going the extra chamo-mile

Late-spring and early-summer flowers have finally given up the ghost and are going to seed.  Alas, I don't have great luck with catching seeds before they fall.  Sometimes the seeds are so tiny that they're hard to find on the plant...sometimes the seed pods "pop" when they're ripe, so you have to time it just right...and sometimes I scatter seeds just by trying to remove the pods.  This year I read about a new method - the organza bag.

I ordered 100 of these on Amazon for around $7.  They're the little pull-tie bags that people sometimes use for wedding favors, and they're perfect for this.  Just invert them over the seed head and pull the drawstrings.  No need to tie!  The seed head will eventually die and drop the seeds into the top of the bag.  Just clip off the stem and you've got a bag full of seeds.

It's a miracle!  For the first time, I've successfully gathered Jacob's Ladder, Euphorbia, and Wild Geranium seeds.  Lots of Columbine, too, which can be tricky.  You've got to catch them while they're still a bit green and juuu-uuu-uuust starting to split at the top.

Some flower spikes are too large for bags, like these foxgloves that are going to seed.

Those little green balls are immature pods.  They will turn brown as they ripen, then they'll split and drop the seeds. I've got to catch them just before this happens! 

Getting better at seed collection has been an education, and so has learning about how to prune things the right way.  I enjoy deadheading, which is popping off a spent flower head or spike once it's finished its bloom.  But proper pruning has taken a little bit of study.  For example, salvia.  I have a lot of salvia, and it produces a fantastic bloom.  But the flowers die after a couple of weeks.  I used to just take shears to the plant and chop it down to the leaves, which you can technically do.  But a little bit of reading, and I discovered that I was delaying new growth by a couple of weeks.  If I just cut off the dead spike, right above the main set of leaves below the flower, new buds would grow out of that leaf set, which I have always sheared off.

Now I'm getting new blooms in a few days, instead of a few weeks!  Victory!

We're progressing quickly through summer, and new things are blooming.  Coneflowers!  From just a couple of small plants last year, I'm going to have quite a crop soon.

Black-eyed susans are opening up...

Sedum is blooming!

Bee balm is finally blooming, too.  I'm not too crazy about red and yellow together, but I'm too garden work-exhausted to do anything about it now!

I love the coreopsis.  It's so sunny and cheerful, and just requires regular deadheading to keep going all summer long!

I've got several large patches of german chamomile.  I love it!  I don't use it for tea.  I enjoy the ferny foliage and the delightful, bobbing flowers.

These, too, need to be cut back in a few days. If I, ahem, go the extra chamo-mile now,  I should get another nice flush of flowers in a week or so...same with these delphiniums, which are growing like crazy!  A quick snip once these flower spikes start to die and I should get new, healthy spikes again.

You can see from the front that many of my 'old faithfuls' are still plugging along...the yarrow, balloon flower, golden loosestrife, etc.  We just added the frost-free pump in front to make watering easier.  A planted disguises it nicely.

The side beds are doing well.  I've cut back the catmint, salvia, euphorbia, and penstemon.  Yarrow and coneflowers are just getting ready to open up.

You can see a bit of a green haze over the new back garden, but I remain a bit ambivalent about it.  I just don't think it's going to look much different until next year.

I'm deeply watering every day to help the transplants become established, because we haven't had rain in about 2 weeks, and it's been very hot and dry.  I can see flower buds forming, but on plants that are about 6"...that are supposed to be a couple of feet tall.  At least I can collect the seeds!

So far, rabbits haven't bothered this space, which will be fenced in soon...

Of course, Claudia is working hard to keep the local rabbit population down!

(This rabbit was only stunned and was able to escape while Claudia was distracted!)

We're soon going to be into my least-favorite time of the year - the hot, dry, humid stretch of July and August.  The weather has been great so far, so I think these hot months will be a lot easier to tolerate this year...I hope!  I can ease off a bit on gardening and concentrate on other hobbies that have fallen by the wayside. 

Have a great week!

Crowded House

While Todd finally unpacks his office and sets up shelving inside...

...I've been spending every spare minute working outside.  I've been struggling with some of the results of my first-year decisions in the garden:  cramming too many plants in a too-small space.  I naturally like a dense, messy garden, but in some cases, we have a really crowded house!

Between the Solomon's seal and the columbines, this little fern could barely breathe.

This coreopsis plant is completely overshadowed by looming peonies and salvia and therefore is not growing as well as it should be. 

Some things were growing nearly on top of each other!

Look at how healthy this lupine is.

I bought another plant at the same time but put it in a different location, where it doesn't have enough room to thrive.  Huge difference!

I've moved a lot of things around this year to make better garden partners.  It's not just spacing, but color.  I'm pretty pleased with how things are turning out, for the most part.  I tend to rely on 2 main colors for my contrasts - lime green and silvery green - for my favorite flower colors (white, purple/blue, and pink).

This sedum (bottom of picture) is commonly known as graveyard moss, although it's not a moss.  It is such a robust, quick-growing plant that years ago, it became a popular choice for planting on freshly-dug graves.  I love using it with other limes, like this euphorbia, and with silver, like this artemisia.

It looks great against color, like this Sweet William, and darker green, like this lemon thyme.

I planted a trusty lime euphorbia next to catmint, which has lovely purple spikes in summer.

I also like the sharp lime of creeping jenny, which I've tucked into my mint bed.  It's a great contrast against the darker green.  Once I finish propagating it, I'll continue to spread it around the garden.

Lime green looks really good against dark colors, like this penstemon.

This is another much-loved color - dramatic purple leaves.  I have multiples of this plant, and I also have this color in several coral bells plants (see below).  The deep purple looks great against both lime green and silver, which is why I love the artemisia that I planted last year.  Most varieties of artemisia are known as "bullies" because it grows so vigorously, but so far, I love it.  Its feathery foliage and silvery color make it a clear choice over another popular silver plant, dusty miller, that I never warmed up to. 

I also use greens and silvers to 'cool down' hot colors, like red.  I don't tend to like red in the garden, but I love these dainty alpine columbines.  I moved them all around in the garden until they were concentrated in 'cooler' areas with hostas and the artemisia.

I also moved several of them out to the new shade bed I'm building under our pine trees.  They make a nice pop of color there, although they won't be really robust until next year.

Yarrow 'moonshine' also has a lovely silvery tint.  You can see it best in this picture from earlier this  month.

They're all fantastic contrast colors and work well together.  And it gives a nice backdrop for my beloved pinks, purples, and whites. 

I think purple is so dramatic in the garden.  It just works so well with green.

Of course, black goes with everything!  :)

Now that most things are moved around (another huge relocation will happen this fall!), I can sit back and wait for the next stage of blooms.

Have a great week!