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Counter half full

Pineapple tomato with purple ruffles basil

Although the water spray that’s triggered by a motion detector seems to have stopped the deer damage in the garden, the chipmunks have eaten more of my tomatoes than I have. I was feeling a bit deprived as I looked at the chewed tomatos hanging sadly here and there in my late summer garden. But then I looked at my large kitchen island and saw it covered with enough food for a family of six, large and small tomatoes, two kinds of cucumbers, summer squash and baggies of beans and Piracicaba in the refridgerator. (onions and garlic curing in the garage…) Yes, most of the tomatoes on that counter were picked green, that pale light green that they get just before they turn color, but there are more than I need and they will still taste better than anything I can buy at the grocery store. Even local farmers pick them early and let them “counter ripen” for sale. So is that counter half empty or half full?

Just as I was pondering that, sister stopped by with a gift. A beautiful, vine-ripened tomato of the variety called Pineapple, from the plants that I had given her this spring. And that decided it. The counter is definately half full. Overflowing, even.

Moving the daylillies

I bought maybe one plant of a deep red daylilly at a public garden that I visited in New York State many years ago. It was in the bed along the front walk before I planted the roses and I may have split it once long ago. Due to the horizontal supports for the climbers, it ended up under the roses. After this year’s flowers were spent, I decided to move it. It had become quite a clump and I was able to divide it into seven fans without even trying. I decided to pull the non-performing amaranths and from the before and after pictures, you may agree that pulling them wasn’t a sacrifice. I was able to preserve the single perfoming specimens of amaranth “Cinco de Mayo” and “Early Splendor” (from left to right). My plan for this long border is for the display to move forward through the seasons, from the once blooming roses to daylillies and then to the dahlia bed in front. Maybe the amaranths to fill; we’ll see.

Early dahlias

It’s still too early for my full season dahlia gallery. The dinnerplate dahlias are tight buds, but starting to show color. I’m enjoying the flowers too much though, not to share. Croyden Masterpiece is not as large as it should be and not really orange, but I love it’s complex coloring. And it shows well with amaranths Love Lies Bleeding and Cinco de Mayo.

I have a nice design element happening (I never actually saw any of these before, just picked them out of a catalogue) which is the color and shape transitions from “Esther” the flat collerette to “Kasasagi”, to “Little Scotty”, the shy yellow ball (He still has a lot of leaf to flower ratio but it’s still early). Next year I will know that Ellen Houston stays shorter and goes in front. It picks up the red in the yellow/red blends.

Esther, Kazasagi (top), Little Scotty (front right) — Esther, Kazasagi, Little Scotty

The third shot shows the cheerful effect.

I may be crazy

About dahlias. After so many failures, with only a few successes, I often think that I should just give up on dahlias. Excuses abound. Our climate just isn’t right, it’s too hard to pull and store the tubers. But then, every day I drive by the Weston Racquet Club with a really exceptional display of dahlias. I stopped in to ask permission to photograph last year and I was told that one of the landscapers just likes dahlias. I’ll say. And, to put this in context, I look and look for public gardens with displays of dahlias this time of year and they are almost impossible to find in New England.

I just don’t know how any gardener worth her stuff can look at these flamboyent displays of color and light energy and not lust to grow them.[oqeygallery id=17]

I am not crazy

Well, not much and not on this issue. The first year I got this rose, it bloomed about this time of year for the first time. I was really disappointed and called J & P to tell them they had sold me the wrong rose. No scent; and the number of petals didn’t match the description. It’s not supposed to be a flat, single rose. J & P told me that they would refund or send me another the next year. I procrastinated until the next spring and guess what! It was a full and pretty rose with a wonderful scent.

Evidently, there is a difference between what it produces at different times of the year because I’ve seen the same issue with summer reblooms later in the year. It would be interesting to know if this is a characteristic of the rose itself or if it’s something about the root stock or this particular bush.

To see the spring version, see my spring rose gallery. It’s labeled and about five shots in.

Harvest begins

My summer food garden is moving quickly into full production. I’m picking a handful of green beans every morning (which really adds up), the cherry tomatoes have been giving me sugar for weeks and I picked the first of my large tomatoes today: a small Brandywine, a damaged Virginia Sweets and a good looking Black Krim. Although all have turned color, they will benefit from a day or two on the counter. The chipmunk(s) got the first of my crop. They seem to have a sixth sense for when a tomato is going to turn color and eat it before I can.

I was feeling a little sorry for myself until I stopped at a nearby farm stand and saw the Heirlooms priced at almost $5 a pound. I’m rich! Also asking the age-old question, how do you know when a green tomato is ripe?? (A: When the chipmunks eat it.)

One small head of Piracicaba, can more be far behind? I’ve eaten a couple of Zephyr summer squash; this variety keesps me from having to choose betwen growing yellow ones or green ones, and both the small yellow cukes and Sweet Success main crop cucumbers will be ready to pick within days. Everything has grown into a solid mass of green and I have to tiptoe between the beds to pick. My meal plans focus on, how can I use…?[oqeygallery id=16]

Mulch

July is when I realized that I was insane. Or at least that my decision to keep up with the weeds in the rose bed without mulching must have been made in a moment of insanity. My father told me that roses did better with bare soil but now I remember that he said that when he was fully retired and could tend to his roses (and the weeds) every day.

To mulch or not to mulch is a serious question. Here in the North, mulch has a number of negatives, especially the typical bark or wood chips that are so widely used. These mulches can:

Raise the acidity levels, and most New England soils tend to be a bit too acidic already.
Tie up nutrients as they decompose, at least right where they touch the soil.
Keep soil cool, and I’m always running around in the spring with a soil thermometer, willing the soil to heat up! Heat up!
Prevent repeated applications of composts, manure and other soil amendments, throughout the season.
Bring their own fungal diseases or weed seeds.
Create considerable expense.

So why mulch, I asked? And with that long list, you might also. Well, here’s my story from this summer, with the plants I raise.

Tomatoes: I don’t have enough space to rotate, and that’s fallen out of favor as people learn more about micro-organisms that live in the soil and have a symbiotic relationshp with specific plants. However, other diseases overwinter in the soil and get transferred to the plants when water splashes them onto the leaves, so mulch can minimize that. See my post on Mainely Mulch. I was very disappointed that it wasn’t free of crop seeds as advertised, but the truth is that even the heirloom varieties that are vulnerable to soil borne diseases are looking good for late July.
Dahlias: I’m a novice with these. Told not to put them into the ground until the soil warmed, I planted them out in a new bed with soil purchased from a local farmer and thought that the sun warming bare soil would be a good thing. But when I asked some questions about plants that were wilting and failing to thrive, See pictures in Dahlia Problems. I was told that it was probably verticillium or fusarium wilt, the same soil borne problems that tomatos have! Further, because of questions from a gardening freind in Arizona, I learned that dahlias have shallow root systems that don’t like too much heat. Southerners who want to try to grow them should apply a thick layer of mulch to keep the soil cool. It’s all relative, I guess. But I can report that after a thick layer of mulch in July, all of the plants in the dahlia bed, even the healthy ones, perked up and started growing faster. (No, it didn’t save the plants that were already sick.)
Hydrangeas: This spring, I planted a couple of small “Let’s Dance Moonlight” hydrangeas (picture above) that I’ve been growing in pots into a bed that’s not realy finished. I wanted to continue to reshape the area and add amendments and other plantings before I mulched. The hydrangeas were doing very well except that they would wilt badly in the heat of mid-summer sun. I was wondering if I had to sacrifice their lovely blossoms for this season, to let them develop deeper root systems. But first I thought I’d try mulching them. Since this section of my post is talking about why I do mulch, you know what happened; they thrived.
Roses: Yes, personally, I’m sad to say that I can’t keep up with the weeds without mulch. Even with mulch, I have to weed. Lots of vining or plants with runners (strawberries, e.g.) don’t need bare soil to settle in. And mulch should never be applied right against the stem of a plant, which creates opportunities for weeds. Especially with roses; they do much better if there is plenty of air circulation around the bud union. That means no mulch but also, no weeds.

So I hope this has offered some advice that you can adapt to your own plantings. I do have a regular feeding schedule of balanced, slow release fertilizers for roses and other mulched plants to compensate for the little bit of nutrients that may be tied up in the decomposition process of the mulch. And I amend the soil in flower beds to lower their acidity every spring and fall. I’m trying to get competent with a soil test kit to make that more accurate. If you understand the needs of your plants and compensate for the down side, mulch can:

Help with weed control
Keep soil borne diseases from spreading to new plants
Moderate soil temperatures

Canna at Applefield Farm

I have every intention of writing a more complete blog article about Applefield Farm in Stow, MA, one of my favorite, maybe THE favorite, of my 117 commute. However, within the last weeks, I’ve had a couple of different conversations about their use of Canna in container arrangements. A picture being worth many of the words in those conversations, I snapped a few shots on my way home from work. Call this a “lick and a promise” as far as telling you about the farm market goes.

If you don’t know Canna, they are the tall plants with the banana-shaped leaves. The flowers come in an incredible array of colors as do the leaves. As you can see in these pictures, they make a very nice height component in a container and the effects last all season if you choose a variety for its leaves. One of my favorites is “Bengal Tiger” (not shown here) but it’s day-glow orange flowers and chartreuse striped leaves don’t go with everything. One of the nice things about this farm market is that you can buy the plants and combine them yourself, or they will create a beautiful container for you.[oqeygallery id=15]

S. Williams Garden in Central MA

Late last week I saw an invite for a Sunday garden club visit to a private garden in Central MA. I had been planning to get in two full days of work on my own garden but the words, “formal vegetable garden” attracted my attention. In addition, I considered how much my garden reflects my efforts to integrate what I’ve liked in other gardens with my own competencies and style. So I visited this incredible place.

Although the plantings were equal to many gardens that I’ve visited in France and other parts of the country, it has very much of a New England feel. You still can see the farm in the garden, and the extensive use of granite and stone walls reminds us of the character of the natural place. I was told that the pink granite used for the raised beds in the formal garden was from a nearby quarry and matched the granite used for the foundation of the house.

I was particularly impressed by the attention to detail. Although the gardens, both formal and informal, extended over many acres, every plant was exactly where it was supposed to be. Near the house, no crevice between stones was left bare, just the collection and use of small ground covers and plantings was impressive. Critter sculptures added their humor, everywhere.

Rhododendrons extended for what would easily equal multiple city blocks, but were mostly over, and roses were tucked sweetly into mixed plantings or trained against the stone walls. The roses were also mostly over, I would like to see them in June. Impressive displays of daylillies, in masses the way that I like them; hydrageas; and hosta vied with rare specimens and dramatic designs for attention.

With so many lovely plantings, ironically, my favorite feature was the chicken coop! The roof was actually a shallow pan, waterproofed, and holding a pretty collection of succulents.

My Roses this Spring

Gallery updated July 16, 2011 with three new shots from the rose ghetto. I think the third shot, a hybrid tea, pink blend, is “Love and Peace” but I can’t find the purchase info!

All of the roses have done their spring thing and some of them are over for the year or resting up for a late summer show. Here is a gallery of my best shots. As I looked through my photos, I realized that it’s heavy on the climbers and once bloomers, I’ll have to get more shots of the Hybrids in the rose ghetto. These pictures do show why I love the once bloomers so much. When they are in blossom they put on an impressive show. The ones I’ve selected also smell heavenly, sorry I can’t share that with you. The last shots are of Seven Sisters with Clematis Jackmanii. They are still looking good.[oqeygallery id=14]

Happy bumblebee

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I don’t seem to have a problem with pollinators like some people are reporting. Although it’s also true that many of those I see are wasps or bumblebees, not honeybees. I’d been tying up tomatoes before this photo was shot was working along side one of a bumblebee like this. Their laid back nature is comforting to one who’s been stung many times by honeybees and wasps. He’s working in rose “City of York”, one of the best smelling, ever. I didn’t have to add music as he was making his own!

Why I love dahlias

This is Art Deco, from the Gallery series. It’s a small plant that I grew in my deck boxes last year and again this year. It’s very happy at my house, compared to other dahlias that I’ve tried, and just starting what I hope will be a long blossoming season. The color is hard to describe and changes in different lights. But it goes well with just about anything. I like it with blues and yellows.

He’s fat enough already

I’d seen this mother/child drama before I went to work on Friday but baby was just passively hanging on the support for the suet feeder. While I was at work he’s learned how to get his own suet but mama is still doing most of the work. This morning a family of nuthatches was getting the same lesson. [wpvideo HHTfbZXj]

Philter’s free music

Michigan State University Rose Garden

This garden got top points for sheer impact with roses on my midwest trip. It has the advantage of being small and well designed. The rose beds are raised so that even the shorter roses are near eye level. It was probably peak bloomtime when I visited with both once and repeat bloomers in show. The first picture is not taken in the rose garden. It’s just the healthiest purple elderberry that I’ve seen, growing in the small place between restaraunt and parking area at a nearby Sushi restaraunt. The last shot expresses how I feel about this garden. [oqeygallery id=12]

Dracunculus

Updated with the correct spelling (thank you Glen from gardens), I find some more results, including pictures of the fruit and other information.

I visited the Frederick Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park, Near Grand Rapids last week with my granchildren. Not too many flower shots but I saw this curiosity and chased down a staff person who was kind enough to find another staff person, and another and finally walkie talkies were used. The name I believe I was told is Dranuncula, but I can’t find much about it on the web. I was told that it’s one of the family of meat eaters that attracts its prey by smelling like carrion. It was not smelling bad yet, that I could tell. Click on the small images for a bigger one.

Dahlia problems

I have problems with two of my transplanted dahlias. One is wilting for no apparent reason and another has very curly leaves. I’ve read a lot of web sites and they are so scary; easy to think that all of mine have one symptom or another. Wilting, and I’m supposed to look for rot at the root of the stem, there is none. And curling leaves mean aphids they say. I see no other evidence of aphids and being a rose person, I do know aphids.

I SO want to be a dahlia person. Any suggestions?

I am also updating my June photo gallery post to include a budding “Art Deco” dahlia, among other shots.

Late spring in the garden

Updated 6/11/11 on another rainy day. The Amaranth Cinco de Mayo (4th shot in gallery) is certainly the winner in the Amaranth trials so far, an incredible complexity of color. Love Lies Bleeding just looks a little weird to date. The last new shot (6th in the gallery) is of the rose ghetto; even on a rainy day it warms my heart.

June 9: I woke up to a mass of thunderstorms and knew that I couldn’t do my early morning garden chores so I put together a quick gallery of some of my June photos. OK, a couple of late May pictures snuck in, too. The iris and columbines, to name them. However, since I still have an iris blooming (not this one) and columbines, I figure it’s OK.

In the middle of the gallery is half of my food garden. If you look closely, you can see the sprouts of cucumbers that will grow up the central, round trellis and the sprouts of summer squash in front of the tomatoes. They will spill out into the path, which I hope to level soon. The rhubarb and a small nursery for shade plants are in the back.

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Decorative Amaranths again

I just wanted to share a couple of photos of my decorative amaranths. One question I have is whether I should be pinching out the middle to encourage side shoots. especially in Love Lies Bleeding. No one on the gardens list could tell me so I did it on one out of four, the other three have a blossom starting in the middle as in the picture below.

Beginner’s luck or persistence?

I’ve read on some reputable blogs that beans shouldn’t be started inside because they don’t like their roots to be disturbed. With respect, I have been doing it for years. I have problems with critters, and should also probably credit my cool soil with part of the problem. Beans wouldn’t germinate, or maybe disappear from the soil before they had a chance. And those that did come up would get chewed leaves or completely defoliated before they had a chance to get established. So, not knowing that it wouldn’t work, I planted Emerite beans in my 2″ soil cubes several years ago. I had such good success that this has become my regular habit. They don’t need heat or lights. I start them at the same time I would plant seed in the ground and keep them on my deck. It only takes a couple of weeks; one for them to germinate and another for them to develop true leaves.

When I was planting them this year, I was wondering if knowing that it wasn’t supposed to work would jinx this process. There were wads of roots at the bottom of the flat that I had to disturb to separate the plants. They looked a little wilty right after I planted and I thought Oh, oh. But when I came home from work they had already aclimated and look fine.

Now I just need to protect them from the deer that have found my garden (reason for the propped empty trays) and get them started up the mesh that I use for a trellis, before they find the nearby tomato cages. Yes, I often pick beans from tomato plants at the end of the season.

So I think the life lesson in this is that it’s all about what works for you. When you find a plant or technique that gives you success, trust it. No two gardens are the same and even in the same family, say beans, plants differ in what they like or will tolerate. I would have given up on beans with my early results. Especially when all you have to lose is an inexpensive package of seed, keep trying; dare to break the rules.

Dahlia bed

I did mention how I’m never really finished, right? The dahlias are in their new bed. It doesn’t work as well from a design standpoint as I would like; it needs to be bigger in order to echo the shape of the bed behind it. And built up higher, which would be better for the dahlias as it would drain faster than the surrounding heavy soil, too. Ultimately, I want it to look like it’s all the same bed. But I need some way to get into it and work it, so I decided a narrow strip that I mow was most efficient.

But it was near 90 degrees and felt much hotter in the full sun that dahlias love on the day that I finished it, I am not a dahlia and can’t handle that kind of heat. I just wanted to get them in the ground and find some shade. The good news is that dahlias are treated like annuals and I get another chance next year to make improvements.

Now the choice is whether to mulch or not. The bed behind will be mulched, I’m just letting the amaranths acclimate. Most of them also got planted this weekend.

This whole area is designed to bloom from back to front. The peonies are blossoming today and the rose buds are getting fat.[oqeygallery id=10]