SUNY Farmingdale

What could be better on a cold winter night than to go through photos of lush gardens? It's a fridgid 14 degrees outside but this topic is doing it's best to warm me up.

One of my favorite places to visit on Long Island are the trial gardens at the State University at Farmingdale. There are 9 or 10 distinct different garden rooms/themes there to see, one more spectacular than the rest. It's a hidden jewel, few people know where to find it. As you drive past the parking lot there's not much more than these gates to see.

If you are lucky enough to to stop and park your car, all you need to do is take a peek through the bars and you'll find yourself transported to another world.

Andy and I visited the garden this past September, it had been a few years for me and I was thrilled to find a whole new addition with vegetables and a wild spill of cutting flowers.

Zinnias are so easy to grow and so beautiful. We grew one solitary Zinnia here last summer, I expect to grow lots and lots more this coming year!

When touring a garden of this magnitude, it's hard to find one single thing that just rocks your world. This time though it was an easy choice, those big Dr Seuss like tufts are Cyperus papyrus 'King Tut'. Although I took a dozen photos, not one does them justice, I am in love with them.

One of the first gardens you will walk through are very formal beds but the plant material is cutting edge tropicals surrounded by perennial borders.

Of course there is a silver garden, it's such a restful place after walking through a riot of color and textures.

My happy place is the tropical garden room. I think I could sit there all day. Give me a foggy day like this and I could take hundreds and hundreds of photos too. The plant with the long red blooms is Amaranthus 'Love lies a bleeding'. It's so cool!

The tropical garden is not large but every single inch is planted. September is the perfect time to visit this garden, just before the plants are brought in to the green houses for the winter.

The color and foliage combinations don't stop, there's something amazing no matter which way you turn. It's hard to grasp all that surrounds you.

The rustic arbor and goldfish pond have been there since my daughters were young. It's still just as magical as it was back then.

If you  make your way to the back corner of the gardens you'll find a shade garden filled with wonderful plants that just thrive in our Long Island conditions. I love the combination of this fern and the Asarum (ginger).

Although it wasn't rose season this part of the garden was still lovely. We'll have to make a point to go back this May when the roses and peonies are in full bloom.

There were plenty of autumn perennials to see such as this Aster. I'll take a guess and say it's 'Alma Potschke'.

One last photo, a riot of yellow blooms. If you live on Long Island or are coming this way for a visit, try to get in to see these gardens. You won't be sorry!

melanie

Cynthia's Garden

Cynthia is my neighbor directly across the street. She and her husband Rich moved in last year and I have been in heaven since then. I finally have a neighbor who understands the need to garden. Many a Saturday I have looked across the street to see Cynthia out there in a slicker during a downpour, swatting gnats while wiping sweat from her brow, or hauling around huge loads of compost. It sure makes me feel better since I'm usually doing the exact same thing!

No pictures of Cynthias garden would be complete without "the crew". On the right is Riley, in the middle is Boomer and on the left is a frequent family visitor.

Cynthia's gardens are all new and I'm always amazed at the wide range of plant material she boldly introduces to this piece of land that has not seen TLC in any recent time.

How cool is this Amaranthus bloom? I much prefer the nickname of "Love Lies-a-Bleeding". It's the perfect nickname.

Needless to say I was so taken by the Love-lies-a-bleeding that I had to take a photo of the blooms on the other side too.

In all the years I've been gardening (way more than I can count) I have never tried Colocasia esculanta (another cool nickname: Elephant Ears). This year Cynthia gave me two of them but hers appear to be much happier than mine.

I was so hoping that the sunshine coming through the leaf would translate well. It's as good as I had hoped for. What a wonderful spot to sit and sip your morning coffee.

Here's another pretty combination. Cynthia has Angelonia (the annual that I posted about earlier this week on Melanie's Perennials but didn't know the name) paired with this cream/yellow annual.


How do you like that, I'm stumped again with an annual name. It's a good thing one of my blogs is named Melanie's PERENNIALS :-) I thought this was Nemesia but after googling some images I think I'd better start to brush up on my annual names!

Cynthia, I'm so glad you're my neighbor. Thanks for the tour!

A charming scene

As I had hoped, this morning started out nice and cloudy, perfect picture taking weather. So, I grabbed my camera and out the door I went. My first stop was a little village just west of us, Cold Spring Harbor. I did manage to find a few good plant subjects there and you can see some of them on my Melanie's Perennials blog.

These shots came from another little village, Northport, which is just east of us. If you have a small town near you, this is the time to go and check out all the annual planters.

Backing up, you can see the corner that inspired me. The shop is Hengstenberg's Florist and the brick planters along the sidewalk are delightful.

Here you can see the wonderful colors of the Tropical Hibiscus and the lavender Cleome.

I didn't push aside any foliage to look for plant tags. This is not the old fashioned Cleome I'm used to growing. It's much more compact and the blooms are smaller. I really liked the way it was used in this planting. It also dropped it's bloom petals all over which is a plus for me as they looked like lavender snow.

Here's a shot of the whole planter. Isn't it wonderful? I had hoped to come around the front and shoot more photos but the sun came out full force and the few shots I took after this point are washed out with terrible shadows.

I plan on being on the hunt all week in hopes of getting more late summer images. The weather forecast is delightful for humans with temperatures in the low 70's and lots of sun. Not necessarily the best photography weather but I will still try my best.

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

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.

Missed you too!

Don't ask me why but only four of the ten photos I tried to send to this blog came through. Until I figure this glitch out, I'll have to post in parts.
This is part two so scroll down a bit to read part one first!

The top photo simply shows marigolds. Now I haven't grown marigolds in many years but how pretty are these babies? I just remembered that they will also attract slugs. Not a bad thing if you have a spray bottle handy with one part household ammonia and 5 parts water. Just go out early morning (foggy days are the best!) and looks for those little white blobs on your marigolds. Give them a few good squirts and shout DIE SUCKERS. Hmmm, maybe just whisper or your neighbors might be avoiding you for awhile.

Opium poppies. There's nothing like having a good friend willing to share some opium poppy seeds with you. Don't think I've seen these for sale anywhere. Wish I still had some here. Maybe they'll surprise me and pop up this year?

Simple as can be but oh so beautiful. Zinnias, hard to find in cell packs because they are so darn easy to grow from seed! Cut and Come again variety was well named. Great cutting flowers for those darling country arrangements in watering cans.

And finally, to finish off today's post is this shot of the Amaranthus (Love Lies a Bleeding) I grew many years ago. As far as I'm concerned, love lies a bleeding is to die for :-) Ok, not the best pun but I sure do wonder why I haven't grown this show stopper recently.

Off to have fun,
Melanie

Missed you

You know the old adage "when life hands you lemons, make lemonade". Well that's what I've been doing here. Last Friday I tried to get out of my computer chair only to find out that my back was totally locked. Don't know exactly what I did to it (ok, maybe too many six mile hikes that week) but I knew enough to stay home for a few days and do nothing.

How's that? Do nothing!!! Impossible, so I decided to take on a chore that I've put aside for several years now. I pulled all my old slides out of storage, hooked up that fancy Konica/minolta Dimage scanner I spent big bucks on and began to scan my slides.

Talk about a tedious, time consuming project! I've only gotten through the first few hundred but almost immediately I noticed something. These stunning plants that captured my attention 10 years ago are missing in my garden today. As I continue to search out new and wondrous plants, I've set aside some amazing performers just because they were "ordinary" or gag...annuals! At the top here is a shot of Cosmos growing by the cottage at Old Westbury Gardens. It's one of the first slides I ever took.
Here's some more beauties I find myself missing.

Amaranthus are just incredible in their weirdness! This bronze beauty (don't know the name) wasn't in my garden, I grew the deep burgundy 'Love Lies a Bleeding' variety.

How about this? Yes, for three years I had Edelweiss in my garden. If I had actually done a bit of research and planted it in the right location I might still be growing it today :-(
The hot pink blooms are masses of annual Silene armeria (catchfly) that self seed
with abandon here.

Simple Cleome. How stunning but Look, don't Touch! Wow, I was shocked when I tried to pull one out and found those teeny thorns that love to bite. Also, don't mass these under a window you like to open, phew...unless you have a affinity for gym socks.

Ok, now scroll upwards and read part two of this post.