Finished. While I understand the meaning of the word, I don’t do it very well. Last weekend I made enough progress on the new setup to move the cool weather plants, but caught a cold that’s slowed me down this week. After a small wiltdown because the fan in this light creates a lot more dry air so that the plants need more water, everyone seems to be happy.
new setup
The frame is made from a saw horse kit. The legs are 5′ long 2X4s. And the crossbar is a 1 X 3′, about 4′ long. I’m still trying to determine the optimal measurements so extra lengths just hang there. I can always cut later. My desk is in this area so I’ve found that an old quilt helps keep the light out of my eyes while I work at my desk.
eye saver
The sides are made of 1/4″ sheeting. They are just laid across a bar (1 X2) that also strengthens the rigidity of the structure. The sheeting will be covered with silvered mylar or aluminum foil after the lettuces adjust to the stronger light. I’m leaving them freestanding so that I can easily get to the plants from either side.
sides made from 1/4 sheets
From left to right are a few pea shoots, ready to harvest; Simpson’s Elite Lettuce, Red Sails Lettuce and the remainder of the old batch of lettuces that have been cut several times.
Under the cool weather tent
I was curious about how the old lettuces would age in their small soil blocks. They are showing some stress with the occasional brown tip, and all of the new leaves stay small. But I’m still getting salads and sandwiches from them. The basil continues to grow very slowly under the old setup. I designed the “tent” thinking two would fit in my basement but I’m undecided about whether to try a warm plants setup this year.
I’ve purchased a new, larger light and I was hoping to have pictures of the new, more permanent basement setup. Between poor design and construction skills, it’s not ready yet. So here is a quick status, with pictures, instead. Click on the pictures for a bigger view.
root structure on old lettuce
The older lettuces are showing signs of stress with more tip burn on the outer leaves. I was not sure how long they would last in 2″ soil cubes. But there’s still plenty to harvest from them. I will probably harvest and throw away about half of the older plants to make room for the second planting which is approaching maturity.
picked lettuce tip burn after a week in the fridge
Some of the picked lettuces developed brown tips in the lettuce keeper after about a week in the fridge. This is not the bad stuff, which happens on the inner leaves of growing plants. However, it gives me something to improve upon. While the simple cause of tip burn is not enought calcium uptake, it seems that its not a problem that can usually be solved by making more calcium
old lettuce plants
available to the plant.
Low light sometimes contributes, but too much light will, too! I’ll try to compile a some of the resources that I’ve found or that friends have sent me in a different post, specifically about this issue in lettuces.
basil
The basil is getting two hours of low speed “wind” a day from a fan to, hopefully, strengthen the stems. This is in addition to being on a heat mat. And it’s still growing exceptionally slowly. Growing warm weather plants may not be worth the energy; hard to measure since I’ve mixed them in this temporary setup.
Also trying to get more variety by starting micro greens. It was a package of mixed greens and that may be a mistake.
micro greens
When you are working with such short development cycles, if one green is a few days behind another it creates problems. And you can tell these would like to have a bigger share of the light.
My goal is to blaze a trail (if feasible) for us northern gardners who have a spare bedroom or some unused basement space and who want to extend their growing season inside with LED lights. I don’t find many others in my research; the most help is coming from greenhouse growers. But here is yet another innovative business trying to grow under LEDs for commercial use: Podponics.
[oqeygallery id=22]Since I mentioned it in a recent post, I thought it might be time to share my pictures and thoughts about the garden. It was one of the first gardens that I visited outside of Paris and I’ve returned over and over again. Although my earlier trips weren’t captured on camera, I have been there every month of the year while it’s open, except for July. I intend to fix that someday.
The garden is always beatiful. One October vist after a heavy frost, the naturtiums were grey mush but the colors reflected in the pond were incredible. The garden is well funded. The staff start hundreds of thousands of annuals every year so that there is never an empty space. They strive to be true to Monet’s artistic vision for the garden, although plant materials may be somewhat different than he might have used. I recommend that you find time to visit Museum Marmottan and the Musee d’Orsay to see his work on the same trip when you visit this garden. The spirit of the place is somehow shared in all of Monet’s work.
Many people choose to take a train or a tour bus from Paris to see this garden and that works, but then you are on the same schedule as hundreds of other tourists. The train stops in Vernon, over three miles away from the garden. There is a bus that finishes the trip but the one time that I took the train, there were too many people for the bus and many people were left to find taxis and other conveyance on their own. Rick Steve suggests that the last hours in the day have the least tourist traffic and I’ve found that to be generally good advice. After the bus leaves to take the tourists back to the Paris-bound train. Although packed with beauty and history, it’s a small garden; an hour or two will do it justice. Leave extra time if you want to tour inside the house (it costs more) as there are often lines.
The small town around Giverny is worth some time, too. The Museum of American Art has pretty plantings, keeping with the theme. And the hotel and restaraunt Baudy has a rose garden worth visiting, especially in early summer. (Do watch out for the nettles.) The visit was free if I ate there, if they still have it, try the omlette with rabbit and potatoes. It’s a classic so I expect they still do.
[oqeygallery id=21]If you want to visit Monet’s Garden when you are in France, and what garden tourist doesn’t, don’t plan to day trip out from Paris. It’s worth the trouble to rent a car and drive to Normandy for a couple of days. You may save enough in hotel rates to pay for the car. But more importantly, you can also visit some of the other excellent public gardens that Normandy offers. Although it doesn’t have the same sense of art history, which is arguing apples and oranges to some extent, Clos du Coudray , in my opinion, surpasses Monet’s Garden in its horticultural importance and at least equals it in design impact. The owners take pride in being completely organic. It’s also a working nursery, so new discoveries are showcased next to old favorites.
Plantings are laid out in different “garden rooms”. One of the things that I like about this garden is that the design goes far beyond the simple three parts that can be found so often in France (formal, informal and near-wild). The rose garden is one of the best I’ve seen at integrating roses with other plantings for a long season of beauty, even in shaded spots. It’s much more than a rose garden really. It is the most formal of the gardens with straight paths and squared off design elements. All of my favorites are used in one garden or another: iris, peonies and dahlias. And I fell in love with a birch tree, betula costata, that I’ve named Betts. Located near a huge stand of gunnera in a shaded area, her tender, light bronze branches arching gracefully over a bed of hosta create a sunny spot.
In the pictures, notice the loving attention to the details of color and shape, how they complement each other in the plantings. It always amazes me that people can imagine these things and then use plants to create the vision.
Follow this link to look at the history of the garden. There are three pictures in the middle of the page, clicking on them will take you to pictures and descriptions of the owners reconstruction of the building, the development of the garden and the extension of the garden. It is in French but most browsers will translate for you. It’s worth looking at the pictures, in any case.
I picked some of my first batch of lettuces last night from under the LED lights. I had them tested by Everiss Labs and since this was the first time I’d ever seen tissue test results, I was a little concerned that the nitrogen levels were a little high and the calcium levels a bit low. Although I had no direct way to tie these percentages to the ppms that are used to measure the nitrates/nitrites when scientists talk about the issues of low light lettuces, I thought this might indicate that the plants had a problem with high nitrate/nitrite levels that would make them unhealthy to eat. However, when I asked for clarification from the lab, they said absolutely no problem, not to worry. The averages weren’t meant to delineate healthy ranges, just averages from plants over the years and my marginal variations weren’t significant.
Lettuce plant and sample
I had wanted a worst case analysis for the testing, too. I’d fertilized them 24 hours before the test (Scotts Miracle Grow again). I don’t think they really needed it; this was part of the test plan. And since I read that nitrogen levels go higher at night, picking my sample first thing in the morning would have helped make it worst case, too. From now on, I will not fertilize for a week or two before harvest and always, only the minimum necessary. The second batch, already under the lights, is made with a combination of ProMix and compost; I’m hoping that will have everything the plants need. And I’ll harvest in the evening, after a full day of light; the lettuces may be sweeter that way.
To the right is a shot of the sample that I sent to the lab (bottom), and remaining plant. Notice the strong root structure; air pruned because of the soil blocks. I expect these may bolt a little earlier than lettuces with all the root space they need but we’ll see. With a new flat started and a pot of basil to go under this same light, I am at or above the space limit so some of them have to go, anyway.
Marginal leaf tip burn on lettuce
Another possible, very low level symptom of high nitrogen stress, that I actually had to look for, is leaf tip burn. What I found was on a couple of the older leaves and when it’s really a problem, I read, it’s on the inner, newer growth. But it is related to low calcium in the tissue. Low calcium uptake is associated with the low light (high nitrate/nitrite) issues of lettuce, and while this is so marginal that it’s not really a problem, I thought I would post a picture. Since most of us are judging plant health from observations, it’s good to know what to look for.
So it’s harvest time! Although the lettuces are about as clean as lettuces can be, I soaked them in very cold water in the lettuce keeper as I normally do and rinsed and drained them. A taste test before I put them into the refridgerator revealed sweet and crunchy. Here is a picture of “the farm”, as sister (aka the backup LED light gardener) calls it.
The farm
From seed to the table in eight weeks is a happy outcome, in my opinion. I’ll stick with leaf lettuces for now but work on more variation in my harvests. And probably smaller batches so that I have a few plants ready at any point in time. For more information about timing and processes, see the category LED light growing or ask a question in your comments. Sharing is half the fun. The other half is eating! Fresh and healthy from “the farm” to the table.
The temps are forecasted in the teens, next town over to the west and north. I went out to see what I could get before it was frozen and came back with a couple of handfuls of good stuff. Small but brightly colored Swiss chard, Piracicaba and Parsley.
garden harvest 12’10’11
Here is where it came from.
Sad Piracicaba plants
But still producing edible Piracicaba blossomsSwiss chard
And here is the self seeded mache (corn salad). I left a few of the plants go this spring, hoping to get a fall crop. These will probably not grow very much until next spring.
self seeded mache
I picked this one, less than 2″ accross but I’ll add it to the salad bowl.
mache (corn salad)
And here is a shot of my indoor lettuce. Kicking myself, as I watered them today and then found the test kit in a soggy plastic bag on my door. I’d intended to give them a shot of fertilizer, 24 hours before sending off the sample as a worst case for high nitrogen but I don’t think I can wait much longer to start harvesting the bigger leaves.
Traditions are important in France and change is slow in coming. I was made sad this year to find out that the very hotel that I was recommending when I surprised myself by saying the words, “whenever I’m in Paris”, has changed. It still lives on a tiny street near the Latin quarter and the Seine, but when I returned to it, trip after trip, it was a modestly priced hotel with tiny, indifferently decorated (but clean) rooms; plumbing that grumbled loudly to get me out of bed in the mornings; weak English-syle coffee with a roll, a croissant, butter and jam, for breakfast; and a friendly manager who spoke English and remembered her customers; even when it was years between visits. I usually booked with an e-mail saying, “can I still get the same rate?” and the answer was almost always yes. Sadly, a friend came back to me for another recommendation this year because the rates have more than doubled. It appears to have changed ownership and become part of a small luxury chain.
The Left Bank, while a good place for inexpensive hotels and restaurants by Paris standards, has never been the place where people would look first for true luxury accommodations. The historic old streets are small and noisy, full of the smells of diesel fuel and garlic. At night, the hawkers in the small streets will stand in the doors of the various ethnic restaurants, music blaring, to try to pull you in for dinner. The crowds are full of students, emigrants and budget tourists. But the location has its charms, especially for me. A short walk to the East, just past the Arab World Institute, and the small Park zoo, is the entrance to one of the most wonderful places in the world, Jardin des Plantes, Paris.
The people of Paris use this place (no entrance fee, except for the zoo and museums) as their front porch, their work-out studio, their alternate living room. Summer, winter, rain or shine, there are always people in this park. Jogging, walking, sitting, snacking in the cafes. Rows of benches under the Plane trees create a cool haven in the summer and a comfortable place to sit year-round, to soak in the beauty and the history. Kings and queens have walked here; in fact it was established as a medicinal garden for a king, hundreds of years ago. Sitting as close as it does to the historical center of Paris, it’s challenges, reversals and perseverance to become a world-class botanical and scientific resource could fill a book. But you can see it; soak up its essence, for free.
I highly recommend it as a cure for jet lag. The overnight flights often drop you off in Paris in the morning, with little or no sleep and an afternoon to fill. Take a book to the park, wander around and when you get tired, find a comfortable bench. The light of day will start to reset your clock and the beauties will sooth the soul.
There are a number of gardens, including one that organizes plants by their botanical characteristics; so read up on your interests before you visit or ask for a map at the small gate house. The rose garden is best in late May or very early June as it contains a number of once blooming varieties, but the main parterres have many roses that last most of the summer. Most of the pictures in the gallery were taken in the main parterres.
Notice the smoke over Buffon’s right shoulder in the long shot toward the front gate (fourth in the gallery). There were some particularly vehement protests that day; I saw worried police everywhere on my way to the gardens but I was oblivious to the cause until I heard the noise, and saw that night’s news. Explosions, smoke, screaming loudspeakers and sirens as the protests passed the park, but inside it was an island of tranquility.[oqeygallery id=20]
The lettuces continue to put on mass. The red colors in Yogoslavian Red (heading lettuce) are showing up nicely but it’s also the slowest growing. And I cannot see a visible difference between Australian Yellow and Simpson Elite (with toothpicks).
I split the soil cubes between two flats to give them more room and now I do a littly dosie doe with the flats every day to move the outside lettuces closer to the light. Fertilized again; I will drop back to once a month now, I think.
Just to recap, for people who stumble accross this post first: Lettuces planted 10/23; sprouts show by 10/27; lights out and no heat 10/29-11/3; put under LED array on 11/8. See Week One and It Begins for more history.
I ordered some “Red Sails” from Pinetree Seeds, an easier red leaf lettuce and I’ll start my next batch as soon as they arrive. Hopefully, this weekend.
The lettuces are definately adding mass, one week after the LED array was set up. They didn’t get their first feed until yesterday: Miracle Grow at the package strength. (Sorry OGL folks, I promise, the next batch will be in a mix that includes compost.) I forgot how little water seedlings grown in relatively cool conditions need; they should have been feed a week ago.
I’ve worried over the height of the lights and can’t find relevant information.
Yugoslavian Red
The 90 watt light is supposed to cover a surface of four square feet. At 12-18″ away, the Yogoslavian Red lettuces at the end of the flat seem to be straining for the light. But they are showing some color. Too much of this light, I read, can hurt small seedlings. But I haven’t found a description of what that harm looks like, either. There is a good reason that I call this an experiment.
At least for the next week, I’ll leave the light centered about 12′ above the flat, moving the flat daily so that each end is closer on alternate days.
I started lettuces on 10/23 and they were just showing green, under my usual florescent bulb starting mechanisms, when the power went out for five days. I was worried that the sprouts would be too leggy and get my trials with an LED array off to a bad start, but after watching for a few days, these look fine. I guess that the cooler house temperatures also slowed development.
The light is an Illuminator UFO 5-Band Tri-Spectrum LED grow light. I vaguely thought that I would start with simple lettuces but the leftovers from last spring didn’t really offer that choice, except for Simpson Elite, a popular leaf lettuce, so I started two rows of it. And a row each (four 2″ soil cubes) of Australian Yellow (leaf) and Yugoslavian Red, my favorite heading lettuce. A row of Red Velvet didn’t germinate for some reason, I have had that problem before with that seed; this was a replacement pack. Thus, the empty cubes in the last picture.
In spite of plans to take advantage of extra basement space with a well-designed setup, in my usual haphazard way, I stuck the light in the guest/junk room. It uses the very sophisticated setup that I use in spring, two cross country skis over the tops of chairs and chains to hang the lights. I left one florescent fixture in place for times when I want to work with the lettuces. In just the time it takes me to get from the door to the outlet to unplug the LED array, my eyes are already complaining about the lurid pink glow. And everything is green while your eyes recover.
the setup
If anyone has advice about how long these lights should be on for lettuce, please speak up. I keep the seed starting lights on for 16 hours a day but I think that may be too long for these. Also, I suspect that day length has something to do with lettuce “heading up” so I’m thinking I should plan for some room to increase hours for that heading lettuce when it gets bigger. I have been warned that lettuces grown under low lights could have dangerous levels of nitrates, and did some reading on that. I do not know if “low light” applies to LED arrays. And about the only plans I have to deal with this is to use a low nitrogen fertilizer and get one of my lettuces tested at harvest time. I’ve also read that foods that have this problem taste bad so, guess what! I won’t eat them if they taste bad!
On hearing about my last week, a few people have said they couldn’t imagine being five days without power. For me, this was just one day more than our power outage in the ice storm of 2008, but yeah, before that, I couldn’t have imagined it either. A freind said I should share. I was a bit reluctant and tried to figure out why. During 2008 outage, I had just read Solviva, and in my head, developed so many ideas about how I could improve on this old, drafty house. A passive hot water system on the sunny side of the house; augmented by a redesigned fireplace that heats water as it’s used; a more elaborate, covered, outdoor cooking area. Dream on! The truth is that after that storm, I spent thousands of dollars remodling a bathroom in the back of the house where a pipe may have burst in the cold, and life went on. That was a once in a lifetime, right?
So my house is still drafty and energy inefficient, I never use the fireplace so I don’t dare try it in an emergency, even just to get some radiant heat. I don’t have double paned windows or even curtains on some of them. So I guess I should write about this like I write about my garden. How the rest of us do it, those who dream big but never get around to implementing the plan; who manage anyway.
First, I was gifted in 2008 with some of my most important tools: a propane burner and tank and two boxes of votive candles, one with votive holders. (Sister had loaned me her burner in the 2008 storm and I’d used every old candle in my collection.) The ability to make your own coffee or heat up some soup, or just a kettle of water to wash, is key to feeling as if you can cope. The other two important tools were my i-Phone and a battery run indoor/outdoor thermometer. Any PDA that lets you check weather and news and text or call family will do.
The lights went out on Saturday night and on Monday morning, the towns nearby were still closed down tightly. Rumor (text messages) had it that places: groceries, gas stations, had tried to open on battery/generator on Sunday; the fact that they’d given up told me we were in for a long outage. And rumor had it that trees were blocking roads everywhere and had to be removed. So priorities change; give up on getting into work and focus on staying warm and protecting the house. At first the differential between indoor and outdoor heat was enough that I just kept things closed up, and started burning those votives. When I moved to the bedroom for the night, all of the burning candles came with me. As the indoor temps became closer to outdoor temps, afternoons were spent heating water in all my biggest cooking pots to bring inside. I’d fire up the grill and boil water, cooking dinner before the charcoal burned out.
Food was no problem; I ate well. I keep what I call “winter meats” on hand, things like a can of corned beef hash, which includes beans and other protiens but the first days were spent using stuff from the freezer and eggs. It’s a small freezer, fortunately, as everything left in there has to go. And I gave up on the eggs about Tuesday. A yam, baked in foil on the grill, tucked in around the boiling water, was the sweetest I’ve had in ages and I wonder if the higher heat carmelized sugars in a way that the oven would not have done. And I was not cold. Whenever I wasn’t working, I was under a pile of blankets and three cats. The cats came to appreciate me as a source of heat, as well as food and affection. Living bodies generate a lot of heat on their own so preserving it and sharing it goes a long way. The nightime temps got lower every night, but 46 degrees F was the lowest; not that bad. Outside, we had a 26 deg F night that got me worrying about the darn pipes, so running water through that back bathroom periodically became a serious task. Ironically, the plumber did such a good job on the faucets that I couldn’t get them to drip.
But it was not a walk in the park. Between the things I need to do to keep my job and the things I like to do, there never seems to be enough time. So watching the week slip by when I couldn’t make progress on either front was frustrating. And yet there was plenty of time four coulda, shouldas and wouldas. Pergatory for a procrastinator like me. I hadn’t even thought to get cash like my father taught me, although the gas tank was pretty full.
But that’s probably not the way to think about it. Here’s what I want to share with you:
Make some simple preparations, canned food, a propane burner and a box or two of votive candles are cheap.
Use what you have; I hadn’t thought about charcoal and ligher fluid as survival tools but that’s what I had in 2008 and now I know.
Keep your gas tank full and cash on hand, especially when the weatherman says a storm is coming.
Recognize that priorities change and we have to embrace the moment: hug a cat (or other warm body); read that book on the coffee table: drink that third cup of coffee just because it’s warm.
Why the power went out
Deck side of houseNieghbor's House, notice the tree on the stoop.Wasp's nest still there!
I’ve been wanting a hard frost to kill off the tops of the dahlias; I want to do some expansion of the bed and add a lot of compost to see if that will help with the poor (purchased) soil that I used to build the beds. However, mother nature over-acheived. As I was driving home from work last night what was rain in eastern MA started turning into sleet and then fluffy white stuff as I climbed in elevation near home. As the temps dropped, it continued and we have a measurable accumulation from overnight. Weather people are also talking about more of the white stuff this weekend so I will need to dig dahlia tubers quickly.
Things are actually not looking too bad this morning but when the frozen tissues thaw, that expansion will destroy the plants. Shots of a deck box and the garden follow. The Swiss Chard and parsley will probably recover. Not the nasturtiums.
I purchased a small Toro electric mower this spring and wondered if my lawn was too much for it. I love its quiet ways, no worries about waking up the neighbors if I want to do an early morning mow. But, let’s face it, my lawn is not a genteel expanse of grasses. “Hey lady, is that Bugleweed (Ajuga) in your lawn?” Why yes, how perceptive of you to have noticed! I have both purple-leaved and green and n the spring it makes a lovely carpet of blue flowers that the pollinators love. I mow around the thickest spots until the bees abandon them.
My initial impression of the mower was that it did’t have enough power to pull the grass upright before cutting it but that has not proved to be a problem. Somehow it gets cut. It’s been doing it’s job all summer and there are no gouged and empty spots like the mowing company left from turning their big equipment in small places.
autumn nasturtium
But this article is about another experiment. I’m not going to rake the lawn this year. I am going to try to mow the leaves in. Although I’d heard it suggested before, a friend sent me this link to a Fine Gardening article that talks about Michigan State researchers who mowed an 18 inch! layer of leaves into test plots.
As you can see above, I don’t have much to lose. So, this is the year I try it with my much lighter layers of leaves. The season is slow in coming with many trees still green, but you can see my tiny eggbeater of a mower does make a dent in what’s there now.
Rose Teasing Georgia
Some bonus shots. The nasturtium are still going strong in the food beds; they keep me company as I clean, fork, and add compost. They will melt after our first bad frost.
And this only blossom on rose “Teasing Georgia” was hanging about at eye level to cheer on my efforts.
It works, it really works! This little guy single handedly defended my garden from the neighborhood deer. Last year the woods side of my garden took a lot of damage. This year, when they ate all of my Yogoslavian Red lettuce, just as it was about to form it’s tender, beautiful, small heads, I asked my gardening friends for advice. We went over many of the things that don’t work too well and I was actually thinking about spending hundreds of dollars for fencing, when one of my garden friends mentioned she’d had success with a motion activated water system, marketed as the Scarecrow. When it senses something moving in its “line of sight” it sends out a strong jet of water. The sensitivity and the range of water movement can be controlled. Mine is made by Contec but I noticed Haveaheart also had their version. They aren’t too expensive but you probably want to add a dedicated hose and a splitter if you can’t dedicate a water outlet to it.
Some friends found evidence that deer would lose their fear over time. So as soon as the summer garden was winding down, I turned it off. However, it seems the deer haven’t checked back recently as nothing has been eaten. It may be in neighborhoods like mine where there are few deer, it’s a permanent deterrent.
Now if I could find something just as effective for chipmunks. In my tightly packed garden, they quickly learned how to stay out of the Scarecrow’s sight. I ordered Coyote Urine crystals from the same source and only succeeded in ruining my garden shoes. Stinky!
This has probably been hanging over my head as I walked for most of the summer. One of the other walking ladies in the neighborhood told me where to look for it, high over the street. What a work of architecture! And from what I read, a very temporary home. All of the workers will soon come to an end and the pregnant females will find a more sheltered place to over winter. The type of wasp that makes these large nests is not agressive like yellow jackets or hornets.
And wasps are good for gardens. A large part of their diet is caterpillars, also flies and beetle larve.
This second, somewhat ordinary shot says “home” to me. Ahhhh; home.
Some things that catch my eye as I drive to and from work. I would like to know more about this statue; I’ve named him Adonis Rising but may be offending some artist. He doesn’t look completely comfortable with his place in the garden for some reason.
The homeowner in the next shot always uses the picket fence to set off nice plantings. Those may be some of the tallest grasses I’ve seen.
Sister, neice and I visited Overlook Farm on Saturday, an educational endeavor in eastern-central Massachusetts, owned and run by Heifer International. Visitors are welcome to look around the grounds and the demonstration gardens include small sites representing how people live around the world. The garden representing Peru had the broadest display of amaranth varieties that I’ve seen recently, where it’s used as a food crop.
Amaranth
My sister and I both live in heavily wooded areas with small spaces for gardens and my niece lives in a condo where she gardens on her deck. We were green with envy on seeing the two acre food garden on a sunny slope, not a wisp of shade in sight.
[oqeygallery id=19]To someone starved to see dahlias growing as I was this summer, Hamilton Dahlia Farm in Hamilton, MI, is a Las Vegas sized, all you can eat buffet. Lots of variety, for every taste, and it goes on for acres. The difficult part of this post was selecting which of the many beautiful dahlias to feature in the gallery. The Farm is not a public garden where you might go to see how dahlias work in mixed borders, like the Peace Garden in Caen, France. You may see the occasional weed or stem from quick and efficient dead-heading. Don’t worry, the sheer vibrance of these beautiful flowers captures the eye and sends their charms straight to the heart. And, in terms of dahlias by the square foot, the Farm is actually several times the size of those gardens and other French dahlia demostration gardens like Orleans La Source, Coutances, and Parc Floral Vincennes. The Farm sells its dahlias wholesale; there were a couple of wedding parties there the same day that I was, picking them by the dozen, and also sells retail at two different farm markets in Michigan. On Saturdays they sell at Fulton Street Market in Grand Rapids, which is where the last shot was taken.
Most of my success has been with small varieties, starting with some I bought for my deck boxes a couple of years ago. So I made a beeline for the largest, bowling-ball-wanabees with beauty treatments. Most of the pictures I selected feature them. Where I could find the name tags, I’ve labeled them. The Farm’s web site also has many beautiful pictures, all labeled.
[oqeygallery id=18]Here are some of my nicest photos of this year’s dahlias and the dahlia bed.
Small, compact dahlias dominated this year, starting with Art Deco, (saved from 2010) which graces the deck boxes in back. The different colors that you see in the pictures are real; there’s even more variation of golds and rusts along with purplish pink tones than my camera can catch. Dahlia Esther was also a surprise. The online catalogue showed a rather flat orange and this is much nicer. It started early; it’s had the most blossoms of any variety and it’s still going strong. You will see it dominating the dahlia bed in most of the bed pictures. Ellen Houston is a small, solid, deep red dahlia, (deeper red than the camera can handle) with dark stems and shiney dark leaves. It should have been in front of the bed and next year it will go there. It may need some staking, or just more sun.
Two small ball dahlias come next in the sequence. Kasasagi echos the colors of Esther but with a different shape. Little Scotty completes the color transition to a pure yellow. I love their perfectly shaped, minature petals but both of these have minimal impact from a distance. Littly Scotty is a tall plant that needs staking. I think he will go on the back row between some larger-blossomed dahlias next year.
The smaller varieties are also earlier than the large ones, which just started showing off. I’ll be adding to this part of the collection next year for sure. This part of the gallery starts with Croyden Masterpiece. These are not as large as some that I grew a few years ago; those got me hooked and then, tragically, died. These start much pinker than I remember. Then they go lovely shades of peachy orange. Huge, yellow Bilbao was saved from one that I grew last year and planted directly into the ground as a trial. Worked pretty well! I like Ryn Fou best when it develops that deep purple stripe.
Also called: Pride of Gibraltar and Cathedral Bells.
I bought the seed from Renee’s Garden Seeds, who says “They make a show-stopping centerpice in the garden…” Somewhere else, I’d read that they are nondescript until the bracts show and then they are incredible, or words to that effect. In my garden, this is as good as it gets. If somewhere I needed a rangy, succulent looking, grey leaved plant, it might be a good choice but in my garden the single bracts are so subtle that you have to look closely to see them.
Doing further research, I read that they are a mediterranean plant. Maybe more heat and sun than I get would help?
