~Grandmother Never Bought a Plant~
I suppose that is not literally true since in the beginning she bought vegetables and fruits for eating and then used their seeds to start plants.
Grandmother's garden was filled with many plants--I wish I could remember all of them--including Sweet Gum, Peach, Fig, Weeping Willow, and Magnolia trees; white and blue Hydrangeas, Azaleas, various Roses, Bleeding Hearts, Ferns, Periwinkle; Weigelia, Privet, and Barberry shrubs; succulents, and a vegetable garden.
Grandmother's garden was developed from "found" items, so to speak. My grandmother knew that plants could be started from the seeds they produced (no sterile hybrids for her). She also exchanged plants and cuttings with her neighbors. If she liked a plant, she made as many as she wanted from cuttings or seeds. Her neighborhood was filled with open fields (nowadays, almost gone for the rest of us), and these areas were great places to find plants.
Obviously, one of the things my grandmother brought to this garden and learned from it--was patience. In this era of instant gratification, we forget that good things are worth the wait, that patience really is a virtue, and that there is nothing wrong with frugality, either!
~Biographies~
*My grandmother started me down the garden path and Gertrude and Jim push me along. I do know that while all my mentors are deceased, I hear their voices loud and clear -- know the environment in which you want to garden, gardening is hard work, gardens take time to develop, start plants from cuttings, and that nature is not always on our side. In other words, be realistic, be frugal, and have patience.
*Gertrude Jekyll (1843 - 1932; photogragh from her book: Colour Schemes for the Flower Garden) has had the most pronounced influence on English and American gardening. She studied the landscape and designed flower borders, woodlands, and specimen tree and shrubery placement with regard to color, vista, soil, and year-round pleasure. Gertrude Jekyll approached the garden as a canvas. It has been said that Monet planted his gardens to paint them while Gertrude Jekyll's garden was the painting.
*James Underwood Crockett (1915 - 1979; photograph from his book: Crockett's Victory Garden) was the original host of PBS's The Victory Garden, then called Crockett's Victory Garden. I was fortunate to see his weekly shows. He showed that while gardening was work, it was also enjoyable with great rewards. While reading gardening books is informative, it was great to see and hear a gardener in action and see the results. It was good for morale! Jim made a statement on a show about asters that has become famous in my family because not only does it apply to gardening -- it applies to many things in life: Life is too short to stake asters.
*Painting of a child who reminds me of myself and grandmother in her garden: Monet - The Artist's Garden at Vetheuil.
~Gardening in Connecticut~
The Ice Age was not a good thing for gardeners in this area. On its march to Long Island and the sea, the glacier removed the soil down the bedrock and then when it melted, it dropped terminal moraine (rocks) in its wake -- except for southern Long Island where it was nice enough to deposit a glacial outwash plain (sand).
My family gardened on Long Island. When I moved to Connecticut and wanted to garden, I bought a shovel. What did I know? Quickly after that, my husband bought a pick axe.
Gardening here means "digging" out rocks and then going off to buy a truckload of topsoil--and while you are at it: sharp (not play or all-purpose) sand, and a ton of peat moss--to fill in the holes so that your plants may live long and prosper.
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| 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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| 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):
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| 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!
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| 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!
