Ligularia - August Bloomers

In late August there are two kinds of Ligularia blooming in my garden. Ligularia dentata 'Britt Marie Crawford' has a deep purple foliage that looks fantastic even without blooms.

While the yellow flowers aren't the prettiest flowers in my garden, during these dog days of summer they are very welcome.

This is the same spot just zooming out a bit. It's taken at least five years for this clump of Ligularia to grow this big. I think they could grow faster if given better soil but there's quite a bit of root competition in this spot from my neighbor's trees.

Ligularia's need a fair amount of shade and lots of water to perform well or even survive. If you have a choice, choose the shade of a tree that has deep roots instead of shallow roots like the Norway Maple my neighbor has let seed all over.

Three years ago I noticed something interesting when weeding near 'Britt Marie Crawford'. There were a few seedlings growing with that distinctive leaf. Some were more purple than others, I weeded out the less purple ones and left the deep purple ones to grow. (By the way, the lighter green seedling will grow up to be a beautiful foxglove.)

This week I've noticed a half dozen or so seedlings popping up. You can bet I'm going to be careful when weeding around here.

The seedlings are not the same as the mother plant. They have different degree's of purple coloration but I'm not such a snob that I'd turn my nose up and ask them to leave.

Over on the other end of the same border is Ligularia dentata 'Othello'. In this first shot you can see a leaf that's been burned by too much sun and not enough water.

This particular plant has been a trooper, hanging on in a spot that the sprinkler doesn't really reach well. For that reason I forgive the few leaves that look like this.

You can see here, it's easy to just snip off the offending leaf if you feel the need.

As always, when you want a plant to reseed in your garden, you need to put up with those dead or dying blooms. Leave them be, let them dry out and they will scatter the seeds for you. You can also take the dried blooms and scatter the seeds yourself but I prefer mother nature to do the job for me. Once the seedlings are growing it's easy to pluck out a few and move them to different parts of the garden.

This weekend is a holiday one for us here in the United States (Labor Day weekend) so I don't know yet how/when/where/ and what I'll be posting about.

Have a fantastic day!
Melanie

Can you grow these?

Can you grow Caladiums? I can't.

About five years ago I shot this opening photo (actually a slide). I was in awe of these beautiful Caladiums (top plant) and wanted to grow them here. Although I've tried for several years, it was no use, I'd kill them off quickly, not even a month or two of enjoyment before they died.

Of course being such an excellent gardener (tongue in cheek here) I assumed that Caladiums are impossible to grow. It certainly couldn't because I couldn't grow them. It must be that they don't like the growing conditions where I live. Yes, that's it, they just won't grow here in south Huntington and it's nothing that I've been doing wrong.

Earlier this week I saw the most luscious clump of Caladiums ever. This clump was bigger and better than anything I'd seen at the local arboretums. This clump was growing in a container, right up my very street, at my friends Gianna and Richard's house. Harumph...I guess some people know how to grow Caladiums.

Here you can see the whole container, isn't it a beauty? Luckily for me Rich was there and told me the one big secret. "Caladiums" said Rich, "are almost aquatic plants". Meaning that they need to be wet at all times.

Ah ha! That's the problem then, I had them in regular containers that dried out. Now I'm going to try them again but in a container without holes in the bottom and see if they will look this beautiful for me.

Just to prove it's not a fluke, here's another fantastic container at Gianna and Rich's. It too looks perfect which goes to show, Caladiums do grow here in south Huntington, New York.

Can you grow Caladiums?

Germany - The Flower Market

On our recent trip to Germany, we spent a delightful morning at the outdoor market in the city Mainz (along the Rhine river). Mom and I could have stayed there twice as long and still not have seen ( & tasted) enough.

Before we had visited this town I had been photographing the various flower stands we saw in different places. All of those photos paled in comparison with what we saw in Mainz. The wealth of bloom stalks and pre-made arrangements were just astounding.

I've never seen this thistle-like plant growing here but I know I would like to have it in my garden!

I have grown Nigella (love in a mist) and Dill but never thought of gathering them like this to be used in an arrangement.

Here's a sample of some arrangements. The women at these stands all were smiling and laughing and the whole time their hands were busy fashioning new bunches of blooms.

How about these beauties! I kept wondering if they were home grown or bought wholesale and then sold here.

Hot colors seemed to be the most popular. Each stand had a different flavor/style of arrangements.

Sunflowers were everywhere. This is one plant we see for sale everywhere here in New York too. You can't drive very far east on Long Island before seeing farm stand after farm stand chock full of sunflowers.


I've never been at an outside market in America although I know many places have them. A few weeks ago somebody told me that there's an outside market in our own town of Huntington. I've never, ever heard of it before so I would be very interested in finding out if that is true.

Do they have outdoor markets where you live?

Day's of Summer - Daylilies

This morning I began my new term as Board of Education trustee up at our high school. Our students don't return until after Labor day (next Monday) so technically (besides what the calendar says) it's still summer here.

Growing daylilies has been a passion of mine for 14 years now. At one point, just two years ago, my collection peaked at 450 different cultivars. Slowly but surely I've been reducing that number, eventually I'd like to get it down to 200 of the best performing plants.

What is amazing about this opening photo is that it was taken just yesterday. There are thousands and thousands of different daylilies. Tall ones, short ones, ruffled ones and plain ones. There are red, purple, yellow, orange, cream, pink, peach and a multitude of combinations of color. There are round daylilies and narrow daylilies too but most importantly there are early, mid and late blooming daylilies.

If you want to have daylilies blooming for more than three weeks in your garden you need to look for varieties that bloom at different times. This photo shows a late blooming daylily named 'Royal Jester'. It looks incredible combined with this hardy begonia (if somebody knows the botanical name of this begonia please leave a comment for me).

Just two weeks ago, in mid August I took this photo. The dominant daylilies here are 'Point of View' which is one of the best performing reds (in my opinion) and 'Big Bird' which is the tall yellow that does such a wonderful job of echoing the yellow throat of 'Point of View'. If you are wondering why the Queen Ann's Lace is allowed to grow in my garden, it's because it invites beneficial insects that eat thrips (a not at all beneficial insect).

Just before I left for Germany (the first week of July) I took a few photos of the daylilies that were beginning to bloom. This cool yellow narrow form on 'Flight of Angel's' just stopped me in my tracks. I love the unusual form of narrow daylilies that cascade and curl. They look incredibly graceful combined with many summer perennials.

At one time I grouped my daylilies all together but now I find much more pleasure working them into a total landscape vignette. Here you can see the little daylily 'Pimento Pepper' combined with Salvia and Lychnis.

Always perfect, year after year is this luscious purple 'Star of India' with the amazing appliqued pattern in the yellow throat. Combined with the purplish blues of the Salvia and the pale yellow Achillea, I think this is one of the best grouping I've ever designed.

Out in front of my house I have a clump of daylilies that is not registered with the American Hemerocallis Society. This daylily is a seedling that my youngest daughter Emily hybridized and best of all, I have a photo taken of her on the day she made this cross!

The daylily may not be worthy of registration but in the garden we call it 'Little Em' and it's a blooming fool. With little blooms on tall scapes, it's the perfect addition as a landscape daylily.

As a closing shot, this daylily is right next to the one in my opening photo. The difference is that this one blooms in early July while the other one blooms in late August. By planting them side by side I've extending the show in this spot (see how much smaller the Begonia foliage is?).

This cultivar is 'Lounge Lizard' and I'm just blown away by it's beauty.

Well that's it for today, this year I missed most of the daylily season but just wait until next year!

The secret of Lunaria

One of the few plants that was growing on this property when we moved here was Lunaria. I had never grown it before and really didn't pay it much attention.

Lunaria is a biennial, meaning that it lives two years. The first year it only grows foliage and the second year it blooms and scatters seeds. If you want your biennials like Lunaria to return year after year you have to let them go to seed.


The good news about Lunaria is that it has an interesting seed pod so people tend to leave it alone until it finishes scattering it's seed.

I have seen beautiful bunches of Lunaria seed pods in other homes or for sale at garden shops but the Lunaria in my garden always looked dingy to me. I just figured I had a different type and never really looked too closely.

This week I began to clean out a bed which had the above shown clump of Lunaria in it. As I was working near it I discovered something I had never known before.

Here's a close up shot of the Lunaria. See how dirty some of the seed pods are? They are transparent enough so you can easily see the seeds inside them.

I was under the impression that there were two outter pieces and the seeds were on the inside. Now I know I was wrong. There are three thin pieces of pod. Two outside pieces and one inside one that is protected from the rain and dirt of the garden.

Cutting off the dried branches as close to the soil as possible I started to clean each individual pod. It just takes a light rub with two damp fingers. Don't rub to hard or you'll rub off all three layers. Since I suddenly realized what a treasure I had here I wanted to save every seed possible so I did this over a piece of paper so I could gather the seed and scatter them in beds that didn't have Lunaria in the past.

See how nice and shiny the inner layer is?

Finally, here's the real treasure. A beautiful bunch of Lunaria in a simple old pitcher. This arrangement will last all winter long if not longer. I made sure I placed it in a spot where the sunlight would come through the pods. How I wish I hadn't weeded out so many Lunaria seedlings over the last years.

When I first made this discovery I came running in to show my two teenage daughters. It was a true "duh" moment as they looked at me and said "mom, how could you not know this?". Then they reminded me of all the years they played with the seed pods as they were young children. Emily told me that she always got three dollars from one pod. No wonder she acts like money grows on trees :-)

Lunaria has lots of nicknames. Around here we called it the "money plant" or "silver dollars". My girls used those seed pods as money for many an imaginary game. I guess I have to thank them for the fact that Lunaria is still growing in my garden.

Hopefully now I've scattered enough seeds in various beds that next year or the year after I will have lots and lots of bouquets to share with friends.

Do you have a green thumb?

What do you say, do you have a green thumb?

My mom has always said I could get anything to grow. Well here's an interesting example. Last year my garden club friends and I made Hydrangea wreaths. This spring I took one out of my house and hung it on the shed. It quickly lost it's beautiful shades of blue and green but I still left it there.

One day I walked by only to notice that the straw wreath I used as a base was now sprouting. I just know my mom would say "see, you can even get a dry straw wreath to grow".

Today my oldest daughter is off to school again...time to be a mom...

By the way, one of these days I'll take some photos of how to make a Hydrangea wreath. Kim, I'll need your help!

Outta my Gourd

This past spring I did a post on some of the women in my garden club making newspaper pots and planting heritage seeds. One of the types of seeds we planted was for birdhouse gourds.


You can see the package here on the left of this photo. I don't know the botanical name for these gourds.

There was a left over plant which I put into a large tree pot. As it began to grow I didn't quite know what to do with it but suddenly I had an inspiring thought. Behind my shed was this old metal arch that I had bought at Michael's Arts and Crafts store for a whopping $12 (using a coupon).

As you can see in this close up, the arch was just the right amount of support for these gourds. There are three big ones growing on it and lots of little ones. The little ones seem to rot out and fall off before they get as long as a finger so I don't know if there's a maximum amount of large gourds a single plant can sustain.

Before I left for Germany I noticed some new foliage growing out front in my perennial borders. I knew it was something unusual so I let it grow. Two weeks ago some friends were here and one of them pointed out that some type of gourd was growing at the base of one of the flowers.

Looking closely inside the foliage you can see what is growing there. It looks like the little white pumpkin called 'Baby Boo'. Last year I had bought a sack of assorted gourds and decorated my house with them. After Thanksgiving, I threw them on my compost heap. Looks like the seeds came through the winter!

By the way, those black specks aren't insects, the sprinklers were just on and they're just bits of soil.

Across the driveway in another perennial border is yet another compost gourd. This one has selected a nice location between some pretty Rudbeckia fulgida (Black eyed susans).

Looking inside this foliage you can see what is growing here too. There's a second one of these gourds but not located where I can photograph it well. It appears to be more rounded than the 'Baby Boo's' so I'm not sure yet what it will become.

Isn't this exciting?

I wonder if all gourds start out white and then turn colors?

This is the first time I've ever grown something like this and I feel like a kid with a new toy :-)

Off to water the garden,

Melanie

Dear Friends...

Dear Friends,

What can I say? It seems I've hit the writer's block wall, I just didn't have any desire to sit here and blog.

Blogging has been a wonderful way for me to share the passion and joy in my garden. Maybe, that's why my lack of blogging reflected my lack of gardening. Getting ready for my trip to Germany I began to ignore the garden and once I returned, it only got worse.

My husband Don did a monumental job of keeping the garden beds watered while I was gone. It figures that the hottest, driest spell of the summer was during those two weeks. Since I've been home I've rarely had to turn on the sprinklers although today would be a good day to do so.

Tuesday a strange feeling came over me. I was so sick and tired of the mass of weeds along my driveway that I decided to pull a few of them out. Two hours later I had filled many bucket loads but the garden didn't look any different. Yesterday I went on the attack and spent 6 hours weeding and hauling bucket after bucket load to the woods. Note, I use large tree planting pots when I weed as they are very light and if I stop working and it rains the water runs out of the holes in the bottom.

This morning I woke up with the urge to take some photos and share them with you but Don took my camera to work so that will have to wait. I've discovered some new delights in the garden, the secret of Lunaria and most amazingly, gourds!

I can hear you now, "she must be out of her gourd" but I just find this so cool. Last year when it was time to decorate for Christmas, I threw the decorative autumn gourds on my compost heap.
In June I noticed some strange foliage in my garden in three different locations. I couldn't figure out what it was but decided not to weed them out. This week I've discovered that I've got gourds growing in my garden. They look like little white pumpkins, I think they're called 'Baby Boo' and I'm so excited about them! To top it all off, my birdhouse gourds are growing like crazy and I've got three big gourds plus tons of babies coming along.

Hopefully I'll get some photos posted here tomorrow. Thanks for sticking with me through this spell and thanks for all the comments. My mom is back in Florida and doing well (although getting soaked with Fran right now). Last night was my first Board of Education meeting (Hi Gail!) today my youngest daughter returns from band camp, and this weekend my older daughter heads back to college in Pennsylvania.

Time to get my fingernails dirty again,
Melanie

Germany, Part Five, Gudrun's Garden

Our second week in Germany was spent visiting several family members in different cities. My brother Michael had to return to California but Mom and I were lucky to be able to see quite a bit more. Our experiences with the German rail were wonderful, not as timely as we were led to believe but they were clean, safe, comfortable and fast.

Leaving Hamburg we headed south to Hanover to my cousin Gudrun's house. Gudrun and I had met only once as young children and then last December we met in Florida, almost 40 years later. I think if we lived in the same town we would be the best of friends, we have many of the same likes and dislikes.

The opening photo was taken outside the entrance to the Schloss Marienburg and Gudrun is the one without an umbrella. She and I even look alike!

If you are in the area of Hanover, I highly recommend touring the Schloss Marienburg. If it hadn't been raining so hard I would also have loved to tour the grounds and sit outside and have lunch in this amazing courtyard.

After spending a morning at the castle, Gudrun took us to the most delightful city of Hameln where the story of the Pied Piper is to have taken place. Unfortunately we were in quite a downpour for half of the day so I don't have as many photos from this town as I would like.

Rather than show lots of building facades, I wanted to show off Gudrun's delightful garden in this post (and yes, credit also goes to her husband Winfried).

The very first thing to catch my eye was the largest butterfly bush I had ever seen. Two years ago I saw a number of Buddleia's in England and Scotland although they tended to be lavender and white. Germany was filled with these lovely shrubs too but the predominant color was dark purple. Gudrun's shrub had to be over 3 meters (9 feet) tall and possibly 4 meters (12 feet).

Globes were in many of the gardens that I had seen and sure enough Gudrun had them too. Too bad they were too heavy to pack and bring home, I saw many varieties in the stores we visited.

Look carefully at these containers, do you see what caught my eye?

Here's a closer look. I was amazed at the combinations Gudrun chose for her planters. Impatiens with Peppers, Sunflowers and Strawberries, Tomatoes with Impatiens too, something that would never work here in America.

The higher heat and lesser rain water we have here in New York makes our containers dry out much faster. Gardeners around here water container plants once or even twice every day. Impatiens in the sun just droop too quickly, we use them as shade plants but in Gudrun's garden, they were just wonderful with her sunny vegetables.

Phlox was just beginning to bloom in the garden, I have quite a few of them here too and have been taking photographs of them for a future post. Some of mine have terrible powdery mildew and others are perfectly clean like this one in Gudrun's garden.

I was just green with envy when I saw this delightful Asian inspired pond in the corner of the garden. It was filled with goldfish and the sound of the trickling water was exactly what the relaxing gardener would want to hear.

Outdoor eating areas were a prerequisite in any German home with a garden and Gudrun and Winfried had a perfect set up. Two solid walls and a roof kept out the weather when it was cold or raining but two open sides let in all of nature.

Here you can see the view that one had while sitting at the table. Our first evening there we had supper outside. As the sun sets quite late in the summer (about 10:00 pm would be my guess), sitting outside with cold cuts of meat, thick slices of fresh bread and lots of tomatoes and mozzerella cheese makes a heavenly way to end the day.

Hydrangeas were very popular in many of the gardens. These were right in front of Gudrun's house and you can see how pink they are. Our soil here is much more acidic and my Hydrangeas all turn deep blue and purple.

Lavender was another plant we saw in just about every garden and again, Gudrun had waves of it planted in front of her house. It was a sure sign that the German winters were more mild than what we get here on Long Island.

Long Island gardens near the ocean (with sandy soil) can grow lavender like this but it does not overwinter well at all in my area.

Ok, next post will be a biggie, as just minutes from Gudrun and Windfried's home is the most spectacular botanical garden I have ever had the pleasure to visit.

Till then...

Melanie