July Bloom Day--Happy to be Here

It was a wild week that saw intense, hurricane-force winds wreak havoc across the Chicagoland area, and at my house we lost power for three days. Now that the electricity has been restored it is a relief to be home and posting for Bloom Day, hosted monthly by Carol at May Dreams Garden. So without further ado...

There are lots of umbels blooming in my front garden right now, namely these cilantros which have bolted and the 'Moonshine' yarrows still going strong in the background.


Hyssops (Agastache foeniculum) are starting to bloom...

...as the native monardas (M. fistulosa). Finally! I guess my threats to them last year made an impression.



I have no idea how or when these got here...they're some type of Rudbeckia I think, but which kind? Possibly the classic Black-Eyed Susan (R. hirta), but I honestly don't know!


These Candy Oh! roses from Proven Winners were a free trial last year...I've done no spraying or maintenance and they seem fine. I don't love their really small blooms but they're bringing some color to a forgotten spot on the side of the house.


There is a sea of salvia nemorosa 'Plumosa' mixing with prairie dropseed (Sporobolus heterolepis)...


...and daylilies...


...including this great wine-colored passalong from Mr. McGregor's Daughter. Unfortunately it's languishing in a rather dry spot (although everything is languishing in dry conditions, but that's another story).

In the rain garden swamp milkweed (Ascelpias incarnata) is blooming...


...but the most interesting plants in the whole garden right now are these yellow coneflowers (Ratbida pinnata):

I planted these last fall and they've exploded! Pretty much all the blurry greenery behind these flowers are more yellow coneflowers. I can't wait until they're all in full bloom; it should be gorgeous. On the downside, I think they've crowded out all my nodding wild onion (Allium cernuum), which are conspicuously absent after a lovely show last year.


I've included this picture to give you a sense of how tall these flowers are. That fence? It's four-and-a-half feet high. As you can see the yellow coneflowers clear it by about six inches. I had no idea these would get so tall and robust! I now need to figure out how to balance them so they don't choke out anything else!

For those of you in the Chicago area, I hope your gardens came through this week unscathed. It's shaping up to be quite the challenging year for gardening, between the cold, rainy spring, severe storms, and now weeks of hot drought (the rain Monday fell so fast it didn't make much of a difference). It's time for tough plants to act as such!

Also blooming, not pictured:
Coral bells
Big-leaved aster (Eurybia macrophylla)
Rattlesnake master (Eryngium yuccifolium)

PS-Yes I know I'm a little early with this post but it's Friday tomorrow, and I didn't want to risk missing Bloom Day due to weekend laziness. I hope you understand.

The most wonderful time...

I'll just say it--I love this time of year in the garden. Despite a spate of rainy, stormy weather that bordered on downright chilly, the garden is bursting with colors and textures and veggies of all sorts.


These nectaroscordums (N. siculum spp. bulgaricum) are even taller and more exotic looking than I expected, and they also reek unbelievably strongly of onions (they are members of the Allium family so I shouldn't be so shocked).


These seem to be one of those plants that look kind of so-so from far away, but close up you can really appreciate all their attributes. They're thriving in the clay mixed with remaining lava rocks, and for that alone they should be praised. I'm planning to add more bulbs this fall. If you have deer issues, I bet these reeking-of-onion plants would deter them. Just a thought.

In fact, it's turning out to be the Year of the Onion here. Look at how big the onions are in the veggie bed are:

There are red, white and yellow onions with some green ones to the left. For size comparison, here's a full view of the bed. Notice how the onion stalks (or whatever the green parts would technically be called) are as tall as the broccoli plants in the back.


Other vegetable delights include the pot 'o hot peppers, where all three (jalapeno, Thai chili and habanero) are growing quickly and starting to put out flowers. As someone who enjoys food so hot that it makes steam come out my ears, this is a joy in the making!


In the front garden, my cosmos and Phlox drummondi seedlings are finally starting to flower, and I'd like to thank everyone who suggested direct sowing cosmos...I will act on this advice next year!

In more positive seedling news, I have little cilantros popping up all over the herb section of the garden (they'll go great in those spicy Mexican and Thai dishes with the peppers!). I direct sowed a packet of Slow Bolt Cilantro from Renee's Garden and at first I feared most hadn't germinated, but in the past week or so they've shown up in droves. I know it's kind of hard to see, but there's one in this picture in front of the dianthus and columbine foliage. They seem to not be getting attacked by bugs like my basil seedlings (a big disappointment).

(Random side tangent, speaking of disappointments: My hyacinth bean seedlings have gone nowhere, despite me having little wire supports all ready for them at the base of the floor-to-roof posts we have along our front patio. They sort of look like they got eaten by a squirrel or something, or maybe they're suffering from too little sun, too little water, too much water--we've had both dry and soggy spells lately--but there's nothing happening. I think vines twining up the poles would look so great, but I can't seem to make it work! Why?! But I digress.)


Anyway, I planted some new Phlox pilosa in the front (and they are perfectly pink, as Gail would say). I'm thrilled with how brightly they're blooming after just a few short weeks in the garden! There is a fourth one that should be in the picture above, but while I was weeding the stem got snapped off, and I realized it was brown and a little brittle (please tell me it will grow back next year Gail?!).


These new hostas are my favorite things in the shady part of the front garden.

In the front left is 'Touch of Class' and to the back right is a nameless passalong from my mom; I like the way the light and dark parts of the leaves are reversed with the chartreuse in the center of 'Touch of Class' and on the margins of Nameless Passalong.


I accidentally became a rose gardener again. This one came with the house but has been languishing in weeds. I have no idea what it is but I tried to clear up the weeds around it when I planted a couple new quinces nearby.


I got these 'Candy Oh So Vivid Red' roses to trial from Proven Winners, which I hadn't known would be in the trial shipment.

Suddenly I realized that after an eleven year hiatus I now grow roses again. I'm thrilled that they're budding and I hope they're ready to grow without much pampering. We shall see!


I even managed to throw together some decent containers for the first time in a couple years. This one includes 'Double Blue Madness' petunias that are not blooming (unfortunately), with hemigraphis 'Blackberry Waffle' and some vinca vine. It will look much more exciting when the petunias bloom but I'm enjoying the contrast of the hemigraphis and vinca.


This container is in a sunnier spot, and it's got 'Red Plume' celosia with 'Diamond Frost' euphorbia and 'Ready to Wear Paris' calibrachoa. The hemigraphis and calibrachoa are from Hort Couture, and while I can't really say if they're particularly fashionable, they are growing vigorously and working well in these containers.

(Official disclaimer: the Proven Winners and Hort Couture plants were free trials...at this point I only like them for their merits as nice plants.)

The planting frenzy is over with all the veggie seeds and seedlings in, the containers done, and the annual seedlings and new perennials in the ground! Most surprisingly, I actually got off my butt and did a thorough weeding of the entire garden. Next is mulching, more weeding, hopefully successful harvesting, and soon enough bulb planting. How is your garden going, now that it's truly summer? What's next for it?

The Seedlings of 2009

Now that we are undeniably entering fall, I paused to reflect on the seedlings I grew this year and how they fared since their growing season began, way back in mid-January. First, the herbs...


I grow a number of perennial herbs (that I did not start from seed), including oregano, lemon balm, and chives, and I decided to add Roman chamomile (Chamaemelum nobile) to the list of perennials. The seeds sprouted easily and showed vigorous foliage growth all year, but it's the flowers I want for tea, and I'm now finally getting enough blooms to harvest some every couple of days. I'm hoping against hope that we have a milder winter this year than last year because Roman chamomile is only nominally hardy in zone 5.

(Chamomile with lemon balm and Italian oregano nearby. German chamomile [Matricaria recutita] is an annual while Roman chamomile is a perennial.)

Annual herbs are a staple as well; this year it was basil (Ocimum basilicum) and cilantro (Coriandum sativum). The basil took a long time to get going, but these three sturdy little plants are producing more than enough for my purposes. There should be plenty to dry for the winter. Despite the slow start, they're producing more than the anemic plant I purchased last year that was twice as tall as these guys but had little foliar growth, so I will definitely be growing these from seed again!

(Small but robust basil)

The cilantro became a surprise ornamental when it bolted and started to flower uncontrollably. The plants put their energy into flowering and seed production and their foliage basically disappeared, with the result being no cilantro leaves for my cooking.

But I've enjoyed the lacy white umbels all summer, and now I have coriander seed, which is not what I expected to harvest but still is nice nonetheless. (By the way, any recipes using coriander seed are welcome!) Now, onto the perennials...


After doting upon and hovering over my one little Eupatorium seedling, I foolishly planted Baby Joe in the shade of my goldenrod. Of course, this past spring when the goldenrod was barely leafing out, I didn't realize this would be the case but here we are. I am just glad that Baby Joe seems to be surviving whatever bugs are chewing on him (likely those typical thugs, Japanese beetles), and hopefully he'll grow tall enough next year to get out of the goldenrod's shadow.


Here are some thriving Canadian columbine (Aquilegia canadensis) seedlings. They were easily collected last summer from the seed pods; I cold stratified them for about three months, then scarified them gently with sandpaper, then cold/moist stratified them for another month. The germination rate was fabulous! It sounds like a lot of work but really it wasn't. They sat in my fridge most of the time, and it was only a total of about 10 minutes of actual activity to stratify/scarify them. Don't hesitate to try this at home!

(Don't be scared to scarify!)

This is both a perennial and an herb: anise hyssop (Agastache foeniculum).

I figured it would be foliage-only this year because of its slow growth, but in the last couple weeks it's surprised me with lovely, albeit miniature, purple flower spikes. In a few weeks, when frost is imminent, I'll harvest the leaves and dry them for tea.

I know I said onto the perennials, but we've finished with those so we're back to some annuals at the other side of the garden: 'Velvet Queen' sunflowers.

I feel very conflicted about these. On one hand, I'm delighted they finally started blooming, although only one is currently flowering and the others are about to explode. Also, they've reached robust heights despite the rainy, gloomy summer. On the other hand, the seed packet clearly showed deep coral blooms, and these are a rusty yellow. (I'm bummed I lost the packet because I'd like to show it here for comparison.)

(Not what I expected)

That's gardening for you! The disappointment of a mistaken color is tempered by the success of getting tall vibrant flowers. Plus this color sort of complements the coreopsis and smooth blue asters blooming nearby, so perhaps it's for the best. I'll have to decide that once they all finally show their faces!

And last but of course not least, there's my coleus.

It's still going strong--the foliage, the flowers, all of it! In fact, it's so vigorous that it was shading the spearmint to death. So I took the spearmint out of the pot and I'm trying to nurse it back to health with partial sun, instead of the constant shade from the coleus going buckwild.

And that concludes my seedling review! Overall I'm really pleased with how everything turned out, particularly in the challenging conditions we've faced this year. Seedlings need consistent, full sun to help them grow, and that has been in short supply around here. I used no grow lights when I started these seeds, which makes it all the more amazing that this many seedlings survived! I am looking forward to starting more flowers, herbs, and vegetables next year when winter's doldrums are at their peak, but that's another post for another day! Did you grow seedlings this year? How did it go?

PS--I will be out of town this week and likely will not have another post until Bloom Day. I will try to visit blogs, however, and I will be back gardening and blogging about it as soon as I can!

Letting Go

I had a very parental moment in the garden this weekend. With the weather sunny and warm, I finally planted my seedlings outdoors and watched as they quickly acclimated to their new homes, no longer under my watchful eye at all times. Most of the herbs seem happy; the basil, chamomile, and hyssop haven't wilted under the strong sun, but my spindly cilantro is still concerning me. I suspect that the seedlings' poor growth indoors was due to a lack of light, and hopefully that problem can be overcome in the garden.

(Chamomile with some Italian oregano in the background.)

My moody adolescent, the Eupatorium seedling, is growing into a well-adjusted young adult! I planted him a little farther away from the mother plant than I first anticipated because the area around the mother is getting increasingly crowded by flourishing obedient plants (Physostegia virginiana) and great blue lobelia (L. siphilitica). I didn't want to deprive the seedling of sunlight, so he's in a new but apparently good location. He's in the middle of this photo, in front of the goldenrod and peonies:


The coleus seedlings look even better than I had hoped in their container surrounding my spearmint (which I was too scared to plant in the regular herb garden because of mints' aggressive nature). My container plantings are usually rather pedestrian, and in this case that accusation could certainly be made. It's just a pot full of coleus and mint! But the variations within all the coleus seedlings fill the pot with lime green, neon pink, and dusty amethyst all at once. It's simplistic but pretty. My enjoyment of coleus is really increasing!

(A coleus close-up.)


(This columbine looks so small!)
I'm thrilled with all the seedlings' strong start in the garden, but it is still nerve-wracking to see them, so little and still in their peat pots, amidst the full-grown elders of the garden and fully exposed to the elements. But they're taking their first steps toward adulthood, and I am watching them ever so proudly! Geez, if I get this worked up over seedlings, what will happen when my human children grow up?

CORRECTION: In my May Bloom Day post I gave the incorrect Latin name for yellow pimpernel. It is in fact Taenidia integerrima. Apologies!