The Genus Formerly Known as Lisianthus

As a gardener, I should be used to change. Seasons change. Plants change. But when I opened my Thompson and Morgan seed catalog and saw that Lisianthus is now called Eustoma, I was taken aback. Who made that decision? I recall no memo to that effect.

We didn't grow Lisianthus this year, and our luck with it has been hit-and-miss. Some years, it would come back again and again, even though it's ostensibly an annual. Other years, the seedlings we transplanted to the garden did nothing. But when it does bloom, it is lovely—literal bouquets of purple, pink, and white flowers.

Obviously, it needs more staking than I gave it.

Perhaps next year I'll try again, and see if the new name is a change for the better.

Volunteer Spirit

I'm not sure how Pulmonaria propagates itself, but while I was doing fall clean-up in the yard, I noticed a "volunteer" Pulmonaria 'Samurai' not far from the mama plant!

I absolutely love this plant, and would like to move the "baby" to another location so that I can enjoy my Pulmonaria in multiple places, although I'm not sure when it will be established enough to transplant. We'll see how it looks in the spring!

Cheeky Colchicum

For Father's Day, my husband's daughter gave him a gift certificate from Wayside Gardens (does she know him or what?), and he decided to try something we've never grown before: Colchicum (also known as autumn crocus).

The only fall-blooming bulb that I was familiar with was Lycoris, and I've always found it a little unsettling. True, the lily-like flowers are attractive, but a stem with no leaves just seems naked. So I was a little wary of the Colchicum, but willing to see what they were like.

We got three 'Waterlily' bulbs and one 'Harlekijn' bulb. By the time we got them planted in early October, the 'Waterlily' bulbs were already sending out shoots, and we were pleasantly surprised when, a couple weeks later, they were blooming!

Since Colchicum are so close to the ground, the absence of leaves is hardly noticeable. And I was really pleased that each bulb produced three to six flower stems—much more of a display than I had expected.

There weren't any shoots on the 'Harlekijn', and we haven't seen any sign of life from it yet. I honestly didn't expect any of them to bloom this year, so I'll have to watch for green 'Harlekijn' shoots in the spring, and see what happens.

Eggplants by the Dozen!

Slowly but surely, I'm putting the veggie garden to bed for the year (no pun intended...well, OK, maybe a small pun intended). Last weekend I pulled up the tomatoes and peppers, and this weekend I picked the last of the eggplants and pulled them as well. Shall we say I have more than a few left? (This is the last gleaning from just seven plants!)

This was the first time I had ever grown eggplant, and I was really pleased with the experience. I got to try a bunch of different recipes, but so far my favorite is eggplant rollatini—sort of like manicotti, except that the cheese is wrapped in breaded, sauteed eggplant rather than pasta. It takes about two hours to prepare, but it's obscenely good, and my new favorite dish for guests!

Now for my next experiment...freezing it and seeing how well it preserves!

You Look Malvalous

Writing about hollyhocks in my last post made me think of their shorter cousin, Malva. This particular variety is 'Zebrina'—I like zat name!

Last year, they bloomed from late May to late June. This year, they were much later, from mid-July to mid-August. Not sure what accounts for the difference.

The nice thing about Malva is that you get a similar form as hollyhocks—the scalloped leaves, the clusters of flowers opening up from the base to the top of a long stalk—without the staking issues, since Malva gets only about three feet high.

The downside is that, unlike hollyhocks, they seem to be candy for critters. And they self-seed to an extent that borders on invasive, although with diligent weeding I haven't found them that hard to control.

At a previous home here in Ohio, we grew Malva around the light post at the top of our driveway, and the rainwater would carry the seed down the slope, depositing it not only in the grass along the edge of the drive, but also in cracks in the road. Sometimes when I was out walking, I would find little Malva plants poking up through the asphalt. It always amazed me that sometimes you can give a plant all the love and pampering you can, and it'll still die, but here was this Malva, washed randomly into the street, barely able to find a crevice to put down roots, and it grows like crazy. Not sure what lesson to take from that, but it seems encouraging.

Alcea Later

I was late cutting the hollyhocks back this year. They look so lovely when they first start blooming at the back of the border in early June (shown here providing a backdrop to the tiger lilies)...

...but by mid- to late-July, the buds at the bottom of the stem have started to dry up, and as the ones at the top begin to open, the plant seems to get top-heavy and start leaning if not outright falling over. Hollyhocks can be a challenge to stake, given their height and weight and number of stalks, but this year I got some gathering hoops from Smith and Hawken (I'll miss that store!), and that helped enough that I didn't just cut them all back when they started getting scraggly and flopsy. That approach allowed me to enjoy a few stray blooms all the way through late August—there were even a couple flowers still hanging on when I finally did cut them back last weekend.

We grow Alcea 'Creme de Cassis', which is a perennial variety that we started from seed two years ago. It does self-seed pretty prolifically, although the babies don't seem to survive as well as the ones that we started indoors and transplanted. The clumps we initially started are the ones that come back each year, without much expansion. Or so it seems.

My husband really likes hollyhocks, so every year we do tend to throw in a few new varieties, but none do as well or last as long as the 'Creme de Cassis'. The seed package claims that the flowers are semi- to fully double, but 90% of them are single, which is fine by me. I really don't care for the doubles or pom-poms.

I've read that even perennial varieties of hollyhocks live for only a few years, so perhaps next year I should be more conscientious about gathering seed and starting some indoors to ensure that I always have this pleasant plant around for years to come.

More Foreign Flora

As promised, I finally put together a slideshow of the flowers and gardens we visited during our recent trip to Alaska and British Columbia.

Enjoy!