If I had my back border to plant again, I’d do a line of chrysanthemums along the front and a line of summer perennials along the back. I’d intersperse bulbs among them all. Then I’d always have something blooming in every bit of the border.
September 28, 2011
snapdragons
I’ve been spending some of my non-blogging time trying to keep up with the inundation of produce we’re getting out of our garden. The chard is ready for a third cutting (!!!), and we’re pulling zucchini, cucumbers, cayenne peppers, jalapenos, red okra, eggplant and Juliet tomatoes out of the garden every other day.
The zinnias are producing buckets of blooms, also. I’m so pleased, as the deer ate them down badly at the beginning of the season. They’re doing fine now, though. I planted a white variety, Queen Lime, and Queen Red Lime. The Queen Red Lime is interesting because only about half of its blooms are the pink-and-green kind shown here. The other half are red and orange. I’ve been putting those in a different bouquet.
The love-in-a-mist was lovely while it lasted, but didn’t bloom for long. It is now a mass of feathery foliage and weird, huge seed pods. I sort of like it, and am saving seeds to put in the patio bed next year.
The snapdragons haven’t been very impressive. Very few blooms there, and not tall like I had hoped. Oh well.
I have one more white foxglove in back to transplant out front.
Everything began to bloom two weeks ago. Give those gardens a couple more years to fill out, and they’ll be pretty fab.
Bought some succulent groundcovers last week; ones that bloom white and lavender for the patio bed, ones that bloom hot pink for the back border. One of the succulents from last year is blooming bright pink in the patio bed, so it will get transplanted and broken into pieces for the back border. I laid brick paths from the deck to the lawn there, yesterday, and they need something low growing on each side.
The monarda Claire Grace is blooming lavender. Argh. I will transplant a little into the patio bed but most into the north side of the house, which is occupied by some gooseberries and a lot of weeds right now. The pink monarda on the south end of the border turned out to be two varieties, one light and one dark pink. I will dig up one of the two to replace the Claire Grace.
Cut the first round of chard this week, pulled the last round of radishes, and cut more rhubarb and lettuce. The chilis and Better Boys have fruit, already.
Shannon moved the hollyhocks to the south corner. Hope the deer leave them alone. Deer have eaten the zinnia buds, but snapdragons and nigella are blooming.
Sparks just planted up most of the rest of the garden.
There are three “Fairy Tale” eggplants in the corner, then a line of eight Bonnie Green Bell peppers, four jalapenos, and two cayennes.
Then there is a new block of tomatoes with four German Pinks, two ground cherries, then in the next row four volunteer heirlooms (Brandywines we assume).
Have decided that the delphiniums MUST be moved to the patio bed, and I may as well do it sooner or later. They certainly have no intentions of blooming any time soon. I will do it next chance I get. Doing this will get the patio bed pretty well completely filled in. If I then have three more astilbes to fill in the hole they leave, the back of the garage bed will be full, which will be a load off my mind.
Looks like astilbe can be divided in the spring or fall. I will do that to my own, maybe next spring. In general it is time for me to STOP BUYING NEW PLANTS, and wait for the ones I have to spread or to be ready for dividing. I have more than enough choices of things that work well in all of my garden beds.
Still going back and forth about moving the gaillardia.
Went out at 7 to get the new Bluestone order in the ground before the rain starts. It was only 70 degrees, but the humidity has me melting like a candle. Anyway, the new plants are:
Aquilegia vulgaris Black Barlow: nestled in front of the purple dome aster in the garage bed
Aquilegia Winky Series Rose: in front of chrysanthemums in the back border, where the sedum Autumn Joy used to be
Cerastium Olympia: one clump is at the end of the garage bed, between the transplanted shasta daisies (I moved the rightmost clump in the garage bed into the end of the patio bed) and the white chrysanthemum-y things from the neighbor. The other two clumps are at the other end of the bed, between lavender and the new coreopsis.
Digitalis purpurea Pam’s Choice: I am SO excited to finally have some of this. I put it among the miniature iris, with the rest of the white and purple foxglove
Lychnis Chalcedonia: is behind the gladiolus, which have come back for a second year
Papaver Orientalis Pricess Victoria Louise: in a diagonal line along the edge of the gladiolus. I am counting on the gladiolus not coming back, one of these years, as has been my experience before.
Potentillia Melton Fire: in front of the gladiolus. I am really plumping for this stuff. This variety has red flowers with apricot centers, and there is another that is bright bright orange. I am desperately in need of low plants for that bed, so fingers crossed!
I examined another garden, last night, that is now in its fourth summer and that contains many of the same plants. More pains were taken in soil preparation, in the other garden. It also has full sun and no deer issues. It has made me think that the delphiniums may need a lot more sun than they’re getting. I think I’ll let them establish this year, since most of them are new, then transplant them next summer if they don’t show any signs of blooming. Fewer and fewer plants are turning out to be suited for that garage bed, since it gets maybe half sun. The whole back of it may have to be filled with snakeroot and astilbe… which would be okay I guess. You have to work with what you’ve got.
Only one of the foxglove mertonensis is blooming white this year, and I just transplanted it to the patio bed, just behind the miniature iris. There are two or three plants that aren’t blooming this year, we’ll see what they do. It appears that it can be successfully divided and transplanted. The Excelsior in the patio bed isn’t blooming this year, and the Pam’s Choice won’t either. That order of plants has shipped, I suppose it will show up today. I hope it does. Waiting until Monday would be unfortunate.
On second thought, I’m less happy about the apricot foxglove. It is puny and the flowers don’t last long. If it makes hybrids with the mertonensis, fine, if it goes away fine.
There is a coneflower blooming in the back border. Have decided to leave the gaillardia where it is for now, even though it’s taller than the coneflowers behind it. Later flowers may be lower down on the plant, and why, I ask, shouldn’t the garden be arranged for best viewing from the patio, rather than the lawn?
TRANSPLANT:
Plumbago to garage bed done
Snakeroot to garage bed done
White foxglove to patio bed
Shasta daisies to patio bed done
Siberian iris to patio bed done
Gaillardia behind gladiolus
OTHER CHORES:
Trim chrysanthemums done
Bluestone Perennials is having their spring clearance. I jumped in and got some new kinds of plants, hoping they’ll do well, as well as FINALLY buying myself some Pam’s Choice foxglove. Hooray!
Potentilla Melton Fire
Papaver Princess Victoria Louise
Lychnis Chalcedonica
Digitalis Pam’s Choice
Cerastium Olympia
Aquilegia Black Barlow
Aquilegia Winky Series Rose
Right now the Iris hollandica, the foxglove, the geum and the veronica are blooming. So far there has been no deer damage at all. I’m particularly pleased with the Iris hollandica; the mix was supposed to have blue, white, yellow, and russet in it. I was planning to pull up and discard the yellow and russet… and I still will get rid of the russet, but it looks like I only got ONE of those in the bag. The yellow ones are fine after all, since the white and blue and PURPLE!!! ones have such strong yellow accents. Three cheers for pretty flowers.
