The Porcupine is Hibernating Now

Hi folks, just a quick post here tonight, but I promise I have more and better to come soon, once work calms down just a wee bit. Apologies for going AWOL again lately, but we're hitting a peak time at work and I've been working insane hours the past couple of weeks, thus the paucity of posts. I took these shots late in the afternoon on November 2, which was one of our last recent "warmish" days, and now we're in the sudden cold, with freezing rain, sleet and rain forecast for tonight and through tomorrow. So much for that brief fling of Indian Summer that lasted what ... about five days? Such are the caprices of Iowa fall/early winter weather!

Anyway, this first shot is a close up of the feathery plumes of Miscanthus sinensis, aka 'Porcupine Grass,' one of a few of our ornamental grasses we have planted. We started with two small pots of it about four years ago, and it has really staked out its territory now, and boasts a commanding presence just behind "Finger Rock" near the corner of the front Boulder Bed.
This second shot shows the entirety of its stand, as well as its numerous bloom stalks, which provide some really nice winter interest to the garden, especially when they're covered in snow! (Not that I'm in any big hurry to see that, there's plenty of time in December and January for it!) 'Porcupine Grass' didn't get its name by chance, and if you've ever encountered it up close and personal, you'll know why! It's very sharp and can inflict some nasty cuts and scratches to unprotected skin, but provided you keep your distance, it's a great garden specimen with lots of interest throughout the growing season and beyond, well into the winter months. It's really a very low maintenance plant that's not picky about soil, does well in heat and drought, and only asks for a cutting back (to about 3-4 inches) in early spring (about the time the bulbs start blooming), and it's quite happy to perform in sunny areas, expanding gradually to form a large clump over the ensuing years. Should it get too big for your space, you can easily divide it and plant the sections elsewhere or share with your gardening friends. That's not likely to happen with ours for a while at least, and if and when it outgrows its present spot, we'll probably just move new divisions to other parts of the garden ... that's how much we love this plant!

Though this shot is a bit dark in the foreground, if you look closely, you can just make out the Celosia 'Dark Caracas' lying down in front of the rock, a victim of both recent high winds and freezes. We tried collecting some seed from it this past weekend, but apparently it has already dropped most of it, so it should be popping up all over the area next year once the ground warms in late spring. We're still going to see if we can scrape up a bit from the two plants to start indoors so we can plant it elsewhere next year. (Note to Gail: now would be a good time to see if you can collect some, since you've had your first frost!) As I've noted previously, this is a must to plant if you're a fan of Celosia species, and if you're lucky enough to find it in garden centers next year, do consider giving it a sunny home for the season!

Just as an aside, I received an email from a woman in Clermont, France over the weekend about problems with aphids on this plant (she's valiantly trying to grow it indoors!), and though we've never had this problem with any of our various Celosias, I've wondered if anyone else has experienced this problem ... I recommended an infusion of Cayenne pepper steeped in boiling water with dish detergent added to it as an insecticidal spray. That has worked wonders for us in the past when we had an infestation of Whiteflies on our tomatoes one year, and also should work for some of the other common 'sucking' pests associated with certain plants (such as spider mites). It's an eco-friendly and organic solution that costs little and doesn't harm either the plant or the soil, so maybe you can put this tip to use with your own plants. If you don't have Cayenne on hand, you can also use those little packets of crushed red pepper that often come with pizza ordered for delivery! We've used those and they work fine as well, and you can pat yourself on the back for re-purposing something that you might ordinarily discard in the trash! (We keep those around just in case we need them for just this purpose!)

Ok, sorry for probably spotty posting this week, but hope springs eternal that I can get back on track again soon, and as always, I truly cherish my regular readers, whether you comment or not. You're the rays of sunshine who brighten the dreary days of fall and winter now upon us....

Fall Change Is In the Air....

Well folks, at this point, I think I've just about navigated to the end of denial river, and am beginning to bargain reluctantly with Fall, trying my best to enjoy the unique pleasures it does afford the melancholy gardener at this time of year. After all, we have enjoyed a fairly decent harvest of garden goodness from the tomatoes, corn, onions, leeks to the inadvertently planted pumpkins. As you can see, preparations for the grand Halloween season have begun (thanks to Fernymoss for picking up the slack while I was sick this past weekend) with the arrival of the Punkin Dude! Even though he's usually a harbinger of colder times to come, so far this year we've avoided a hard frost, though it's just a matter of time before it happens and all the remaining color in this part of the garden will be a mere memory until next year.... Still, we'll enjoy it until the bitter end, and I'd just like to point out a few flowers that can provide you with some late fall firepower until that moment comes.
I know I've sung the praises of Calendula officinalis previously, and here's yet another reason why I value this humble 'Pot Marigold' so highly ... just check out those fresh, cheery yellow and orange flowers blooming late into October! Just think ... this particular patch of Calendula has been blooming since June! What more could one ask of an easy self-seeding annual ... over five months of bloom time? If you want more, then you're a more demanding gardener than I am! They've been putting on seeds for a few months now, and though that usually means the end of most annuals, these lovelies just keep on blooming! And only a very hard frost will kill them and stop their show....
Here's a nice close up of an appropriately colored (for the season) Calendula cascading over the edge of one of the front boulders near the steps approaching our house. I'll repeat (ad nauseum) just one more time that I haven't replanted these Calendulas for about five years, and just scatter their seed after frost to ensure their reappearance next spring. If you're interested in growing these no fuss beauties, now (or very soon) is the time to plant them, once the ground has cooled (generally after a killing frost) and they're unlikely to germinate until the ground warms up next spring. Your only other option is to get them out very early in the spring, when, honestly, few gardeners are thinking about digging around in the dirt while it's still cold and lifeless (at least I don't care much for that activity). Sow them liberally where you want them to grow, perhaps raking up the dirt a bit just to cover them and let them winter in place, where they'll pop up in early spring and start to bloom in late May to early June through frost. As Ina Garten would say, How easy is that? Then just either let them fall in place after frost or break up the seedheads and fling them around an area where you'd like them to colonize and your work is done!
On a quick visit today, I saw that Gail is still enjoying her Celosia 'Caracas' down in Nashville, and I suspect that ours will succumb to the cold before hers, but now is a great time to be gathering seed, as the color recedes from the blooms (I'd better get busy doing this myself soon!). But they also provide some great colorful fall accents when everything else is looking pretty ratty, worn out and drab in the garden, and I've noticed that as the weather has inevitably cooled lately, the foliage is taking on an even deeper shade of red, changing along with the leaves on the trees as the season progresses, until they are soon snuffed out by a killing frost and their seeds will go dormant until early summer next year when we'll hopefully have many more popping up in this area....
This is a wider view of the area where 'Caracas' was planted near our stand of 'Porcupine Grass' (Miscanthus sinensis), and as you can see, both have been beaten down a bit by some of the heavy rains and windy storms we've had over the past few weeks. Normally, my inclination would be to stake up the Celosia a bit, but at this point in the season, we tend to just let Nature take her course and let things fall where they may ... besides, Halloween is nearly here and it just seems to add to the generalized spookiness the front garden takes on for the holiday, with its scattered bones and tombstones....
As I wandered around to the Woodland Garden after work today (when I took these photos in the late afternoon), I saw that the Daturas are still hanging in there and blooming away, so I had to pause and get a few shots ... Fernymoss remarked --for a reason that escapes me-- that this one was very 'Georgia O'Keefe.' Ok, I'll go against the grain here (bring out the pitchforks and torches) and say that I've never quite "gotten" the whole enthusiasm for her work. Yes, she did some pretty paintings of flowers, but honestly, her paintings usually just leave me cold. It's not that I don't like women painters (au contraire!), but give me some Remedios Varo or Frida Kahlo any day, because I find their work infinitely more fascinating than O'Keefe's. But I digress ... this is a lovely Datura bloom, isn't it?
Ah yes, the ever present, now weed status Zebrina Mallow, which became quite the pest in the corner boulder bed this year ... despite my aggressive hacking away at it a few months ago, I did allow a few well behaved plants remain (they are really pretty after all), and as you can see here, the cooler weather also has its effect on the late season blooms ... they become darker, bordering more on the magenta hue than their pure purple and white of the warmer months, and what's more, they often bloom past the 'bitter end' of a hard frost and only a hard freeze finally sends them packing for the year, after they've dropped their multitudes of seeds. But as you all know, I'm a really mallow kind of guy, so it's difficult for me to try to eradicate them completely, but then again, check back with me next spring as I labor plucking out all the unwanted ones....
Finally, believe it or not, the Castor ricinus 'Carmencita Rose' plants we grew in a big pot this year are actually setting on some seeds! Though these plants haven't reached full size (7-8 ft) because we grew them in a container, they have been blooming profusely lately, and we may just be able to collect some viable seed to save (are you interested, Marnie?) for next year. These seed pods are very strange, as you can see, and they remind me of some kind of sea anemone or sea cucumber, or one of those weird denizens of the deep. Of all the Castors one can grow, this is by far my favorite (although Zanzibariensis comes close), due to its striking architectural look and the brilliant bronzy foliage that positively glows in the late afternoon sun (of which we are sorely lacking these days). It's well worth planting as a specimen plant in the garden where you have an area you want to accent a striking plant (in full sun) that you won't see in just any garden. Then again, we kind of pride ourselves on being 'not just any garden,' for better or worse!

Yes, there are more Toad Lilies to come, but I'm still behind a bit in posting of late, but there will be more soon!

Finger Rock Perspectives

These two photos by Fernymoss, (taken on 22 May, 2008), show a couple of different perspectives of one of (what we consider) the highlights in the front boulder garden: Finger Rock. I think the nickname is pretty self-explanatory, but if not, we call it that because that's what image it summons up for us! When we had that huge pile of boulders and rocks to start with, we saw immediately that a few really had potential as accents in the garden we were building, and this was one of the first we put aside until the appropriate placement emerged in the bed. (Which didn't take too long once we started filling it all in!)

Let's look at them one by one ...
The first photo reveals a lot, first and foremost, the Globe Alliums that are currently demanding attention from behind the rock ... Directly behind it and a bit to the right is 'Porcupine Grass' (Miscanthus sinensis), a vigorous and very attractive tall grass we have really come to love in the past few years. Its only real drawback is that it's really easy to slice yourself up if you're unfortunate enough to get entangled with it (as I did last year when I slipped and fell backwards into it, causing some nasty cuts and lacerated skin), so admire from a distance! That veritable 'field' to the left is 'Bee Balm' (aka Monarda didyma), one of our real show stoppers come mid-June to early July, with its fiery red blooms massed in the ever increasing space it inhabits. This is one of the plants we share freely with interested gardeners because not only can it have a tendency to 'take over,' it actually appreciates and is stimulated by division every couple of years. We just dig up a good sized clump, fill in with topsoil and it's soon populated heavily again. It's a mint, remember ... and all mints have somewhat of an 'enthusiastic grower' reputation (to put it diplomatically!) In the background, you can see our (also ever increasing) stand of Ostrich Plume Ferns (Matteuccia struthiopteris), another of our fond memory favorites. (Boran2 are these the ones you have?) To the right of the ferns you can see Lysimachia vulgaris, a start of which was given to us by a gardening friend who swore it was yellow Bee Balm (though it bears no resemblance to it!) It's beautiful, but a bit of a thug, and we need to tame it a bit and dig a good bit up and get rid of it this year, either to willing takers or to the compost. The foliage is a very attractive reddish-maroon colour, and the profuse yellow flowers it produces in July and August are very pretty indeed. (You'll see more of this as it develops over the summer.)

The second shot is obviously dominated by this quite attractive Artemisia, the name of which I've forgotten,since we didn't save the plant tag that came with it (a common practice here, alas). I haven't had much luck determining exactly what it is, but it's pretty enough we like having it where is right now. It gets a bit unruly (e.g. threatens to take over) after it blooms (which is going to be soon, if you look closely), but we usually just give it a quick pruning (definitely cutting off the flowers, which are nothing to write home about!) and that seems to keep it in line for the rest of the summer. There are tons of seedlings in this shot, namely Zebrina Mallow, Calendulas and our neighborhood favorite, "Frank's Poppies" that are coming up all over the garden, getting ready to wow the passersby again this year. I think I can also spot a few 'Bells of Ireland' seedlings in this shot as well, though they tend to concentrate toward the front of the bed ... additionally you can see the last of our spring bulbs, Hyacinthoides hispanica, or 'Spanish Bluebells' or 'Wood Hyacinth.' These guys have really been spreading the past couple of years and we couldn't be more pleased to see them do that! When I originally planted these in fall 2005, I had purchased them from Park Seed, who claimed they were Scilla hispanica, so I was initially fooled into believing we just had a later blooming species of Scilla, even if they didn't even vaguely resemble Scilla's foliage or bloom type. That sent me to the Google of course, and I soon learned they were really a member of the Liliaceae and more closely related to the Hyacinths, which made a whole lot more sense. But what's in a name? They were a steal when I got them ... I got a box of 100 (yep, a hundred!) for $5, so they're showing up all over the place out front and along the walk. Every year they just seem to bloom better and better, and they were spared last year's late freeze period because they hadn't come up yet when we had that cold spell. And it's kind of nice to know that all the bulbs are definitely done when these bloom ... it provides a nice season changer to know that other flowers are about to claim the 'star' mantle in the display.

One last plant I'd like to point out is the 'Sea Holly' (Eryngium giganteum 'Miss Wilmot's Ghost'), one of our favorites that is close to achieving 'weed status' in its current position, but it's so unusual and pretty (and has the advantage of attracting many beneficial wasps) that I don't have the heart to go after it too aggressively (though Fernymoss has his differences with me on that particular issue!) Again, you'll be seeing more of it in future posts, but if you're curious at this point, just click the 'Sea Holly' label below and you'll get a preview of what's to come.

So that's the state of the garden at this point, and since I have some time off from work this week, I'll be out a few hours every day, weeding and planting our new annuals and perennials, as well as seeds as I get the areas cleared. Today, I cleaned out the small bed with the Primroses, in preparation to planting some coleus, nasturtiums, balsam, lupine seeds. The Toad Lily out there is already looking good in its second year and I expect great things from it come late summer ... so much to get done, but somehow we always seem to pull it off somehow! And with all the plants we got over the past two days, we have our hands full!