The good, the bad, the ugly, and the beautiful!



Butterfly Bush -- and the butterflies and the humming birds do come!

After all the mulling, and laying out, and re-laying out the Cottage Garden, I decided that it needs more depth--I thought that 8-feet would be sufficient! (The Cottage Garden has four sections: annex, front, middle, and back; and each section has a “front, middle, and back” row; designated thus so I can chart where I planted each plant.) There is not too much that can be done about all of it, but we did add about one foot in the back of the front section. All sections will be “brought” forward about one foot along the front edge because my edging plants are growing all over the red concrete slabs we bought from HD to edge the front of the garden. Moving them is just boring work, but at least we don’t have to raise the beds as we did in the back. (The land slopes downward a little and we wanted the garden level.)

The middle section needs more depth also due to the butterfly bush (I can’t remember which cultivar since it has been in my garden for many years) and the Miscanthus gracilimus and Pennisetum alopecuroides grasses that I planted in the back row. They are both tall and bushy. I removed the Pennisetum and planted in the Copper Beech Garden where it can “show-off”. I will have to keep the butterfly bush pruned so I can keep it where it is—it makes a fantastic backdrop! I will also curtail the Miscanthus a bit—it too is a great back-drop and I have my Clematis jackmanii growing over it.

Miscanthus gracillius - Maiden grass



Pennisetum alopecuroides - Fountain grass

Clematis jackmanii

Garden layout with section and row designations to help me figure out what I put where!

I received my plants from Wayside and I am impressed by the nice packing and the good-looking plants: Thalictrum “Lavender Mist” and Belamcanda chinensis.  They are in the ground. Of course, almost every time I put in a new plant, there is either another plant there or too close by! I am getting use to that now and just keep “tap-dancing”. I keep telling myself that not all the plants (new or old) will return in the spring so there will be vacancies.

This weather has been a boon to the insect population and I still have to spray here and there—some of the plants look positively mangy.  I am not too worried since the plants are winding down for the season (and so am I—I am tired of the great out-of-doors when it means a lot of work into the end of the season. I intend to make the garden width-increase THE END!
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I don’t know what will be in the next post, but I am sure there will be something, good, bad, or indifferent, for me tell you about. Ho, ho, ho—or maybe it’s hoe, hoe, hoe!

A few plants more for the Cottage Garden!



Helianthus angustifolia --big and brassy!

I am adding some plants now and hope that they come through the winter so that I can be somewhat ahead of the game in the spring. These are young plants I ordered from Lazys’s Nursery website. This is my first order from them and I am pleased with the plants and the packaging is the best I have seen in a long time! The post office delivery service left much to be desired, but, what else is new?

I ordered Eupatorium fistulosus (Joe Pye Weed), Thalictrum lucidum, Thermopsis caroliniana, Polygonum aubertii, Centranthus ruber 'Coccineus', Centaurea macrocephala, Thalictrum flavum 'Illuminator', and Helianthus angustifolia (perennial sunflower).

I have almost all planted—unfortunately I keep changing my mind where the others are going! Also, I had to transplant some other plants that were in temporary spots and are now in the way, and of course, required new permanent spots to be found. YUK!

In the spring, I will try to find local nursery stock so that I can choose my own plants and get larger plants, besides. I rediscovered Sam Bridge Nursery in Greenwich. In my previous gardens, I had many of their plants and was very happy with them. I don’t know how I forgot about them--the staff is very pleasant and knowledgeable, and the nursery is close to home.

I have been happy with the plants and shrubs from Home Depot (Norwalk), except that you don’t know what is going to be there from week to week. Fortunately, they are on the way to Andrew’s favorite supermarket so that we can make a “quick” stop at HD on the way!
Reynolds Nursery in Norwalk also has a nice selection of plants.

I have ordered from Wayside Gardens web site  a couple of times, but I am never quite happy with one or two of the plants. They are not the company they used to be many years ago. I guess they are going through some sort of “growing pains”. The plants that are good are very nice and they do have a large variety, but …

I also like the day lilies and irises from Gilbert Wild (web order).
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In the next post I will talk about the best-laid plans of mice and men and gardeners going a-wry!
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How does my garden grow?

Bird's eye view of the "Cottage Garden"

The weather has been fairly nice lately so I have been in the garden doing a lot of weeding, but also planting a number of plants I have been buying from Home Depot, mostly sturdy “backbone” plants that I hope can take whatever the weather brings, mostly coreopsis, coneflower (Echinacea) in various colors, salvia, and veronica. Every time we plant we amend our horrible clay soil with purchased topsoil (local nursery) and  peat moss (Home Depot)—even amounts of shovel fulls.

I don’t do much in the way of using granular fertilizer. In the spring I put down 10-10-10 using the “feed-the-chickens” method. During the season, I do foliar feed my plants with Miracle-Gro at the rate of 1-1 ½ teaspoon/gallon in my sprayer. I spray weekly, more often if I see a plant in need. Miracle-Gro is amazing stuff—never go into the garden without it!

The weather here has spawned a million or so bugs. As a result, last week I had to put down a granular insecticide by Spectracide on the garden soil, lawn, and around the house, besides spraying the plants with Bayer Rose and Flower Insecticide. I use coffee grounds around my plants to keep slugs away. I read this on the internet—it doesn’t kill the slugs, just keeps them away. And it’s cheap since we do drink coffee. Evidently coffee is also a fertilizer so the grounds (and leftover liquid coffee) are beneficial in that way.

The weather has also created a lot of fungal problems. This season I am using an ordinary spray that must be resprayed every week and after a rain. Next year, I shall use a systemic as I am doing with the insecticide, see my post No Drought Here.

I am so glad we decided to fence the Cottage Garden. It looks beautiful! I am glad we decided on the plan to establish the garden and then, next year, we can finish our experiments with various Deer repellants. I did start doing something with two brands (see previous post), but stopped. I only have energy for one thing at a time! With the fence, I keep thinking of it as a “zoo for plants”!

The Cottage Garden needs almost its entire back row of perennials. I am going to try to get those plants in the fall and I may have to order them; or I could try to find them in local nurseries in the spring (bigger selection). I am also unhappy with my Hibiscus “Lady in Red”. It’s growing larger than expected and put out only three flowers! I may have to transplant it somewhere else. It is a nice bush with lots of lush foliage. This is what it is supposed to look like (photo compliments of Monrovia):

Lady in Red Hydrangea--what mine should look like!

I am pleased that my Lobelia cardinalis returned but I will have to move it to a different spot since without the flower spikes it is a “front of the mid border plant”. It took a long time to show up and with not too many stalks but the color is superb!

Lobelia cardinalis--hopefully next year mine will look like this!

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Well, more on this next time—I tend to babble on!

Very, large trees!

August 11, 2012

Well, we were out looking over our trees for those to cut down. Our trees are very mature and they (and our neighbor’s trees) have changed the sun patterns. Now that I am trying to re-establish my gardens, what use to be sun or shade, may or may not be so anymore! So it is time to take down some trees. There is also another reason that we and the neighborhood are thinning out trees—the amount of trees coming down in all the heavy rains and winds that we have had this year makes a person less loving of all the trees. Fortunately, our trees are mostly oak, so we get very nice firewood as a side benefit.

View of some of our very tall trees!

More very tall trees!

August 22, 2012

We had a number of trees taken down or pruned yesterday. Now I am looking over my “new” landscape—what a difference! I hope my gardens like it as much as I do! Of course, I will have to wait until next year to really see the sun patterns, but it looks so much better, and there are a number of old, mangy looking trees that are no longer here.

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Sorry, I have not been blogging very much this summer--it has been a crazy summer. I will try to be a better "blogger"!

No drought here!

Wednesday, August 01, 2012

I know that I have not been blogging much, but I have been in the garden. With all the rain we have had, I spend a lot of time weeding. This is very time-consuming, definitely no fun, and nothing to blog about! Well, at least I have not had to do much watering, which I appreciate especially since I have a well.

Besides weeding, other thing I have been trying to do regularly is to “foliar feed” my plants—they do respond quickly. I have a couple of plants and shrubs that need quick help, so I give extra to those plants. I use Miracle-Gro granules: 1 1/2 teaspoons per gallon in my sprayer (you can also use a watering can). I do this once a week. I try to do this early in the morning, or early enough so that the leaves are not wet overnight.

I have also had to use an insecticide and a fungicide. For many reasons I dislike having to do this, but the bugs and fungi have been out in droves. I use Bayer Advanced Rose and Flower Insect Killer in a spray bottle and EcoSMART Garden Fungicide in a spray bottle. I wear long rubber (vinyl?) gloves when I do this since both bottles leak at the spray connection. Wanting to folar feed, kill insects, and kill fungi means that I have to feed and protect on different days so that each liquid gets absorbed by the leaves before the next spray. I have been considering buying undiluted insecticide and fungicide and mixing them and the Miracle-Gro together and using my sprayer. This way, one pass over the plants does it all. I used this method when I had a much bigger garden and it worked well.

I bought another Rudbeckia “Irish Spring” from Home Depot. The one I planted last year came back and is blooming wonderfully, so perhaps this one will come next year. Rudbeckias don’t return here much in the garden varieties, and then if they return, the deer like to eat any and all new growth! The ones growing in my meadow always do well, though. We’ll see how it goes with Irish Spring.

Rudbeckia "Irish Spring"

Well, it’s rainy today—can’t do much in the garden so I will go food shopping—not as much fun. Oh well!
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Just some this and that

Thursday, July 12, 2012

Transplanting Forever--

Another plant that can’t seem to find the right spot is a Mock Orange (Philadelphus“Snowbelle”). It is now in its second spot and still not growing strongly, although it was covered with flowers this spring. Since it is not doing that well and is taking up valuable real estate in the Cottage Garden, it will be moved in the fall to, I hope a better spot. I love Mock Orange, but I can’t get them to grow on this property!

A Riot of Color—

I have planned my Cottage Garden following all sorts of rules and advice as to color and texture combinations. I have now decided to throw that out. I will put a plant where I decide I want it at that moment. If it survives there, it stays there. If it doesn’t thrive, I will move it to another, pretty much pulled out of a hat, location. The same goes with buying a plant—if it catches my eye, I will try to find a spot for it.  My main “design” principle is to have a riot of color. I love color—mostly strong and vivid colors. My garden will mirror that. Also, I will give up planting only “edging” plants as edging at the front of the garden. I will use plants up to 2 foot tall. I think that will be more interesting and easier to maintain if a plant dies.

I will be adding some common orange day lilies in pockets here and there.

Deer Deterrents—

Deer No-No may work, at least sometimes. It is very hard to know when a shrub is doing well simply because the deer hasn’t come, as opposed to being turned off by Deer No-No. A neighbor says he never has a deer problem because he uses “Irish Spring” soap on stakes within his garden. I am trying that also, but so far, I have discovered that some critter(s) take the soap and eat it, thus leaving the plants to be eaten! I am still working on how to protect the soap! I think that I have thus taken a step backward!

I put some Deer Scram in one of my gardens today but I can’t put it down as the instructions state because of the way my garden is set up. So I put it on soil around the plants—we shall see.

So far, the best deer and other critter deterrent has been the 4 foot tall welded wire fence around the cottage garden!

Other—

Since the tomato plant has grown taller than the cage, I will have to add some wire fencing to the top, somehow.

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Small accomplishments

Wednesday, July 12, 2012

I decided to transplant two perennials that were lanquishing and I really considered removing them permanently from the garden. I am giving them a second chance, but if they don't do well--out they go--I np longer have the time nor energy to put up with slaggards! Besides, they take up valuable real estate.

One was Echinacea "Magnus". It didn't do all that well last year when I planted it and for a number of reasons is not doing well this year. I moved it with the other Echinacea area which is flourishing. Now we will see.

The other plant is Penstemon "Hucker's Red". I moved it in with "Penstemon "Dark Towers" (which is also not growing as I would like, but at least it is growing and flowering. Now we will see for this one also.

It has been quite hot and sunny here with not much rain (and we could use some about now). I have been watering just the Cottage Garden. I am using one of those sprayers with a dial with many patterns and I have one that works well for this garden. I can water the "upper" area well, and then I move it to the "lower" area. I use "forward rectangular pattern". It also seems to work well in the Copper Beech Garden.

My tomato plant ("Big Boy") has grown taller than the cage and I have many flowers on the plant! I hope nothing happens to it. The deer still has been coming by (but when?) but has left it alone, so far.

Well, time to go into the garden for a look-see and some watering.
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Oh Dear! ...a deer!

July 2, 2012....

Deer came through, probably early this morning, ate flowers of Joe Pye Weed –thought it didn’t like this plant! I hate deer, woodchucks, and snakes! Gardening certainly has many challenges.

My Filipendula-Queen of the Prairie, is doing well. This is a “returnee” from my original garden of many moons ago. ....

Returnees: Filipendula growing next to a Ligularia.

A few others are also hanging in and probably more are trying but since I don’t recognize the leaves for the most part, they probably have been pulled as weeds. Such is life when you let a garden go to rack and ruin and then decide to re-establish it! Those remaining are: Malva, peony, Ligularia, Siberian and some German  iris, common variety orange day lily, periwinkle, a couple of privet hedge, some hybrid day lilies, a couple of the many lilies I planted, blue hydrangeas-snowball and Lacecap, Monarda, yucca, tall grass-Miscanthus- I think.

I bought some plants from Wayside’s the “end of spring” sale. It is always problematic ordering when it is almost summer. The plants looked pretty good. I ordered a delphinium and thought that that might not work out and didn’t. The plant died so I am getting a credit. I think late summer-early fall, I will order the same plants from Wayside, LazyS, and maybe Bluestone—doing some comparison shopping between mail order companies.

Speaking of mail-order buying—I like many hard-to-find plants but without doing a lot of traveling around, so I resort to mail-order. I really prefer to see and pick my own plants, but I also do not like to travel far as much as I used to do. I always mail-ordered as well, even then. Personally, I don’t find quite the same “quality” or “handling” (I can’t find the right word) as in the past and many of the nurseries have gone out of business or were bought out. I used to order from a nursery in Ohio (?) called “The Garden Place” –what a variety and quality. The plants came bare-rooted but each one was perfect. I do buy potted plants from Home Depot (Norwalk or Fairfield), Perennial Gardens (Bedford, NY), Reynolds (Norwalk), and last year from Costco (Norwalk). Of course, buying potted plants can still be “iffy” as many plants seem to be growing well but turn out to be pot-bound and have a bit of a struggle getting reestablished in a garden. OK, enough of this ...

I planted Monarda Jacob Kline last year after hearing wonderful things about the plant. It was nice but I didn’t see what all the hoopla was about—but this year—WOW. We have some strong breezes coming across the property sometimes, and I had to do a loose twine “corset” around the plant. The stalks are at least 4 foot tall now.

Monarda Jacob Kline

I have decided to buy a tape recorder so that when I go into the garden it will be easy to “make notes” to be transcribed later.

Off to Home Depot shortly—hope I find something nice since my garden helper is coming tomorrow and he can help me plant them. I like bright and strong colors mostly, so I think some Rubeckia would be a good choice.

Look up--it's the Sun!!

After more rain fell here than Noah had to contend with, things have tapered off and the ground is moist in some areas but not mud.


We decided that the first thing we had to do was to repair the fence. We decided that the chicken wire was too hard to work with and never made a really neat fence. We replaced it with 5’ tall welded wire (non-coated) on heavy green metal stakes. Since I have to get into the garden we made sections that could open by unlatching the wire on one side and pulling the wire out of the way. The other side is permanently attached to a stake. My garden is 8-9’ wide so I have to get in on both long sides. It looks very neat and the wire doesn’t interfere much with the look of the garden. 


I am testing out some deer repellents so that I don’t need a fence. The problem is that the reviews of almost all products (not including electrified fences and moats with alligators) have the product working for some people, somewhat for some, and not at all for others. I picked the products that seem to have the most of the positive reviews. I am trying “Deer No No”—a solid sachet type that you hang on your plants and Deer Scram—granules that you sprinkle around the garden. We shall see! I will try it on a smaller, unfenced garden.

The new fence.

I was surprised at the number of plants that didn’t make it through the rainy winter and spring. I guess the soil was just too waterlogged. Of course, the weeds had no such problem.

I did start the garden with a definite layout but I have now decided I will mostly buy what appeals to me at the moment, plant it where I think appropriate and see what grows happily, and most importantly, makes it through the winter and rainy spring. I shall have a “semi-controlled chaos” cottage garden!
 
One plant that did not have any problem getting through into spring is this snowball-type blue hygrangea. It is absolutely covered with flowers! It is also over-running its place in my kitchen porch garden!

One happy hydrangea!

I used to have a wonderful and large vegetable garden and I thought that perhaps this year I would at least make a small one. Well, the fates intervened so it did not happen. I did make a “vegetable” garden though—I bought one Big Boy tomato plant and basil and Italian parsley and planted them in my small perennial garden! It's hard to see in this pic due to the Helenium in the way--but the tomato is happy and growing and has some flowers on it already!

Tomato plant in a cage for support.