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It appears that the technical issues from the other night have resolved themselves (Far, I do wonder if it was just a cache glitch w/the browser as you suggested) so I have a few photos from 2 November I've been wanting to share here. I first titled this post Survivors: November Post Frost Edition, because that's what these tough little flowers are! They even outlasted the Tricyrtis this year and some are, unbelievably, still around but looking pretty sad lately.
This shot is, of course, Escholzia californica, or California Poppy, the beloved state flower of California, and much beloved in many other gardens, such as ours! Over the past several years, our proliferous volunteers have diminished considerably and now they are much more a surprise accent annual in certain spots in the front boulder bed. Just three years ago we had wonderful drifts of them along the sidewalk in what is now a very bulby and Helleborish part of the Woodland Garden ... some got lost, others were crowded out by the likes of the Liatris, and just basically drastically thinned. But this year, now that we've got the bulbs in and still need to do some clean up, we plan on sowing a lot of seed before putting the bed to rest. We still have some seed left from a year ago, so it's going to be broadcast, as well as a bunch of Susans and Larkspur we've been sitting on. And not to forget, we have a lot of "Frank's Poppy" seeds to spread all over, since those were less prominent this year and I disposed of them promptly when they were done (there were other seeds to go in!) so not much new seed fell this year. If you're interested in these and can find the seed now, it's a great time to plant them. Much easier than working the ground while it's still partly frozen in the wee morns of very early Spring!
I was a bit surprised to spot this cheery little guy, complete with his tiny green bee ... nestled amid the leaves in the grass of the parking, a lowly Dandelion was making one of his likely last stands. We really don't see too many dandelion blooms so late in the season, especially after a few hard frosts ... I guess this one was just trying to remind me how pretty he really is and be happy when his clan reappears in the spring. I'm perfectly fine with having dandelions all over in the grass, but I'm ruthless about digging them from the boulder bed. But as I've preached before, they really are beneficial plant in the long run because they add nutrients to the soil and their long tap roots work wonders in breaking up clay. Nothing gets me more riled up than obsessive suburban "gardeners" (yes, those were air quotes) who are out dumping toxic chemicals into their soil just because they have some irrational fear about the dandelion and other beneficial weeds you should allow in the garden. Monoculture, bad. Polyculture, good. (Disclaimer: although we are at least 90% organic gardeners, and reserve the "big guns" only for noxious stuff like poison ivy and volunteer walnut trees that refuse to die a natural death.)
Gather ye dandelions while ye may, old time is still a flying...
This was another pleasant surprise: our Buddleia davidii Weyeriana that didn't bloom much in the height of summer but somehow gained a second wind and was still blooming as recently as a week ago. I have mixed feelings about this variety ... I love the intricate structure of the honeycomb like blooms, as well as its luscious yellow hue, but it's not the most flowerful of the Buddleias we've grown over the years. Though it has since died off (they're iffy in Iowa winters) our most floriferous was definitely Black Knight, one of the deep purple cultivars. At this point, I hate to say I've become a bit indifferent to Butterfly Bushes ... at least in our garden they're a crap shoot and they do require an inordinate amount of space and a hard pruning (that is hard to do) come spring. But at least as long as this, our last survivor continues to grow, I'll probably just let it go, though if it decided to die off, I wouldn't be in a hurry to replace it. Besides, the spot it occupies is prime Hibiscus Moscheutos planting area! Case closed.
Here you go, Gail, the last shot you'll see this year of Celosia Caracas ... I thought this still looked quite attractive and made me wish I had cut a few to keep dried in the house this winter. Next year, I'm not going to sweat it, as I'm sure there will be hundreds of them coming up out front around Finger Rock. Fortunately, Celosia seedlings are clearly identifiable when they're about an inch tall, with tiny replicas of the adult leaves. I'll be curious to see if Caracas shows any color at the seedling stage, but I wouldn't be surprised if it did....
So there you have it. I still have some nice shots of the Calendulas (who are still hanging around) to post, and a few other things I've gotten somewhat recently. But lately, either work (mostly) or the chilly weather has kept me from doing much outside, but I know there is still interesting life to be chronicled in the garden. So I'll close with my usual caveat that I'll be posting when I can find the time!
As for chilly: check the Weather Underground banner on this page for the current temperature!
Last summer I recounted the story of Frank's Poppies and how they came to brighten our garden, where they have made it an even brighter --and pinker-- place than it used to be. It's a pity that their bloom time is short ... two weeks or less, (especially if you have some pounding rains while they're open). But while they're blooming en masse they're truly spectacular. 
Here's a fun single bloom close up with the sedum and boulders by the steps leading to the house. In the background you can also see one of the Prairie Mallows sneaking into the shot ... not bad for a recovering anti-pink curmudgeon, eh? This particular poppy and all of those around it in the upper bed (this was growing from the base of the rocks) are now gone. I needed that space for 2 Meadow Sages, a couple of Silver Mounds and some zinnias! They were done anyway, and by not letting the pods mature and drop seed, this will help thin out the outrageous numbers of them who come up every year. Such is the life for an annual poppy ...
I like this last shot best for the purely natural framing the flowers themselves provide. Both the poppy and the Zebrina Mallow came up at the base of the boulders just off the sidewalk where there are numerous other Mallows, Calendulas and sedums. I really like how the Sedum will thrive in a small space between the rocks and be perfectly content, and to be honest, it's a plant I've really started to encourage the past few years. Go ahead, I say: try being a profligate punk in this garden! I wouldn't mind at all. It's pretty even when it's done blooming and it also helps keep weeds down once it takes over a spot. Unlike the other one we have, Sedum sarmentosum, it doesn't get all leggy and ratty looking in the hotter months, and best of all, cleans up after itself in the fall.
A pity that these lovely poppies are now done for the year, and the rest will be pulled very soon ... but they're such a great bridge from the late Bee Balm to prime Coneflower and Mallow blooming time ... the hibiscus seem to be a bit behind this year, but I'm betting they'll start sometime later this month ... ah, hibiscus days are ahead ... best part of the summer for me! (Well, that and the first ripe tomatoes.)
We'd wanted to get a lot more done in the garden this weekend than actually happened ... and things were held back mostly by the arrival of an intense early summer blast of heat and stagnant air (e.g. no movement), but we still did get some good pics of flowers currently strutting their stuff in the front boulder bed.
Of course, these are more examples of Frank's Poppies, and since Fernymoss took pics while I watered last night, we actually got some with water droplets (bonus for Olivia there). The first shot gives a nice overview of what the whole bloom looks like when fully open ... very much peony shaped and just packed with layers of feathery petals. These particular poppies aren't the full-bore exhibitionists about their inner bits that their Oriental cousins are ... they're just a bit more demure, and well, Pink after all!
The second shot should give you a better idea of what the current crop of poppy party-goers looks like after a day or two of celebrating in the sun ... the inhibitions are down, general disrobing has begun, and in another day or so, nothing but the naked reminder will remain. Like peonies, these poppies live up to their fleeting appearance in the garden ... though they will bloom profusely for a week or two, they then get serious about their main item of business, which is producing the densely packed pod of seeds that will carry them through into the following year.
Oh, and they'll provide thousands of seeds to share with others who can give them a new home to colonize (which they will, trust me). The Calendulas and Zebrina Mallows are currently revving up to take their place in a few weeks, and when these are gone, to be replaced by Zinnias, which I just planted behind them tonight, along with a few Four O'Clocks. Though we're getting some of these seeds rather later than usual, I keep having to remind myself just how everything is still 2-3 weeks behind where it should be at this time. In a normal year, these poppies would have been finished and turning crispy by this point ... It continues to be a very interesting season, and we'll see how it turns out!
Photos courtesy of Fernymoss, taken June 16, 2007.
Coming soon! Everyone's favorite: Bee Balm!
These are Frank's legendary Poppies, and those who are familiar with our garden already know these beauties well. And since we always refer to them as Frank's poppies, you know there is a story behind them ... you see, Frank is an elderly master gardener friend in our neighborhood who we've had the privilege and pleasure of knowing over the past seven years or so. He's getting up there now (he's 85 as of this spring), and though his passion for gardening has necessarily abated a bit due to age, he still has the most impressive and magnificent garden in the area by far!
His garden is renowned in the neighborhood, and often makes it on the gardening tours in the summer ... no wonder why, with his myriad species of blooming plants ... from the hundreds of tulips and other bulbs in the spring, to the numerous lilies, peonies, hibiscus, wisteria and other flowers in his garden, his garden is a true exemplar of what one can achieve over the years. It should come as no surprise to anyone that we have felt privileged to know him and he has served as one of the most powerful inspirations we've had to make our humble Urban Oasis what it is today ... and what we hope it will become in the future. In fact, Frank has really reinforced our central tenet of gardening philosophy: gardening is sharing. And share he does!
We got the original seeds for these poppies probably about five or six years ago. One day when we stopped by to pay him a visit, he mentioned that we didn't have any poppies in the garden, and that we should get some started. Of course we agreed, and as we were sitting there in his kitchen with him, he excused himself briefly, went down into his basement and returned with a two pound Quaker Oats container just full of poppy seeds that he had collected. He found an envelope and filled it with seeds, telling us to take them and make them grow for us ... that they were easy, beautiful peony type pink flowers that we'd be sure to enjoy. So we took them home and planted a bunch of them in various places in the newly started garden.
Here we are some six years later, and these wonderful late spring bloomers are still with us ... yes they have acheived weed status, and we couldn't be happier. We can always count on a veritable field of them to appear every spring, as well as renegade clumps that pop up in other places ... they have decisively staked out their territory and even if we were to ever want to get rid of them, we probably couldn't ... they will always appear somewhere in the garden. Which is as it should be for such delightful annual poppies. Though we're not sure about the particular variety, we do know that they are Papaver somniferum, a species that not only carries its obvious notoriety, but also demonstrates an amazing array of varieties of flower shapes and colours. Given its shape and colour, this variety is most likely one of the paeoniflorum subgroup, due to its resemblance to peonies. Like most annual poppies, they are notorious self-seeders, so if you're only toying with the idea of having them, you might want to reconsider, because no matter how much you may try to keep them from dropping seeds, it's ultimately a lost cause, though we certainly consider them a net gain! And for every person who comments on them and wonders if they are hard to grow, we usually send them home with a plentiful supply of seeds to try in their garden. We've certainly shared large quantities of seeds over the ensuing years, and we're always happy to see them blooming in someone else's garden ... and who knows how many others Frank has shared his with over the years ... they're a beautiful testimony to the generosity of a supremely masterful gardener that we hope will grace our neighborhood for many years to come.
Notes on the photos: taken June 13, 2007. These are the first two to open so far this year, and there will be many more to come soon, so I'll try to get a wider shot of the mass blooming when it occurs.
A brief housekeeping note: I just realized yesterday that Urban Oasis reached its one year mark, on June 11. I hope that those who've followed this humble blog over the last year have found pleasure in the beauty we try to capture in our garden, and have learned a thing or two as well. I had to laugh when I looked back at the very first post I made here, because so much has changed since I took those tentative first steps!
UPDATE: 6/14/07 11:50 p.m.
Fernymoss had the day off today and got a whole lot of poppy seeds planted out in the front boulder bed .... we finally got in the new ones: Danish Flag, Heirloom, and Peony White Cloud, as well as the last of "Thai Silk Fire Bush" California poppies we had left. So, give them a month or so and the front should just be bursting with poppies! Olivia and I have a bit of a competition going with the Danish Flag ones, since we're both planting them, so we'll see who can capture the best of the bits, hehe. (Though I don't really see it as much of a competition and am not betting on myself! LOL)
