Saturday, April 25, 2015

Weekend at the Farm April 24 - 26, 2015

Arrived Friday afternoon.  It is a weekend for enjoying the fruits of our efforts.  This is what it is all about.  I spent a lot of time sitting on the porch, listening to the birds sing, watching the hummingbirds battle each other, watching the insects buzz around industriously.  I walked around looking at everything, didn't really do any work except stake a few plants.

While I was sitting on the porch swing I saw a bird fly into my Mml Franziska Krueger rose that is situated at the corner of the house.  I went to investigate and found a nest in the shrub.  I startled the bird, which was a cardinal, and she flew off.  Four tiny light blue eggs speckled brown.  I stayed away after that, but occasionally peeked from afar and saw the little mother sitting on her nest.  I hope Cosmo or some other cat doesn't get her little babies!

The tiny little plantlets of Illustris Colocasia that I planted in several of my new beds in the Star Garden are looking healthy, though still small. 

The spigelia marilandica, also known as Indian Pinks, that I bought on sale last winter, totally dormant at the time,  have sprouted!  I have them planted in one of my new beds in the Star Garden.  I'm very excited about that.  Buying dormant plants can be a little risky.  I have had more than a few dormant plants never sprout - they were dead, not dormant.  By then so much time has passed that you can't return them for a refund.  But these sprouted.  Yay!

The hops vines that Josh gave me two years ago have tendrils that have crept halfway up the goat wire arbor at the entrance to Max's Garden.  The other hops plant that survived the grueling summer is just breaking dormancy.  It is planted on the arbor next to the Veilchanblau Rose.

Root Beer plant is springing up everywhere.  It spreads like crazy.  Really pretty, but pesky.  I am constantly pulling it up out of paths and away from other plants.

I started collecting the seeds from my poppies that have gone to seed.  There are still a few blooming, but most of them have formed seed heads, not yet dried out.  The past several years something has been eating the seed heads before I get a chance to collect the seeds.  Kind of strange, not sure what is eating them.  The seed pods are large, so I can't imagine what could be eating them - insect, mammal?

I planted some sweet potato slips yesterday that I received in the mail from Burpee's.  They were left in the mail box for several days, they look pretty worse for wear.  But I planted them all.  We'll see how they do.

The cannas are all about knee and waist high.  I have yellow, peach, hot pink, and red cannas in the Star Garden.  I really like cannas.  I love the flowers, but I particularly love the big, banana-like leaves.

I spotted some Catchfly in the Rose Garden that has just started to bloom.  The flowers are hot pink.  I've never grown it before, so I am seeing the flowers for the first time.  I have lots of plants in the Star Garden and the Orchard, so I hope it's pretty!

There are buds on my blue and pink Vitex shrubs. 

The Love-In-A-Mist flowers are at the beginning of their bloom time.  I love them.  I do not have any pink ones blooming, only white and blue.  Last year I had lots of pink ones.  They may bloom later, I hope so.

I planted  some Castor seeds in the Star Garden here and there wherever there were bare patches of earth.  That will probably end up to be a nuisance, but I did it anyway because I gathered a bunch of seeds from last year's planting.

All of the plants that I moved away from the pool area and into various flowerbeds in the Star Garden and the back flowerbeds are doing very well.  Of course, it would be difficult to fail with lantana.  But the day lilies, the cigar plant, the cannas all are thriving in their new homes.

The Anacancho Orchid Tree in the Star Garden is not really doing well.  But it is planted in one of the flowerbeds that I split up last winter.  Hopefully I can nurse it to health now that I can get near it.  I will watch it and fertilize it, and maybe it will get happy this summer. 

Thanks to an extremely wet April, the purple homestead verbena and the skullcap that I planted last month are still alive.  It's so helpful when the weather helps me out.

In the fall I'm going to plant a bunch of shrubs in the Long Border.  I don't have enough foundation plants.  And plants that I considered foundation plantings really aren't getting big enough to earn their keep, for example, the huge crinums that my sister gave me.  They, despite their size, should have been planted in the middle row.  Of course they cannot be moved now - forget about digging up a crinum, it's not happening.  But I will plant something in front of it.  And the cannas along the fence line have to be dug up and moved to the middle of the border.  They don't get tall enough, and they don't get enough water to become aggressively large.

It's time to buy a load of mulch, not like my soft leaf mulch, but real pine bark mulch that will smother everything.  The Long Border needs some serious attention and weed prevention.  Luckily, a thick layer of mulch and some large shrub plantings should cure the problem.  That will have to be my summer project.  I need to buy the mulch and use it as I weed.  Weed, mulch, weed, mulch.  The Orchard could use it too.  $500, here I come. 

Sprinkled Sevin dust on my eggplants and bell peppers.  Couldn't be helped.  I can't watch them every day and pick worms off the plants.

There are buds on my Althea shrubs.  In the blue Althea bed there are lots of  Turnera seedlings coming up from last year's plantings.  I was hoping and expecting that.  I was growing the turnera that is a soft butter yellow with the brown eye, my favorite compared to the bright yellow variety.

All the gingers are quite tall now except for the pine cone variety - that one breaks dormancy late - they haven't even popped up yet.  The gingers are tall, but they have not filled out yet.  That will happen over the next month.

The bees are extremely active now, and have been for weeks.  In the evening they cover the front of the hive in a solid mass of brown as they wait their turn to go into the hive (at least that's what I like to imagine they are doing).  A little disconcerting, I admit, to see that many bees massed in one spot.  I'm expecting a great crop of honey this June because the weather has been so favorable.  Exciting.






Amaryllis April 25, 2015

Gorgeous!  These were loaded with blooms last weekend, and they are in full bloom today.  I love the bold color of these bulbs!




The Rose Garden April 25, 2015

Below, I have two Ballerina roses growing in boxes along the arobor in the Rose Garden.  They always make a pretty show in the spring.  The one on the left side of the picture almost died three years ago.  I'm pretty sure that a vole family had taken up residence around the root ball and feasted on it until it was on the brink of death.  I flooded it with water one day and mushed the dirt around it.  That seemed to delay the dying process, but it was years before it started looking good again.  And it is much smaller than the Ballerina on the right side of the picture.  Smaller, but healthy-looking at last.  In the front of the photo, protected by a wire cage, are some Hyacinth Bean seedlings that I am training up the arbor with some string.  The rainy April has really helped them along because this area does not get any irrigation.  It's just me and my watering can.
 Below, Ballerina rose again.
 Below, Ballerina rose flower cluster up close.
 The next three photos below, waterlogged from rain the night before but still pretty is Duchess de Brabant.  Last fall I planted Madame Joseph Schwartz which is a white sport of Duchess.  She is still pretty small.  I planted her where Pearlie Mae used to be. 


 The two photos below are Mrs Dudley Cross.  She also almost died the same year as Ballerina.  She was very large and just tanked.  I flooded the roots with water, mushed the dirt around the roots, and it took years before she came back strong.  She isn't as healthy looking as she was before, but she is making a come-back.  I would not call the flower shape extremely pretty, they are kind of messy-looking, but they are a pretty pink and yellow blend which is nice.  Last fall I purchased Marie van Houtte and planted her at the far end of the Long Border.  She is said to quite similar to Mrs. Dudley Cross, but larger. 


 Above and below, this is Dame de Couer.  I love the red roses.
 The last three photos are Monsieur Tillier.



Love-In-A-Mist April 25, 2015

These flowers make beautiful seed pods with edible seeds.  I believe I bought my original seeds from Wildseed Farms, although they do sell them anymore.  These reseed very successfully every year.






Dame's Rocket April 25, 2015

I sowed these seeds winter before last.  They didn't bloom last spring.  So I have waited a long time for these perennials to bloom.  When the buds first appeared on long stems about a month ago they became covered with aphids which is definitely not what you want to encourage in a Rose Garden, or anywhere else for that matter.  Not only that, but many of the plants wilted away around that time which I assume is related to the voles.  So after all that time waiting for flowers I felt pretty disappointed.  But now that the survivors are more fully in bloom I see that they are very pretty.  I have them growing in the Rose Garden, the Orchard, and in the Greenhouse Garden.  They can take some shade, often found growing in the wild woodlands and alongside shaded roads.  Every year I like to try a new wildflower, something I have never seen growing.  Most of my experimental growing of wildflowers have been failures - Mountain Garland, Scarlet Flax, Chicory, and to a lesser extent, now Dames' Rocket.  This year's experiment is Catchfly.  Catchfly has till not bloomed, but it is getting close.  What I wanted was my Orchard to be alive with flowers on the day of Josh's wedding, but not a single flower was blooming.  I should have stuck with Cornflowers - their bloom time is March - May.




Peggy Martin and La Marne Roses Make a Pretty Picture April 25, 2015

The La Marnes and the Peggy Martin are the same color pink, a happy accident on my part.  A less happy accident was letting my Verbena Bonariensis grow up right in front of the Peggy Martin and partially block this beautiful climber from full view.  I'll dig them up after they finish blooming.  Peggy Martin has a profuse bloom in the spring and a lighter bloom in the fall.  I have read that she blooms intermittently throughout the growing season after she gets more mature.  La Marnes are heavy bloomers throughout the growing season, but the flowers fade to almost white in the dead of summer.





Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Baby Artichokes April 20, 2015

I have one artichoke plant.  It is really healthy.  If you let artichokes go to seed you will see an absolutely gorgeous flower.  Electric blue and highly unusual.  In my experience, if you want to eat them, don't expect them to get the size of the ones you see in the grocery store.  Because they won't.  If you wait for that they will simply go to seed while you are waiting.


Below, my artichole plant and a Nicotiana.  The Nicotiana has been growing in the Orchard for about a year, but this is the first time it has bloomed.  I was so surprised to see that it was in fact Nicotiana.  I didn't know what the plant was, but I suspected it was "something", and then one day I went down to the Orchard, and it was blooming!  I was pleasantly surprised.

Ox Eye Daisies April 20, 2015

I have daisies growing in the Star Garden and the Rose Garden.  And, as a result of my careful seeding, they are also starting to pop up in my wild border, my Vegetable Garden, and my Orchard.  I just love them.




Monday, April 20, 2015

Shoes April 20, 2015




Nicotiana April 20, 2015

This Nicotiana plant sprung up on its own.  It sits in a flowerbed with Milk and Wine crinums, Ox Eye daisies, pink Turks Cap, and creeping violets.  Nicotiana flowers smell wonderful, but it is a nighttime smell.  These plants release their scent in the evenings.


Veilchenblau Rose April 20, 2015


Veilchenblau is German for violet blue.  It was introduced in 1909.  It is a vigorous, thornless climber / rambler.  Right now I have it against a small metal arbor, the rose is still too small to even begin training it up the arbor.  I plan to connect the arbor to the shed using a chain like the way I did with my Peggy Martin rose because this rose gets very big.