Category Archives: Gardening

On one of my weekly pilgrimages to Faddegon’s (it’s my happy, peaceful place at all times of the year, and is the only space I can visit some beloved Australian tree ferns, as I cannot for the life of me keep them alive in my home) I came upon these little coneflowers, bursting forth with cheery blooms and mirroring a sun-filled sky. They are still going strong even at this late summer date, and if I had any more room in the garden, I’d be planting them, but that sort of space-planning will have to take place next year. We are getting ready to put the gardens to sleep for another winter, and save for a few spring bulbs, our planting cycle is pretty much complete. 

Hybridizers have been working wonders with the Echinacea species, and these varieties are a pretty example of that. There are some that even come with a sweet fragrance – something I never thought I’d sniff when all we had was the fragrance-free ‘Magnus’ variety of my youth. The world has come a long way, and once in a while it’s for the better.

Despite its exquisite beauty and elegant grace, the appearance of the Japanese anemone blooms is always a sad sign that the end of summer is near. These blooms show up just as the garden is winding down for the season finale. While the cup plants are still going strong, their branches have been bent and twisted from storms and rain. Most of the ferns have turned the corner to their desiccation and browning. The hydrangeas are still making a fine show of it, as is our lone Rose of Sharon plant. Mostly, though, the garden has begun its preparations for the long slumber ahead. 

These Japanese anemones lend a last bit of freshness to the garden at a time when it’s badly needed. It gives a little extra jolt of inspiration and energy for all the tasks about to come into play – planting bulbs, protecting plants for winter, and the general upkeep that fills the last few weeks of summer. 

A visitor all abuzz lands on the central crown of a Helianthus flower, soaking in the sun and the pollen and nectar. It is the epitome of a summer scene, repeated countless times in our backyard as our cup plants and perennial sunflowers draw in the birds and bees and butterflies, all happily going about their pollinating business. 

These flowers are keeping the summer garden going strong, but I sense they are cresting, and the gradual decline in blooms and exuberance is about to begin, signaling the slow slide to fall. We’re not quite ready for that, as it’s been such a glorious summer, but we are also powerless against time. Our only recourse is to soak in every moment and be as present as possible when the sun is shining and the bees are buzzing. 

Enjoy your weekend, friend. 

The ubiquitous Rose-of-Sharon has been bursting into its mid-late-summer bloom all over town this past week. I’d resisted planting this because it is absolutely everywhere, but like the hosta and the hydrangea, it’s everywhere for a reason, and its blooming power and timing is key to such popularity. I’ve also found that anything coming into bloom at this late stage carries an excitement that would be lost in early June, when everything in the world seems to bloom. 

Along with those reasons, the flowers are quite beautiful, especially when viewed close-up. When you only have one bush in your yard, the mainstream white-washing of it goes by the wayside, and you are left only with its merits, and the reasons it was so popular in the first place. 

These last few weeks of heat have been hellacious for our hydrangeas, especially the pair in our front yard, which receive the bulk of the day’s sun, including mid-day when it’s at its strongest. I’ve been doing my best to water the ferns in the back, so these don’t get as much care in the heat, and they have finally shown me the results of such apathy. 

We haven’t had a stretch of sun and heat like this for a while, and I think the hydrangeas just aren’t used to it. They prefer something on the shady side as a general rule anyway, unless they can be given regular and consistent water, which has been sorely lacking (due to my own failings). 

An interesting note about hydrangeas – if you get to watering them early in the morning, it helps to soak their leaves and flowerheads too, as the plant takes in water through both. (A trick for cut hydrangeas that show signs of wilting – submerge them fully in a bucket of water, re-cut the stems, and wait for the magic to begin again). 

By this point in time, the hosta has been celebrated here enough, dispelling any notion of being ignored or under-appreciated as referenced in my lazy blog post title. Hey, this website has been around for almost twenty years, you try thinking of something new and exciting that hasn’t been said before. I’ll wait. 

Sorry, it’s Tuesday, and Tuesdays bring out the worst in me. They are so much worse than Mondays. On Monday we all expect things to suck, so when they are even semi-bearable they never seem quite as bad. We forget about Tuesdays, and how awful they can be, so they feel so much worse. I digress, and quite a bit, as we are supposed to be honoring the hosta. 

A number of our hostas were eaten in the early spring by our over-zealous rabbits just as they were poking through the spring soil, and at the worst possible time. (I’m told this is the stage that humans can consume their tender shoots too, but I would never do that to such a beautiful plant.) The bunnies took no heed of that kind of restraint, and promptly tore through several clumps before the poor plants could even get going. 

The hostas rebounded slightly, throwing out a few new spikes of leaves to unfurl, though many were marred by the rabbit’s bites. Slugs have also proven to be a problem in this hot and humid year, and I haven’t gotten around to buying a six-pack of beer to lure and bloat them with beer bellies. It’s simply been too hot, and sometimes you have to let nature take her course, trusting that she will protect what needs true protection. 

Gardening remains a ruthless game. The hosta knows this, and will not ask for more. 

Suzie gave us a big rectangular planter, designed for tomatoes, a few years back. We’d used it for tomatoes, and they did all right, but I wanted to try sugar snap peas, as the support cages seemed ideal for their tendrils and vines. I put in a six-pack of them early in spring, and after making some decent headway, they were promptly eaten t the dirt by our resident baby rabbits. 

Undeterred, they put out new growth immediately afterward, and I actually managed to get a single early pea pod – all sweetness and freshness and green goodness – before they were entirely felled by a midnight rabbit attack. 

Discouraged by this, I sowed a pack of cucumber seeds with a dash of annoyance, not really caring whether they made it. They broke through the dirt, took over where the peas left off, and just as I was beginning to get excited for cucumbers, the rabbit feasted on every single vine. 

Completely over it, I rolled the planter to the side of the patio and didn’t bother with Plan C. I forgot about it until I noticed a little green growth a few days later. There was one vine in the middle that sprang to life, deep inside the cage and perhaps out of reach of rabbit bites, and this vine rose and rose until a few bright yellow flowers hosted a couple of bees. It’s far too soon to count our cucumbers before they’ve even begun to hang, and chances are the rabbit will find a way in any night to eat it all up before any fruit forms, but I’m holding onto hope again, because that’s what summer is for. 

Summer is personified by the morning glory – echoes of sky and sunsets may be found in the shading of its blooms, open mostly in the morning and giving name to its fleeting magnificence. Those blooms have been hybridized to encompass all sorts of shades, though my heart will always below to the big, basic sky blue of the common variety. These smaller versions pack a more powerful color-punch, however, so they get much of the glory these days. 

I don’t plant them anymore as they tend to be weedy and prolific re-seeders, but I’ll usually let a few get by so we can see what the flowers look like. They also come into bloom when the rest of the garden is beginning its first exhale from the charge of summer, and will see it through to the fall. 

One of the most charming gifts the garden can bestow is the occasional moment of reblooming. Many plants have one showy season where they bloom their heads off, then promptly settle in for foliage-only for the rest of the season. Once in a while, a spring bloomer will re-bloom later on in the summer. Often this happens when the nights return to cooler form, perhaps promoting the conditions of spring rather than the heat of high summer. Sometimes, they simply get a second wind, as was the case of this Korean lilac, which is putting forth a few stems of new buds right now, when we need it the most. 

Its fragrance is one I associate with the freshest and brightest days of spring, when it typically comes into bloom on the heels of the native lilac. I like that it extends the lilac season, and its leaves remain fresh and unmarred by mildew through to the fall. (Our other lilacs and peonies are already graying with the heat and humidity we’ve had of late). 

The perfume is the jolt of freshness the gardens needs at this time, casting a reinvigorating spell over those who happen upon its sweetness. 

My pessimistic side – sometimes the only side I have to display – chalked up the loss to the acceptance of a cute bunny that ate almost all of the first leaves of these petunia plants – but pessimism joyfully lost out to summer persistence. Here is that ravaged batch of petunias, now in full and glorious bloom. They had been making quiet strides of healing and growth, sending out new leaves and buds, as if reinvigorated by their harsh pruning so early in the season – a game of catch-up and bloom like it’s not going to last. 

The bunny did its bit of damage, but there’s now a groundhog on the loose, so this pretty scene is probably of very-limited duration. I will take it and offer gratitude for as long as its prettiness lasts. A lesson of the fleeting nature of summer, perhaps felt more keenly than in any other season. 

This lovely pink/peach-hued cloud of a flower cluster belongs to the Filipendula. More commonly known as the Queen of the Prairie, she holds these flower umbrels high above the prairie, upwards of five feet tall. She attains such size and stature when afforded a wet and consistently moist piece of land. 

A few years ago I planted this one, and didn’t give her the extra water and care she wanted/needed, so she survived but didn’t thrive. She would return, sending out runners to different locations (never a desirable trait for a struct Virgo gardener, but entirely understandable in a difficult prairie situation). When other plants in her proximity demanded more water, she finally got her happy place and started blooming like this. 

That said, those haphazard and unpredictable runners had her popping up all over the place, including at the very front of the border, reserved for smaller edging plants and not conducive to something of this size. I allowed her a few seasons of this, but we’re at the point where all these not-so-little stalks simply have to be pulled. 

Another drawback is that without staking, some of the tall stalks end up falling over. If not corrected immediately they will simply bend upward, contorting into all sorts of weird and undesirable angles. With all these issues, I may have to gift this one to someone with an actual prairie where she can roam freely and unfettered. 

Our collection of ferns gets all the credit for the tranquility they conjure even on the hottest summer days, the same magic could be claimed by the fountain bamboo, which cradles raindrops and morning dew in exquisite beauty to rival the finest fern. When Andy and I first moved into our home in 2002, I promptly planted two fountain bamboo plants. It took a couple years, but they eventually grew into the gracefully arching clumps for which the fountain bamboo is rightly renowned. They softened the corners of our new house, each creating a calm turn along the garden border. It was a marvelous effect, but it was not to last. 

The fountain bamboo flowers once in its lifetime, then promptly fades out from all the effort. This bloom cycle only happens after about 100 years, and it turned out that the plants we had were from this batch. The flowering happens across the world, and masses of fountain bamboos were dying off in a period of a few seasons. It was sad to see them go, and I waited a few more years before trying to plant new ones, in the hope of avoiding such a scenario for another hundred years. 

The bamboo evokes centuries of history, as it should considering it’s once-a-century blooming cycle. Some plants have memories that stretch back longer than the lives of most people. They have seen the world in all its iterations, and they watch silently, without judgment or condemnation. I like such history, and such knowledge. It lends the garden a certain gravitas that should be respected. Plants are so often much more resilient than people. It is unlikely that we will be alive when these bamboos flower, and there is acceptance and resolve in that if you remain calm about it. The good part about planting new fountain bamboo is that we are just at the start of another hundred-year-journey. There’s all the hope in the world when you put it into that perspective.