Best Gardening Month

Foxglove blooming last night

 May has to be the absolutely best gardening month of all, especially since I've moved to Virginia. I loved May on Long Island, but it could be unpredictable. It was usually cool until Mother's Day, and could still hover in the 60s until finally deciding to accept the inevitable fact that spring was here at last.

South central Virginia's temperatures in May are usually a sweet, temperate 70, followed by soaring 80s. This season we had cooler temperatures, a few hot days, and one frost that managed to kill some of my plants. I think I lost most of the sweet potatoes and some of the tomatoes. It's funny, but the cover over the sweet potato bed didn't protect them, but the Yukon gold potatoes growing right next to them are fine. I know that potato plants can tolerate some cold while sweet potatoes can't, but nothing illustrated this for me quite as dramatically as the state of my potato bed in the vegetable garden this week.

This week was the perfect time to host a gathering, and last night I had the honor of hosting the Heart of Virginia Master Gardeners meeting at our home.  I'm very tired from the prep work, to be honest; getting both the gardens and the house spic and span took a lot more elbow grease than I anticipated. But as I said to my husband last night, as we tumbled into our recliners, heavy-lidded to relax and watch the evening news, "Look on the bright side; at least we won't have any chores this weekend, and we can relax!"

The garden last night

As luck would have it, the downstairs toilet decided to break hours before the group was expected to arrive - nothing like jerry rigging the flapper valve with some twine and a prayer - and the cats were up to their usual antics. We sat on the porch while the group of 25 sat on folding chairs on the lawn. Various members were giving their reports, and Whitey, Shy Boy and Groucho decided to prance up and down the porch. We wanted to scoop them up and get them inside the house so that when our guests left, we wouldn't have to worry about them amidst dozens of cars exiting the driveway.  So our guests were entertained by a few minutes of us chasing cats like greased pigs around on our front porch while the poor committee chair tried to report on her group's progress.

The garden is probably at its loveliest now through the end of June. It always seems to be the time when I take the most pictures. The roses are blooming before the Japanese beetles devour them; early spring dianthus and pansies mingle with lavender, evening primrose, Dutch and German iris, verbena, salvia, nepeta and sage blooming throughout the garden. The only lovelier time to me is late summer, when the garden is lush and ripe, and the butterfly bushes and zinnia are blooming. Then the garden is dotted with hovering, fluttering colors as butterflies swoop to feed on the various shrubs.

Look at the roses now, before the Japanese beetles devour them! Blaze, above.

"Sonia" rose

Today I am going to spend a few minutes sitting on my new garden bench before the thunderstorms roll in this afternoon. It's time to enjoy the results of our springtime labors before summer's heat drives us back indoors to the air conditioning.

Blooming Today at Seven Oaks

Today's blog post is simply this: pictures of what's blooming at Seven Oaks.  Plus I couldn't resist snapping a quick picture of the perennial garden with my gardening helper, Pierre, jaunting along the pathway.  This is the garden we built into the steep slope next to the driveway.  We have one small section of pathway to complete and I have more sections to weed this year, but I wanted to take a 'before' picture today so you could see the bones of the garden...the hardscapes...the beautiful form that hubby and I created....and in a few short weeks I will take another image from the same spot and you can see it in bloom. 

Pierre in the perennial garden

Iris

Kerria japonica, shrub that attracts many pollinators

Yellow columbine grown from seed

Garden Volunteers Part II

What's a garden volunteer? It's a plant that seeds voluntarily throughout the garden. In the past, I've written about the volunteers in the flower garden. This morning Shadow and I tromped through the soaking wet flower garden taking stock of all the volunteers this year.

First, the coreopsis tincturia is back...with a vengeance. Why is it that it's growing in the flower garden in spots I don't want it, but the verge along the driveway where I DO want it naturalize it refuses to grow? I gave some to my neighbors this year. I hope they're still talking to me next spring after it takes over their flower beds.

The Buddleia (butterfly bush) has been a wonderful surprise. We purchased two white ones from Lowe's, and a purple one came with the Spring Hill Gardens Butterfly Gardening Kit that I bought. The purple one has gleefully spread seeds everywhere. I have baby butterfly bushes growing up through pure sand on the pathway in spots we are working on, in ground like cement in other spots on the pathways, and throughout the flower beds. I've kept a bunch, given some away, and have more for the taking (if you live close by! come with pails and shovels). We transplanted several along the edge of the forest. They don't look very happy, but the one I transplanted towards the front of the flower beds, near the trellis, also looked dead after I moved it. Butterfly bushes seem to have a very long tap root, and I'm assuming that they go into shock when you dig them up...but they do recover. The transplanted on is thriving now.

The marigolds self-seeded all along the pathway, and I scattered the rest. I have thickets of marigolds. I love them. They are so wonderful and will bloom here until November or a very hard frost, and I rarely see insect damage on them. Plus they act like natural bug repellents!


I had cosmos self-seed last year too. I grew a patch from a seed packet I bought at the dime store; it tipped over in a heavy rain, ripped up by the roots. I simply pulled it out and tossed the spent stalks into the woods. To my surprise, a little patch rose up in the area where the stalks had tipped over. I left it alone, and what do you know? Giant patch of cosmos now...and yesterday, it tipped over in the rainstorm. I wonder if this is how cosmos self seeds? Just kidding. It doesn't need to wait for a rain storm!

Zinnias self seeded a bit, but the nicest surprise was Vince major...Hubby bought me a six pack of Vinca major from Lowe's last year, thinking it was the purple Vinca I wanted for a little shady spot. I planted it in the flower garden and thought nothing more about it. Now it's scattered itself all about the flower garden. And while the bright pinks clash horribly with the orange and yellow marigolds, I can't help but marvel at its tenacity.


What's growing in your garden these days? Other than weeds, of course, which I have...in abundance.

May your Sunday be filled with joy!

Victory Over Weeds

Crabgrass is evil. It invaded my flower garden. I have never seen such an invasion. Yes, I was behind in my weeding - but this was ridiculous!

It grew on the pathways. It's overtaken the flower beds. It springs up overnight. It is growing among the gravel in the driveway, along the rocks lining the beds. It grows everywhere.

There are more weeds. Nature provides great variety.

Weeds with big thorns. Vining weeds with little thorns. Weeds that gave me a rash all over my arms and made me itch all over (and no, it's not poison ivy. Poison ivy doesn't make me itch. This was something else.)












I managed to lean across my creeping juniper and gave myself a wicked juniper rash. I looked like someone had rolled me in mud, then rubbed red paint on my arms with some white dots in between. That was after Saturday's weeding session and after the lovely rash broke out on my arms.

You don't want to know what I looked like after Sunday's epic battle continued.

I spent six hours weeding on Saturday, four hours weeding on Sunday, and two days later I am still so sore I can barely move. I dug up weeds. I pulled them out by hand. John used a pick axe on sections where they grew in such a mat I couldn't make progress.

We are about halfway finished. Yesterday, torrential rains and thunderstorms all day kept us inside. Today dawned bright and clear but more thunderstorms are predicted.

Weeds, you are warned: your hours are numbered.

I took photos this morning to mark our progress. Enjoy!

I am working safely at my desk until tonight when I am back in the garden...weeding.

The July Garden

The July flower garden here at Seven Oaks is hot, hot, hot - brimming with eye popping oranges, yellows and golds while temperatures soar. I seem to have planted midsummer blooming perennials that are just saturated with color. It's a total accident. I have about as much garden design instinct as I do the ability to do calculus (that is: zero ability). The weeds are taking over, but I hope to get out in the evenings and make a dent in them later this week.




My favorite flowers blooming now are the Echinacea - coneflower. I bought seeds in 2007, a kit from Park Seeds. I'm always buying kits. I was told that coneflower is difficult to start from seed. Maybe, maybe not. These seem to love it here in the bright full sun garden that gets hot direct sun all day long.

The kit included purple, Echinacea "White Swan" and a golden color. Now they are all blooming...just stunning clusters of them in the little island garden in the middle of the lawn. The birds love them. They land on them as they swoop over the lawn, and I think they are enjoying the seeds too.

Before temperatures soar, enjoy these hot flower colors in the July garden here in southern Virginia!

Garden Update

Yesterday was the first break since this unseasonable heat started, so after dinner I raced outside to plant the perennials and annuals we'd bought last week. In went the yarrow, orange-red avens, mystery colored campanula (no label on the variety, just a nice fat healthy plant and the name "Campanula" on the label), and over two dozen bronze-leaf begonias (one of my all time favorites) and white, purple, pink and salmon petunias. Petunias thrive here in Virginia. I think it's all those cool nights and hot days. Last year I had just fountains of petunias all over the garden, and that was from a $1 clearance flat I grabbed at Lowe's. I love that clearance rack. What the clearance rack at Filene's is to a New York City gal, the discount plant rack at Lowe's is to my life as a country gal...

So in went the flowers last night. The butterfly garden got weeded and new plants added. The cocoons on the buddleia still haven't hatched. John speculates that nature won't let them hatch until the buddleia leafs out, so that the babies have enough food.

I've got a new yellow theme going up in the island flower bed in the middle of the lawn, and the poppy - the sole survivor of my first forays into poppy growing - has perked up. One half of the bed contains plants with all sorts of yellow and white colors: Stella d'Oro daylilies, yellow yarrow, yellow echinacea and echinacea White Swan. I've got a big white snowball bush there too and white peonies. I've added white petunias. On the other end of the bed are my pink crepe myrtles, lavender, Echinacea purpurea, and now hot pink petunias. I think it's going to be a love it or hate it with the color.

Wonder of wonders, the echinaceas I grew from seed last year have started budding. I've got White Swan, purpurea, and a yellow variety whose name escapes me now. The yellow echineacea has just started sending up flower buds - I feel like a proud mama at graduation!

The scabiosas are blooming like mad now, and my purple and white iris that smells like a grape soda pop is just about to bloom. The new irises in the back of the garden are also sending up at least one tentative bud. I'll finally get the answer to the question, "Which survived? The blue or pink irises?" since I can't read my own handwriting in my garden journal where I recorded what I planted and where last fall.

Best of all, out of my five peonies I bought from a catalog and planted in the fall of 2007 - four survived, and three of the four have masses of flower buds. Peonies are one of my all time favorite plants. I am stalking my Festiva Maxima now like a crazed fan outside of a starlet's window.

Perennial Kits or Do It Yourself?

So where do you fall - do you go for the prepackaged kits of plants sold in catalogs, or do you buy plants and do your own thing?

I've never gardened much with perennials before moving to Virginia. Frankly we didn't have enough room in my last two gardens. My parents' house in Floral Park, Long Island, had a garden the size of a postage stamp, mostly filled with my dad's chrysanthemums and vegetables. My in-laws garden in Huntington, Long Island, where I lived after I married, had clay soil, dense shade, and lots of lawn. Gee, why wouldn't they dig it up to put in more flower beds? Guess not, huh? I had to make do with what I had. Every bit of sun in that garden bed had a vegetable tucked in.

The only perennials I'd bought before moving to Virginia were 1) daylilies 2) platycodon (Balloon Flower - Komanchi) and 3) heuchera (Coral Bells).

I did work at Martin Viette Nurseries (Andre Viette's father founded it but it is now owned by another family) for three years, so I absorbed plant knowledge by osmosis. But perennials scared me.

When we moved, we had this awful bit of land on the side of the driveway. It sloped away very steeply, and was bare dirt. The dirt was hard packed clay with lots of rocks thanks to the digging that had to be done to create our water well. The slope faced south, with the thick pine woods at its back.

What to do?

Perennials. Lots of them.

That slope needed to be covered. The dirt eroded at a surprisingly fast and scary rate. So we rushed out and bought two perennial sun garden kits from Spring Hill Nurseries. Last March, I laid out the paths and got my long-held wish: a rose garden.

The perennial kits are great. We had good luck with most of them, except the hollyhocks. The hollyhocks either didn't grow or the Japanese beetles ate them faster than they could grow.

But the other plants...well, read on.

The kit contained purple yarrow, purple and blue scabiosa (which always sounds like a Harry Pottery spell to me), orange gaillardia, and white and yellow daisies, along with purple mini hollyhocks and big hollyhocks. We originally bought two kits. I called Spring Hill to ask for replacement hollyhocks, since so many didn't grow. They sent me two more full kits at no charge! So I now have four sets of plants growing on the slope.

Here's what thrived in southern Virginia:

1. Yarrow: I love this plant. It loves my hot, sunny slope. It has spread out in pools of green fronds and it is only its second year. I can't wait to see how it blooms!

2. Gaillardia: Not only did the plants thrive last year, with almost constant hot orange blossoms from June through November, but it reseeded. I saved seeds and have a flat of seedlings waiting to go into another garden. My plants decided to seed themselves and I'm excited to see about a dozen tiny gaillardia springing up among the other perennials. They already have flower buds.

3. Scabiosa: Not everyone's cup of tea, but the butterflies love the tiny pompom flowers. I think this one also reseeded. It loves the garden and seems very hardy.

4. Daisies: I wish I could find the original packing slip so I can stop calling them both daisies, since I know one is probably rudbeckia, and I feel dumb for not using the Latin names. No matter. Thriving, thick clumps of plants already came back, and I'm excited to see seedlings for these guys too. I've also got some plants started from seeds I collected last year.

There you have it - what worked and what didn't. What didn't are hollyhocks. The picture today is the one lone hollyhock that bloomed last year. It's a mini. Everyone asked me if it is a weed and my husband kept asking me if he could dig out the weed, pointing to the poor hollyhock. Sad, sad plant. We'll see what it does this year!

Coral Bells

One of my favorite perennials is Coral Bells (Heuchera). Native to North America, they grow wild from Connecticut in the United States all the way west into the American and Canadian Rockies, and along slopes in California.

Coral Bells or heuchera grows in part sunlight to shade. Last year, I tortured this poor Coral Bells "Purple Palace" by including it in the flower garden - the mostly perennial, some annual garden along the driveway. That's the one I've told you about that gets bright, hot, direct southern sunlight all summer long for most of the day. I put the Coral Bells in the shadiest spot - at least I thought so. The poor thing shriveled up no matter how much water I poured on it, and I thought for sure it was a goner.


But plants are tougher than you give them credit for, and I found two of the three heuchera "Palace Purple" poking up through the soil in March. I transplanted them to a tiny area I just finished off next to the garage and right by the side steps up onto our wide Victorian front porch.

This little side garden gets only a bit of sunlight starting at 2pm, with mostly bright, shaded light.
I've added some hostas among the tulips and pansies too, so when the spring flowers die back, I'll have my little shade perennials.

It's also a nice small space, so my little resin statues, like the angel, look in proportion to the garden. I had small statues in the big flower garden next to the driveway last year and they were just lost in the space. In this small area, they're in proportion.


I like to use Coral Bells to line pathways. The foliage is interesting and stays low enough so that it doesn't overpower the rest of the garden. The flowers are pretty without being showy. The spikes of flowers can be profuse if the plants are happy; my mother's little group of them in our garden in Floral Park was thick and lush after a decade.

For more informaton on Coral Bells, please see:

• Dave's Garden
• Illinois University's Fact Sheet on Coral Bells

Perennial Combination

Drumroll, please...here is the perennial combination I put into the front of the house, right next to the steps and the porch. My perennial choices are highly dictated by what's available at Lowe's. Yes, I could head over to the fancy greenhouse in town, B & M (which has very nice plants) but my wallet is thin at the moment. So Lowe's it is. I had a gift certificate. The soil was hard, awful clay that had to be broken up with a pick axe. The ground was also compacted from the construction on the house. We broke it up, amended it with compost, then put down landscape fabric. The perennials went in, and we covered the whole thing with pine bark mulch. Sun exposure is mostly south west, with sun reaching the area around noon and direct sun until dark.

• The tall perennials in the back with the purple spikes are "East Friesland Salvia." I love salvia, and it does so well here in Virginia. I have salvia "May Night" in the butterfly garden and it's huge already!

• On either end are two dianthus "Neon Star". I love the spiky blue-gray foliage and the neon dark pink flowers. But what fascinates me most are the flowers. They're yellow as buds, then they open to that neon pink color. How does that work? I don't know. I have a few more in the perennial garden but they get lost among the bigger plants. Here I can really see them.

• This is the first time I am growing Blue Star Lithidora. I'm not sold on this plant yet. It seems fussy already and believe me - you won't survive this garden if you're a fussy plant. It sulks when it doesn't get drowned with water. That may be transplant shock. I don't know. Now it looks good. Hopefully it will survive. I do love the little star shaped blue flowers.

I've got all the books with all the 'rules' about perennial combinations. I ignore all the rules. I buy what pleases me. As long as the tall things are in the back and the short things in the front, it looks good to me.

What do you think?

Garden Progress

I stepped outside to snap some photos of the garden today, and while downloading my digital camera I realized that I had photos taken of the same area a little more than a year ago. I was shocked at the difference. See what only one year of gardening can do for an area? Look at the pictures below!


What a Difference A Year Can Make

The top picture - the smaller one - shows the mess that currently exists in the perennial garden. I've got coreopsis babies coming up every which way. Gaillardia has self-seeded too. And I think my white and yellow daisies added to the cacophony - either that or I have the worst case of artemesia (weeds) ever. But what a glorious mess! Healthy, green, abundantly teeming with seedlings...this is living soil at its finest. Finally!

The top picture was snapped April 15, 2009:



My poor azalea is somewhere in the middle of this picture below, which shows the same area just a few feet away. Can you see how the coreopsis has just taken over? Argh. Heavy plant moving this weekend for sure! But think about it - the seeds fell and I did nothing, and look at how many plants sprang up in the garden.






And this picture was taken a little more than a year ago, on May 15, 2008. The close up above (coreopsis photos) was taken on the far side of the trellis entrance, taken from the driveway looking back towards the woods. Look at the bare, clay soil, Doesn't it look awful? I remember that we had to take a pick axe to the soil to plant the perennials!



And just for kicks - this is what the land looked like in 2006 - 2007, right after the bulldozers arrived and the area was cleared. This photo was taken from what is now the bottom of the slope of the perennial garden. If you were standing in my driveway, looking at the garden as in the picture above with the trellis, it's the area far off to the right - only the picture was snapped looking up, with the photographer's back to the woods.






What a difference one year can make in a garden. As you can see from the bottom picture, the soil was hard clay. The land was originally planted in loblolly pine - the trees used to make paper. When we bought the property, we asked that three acres be cleared for the home and garden. What was left underneath was soil that was so devoid of life that when I took a sample into the nursery for a soil test, they actually called to ask where it had come from. They were amazed at how sterile the soil was - little organic matter, highly acidic (the pH was actually around 4 which is awful!) with poor drainage.

How did I make such progress in one year with the soil?

• As much compost, horse manure (contributed by a neighbor), and mulch as I could work into the soil
• Natural, organic fertilizers and soil boosters. The one I chose was from Gardens Alive. It works by adding special bacteria and enzymes to the soil to help the plants' roots take up more nutrients. Also, because the water that runs off this garden ends up into my water well from which my drinking water is drawn, I cannot use ANY chemicals, chemical fertilizers, or creepy sprays here. All organic, all natural or nothing. Seems to have worked.
  
• Thick layer of pine bark mulch applied to the top. This broke down over the year and added even more organic matter to the soil. Yes, it was acidic, but it also kept moisture from evaporating.

This took some effort, but it's mostly one-time effort. We'll reapply the mulch this year, and spread a little compost, but that's it.

I've already got flower buds on a lot of the perennials. Once I get this garden cleaned up and we get some blooms going, I'll post more pictures.

Happy gardening!

Perennial Combinations

As you can image, with temperatures soaring near 70 and bright sunny skies, I was out in the garden for many hours. On Saturday, we finished off "the boat" as we now call the long octagonal flower bed in the back of the house. John fussed more with the underground sprinkler line. I think it's fine, but he's not satisfied with the connector to the house. We're trying to get the backyard done so that the patio can be finished. I'm super excited about that, not just because we get another outdoor living space that overlooks the back fields and woods, but because John mentioned to the electrician who came to bid on the job that we are going to put a pond into the little flower garden. I've wanted a pond forever! We found a natural-looking fountain at Lowe's last year, so we are going to wait until the fall when hopefully it will go on sale. We planted more shrubs into the perennial garden and walked the property, noting the next projects to work on while we replenished the soil in the bare patches on the lawn.

The biggest project by far was finishing the front beds in front of the porch. What looked like a simple job of digging a few holes for azaleas and perennials turned into a pick axe and many smashed fingers. We'd both forgotten that the area near the foundation of a house is always packed with hard pan, clay and gravel from construction. Poor perennials. At least today they are getting watered!

I designed a perennial combination right by the front steps that I think will be lovely once it fills in. I used aalvia "May Night" in the back, and planted some rich dark pink dianthus in front, along with lighter pink phlox. I like how the dark blue-purple flowers and gray-green leaves of the salvia look with the textures and colors of the dianthus. The deer ate the flowers right off of my phlox last year in the perennial garden, but this close to the front steps I doubt they'll find it. I planted something new with blue, star-shaped flowers whose name escapes me. I'll have to pop outside and look at the tag. If it wasn't pouring rain, I'd take a few photos of the perennial combination too and post them. Maybe tomorrow....

In the vegetable garden, carrot seeds went in this weekend.  I'll wait another week or two, then direct sow the seeds. The onions continue to thrive, and the radishes too. The spinach is rapidly overtaking both the Swiss chard and broccoli rabe in terms of growth, but the lettuce is already looking a bit peaked. The strawberries are really runnning wild, but more poor blueberries are dry, brittle sticks. Ah well. Learning to garden in a new area always takes time. Gardeners need a lot of things. Rain, sun, time and patience among others!

Seed Sharing

I love giving away seeds from my garden. There's something special in packing up a little envelope of promise and sharing it with a fellow gardener. Today I sent a care package to someone special. I won't say who because she might read my blog! But the seeds in it will grow into beautiful flowers; gaillardia, daisies, Echinacea and more. I picture her garden and I smile, hoping that when the flowers bloom she'll think of me.

My friend Patty planted the seeds that I gave her and tells me the coreopsis is already growing like a weed in the cold frame. This weekend, I planted the rose of sharon that Patty gave me in the back of the perennial garden. I planted it where I can see it from my office once it starts growing.

Gardening gives me the opportunity to share something...I share so much through my writing, but gardening is something special, something more tangible. Through seeds and plants we exchange with friends, we give little parts of ourselves and receive in turn.

First Gardening Day of Spring

Today is the first gardening day of spring! We plan to work in the orchard today. We have tiny fruit trees we planted last year. They are just starting to leaf out. We need to spray them, and we are going to spread the wonderful rich compost around each one, and re-mulch them. I also found pansies on sale at Lowe's for just $1 and $3 for a flat of 24 - I'm not kidding, I got 48 pansies for $3! They were on the discount rack since they looked wilted, but they are fine and perked right up. I'm going to add them around the front of the house. We also have forsythia, azaleas and rhododendrons to add to the front of the house. And don't forget the vegetables! I've got cool weather annuals that will begin to harden off today, and seeds to go in this week - lettuce, spinach, swiss chard. I think I'm behind on this, but I still can't get the New York/Long Island gardening calendar out of my head. This week in the newspaper they had an article on harvesting potatoes. I thought John was going to leap up from the living room chair. "You can grow POTATOES?" he demanded, waving the paper at me. I shrugged. I had no idea! Now he's already talking about growing potatoes over next winter. Where I'm not sure, but I have a feeling more of the yard is going to get dug up. I can't wait :)

Our latest scheme is to add grape vines...and I have my eye on raspberry bushes, but since my husband loathes raspberries, in every way shape and form, I'm going to have to sneak them in somehow....

And strawberries. Back to Lowe's this week to pick up some strawberry plants.

Let the gardening begin - it's officially spring!

Name This Cocoon

Okay my Virginia gardening friends...or just anyone in the know...what will this cocoon turn into? I found three on my buddleia (Butterfly Bushes) in the butterfly garden I put into the perennial flower beds last year. They are each about two inches long, fat, and beautifully ridged shades of gray, taupe, and brown, with a bit of red cast to them. Am I hatching something wonderful, like a monarch or swallow tail butterfly, or Mothra?

Contrasting Pictures of the Perennials

Knew I had these pictures somewhere! The bottom picture shows the side treated. The pictures were taken only a few weeks apart - the timing wouldn't have made such a big difference in the vigor or blooming of the plants. The soil composition is identical (horrible - acidic and very low in nutrients) and both sides received identical water and sunlight. Interesting, huh? Pictures taken in late July and early August. Just looking at these cheered me up!