That Seedy Time of Year ...

Fall has fully descended upon us at this point, with crisp, generally clear days and even crisper nights, and normally, this means a severe lack of firepower in the garden (except for the Toad Lilies now gloriously in bloom ... more on them soon). Not so with our friendly volunteer Celsosia sports depicted in this first shot! Wow, orange, red and yellow all rolled into one place where they decided to grow this year ... I just couldn't resist posting this particular shot to demonstrate the sheer variety of their various incarnations this year. I'll refrain from my usual sales pitch (you've heard it before!), just to say that I am really glad these little guys come back for us every year ... though they may be slow to get going in mid-summer, by fall they're really into their true glory and add some sorely needed punches of color to the front boulder bed. Farewell Coneflowers and Hibiscus, buh bye Bee Balm, you've long since given up the ghost of blooming and are looking, well, pretty seedy, which ties nicely into what I'd like to discuss briefly here tonight ... seed collection.
This shot shows one of the yellow sports out front in full seed production mode ... and if you grow Celosia, you're probably aware of this stage, when they lose their brilliant colors and become rather non-descript while they put on the tiny promises of flowers to come in the following year. If you're interested in collecting (or merely broadcasting) seed, this is the time to pay close attention to them as they gradually take on that sort of dirty white and fluffy aspect, because they're producing literally hundreds (if not thousands) of tiny shiny black seeds in those puffy white little pods. At this point, the gardener has a couple of options: let them go at frost and do nothing other than pull the dead plants and shake them around the garden a bit, or if one decides to take the industrious route (which I often avoid, I must admit), and collect the seeds to either broadcast around sunny areas of the garden or save to sow in early spring the following year. In either case, some seeds are bound to get inadvertently broadcast in the garden because collection is imprecise to say the least. I usually put a plastic grocery bag over the seed heads when they are fully dried (usually after frost), and just shake the seeds out or just cut the stalk, hang it upside down with a bag around it. If you choose the latter method, make sure to keep them in a dry place and ensure that there is air circulation around the seed heads, because otherwise they may mold (I know this from experience). Personally, I prefer the 'shake into the bag' method once they are dried as they give up their seeds much more readily. Once collected, unless you plan to broadcast them in situ, store them as you would any other seeds, in a dry, dark place over winter and start them in the early spring either in starter pots or sown directly outside when the ground has started to warm up.
If you choose to broadcast seed around the garden, you should be aware that Celosia seeds need warmth to germinate and you won't see them emerge until late May, June or even July in cooler years (as this one was). We usually just take what we get when they come up on their own, but this year, we plan on being more aggressive about spreading seed around in various spots so we have a few everywhere. We also plan on starting some inside in pots, particularly the Cristata cultivar we've not grown in several years, as well as some of these marvelous 'Caracas' we discovered this year. I suspect that we'll have plenty of 'Caracas' coming up where they are this year, because due to the immense numbers of flower stalks, we won't be able to collect all of the seed produced. I'm just fine with that, because we won't have to go looking for this variety to buy in the spring! We'll have plenty of them, I suspect....
Think, for a moment, how these fascinating flowers really do their thing ... and 'Caracas' provides a great example ... what we perceive as 'the flower' is really just a bloom stalk with hundreds of densely packed individual flowers who each produce at least one seed. If you look closely at the enlarged version of this shot, you can even identify some of the "inner bits" extended to attract the bees and other pollinating insects. Note how seed production in these shots starts at the bottom of the stalk and then proceeds upwards ... that's how you can determine the maturity of a particular bloom stalk. Wait until the color is almost gone from the flowers and you can see the seeds in the opened "pods" and you're in business to collect!

Just a few other observations from around the garden ... the Calendulas are still going strong (they started blooming in May!), the Purple Morning Glories are blooming profusely, and in addition to the Celosias seen here, I planted some late Zinnias that are just now blooming away to provide a bit more color to the Fall garden ... add in the Moss Rose and other annuals, and we've got a few nice spots of stubborn summer color still hanging in there on the first day of October!

I should say that I've been a bit lazy on the Toad Lily spectacular to come, but we've got so many really good shots that we've not yet pored through them completely to choose the best ones. I do hope to get a post up on their current bloomfest by this weekend if not sooner ... posting may be sporadic due to work demands, but if I can put aside the time, I'll try to keep up with what I'd prefer to be my 'normal' schedule! Whether I can keep up remains to be seen ... but October's shaping up to be an exciting time around Casa IVG with Halloween coming and pumpkins ripening in the back garden ... the corn is now drying up rapidly and will soon be making its transition to the front Halloween display. Lots of change in the offing during the next month, so stay tuned....

More Freaks of Nature!

I did manage last Saturday to get out in the late afternoon (when it was actually somewhat sunny!) and meander around the muddy front garden a bit ... so here are a few of this year's "Celosia Sports" that are starting to bloom. They're smaller than they ought to be at this time of the year (they were late coming up this year, so we'll only have these for maybe a month or so), but they've definitely got the odd shapes and vibrant color bravely going full bore into the fickle days of early Fall ... though some of these shapes are familiar from last year, they do exhibit some minor variations on what they have been in the past, and in this first shot, you can see the brilliant red (blooms and foliage) of what obviously started out as a Celosia plumosa 'New Look' at some point a few years ago. 'New Look' has always been one of my very favorites due to its striking foliage and the depth of red that the whole plant conveys throughout the season. Compare this to Celosia plumosa 'Caracas,' and you can see that they share a common ancestor. Usually these smaller varieties top out at about 10-12 inches at maturity, but we have had some in the past who got even a bit larger, but nowhere near the height of 'Caracas' (which is currently over 5 ft tall).
I never quite know what to expect from the yellow ones from season to season, but this year they seem to have opted for a form somewhere in between a 'normal' yellow plumosa and that odd sport from last year that I named "Pineapple." And then there's that real oddball (I posted it a while back) that seems to have *gasp* reverted back to its original 'Castle Yellow' form after having morphed into several incarnations over the past 5-6 years (I really can't remember when I last planted the yellow ones!) and looks strangely normal amongst the other freaks. But have I mentioned how much fun it is to see these return every year, wondering what costume they'll have on each time?

Now, I know that some Celosia purists would probably turn up their noses at having them sport so freely in the garden, so to those folks, I say, fine ... pull your dead plants after frost and only buy new stock each spring so the freaks don't start populating your sunny bed. As for us, (as you surely now know), we love the adventure of seeing Nature frolic profligately (thank you, dear friends the bees!) in the garden and look forward to what new surprises we'll have in successive years.

Remember, remember, the waning days of September ... and if you still want brilliant color that will literally last until frost, include some Celosia in your garden next year! There are a lot of really nice varieties and mixes available (Park Seed has some spectacular ones) and they're really pretty easy to grow. They start easily indoors in starter pots in late Winter, but don't set them out until you are sure there will be no further frosts or you'll lose them. They can also be fall sown as well (as they do naturally), but a mild warning: you won't usually see them coming up until the ground is really warm (say late June or July here), and though they grow rapidly, your best bet is probably to either buy nursery grown plants or start them from seeds inside. Just give them lots of sun and they'll be quite happy. They're fairly impervious to dry conditions (or soils) once they've been established, so you can pretty much just get them going and come back to admire them when they catch your eye ... they don't mind a little neglect and still will reward you with their bright spires of fiery colors!

--end of sales pitch, I'm ready for my commission now--

House-Garden Keeping Note

I'd like to apologize for the sudden absence of posts the last few days (as well as lack of responses to comments and/or emails) ... I truly enjoy and value my regular readers/commenters, so I do feel a certain responsibility to keep up my end of things here at the Oasis. Anyway, the thing is I've been pretty sick since last Friday, when some weird gastrointestinal disturbance hit me with a sledgehammer, and has put me out of action since then. It started with a horrid headache, progressed into severe stomach cramps, and on to what Woody Allen might refer to as the "full complement of nasties" throughout the weekend. I was laid low, so to speak, so low that I didn't sleep at all Friday night and spent most of Saturday in much the same state, from which I eventually emerged enough to take up position in my recliner downstairs for part of the day. So I took it very easy, snuggled in a blanket, and caught up with some of the programs and movies I had recorded on the DVR, most notably Transamerica, which I had been wanting to see for quite some time. Maybe it was the story (I think it likely was) or just the vulnerable state I was in, but that film really touched me in all the teary-eyed places. I was really glad I finally got to see it, and Felicity Huffmann certainly did deliver an Oscar caliber performance ... too bad she didn't win! (Reese Witherspoon beat her out for it.) Anyway ... I'm on the mend now, and though it may take me a day or two more to get back up to regular posting speed, I'm feeling much better and am almost up to solid food again, finally. I've just been left very dehydrated, exhausted and feeling weak, so I'm taking small steps back....
So, given the recent interest here in Celosia, these are a couple of shots from the 2007 archives that should give you some more tantalizing ideas of just what these versatile plants can get up to when left to their own devices. I've often mentioned Celosia's propensity to "sport" freely in the garden when planted with other varieties nearby and these are just two of the examples we had show up in last year's garden. I called the first one "Pineapple" (for obvious reasons!), which was apparently a cross between some 'Cristata' (cockscomb type) variety and a yellow 'Plumosa,' both of which we've had over the years in the front boulder bed. I wish I had collected seed from this one, because after appearing for a couple of years it has vanished this year and perhaps reverted to its original from, as I posited in an earlier post here. If you click through to the full view, you can see where the seeds form and emerge once the bloom has dried ... this is how all the 'Plumosa' varieties seed, so it's easy to see how they lend themselves nicely to profligate cross-pollination.

And who could quibble with the sheer, bizarre brilliance of this second sport? Again, an example of some 'Plumosa x Cristata' definitely, and wow, I should have tried to replicate this one, but as we are both often wont to do, we let them go back to ground to re-emerge in a different form the next year.... But then there's our new crush, Caracas, which we will definitely be collecting this year, as well as any of the odder ones that may still show up...