September 2014

This week, I received a shipment from Bluestone Perennials for some plants:

Achillea Oertel's Rose (3)
Geranium Lancastriense (3)
Lavandula Hidcote Superior (3)

Today, I was able to plant the Achillea before it started to rain. While doing so, I discovered that there was not much depth to the soil due to some underlying asphalt (the previous homeowners used the front of the house as a parking area). For now, I installed them and will come back and maybe throw some compost them later. I'll probably move the plants again later if they seem to be struggling. Some shallow-rooted plants might be a better idea.

In the garden, the Echinacea and Russian Sage are still in bloom and the Sedum have started to turn pink. There is also an abundance of weeds all around. Lots of work to do!

What's Growing - Mid-Late July 2014

In bloom and going strong

• Hollyhocks
• Catmints
• Echinacea
• Russian sage
• Hostas

Fizzling out

• Daylilies
• Butterfly weed
• Primroses

Plumeria with Its First Set of Leaves

The Plumeria (Frangipani) has finally leafed out at last!

 On June 1, 2014

On June 24, 2014

I can't believe how fast is is growing! So far, it has been out of the house for about 2 weeks and it seems to be developing well outdoors. The one leaf on the left is really long in comparison to the height of the stem. I've never seen this plant in person before, so I'm curious to know what it will look like with a full set of leaves. 

Foxy Lady!

One of the Eremurus that I picked up earlier this year from the Roberta's Unique Garden booth at the NJ Flower Show bloomed. It is really nice to see since I didn't expect them to have any flowers at all (according to the instructions, they bloom during the second year). The second Eremurus has foliage, but no bloom. I wonder how large the flower will be...

At the end of this flowerbed, is the Autumn Joy that I had transplanted earlier. Something needs to be done to liven that area during the summer. I am thinking about adding yellow-orange day lilies since they are drought tolerant and tough. The color should contrast nicely against the purple plumes of the ornamental grass.

The lilies that I planted last year does not appear to be making it through. It looks as if something had eaten to top of the stem where the flower should be, as well as several leaves. It could be insects. In any case, I won't be planting oriental lilies again since they don't seem to work well for me.

The strawberries are not doing very well either. There was at least one berry with sooty mold and some of the berries were looking very sad. I cut them all away, hoping to do better. One problem with the hanging baskets is that since I can't see into them because of my height, I don't know if anything is wrong with them. I'm contemplating taking the strawberry plants out and planting some flowering plants instead.

Plumeria At Last!

Finally signs of life! I was giving up hope on my plumeria cutting, but was happy to see new growth at the top of one of the stalks:

Checking the bottom of the pot revealed two root ends growing out from the drainage hole. Yay!

Bowman's Hill Flower Sale 2014

Yesterday I visited the sping flower sale at Bowman's Hill Flower Preserve and came away with some plants:

• Polygonatum Biflorum (Solomon's Seal). I brought a few years back from the same place. It seems to be doing well, so I thought I should buy two more.
• Asarum Canadense (Wild Ginger). I planted this underneath the sad looking azalea which still hasn't leafed out. 2 plants. 
• Anemone Canadensis (Canada Anemone). I planted this by the back door. It is supposed to be a vigorous spreader and sounds like just the thing to cover the empty space in the shaded back area where it seems difficult to grow anything. 1 plant. 
• Trillium species (Trillium). At $15 a pot, this was the spendiest of the lot. I only brought one since I'm not too  familiar with it and am not sure how well it will do, but the flower on their sign seems nice.
• Stylophorum diphyllum (Celandine Poppy). I was not expecting to purchase these and have never heard of them, but their pretty yellow flowers caught my eye as we drove by them along their driveway. I'm planning to plant these in front of the ferns by the back door. 3 plants.

It was really nice to visit the Preserve and see some of the spring flowers growing in their native environment. Anyone who is interested in gardening should get out to see some gardens as they are extremely useful in determining how a mature plant will actually look once they have filled in. I enjoy pouring over plant catalogs and imagining how the ones I like will grow in my garden, but their focus is usually on the flowers, fruits or vegetables. Nothing will give the gardener a real sense of size and habit as well as visiting a garden. Better than that, visit at different seasons when it is possible to see how they look during different seasons.

I also FINALLY planted the Lady Fern after soaking the bare roots for about 2 hours in water. It is in the back near the large stacked rocks where the ivy used to be. I moved the ivy to the new hosta bed, hoping that they will trail over the broken retaining railroad ties. The Tennessee Ostrich fern is currently soaking in a basin of water and will go in the back since they are expected to become very tall. I brought both varieties as bare roots from Home Depot earlier this year, so hopefully they are still alive. I'm not sure how the astilbes are doing. There may be signs of life from one, but the other two roots are not doing much of anything.

Since C moved the large clump of catmint from the front of the house to the space along the road, there was room for more plants in front of the house. I really enjoy going outside and picking fresh thyme for cooking, so I thought that it would be even better if I could also pick some fruits and vegetables as well.

I move the blueberry plant which was planted in a container by the back door to the front, where it can enjoy more sunlight and planted two hanging baskets with strawberries. A trip to Rutgers' annual spring flower sale yielded a Roma tomato plant which is now in the ground next to two spots of Bonnie sweet basil.

Along the road, there are some leaves which look different from the weeds that normally grow there. I hope that it is one of the foxtail lilies. There should be two, but if only one grows, I will still be happy since they sat around the house for a while before they were planted.

Spring Planting

Planted 3 Sarocococca humilis "Fragrant Valley" by the big bed next to the back door, as well as 1 Gaultheria Creeping Wintergreen. The Hydrangea macrophylla "All Summer Beauty" is now a few feet away from the propane tank in the back and takes up the empty space near the downspout.

Tristan strawberries were planted into 2 hanging baskets. There are 3 plants in each basket.

Lenten Rose "HGC Jacob" was planted near the backdoor in the bed on the other side of the bathroom.

Two azaleas were moved to the area behind the house close to the wild daylilies. The white azalea was tossed out. There was a funny little wormy thing which caused me to worry about its condition. In addition, when I snapped a stem to check if it was still alive, the core of the stem was not green.