A mystery solved...

Last year a woman brought me a large pot with green growth coming out of it. She said that she didn't know the name of the plant but that it grew very well in her garden. She went on to tell me that if I planted it in my garden I'd always have LOTS of it to sell at my plant sales.

Hmmm, with a description like that I was afraid to plant it in the garden until I knew what it was. I decided to leave it in the pot, it looked perfectly happy there. Later, in August, it bloomed and I knew then that it was Physostegia virginia which I had grown many years ago in my first house. I don't remember it being invasive, I just remember being a bit unhappy that it flopped around and that by the time I realized it was going to flop it was covered with bees and I couldn't stake it.

This spring the pot was still on top of the ground and full of green growth. I slid the plant out of the pot and could not believe the mass of roots inside.

Check this out! Wow, it divided wonderfully well and I potted up a half dozen divisions. Then I took three divisions for myself and put them back in that big pot. I dug a hole in the garden and sunk the pot and all in the hole. It did so well in the pot and I don't remember it flopping very much at all so I think I'll keep growing it this way.

Does Physostegia run or flop for you?

Melanie

P.S. Even though it rained most of the morning we had a wonderfully successful sales day. Right now I'm locked into my chair here, there's not too many parts of my body that don't hurt :-)

Tomorrow we are going to try for a potting marathon. My goal is a ridiculous 200 pots but you have to aim high. Think we'll get it done?

Plant Sale!

Whew! Thanks to a wonderful, repeat customer who stopped by today I realized that I haven't been writing about our up coming plant sale. I just didn't realize that if people missed certain posts on my new blog Melanie's Perennials, they would never know that there's a second blog with plant sale information.

Well, it's here!!! The plant sales begin tomorrow (a preview has already happened) and will continue for a number of Saturdays. Mother's Day weekend we hope to hold a selling marathon and we'll be open Friday, Saturday and Sunday that weekend.

Now if only I could figure out how to divide that amazing yellow Baptisia in the opening photo. I only tried to move a Baptisia once, I'd read it was almost impossible. Even though I had the new hole ready and dug as huge a piece as possible, that plant just limps along. I'm so afraid to try it again. Any hints?

We do have lots of yellow Euphorbia polychroma (cushion spurge) and different Nepetas available.

I've even potted up lots of the annual Silene armeria that self sows around here.

Stachys monierri is in pots too, not the purple variety 'Hummelo' but a lovely pink variety that I've had for at least 10 years here.

Hosta 'Janet' was dug up yesterday and made some beautiful full pots.

Hosta 'Stetson' was potted up today too, tomorrow I'd like to get one or two more Hosta out of the ground along with more Astilbe.

If I have any time tomorrow morning the first thing I'll dig is some of these Epimedium and get them potted up as they are in full bloom right now.

Of course it wouldn't be a plant sale without lots and lots of daylilies. This is 'Summer Star' and it truly is a star in my garden. It's only one of the great daylilies potted up.

The good thing is that since I'll be selling through mid July, there'll be lots of time to keep on digging :-)

Today was a damp, drizzly, muddy day. I dug from 8:00am until 7:30pm. Now it's time to go to sleep so tomorrow I can begin all over again :-)

Wonder what I'll dream about...

Melanie

More birdbath planters

Here's a few more photos of those bird bath bases I wrote about in my last post. For some reason, I don't have many photos of the three in my herb garden. Probably because I haven't found the right herb to grow in them.

I don't even know what was planted in the one you see in this photo, it's something I should try to remedy this year.

The other successful planting is the birdbath base in my front perennial border. This one has been filled with Sedum 'Matrona', sempervivum and one more Sedum. This year the only plant still surviving is the 'Matrona' but since this pot's been planted for five years, I'm not complaining. 'Matrona has filled the whole thing!


When I first brought these home I had to cut pieces of tomato stakes to sink in the ground first. I hammered them in well, at least a foot deep and then slid the birdbath base over the stake.

Once it was set I could fill the container and then plant away.

Here's one more close up look at this container. I think tomorrow I have to pull out that 'Matrona' and recreate this planting!

Melanie

Hosta roots

In the spring of 2006 a local nursery received a number of birdbaths that had broken tops. They had an employee with a great idea, she put those bases upside down in the sales yard and planted them. I was the first person to ask if they had more of these bases and would they sell them to me. The price was a ridiculous $5 a piece and I got all 5 that they had available.

One base went in my shade garden and was planted with Hosta 'Halcyon', Hosta 'Green Lance' and Oxalis atropurpurea (the purple clover) which I adore but is not hardy here on Long Island.

For three years these containers all were fine, they even survived winter heave and an occasional fall. Sadly, the one container in the shade did not survive having a tree limb fall on it and knock it over. The broken pieces are two large pieces though and I hope to be able to glue them back together.

We've just had a heat wave here and I could not dig and divide perennials so yesterday I decided to address the problem of the broken container. Even though it had been broken for months and laying on it's side, the Hosta were still growing. Imagine my surprise when I tried to pull them out of the container and the roots just kept coming out.

Those roots were so long that my arm wasn't long enough to hold them for the camera and take a photo at the same time. In fact, those roots went all the way down to the base of the container. I had originally filled the container with compost, not potting soil and it was still nice and rich looking.
Once I had the massive root system on my work table I had to chop off those beautiful roots to make them more manageable.

Finally, the Hosta have been potted up and are ready for their next adventure. I do want to use a piece of both and recreate the planting that I had before.

Melanie

Ka-Ching! I heard the bell ring...

Today we shattered our heat record. Although I haven't seen the official temperature, we had thermometers around here read 89 degrees. It was just too hot to dig and divide anything, so many plants were fully wilted.

I decided to play around a bit and do some perennial pots. If you have pots that will over-winter without cracking, perennials are ideal to plant in them. I've learned that it's worth it to spend the $$$ and purchase concrete planters when I can get them. We've had one set for 25 years now and a few more for 10 years or so.

I have a number of plain green hosta that are hard to sell. I really don't understand why people shy away from them, they have a lovely light green foliage and flower like crazy. The name tag was faded when I divided them so I don't know their name but they are still lovely. I've learned that you need plain hosta to make the variegated ones show off better.

Two nice sized divisions were added to the two planters.

Next I went way back by our shed and mercilessly hacked out a chunk of fern that is native to our area (at least it popped up here on it's own).

The ferns are just starting to come up although with this heat I expect them to come on full force now.

There were a few pansies left over from another planting so I stuck them in to fill a spot until the Hosta foliage and the fern grows. The last plant though was the big surprise, it's the one that is terribly wilted on the right.

Not 10 feet away from these containers begins a wooded lot. There is a massive spot in the woods filled with Lamiastrum, another plant that arrived on it's own. I was wishing I had a variegated perennial to add to the pot when suddenly it happened, the bell began to ring.

The garden centers around here sell "specialty annuals" in 4 inch pots to make extra special, sophisticated planter arrangements. I'm positive I saw pots of Lamiastrum last year selling for $3.49 and here it is running rampent through the wooded lot next to us. So I carefully pulled out a few pieces. I say carefully because the woods is also filled with poison ivy. Rather than take a chance that I was taking more than the Lamiastrum, I did not dig it up with soil but instead just wiggled out the roots, that's why it's wilting so much but I'm sure it will perk up in a few days.

I bet in two weeks when I photograph those pots you won't believe how nice and full they look. Best of all, I know from past experience that those pots will be fine for three years before I need to take the plants out and divide them.

Can't wait to see what tomorrow brings :-)
Melanie

Piece by Piece

Sometimes, after you've had some plants in the same spot for years, they intertwine. In this photo are a few plants in what is only a foot or two wide.

The bottom left corner shows a Hosta 'Tea and Crumpets' which is a very small hosta. There's the Primula siboldii 'Alba' that I posted about the other day and poking up through everything is Polygonatum humile (dwarf solomon's seal).

This photo was taken last year, if I took it today it would have looked the same except it's almost impossible to find the Hosta 'Tea and Crumpets". I'd really like to divide out everything here without losing anything. Tomorrow or Monday I'd like to lift the whole area, pull out each piece and replace the Hosta with lots of compost.

This shot is taken closer to the Hosta. Those spiky plants are Tradescantia seedlings. I've grown a number of hybrid Tradescantias and on the whole have been ecstatic with their behaviour. Unfortanetly, the prettiest Tradescantia here, is also the most aggressive at spreading seedlings.

This is the same bed, just a foot or two away. The bright chartreusse is Tradescantia 'Sweet Kate'. I've written about her before, she isn't very sweet here at all. Last year I went around and dug up every one of her seedlings that I could find. It wouldn't be bad at all if they had the same coloring but every one of them reverts back to green with a standard blue flower.

It looks like this is going to be a job that eats up lots of time and only makes a change in a very small spot in my garden.

Double the Blood Root

Sanguinaria canadenses, that's quite a mouthful for this small, elegant perennial. The nickname is a bit easier although not very attractive, Double Bloodroot.

A number of years ago a gardening friend offered me a piece of double bloodroot. I turned him down. I didn't even know what it was but I wasn't interested in the name. A year later he gave me a piece and told me to just put it in my new shade garden.

The next year this amazing thing bloomed in my garden. It was the most ethereal white bloom, very fleeting, only open for a few days. The good news though was that the foliage was exquisite too so it really added so much to the shade garden.

As the years went by I couldn't understand how he had so much to share with me since my little piece of double bloodroot increased at a snail's pace. A few years ago I finally learned that there is a vast difference between dry, unammended shade and moist, rich, compost filled shade. I crossed my fingers and moved a tiny piece of the double bloodroot.

The first photo was taken last year. The second photo was taken this morning. The flowers only open when the sun is out so that won't happen for a few more hours. I think you can see what has me all excited, my double bloodroot has doubled!

Just in case you are wondering what the foliage looks like, it's the leaf in the top right corner of this slide. Underneath it is a dwarf Epimedium, top left is a small golden Hosta and bottom left is Asarum euoropaeum (European Ginger).

The Ginger has done a nice job in several spots in my garden and I'll be potting up a few of those later this afternoon. As for the Double bloodroot, well, I'm a bit greedy and think I will wait one more year before putting any in a pot. What I might do is dig out a piece or two and move them to another prime semi-shade location so I can have even more double bloodroot.

We're expecting a prime gardening day today so I need to get up, get ready and get out!

Mystery plant day

Today I was frustrated by not one, but two mystery plants in my garden.

The first plant is a charming Primula (primrose) that has naturalized in 5 or 6 different spots here. I remember the day I bought this plant, a friend who worked at a nearby nursery insisted I buy a handful of small pots of a bloomed out Primula. She said the plants looked sorry but would be so happy in my garden. At that point I had only bad luck with primroses but she offered them to me for $1 per pot and ever the optimist, I tried primroses again.

This plant is so wonderful, it has no problem in dry shade. Give it some moisture and it's even happier! The one problem is that every tag I have for it in my garden has the top portion broken off. I know it originated from Sunny Border Plants but I don't have the variety name.
How sad :-(
The second mystery plant is this one. It is in my shade garden and was given to me by the same woman who encouraged me to buy the white Primulas. This plant has seeded around a little bit (not aggressively). I think it might be Cimicifuga? It blooms in the fall with tall white candle-like blooms. If you scroll up to the first photo you can see what the foliage looks like a little later in the season. It is at the right of the Primula.

Any ideas?

Labels for the garden

Labels, blah, I so dislike looking out at my garden and seeing all those labels. And yet, during the growing season, it's so nice when somebody wants to know what something is and there you have the name right at your finger tip.

Now that I'm potting up all these plants to sell, I needed a quick, cheap way to label the many pots. As in previous years, my solution has been to use mini blinds. I used to use old blinds that people donated to me but I've run out of those. Now I run to a discount store and buy the largest size for the cheapest price.

The first step is to cut off all of the cords.

This is the size I bought. They were $5.00, the next size was almost twice the price and was only a few inches larger so I went with these.

Since they are 36" long, it was easy to figure out that I cut get three foot long labels out of each piece of plastic.

All cut up in under ten minutes, I had 218 pieces of mini-blind markers. Not bad!


When it comes to writing on the labels I have a number of different products. The sharpie marker doesn't last a whole season. The Nursery marking pen holds much longer than the sharpie but I haven't seen them for sale around here.

The winner though is the pencil. It is less bold, a little harder to read but it will never ever fade. Also, the markers are have fat tips and are hard to read too while the finer point of the pencil is easier to write with.

Do you label your plants? Can you recommend a marker?

Making Potting Soil

When you pot up plants to share or just to plant your containers, do you mix your own potting soil?

I do.
A number of years ago I listened to my good friend Gianna give a lecture on container plants. She shared her tip of mixing together potting soil and compost in a 2 to 1 ratio. That means that if you put two buckets of potting soil in your wheelbarrow, you add one bucket of compost (or top soil or aged manure, what ever you have).

I love a compost and manure mixture so that's what I order for my garden. Even though I have a huge compost heap, I just haven't been able to produce as much compost as I need. This compost/manure mixture is what I add to my potting soil.


Potting soil by itself is very light and dries out quickly. There are potting soils that have additives to retain water and even potting soils with fertilizers in them but I prefer to stay as natural as possible. What I add instead is a nice healthy scoop of Milorganite which is an organic fertilizer made from sludge.

This year I've been adding a secret ingredient, a nice big couple of handfuls of shredded leaves. They do wonders for the potting soil, making it so nice, fluffy and hopefully, healthy.

Time will tell how this potting soil mixture works but I think it's going to be fantabulous!

Sheer Exhaustion

After two days of perfect gardening weather there are only two words to describe the way I feel, Sheer Exhaustion.

If you look closely at this photo you'll see all kinds of tools and pots in the garden. Plants have been dug, weeds have been pulled, divisions have been replanted and compost has been spread. Yet, when I look at the garden all I see is a monumental amount of work still to be done.

Squeezed in between the never ending job of dividing and potting plants, I played a bit with the decorative accents in the garden. None of them are finished but they are ready for their finishing touches. This bicycle still needs a basket on the handlebars with some sweet spring blooms.

Don finished making a platform for one of my two iron beds. This one will be used to hold plants that are for sale. In other words, it's the "sale bed".

Out front near the street I've had this Whiskey Barrel planter for a number of years now. It's been filled with Hosta and backed up with an old wooden handtruck. Although I've received many compliments on it, I had envisioned it cascading with plants.

Now it's tipped over so it looks like "OOPS". As soon as I find an extra hour or two I'll go out and get a flat of annuals to make the cascade portion. I haven't decided yet if I want to buy a flat of pansies now or wait 3 weeks and get Impatiens. My guess is the Impatiens will be the winner but I hate having nothing there right now.

Tomorrow is the first of a dozen lectures that I'll be doing at the local elementary schools. I'm bringing along a praying mantis egg case, lots of soil samples, seeds and we'll be making pots out of recycled newspaper. I can't wait!

Melanie

The Zoo

Dear Mom,

Today we went on a class trip to the Bronx Zoo.

We saw Lions...

and ladybugs...
and bears...

oh my!

What a wonderful, glorious day I spent as a chaperone for our high school anthropology class as we visited the Bronx Zoo in New York City.

The lion was regal.

The ladybugs were photographed in the Butterfly house.

The polar bear exhibit struck me as surreal with the fake ice flows and a live flow of Forsythia cascading down the cliff face

And finally, the huge stand of Mayapples had me green with envy and made me wish I could sneak a few home in my camera bag :-)

Back to gardening tomorrow,
Melanie