Plenty of Plantness

Jan19

Ideally Plantness should be a national holiday so that everyone, well I guess everyone except purveyors of plants, is able to head out each morning and find their daily plant goodies without pressures of starting times or quitting times. Work really gets in the way. The weather as well. Saturday we made our big Plantness road trip in spite of the Pennsylvania weather, only to arrive and find that our first stop was closed because of the snow! I guess we should have lingered over breakfast for a little longer because now, to kill time, we had to resort to chips and soda on overly-firm wooden chairs pulled up to a table at a gas station “dining” area. Every now and then we’d poke our heads out to see if the plows had cleared the lot yet, and every now and then we would eye the candy display or contemplate the quality of gas station nachos.

A Plantness bouquet with some average and some surprising elements. I think the tiny orange blooms are safflower (Carthamus) and the blue of the campanula was also unexpected.

After about an hour and a half the snow stopped and the plows rolled through and we headed over but were informed that the boss with the keys was still about 20 minutes away and struggling with the terrible roads. No problem. Kimberley had her magic purse along and was able to pull out the fixings for a charcuterie to nibble on while we waited further in the car. Sharp cheddar and some summer sausage on baguette rounds, with various other snacks and chocolates can make any wait far less painful. We even seemed super-patient while we waited for the walks to get shoveled and salted rather than surging through the doors the second they unlocked. Amateurs we are not.

An overview of the Plantness loot on day 8.

We bought plants. We were the only customers. It sounds like Allentown Pennsylvania does not celebrate Plantness the way we do so I won’t feel bad when winter lingers a little more down their way.

So on Day 8 of the Ten Days of Plantness here’s were we are. Day 1: snowdrops ordered, 2: I accepted a gifted variegated dracaena, days 3&4: a variegated pothos ‘Jade and Pearls’ from my local go-to Hidden Gardens, along with a tropical pitcher plant (Nepenthes) days 5,6: two more plant gifts, a tiny earth star (Cryptanthus) offset which I had been hinting at, and a cutting of scindapsus… which I had also been hinting at 🙂 Then for day 7 at our snowed out greenhouse I picked up a chlorophytum orchidastrum (Mandarin plant)… which I’d never heard of until that day, but it’s in the spider plant family and was labeled as ‘easy’, so…. and I think it looks cool, even if it does remind me a bit of a houseplant hosta. Okay, two more things which we picked up at the next spot after heading out into the snow again. For days 8 and also 9 I have two new bromeliads. They’re somewhat noticeable in the photo. I’m quite happy.

Labeled as “bromeliad” this one lacks the ‘teeth’ most of my other ones have, and one can run their hands along a leaf without looking for a set of tweezers to remove the barbs. I think it’s a remarkable leaf pattern.

I was on a self-imposed bromeliad ban but it doesn’t look like that’s lasted since I just picked up two new ones, and that’s fine since it’s Plantness and plant bans don’t apply. Plus I could have easily selected a third and I didn’t, but I won’t rule out adding another sometime this week or this season because as long as the ban has already been broken…

Pothos are boring. My mom had one half a century ago on the mantle and they’re still kinda the same thing just with new variegations. I still love them but never thought I would pay for it rather than share a cutting but here we are with ‘Jade and Pearls’.

Day ten is possibly also satisfied since I have the Plantness bouquet which was my first photo. In an awkward moment I walked into the house with the bouquet and someone here asked if they were for her and I had to say no. If I gifted them they wouldn’t count for Plantness, and even though my well-trained brain was screaming ‘yes! of course they’re for you’ my arms were also carrying two boxes of pizza and thank goodness that was enough to save me from going down in flames. There was also ice cream, that’s probably what really saved me.

So I hope your Plantness is going just as well… minus the snowstorms. If I were a rule-follower I’d stop at ten, but Cathy at Words and Herbs was sharing her Plantness goodies and I saw the perfect glossy, spring-edition garden magazine and I knew that’s one more thing I need. The ten day forecast does not show gardening weather, and a few magazines with pictures of hellebores and crocus, and a snowdrop or ten would be perfect for a little snug under a blanket reading. Enjoy! and all the best for a wonderful week.

Plantness 2026!

Jan13

Once again it’s that most wonderful time of the gardening year… it’s the first day of Plantness! Obviously you knew that but when I saw it hadn’t appeared automatically on my phone calendar, I thought good-golly I better make an official announcement! So here it is. January 12th is the first day of the ten days of Plantness, a celebration of hope and renewal and a way to get through the ten coldest days of the year (in my zone at least) with an eye on the warming weather which is our future. The winter solstice has passed, but even with a few minutes added each day the strength of the sun still isn’t quite enough to slow the cooling until about a month later. For us that’s January 21st when the average temps start to increase again, and by celebrating Plantness we make our way through those last coldest nights to turn the tide and begin to see things warming up again.

This bromeliad was a 2024 Plantness plant. Two years later and it’s in three pots around the winter garden and care amounts to nothing more than toping off the water in the leaves every week or two. I’ve never even fertilized.

So on each of the ten days I shall add a new plant in celebration. That’s basically the point of the holiday, force yourself to add something new each day, and for as easy (and possibly reckless) as that might sound, it’s really not! It’s the depths of winter and places are closed or pickings are sparse. The (other)holiday season wore a couple people out. We’ve been doing it for a two years now and sometimes it takes a kick in the butt kind of attitude to put on a coat and go out into the dark for a little plant shopping after work, but we know what’s at stake. Giving Plantness it’s proper dues will guarantee an early spring and if taking on a few new plants is what it takes, I’m there.

‘Brasil’ heartleaf philodendron was a grocery find and I still love it. After a poky start it’s really taking off and probably due for a hanging pot finally rather than any more draping across furniture.

“But wait, I can’t possibly fit in ten more plants, but I also don’t want it to be my fault that winter stretches on forever!” -yes, that’s a responsible thought but please try harder. There’s a range of options which count and I think everyone can do their part. New plants count, but so do plant accessories, plant pots, plant soil, outdoor plant orders, seed orders… plant society memberships, plant books, garden tools, garden accessories… cut flowers… basically if you think about plants when you’re buying it, it works… unless it’s a fake plant of course, that never counts.

A Plantness favorite, this variegated Boston fern, aka tiger fern, was a little four inch pot of coolness from a specialty greenhouse visited two years ago.

Alright, I’ll admit it’s a little tricky getting out every day so here are a few of the cheat codes for properly celebrating Plantness. Multiple items picked up on the same day count forward, ie: three things today will cover Mon, Tues, and Wed. Gifted plants always count towards the receiver, but might count for the giver if purchased in the appropriate timeframe. Things ordered but not received can count on the order day… or whenever, and pre-Plantness purchases might also count, particularly if purchased on credit and you have yet to pay the bill. Even gifted plantness items count if they’re given prior to Plantness -because maybe someone couldn’t wait any longer for that first greenhouse run of the new year and had to make space- you can count these early gifted items as well, just don’t ‘officially’ accept them until after the 12th. Perhaps it sounds complicated. It can be. Message me if you need help, and if in doubt, err on the side of caution and just buy it!

A closeup of the tiger fern. I’m wondering if I separate a few all-chartreuse divisions out, if they would remain stable and if that’s a good thing.

One of the important nuances of Plantness is that longevity doesn’t matter, in fact I encourage people to buy plants which they know will die because as you might guess, dead plants don’t take up windowsill space, so toss the poinsettia and bring home a few florist cyclamen and spring primula…. and then feel free to put them out on the back steps the minute you get bored.

I was way too excited to get this variegated snake plant (Sansevieria ‘Sayuri’) and hope I didn’t scare anyone when I immediately snatched it off the shelf. Sadly, it’s barely grown since last year and I think it’s me.

I hope you enjoy this year’s ten days of Plantness. I’ll try and post a few updates as the season goes on but I can’t make any promises. Please join me though. My first Plantness purchase, and the reason I didn’t finish this post last night, was a snowdrop order from The Temple Nursery. The catalog arrived Friday and to even wait one day on sending in an order risks missing out on your choices (so I can’t believe I sat on it through Saturday) but it’s en route now and we will cross our fingers.

A reliable Thanksgiving bloomer, ‘Potter’s Prelude’ is late this year with all the cold. Our January thaw had me out taking photos of this drop since it’s finally in bloom, but by the time I got around to this end of the garden a snow squall had changed the tone.

Tomorrow I’m working late, so maybe a grocery store stop? Wednesday I might try and hit Hidden Gardens which is my local wintertime greenhouse treat, and by the weekend my friends and I are planning a daytrip South to bigger greenhouses and more fun. Fingers crossed a cake will be involved.

Hope you have as much fun with this as we do, and let me know how it goes! Have a great week 🙂

The Winter Garden ’26

Jan4

It’s a beautiful Sunday morning, with an emphasis on sun because that’s what’s important this time of year. It makes the snow and frost twinkle and the white reflect and it’s fantastically bright unless it’s not. Recently there’s been plenty of ‘not’ and short grey days do not bring the fantastic as well as the sun does. Here are two obligatory snow-themed photos. They were taken on a less-grey moment yesterday since my camera skills can’t handle the brightness of a sun filled snow day.

‘Nuisance snow’ has kept the garden mostly white all December but there have been no larger storms. That’s a good thing for garden insulation and protection… and a great thing for the snow shoveling back!

During one of the beautifully sunny plus warm days last week I actually picked up a pruner and did some work. The rambling ‘Wartberg’ rose on the arbor has been getting twiggy and messy and it seemed like a good thing to tackle since I had the ladder out anyway for a gutter inspection. Just so you know, I don’t think it’s the right time to prune rambling/climbing roses. Raw cuts in the middle of winter is one thing but there’s also the fact these bloom on old wood, so it’s possible I’m cutting off potential flowers… but I had the ladder, I had the pruners, and I had the itch to do something in the frozen garden, so there you go.

All the trimmings were left where they fell and another dusting of snow showed just how pleased the rabbits were to get at all those tasty rose bits. Half are gone already and it’s nice to see the bunnies making themselves useful for once!

So it’s been cold and one rose was pruned, so what happened to all the other hours of the day you may ask? Here’s the long story. I bought a fish tank. 55 gallons and it’s too heavy for one person to lift even empty, so buying the tank was the easy part and now I needed something strong to put it on. Enter weeks of thrift store visits looking for solid old cabinets that were big but not too big, ugly but not too ugly, old but not too old. I finally had a $10 winner and found the help to drag it home and into the basement since the plant room was now going to become a plant/fish room… which seemed obvious once I thought about it. Days of cleaning, sanding, painting, sealing, polishing and the cabinet looks decent and the drawer pulls look like pulls you would touch again with bare hands. I set it up. It was still heavy. The room still needs work… as in finished walls, so I decided to fill a smaller old fish tank with water rather than the new one since it would be way to heavy to move again if work ever gets started on the walls. Better to start the fish thing up again on a smaller scale anyway, rather than 55 gallons all at once, so what to do with a big tank fitted with a light and a nice substrate of gravel?

A 55 gallon terrarium. Fortunately I had a few spare plants on hand to fill things in a little and get it started.

So in my head I imagine that people who come across this blog faithfully keep track of every adventure and meticulously recall things which run through my mind, even if they’re never mentioned. I’m sure that’s an easily diagnosed condition or something but to address it let me recap this basement talk with a quick summary. We built an addition to the house. Two years ago I broke through into the new basement from the old and am slowly turning this unheated, unfinished space into my winter garden with a bunch of cheap LED shoplights. The winter garden adventure started years ago in the back of the garage and has escalated each year but never as badly as when it moved into this basement space. I highly recommend it 🙂

The yellow form of baby’s tears (Soleirolia soleirolii) in the tank is a new thing for me. I’ve seen it in real conservatories as a groundcover or something to cover bare soil in pots and it’s probably a weed in real life so maybe it has just the right hardiness and vigor for me to grow.

So it seems a lot of work was put into a new fishtank only to leave it fish-free, and it might be odd that I’d clean and set up the 30 year old tank which was there the whole time instead but here we are. It gives the winter garden a nice bubbling water effect.

The fish tank, the one with actual fish, is the new centerpiece of the winter garden. Goldfish are the fish of choice.

This is a lot of fish talk for a gardening blog, so let’s move on to the plants of the winter garden. Again, for the casual visitor, this new basement winter garden is home to all the houseplants and overwintering tropicals which needed shelter from the ice and cold outside. It’s not heated but warm enough for most, and it’s a different group of plants when compared to my second winter garden which exists out in the less-heated-but-also-not-freezing-garage winter garden. The garage is for real work, seed-starting, and overwintering annuals plus a home for cool-weather blooming things like cyclamen and primula. I’m sure most people divide their winter gardens in a similar way.

Ferns and ficus, begonias and bromeliads, and pretty much anything else which needed a winter home after spending the summer on a porch or the shaded side yard.

Just like many things here, this new basement winter garden started out innocently enough and then escalated. Last summer a $6 kiddie pool inspired a fountain and goldfish pond on the back porch, so why not store it in here for the winter? The fountain fish are wintering in a (third?) fishtank at school, but the fish-free fountain makes a nice addition to the basement.

Scraps of astroturf, leftover tiles and bricks, all found a home in the winter garden. Even an old dresser mirror came out of the storage room for this.

Other than still not having actual walls, the new winter garden did make some progress this year and it’s finally become the winter conservatory which I’m too cheap and poor to actually have. I can sit down there sipping tea, basking in the growlights, and even inhaling the fragrance of citrus blooms because my lemon tree is currently in bloom. The actual plant looks questionable but it does have the strength to put out a bounty of blooms and I appreciate that.

Lemons which might have grown as much as they ever will, followed by blooms for next season’s fruit.

To me the blooms are a hopeful sign for a bounty of growth next summer, assuming the plant makes it through to next summer. Also hopeful is the condition of my $7 clearance palms which are not yet dying in the far corner of the conservatory. I’m pretty sure they’re Manilla palms (Adonidia) which are supposed to be trickier indoors, but all I’m hoping for is status quo for the next four months until they go outdoors again. Hopefully they can drag death out for five months at least.

Some of the palms are thinking about new leaves, but I think three or four have lost their growing points, something which happened prior to me purchasing them, and likely a fatal loss.

This post is becoming much longer than I was planning, which isn’t a surprise considering my record so let me end on two things. First I want to brag endlessly about the first winter garden harvest, a crop of calamondin oranges off what was probably last summer’s most extravagant purchase. I think I spent around $34 on it in June, but as it flowered throughout the summer and began to form tiny fruits I decided the expense was worth it. Even now I can recall the sweet fragrance as I sipped coffee on a humidity soaked morning on the back deck last August. In spite of the sweet fragrance our sampling of one of the tiny oranges this week determined the flavor to be anything but sweet. They’re beautiful but sour. I see they make decent preserves though and perhaps I can con a friend into transforming them into something toast worthy.

A little calamonin on the winter garden bench. Studies show people are far more impressed by these than anything else I’ve ever grown.

Okay, second thing and I’m done. We have a new puppy consuming all the time which isn’t spent on fishtanks and flowers and holiday festivities. ‘Lemon’ has a bunch of energy and a full contact play style which six year old Biscuit does not share, so someone has to either take his place or act as referee while she learns how things roll here at Sorta Suburbia. Eventually something is bound to give and it’s likely that something will be us, as we bend to her will.

Introducing ‘Lemon’ who arrived here two weeks ago. For the record no one in this house with a ‘Y’ chromosome was involved in selecting the name.

Puppies, new fish and plants. I’m well positioned for the new year and I hope you are as well, and although my enthusiasm on the very last day of vacation might not completely reflect my enthusiasm for a return to pre-dawn commutes, the days get longer from here on and that’s a good thing. Plus! Plantness approaches 🙂

January 12th is the first day of Plantness, and I’m sure you know that but just in case I’ll give a reminder and a summary in the next post. In the meantime I wish you an excellent week!

Happy Holidays!

Dec27

I hope the holiday season finds you well! So far so good here, with plenty to do and get done but also plenty of couch sitting. We’ve had cold and we’ve had snow and to be honest I’m bored with the frozen, sleeping garden. Things haven’t changed much in the past month and I haven’t either, and by that I mean things haven’t shifted to indoor mode at all. The dormant gardener should be cleaning tools, sorting seeds, reading, planning and relaxing and this one just isn’t there yet. Solstice came and went and the days are barely longer again, Christmas rushed by with gifts, food and family (sadly less than usual when the weather interfered with our holiday visit to Long Island) and now more snow, and more looking out the window wondering what everyone else does when the cold settles in.

Beautiful sunshine and warm air greeted us on Christmas Eve and the fall blooming snowdrops were again in full bloom. These are ‘Barnes’ in front and a Montrose elwesii in back.

Until recently skiing would take over when the garden closed down but prices have nearly doubled over the last couple years and my enthusiasm has not. I’m considering passing the torch to the youngsters and exploring other winter options such as online shopping and tv watching. So far results have been mixed. The only shopping I know I need to look into is buying a new batch of hens and chicks. The new rock garden seems to produce the most delicious and tender plant growth and our local rabbits do not hold back. Hens and chicks (sempervivum) are listed all over as easy to grow and only eaten as a last resort but here they take the top menu spot in spite of the lush weed-filled lawn surrounding the rockery. Nearly everything has been gnawed down to the roots. Dianthus and daphne as well but oddly enough the pink dandelions have been untouched. It’s almost as if they’re doing it out of spite. During the latest snow event the smelly and spicy artemisia ‘Powis Castle’ was chewed up and I can’t imagine any artemisia being something a rabbit would eat but there you go. I imagine I have a bunch of black-licorice loving rabbits roaming the garden. They would probably eat Haggis and liver if I left it out for them.

The decimated rock garden. Just a few egg shells remain from the hens and chicks, the only ones which might survive are a few tucked in elsewhere between the rocks.

Spray was helping but I’m just not motivated enough to keep up a spray routine when I’m spraying snow drifts. Fencing would work but I just can’t convince myself to look at some fence and cage setup all year, so I guess we are at a standoff. Maybe I’ll get some more sensible rabbits again, one which read the books and raid the vegetable garden rather than the medicine cabinet… we will see.

But I digress. I hope you’re rounding out 2025 and looking forward to the new year while still enjoying the old, and I hope winter is treating you well. A little downtime isn’t the worst thing!

A Week of Flowers

Dec8

Thanks to Cathy over at Words and Herbs for giving me the kick in the pants I needed to get a post up on this blog! Actually there was no kick involved, not even a frowny face or mildly judgmental word from Cathy, just the thought of missing this year’s week of flowers was enough to motivate me off the sofa. Cathy’s week of flowers is such a cheery reminder of the warmth and color of the growing season it was just what I needed to reset from the gray and cold which has become the norm. Decorating for the holidays was fine and accomplished on schedule, but when I found myself moping around, cleaning a closet and eyeing the garage, I knew things were getting tricky.

So forget Monday through Saturday and let me start and end this week of flowers on the last day of the week with the first flowers of the year. I’m sure many of you would guess we would start with snowdrops 😉

March still seems a world away but every single thaw between now and then will have me thinking of snowdrops. Here they are basking in the first warm sunshine of the new garden year.

Once the first flowers arrive they’re followed by wave after wave of color. A wave which I always look forward to is the flush of tulips and daffodils which fill April and run over into May. This photo is from 2024 and I almost regret not digging and replanting all these beds again last year… well I do regret it but I don’t miss the work, and I also don’t miss the disease worries about tulip fire ruining the flowers here… the new plantings out front and in more open locations have been fire-free so far.

Tulips filling the potager beds. Many are still there, but not the masses of years past.

The waves of spring flowers end with an avalanche of early summer blooms. Iris, clematis, peonies, roses, all the most amazing flowers of the year arrive in June and it would be nice to show them but perhaps I’ll show a weed instead. Milkweed. Not quite the same as a pergola smothered in roses, but I like them just as well and it’s something a little different.

An early summer border filled with milkweed and other colorful weeds, backed with the purple smoke of cotinus ‘Royal Purple’.

If you’re counting, this fourth photo in a week of flowers should coincide with Thursday already, and we are into July. I’ve selected daylilies of course and these take me through some of the hottest days of summer, each day offering a fresh new bloom even as the gardener begins to fade in the heat. Some people are not daylily-people and for years I tried to resist but once again I’ve fallen off the wagon and am collecting and growing far more than I should.

The daylily farm. Color galore just days before the backhoe arrived.

Perhaps you recall what happened to the daylily farm this past summer. If not it involved a backhoe and sewer lines and a whole new garden to replant after the old garden was destroyed. If the garden year were still just a week I’d say Friday, Saturday and Sunday were all spent repairing but that would just not be true. Any small project can turn into an excuse to replant everything so I’ll say Friday is summer annuals. They started strong with a relentlessly wet spring but then the clouds cleared and the sun and heat did their work.

Coleus are always reliable annual color, but this year the bougainvillea also put on quite a bold show. Don’t ask me what the secret is, all I know is it was appreciated!

Annuals are work but Hydrangea paniculata is not. Saturday is a celebration of the late summer show these shrubs put on faithfully every single year. I like the ones which go pink as the flowers develop. I took a bunch of cuttings. We will see. I don’t need any more but of course will take a few more.

Hydrangea ‘Vanilla Strawberry’ shows excellent color if the nights are cooler and the rains don’t completely abandon us all of August. To counter this I give the bushes a light trim in May to delay some of the bloom, and usually this puts them beyond the most brutal weeks of the summer.

I have one day left. It’s Sunday and I feel bad neglecting the asters, colchicum and chrysanthemums of Autumn but let me go around back to where we started. The snowdrops are here again and should take this gardener through the shortest and darkest days of the year back into the next growing season.

One of the earlier fall-blooming snowdrops, ‘Barnes’ has been very reliable for me here in NE Pa, even when the winter weather takes a turn towards brutal. They’re buried in snow right now but should thaw out just fine if we get a break in the cold.

So that’s my week of flowers which all happened in one day 😉 Thanks again to Cathy for breaking me out of my blogging slump and hopefully giving me the restart I needed! The garden is covered in snow and the forecast looks cold, but maybe there’s something in the winter garden worth sharing so I’ll try and get to that. In any case have a excellent week and I wish you many weeks of flowers 🙂

Okay. Summer is Over

Oct31

Yes, I’m often really slow to pick up on things, especially when I’m really determined to hold on to my optimism or ignorance, but eventually the wrecking balls roll in and the troops hit the streets and you realize there’s a change in the weather and the freedom of summer is dying. I’ll miss it. Most people saw it coming and warned me to be prepared, but a few sunny days can fool you into thinking no big deal, there’s time, it can’t turn on you so fast… until suddenly it does and it’s your turn to face a killing frost.

An autumn crop of lettuce likely won’t amount to anything significant, but it does make things look better than they really are. Someone will get a nice salad. Probably not me, but…

Monday morning we woke up to a frosty morning. It’s just a touch of ice and many of the natives are just fine, but tender stuff like dahlias and cannas from Mexico and points south got burnt, and will now need lifting and winter protection in order to make it through the approaching cold.

Aromatic aster, either ‘Raydon’s Favorite’ or ‘Bluebird’, I forget… is still in full bloom and will go on into November. It’s great doer.

Fortunately we’ve had plenty of rain to cover up all the stresses the garden faced this summer, and the asters and mums are as nice as ever and the fall color here in the lower elevations at least had enough time to color up rather than just give up. As far as autumns go it wasn’t too bad I guess, but summer is still my preferred season and these last few weeks were more of a long hanging-on than any real admission that fall is here.

A chrysanthemum seedling which a friend gave me a few years back. Hardy and reliable and an excellent flower which more than makes up for her floppy form.

So I guess I’m admitting that fall is here. The leaves have changed, the tender plants are under protective custody indoors and it’s moved on to all the little tasks which need doing before the cold and ice lock us all down for a winter.

Sunday foliage and flowers. By Monday the orange thunbergia was a wilted memory.

For a few weeks more it’s still nice though. The colors and light are superb, the lawn has recovered some of its spring lushness, and a shovel sinks into the soil rather than being rejected. Time for replanting, mulching, protecting, maybe some pruning… all those last minute things which are fine as long as the weather holds, but just not fun when a cold front rolls through.

This ‘Arnold’s Promise’ witch hazel always runs through rings of color as the leaves turn. Witch hazels are awesome.

Hmmm. Maybe I better end on a more cheerful note because the rain and Mellissa’s march through the Caribbean seem to have me in a gloomy mood. Here are some promises for a wonderful winter starting with the hardy cyclamen which are popping up here and there throughout the beds. Cyclamen hederifolium is probably the most varied and easiest and I’ll show just one picture with a few last flowers since there will be time all winter to show off the foliage on the rest of them.

A few last flowers wrapping up a month and a half of bloom on cyclamen hederifolium. I’m always tempted to pot a few dozen up so I can admire them one by one… but under my care that’s a likely death sentence so in the garden they stay.

Oh and do you know what else is on the way? Yeah, snowdrops. The earliest fall bloomers are opening and they look great this year.

The first fall bloomer in my garden is ‘Tilebarn Jamie’ and even at a later date this would be a beautiful and reliable snowdrop worth giving a try.

I know it’s been a while since I’ve mentioned snowdrops… maybe at least two weeks… but they’re on my mind again after what might have been overload this past spring. Perhaps preparing a sales table for the Gala made it work, and maybe that work made it less fun, but I think this year I can organize a little better and get back to the fun I usually have. Maybe I’m also itching to add a few new ones rather than faking “responsibility” and trying to say ‘no’ more than I’d like to. Maybe this spring I’ll be saying ‘why not?’ Maybe I’ll start this fall. More fall bloomers would be good and I know a guy and why not?

Have a great weekend 🙂

October.

Oct19

To be honest these photos are about a week old, and when I say “about” you could probably add another week on to that if you’re really dotting all your i’s and crossing your t’s but… *edit* Okay so still trying to be honest (which becomes rarer each day that AI creeps further and further into our lives) just editing a few pictures and writing one sentence appears to add another week onto the timeline, so now rather than an update on the autumn garden this is probably closer to a retrospective. Let’s call it a retrospective on fall and hope the next post doesn’t become a retrospective on winter.

The autumn porch decorations. A little more than usual this year with three purchased mums and a couple pumpkins and squash to boost the home-grown display.

As usual no excuses for the delays. The only one I can really put a finger on is the morning when a child asked if anyone was coming with her to a college visit she had set up. Oh really? As the parent who drew the short straw I had fifteen minutes to prepare for a day on campus rather than a day bringing in houseplants and that’s probably sounding worse than it really was since much of my life involves fifteen minutes to prepare for something I either put off too long or forgot about, but it’s an excuse for one of the days at least.

With the return of rainfall the potager is at least green even if it’s not lush and productive. Perhaps it’s time for some potager-love, and next year this area will hopefully get some well deserved attention to weeding, watering, and planting.

Maybe it’s time for a what-you-did last summer retrospective since a true update might need to go back that far. Going all the way back to June the summer was off to a ‘let me just quickly build a shade structure for the deck it will only take a weekend’ start, and news flash *it did not take only a weekend* but it did start off a tropical revival on the deck. Some corner braces for a 4×4 frame with a shade cloth hung between them and voila! an excuse to spend the next two weeks re-painting porch furniture, repotting tropicals for the planters, dragging tables and furniture and a tv out to the covered porch, mosquito netting… way too much, but it was all because I saw the corner braces online and between that and two $15 palms which were too amazing to leave at the store things escalated.

The deck was more foliage than flowers this year and now I’m faced with how to overwinter a pair of palms which were probably cheap enough to leave outside, but I could never do that.

So the deck was an innocent start but then as you may recall there was the bulldozing of the daylily farm which happened as June rolled into July. Things were set into motion. Rather than replant a few daylilies, three unearthed stones became a rock garden and you know about that, but the rock garden needed a coating of sand and of course I got too much because sand is always useful around here. Some of the extra sand was used to level out an area where the kid’s old playhouse, aka ‘spider house’, could be placed. We have no use for a kid’s playhouse currently yet no one to give it to but what if it was repainted and accessorized? Enter a rebranding of spider house to ‘Begonia House’ since perhaps this area provides just the right filtered shade which the begonias seem to enjoy, and “I think pink would be nice for my house” became the color theme. A green roof? We shall try. The results straddle the line between garish, spray-painted plastic garden trash and elite garden whimsy but I like to pretend that it’s whimsy. Several great gardening estates have whimsical garden playhouses for children so there you are. Whimsy in the garden, except my visitors like to over-pronounce the ‘Wh’ as in Cool Whip and I guess referring to it as whhhhhimmmmsy is as classy as we will ever get.

Begonia House’s first year in the Northern corner of the estate. I’m sure the nearby coldframe and leftover lumber pile only add to the ambiance, but the begonias appreciate the new setting. I was able to easily gather multiple large overwintered begonias from around the estate but I’m sure that’s not a problem.

So with some of the sand taken care of it was time to address another bit of daylily farm repercussions. When it happened I lost a lot of plants. I was angry. No I didn’t want the town to replace them but here’s a deal which I could get behind. I have concrete blocks as steps going up the berm which separates us from the industrial park. They’re kind of ugly but they save me from many a twisted ankle and tumble down the bank as I weed wack or do other maintenance. If you can get me stone steps to go up the berm I will stop complaining about the lost daylily farm and even worse, the snowdrops which were destroyed. So there I was for another couple weeks manhandling 300 pound stone treads into the yard and up the slope and then why not add a bunch more stones to the berm and then mulch it all. Extra stones? How about some more square stacks of rocks at the base to put potted succulents on.

I think it looks better. Eventually new plantings should tie the steps into the berm a little better but for now I’m waiting to see all the weeds which return before I go putting too many things in there.

Seems like we’re covering a lot of ground here and I guess we are but remember this is the whole summer we’re looking at so don’t be too impressed. Plenty of time was spent sitting around and doing nothing which is more par for the course, but one more thing before I get back to that. A course of concrete blocks was pulled off the berm steps in order to put in the stone steps so why not make a little sitting area in the ‘waste area’ with the extra blocks. It looks raised but that’s only because the fill here has settled and the area needs just a little more soil to level it up before I’ll be happy with it, so I tried to look ahead a little and prep for that. I’m probably sharing more than you care to hear but the blocks just add on to the leftover soil and mulch from the daylily farm re-do which also ended up in the ‘waste area’. Actually the ‘waste area’ isn’t really much of a thing any more but I’m not ready to post the pictures which prove it so you’ll just have to trust me that daylilies are being rowed out and hopefully it will look nice by next summer…

It doesn’t look like much but the last of the sand was just enough to bring the blocks up to a level which I like. A few more blocks cut in half to square off the patio, some more dirt to level the lawn, dirt to create beds on the sides, mulch, plants…. ok it’s a start at least.

Now it’s autumn though. We had a touch of frost a few days ago and that was just what this gardener needed to remind him that a bunch of stuff needs to come inside and under shelter before the cold becomes more serious. He tried for one night to claim he didn’t care and maybe a serious frost could save him from a bunch of work, but that proved to be false and now we’re at the two hundred pots and counting phase of winter protection. It sounds excessive but most of them are tiny little things which shouldn’t even count but for dramatic effect they were counted and it’s really the one or two or ten bigger things which should come with a warning label. I can’t even speak coherently when I talk about the two most exciting bigger things which I had to go back for since there wasn’t enough room in the car when I first saw them. The might be Kentia palms and they’re too big for my house but I don’t care and have them now anyway.

I love my new palms and they’re totally unreasonable and unnecessary but for $7 each they had to come home with me. I will rearrange my life to make them happy.

As you can see all my projects and decisions are entirely reasonable and well thought out. I hope you’re having the same luck and not wondering how three potted ferns turned into seven even though you gave a couple away in spite of the fear that you might “need” them all after all. I did give a few away and we should highlight these successes as progress and be glad over it rather than worry about some weird fern obsession developing. Actually the speed at which the gardener killed a new maidenhair fern probably did more to nip this possible obsession in the frond than any call for self-control could, but again let me claim it as a success. January is when we splurge on houseplants and I shall wait for that.

Enjoy your autumn! I am days away from the first snowdrop in bloom and any plants not under protection by then might have to fend for themselves since reasonable decisions become even more unlikely once snowdrop season starts. Today I can still search for a windowsill for the new lemon, next week I will probably just lose myself to complaining about needing MORE fall blooming snowdrops 😉

A One Month Update

Sep28

Let me just prepare you ahead of time that there’s not much of an update, even though it’s been one day short of a full month since there’s been a blog post here. That’s a long time I admit, but it’s been dry, I’ve been back to work, and it’s been dry. The dry always gets me. Crunchy grass, dusty raking, and stuff just sits there and slowly debates whether or not it will hold on or go to the light. Watering would do magic, but for some reason I absolutely hate watering. One kinked hose, knocked over pot, or a watering can that needs a refill rather than being enough for the whole porch and I’m cursing up a storm. Plus I hate getting wet from watering. I can stand out in the rain until hypothermia threatens, but gosh if I get a little water on my foot or a spray in my face… I digress. I don’t like watering, it leaves an ugly taste in my mouth and maybe that’s my excuse for blog neglect. But…. the colchicums are blooming, and to see something up and fresh in a brown and wilted garden is maybe not inspiring, but at least it’s hopeful.

A nice bouquet of colchicum blooms braving the heat and drought. Some sort of C. speciosum, it came to me mislabeled.

Hopeful is also the rain which finally found us late last week. I’m remarkably optimistic again so lets hope it’s not another month before this blog is revisited!

‘Pink Star’ I believe, an excellent, long blooming cultivar that last for a few weeks even in the face of no water and glaring September sun.

So colchicums. I think you know the drill. Poisonous so resist eating them, leafy spring foliage which dies back in June, Flowers which appear just as the rest of the garden is starting to give up.

The tail end of the colchicum season in a crispy and dusty colchicum bed.

There are quite a few colchicum in this garden now. Finding different forms takes a bit of searching, and sometimes finding a correctly named different form is a struggle, but it’s worth it. To me at least. I hear there are plenty of people out there who have just a single bunch or two and are very satisfied, and I even have a friend or two who don’t grow any… but I try to keep open minded in my friend group, and hope one day they’ll embrace the diversity.

‘Glory of Heemstede’ trying to rise above a mess of chrysanthemum. Finding a spot where the low blooms of colchicum display well, after everything else has grown up during the summer, is sometimes a struggle.

This year I’m maybe admitting that some colchicum are nicer than others, and by that I mean put on a better show and have a longer bloom season. Keep in mind that shady practices and a questionable gardener and garden soil really influence my favorites, but this year I would say my longest blooming, best shows are from C. cilicium, x byzantinum, ‘Disraeli’, ‘Giant’, C. autumnale ‘album’, ‘alboplenum’, ‘Sparticus’, x agrippinum, and ‘Pink Star’. Maybe I’ll add the floppy ‘Lilac Wonder’. She flops so don’t expect anything else, but is so reliable I can’t leave her out.

‘Sparticus’ has a smaller flower in a light shade of pink. Always neat, and even after a week or two still fresh as ever.

By the way, if you’re in the US and struggling to find a few more unusual ones it might not hurt to contact Kathy Purdy at Cold Climate Gardening, or Facebook or Instagram… she doesn’t reeeaallly sell them, but if you’re really nice and sound desperate and she has spares you never know who might send you a price list next summer 😉

x Agrippinum is a good one for smaller gardens. The spring foliage is small and low and no trouble at all and the low flowers last for a while. I plan to move a few into the new rock garden, I think it’s a perfect spot.

So do I have enough colchicums, or perhaps too many? Hahahaha, of course not! I still need bigger patches, even if there might be one or two who could do better. I should be splitting clumps right now as they flower, it’s easy to find them and if you do it before the flowers fade it’s unlikely the roots have sprouted much yet, and you can see exactly where the good spots for more colchicum are!

Colchicum here and there. C. autumnale ‘album’ is a tiny white flower, but probably one of the longest bloomers, and it does well here. Don’t be fooled by the petite blooms though, the spring foliage is regular sized.

And that’s all I’ve got. The rain brought a tint of green to the lawn so I spent all day Saturday chopping down dead things, mowing up dried things, and going over the “lawn” to take the top off all the weeds. I even edged and blew off the walks. It looks so so so much better and even inspired me to dig up a bed in the potager and plant some lettuce seedling for the fall.

I found a $3 six pack of lettuce seedlings at my local farmstand, split them and it’s probably the best $3 I’ve spent in a while… although the $3 cauliflower I bought was a delicious monster!

Hope your autumn is off to a good start. I’m mildly optimistic even if I have far fewer chrysanthemums than I need and there are still no fall blooming snowdrops up but you have to count the wins, and the rain was a definite win. Maybe it will inspire me to manage a few replies to month-old comments and maybe another blog post some time sooner than later, but my history says otherwise. I think you will have an excellent week regardless!

Why Not.

Aug29

You wouldn’t be wrong to assume that because things are quiet here on this blog that I’ve been dull-eyed lazy and nothing at all has been accomplished here all summer. My YouTube brush with fame did kind of go to my head, but when the movie deals still didn’t come through eventually I came back down to earth and sort of got back to work. Life as a daylily farmer is a gritty life and this farmer here had a whole farm to rebuild, so from my hair and makeup days…. or maybe just a shower… it was back to the dirty, sweaty, buggy grind of digging and then sitting around wondering what I’d done. That happens more than I care to admit and it becomes somewhat obvious when you look around the place. I’m a grown man with little to no adult supervision, so when a few rocks sit around for a few days obviously that’s reason enough to build a rock garden even if the world would be better served with a nicely washed car or a painted basement.

When the daylily farm was dug up I asked them to save any cool rocks they came across. Naturally the middle of the front lawn was a good place to throw them.

There was a little concern about the rocks on the lawn. Concern and suspicion which I guess is justified, and when I said they’re for a rock garden that didn’t exactly smooth things over. A plan was requested. I just nodded because she knows as well as I do that there’s never really a plan, it’s usually more of a rock on a slope which starts sliding and dislodging more rocks and before you know it there’s a landslide. So I went and ordered plants instead.

An online order of mixed hens and chicks (sepervivum) from Petal Pusher Nursery might have been one of the top five highlights of the summer. They’re awesome. They deserve their own garden.

So 36 sepervivum, four rocks and then the township finally dumped some topsoil to rebuild the farm. It was more than enough for the farm plus something, so clearly that something was another reason to build a rock garden.

Cut a circle, lift the sod along the edges, bury the lawn and crabgrass with topsoil… move all the rocks again because they probably shouldn’t be in the way like that…

A funny thing which happened a few weeks before this was that a friend said to me “at least you’re not into rock gardening” while we were touring her garden. Apparently rock gardeners are not just a little nuts but a lot and are some of the worst plant growers and killers and collectors out there but I digress, and just laughed off her comment since I knew plenty of people who were far crazier yet don’t even have a rockery, and I for one also was lacking.

Dirt mounded, rocks in position, a few random ‘not rockgarden’ plants in there just because.

Just for transparency, I may have been collecting rock garden plants for a while but just killing most of them because the other beds here are just too rough and tumble, and poorly drained, to please most of the tiny things which shine in a rockery. Actually, not to spotlight my own stupidity again, but one of the plants I’ve been really successful in killing have been the same hens and chicks which I built this garden around. Friends have gifted me them. They die. I give spares to someone else. They thrive. Whatever, maybe fifth time is the charm and they’ll explode into growth and reach even higher levels of amazing!

The topsoil has been covered in about two to three inches of sand, in this case a coarse concrete sand, which will hopefully drain well enough to keep things happy.

Just like every other new garden bed here, it’s somewhat disturbing how fast it fills up. The sempervivums are tiny compared to the size of the bed and didn’t take up much room at all, but every walk around the yard had me returning with yet another little thing in hand which was supposed to be for the rock garden that I didn’t have. Also there were a few little things in pots which I grew ‘just in case’ or brought home on a ‘maybe’… I always say better safe than sorry.

Happily planted. Everything doubled in size when watered, except for the dianthus which was immediately mowed down to numbs by the rabbits. It had been safe covered in weeds elsewhere, here out in the open it must look more like a buffet offering.

And then my friends intervened. Off to Longwood we went to check out the finally re-opened waterlily garden.

One of the newly replanted areas near the fountains has been filled with hydrangeas and white annuals. Quite a statement.

The waterlilies were amazing. This has always been my favorite part of the gardens and I’m happy to see its return as a focal point of the conservatory rebuild.

The color borders are always fun even on a hot day and it makes me realize that annuals are worth the work.

The rose garden might be my new second favorite part of the gardens. It’s interesting and more subtle than the masses of color in other parts of the garden. Less grand, but I like it!

Okay back to the home garden. The crowning glory of the new rock garden arrived in the mail and for about $150 and a little assembly I have this pretentious armillary with Atlas holding up the globe. Atlas is a little flat, but I won’t complain. I love it out there but don’t love that his price appears to have gone up at least $40 since the summer… even though it’s made in Massachusetts… but apparently the metal was not…

The finished rock garden on a smoky summer morning. I still need to set the time, and Atlas could really use a more formal pedestal but that may be a next year thing.

So for now the rock garden is as complete as anything in this garden. Several plants will become too large for the space but I can easily put off that tomorrow problem, and tomorrow may come faster than you’d think since last weekend’s trip to the NA Rock Garden Society’s Adirondack chapter plant sale may have added even more plants to the garden. There’s even a daphne. I’m overly excited about that one and I hope it settles in since I can already picture a super fancy and refined mound of shrub that covers itself in bloom and drifts fragrance across the garden.

Other parts of the garden. The waste area looking more refined this year although the 7 foot shrub behind the fire pit is actually just pokeweed (Phytolacca americana ‘Sunny Side Up’), but the privet cuttings are beginning to make an enclosing hedge and that should fancy things up.

While I dream of lazy days surrounded by fragrance here’s some other summertime summaries before summer officially ends. The waste area is becoming daylily beds, the deck has become a tropical oasis, and the potager is still in need of first aid. Houseplants have all multiplied. Someday I hope to add more and perhaps share pictures but I think you know how that will go.

It has not been the year of the potager. The beds need organic material and fertile goodness and my autumn covering of chopped leaves just isn’t enough. Fortunately a sunflower fell over onto everything and has covered many a sin.

Actually, speaking of going I don’t know where 90% of the summer went. I need a do-over but that’s unlikely especially when a week of September cool at the end of August hits and reminds you that this is in fact a temperate climate and there’s a new season on the way. Maybe this holiday weekend will be the turning point. Two big projects await and even if they didn’t happen in the last three weeks, maybe the next two days will be what was needed?

Red lobelia and a project on the horizon. Maybe this will be the weekend the kid’s old plastic playhouse finally metamorphisizes into its destiny as “Begonia House”.

Don’t let my gloom of undone projects and a fading summer get you down, there’s still a weekend in the garden on the way and whether it’s productive or not it should still be better than a week at work and I’m looking forward to it. We could use rain, we could use less bugs, we could use lower prices but sometimes you get what you get and sometimes you get a new rock garden and a visit from Atlas.

Enjoy!

Flock Finger Lakes Visits

Aug17

Given the choice I will always turn down the stage and hide on the sidelines, but not everyone thinks that way, and where I naturally hate speaking in front of people, they do not. It amazes me to see this and to see people on stage, out front, capturing people’s attention and engaging an audience with ease and doing things like creating YouTube channels and traveling all over the world exploring places and talking to people. I met two of these people a few weeks ago, Summer Rayne who you’ll meet and Sander behind the camera, and they put together a video which I think is pretty cool. I’m sharing it here in spite of the fact I really prefer to feature plants instead of myself but I guess it’s one of those moments when I have to pull up the pants and be a big boy. Not bad for someone who not so long ago thought having a hand as part of a picture on this blog was too revealing… now there’s a whole ‘me’ on this blog, talking as well, complete with ratty t-shirt, who-knows-what hair and an old man scowl but whatever… I’ve already overthought this too much. >here’s a link<

So there you go. I hope you enjoyed the video as much as I did, they did an amazing job directing and keeping me on track, and Summer Rayne’s interest and enthusiasm really keeps the video fun. Biscuit helps as well, he’s got quite the stage presence and I hope he remembers us when Hollywood comes calling. In all I’m surprised at how well it turned out, the garden looks much better and more interesting than I see it on the daily, and at one point I turned to my daughter (we had a viewing party) and told her I wished I could visit that place. It was magical. Surprise and magic, that’s my attempt to turn things back around to plants, because late August is the start of Surprise aka magic lilies season…. also known as hurricane lilies or naked ladies but perhaps those are two things we shall not bring in to today’s post.

Pink magic lilies (Lycoris squamigera) are probably the most common magic lily to show up in the north. They seem to do best when abandoned and neglected so here they are amongst the trash and stored debris of the compost pile.

Things can get a little tedious mid August, as the heat and rain/not-rain drag on, but magic lilies can break that up nicely. Out of nowhere stalks shoot up and burst into bloom all in a matter of days, and it really can be a surprise to see them out and blooming… unless they’re not. The not-part is where the disclaimer comes in. These plants can be jerks. They can sulk, fade away, take a year off, they’re not like Biscuit, all excited and anxious to please, they’re more like cats and don’t really care about what you want. Sun? Not that sun, I want shade until it’s too much shade. Feed me but not that food, but I know I’m hungry… Here are more flowers than you can imagine, no wait… I’m not feeling it this year…

Lycoris sanguinea, the orange surprise lily is apparently feeling it this year. It’s in a terrible spot but I don’t dare move it since there may be another four year gap in blooms as it works through whatever insult it feels.

The magic lilies don’t last all that long, but there are (hopefully) a few more later varieties yet to bloom. If you can drag yourself out through the humidity and bugs at least they give something new and exciting to see each morning before the heat drives you back inside. Magic lilies aren’t really true lilies, but there is a true lily I’d like to add in here as another reason to brave the outdoors. The Formosan lily (Lilium formosanum) blooms now as well, and this flower is Biscuit-approved. Not for eating of course since I think they might be toxic, but for something cool to admire in mid August this lily is… dare I say, easy? There is a dwarf form, but the ones growing here are the tall form and usually manage five feet but this year with all the rain seven plus feet is not unheard of. Fragrant, perfectly formed, like a giant easter lily (which some people don’t like, so if that’s the case skip this one) the Formosan lily can grow to blooming size in its first year from seed. I of course could never care for a plant that well, but even here they’re in flower the second year and they do seed around the garden if their seed can ripen before the first real freeze.

Pure white, fragrant flowers is what Lilium formosanum offers. Just watch out for those disgusting red lily beetles since they’re about the only thing which can bring this giant down.

I think you’ve heard enough from me today so I’ll just add one more thing. A trumpet flower, but not a lily, Brugmansia suaveolens is hitting its summer stride. This angel trumpet is a tropical shrub so I have my favorite local nursery to thank for a decent-sized plant, but I hope to overwinter it and have an even better show next year. They’re another easy to grow thing but just ask for endless water and fertilizer in order to look happy, and usually I slack in this regard but since I paid for this plant I’m really making an effort. It’s possible someone has already given me a cutting for a pink version, and perhaps I can round up a white and yellow cutting before next year and perhaps this means I’m obsessing about angel trumpets again but who’s really keeping track. It’s basically a zucchini, if you can grow that you can grow these, just without the fear of missing a harvest and ending up with a caveman club in your veggie bed. I guess I should mention that although I’m replacing zucchini plants with brugmansia in the potager, don’t nibble it during the garden tour since it’s quite poisonous.

Brugmansia suaveolens with canna ‘Bengal Tiger’ planted too closely. As long as it feels like the tropics here we might as well enjoy the look as well, and the fragrance too since the brugmansia is very fragrant once night falls.

So that’s a somewhat rushed summary of the garden. There’s more going on here and I’d like to go on about it but I’ll guess that this rambling on and a pretty long video are plenty so perhaps next post. Obviously that could be a while, this appears to be the ‘keep up with nothing’ summer and not the ‘finally post regularly, visit all my blogging friends, keep the weeds back, finish the projects’ summer which I always imagine but it’s still pretty good, even with someone needing senior pictures this afternoon rather than help with her scooter and I don’t know how that came around so fast either.

Hope you enjoy the video and the upcoming week.

sorta like suburbia

more than you ever wanted to know about my garden