Germany, The beginning...

For those of you who are new here, my mom and I just returned from a wonderful two week tour of central and northern Germany (where we have many relatives).

Our first two days were spent in the charming town of Heidelberg. Our intention was to spend two days on our own as our bodies acclimated to the time, weather and food changes. It was a good idea and worked perfectly for us.

This first shot was taken from the castle, overlooking the town and the Neckar River. Our hotel was ideally placed at the left end of the historic pedestrian-only bridge in the center of the photo.
Although we knew there was a botanical garden in Heidelberg, we never made it over to that area but no worries, there was plenty of flowers for us to see. It seemed like everywhere we turned there were balconies just dripping with wonderful annuals.

In most cases the plants were ones that would not survive the summer heat and sporadic droughts here in New York so I imagine it would be the same for most of the USA. The ivy Geraniums in this photo were the number one, most popular plant we saw in all the German cities we visited.

It was hard to decide what to photograph. The storybook-like historic buildings built into the hillsides or the plant material that so gleefully took hold in every possible nook and cranny.

Corydalis lutea was like a weed, it filled the surface of so many stone facades and still had quite a bit of bloom in July.


Walking out of the tourist areas, where the locals lived, we came across balcony after balcony just loaded with blooms. Wisteria was fairly frequent, trained to grow up the sides of the buildings.

Also popular were these Hibiscus syriacus shrubs which were the most amazing shade of lavender blue. Unfortunately I took many shots but my camera just couldn't capture the true depth of color.

It's funny, I see these shrubs all over my neighborhood and yet I always had the feeling from gardeners that they were kind of "junky". Now of course I want one for my garden and I'll have to start shopping around for the right color.

The hotel we stayed at was a total surprise. As we rolled our heavy suitcases along the cobblestone streets, we were exhausted and our first impression when we saw the entrance was "uh oh". It turns out that our impression was totally wrong, the place was total perfection in our experience.

Inside the simple doorway was a cozy courtyard just filled with gemutlichkeit (German for comfort, warmth, ambiance and so on). The owners of this hotel bent over backwards to make sure we were comfortable, even lending us umbrella's as the skies darkened.

The tables in the hotel were all filled with simple arrangements of fruit. We learned quickly that the German people love their fruit and I must say that we ate an abundance of locally grown, organic, freshly picked fruit in every part of Germany that we visited.

Last stop in Heidelberg was the train station, this was just a corner of the bicycle parking lot. Watching all the pedestrians and cyclists, made me wish for a similar lifestyle here on Long Island.

Stay tuned, next stop on our tour is up north in the Hamburg vicinity.

Stockrosen - Hollyhocks

Stockrosen, Hollyhocks, or Alcea, whatever you call them, they are beautiful. Since I am now back in New York, I'll use the American name of Hollyhocks although I admit that I like the German name of stockrosen (translated as stick-roses).

One of the first individual flowers to catch my eye in Germany were these amazing clumps of Hollyhocks in front of many of the darling postcard cottages.

This top plant was photographed in a large botanical garden in Hanover, more about that garden will follow. Unfortunately, most of the times I saw these Hollyhocks were while we were in a moving car so I don't have photos of some of the most amazing clumps.

Luckily though, my aunt, Tante Inge has a fantastic garden in the tiny, rural village of Krukow (east of Hamburg). This was one of her Hollyhocks, growing against the back of the house.

A few feet further was this darker pink variety. Each plant in the garden was a slightly different shade but always in the pink family. I have to say, I've been totally sold on these beauties and can't wait to have some growing in my own garden!

Any tips from those of you who grow these from seed would be much appreciated.

Hello from Germany

Hi all!

A quick hello from me, here in Hofheim, Germany (near Frankfurt).

Our flight home is tomorrow morning and as promised, I've got hundreds and hundreds of photos to share.

The number one favorite flower here of mine are "stockrosen" or Hollyhocks. They are eveywhere you look and just stunning. Hydrangeas are also everywhere in every shade of pink you can imagine.

The weather has been cool and wet but the people warm, wonderful and the food...delicious! I don't dare go on the scale for awhile after eating every possible type of wurst I can get my hands on.

Be back soon!
Melanie

Vacation Time!

We are just about packed up and ready to go on our wonderful vacation to Germany. As a final blog, I thought I'd show you a few images shot in the past few days.

Up top is Calie the wonder-doodle who has once again captured a hapless chipmunk in the see-saw. As you can see she is quite determined to give it the ride of it's life as she makes first one side and then the other go up and down.

The Hydrangeas are just beginning to bloom and I expect when we return in just over two weeks that we'll find an abundance of these amazing flowers waiting for us.

One of my all time favorite flowers is blooming now. This Stachys monieri has been in my garden for so many years I don't remember when it first arrived. It's very similar to the named variety 'Humelo' that has become popular around here but this one is a wonderful pale pink.

The daylily show has just begun and hopefully I'll still catch the last act when we come home. 'Radiation Biohazard' here is indistructable even with lots of rain storms coming through.

Hemerocallis 'Flight of Angels' is another show stopper, so cool and serene that I just had to stop and drool for a few minutes.

'Smoke Scream' on the other hand has a loud brassy call but you still have to stop and admire it's beauty!

One final look at Calie. While she's sipping water from the pool I'll be sipping some of the world's best beer and wine. A dog's life might be grand but I'd rather be me right now.

Expect me back some time the third week of July and I promise, I'll have lots and lots of photos! Many of my relatives that we are visiting are gardening fanatics like me and I just can't wait to see what they are growing and share it with all of you.

Bye,
Melanie

Hypericum 'Brigadoon'

Two weeks ago when I attended the local daylily club meeting, they had a sale going on. Members brought in plants from their gardens and sold them in the back of the room. Most of the plants were perennials and since I was running late, I missed seeing most of the choice plants.

One member though had a few special things left. Frank and his wife Laura are known to collect unusual specimens so I looked very carefully. There were two pots of Hypericum 'Brigadoon'. Now I've never been too excited by Hypericum but I thought "why not" and decided to bring one home.

The plant is in a one gallon pot and had lots of yellow buds. The Hypericum I have in my garden has small nickle size single blooms and that's what I expected with this one.

Imagine my surprise when the first bud opened up and I saw this flower! Wow!!! It's a "stop you in your tracks" kind of bloom.

This time I vow to do my research and give this beauty the correct location. The sites I've looked at so far show it with golden foliage. The plant I have has a light green foliage but then those sites also say that it needs full sun to get that lighter foliage. I don't think Frank & Laura have that much full sun so it will be interesting to see what happens when I give it a prime spot.

Now I just have to decide if it's going in the long driveway bed or the rock wall around the pool. Right now I'm leaning towards the pool area as it's a summer time bloomer.

I'll take a photo again once I decide where to place this beauty.

Acanthus spinosa

Acanthus spinosa, also known as Bear's Breeches is another perennial in my garden that I know very little about. This beauty was planted out front in a fairly shady spot about 5 years ago. I'm not sure it has bloomed every year.

Doing a google search on it this morning I see that it likes full sun to part shade. Also, the photos I found on line were stunning, big massive clumps of blooms. It requires little care, at least I haven't done anything special here. Average amounts of water so it seems happy with what the surrounding perennials are getting. Also, I haven't seen any signs of pests on this plant.

In this photo I stepped back so you can see the Acanthus as it's set in the garden. I'd say this is one of my less inspired combinations. Obviously this plant can really shine if it's in the right location, I think I need to try it in more sun but I'm not sure about moving it.

Do any of you grow Bear's breeches? I'd love any tips on growing this beauty.

For those of you who read here regularly, I guess you can tell that I'm winding down. Getting ready for my trip has become a full time job and this week will be just packed with last minute activities. I will only have time for a few more posts before we leave and there won't be anything posted again until late July.

Hope you are all still here when I get back!

Melanie

Callirhoe

The other day I posted a photo about a plant but couldn't remember the name. Well here it is, Callirhoe involucrata. Now please don't ask me to pronounce this out loud, I can usually come up with a decent pronunciation but this one has me totally stumped.

I've had Callirhoe in the garden 4 or 5 years now. The same two plants, never more, never less. I bought them in a small pot and over the years I've learned little about them.

Callirhoe doesn't stand up on it's own, it needs surrounding plant material to clambor along or a rock wall to cascade down.

It has no pests that I've seen except for rabbits which occasionally find it absolutely delicious.

The flowers only open when the sun is up, they close up in early evening but the strong magenta color still makes the closed buds beautiful.

Today I went to Mobot's site to learn more about this plant. It is part of the Malva family and can grow as far south as Texas (Pauline, are you taking note?). Also, it likes dry to medium soil so I'm guessing it would also do well for Gail in her stony Tennessee soil.

This plant is native to America, I wonder if any of you folks overseas seas have it in your gardens?

If any of you have tips on how to propigate this plant, leave a message. I remember hearing it seeds around but I don't have any seedlings here that I know of.

1 + 1 = Another 1

A few years ago my younger daughter Emily decided she wanted to hybridize some daylilies. Typical of a child, she looked at the process in a whole different light. First she came up with the name she liked and then she looked for the flowers that she though would give her a seedling with the right qualities.

Her name of choice was "Mac & Cheese" so you can guess what color daylilies she decided to work with. This first photo is 'Nutmeg Elf' and it gave Emily the color she wanted. She used this daylily as the pod parent.

The daylily Emily chose to use as a pollen parent was 'Itsy Bitsy Spider', shown in this photo.

All together I think we have 5 seedlings still from that cross. This is the first one to bloom this year. It has clumped up nicely and has excellent budcount and branching. I can't say the flower form is too different from either parent though.

Here you can see it in a clump. It stands quite tall for a small blooming daylily, both parents have that trait. While it will never formally be introduced, it's an excellent plant to have in the border.

I hope the other seedlings bloom before I leave for Germany so I can photograph them and show them here. One of them has an excellent form but unfortunately doesn't have the bud count or branching that this seedling has. Then again, maybe this year it will be better.

Tickled Pink

This week it seems I'm using lots of color in my blog postings. Today's title though really has nothing to do with color in the garden. Instead, something happened to me yesterday that I have to share here.

In ten days I'm heading to Germany with my mom. We have a train pass and besides visiting lots of relatives, we're going to see as much of Germany as possible in 15 days. In order to get ready for the trip I've been taking nice long walks every day so I'm in tip-top shape. Last night I went to our high school and walked on our new track.

As I was walking on the track a woman I recognized jogged past me and we said "hello". On the next lap she stopped me (she was VERY excited) and said she had to show me something. She handed me her cell phone to show me a picture on it. It was a photo of a Japanese Iris. Then she explained that she had bought that Iris at one of my plant sales.

I don't know what I was more tickled about. The fact that she was so excited over a flower or the fact that she had a picture of it in her phone so she could show people. Either way, she really made my day :-)
This post isn't really about flowers but of course I had to put up some photos. The top photo is the bloom on Centaurea dealbata in a sea of Nepeta 'Six Hills Giant' (can you tell I use this Nepeta like crazy?)

The name of the plant in the bottom photo has just totally escaped my brain. Hopefully it will pop up again and I can post it here. If not, maybe one of you will jog my memory.

If I did Roses...

This past Saturday I attended a Long Island Daylily Society meeting at Planting Fields Arboretum. The meeting was a short one and I had 15 minutes to run through one of the display gardens. Since it is June, I decided to go for the rose garden.

The first view one sees is a long pebbled path bordered by a massive wave of Nepeta 'Six Hills Giant'. I thought this was an excellent choice since Lavender isn't always reliable here on Long Island. One big change I noticed was that many of the roses in bloom were smaller fairy type roses. Either it's the season or they've been changing out the tea roses once they die.

Walking down this path was an amazing experience as the air was filled with the buzz of the thousands of bees at work. Even when there was no wind the blooms on the Nepeta waved to and fro as the bees collected their pollen.

The sun was quite bright so this photo is a bit harsh. I loved the color combination of the hot pink roses with the lavender Nepeta blooms.

At one point the garden meets a crossroad (path) that takes you past the perennials. Spaced all along it are posts that are holding up bowers of roses.

It was the most delicious feeling to walk down this path. When you put your nose up against an individual bloom there was no scent but with this multitude of blooms, the whole air was delicately perfumed.

Looking up this is what you would see, it was just heavenly.

One final look upwards. I could imagine being a little girl and lying down on the pebble path as the rose petals rained down. If I grew roses I would want to grow them like this.

Lavender Illusions

The humidity today is so high it feels like the air is wet. Yesterday I posted about the yellows in the garden, today we'll look at the lovely colors the Iris Ensata (Japanese Iris) are showing.

This first clump here was the inspiration for the title of this post, Lavender Illusions. What a lovely color!

This is that seedling that I showed earlier last week. It doesn't seem to open all the way so I guess it will be tossed on the compost heap later this season. Then again I might not be able to be so heartless and I might just have to move it some place else in the garden.


Another clump in bloom out front. This one is a deeper color, more blues and purples showing here.

Japanese Iris are so easy to grow. They like the same conditions as my daylilies. As much sun as possible, lots of good compost, fair amounts of water and dividing every 5 years or so. How can you go wrong with these beauties?

Yellow season

Last year I was posting on a garden list when another gardener posted about how she doesn't like yellow in her garden. I was shocked! So many of the perennials I love are yellow, it's such a strong, happy, sunny color that I never thought somebody would deliberately leave it out of their garden.

As a tease for her I made the above collage in hopes that I would persuade her to fall in love with yellow.

Yesterday as I walked around the garden I thought of her again. It's yellow season in my garden. All the pinks, purples and blues are fading away and the yellows are popping out all over.


Coreopsis are hitting their peak. There are two kinds in this photo, my favorite is Coreopsis 'Zagreb'.
The yellow Kniphofia is also at it's peak. I would love to find more of these that do as well as this one variety. In the past I've had quite a bit of success with some Kniphofias only to have them totally disappear one year.


Here's a close up of the bloom on a Coreopsis lanceolata. I think that is the variety although this isn't my original plant. This type of Coreopsis is short lived but if you leave some heads on they will self sow and you will continue to have them in the garden.


Just winding down are the pale yellow blooms on the Ruta graveolens (Rue). I'm pretty sure they give me a second big bloom flush in the fall. Yesterday I found a few new seedlings which makes me quite happy :-)

Asclepias tuberosa can stop me in my tracks with it's stunning beauty. I now have two clumps along the driveway and it looks like a third one is starting further into the bed.


Hidden under my climbing rose I found the daylily 'Itsy Bitsy Spider' beginning to bloom. This poor baby needs to get moved out of there ASAP!

Another daylily has begun, lots of yellow in this one too, it's 'Wings of Chance' and this photo doesn't do it justice.

The Corydalis lutea is still blooming up a storm. That's one long blooming perennial if you ask me.

As a closing shot, I'd like to show you a flower I came across yesterday as I ran through Planting Fields Arboretum. I was there for a daylily meeting and had about 10 minutes to run to the rose garden and then back to my car. On the way I spotted this beauty but could find no name tag.

If I had to pick a name, I'd try Centaurea but I'll hold off and see if anybody else has a better suggestion. It was growing in full sun and at least 4 feet tall (well over a meter).

Off to walk the garden,
Melanie