Fall Colors

It has been a busy summer and fall, mainly due to demands at work. Gardening and blogging (and housecleaning and camping and reading and...) have all been cut back a bit this fall because of work. Ah well, at least I have the job to keep me busy to pay for the gardening.

Throughout September and October I have snuck outside now and then and snapped a few pictures of Autumn Beauty. Here are some of my favorite scenes from this Fall.

I took them over several weeks, and unfortunately don't have dates to identify when each one was taken. It would be nice to have written that down, because it would be a good indicator of what was blooming when. Certainly I can write down a few thoughts and comments from this Fall, things that I hope I remember next year to help ensure a great looking Fall in the garden.

My first thought as I think through these pictures is that I need to tie up the sunflowers more securely next year. One of the squirrels discovered Ian's big sunflower next to the deck stairs landing, and by leaping onto the flowers to munch the seeds, he knocked the whole plant over even though it was tied up to the deck railing. It was a beautiful flower, and still looked pretty nice mostly lying on its side on a shrub, but it would have been better if it was staked more securely in the first place.

Another thought is that the Sedum Matrona falls apart in the middle and doesn't look very good right now. I think if it were tied up similarly with my secret peony trick, it would look much better into the later months of Fall.

In the picture above of the row of alyssum with the marigold at the end, it all looks pretty good. That was a couple weeks ago. Now that it's getting a bit colder and darker, the marigold is blacking off; the alyssum and dusty miller still look great. I gathered some seed of the alyssum this year and plan to start some next spring in my little bookshelf greenhouse and edge some other areas of the garden with it next year.

It's getting very thin now this time of year for plants that are still looking good. Annuals still going strong include petunias, alyssum, and dusty miller. Perennials include asters (purple dome and alma potschke), queen of the prairie, sedums, karl forrester, lambs ears, and gallardia. I do have a burning bush out there, but it has never, ever burned for me. I don't know why, it has plenty of sun, plenty of moisture... maybe it's the clay soil. I should look it up and see if there is something that can be done to help it along.

Our trees are also looking wonderful this year. All the moisture we had has really brought the fall colors out. The burgundy bell maples on the boulevard had a gorgeous burgundy color, the autumn blaze maples were beautiful red, the birches lovely gold, and the norway maple out front was absolutely amazing, almost a full rainbow from top to bottom of rust, red, orange, yellow, and green. I think we picked our trees well when we planted them here.

I did want to move the two pink flowering crabs this fall, and we didn't get that done. It's probably too late to do that now since they won't have time to settle in before winter. Maybe we should still do it this weekend, because they can't be moved in the spring. Hmm, I'll have to think about that. They sit in such damp spots right now that they barely grow. They live, but do not thrive, and I think if I move them up the hill a bit they will do much better.

Many more topics and things to do to talk about yet this fall. But for right now the color this fall has been great, and I am well pleased with my autumn garden.

August Bonanza

The garden has been having a bonanza of a summer. It has been a season of excessive rain followed by extraordinary heat and sun, and the garden went wild for a time, growing abundantly and spreading in all directions. I, meanwhile, have been having a difficult and stressful summer. My mother was in the hospital during June, eventually entering hospice and passing away on June 26th. Her funeral was held the first week of July, followed by working through the estate distributions, including holding a big garage sale and selling some things online. Plus work continued on, plus soccer and gymnastics, plus everything else of life.

Because of the pressing needs, then, to be elsewhere this summer, I have not been able to spend a lot of time in the garden. That hasn't deterred its wild abundance, and for a while it had a crazy wild-jungle-foliage vibe going on. Fortunately - well, fortunately in the end, though at the time I did not appreciate it - hubby turned 50 this summer. I threw him a big birthday bash - "50 friends for 50 years" he called it, though it was probably closer to 70 friends than to 50.

Anyway, in preparation for the bash I did the equivalent of cramming for a final, only in this case it was a gardening final. Starting about three weeks before the party I took every spare moment and began weeding, tying up, trimming, shaping, and mulching. That may sound like it could be excessive but you have to understand that the number of spare moments I had was only a couple hours each week, and of course it was always the hottest, stillest, muggiest hours of the week. I yanked a thousand thistles, and dumped about 75 bags of mulch. I pruned enough greenery to fill our 90 gallon yard waste container so full that I had to smash it down over and over to get it all to fit.

And it was ready. On the day of the party the yard looked awesome. Sunflowers blooming, tomatoes and peppers on the vine, VIPs in stellar shape. Fountain bubbling sweetly. Ahh, it was sweet. There were things that didn't get done - those mostly dead lilacs, for example, are still just mostly dead and not yet totally dead and dug out - but still it was good. The party was great, good food, good friends, a storm that briefly blew through and brought Heaven's blessing of cooler weather at last. Kids in the jumper, babies on the arm, keg out back, plenty of laughter, and Fifty Years of Jeff in the living room (photos from birth on up, and some hysterically amusing).

And on the next day I was able to relax. Sweet.

So now I'm back to writing, which I love, although I'm bummed that I missed a couple months. Next summer maybe will be saner.

So my first update, now that you've been caught up on the events of the last few weeks, is to revisit my VIPs and the front of the house. The new petunia type - the Rays - are performing well and I would be happy to do them again. The automatic watering is not enough to keep them moist, but that's okay because I like to feed them heavily to keep them big and beautiful, and I do that via watering can anyway. The hanging baskets look good with their usual red, white and blue color scheme, but the window boxes could use something. I did white petunias and African daisies this year, and while they're all healthy the petunias have far outgrown the daisies, and you can barely see the purple daisies in there for all the white petunias. I never really have found my mojo on the window boxes and keep changing them up each year. It's hard to be too wild with them because a) they need to coordinate with the hanging baskets above, b) the feeding and watering needs to benefit all resident flowers, and c) try to avoid yellow because the house is yellow. Next year maybe I'll just do all white petunias. Then again, maybe not. :)

Out front there are purple petunias with light centers in the raised bed, and that looks stellar. I will be happy to do that again next year. There are a few coleus in there too, but they aren't doing so well, and not worthy of repeating.

Along the front sidewalk is the usual parade of dusty miller and alyssum, and that looks great as always. They are joined this year by a bright orange marigold volunteer, and it looks kind of neat having that bright punch of bold color. I love love love this alyssum, it returns year after year and is a little bit bushy and has a sweet scent. I forget if this is Snow Crystals or Carpet of Snow. I bought some alyssum from the nursery this year and it's very small and tidy, but I like the big blowsy stuff better. I need to capture the seed and grow my own next year to have it in more spaces in the garden. Interestingly, I just went looking on the web to see if I can identify the right name of my alyssum, and some of the websites mention that it is good in window boxes. Hmmmm... hmmmmm. Gathering ideas for next year. :)

Coleus on either side of the front door are doing well. I tried a few new varieties this year, and they aren't doing as well as in years past. That is probably more related to the fact that I have been lazy about feeding them, rather than due to the new varieties.

One other update from the front of the house is about the curly willow branches. If you remember, these sprouted unexpectedly this spring after being used for winter decoration all last season. They have grown quite a bit and are now tall and green. Kind of a fun thing actually, and it even looks good having those green branchy things with the flowers at the base. I'd like to repeat this again but I'm not sure if it will be possible. What are the chances that this would repeat?

All things considered, the front is looking pretty good. There are things I want to change of course, namely the lamium-gone-wild that exists in the raised bed, but I already have a plan to snag a hosta or two from Ian's crowded garden. Despite the neglect, despite the heat, despite the humongous storms that have plowed through our area time after time this year, the front is cheerful and vibrant and welcoming. What more could a gardener ask?

Beautiful June

June is here and brings with it some of the most beautiful flowers. Peonies, delphiniums, daisies, nepeta, roses, sanguineum, heuchera, clematis, anemone, yarrow, and thyme are all blooming. Lambs ears are going strong too. although I wish those would actually not bloom. Even some of the hosta are starting to bloom, although most won't begin for a while yet. It's a really lush, beautiful time in my garden.

It rained much of the day today, but I got outside for a short while before it started. My mission: prune the lilacs. I have eight lilacs to prune. Last year I had eleven but three - three! - died over the winter.

Lilacs don't really die altogether, they have a sneaky way of mostly dying, and one is left with the hard decision of whether to let them stick around half-dead or to pull them out and start over with something else. Three of mine mostly died this past winter, and I have already dug out one; the other two are just waiting their turns.

Actually, they are waiting for hubby to get around to them, because he more than I does the heavy digging around here.

Anyway, I got out in the yard and did about half of the lilacs. This was really really enjoyable, snipping off the spent flower heads and dead wood. What a simple thing, but it was one of those moments, the cool air with rain coming in, the green bushes vibrant and lush, peace in the yard. Moments like these are one of the great benefits of gardening.

Saint Lou Eee.

Jeff, Ian and I just returned from a long weekend in Saint Louis. We went there to visit friends and did a quick turnaround, drove down on Saturday and came back on Tuesday. We made it to the Arch of course. Jeff and I were there about 8 years ago and took the ride to the top. It's these little yellow bubbles that are totally enclosed with seats for five people, and the door is shut tightly, and it's too small to sit fully upright. It's kind of claustrophobic, but it works.

We went to the top again this weekend, for Ian. We had to buy tickets the first day, and return the second day to actually do it because the wait was long. It was the same ride as before, but Ian liked it, and the view from the top was still spectacular.

Gardening-wise, there are a few things to mention. St Louis had quite a bit of landscaping, and most of it looked exactly like this picture: grass and daylily. Definitely overused. St Louis could use some creativity in the landscaping department and learn about plants other than these.

There were a couple of interesting plants that I found while we were there. One was something that looked like a purple globe thistle that I saw on a weedy boulevard near the new Busch Stadium. It was actually very pretty and I wish I had taken a picture but we were just walking by and I didn't stop. The other plant that looked interesting was a giant tall grass in a parking lot. It must have been 7 feet tall, and would have been fabulous to bring back and plant at the back of our yard to block the 6 foot tall chain link fence the family behind us put up a couple years ago.

Our hotel had a couple of these giant containers out front that had great potential. I always like the super-duper large containers and these were massive. Unfortunately, the hotel had planted them with little bitty annuals that looked ridiculous. These huge containers could be planted with large green leafy plants like big ferns and shrubs and a few tall flowers, and they could have looked grand and imposing. But planted like this, they just kind of looked sad and like they are not living up to their potential.

After mourning the loss of many of my irises, they now seem to be coming back into my life. My friend Beth in St Louis had ordered iris bulbs, though mail order I think, and then realized that she probably will never get them planted in her yard. When we visited her house she gave me this package of irises, each with the name of the variety written on the leaf, and asked me to bring these back to Minnesota and plant them in my garden.

Of course I am honored. The reason that she will not be planting them is that she is very sick, and while she loves flowers, and irises in particular, she doesn't have the energy to plant and care for a garden right now. So I will plant them in my yard, and give them a lot of tlc and extra attention, and hope that they bloom next year so she can see pictures.

Weeding and Watering

While weeding I've been noticing that the flower gardens are getting kind of dry. I used to be able to rely on the lawn as my indicator for when things were getting dry, but now that we have the automatic sprinklers it sneaks up on me sometimes. Today I dug the sprinklers out of the shed and set them up to do some watering.

Years ago Jeff came home with this cheap yellow sprinkler. I love it, it's easy to set up and it works well. We have two green sprinklers that cost more and have metal tubing and just look like they are high quality. They are crummy and don't work nearly as well. I guess it just goes to show that you can't tell anything based on looks alone.

There was a very nice surprise waiting out in the garden tonight. For a long time I have longed for pink irises. Every now and then you see them, a few in someone's garden, and they are always lovely. So a few years ago I found an iris at a nursery that had a tag indicating it was pink, snapped it up, and popped it in the garden. It has lived, and I think there was a single bloom one year, but it hasn't done much beyond that.

Tonight, for the first time, this pink iris is covered in blooms. There must be at least half a dozen, and it is just gorgeous. Patience pays off! The iris borer may have taken my grape-bubblegums, but it left these pinks, and for that I am grateful.

I tied up the last of the peonies tonight. The ones in the back yard are blooming beautifully, the ones out front are full of big fat buds. It's funny how little differences in site can change bloom times like that.

Out front the Johnsons's blue sanguineum is blooming, the fuchsia sanguineum and columbine are blooming in Ian's garden. The lilacs are blooming and smell incredible, I catch their scent as I'm moving around the yard. Surprising me by being so early, the delphiniums have budded out hugely and are going to have some gorgeous flowers in the next couple days. A few other plants are going now, the nepeta, coral bells, and the azalea have all been blooming for a while. It's not exactly a riot of bloom out there though, and the garden definitely needs more things that bloom in May.

Another neat thing that showed up this year is in the vegetable garden. We always have a salad garden with lettuce and spinach, and last year I pulled all the plants, but was a little late; the lettuce had bolted and been out there for a while.

This year we have lettuce coming up from seed that must have fallen from the old bolted plants last summer. It's scattered in a very naturalistic manner, and kind of makes me think of how the rule for planting naturalized bulbs is to throw them on the ground and plant them where they fall. That's what they look like, just planted where they fell.

Hot Hot Hot!

As cold as it has been this spring, suddenly, overnight, it is hot. Today was in the 90's and humidity was high. I spent most of the day in an air-conditioned office building of course, but was gloriously free to spend some time outdoors after dinner tonight.

First order of the evening was to water the VIPs. The hanging baskets are up of course, as are the window boxes. They are settling in nicely. Jeff fixed up the automatic watering tonight - unfortunately it was cut somehow - and they should all start getting watered twice a day. Last year we tried this but the emitters were too slow and hardly any water trickled out. This year sees new emitters and hopefully better automated watering.

The flower pot out front with the living curly willow is looking very nice planted with red salvia. The green of the willow is getting bigger all the time, and I wonder what it will look like by fall. I wonder what would happen if I planted it in the ground come autumn? That might be a fun experiment to try this winter.

I did some weeding of course. Thistles, nettles, and grass, oh my. The pleasant part of weeding tonight was that I was doing it near this big Miss Kim lilac bush. The scent kept drifting over to me as I crouched next to an enthusiastic William Baffin rosebush, carefully yanking nettle and prying up thistles and doing my best to avoid getting poked by William. I planted this bush years ago right beneath our dining room window - you can see the window - with the sole purpose of having that lovely scent drift into the house through that open window. Years later, it actually works as planned. How sweet it is.

Another chore I accomplished tonight is the tying up of peonies in the front yard. "What?" you exclaim in horror, "Tying up peonies? Everyone knows you use peony cages and stick them over the plant early in spring!" No, no, little grasshoppers. Let me show you a better way.

All you need are the tools pictured here: garden twine and a sharp scissors. Dull scissors will do in a pinch, and so will any kind of string for that matter, but garden twine and sharp scissors are best.

Pull a length of string out of the can. This depends on the size of the peony, so eyeball the diameter of the bush and cut it off at that length. This isn't spaceship trajectory calculation, don't worry about being super accurate. Then take the twine and pull it around the peony, keeping toward the upper third of the plant. Hold onto both ends and then tie them together for the amount of tied-togetherness that appeals to you. This simple technique will hold the bush up for the entire season, is completely hidden by the leaves, and easily cleans up in the fall with no peony cages to store over winter. Nothing could be simpler. I've done this for years and it always works. Try it, you'll never do cages again.

I took a few snapshots tonight of some things that are looking good in the garden. This peony is always the first to open in my yard, it sits on the west side of the house and always blooms about a week before the others.

The alium is one of three that are up this year. I planted maybe 6 a few years ago, and it seems they are slowly dwindling. I really like these plants, and may have to order more of them this year. I've never had the actual Globemaster, but this may be the year to get one.

My little brunnera is still blooming and looking pretty with its cloud of blue flowers above nice green foliage. It's been blooming for at least 6 weeks and is one of my favorite plants. I saw they had these at Sargeants this spring, and am tempted to get another, but have resisted so far.

The sad stick-tree is a lilac tree. One of those balls-on-a-stick looking things, which hasn't looked very ball like in a number of years because I haven't been a very effective pruner. This spring I went after it with the clippers, and now it's not looking too good. As in, not many leaves, not many blooms. Whole branches are clearly dead. I don't know if it's because I trimmed it up, or if it's because we had such late frosts, but the poor thing is clearly struggling. After bloom time is done I'll trim out the dead parts, leave the growing parts alone, and then hope for the best. I do love my lilacs, I'd hate to lose it.