Slow Go Gomphrena

One of the reasons that I ordered seeds from Burpee this year was that I was intrigued by one of their new offerings, Gomphrena 'Fireworks'. So I started my seeds at the end of March, and a month later the seedlings looked like this:

So far, so good. I transplanted them to the garden in early May, and now, more than four months after I started them, they look like this:

Seriously? I mean, I would have expected a perennial to take some time getting its roots established, but an annual?

OK, a couple of them have gotten a little larger and produced one—count 'em, one—flower. Fireworks indeed!

I have mixed feelings about growing annuals from seed. For example, last year we bought Laurentia plants in late May, which were already blooming, and except for a brief hiatus in July when it got really hot and dry, they kept blooming until late October—nearly five full months! This year we decided to start some from seed, and like the Gomphrena, they're just now starting to bloom. They may well keep going until October, but I've already missed two whole months of flowers that I would have enjoyed if only I had bought plants instead of starting seeds. How do the commercial growers get such a better head start? Does a greenhouse really make that much difference? It must!

Perhaps the Gomphrena will fire up in the heat of August (this has been an extraordinarily cool summer), and there will finally be something to oooh and aaah about. Or maybe they'll just fizzle like cheap sparklers. You never know until you try.

Ode to Green Beans

Beans, beans, become a fan!
The more you grow, the more you'll can.
The more you can, the better you'll feel.
So grow some beans for every meal!

Coneflowers Sure Can Flower

Coneflowers are not the cover girls of the garden. They're not drop-dead gorgeous like many oriental lilies, and iris, and daylilies, and roses. In fact, when taking close-up pictures of them, it sometimes takes me a while to find a good single specimen. This one is a little sunscorched, that one has some bug damage, this one is too droopy, that one is too faded. And yet I love growing them because, although they're not always beautiful as individual specimens, a clump of five to seven plants can be the backbone of the mid/late summer garden. As native plants here in Ohio, coneflowers are utterly tolerant of our clay soil, our hot, humid summers, and our freeze-n-thaw-n-freeze winters. They generally stay upright with no support whatsoever. And they bloom for a solid three months!

We have three different varieties of coneflowers in our yard. Echinacea purpurea 'Rubinstern' (Ruby Star) and Echinacea purpurea 'White Swan' we purchased from a local nursery; Echinacea purpurea 'Magnus' we grew from seed.

Ruby Star and Magnus are both classic purple coneflowers. One starts blooming a little before the other, and has slightly deeper color and more upright petals, but I have forgotten which is which.

'White Swan', as its name suggests, is white rather than purple. I find that, as the blooms mature, they actually take on a slightly green tinge, but when they first flower they start out bright white.

And, oh, look, after I said they need no support, I see that some of my White Swans are leaning a bit. Ah, well.

While there's not the diversity in Echinacea that there is in, say, daylilies, breeders are doing some interesting things with them. In addition to the classic purple, you can now get Echinacea in various shades of yellow, orange, and red. I haven't gotten any from White Flower Farm, but they seem to have a nice selection. Perhaps I need to expand my own repertoire.

And although I do enjoy Echinacea tea in the winter, I've never tried making it from my own plants—not sure if that involves the petals or the leaves. But just looking at them from my back porch is good for my health!

A Sage Gardener Grows Perovskia

My Perovskia (aka Russian Sage) is in full swing right now. It started blooming back on June 24, showing just a hint of color...

...and now it looks like this.

I'm not sure which variety it is, as it was planted by our home's previous owner. It's not quite as upright as some varieties that I've seen, but I don't bother with supports.

The bed where this patch resides is along the back of our property, which abuts a meadow. As a result, Queen Ann's Lace occasionally infiltrates. I used to pull it, but lately I've taken to leaving it in, since its flat white flower heads seem to compliment Perovskia's blue spikes. (As I always say, a weed is just a plant growing where you don't want it. If you want it there, it's not a weed.) The adjacent white buddleia also makes for a good neighbor.

This year I planted some cosmos in the same bed, which is just now starting to bloom, and from a certain angle you can see the pink cosmos against the blue Perovskia, and that's also a very nice combination. I think next year I'll plant cosmos directly in front of the Perovskia to make the combination more visible from the front of the bed. (Incidentally, I think Lithrum looks fabulous next to Perovskia, but that plant is considered invasive in Ohio, so we don't grow it.)

Speaking of invasive...this particular variety of Perovskia does tend to wander. I'm continually finding little shoots trying to make their way across the bed, and I have to rein them in. But pulling them does give me an opportunity to enjoy the aromatic leaves!

Eggplants "Hatching"

A while back, I had bemoaned the fact that so many of my eggplant seedlings had been cut down or dug up by birds. Now, I'm thinking that might have been fortuitous. I'm a big fan of square-foot gardening, but eggplant plants are huge! I really don't think I would ever plant more than nine in a 4x4' bed! (Here you see seven—I had originally planted 16!)

This is the first time I've ever grown eggplant, and I'm enjoying it quite a bit. Not only are the fruits themselves purple, but the smaller leaves and the veins of the larger leaves are tinged with purple...

...and the flowers are pale lavender. I even got a shot of a bee making a visit!

After being pollinated, the base of the flower bud starts to swell up, and then the fruit starts protruding, like a balloon being blown up in slow motion.

I'm not sure when to start picking—I've read that eggplants taste best when harvested young, but I don't want them to be under-ripe. And based on the number of flowers I'm seeing on each plant, I'm going to have start digging up lots of eggplant recipes!

No Cold Shoulder for Iceberg

The only rose in our gardens that I haven't written about yet is a climber called Iceberg—aptly named, as its flowers are pure white, like our Blancs.

We did not actually purchase Iceberg; it was a "bonus" plant that was included with some others that we had ordered, I believe from David Austin. Anyway, I hadn't accounted for it in my plans, and didn't really need another climber, so we stuck it in a sorry spot for a rose—a partly shaded corner under an eave, where it potentially wouldn't get enough sun or water. Worst case scenario, it wouldn't survive, and we'd put something else in that spot. Best case scenario, it would climb up and hide the downspout in that corner, and maybe give us another nice view from the porch.

Well, I have to say that I have come to admire Iceberg quite a bit. Given the less-than-ideal conditions, it has managed to grow quite nicely.

It's a reliable rebloomer, and with a little more training and support, I think Iceberg will end up one of our better "happy accidents".

Hyssop, Hersop

Having written about lavender makes me think about the only other herb that I currently grow, which is hyssop—the actual Hyssopus officinalis rather than its cousin, Agastache, which is also sometimes called hyssop. It's similar to lavender in that it produces upright blue flower spikes and is slightly aromatic, but nowhere near as fragrant as lavender.

And while lavender grows fairly vigorously, I'm beginning to think hyssop borders on invasive. I thought I cut it back pretty hard last April...

...but it looks like I was just encouraging it to come back even stronger!

It can get somewhat flattened by a hard rain, but it springs right up again after a few days of sun. It's definitely a lush filler for the front of the border, and blooms for about six weeks beginning in late May/early June. Now if I can just get it to stop crowding out the cosmos and the hesperis seedlings that I just put in this year!

Lavender Sachets (or Not!)

Back in 2007, I started some lavender from seed (I'm pretty sure it's 'Munstead'), and in the past couple of years, the plants have gotten really well established.

Whenever I give anyone a tour of the garden, I always stop at the lavender, crush a couple leaves between my fingers, and let my guest inhale the fragrance. So this year I thought I would preserve that wonderful scent and make lavender sachets. I picked up some little cloth bags from a local craft store—the kind they use for weddings, for rice or candies or whatever, with a ribbon drawstring closure—and waited for my lavender to bloom.

Well, bloom it did, and I should have picked it in early June, when it looked like this:

But I enjoyed the sight of the blue cloud of flowers so much that I couldn't bring myself to cut it down. "Perhaps I'll wait until it dries of its own accord, and then cut it," I thought. Well, I found out today why that's not such a good idea. Most of the buds had dropped from the stems already, leaving me with a scant harvest! It wasn't even worth it to try to tie bunches together—I went ahead and stripped what buds I could, and need to put them on a screen to dry for a few days. Then I'll see what I can do with them.

While this year's attempt at preserving my lavender might not have been a roaring success, it was awfully pleasant to smell the aromatic oils on my hands. And there's always next year...

Comments Working Again!

I found it odd that I hadn't gotten any comments on this blog since June 6, and tried to leave one myself, but couldn't. It occurred to me that this loss of functionality coincided with the date when I added a graphic to my header, and removing the graphic seems to have solved the problem.

I really liked the graphic, and I'm going to play around with making this work, but hearing from y'all is more important to me than a pretty picture! So please chime in once again! I love hearing from everyone!

Late Blight Warning

My niece sent me a link to an article by Mike McGrath (the greatest editor-in-chief that Organic Gardening magazine ever had, IMHO) about late blight affecting tomato plants on the east coast, Ohio, and West Virginia: http://www.wtop.com/?nid=46.

It sounds pretty serious, and I wanted to pass the info along to my tens of readers, in case any of you are growning tomatoes this year (as I am). If any of your plants show symptoms of this disease, please destroy them immediately to prevent the disease from spreading further!

Green Bean Heaven

I'm starting to enjoy the dividends of having left one of my raised beds empty during the spring. In 2008, I didn't plant my green beans until the lettuce was all harvested (June 24), so I didn't begin harvesting the beans until August 17. This year, since I didn't plant a spring crop in one of the beds, I was able to get the beans planted on May 10.They sprouted by May 21...

...and really filled out by June 10...

...and I started harvesting beans on July 3. This is my second basketful since then.

In 2008 I grew Festina, and I was not crazy about them. When they sprouted, the young leaves were cracked and gnarled, and although I always get a little bug damage, this variety seemed particularly susceptible. Festina was productive early in the season, and the beans were very tender and easy to pick, but the plants seemed to putter out too soon. I filled five gallon-sized plastic bags, which translated into canning just four pints, plus several fresh meals.

This year, I'm growing Tenderpick, which seems to be a healthier variety. I'm being more proactive with my use of insecticidal soap, and although there has been a little damage to the leaves, the beans have been like Mary Poppins—practically perfect in every way! I'm keen to see how productive Tenderpick is. And if the plants putter out quickly, at least it will be early enough in the season that I can perhaps add a fall sowing of something.

My Love Is Like a Red (or Pink) Rose

Although my husband was on an apricot binge when he chose the roses for our rose bed, there are several conventional reds and pinks back there as well.

Othello is a red that never leafed out for us in 2008, and David Austin was kind enough to replace it.

Our other red is Darcey Bussell, named after the British ballerina. I can't say that I find the rose quite as graceful as the dancer, but both Darcey and Othello have a deep color that draws the eye even from a distance.

Our two pinks (besides Constance Spry, about which I wrote earlier) are Heather Austin and The Mayflower.

I can't say that I would grow Heather again. The flowers tend to nod so much that they're hard to see, and when you do finally see them, you realize that you weren't missing much. They have a non-descript form, and among my bazillion flower pictures I actually found it hard to find a half-way decent photo of one.

The Mayflower is the most atypical rose in the bed on two counts. For one, it's the smallest shrub, bordering on miniature.

For another, its flowers look much more like hybrid teas than old English roses.

All in all, we have enough variety to make for a nice mixed bouquet (with a little mock orange thrown in for good measure).