For the Record May 28, 2009

 

Plan Scale: 1 inch = 2 feet 

 

Plant List Link

It’s a serious challenge for me to keep decent records of the plant material in my garden.  It always seems to take so much time to put these documents together, and I inevitably forget something on the list/plan and need to make edits every time I look at them.  But, my silly whining aside, this effort is proving invaluable from year to year.  I made the garden plan in PowerPoint, of all programs.  It was much easier for me to use that than to hand-draw it.  At some point I hope to get each shape numbered so I can associate it with the list of plants, but that will have to wait for a slow summer day when I don’t have a million tasks on hand in the garden itself.

Just Picked 5/21 May 21, 2009

 

Finally starting to get some vegetables out of the garden!  I am delighted in my ‘Jericho’ lettuce heads, so full and tender and uniform.  The radish mix is beginning to mature with roots in hues of deep purple, bright pink, and creamy white.  Also harvesting several cuttings of my California spicy mesclun mix, though it is really spicy and the flea beetles have taken several bites out of it already.   Chive blossoms make me happy when sprinkled on salads.  The mint, oregano, sage, thyme and rosemary are all ready for snipping as needed.   

 

Wacky Weather & So Much Work May 20, 2009

 

Just when I beginning to be certain that global warming is going to finally push southeastern Pennsylvania squarely into Zone 7 once and for all, the weather does something freaky to remind me that Mother Nature won’t be boxed in by colorful bands drawn on a map.  Yesterday morning (May 19th) we got a frost!  This was the latest frost I can ever remember here in this area, although my farming parents assure me that in central Pennsylvania, where I grew up, it frosts late into May every few years.   Fortunately it was a very light frost this time and I was prepared, covering up my tender eggplants that I’d planted out last week.   The lettuce and onions handled it like pros, perhaps enjoying the respite from the unseasonably warm weather we had been having. 

 

 

The veg area is coming along nicely, nearly three quarters full now after I planted out my three ground cherries, two ‘Savor’ melons, and one ‘Black Prince’ tomato today.  I also brought in my first real harvest of radishes, loose-leaf lettuce, and Jericho lettuce today.  The sugar snap peas and flowering finally, though the plants seem rather runty overall.  The kohlrabi is growing like made and forming lovely little bulbs at their base!  I take great pleasure in lifting up my row covers and peeking in at them.  

 

 

 

Speaking of the row covers, they seem to be doing wonders for keeping the pests at bay on my kohlrabi, broccoli and cabbage.  The covers also seem to make the alpine strawberry transplants very happy as they are triple the size they were just last week!!  On the other hand, the flower seedlings don’t seem to appreciate the extra protection and just haven’t taken off the way I was hoping.    And while we’re on the topic of mechanics in the veg plot, the soaker hose system could use some tweaking.  I inadvertently got two types of hoses when I was in the store: one is very porous and just sort of seeps out water while the other kind is more in keeping with a drip tape that has holes every few inches and the water squirts out of them, getting several inches away from the hose.  This second hose is much better at watering the entire bed than the first.  In the future, I will look for the flatter hose with the line of holes down the middle.   Still, it is very nice to just turn on the soaker hoses and go in the house for awhile to do other things (like blogging) while my garden gets a good deep drink.  

 

 

Along those same lines, I’m on a weekly compost tea brewing and application schedule now.  I brew the compost tea in a five gallon bucket for two days in the warm sun, swishing the “tea bag” around every time I pass by, and then dilute the tea by half in a watering can with clear water and then add about a quarter cup of fish emulsion for a nutrient and microbe rich cocktail for my plants.  I make sure all the vegetables get a good dose and have also been specifically drenching my ‘City of York’ rose and Wilson’s lemon tree, both of which are responding tremendously to the extra nutrients.  I’m very glad not to have to use chemical fertilizers on these two favorites.

 

And finally, on this very busy day in the garden, I ended the evening when it was too dark to be outside with seeding my summer squash (a mix of patty pans) and bush beans into trays in the greenhouse.  As soon as they have their true leaves, I’ll transplant them to the garden.  I’m finding that even though I could direct sow several of my crops, I like having transplants to use so I can very carefully plan out my spacing in this now-too-tiny plot.

Coming Into Focus May 20, 2009

 

A great deal of work went into my ornamental beds too once the last frost seemed to finally be out of the way and I felt it was safe enough to put out many of the tender annuals.  In went five Talinum ‘Limon’ transplants I had grown from plugs, 10 Gomphrena ‘Bicolor Rose’ that I had grown from seed, two Coleus ‘Tilt a Whirl’ grown by my neighbor Russ, two Calibrachoa ‘Callie Orange’ grown by Lindsay, and two Gelsemium sempervirens ‘Margarita’ (Carolina Jasmine) that I got as trial plants from the Garden Writers Association (GWA) meeting earlier this spring.   

 

 

I’m still struggling with my “vision” for this year’s ornamental beds, but I’m trying to work more with sweeps of plants rather than small clusters.  Hopefully the emphasis will turn towards colors drawing the eye through the garden, but I must admit I still do not feel very qualified to “design” a garden, unless it involves vegetables. 

 

 

Regardless of the big picture design, a most striking combination of blooms has come forth this week, rather unexpectedly.  Very early in my garden’s inception, I planted a tiny Aquilegia ‘Origami Blue and White’ that never did anything last spring.  This spring it has come into its own, putting on quite a display of flowers.  However, it is pale purple, not blue!  And the hue matches perfectly with the tall stately balls of Allium ‘Purple Sensation’.   If planting a spring-to-summer boarder in the future, I would definitely look to incorporate these two plants throughout.

 

 

My final big task of the week in the ornamental bed was to take a full inventory of the plants I have, seeking to verify that all the perennials from last year returned (most did, though three are still unaccounted for and likely got crowded out) and record all the new plant material I’d put in so far this spring.   I’ll post the completed inventory soon.

Tropicals Gone Wild May 17, 2009

 

I had the wonderful opportunity to visit Puerto Rico this past week to attend the Turf and Ornamental Communicators Association (TOCA) annual meeting in Rio Grande.   In addition to the fantastic professional development sessions and the interactions I had with the warm and generous members of TOCA, I had a great time touring one of the few remaining untouched rain and cloud forests, El Yunque National Rain Forest (as it happens, my hotel room’s balcony actually looked out across its canopy).  

 

 

I am not much of a tropical plants person, being rather fond of native plants that generally take care of themselves in my garden.  However, seeing tropicals where they are nativewas pretty sensational.   Impatiens grow wild and very large there, as do gingers, bananas, bromeliads, breadfruit and papaya trees, countless palms, tree ferns, and asparagus fern (and those were just the ones I could identify).  Our engaging tour guide spoke of several folk remedies that are derived from these plants.  The one that I found most interesting was the crushing of impatiens leaves and rubbing them on bug bites to relieve the itching.  

 

 

Amazingly, I didn’t have cause to try out the impatiens trick as there were absolutely no bugs – of the biting variety – buzzing about.  Apparently the millions of gallons of rain that fall on the forest each year actually drown any mosquito or other such larvae (I’m sure the massive population of iguanas and coquis frogs also contribute to the cause).   Talk about your integrated pest management!  Our guide also discussed how the horticulture staff at El Yunque are working to introduce plants they have within their forest to the global nursery trade and into local interior/exterior plantscapes in the many large resorts surrounding the rain forest.

 

 

To Have & To Hold May 17, 2009

 

 

To Have & To Hold, Magical Wedding Bouquets by David Stark and Avi Adler is a stunning book by two of the most sought-after floral designers in New York City.  The nearly 200 photos, taken by famed garden photographer, Mick Hales, are sumptuous and the combination of colors and textures in several of them actually elicited an audible gasp from me when I turned to their page. Not only do the photos provide tremendous sources of inspiration, the text is enlightening too as David and Avi share some of their best secrets for creating a bouquet that truly reflects the bride while remaining practical and within the scale of the bride’s stature and budget (price ranges are included with the caption on each design’s photo).

 

Lessons Learned May 15, 2009

This doesn’t merit much of a post, but I wanted to make a note of it for future reference.  My attempt to grow Ranunculus in crates appears to have failed.  While the plants sprouted and put on some decent growth, they have shown no signs of sending out blooms and several of the plants are now turning brown and dying.  I would suspect two or three problems:

1) perhaps the crate approach was the wrong way to go
2) I got the bulbs later than I would have liked – in mid-March – and they may not have had enough cool weather to grow
3) ranunculus like it relatively dry and cool and it’s just been a miserably wet spring with a few hot flashes  

I am still glad I gave them a shot, but in the future, I will probably try to get them planted in a hoop house in early January or, lacking such a luxury, sprout them in crates in early February and then plant them out under a row cover as soon as I can work the ground.

 

Another disappointment, I had no luck germinating a single Eryngium seed.  I am not exactly sure why none of the several dozen seeds I planted came up as I followed the packet directions to a “t”, but in the future I will try freezing the seed for a few weeks first or sowing them in nursery pots in the fall  and letting them sit out in a cold frame to undergo the natural freeze and thaw in hopes of cracking the seed coats and getting the tiny cotyledons to unfurl.  That is how I finally got the Baptisia seeds to sprout this spring after all attempts to germinate them in the greenhouse failed.

Unleash the Annuals May 12, 2009

 

In a bit of a hurry before leaving for my trip to Puerto Rico, I took many of the annuals I had grown from seed in the greenhouse and put them in the garden as the weather was still cool but stable enough to consider it “safe” to put out the tender stuff.  In one fell swoop, I descended on my ornamental beds to put in a sweep of pin cushion flowers (Scabiosa atropurperea), clumps of stevia and feverfew, and a border along my central path of intermixed bunny tail grass and calendula.  Also transplanted were a few miscellaneous perennials, such as bronze fennel and Jupiter’s Beard (Centranthus ruber), that I am going to be trialing for cut flower potential. 

 

 

My alliums (Allium ‘Purple Sensation’) are finally starting to show their stuff, lending both color and architecture to the garden, as is a ethereal pale violet-blue delphinium (Delphinium elatum) that I got from Mt. Cuba.  The sweet woodruff (Galium odoratum), which was a tiny plant last year that never really did much of anything, has spread out to be a delightful carpet of sweet smelling green and white this spring.  In general, all my perennials have come into their own now, full of lush growth that is filling my beds.  However, across the board, my tulips have been a big disappointment this spring, save for the stunning ruby red ‘Omnyacc’ that is currently blooming on the longest straightest stems I’ve ever seen on a tulip.

 

 
In the vegetable plot, I put out my alpine strawberries (24 plants in total) and watered the lettuce, kohlrabi, broccoli, cabbage and onions with compost tea.  The peas are finally taking off, climbing up the trellis I built for them beside the head lettuce that has also begun to show substantial growth.  I’m very pleased with the germination rate of my direct-sown beets and the evidence that that bulb is beginning to form on many of my kohlrabi.  Flea beetle seem to be doing limited damage so far, save for on my loose-leaf lettuce mix that I am still waiting to get tall enough to cut.  I also put in three eggplant (‘Hansel’) transplants and placed support netting on bamboo stakes over my row of cut flowers for when the taller varieties shoot up.

 

Starting a Collection? May 10, 2009

 

It’s been lurking at the edge of my list of passions for awhile – a swelling interest in the group of plants lumped under the common name “succulents”.  I find them marvelously diverse and architectural, not to mention relatively low-maintenance, which suits my gardening style to a “T”.    This past week I visited a wholesale grower of succulents near West Chester, Pennsylvania.  After drooling over the extensive selection there, I decided it was high time to start my very first plant collection.   This decision actually wasn’t spur-of-the-moment.  Ever since I saw some of the fantastical Euphorbia obesa and Pseudolithos migiurtianus specimens at the Philadelphia Flower Show earlier this year, I’ve been on the hunt for a few interesting specimen plants of my own.   But it wasn’t until I walked the crowded aisles of this wholesaler that I decided I needed a full-blown collection.  I’m not entirely convinced I’ve got a collection on my hands, seeing as how I still don’t have a Pseudolithos… perhaps you can be the judge based on the list below.

 

 Echeveria ‘Red Trump’,  Mammillaria plumose,  and Aeonium ‘Sunburst’

 

- Agave victoriae-regina (Queen Victoria Agave)
- Agave flexispina
- Echeveria lilacina
- Mammillaria fragilis  (Thimble Cactus)
- Myrtillocactus geometrizans (Blue Candle Cactus)
- Kalanchoe luciae (Paddle Plant)
- Aeonium ‘Black Rose’
- Echeveria ‘Red Trump’ (Ruffled Echeveria)
- Echeveria ‘Topsy Turvy’
- Sempervivum ‘Candy Floss’
- Hawarthia fasciata (Zebra Hawarthia)
- Mammillaria plumose (Feather Cactus)
- Aeonium ‘Sunburst’
- 48” tall  Aeonium ‘Black Rose’

Did You Visit? May 8, 2009

 

Wouldn’t you know it…today is National Public Garden Day!  It’s a great excuse to visit some great displays of horticulture, including those at Longwood Gardens.   The photos below were taken in Longwood’s Palm House, which happens to be where I was working today.  There are many reasons why public gardens merit admiration and a journey to experience them.  However, I think my top reason for enjoying the public garden environment is that these gardens often transport you to places that might otherwise be far away, such as a tropical forest or a Japanese tea house. 

 

What’s your favorite public garden and what are some of the reasons you enjoy visiting?