Everything

Oct7

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Have a great weekend!

White is a Cooling Color

Jun30

A friend of mine seems able to pick a color of the day any day and then post a collage of blooms right out of the garden to celebrate. Me on the other hand, I’m far from there but on a day like today when the garden bakes under a hot sun, anything which might lower the temperature is fair game. They say adding white flowers to a garden can cool a hot palette but as I trudged around the garden in 97F(36C) afternoon sun I’m not sure it mattered. We’ll give it a try though since the only truly cool white would have been snow, and it will take months of heat before I wish that on anyone 😉

**full disclosure I took this photo a week ago and the blooms on the Stewartia are no longer this fresh looking, but to look at it now? Ahhhhhhh 🙂

Heat and cicadas, that would have been a nicely mid-Atlantic June day, but as of yet I haven’t seen more than a few wings and munched torsos. Maybe a road trip is due? The younger child (now nearly a full month into her teens) says yes, and the first flowers of the Regal lily “smell like Longwood”.

These Regal lilies (Lilium regale) were mush from a late frost last year, and sat dormant from April on… but guess who returned from the dead this year!

I’d be happy with just a break from lawn mowing, and this heat should do the trick. My neighbors are looking at mostly brown already since they’re more gung-ho about their grass knowing its place and it’s height, but here I give it a little more freedom as the temperatures rise and the sun beats down. Longer grass withstands both the heat and drought better and recovers faster when the weather breaks, and I’m sure when that break comes and temperature drop with a rain shower or two there will be plenty of time for me to catch up on my love of lawn maintenance.

A flurry of white across the lawn, thanks to the liberal growth of white clover. A good bee plant most will say, but honestly there’s plenty of other stuff around which they also seem quite thrilled over.

I think cooling white counts even if it’s on the gray side.

I believe this is Mammillaria plumosa. Each year it stretches a little further and now another pot will be required. Any bigger and it won’t fit on the porch steps anymore.

I was lukewarm to the dusty miller(Jacobaea maritima) which went in as an annual last summer but I quite like the bushier perennial version which returned this spring. If the summer stays dry and the border doesn’t get too lush and crowded I think it will do well all season.

Unimpressive flowers on the dusty miller.

Gray foliage but on a much less soft and felty side would be the Scotch thistle. This will probably be the last photo of this weed which I subject you to, but fair warning: the Cardoon has yet to bloom, and that’s another weedy thistle which I think is just wonderful and I can’t hide my excitement over 🙂

Scotch thistle against a cloudless sky. I had to point up since this plant is well over my head by now.

Gray foliage doesn’t have much in the way of scent, but the Phlox paniculata is starting and that has an excellent summer fragrance. I will avoid complaining about how ungrateful they seem this year, as they’re growing poorly enough that you wouldn’t suspect I transplanted and fertilized, but sometimes you have to give a favorite plant some leeway… unless of course it gets demoted to a former-favorite plant… that would be something which such an ungrateful plant might deserve but then who knows what July will bring.

‘Midsummer White’ garden phlox (Phlox paniculata) is the garden’s first tall phlox to flower.

Weeds and wildflowers are never ungrateful. Overly enthusiastic maybe but you never have to beg them to grow.

A favorite weed, daisy fleabane (Erigeron annuus) can usually be counted on to sprout up when needed.

Sometimes you don’t even have to water them. Actually watering weeds is a crazy idea… unless it’s fleabane or larkspur. Both might be worth a little spray to get them over a hump.

It looks white, but here the larkspurs all tend to be an icy white with a drop of blue or gray in it. Kind of a skim milk shade of white rather than titanium white.

Here I go talking about weeds again. One more though. Common yarrow has shown up in a few spots in the meadow and I wonder how these seeds find their way.

Common yarrow (Achillea millefolium) laughs at heat and drought. I think everything around it will shrivel up and die before you see anything more than a few leaves wilt.

White flowers in a dry meadow won’t cool anyone, but maybe the patch of variegated giant reed grass out front can help. For months I’ve been saying someone ought to chop out some of the clump, since it really is too big, but it appears the message fell on deaf ears and it’s just as big (actually bigger) than last year. Probably too big. Alas.

I’m not saying I judge my neighbors for not asking if I can spare a division, but the giant reed grass (Arundo donax ‘variegata’) is pretty awesome and only gets better as it climbs to 10 feet and more by the end of the season.

It’s way too hot to be out there in the blazing sun hacking inch thick, strong as steel grass rhizomes so that’s one more year for the grass to root in deeper and spread further. Maybe next year, right? Shade is a much better option. White hydrangeas in a dappled shade both looks and sounds cool.

‘Annabelle’ Hydrangea arborescens is the hydrangea to grow if you want a foolproof every-year-its-a-show kind of hydrangea. Newer hybrids? Other species? Help yourself, I’m just fine with this.

Hostas also make the shade even cooler and many people know this. Some go to extremes. I only dabble.

Hosta montana aureomarginata, an oldie but goodie in my opinion.

There’s another kind of foliage plant which I plan on going overboard with this year. Caladiums. I forget how much I’ve already revealed about ‘2021 the year of the caladium’ but it’s going to be big. Not the empty kind of ‘big’ or ‘huge’ or ‘better than you can imagine’ that politicians have promised in the past, but a big five pound box of mixed tubers which was potted up weeks ago and is now soaking up the heat and starting to grow. As you know, it’s not often I get excited about a new plant, but waiting for each leaf to unfurl is like waiting for a new plant to unfurl a new leaf and I just can’t think of anything more exciting than that.

White… with a hint of pink… not that I’m counting but there are 79 caladiums potted up separately and sitting on the driveway waiting to take off into growth. Summer garage access is overrated if you ask me and I’m sure it will be entirely worth it.

So there you have it, the cooling effect of white. I’m all excited about caladiums now but maybe the white helped calm someone else and take the edge off the heat for a minute and that’s a good thing. That and air conditioning. Or ice cream. Or a tub of cool water… whatever it takes to get through this because as you may remember, something called July and August are still on the way and I don’t think you’re going to hear much of ‘boy it’s looking cool next month’ or ‘golly did that temperature drop’ as much as you’re going to hear ‘relentless’ and ‘not a break in sight’.

Or I’m just being pessimistic. Order some caladium bulbs. There’s still plenty of time and at least they love the heat even if you don’t. And even if you’re anti-caladium I hope you have a great week 🙂

Not too Early, Not too Late… Just Right?

May21

Not this year. I keep aiming to catch the local pink lady’s slippers (Cypripedium acaule) in peak bloom but it has yet to happen. Last year I was too late and saw nothing but seed pods, and this year I was just a little too early. But it was a nice Sunday morning out regardless, and I did catch a few in perfect condition.

One pristine bloom in a spot which caught the morning light.

The Lady’s slipper patch is found in a state park about 25 minutes from my house, and if I’m being honest it’s not always my favorite spot to visit. It’s got a kind of creepy vibe going, and I don’t think it would be first on the list of places to take the kids hiking. I’m sure it’s all in my head though, but until I get a little way into the woods I’m just a bit on edge.

A few more early birds

Pink lady’s slippers do not like the bacteria rich, worm infested, fertile soils of the typical garden plot and are notoriously difficult to cultivate on purpose, and instead are usually found in the undisturbed duff of native soils, high in acidity, high in fungus, and the places where decay takes years rather than a few day’s run through an earthworm’s belly.

***education alert -this post is loosely based on fact, I make most of this up as I go. I am absolutely not a botanist or any thing close to a soil scientist***

More lady’s slippers just coming into bloom.

Oddly enough the park areas where these orchids seem to grow best are not pristine slices of pre-colonial North America, but rather ridges of mine tailings left undisturbed and unreclaimed for the past hundred years. You could almost call it mine-scarred if not for the regenerated trees and return of native wildflowers, and I’m sure timing has everything to do with this. Try this again today and I’m sure the only thing to sprout back would be a forest of Japanese knotweed mixed with crownvetch and barberry in the drier spots.

This will be a nice show in another week or two.

I often think about weird things. Many people love to repeat how incredibly well adapted natives are to one area or another, and I usually just nod but deep down inside don’t really buy it. I think it has more to do with first come, first served. An area is disturbed, a seed gets lucky, and if the plant gets lucky it fills the area before anyone else shows up. If nothing else big happens that’s that, regardless of how perfect or not it is for the spot.

A patch of pink lady’s slippers with some hay scented ferns (Dennstaedtia punctiloba) creeping in. In another 100 years I wonder if they’ll still both be living in harmony since around here the ferns can make a pretty dense carpet.

In any case I enjoyed the visit, and didn’t mind being early rather than having perfect timing. Perfect timing would mean I’d have made my visit this upcoming weekend, and with the hot weather that’s rolled in I have no desire to take on any physical adventures… not until I get used to the change in weather at least.

Hope your week’s gone well. Between track meets, gymnastics, and baseball practices, this week has flown by and there have been days when I didn’t even get my garden strolls in (*gasp*), but the schedule is changing and hopefully I can soon enjoy some of the big changes in the garden. The heat has wilted the last tulips and dogwoods, and now the bearded iris and clematis are bursting open. I need more of both of course, but have to plant a few other things before I’m allowed to buy anything new… unless it’s a rose… I’m giving myself two (or three)rose permission slips, and it’s all part of a new adventure planned for the upcoming weekend 🙂

Enjoy!

Curb Un-Appeal

Jun27

A few weeks ago I was next door talking to my neighbor. The iris were in bloom and he’s got a few clumps of a rich purple iris in his front yard (‘Lent A Williamson’ is the ID I gave them although I’m sure he doesn’t care) which were putting on an excellent display. A car slowly pulled by and after a polite wave the driver opened the window to say “I love your iris, I drive this way just to see them”. I bit my tongue. After a couple seconds passed, my neighbor realized the compliment was directed towards him, and said thanks. He looked at me. It just about killed me, I have iris too.

The house from the street. I believe one of the first rules of curb appeal is to compliment, not block, the house. Also large thistles should not become focal points.

We got a good laugh about it once she left. I do like to show off my most exciting plants, but I realize they’re not to everyone’s taste, and the “overflowing” look of the plantings is focused more on the plants than the setting of the house. Even the 12 year old said she doesn’t like it when it all gets so big, but when I mentioned moving out she gave me her pre-teen eye-roll of disgust… which I’m sure will only develop more as she finishes up middle school.

More thistles around the corner. Cirsium eriophorum is the European woolly thistle, and I just came up with the brilliant idea of pulling a few coneflowers out from along the street and planting the newest batch of seedlings there.

Before selling our previous house I spent a few weeks ripping things out and simplifying plantings. If I ever cared to impress the neighbors or list this property I’d surely repeat the process here. Lots of mulch, a clear view of the house, and sheared foundation shrubbery would put an appropriately sterile stamp of conformity onto the real estate head shot, and I’m sure it would scare fewer people away.

Look at that mullein, it’s a keeper! Eight feet tall and counting, the blooms are opening nice and large and I’m hoping it keeps going all summer. The mullein, along with poorly trimmed and poorly placed trees and shrubbery, all add to the screen that blocks the curb view of our house.

Just to be clear there is no talk of moving. We have to stay at least 30 more years in order to reach the point of break-even on all the lumber purchased for the potager re-do. For the accountants out there we finally went over the hump and added about $6.75 to the plus column for the salads we’ve picked in the last few days, and $6 worth of cauliflower as well. Those were some exciting first harvests, so obviously we’re not going to dwell on the $89 which went into the liability column for a new hose and additional lumber.

Delphinium in bloom are often enough of a distraction to keep people from noticing the bags of drying colchicum and narcissus bulbs lined out along the front porch. **please note the snow shovel was just put there recently and hasn’t been sitting there since last winter**

So even if you can look past the unpruned, questionable design, and overlook the stray bags of bulbs and garden tools, there’s still always that massive pile of sand blocking the driveway. “You’re always busy doing something” was the polite way another neighbor dealt with that topic.

The common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) by the front door is in full bloom. I’ll cut it back by half once it’s done flowering, not just to keep it neat, but also to invite the Monarchs to lay their eggs on the new growth that sprouts up.

A myopic view of things lets me enjoy things anyway, and in my opinion when everything else is going to heck there’s always plenty of little things to be thrilled with. Like milkweeds. They’re much more interesting than people give them credit for, and far more useful in the garden than just caterpillar fodder. This week I have a new one in bloom… finally… after years of trying seeds and nursing seedlings.

Asclesias purpurascens, the descriptively named ‘purple milkweed’. This one’s been tricky for me and maybe that’s just because it refuses to put up with the abuse and neglect which I leave it to. I love the dark color though, and did water a little after seeing its leaves curling up from the dry.

I hope the purple milkweed continues to grow in spite of this shift to drier summer weather. There was brief consideration given to trying it out in a new spot but after reading online that it can be hard to get established it’s staying put. I’ve killed it in other spots already so why rush.

The first of the Verbena bonariensis filling in. The verbena is a great drought tolerant filler for years like this, and I might transplant a few out for color in August.

There are plenty of other things to do rather than kill off new milkweeds. I spent Friday night weeding and “editing” the front border and was planning on finishing today but surprisingly enough there’s been some rain and it’s now too humid and sticky to work. The rain only took the edge off the dry soil and refueled the gnats but it was a good excuse to go for icecream instead. I don’t think that’s a bad tradeoff.

Have a great weekend!

A Bit of Botanizing

Jun10

After twenty years in the state of Pennsylvania I suppose it’s time to recognize that I might be settling in for a longer haul. A job originally brought me here but my wife grew up in the area and now as my kids become older they’re about at that point where they will forever wear that label of being ‘from here’. So I guess it’s time to start learning the lay of the land. The lay of the local land that is, not the hours long journeys, just the trips up the street and into the woods. This morning was beautiful, I had a few hours free, I knew a place where lady slipper orchids grow.

A dirt road puddle with some tadpoles.

It was too late for the lady slipper orchids so I headed up into the mountains looking for mountain laurel (Kalmia latifolia). Too early for them. No problem. I took the long way home and stopped to explore a clearcut area. I had planned on going a little further and making this a plant tour, but a few tadpoles stranded in a mudpuddle on the road distracted me. The pond I filled last fall is still disgustingly empty of amphibians, so in a bid to rescue the from their rapidly evaporating home (and bring tadpoles to suburbia) I picked up some roadside trash and began filling it with tadpoles.

Tadpole rescue. About two dozen came home in my cup holder.

On the way out I also managed to find a few plants worth photographing. They’re not lady slippers, but Pixterbloom Azalea (Rhododenron periclymenoides… I think) are nice enough as well. My research to identify them came up with the word “common” but that shouldn’t matter. They’re amazing, and the color and form are perfect, and for all the work I do in the garden these plants just spring up on their own and it’s a little humbling.

Pinxterboom Azalea? (R. periclymenoides) doing well in a damp area. They had a nice sweet fragrance, and the scent carried quite a distance.

The azaleas seemed to be enjoying the full sun of the recently cleared area. I know people love trees and trees do a lot to bail us out of our global warming future, but some sunlight on the ground is good too and these plants seem to appreciate it.

For a minute I thought of coming back for seed and starting a few at home but then laughed at my delusional ambition. Enjoying them in the mountains will be just fine.

There’s another park I haven’t been to in a while that has been doing some burns in order to increase the plant diversity. Maybe I should add that visit to the to-do list.

The beautiful day was almost as nice as the azaleas. It’s good to know these things still go on year after year in spite of us.

So it was an entirely unsuccessful botanizing trip. Maybe I’ll catch the lady slippers next year and the mountain laurel in a few weeks, but in the meantime I have tadpoles to watch. That’s not bad either, and it’s a good distraction from the endless daffodil digging and trudging around the garden with a water hose… rain would be nice just about now.

Have a great week. Mine has started out just fine, but I can’t help but laugh at the fact that no one questioned me about being gone for hours and returning with a dirty cup full of tadpoles.

Suddenly June

Jun7

The deck was cleaned and ready just after Memorial day. Considering how much extra time I supposedly have that isn’t much different than a “normal” year… and by normal I mean getting all the summer stuff up and running a week or two or three after everyone else does. Things just run late here, and I’m starting to see that maybe it’s more than just basic laziness. Maybe it’s laziness plus plain-old slow thats effecting how things run around here.

I did manage to do a front border cleanup of old tulip foliage and baby weeds, and at least that part of the garden looks promising.

Slow is just fine with me. A more generous person might say I’m not, and that I just overthink things, but unless your idea of overthinking includes an ADD journey of the mind then I don’t think it’s that either. Maybe it’s something else…. someone else accused me of being a perfectionist, but that’s clearly not what’s going on either and I gave a little laugh when they said it. One look around the garden really settles that point.

Iris ‘Demi Deuil’, an old, smaller iris with a cool pattern to it.

The garden is only now coming back into rights after the cold spell we went through in May. Iris season has been disappointing with many freeze-deformed and aborted flower stalks and blooms, and only a few of the amazing clumps which usually celebrate the finishing up of spring. Two years of excessively wet summers didn’t help as plants were rotting left and right, but I know they’ll be back. The bigger uncertainty is how many more I need for next year in order to fill this emotional void. I suspect there is some transplanting and dividing in store… maybe a few new ones as well 😉

A new allium this year, A.nigrum ‘Pink Jewel’. The white, straight species is so reliable I thought it was time to try one of the pinks. So far my impression is lukewarm but I’ll give it time.

Although thoughts of dividing the iris have already sprung up, there’s so much more to do first. Tulips and daffodils need digging, snowdrop seeds need sowing, weeding is endless, and the lawn always needs another cut. I should mulch as well, plus the potager re-design needs finishing up before the growing season rolls over into 2021. I should really give an update on that, but just a few more finishing touches before I bare my soul on that one. In the meantime at least the foundation beds are taking care of themselves…

The relaxed and overfilled foundation bed is completely unlike what a front foundation planting “should” be, but there are too many interesting plants out there to waste time on yew meatballs and few azaleas in a sea of mulch.

What might be the most anticipated plant of the year (possibly only by me) is the huge self-sown verbascum sitting right there in front of the house. It’s a weed. I know. But also so lush and promising, and I’m hoping it’s something just a little fancier than the regular run of the mill mulleins. I’ve let both grow here in the past, so it’s a crap shoot as far as seeing which one this will be, but it’s huge, so I love it.

Johnny jump ups trying to outgrow the mullein.

What I don’t love is weeding and planting the tropical garden. In a no-excuses gardening year I’m stuck weeding it properly and not doing the old throw-it-all-in-and-eventually-it-will-all-look-ok planting method. I don’t like it. It’s work, and I think the tropical bed’s days are numbered. We will see, but as of today a swath of sundrops (Oenothera fruticosa) which was slated to be removed, has been left, and although I never planted it there, leaving it in place sure is easier and a spot of low maintenance doesn’t sound bad today… even if that means a much smaller spot of the tropics.

The tropical garden in progress. Who doesn’t like a hit of bright color on their way to enjoy a day at the pool next door?

There will be other things to keep me occupied. Right now for some strange reason the wild back of the yard is my favorite spot to be occupied. I barely lift a finger there but love to watch the bugs and birds and see what all can happen on its own.

Tent caterpillars used to disgust me but once lily beetles, gypsy moths, and Japanese beetles moved in, these little tents of silk barely register. Maybe the birds will enjoy a snack, the apples off this tree are overrated, and there are still leaves on the tree, so it seems everyone wins a little when they stay.

I spent some of the first quarantine days digging various tree seedlings and shrub transplants into the berm that stands between us and the new Industrial park behind our house. They don’t look like much at all but in a few years…. maybe….you never know how well these things will do. In the meantime they’re alive, and some of the rooted rhododendron branches which I butchered off their mother in April are actually alive enough to bloom. Alongside the clovers and mustards and daisies it’s quite the show, but I’m not sure everyone around here prefers lively flowers over neatly mown embankments. Let them mow it themselves I say.

I’m endlessly fascinated by these new weedy little meadows alongside the berm. I don’t think it’s normal to be this obsessed, but who cares? So what if I get overly excited for a new weed showing up or a new wildflower opening, I think it’s grand, and all I have to do to enjoy it is mow a few walking paths.

I hate to leave you off talking about weeds, but after being covered in smartweed last year the berm has now transitioned over to all kinds of clover and grass. I don’t know what triggered the change but I suspect there was some fertilizer spread when they first seeded the slope, and now that its run out the smartweed is not happy.

Hopefully the red buckeye (aesculus pavia) can tolerate the full sun and dry soil of the berm. I’d like to see it expand into a nice sized shrubby tree.

So I could talk for a while about the types of grass, the relative attractiveness of their seed heads, the spreading daisies, the annoying crownvetch and mugwort which I still need to eliminate, the rudbeckia yet to come, and all the topsoil building which is taking place, but I’ll spare you. My fingers are sore from weeding and sanding and chiseling mortar and the typing isn’t helping much so you’re off the hook and I’ll just wish you a happy Sunday.

One word…. Dichelostemma

Jun20

I inherited my mother’s habit of randomly picking up and trying out just about any odd, looks-like-it-might-be-nice bulb that shows up in the garden center’s bins. Together we’ve failed at freesia, ranunculus, ixia… but every now and then something gives a surprise, and lately it’s been Dichelostemma.

Dichelostemma ‘Pink Diamond’ out in the meadow garden

The first one which made its way into the garden was a selected form of the naturally occurring hybrid ‘Pink Diamond’. I love the totally tubular pink flowers and the waxy thickness of the blooms and was surprised it actually grew since the bulbs came via a November closeout sale, and late planting into a cold, wet clayish soil is typically not a recipe for success for drought tolerant bulbs from the western reaches of North America. But they came up fine the next spring and when the wiry flower stalks matured to bright pink clusters of bloom in June I was hooked.

Daisies and Dichelostemma in front of a worse for wear Queen of the Prairie. The Queen still presides over the back forty, but between acidic rainfall and wayward groundhog nibbling her reign may soon be coming to an end.

‘Pink Diamond’ may or may not become a permanent resident in the meadow. The first planting returned to bloom the second year but has not put up flowers in the third. I blame rabbits for nibbling too much of the spring foliage, but we will see what happens next year, as this spring with all the new crocus flowers to chose from the rabbits didn’t quite get to the Dichelostemma foliage before moving on to freshly planted lettuce and broccoli in the vegetable garden.

The ‘other’ Dichelostemma (D. congestum) has been going strong though, putting up its beautiful lilac-purple flower clusters for three years now… in spite of also being nibbled.

Dichelostemma congestum has the common name of fork toothed Ookow. When you get tired of introducing guests to your dichelostemma I’m sure switching to the common name will clear things up.

I love how these plants look among the weeds and grass of the meadow. I can imagine this isn’t entirely unlike their native habitat in the Western edges of the continent and from a gardeners point of view the yellowing foliage is completely disguised by the surrounding greenery. Not to get distracted, but I wonder how alliums would work out back here since many of those also share the trick of letting their foliage go to pot just as the blooms reach their peak.

Dichelostemma ida-maia is my last of the D’s and I suppose ‘firecracker plant’ is a decent common name for this one…. although it’s no Ookow.

Dichelostemma ida-maia. The shape and color of this flower has ‘hummingbird plant’ written all over it.

Besides adding more ‘Pink Diamond’ last fall, I also put in a few D. ida-maia… in spite of my thoughts that I wouldn’t like them. I was completely wrong in my lack of enthusiasm. The sad anemic version I saw a few years ago is nothing like the group I now have swaying in the dappled light amongst the grass. I’m far too greedy a collector to commit large spaces to a single plant but I would have no problem adding another hundred or two (versus the 10 I started with) to this end of the meadow, which is entirely do-able since these small bulb are relatively cheap even when not on clearance.

I trimmed up the lower limbs of the aspen and love the Rocky Mountain glade effect it has given. Add a Western NA native Dichelostemma ida-maia and we may be on to something here 😉

I’m not sure what the hardiness on these plants (both species and their hybrid daughter) is. To be honest I didn’t think they would make it through their first careless planting (really careless… cold November fingers so one shovel swipe into the turf, dump bag contents into hole and stomp sod clod down again on top), but they did survive, and it was a winter where our lows reached -6F (-21C) with a solidly frozen soil for months. So they’re at least that hardy, and I think the extreme summer dryness of the meadow also helps them return in spite of any issues with poorly drained, wet winter soils.

Dichelostemma. Think about it. I think they’re pretty cool.

Roadtrip to Long Island

Aug5

Summer always seems to hit like a whirlwind around here, and during the season where the garden is changing and showing off more than ever the blog which is supposed to tell the story always enters a slump. The gardener is busy outside of course, and posting about it falls to the wayside. That’s bad though since going back through the pictures of seasons past is a favorite activity for the desolate dark days of winter and I need that sunny cheerful reminder to keep me going when icy cold locks up everything. So let me apologize for the slowdown and also for the lack of visits to other blogs. I still stop by of course and look, but more in a wallflower way taking it all in but not commenting… oh, and I’ll also apologize in advance if there are too many posts over the next few days. I’m going to try and catch up and I hope I don’t seem like that other party person, the one who just goes on and on 🙂

A prairie planting in Stony Brook NY

I grew up on Long Island and still return as much as I can to visit my parents and my brother’s family. This last time while the kids were playing and others were visiting doctors and shopping, I snuck off alone for a visit to the Avalon Park and Preserve in Stony Brook, NY for a summertime peek at their fields of prairie plantings. I was not disappointed.

In mid July Heliopsis helianthoides (false sunflower) dominates the former farm fields of Avalon. Keep in mind this photo was taken from above since most topped out at around five feet!

This is North shore Long Island, gold coast, old money territory, and with a location approximately 40 miles out of Manhattan it’s retained much of its city escape feel. Think Great Gatsby, and although most of the old mansions have either fallen to ruins or been leveled there are still plenty of old estates and gentleman’s farms. Fences and gates usually separate the common people from these retreats but in this case several tracts were purchased and the gates were opened.

Common milkweed dotted the prairie but I didn’t see a single nibbled leaf or monarch caterpillar.

Avalon is made up of three sections, Avalon Park is a manicured area with woodland plantings, walking trails, and art features, Avalon Preserve consists of hiking trails through woodland, old field hedgerows, and the prairie plantings, and East Farm Preserve is a Nature Conservancy property accessible through the Avalon sections. The three parts combine to form a nice cross section of Long Island’s former wilder self.

Paul Simmons memorial at Avalon Park and Preserve.

Although today the park is a peaceful oasis filled with children playing and friends strolling, the origins of the park are rooted in grief. In 1996, 34 year old Paul Simmons was killed by automobile collision while cycling nearby. To celebrate his life and love of the outdoors the park was created. At the site of a former pre-park residential building a memorial for Paul has been built, with an adjacent meditation labyrinth. On this visit art installations of colorful knit ‘tree sleeves’ and hanging patterns dotted the area.

Meditation circle

The park plantings, buildings, and care reflect a healthy park endowment and it’s not surprising considering that the father of Paul Simmons is one of the world’s wealthiest men. James Simons is a math man who has translated his mathematical talents into the financial markets and stands somewhere in the 70-80 range of wealthiest people worldwide (around 30th for wealthiest Americans). His story is a fascinating one, but his estimated 14 billion net worth surely hasn’t hindered park funding, and is always the subject of whispered stories in the three villages area of who works for his remarkably successful Renaissance Technologies and what their annual take home pay might be.

A second residence on purchased park property has been transformed from a 1940’s ranch to a coastal New England style park office, ready for park foundation functions and always immaculately manicured.

Coming down out of park brings you down to the Stony Brook mill pond. This is the duck pond I loved visiting back in the day and is the power source for the Stony Brook grist mill (c.1751). As recently as 1940 the mill was still carrying on the work of grinding local grains into flour and even today the wheels are put into motion on summer weekends for the sake of tourists. It’s an area rich in history from the sea captains who settled around the harbor, to the colonial farms which cover the rolling hills, to the Manhattan escapees who missed the train to the Hamptons and ended up here.

Cormorants nesting on a mill pond island. These are relatively recent arrivals to the area, only now recovering from their fish-robbing persecution from days gone by.

I love this area for its quiet waterfront peacefulness and many hidden treasures, but on this visit it was the flower filled fields which really made me smile. On a still summer morning the low hum of thousands of native bumblebees visiting the flowers and the less-than-springtime-frantic chirping of songbirds really worked magic to calm the day.

Avalon prairie plantings. Even with the heliopsis blooms dominating early summer, there were plenty of other native grasses and colorful perennials to carry on for the rest of the year.

Good thing the day started out relaxed. Summertime beach visits and afternoons spent barbequing can be so stressful 🙂

Cousins exploring the salt marsh near West Meadow beach in Setauket, NY.

Now back to the garden. We’ve been to Florida and back in the meantime and catching up in the garden has been an uphill battle against Japanese beetles and crabgrass…. but there’s been plenty of pool time too, so I really can’t complain!

Viva la summer 🙂

Hello Susan

Jul10

My intention this spring was to keep the front yard a little more organized and really put my foot down against the reseeders which took over last summer….. but then the rest of the world happened and just like many good intentions my organization theme fell to the wayside. This year rudbeckias took over.

Rudbeckias, black eyed Susans, gloriosa daisies, whatever you want to call them these rudbeckia hirta hybrids really bring gold to the front border. Fyi this is as far along the bed as the edging and mulching got this spring. You can see my spade handle just where I left it about two months ago 🙂

For as much as I like the softer yellows, and for as summery a tint golden yellow is, bright gold is probably one of my least favorite flower colors. The golden takeover of the front garden really goes against any design theory I have for this bed and I suppose if I were of the more controlling type it would cause me a little mental turmoil but I think I’m ok with the brightness. It helps bring a little sun to what’s so far been a pretty wet and ‘pearly’ summer.

rudbeckia hirta gloriosa daisy perennial bed

The front border with plenty of rudbeckias. I was firm with seedlings of amaranth, standing cypress, and oxeye daisies but this year the black eyed Susans slipped by.

A casual passerby might think things look well under control and maybe even close to well tended, but just inside the bed turmoil reigns. Here the inner section was supposed to be a restful patch of dark leaves canna…. which it’s not… because too many ‘good enough’ plants came up and the gardener just didn’t have the heart to pull them out. It worked out for the best though, the variety of green centered and brown eyed rudbeckia which grew is a nice tradeoff (as long as you can continue to ignore the unplanted cannas sitting on the driveway).

Mixed shades of selfsown rudbeckia seedlings.

There used to be a greater variety of darker shades mixed in with the straight gold daisies but over the last few years I’ve tended to pull the browned eyed versions. They seem more prone to mildew in my garden and rather than look at that I just pull them and send them to the compost before their seed ripens.

A more ‘refined’ view of the border. Less is surely more with these bright colors but to be honest the patches where the rudbeckia grows and blooms thickest are the patches which make me smile 🙂

A week or two ago would have been a good time to seed out a few zinnias to fill in for when I get tired of the fading rudbeckias but all the rain seems to have drowned my seedling tray, so we’ll see what happens now. Fortunately there are always volunteers willing to step up. Here are a few sunflowers coming along (in a totally inappropriate spot) and I know a few verbena bonariensis seedlings could be found elsewhere.

The future sunflower patch. Goldfinches have already been stopping by but they’ve got a few more weeks to wait before this seed factory starts up.

The entire border hasn’t been given over to gold. Here’s a now classic combination of Perovskia, Echinacea, and ‘Karl Foerster” feather reed grass made famous back in the ’90s by the Washington DC based design team of Oehme, Van Sweden. They were one of the pioneers in publicizing the ‘New American’ prairie style planting style which moved American design away from lawns and English style gardens to a more relaxed look filled with lower maintenance swaths of color and forms which sway in the summer breeze.

My Oehme, van Sweden inspired planting of ‘Karl Foerster’ grass, coneflowers, and Russian sage.

Coneflowers also anchor the far end of the bed, and the golden rudbeckias haven’t quite conquered this far down the line.

This end of the border is were my enthusiasm for weeding and maintenance always wears a little thin. As long as the lawn stays mowed and the edges get trimmed I think the weeds and lack of deadheading aren’t quite so noticeable.

The black eyes Susans which grow in this front border are nearly all the tetraploid version of America’s native Rudbeckia hirta, and for plant geeks such as myself the history of these plants is one of those cool wintertime stories which make gardening just that much more interesting. A version of the story can be found by clicking here, but the short summertime summary involves Dr. Blakeslee of Massachusetts’s Smith College treating seed of the native rudbeckia with the genetics altering chemical colchicine and doubling their chromosome count. Eventually David Burpee got a hold of the new race of flowers and set his company to work refining and selecting for more colors and forms, and in 1957 introduced the plants as we know them today. The tetraploid version is bright and big and bold, but the normal diploid Rudbeckia hirta still has its fans for its daintier, summertime wildflower look.

A straight Rudbeckia hirta which showed up in the back garden. I like the spoon shaped petals on this one and hopefully can save a few seeds.

Rudbeckia hirta comes in two basic forms, the regular and the larger tetraploid version. They’re both short lived perennials which may bloom the first year or may die after blooming, depending on their mood, but they’re both far from troublesome. Don’t get this Susan mixed up with the truly perennial, clump forming Rudbeckia fulgida which is just starting to come into bloom now. This one (usually grown as the ‘Goldsturm’ version, another Oehm,Van Sweden favorite as well as Karl Foerster introduction) is another indestructible rudbeckia but for me it’s just too much of a perennial commitment to gold 🙂

Another wild rudbeckia hirta which I’m keeping an eye on out back. It’s a lighter yellow shade with a spidery inward curl to the petals (which often shows up in the darker ones as well). I like it!

So there you have it, the glory of gloriosa daisies in the garden of a gardener who doesn’t like gold. Some will surely point out that I’m in gold loving denial, but daisies and gold are completely common and unrefined and I’m going to try and claim it was against my will and better taste that they took over this summer. Either that or I just don’t care what good taste and garden trends dictate!

Enjoy summer 🙂

In a vase on Monday: Goldenrod

Sep1

In celebration of Labor Day and a Monday away from work, I’m once again making a contribution to the ‘In a Vase on Monday’ movement. It may not exactly be a world changing movement, but it’s fun and does motivate me to bring a few flowers into the house so look at how it’s changing lives!

Another pluck and plunk arrangement. I didn’t realize how unbalanced it was until after I looked at the photos!

This week’s arrangement was inspired by Kimberley at Cosmos and Cleome. In a recent vase Kimberley had the good sense to add a few sprays of goldenrod in to fill things up, and it took that vase to make me realize I have a ton of the stuff growing all over the place and should do the same!

The just barely blooming goldenrod has a nice soft color and fills in well. It’s like a redneck version of baby’s breath plucked from the roadside.

Besides the goldenrod, this vase has the pink tipped blossoms of dahlia ‘Tanjoh’, a purplish red dahlia (maybe ‘Plum Pretty’?), a few zinnias, a couple pink sprays of ‘kiss me over the garden gate’ (persicaria orientalis), and a few fig leaves which were in the way of my boxwood trimming. I like it 🙂

The goldenrod makes up nearly half of the arrangement yet you really just notice the larger blooms. Such is the curse of a ‘filler’…

With all the goldenrod coming into bloom I may have to admit to myself that autumn is approaching. On the road to college I was always disgusted by the mass of goldenrod yellow filling the fields along the highway, and it’s always been a mental marker for the end of summer and the return to work. I guess that’s my bias against the plant, but because of its native status I tolerate it when a seedling shows up.

There are more than enough wayward areas around the garden for goldenrod to sneak in a rod or two.

Not to stray too far from my Monday vase, but I guess some goldenrod annoys me less than others. One of the species is only just starting to color, and I think it’s my current favorite.

Goldenrod just coming into flower along with some staghorn sumac which the starlings and robins will enjoy this winter.

This floppy one is not a favorite. Once it’s finished blooming I’ll run back here and mow things down to give the grass a chance.

Not a bad goldenrod, there’s just too much and I’d rather leave a little room for some of the asters which are yet to come.

Here’s my last goldenrod. I don’t know any of the species but this one’s a smaller, leaner version. I would almost say I like it.

Unknown goldenrod…. any ideas? This one’s about two feet tall and like the others doesn’t need a thing from me.

Thanks for staying with me for my little segue from cut flowers to roadside weeds. They’re wildflowers of course, and if I can just get past my stereotyping I may be able to call them all cutflowers someday.

If you’d like to see other cutflowers more artfully arranged I’d encourage you to visit Cathy over at Rambling in the Garden. You can check out what she and other bloggers around the world are doing for their own “In a Vase on Monday”. Have a great week!

sorta like suburbia

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Category Archives: wildflowers