Muddy colors” and “magenta” are what you get and apparently that’s my taste.

Muddy and magenta phlox seedlings, plus the last ‘Limelight’ hydrangea since I need at least one in here. The darker-eyed and anything which veers towards reddish are favorite phlox seedling colors here.

Don’t get me wrong, I covet the dark purple and saturated reds of modern phlox cultivars, but they don’t hang on forever in my garden like these survivors do. Also the modern hybrids seem to be bred with a shelf-life in mind and a height which works well in a gallon pot on a big-box nursery bench, and I like phlox you can walk through, so strong stems and up to five or even six feet height are more my taste. Okay 3-4 feet tall is probably more sensible but I don’t mind higher. What I do mind is mildew and anything under 2 feet. I rarely have any mildew on these, and toss the ones which show signs.

Phlox with a nice white star in the center are also popular in this garden. We had a few cool nights recently and that makes the white more distinct, they seem to fade in warmer weather.

If you’re still reading it probably means you have some tolerance or at least a curiosity in gardeners with poor taste so we might as well take a look at the waste area in the far back. I did plant things and throw down topsoil but the “things” were daylilies and cannas, and with the exception of some classic zinnas, the area still leans towards weeds…. especially after the rain. It also didn’t help when I allowed Jimsonweed (Datura stramoniom) to come up and flourish, but it looked so lush and healthy and I kind of like it for some odd reason, in spite of its stink when brushed up against and the millions of seeds it will produce if allowed. I did pull dozens, but enough remain and I enjoy the white and purple flowers which open each evening and fade each morning. If you have a little time to kill it’s a fascinating plant with its medicinal and spiritual uses (<-click for the Wikipedia entry) and you might already know that the common name derives from Jamestown weed, where soldiers sent to Jamestown Virgina to quell a colonial rebellion, ended up high for over a week after “consuming” the weed. Another fun-fact is that even in colonial times growing Jimsonweed in the garden was considered inappropriate. It was used for incantations, and the European witches were using it for their witch’s flying ointment, so I can only assume those colonial witches were doing the same. All this makes me wonder what the neighbors really think about whats growing in this garden and what the gardener is really up to.

Super-tasteful dahlias and cannas alongside the zinnia patch, with Jimsonweed beginning to tower over the daylily beds on the left.

So before we spend too much time going on about getting high off weeds and AI starts recommending Jimsonweed plantings for medicinal and hallucinogenic properties, lets finish off this post. I shall highlight only one daylily. ‘Jersey Spider’ is an unexceptional gold color with large flowers but is an excellent plant. A long season with plenty of rebloom on additional stalks makes it a favorite.

The daylily ‘Jersey Spider’ looked great 24 hours ago with even more rebloom stalks plus seed pods to play with for next year… except a deer or two wandered by last night and beheaded the plant. It’s amazing how they sense my favorite plants just to destroy them.

So you got off easy with only one daylily photo. Let me end with a longer shot which still looks nice even though I haven’t yet added to the berm plantings.

The pots were looking nice yesterday as well. The deer also grazed some of the succulents so it looks worse today but whatever, at least they haven’t shown any interest in the petunias.

So a pretty upbeat post in spite of the deer assault last night. Things look nice and most of the worst of the work is done… which should be good but it also gets me antsy. What should I be doing with my time? The houseplants love the heat and humidity and maybe I should take cuttings and divide things. Do I have enough annuals? I set up the drip irrigation in spots, and adding more containers really doesn’t add any more work so maybe I need more pots?

I would order mulch but every time I think about it, the tuition bills yell at me. Hopefully the beds can handle a skipped year or two while we work through this. Maybe a GoFund me is a good idea. Not for college bills but for mulch of course, and if it takes off I’ll add a water garden and greenhouse… never mind. Stay cool, hope you get the rain you need, and hopefully August brings you all the enjoyment and relaxation you need.

Almost There

Jul9

So it’s the night before we head up to Buffalo for ‘The Fling’! and of course I’m unprepared. Naturally you would think I could focus on something like finding a phone charger or making sure the car has gas, but instead, after weeks of neglecting this blog my priority is to put a post up. Perhaps it’s the peer pressure of peers I have yet to meet? They’re all fellow bloggers or garden writers or videographers or who knows what else, but they all have a thing in common, and that’s a regular online presence so I think I should dust off my presence real quick before I go.

These cannas have been sitting in a black garbage bag on the driveway for two months… but suddenly it’s a priority to get them planted, and a weed a bed that’s been covered in weeds all spring…

So why am I not ready? There were good intentions when I went through the laundry to see if I had a few stain-free shirts to pack, but then I ended up cleaning out the whole closet, the car needed air in a tire so out came the vacuum, towels and windex to detail the whole interior, there were a few coleus cuttings to plant so I fertilized everything in the garden before spraying all the daylilies with deer repellant… they haven’t been sprayed at all this year… and that takes me to the cannas. I took a look at my nails and realized the dogs had better manicures than I did so there I sat with soap and a brush, clippers and a file, and cleaned them all up, but then went outside for “one last” look at the garden and ended up ripping out tons of daisies to make room for the cannas. Don’t even ask if I wore the gloves which were sitting just a few feet away.

The cannas did not go into the tropical bed. That’s become a mess of self-sown wildflowers and a few neglected daylilies even though tropicals are what should really line this path to the pool.

I will claim that it’s not my fault, and I’m sure my nails will clean right up now that they’ve been warned, so might as well mow the lawn quick.

The daylilies are very nice now that we had some rain. Here they are alongside the Queen of the Pairie who is looking more tired each year.

Truth is I really don’t want to leave the garden. I rarely say this but after enduring the heat, and choosing the path of watering, and then a day and night of steady rain, the garden looks good. Not REALLY good as in there are no weeds in sight and the mulch is fresh and it looks like someone gave thought to design, but it looks like a riot of color, all flowery on top of green on top of plants which seem happy to be there and I’m loving it this week.

Ending on a houseplant? Philodendron maybe ‘White Princess’ out for her summer vacation and loving the heat and humidity.

So I want to enjoy it but sometimes time away is good as well. I could use some adult supervision and maybe another point of view will steer me away from obsessing about houseplants which also just happened. They look so happy with all the rain and warmth and maybe I bought a new palm to see if it would stop my obsessing over that palm for the last two weeks, but for now I need reasons why I shouldn’t go any further. Just because my philodendron has roots searching for some kind of support doesn’t mean I should just build something for it and repot it and start growing big leaved things on moss poles… no that’s a bad idea. This is why I need to get away. I’m sure being with a group of garden-crazy plant people for four days is just what I need to come back to reality.

But I’m keeping the palm no matter what anyone says. Have a great week!

A Party

Jul3

There was a little pressure this spring on cleaning up the garden and getting it visitor-ready. Parts are often nice enough, but to have the whole thing somewhat weeded and looking respectable all on the same date is not how things roll here, but a graduation party in the garden sounded nice (it was), even if the process of getting there seemed like a brutal amount of work(it was) combined with expensive combined with the many ‘ifs’ of weather and bugs and number of guests and reliability of plumbing etc. In retrospect it’s possible there was more than one occasion where the dad of the grad thought it would be a whole lot easier to just write a check and show up, but of course that always comes at a point when it’s too late to change the path of the massive tanker we’ve set into motion.

Visitors didn’t seem to mind having signage blocking the view of the rock garden. I guess not everyone came to see plants…

I think it worked out well. As is typical here there were a few ‘haha gotcha’ moments where tent sizes were a surprise and cars started acting up and maybe we should go to the Energency room, but if you get home by 3:30am I think it’s still just a visit, and not an overnight stay so all is well.

The party begins. Clouds kept things cooler and the rain stayed away!

As is the norm for me only about four photos were taken of the whole event, and three were attempts to get someone to keep their eyes open, so there’s not much proof of the evening but I believe some of the kids had cameras and maybe a few other pictures were taken. It was a good time. My mantra for the day and perhaps a few days prior was ‘it’s fine’ and that really cuts down on the stress and mania. A neighbor once told me that people who know, know enough to not say anything, and the rest won’t notice, and that was my guiding light as I considered the trim in the house which shouldn’t still be missing after six years and the unfinished deck details which were put on hold the day before our last big party (*cough* two years ago).

The potager is awash with a white froth of Erigeron annuus, which sounds far less fancy when you call it fleabane, and lesser still when you admit pretty much everything blooming white in the garden is technically a weed.

If our guests noticed a bunch of flaws they were nice enough to keep it to themselves (or to just a few closer friends) and there were no awkward confrontations about growing pokeweed or having clover in the lawn. If awkward was in place it was mostly on my part as I deflected compliments and undercut the work it took and then changed the conversation back to the food and the graduate’s plans. Then is quickly became awkward again when I had no answers on how the graduate and her parents were going to pay for her next few years at Clemson University.

The firepit and ‘waste area’ did not frighten people off this year. A planting of zinnias came into bloom just in time, and the weeds which were smothered to create this bed are politely dying… I hope…

So how did the garden measure up? People mentioned it. They said it looked great, and it was the steps up the berm and my little calamondin “orange tree” which brought on the most questions and compliments. I was happy to see the calomondin getting so much attention since my fingers were crossed for the last month or so hoping for at least a few orange fruits to remain.

One of the planters at the base of the berm steps. Thanks go to my friend Kimberley at Cosmos and Cleome for the color and plant consult for these planters, I do like how it all turned out.

Perhaps the garden really did look good. The berm had been weedwacked and that probably distracted people from the uncut meadow which has grown well now that it’s less shaded. Two aspens were cut this spring to give the meadow more light, and more importantly to keep the lanternflies away from the stone wall. Lanternflies really don’t damage stone walls, but when they sit in an aspen tree above it and pee 24/7 the stone develops a black smut of moldy honeydew, plus the idea that the ‘mist’ you feel is insect excretions does not make for a pleasant garden stroll, so the trees were cut and the stones were powerwashed. Also for good measure I capped the end of the wall with a few pavers so there’s another flat spot for more containers of succulents. I was getting a little anxious over a topsy-turvy collection of pots along the top of the wall so the pavers are my solution for a more level collection, but a whole wall capped in pavers is a lot. In a moment of inspiration -fueled by rabbits decimating my ground level planting of hens and chicks- I wondered if I could just dump plants on top of the wall and perhaps hope for an elevated safe space where they could grow in spite of having no soil. I don’t think it’s the craziest idea. Hens and Chicks are also referred to as houseleeks, roof foil, thunderplant, homewort, and the scientific name of Sepervivum tectorum roughly translates to ‘always-living’ and ‘of roofs’ so I think throwing them on a stone wall is perfectly fine for a plant which is already accustomed to being thrown on roofs. Watch them die now, that would be just my luck, and as far as the rabbits go? I already saw one perched on top of the wall nibbling around, so my plan may still have a few gaps, but at least in theory my stone wall is protected from lightning strike and perhaps evil in general as per the sempervivum entry in wikipedia.

A freshly washed and planted stone wall with orange butterfly weed in the meadow and stone steps in the distance. Looks classy until you realize the dish garden at the front filled with succulents is actually our old satellite dish.

Don’t get the wrong impression. A cleaned up wall and some weed control on the berm can barely keep up with the eternal pull of chaos, and there are still a plethora of weeds and borderline decisions to cope with. It’s turned hot and the next few days will force a decision on (1)water it and keep things going for the summer or (2)let the heat fry things and then just rip it all out for the ‘spare’ look. So far I’ve been watering.

Never fear, there are still plenty of weeds such as milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) keeping things on the wild side. I’ve begun to look forward to their flowering and fragrance, even if my milkweed doesn’t bring all the monarchs to my yard.

The forecast shows a few thunderstoms on the 7-day and that’s hopeful, because I did plant a few more annuals this year as per a graduate’s request for pink/pale yellow/ and purple, and annuals are not as forgiving as the perennials.

Annual pink thunbergia (blackeyed susan vine), actual black eyed susans (rudbeckia) and some red hot pokers (kniphofia) in a bed which was weeded but could use it again.

So next week’s weather will determine how the rest of summer goes. It’s pretty hot right now (96F/35C) and humid but as long as a little water comes their way things should be fine. It’s not like I’m growing delphimiums and meconopsis and other cool weather things, this garden is set to thrive or just endure a hot summer and not faint as soon as the gardener cracks a sweat… which he did already this morning, just on a walk about with the dogs…

More red hot pokers (Kniphofia). An appropriate plant for the day.

Hmmm. This is the miserable kind of heat where it’s fun to go to daylily farms and see how they and their growers are surviving. Of course they’re full sun plants so that’s even better but for now I shall not burden you with the glories which are begining to open in the daylily farm… which by the way is still operating far far far in the red without a single actual sale…

Another hot color for a hot day, Heliopsis ‘Bleeding Hearts’ is easy and long blooming.

But before I visit any daylily farms I have bus-full of other visits to make. This summer and actually next weekend specifically I’m joining up with the Garden Blogger’s Fling aka ‘The Fling‘ taking place in and around Buffalo NY this year. “THE FLING is an annual meetup of garden bloggers, Instagrammers, YouTubers, podcasters, and other online self-publishers since 2008″ and it’s a networking meetup which sounds quite official for someone who’s not a networker and can barely get a post up once a month, but I’m going anyway. There are a ton of gardens to visit and it’s just a four hour drive away and a few of my garden friends and future friends are also going to be there so I’m excited. Back in 2017 I almost went to the DC/VA fling, back when it was mostly just bloggers wanting to meet in person and hang out in too many gardens together, but was too scared to ask the boss for time off from an 8 and 10 yr old… but now? Our new graduate and even older graduate might not even know I’m gone.

If will be fun. I just have to watch myself because thinking back a year and reflecting upon other awkward moments which live forever in my head but barely register to others, there’s this interaction: I was talking plants for 30 minutes with a new friend and they asked what other hobbies I had. It caught me off guard. To what ends could this possibly go, so I panicked and said none. Hmmm. Silence and what looked like escape glances. I spent the next two hours driving home and reminding myself that I have a family who I love, a job which brings something new each day, and books and outdoor adventures and weird curiosities… all those things which escaped me at the moment. This time I’ll be prepared. I’ll be a networking machine just as long as no one expects me to remember their name or the names of anyone I’ve know for less than two years because that’s kind of a challenge as well, so wish me luck! And stay cool, it’s miserable out here.

Hello Again

Jun19

It’s been a while. I apologize of course and there’s no one reason for the disappearing act, but lets just pretend it didn’t happen and there hasn’t been an unprecedented two month gap in posts… which has never happened in the last ten years of posting here… I hope to turn things around, but if the last ten have taught me anything it’s that for as often as I try to mend my blogging ways, it never works out. So let’s just take a look around the garden to hopefully prove I haven’t been completely lazy!

Last summer’s addition to the yard was the rock garden. It might be my favorite garden ever and I’m always checking for the tiniest change even if the huge weed on the left speaks more of neglect.

The plan is to keep this post short and just get it done, and that’s probably a good goal since I’m struggling to write anything of interest this morning. What I want to do is go on and on about every little thing in the rock garden but that could be exhausting for both of us so I’ll do my best to keep things short. Yeah, keep things short and get it done… but the silly little rock garden has so many cool things to bore you with, assuming you can look past the huge weed -which is probably a weed but maybe it’s not and it’s something interesting- so perhaps just a few cool things have to be mentioned.

The rock garden sits in the center of the front yard. A nice focal point, but stale bagels are out there too, and the birds and bunnies enjoy them just as much even if we don’t.

A fun fact about the rock garden is that there used to be a nearly identical bed here when we moved in, which I hated and called the ‘pimple’, since it was this round raised thing covered in red mulch which looked like an infected blot on the front yard. It was removed, but it appears we’ve come full circle as now it’s back and just as round and raised as before, just no red mulch. I guess the antibiotics worked and the pimple is less angry. The bed was put in last summer and in the 10 months since I’ve been filling it up. Finally I have a place to stick all those little rock garden things which get lost and smothered in the other beds.

A lewisia (raspberry something was the label) has been blooming all spring. I love it. If it survives longer than a year I may fill the entire bed with more and maybe start a lewisia farm.

Hopefully I’m not offending anyone by calling this bed a rock garden. If there’s a rock garden police they might charge me with planting regular perennials like the blue fescue or trashy annuals like the ‘Profusion Double Hot Cherry’ in a garden which should have obscure erodiums or saxifrage but give me time. Right now those things bore me a little because they don’t look like much unless grown well, and it’s that ‘grown well’ part which I struggle with. Actually I kill them so that’s that.

Heh heh, I was probably inapropriately excited to find a dwarf thistle (Circium acaule) at a rock garden sale last spring but I love thistles. This might be full bloom now and obviously it’s a short and poky thing.

Short and get it done is not happening. Refocus. Rabbits. Besides me actively killing plants there’s also still a rabbit problem plaguing this garden. A few months under a chicken-wire cover has saved a few of the remaining hens and chicks (Sempervivums) but the rabbits still love to nibble the fescue and graze on the dianthus. They also love the clover plantings which the rock garden police would have told me shouldn’t be there in the first place but they are.

There’s white clover growing lushly throughout the lawn, but the variegated white clover in the rock garden must be tastier. I planted it in a crevice. The rabbits struggle to get down in there, and crevice gardening is very on-trend in the rock garden world, more so for deeper root runs than rabbit protection but it sort of works.

I want to go on about other mucho-cool plants in there but maybe I can pull off a second post this month and not take another break until autumn or whenever, and talk about them then. Ugh, why did I even mention autumn, it’s June for goodness sake and just about everything looks awesome. I weeded and planted the potager. Half of it has turned into a tropical garden with bananas, cannas and angel trumpets (Brugmansia) while the other half has been re-assigned to vegetable planting. Obviously vegetables should have been out there all along, but flowers are nicer so maybe I strayed a little too far in that direction.

Tomatoes, cabbages, chard and broccoli among other things. I was quite serious about evicting a few too many other non-edible things which ended up in there.

Who knows what we’re going to do with fresh produce. Tomatoes can at least go onto a pizza or something, but chard? It’s so green and we’re more of a sugar and deep fryer kind of family but there’s always hope. Fake it until you make it is the theory, and a vegetable garden filled with wholesome vegetables is far more impressive than raised beds filled with daylily seedlings and sunflowers even though that may still happen. But not this month. These are show vegetables, and they might be planted to make things look more respectable for an upcoming graduation party which will happen in a week in this same backyard for a certain daughter who has finished high school.

Even the waste area is looking repectable. Last summer and fall some extra topsoil and homeless daylilies meant losing the weeds, and this spring more topsoil and some zinnia seedlings cleared out the rest. Cardboard and soil on top is so far keeping the weeds at bay.

Next to the waste area is the berm and that’s cleaning up as well. The steps up to the top were a thing last year, and this year I’m dabbling in finally planting things which might do well on the slope. Also all the scrap rocks from construction on the addition became little square plinths? which looked kind of unfinished until I found a few concrete pavers to top them off with. Stone would have been ideal but $adly that couldn’t happen so the cheap concrete had to step in. I’m quite pleased that I can finally put pots on top and have them sit somewhat level rather than look like a topsy-turvy collection of succulent pots… which will join the main planters once I clean them up a bit and decide who goes where.

Finally a level place for pots! It’s looking fancy back here in spite of the un-mown grass, and weedy berm.

Short and get it done… the deck is up. I started filling pots but still need to pressure wash before it’s all put together. I rebuilt the shade canopy, that was another day of work, but still have to fix a few parts of the deck before the party. Don’t worry the deck repairs are for aesthetics not safety 😉

Deck containers are off to a good but perhaps slow start. A bunch of calibrachoa self-seeded from last year and all needed to be dug and potted up since I can’t possibly just let them go.

Once the deck is done all the houseplants can find their sumgo to waste.mer homes. Many will go up there, many will go out to surround Begonia House. I think it will be very nice if it indeed happens.

Begonia House on the side of the yard. Right now it’s derelict but I think this weekend will breathe some summertime life into it and I’ll evict the spiders and mugwort which are trying to ruin my vibe.

That’s where the various projects are at. Things are moving forward on all fronts except for the bank account balance which keeps ticking in the negative direction despite everything I try, but I’m sure you know that story as well! Have a great weekend.

Plantness 2026!

Jan13

Once again it’s that most wonderful time of the gardening year… it’s the first day of Plantness! Obviously you knew that but when I saw it hadn’t appeared automatically on my phone calendar, I thought good-golly I better make an official announcement! So here it is. January 12th is the first day of the ten days of Plantness, a celebration of hope and renewal and a way to get through the ten coldest days of the year (in my zone at least) with an eye on the warming weather which is our future. The winter solstice has passed, but even with a few minutes added each day the strength of the sun still isn’t quite enough to slow the cooling until about a month later. For us that’s January 21st when the average temps start to increase again, and by celebrating Plantness we make our way through those last coldest nights to turn the tide and begin to see things warming up again.

This bromeliad was a 2024 Plantness plant. Two years later and it’s in three pots around the winter garden and care amounts to nothing more than toping off the water in the leaves every week or two. I’ve never even fertilized.

So on each of the ten days I shall add a new plant in celebration. That’s basically the point of the holiday, force yourself to add something new each day, and for as easy (and possibly reckless) as that might sound, it’s really not! It’s the depths of winter and places are closed or pickings are sparse. The (other)holiday season wore a couple people out. We’ve been doing it for a two years now and sometimes it takes a kick in the butt kind of attitude to put on a coat and go out into the dark for a little plant shopping after work, but we know what’s at stake. Giving Plantness it’s proper dues will guarantee an early spring and if taking on a few new plants is what it takes, I’m there.

‘Brasil’ heartleaf philodendron was a grocery find and I still love it. After a poky start it’s really taking off and probably due for a hanging pot finally rather than any more draping across furniture.

“But wait, I can’t possibly fit in ten more plants, but I also don’t want it to be my fault that winter stretches on forever!” -yes, that’s a responsible thought but please try harder. There’s a range of options which count and I think everyone can do their part. New plants count, but so do plant accessories, plant pots, plant soil, outdoor plant orders, seed orders… plant society memberships, plant books, garden tools, garden accessories… cut flowers… basically if you think about plants when you’re buying it, it works… unless it’s a fake plant of course, that never counts.

A Plantness favorite, this variegated Boston fern, aka tiger fern, was a little four inch pot of coolness from a specialty greenhouse visited two years ago.

Alright, I’ll admit it’s a little tricky getting out every day so here are a few of the cheat codes for properly celebrating Plantness. Multiple items picked up on the same day count forward, ie: three things today will cover Mon, Tues, and Wed. Gifted plants always count towards the receiver, but might count for the giver if purchased in the appropriate timeframe. Things ordered but not received can count on the order day… or whenever, and pre-Plantness purchases might also count, particularly if purchased on credit and you have yet to pay the bill. Even gifted plantness items count if they’re given prior to Plantness -because maybe someone couldn’t wait any longer for that first greenhouse run of the new year and had to make space- you can count these early gifted items as well, just don’t ‘officially’ accept them until after the 12th. Perhaps it sounds complicated. It can be. Message me if you need help, and if in doubt, err on the side of caution and just buy it!

A closeup of the tiger fern. I’m wondering if I separate a few all-chartreuse divisions out, if they would remain stable and if that’s a good thing.

One of the important nuances of Plantness is that longevity doesn’t matter, in fact I encourage people to buy plants which they know will die because as you might guess, dead plants don’t take up windowsill space, so toss the poinsettia and bring home a few florist cyclamen and spring primula…. and then feel free to put them out on the back steps the minute you get bored.

I was way too excited to get this variegated snake plant (Sansevieria ‘Sayuri’) and hope I didn’t scare anyone when I immediately snatched it off the shelf. Sadly, it’s barely grown since last year and I think it’s me.

I hope you enjoy this year’s ten days of Plantness. I’ll try and post a few updates as the season goes on but I can’t make any promises. Please join me though. My first Plantness purchase, and the reason I didn’t finish this post last night, was a snowdrop order from The Temple Nursery. The catalog arrived Friday and to even wait one day on sending in an order risks missing out on your choices (so I can’t believe I sat on it through Saturday) but it’s en route now and we will cross our fingers.

A reliable Thanksgiving bloomer, ‘Potter’s Prelude’ is late this year with all the cold. Our January thaw had me out taking photos of this drop since it’s finally in bloom, but by the time I got around to this end of the garden a snow squall had changed the tone.

Tomorrow I’m working late, so maybe a grocery store stop? Wednesday I might try and hit Hidden Gardens which is my local wintertime greenhouse treat, and by the weekend my friends and I are planning a daytrip South to bigger greenhouses and more fun. Fingers crossed a cake will be involved.

Hope you have as much fun with this as we do, and let me know how it goes! Have a great week 🙂

Happy Holidays!

Dec27

I hope the holiday season finds you well! So far so good here, with plenty to do and get done but also plenty of couch sitting. We’ve had cold and we’ve had snow and to be honest I’m bored with the frozen, sleeping garden. Things haven’t changed much in the past month and I haven’t either, and by that I mean things haven’t shifted to indoor mode at all. The dormant gardener should be cleaning tools, sorting seeds, reading, planning and relaxing and this one just isn’t there yet. Solstice came and went and the days are barely longer again, Christmas rushed by with gifts, food and family (sadly less than usual when the weather interfered with our holiday visit to Long Island) and now more snow, and more looking out the window wondering what everyone else does when the cold settles in.

Beautiful sunshine and warm air greeted us on Christmas Eve and the fall blooming snowdrops were again in full bloom. These are ‘Barnes’ in front and a Montrose elwesii in back.

Until recently skiing would take over when the garden closed down but prices have nearly doubled over the last couple years and my enthusiasm has not. I’m considering passing the torch to the youngsters and exploring other winter options such as online shopping and tv watching. So far results have been mixed. The only shopping I know I need to look into is buying a new batch of hens and chicks. The new rock garden seems to produce the most delicious and tender plant growth and our local rabbits do not hold back. Hens and chicks (sempervivum) are listed all over as easy to grow and only eaten as a last resort but here they take the top menu spot in spite of the lush weed-filled lawn surrounding the rockery. Nearly everything has been gnawed down to the roots. Dianthus and daphne as well but oddly enough the pink dandelions have been untouched. It’s almost as if they’re doing it out of spite. During the latest snow event the smelly and spicy artemisia ‘Powis Castle’ was chewed up and I can’t imagine any artemisia being something a rabbit would eat but there you go. I imagine I have a bunch of black-licorice loving rabbits roaming the garden. They would probably eat Haggis and liver if I left it out for them.

The decimated rock garden. Just a few egg shells remain from the hens and chicks, the only ones which might survive are a few tucked in elsewhere between the rocks.

Spray was helping but I’m just not motivated enough to keep up a spray routine when I’m spraying snow drifts. Fencing would work but I just can’t convince myself to look at some fence and cage setup all year, so I guess we are at a standoff. Maybe I’ll get some more sensible rabbits again, one which read the books and raid the vegetable garden rather than the medicine cabinet… we will see.

But I digress. I hope you’re rounding out 2025 and looking forward to the new year while still enjoying the old, and I hope winter is treating you well. A little downtime isn’t the worst thing!

A Week of Flowers

Dec8

Thanks to Cathy over at Words and Herbs for giving me the kick in the pants I needed to get a post up on this blog! Actually there was no kick involved, not even a frowny face or mildly judgmental word from Cathy, just the thought of missing this year’s week of flowers was enough to motivate me off the sofa. Cathy’s week of flowers is such a cheery reminder of the warmth and color of the growing season it was just what I needed to reset from the gray and cold which has become the norm. Decorating for the holidays was fine and accomplished on schedule, but when I found myself moping around, cleaning a closet and eyeing the garage, I knew things were getting tricky.

So forget Monday through Saturday and let me start and end this week of flowers on the last day of the week with the first flowers of the year. I’m sure many of you would guess we would start with snowdrops 😉

March still seems a world away but every single thaw between now and then will have me thinking of snowdrops. Here they are basking in the first warm sunshine of the new garden year.

Once the first flowers arrive they’re followed by wave after wave of color. A wave which I always look forward to is the flush of tulips and daffodils which fill April and run over into May. This photo is from 2024 and I almost regret not digging and replanting all these beds again last year… well I do regret it but I don’t miss the work, and I also don’t miss the disease worries about tulip fire ruining the flowers here… the new plantings out front and in more open locations have been fire-free so far.

Tulips filling the potager beds. Many are still there, but not the masses of years past.

The waves of spring flowers end with an avalanche of early summer blooms. Iris, clematis, peonies, roses, all the most amazing flowers of the year arrive in June and it would be nice to show them but perhaps I’ll show a weed instead. Milkweed. Not quite the same as a pergola smothered in roses, but I like them just as well and it’s something a little different.

An early summer border filled with milkweed and other colorful weeds, backed with the purple smoke of cotinus ‘Royal Purple’.

If you’re counting, this fourth photo in a week of flowers should coincide with Thursday already, and we are into July. I’ve selected daylilies of course and these take me through some of the hottest days of summer, each day offering a fresh new bloom even as the gardener begins to fade in the heat. Some people are not daylily-people and for years I tried to resist but once again I’ve fallen off the wagon and am collecting and growing far more than I should.

The daylily farm. Color galore just days before the backhoe arrived.

Perhaps you recall what happened to the daylily farm this past summer. If not it involved a backhoe and sewer lines and a whole new garden to replant after the old garden was destroyed. If the garden year were still just a week I’d say Friday, Saturday and Sunday were all spent repairing but that would just not be true. Any small project can turn into an excuse to replant everything so I’ll say Friday is summer annuals. They started strong with a relentlessly wet spring but then the clouds cleared and the sun and heat did their work.

Coleus are always reliable annual color, but this year the bougainvillea also put on quite a bold show. Don’t ask me what the secret is, all I know is it was appreciated!

Annuals are work but Hydrangea paniculata is not. Saturday is a celebration of the late summer show these shrubs put on faithfully every single year. I like the ones which go pink as the flowers develop. I took a bunch of cuttings. We will see. I don’t need any more but of course will take a few more.

Hydrangea ‘Vanilla Strawberry’ shows excellent color if the nights are cooler and the rains don’t completely abandon us all of August. To counter this I give the bushes a light trim in May to delay some of the bloom, and usually this puts them beyond the most brutal weeks of the summer.

I have one day left. It’s Sunday and I feel bad neglecting the asters, colchicum and chrysanthemums of Autumn but let me go around back to where we started. The snowdrops are here again and should take this gardener through the shortest and darkest days of the year back into the next growing season.

One of the earlier fall-blooming snowdrops, ‘Barnes’ has been very reliable for me here in NE Pa, even when the winter weather takes a turn towards brutal. They’re buried in snow right now but should thaw out just fine if we get a break in the cold.

So that’s my week of flowers which all happened in one day 😉 Thanks again to Cathy for breaking me out of my blogging slump and hopefully giving me the restart I needed! The garden is covered in snow and the forecast looks cold, but maybe there’s something in the winter garden worth sharing so I’ll try and get to that. In any case have a excellent week and I wish you many weeks of flowers 🙂

Okay. Summer is Over

Oct31

Yes, I’m often really slow to pick up on things, especially when I’m really determined to hold on to my optimism or ignorance, but eventually the wrecking balls roll in and the troops hit the streets and you realize there’s a change in the weather and the freedom of summer is dying. I’ll miss it. Most people saw it coming and warned me to be prepared, but a few sunny days can fool you into thinking no big deal, there’s time, it can’t turn on you so fast… until suddenly it does and it’s your turn to face a killing frost.

An autumn crop of lettuce likely won’t amount to anything significant, but it does make things look better than they really are. Someone will get a nice salad. Probably not me, but…

Monday morning we woke up to a frosty morning. It’s just a touch of ice and many of the natives are just fine, but tender stuff like dahlias and cannas from Mexico and points south got burnt, and will now need lifting and winter protection in order to make it through the approaching cold.

Aromatic aster, either ‘Raydon’s Favorite’ or ‘Bluebird’, I forget… is still in full bloom and will go on into November. It’s great doer.

Fortunately we’ve had plenty of rain to cover up all the stresses the garden faced this summer, and the asters and mums are as nice as ever and the fall color here in the lower elevations at least had enough time to color up rather than just give up. As far as autumns go it wasn’t too bad I guess, but summer is still my preferred season and these last few weeks were more of a long hanging-on than any real admission that fall is here.

A chrysanthemum seedling which a friend gave me a few years back. Hardy and reliable and an excellent flower which more than makes up for her floppy form.

So I guess I’m admitting that fall is here. The leaves have changed, the tender plants are under protective custody indoors and it’s moved on to all the little tasks which need doing before the cold and ice lock us all down for a winter.

Sunday foliage and flowers. By Monday the orange thunbergia was a wilted memory.

For a few weeks more it’s still nice though. The colors and light are superb, the lawn has recovered some of its spring lushness, and a shovel sinks into the soil rather than being rejected. Time for replanting, mulching, protecting, maybe some pruning… all those last minute things which are fine as long as the weather holds, but just not fun when a cold front rolls through.

This ‘Arnold’s Promise’ witch hazel always runs through rings of color as the leaves turn. Witch hazels are awesome.

Hmmm. Maybe I better end on a more cheerful note because the rain and Mellissa’s march through the Caribbean seem to have me in a gloomy mood. Here are some promises for a wonderful winter starting with the hardy cyclamen which are popping up here and there throughout the beds. Cyclamen hederifolium is probably the most varied and easiest and I’ll show just one picture with a few last flowers since there will be time all winter to show off the foliage on the rest of them.

A few last flowers wrapping up a month and a half of bloom on cyclamen hederifolium. I’m always tempted to pot a few dozen up so I can admire them one by one… but under my care that’s a likely death sentence so in the garden they stay.

Oh and do you know what else is on the way? Yeah, snowdrops. The earliest fall bloomers are opening and they look great this year.

The first fall bloomer in my garden is ‘Tilebarn Jamie’ and even at a later date this would be a beautiful and reliable snowdrop worth giving a try.

I know it’s been a while since I’ve mentioned snowdrops… maybe at least two weeks… but they’re on my mind again after what might have been overload this past spring. Perhaps preparing a sales table for the Gala made it work, and maybe that work made it less fun, but I think this year I can organize a little better and get back to the fun I usually have. Maybe I’m also itching to add a few new ones rather than faking “responsibility” and trying to say ‘no’ more than I’d like to. Maybe this spring I’ll be saying ‘why not?’ Maybe I’ll start this fall. More fall bloomers would be good and I know a guy and why not?

Have a great weekend 🙂

A One Month Update

Sep28

Let me just prepare you ahead of time that there’s not much of an update, even though it’s been one day short of a full month since there’s been a blog post here. That’s a long time I admit, but it’s been dry, I’ve been back to work, and it’s been dry. The dry always gets me. Crunchy grass, dusty raking, and stuff just sits there and slowly debates whether or not it will hold on or go to the light. Watering would do magic, but for some reason I absolutely hate watering. One kinked hose, knocked over pot, or a watering can that needs a refill rather than being enough for the whole porch and I’m cursing up a storm. Plus I hate getting wet from watering. I can stand out in the rain until hypothermia threatens, but gosh if I get a little water on my foot or a spray in my face… I digress. I don’t like watering, it leaves an ugly taste in my mouth and maybe that’s my excuse for blog neglect. But…. the colchicums are blooming, and to see something up and fresh in a brown and wilted garden is maybe not inspiring, but at least it’s hopeful.

A nice bouquet of colchicum blooms braving the heat and drought. Some sort of C. speciosum, it came to me mislabeled.

Hopeful is also the rain which finally found us late last week. I’m remarkably optimistic again so lets hope it’s not another month before this blog is revisited!

‘Pink Star’ I believe, an excellent, long blooming cultivar that last for a few weeks even in the face of no water and glaring September sun.

So colchicums. I think you know the drill. Poisonous so resist eating them, leafy spring foliage which dies back in June, Flowers which appear just as the rest of the garden is starting to give up.

The tail end of the colchicum season in a crispy and dusty colchicum bed.

There are quite a few colchicum in this garden now. Finding different forms takes a bit of searching, and sometimes finding a correctly named different form is a struggle, but it’s worth it. To me at least. I hear there are plenty of people out there who have just a single bunch or two and are very satisfied, and I even have a friend or two who don’t grow any… but I try to keep open minded in my friend group, and hope one day they’ll embrace the diversity.

‘Glory of Heemstede’ trying to rise above a mess of chrysanthemum. Finding a spot where the low blooms of colchicum display well, after everything else has grown up during the summer, is sometimes a struggle.

This year I’m maybe admitting that some colchicum are nicer than others, and by that I mean put on a better show and have a longer bloom season. Keep in mind that shady practices and a questionable gardener and garden soil really influence my favorites, but this year I would say my longest blooming, best shows are from C. cilicium, x byzantinum, ‘Disraeli’, ‘Giant’, C. autumnale ‘album’, ‘alboplenum’, ‘Sparticus’, x agrippinum, and ‘Pink Star’. Maybe I’ll add the floppy ‘Lilac Wonder’. She flops so don’t expect anything else, but is so reliable I can’t leave her out.

‘Sparticus’ has a smaller flower in a light shade of pink. Always neat, and even after a week or two still fresh as ever.

By the way, if you’re in the US and struggling to find a few more unusual ones it might not hurt to contact Kathy Purdy at Cold Climate Gardening, or Facebook or Instagram… she doesn’t reeeaallly sell them, but if you’re really nice and sound desperate and she has spares you never know who might send you a price list next summer 😉

x Agrippinum is a good one for smaller gardens. The spring foliage is small and low and no trouble at all and the low flowers last for a while. I plan to move a few into the new rock garden, I think it’s a perfect spot.

So do I have enough colchicums, or perhaps too many? Hahahaha, of course not! I still need bigger patches, even if there might be one or two who could do better. I should be splitting clumps right now as they flower, it’s easy to find them and if you do it before the flowers fade it’s unlikely the roots have sprouted much yet, and you can see exactly where the good spots for more colchicum are!

Colchicum here and there. C. autumnale ‘album’ is a tiny white flower, but probably one of the longest bloomers, and it does well here. Don’t be fooled by the petite blooms though, the spring foliage is regular sized.

And that’s all I’ve got. The rain brought a tint of green to the lawn so I spent all day Saturday chopping down dead things, mowing up dried things, and going over the “lawn” to take the top off all the weeds. I even edged and blew off the walks. It looks so so so much better and even inspired me to dig up a bed in the potager and plant some lettuce seedling for the fall.

I found a $3 six pack of lettuce seedlings at my local farmstand, split them and it’s probably the best $3 I’ve spent in a while… although the $3 cauliflower I bought was a delicious monster!

Hope your autumn is off to a good start. I’m mildly optimistic even if I have far fewer chrysanthemums than I need and there are still no fall blooming snowdrops up but you have to count the wins, and the rain was a definite win. Maybe it will inspire me to manage a few replies to month-old comments and maybe another blog post some time sooner than later, but my history says otherwise. I think you will have an excellent week regardless!

sorta like suburbia

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