My Flower Garden in September 2015

After months of living in a Philadelphia Flower Show bubble, I am finally coming up for air. I will post my reflections on my first year working as a PHS employee at the show, but in the meantime, I will try to catch up a bit on reflections of my garden from last year. September in the flower garden, for instance...

My flower garden is at it’s best in spring and summer, but not so much as fall approaches. However, here are some of the highlights.

I love anemone. Given that, you would think I would have tons of it in my garden, yet I don’t. I never seem to be able to find the room for more. This one is Anemone tomentosa Robustissima. I love the dark, almost black, stems with the pink flowers and fluffy-looking, yellow centers. Unfortunately, this anemone is fairly hidden in a corner of what I call my “secret garden,” so it is not often seen.  

Purple Morning Glory vines cover the arbor in late summer. The hummingbirds enjoy the flowers before they migrate away.

The pink roses in the flower garden were still hanging in there off and on until winter came. Same with the bright red Cardinal Climber vine, another hummingbird favorite.

A new addition to the late summer / early fall garden in 2015 was Ironweed. I wish I could remember if this was Vernonia noveboracensis or Vernonia gigantea, though. I can't seem to find the tag. Nevertheless, Ironweed is a native plant and a favorite of our valuable pollinators. I planted it specifically for all of my bumble bee and butterfly friends who visit my garden on a regular basis spring through fall.

Blooming in September near the Ironweed was Phlox paniculata 'David's Lavender' (which actually looks more pink here), and light pink Obedient Plant (Physostegia virginiana).

The white Phlox paniculata David was still blooming, as well, in September.

I don’t buy a lot of annuals for the flower garden, but when I do, they have to be long-lasting, solid performers. These two fit the bill – Melampodium Million Gold with its yellow flowers and Colorblaze Lime Time Coleus. I plant Melampodium every year. It starts out slow, but by late summer it looks full and fantastic. The key is to make sure it gets enough water. This is my first year planting the Lime Time Coleus and it flourished in this hot, sunny spot. I love the combination of these two plants together. Don’t be surprised if you see this combination pop up again in my garden.

Next to this planting was lavender and another small annual with lavender, aster-like flowers called 'Toucan Tango' Brachyscome. Toucan Tango flowered all season, however it never got very full-looking. I had temporarily moved my strainer of succulents to this pot in the garden and ended up liking it there.

Sedums are a staple of the fall garden. I have a few varieties that I planted years ago and can’t recall all of the names.

Sedums are a favorite of the bumble bees in September.

Blue Plumbago (Ceratostigma plumbaginoides) is a reliable ground cover that gets pretty blue flowers in the late summer and fall.

 

Winding down in September is this white hydrangea that borders the kitchen garden. It has arching branches. I inherited this from the previous owner, but it seems to be some sort of Hydrangea paniculata. The flowers turn pinkish before they brown up for the winter.

Another highlight of the late summer garden is...hey, wait a minute, that's not a plant, it’s a cat. Yes, another one of my neighbor’s cats. This one is Puss. Puss loves to find different areas of the garden to nap.

Mr. Thaddeous Gnome was still tending to his sheep under the Christmas Ferns in the flower garden in September. I took some of the rotting wood with moss from my cedar trash bin and put it on Thaddeous’ roof. Never met a gnome named Thaddeous? Well there’s a first time for everything.

Not actually IN the flower garden, but near it, were my bog pots. The carnivorous Pitcher Plants (Sarracenia leucophylla) always seem happiest in September. They are still thriving when the air gets crisp and I have to bring in the pots to protect the Venus Flytraps that also call these pots home.

Many, many birds inhabit my garden. These doves decided perching on the bird feeder was a good idea during a rain shower. I personally can’t see how that was a good idea.

In order to watch the birds of the garden more closely, I moved some of the feeders to be next to the screened-in back porch. Hummingbirds and goldfinches came to visit, but only after they realized that me and my two kitties were no threat to them in our screened room. I look forward to seeing these feathery friends again this year.

Creatures of the Garden

As we transition to fall, I find myself reflecting back on the summer. The garden is always full of life in the summer. Insects, birds, and the neighbor’s cats, plus some evening visitors like bats, possums and raccoons. I managed to capture a few on candid camera.

Some of my favorite summertime garden visitors are the hummingbirds. I had at least one male and one female that I would see constantly in the garden, flying from flower to flower. They especially loved the red Cardinal Climber and red Texas Sage this year. They never seemed to visit the hummingbird feeder that was in the flower garden, so I decided to move it close to the back porch where there are less flowers and where I could see them better if they decided to visit. It worked! They would visit several times a day. It took them a little while to get used to me and my two cats on the back porch, but they warmed up to us. I spent a lot of time sitting out there with my zoom lens on my camera and finally got an ok shot of the male hummingbird.

Butterflies are a constant presence in the garden during summer days. Usually it’s Cabbage Whites and Tiger Swallowtails. I sometimes get others, such as Skippers, Eastern Black Swallowtails, Monarchs, and recently a Fritillary. I found myself wishing this particular Tiger Swallowtail could tell me his story. He looked like he had been through the ringer with frayed wing edges and that big missing piece.

The past couple of years I have found Eastern Black Swallowtail caterpillars on my Parsley. Parsley is a host plant for these swallowtails. The butterflies lay their eggs on the plants, then the caterpillars eat and eat until they are ready to make chrysalises and become butterflies themselves. I had at least two of the caterpillars this year. It has gotten to the point that I don’t cut parsley to use it until I look under the leaves for eggs first! I have definitely found them.

Bees are my friends. I found myself going out into the garden every day just to check on my bees. I get a lot of native bumble bees. This year I actually saw some honey bees, which is not as common.

Another buzzing visitor this year was Digger Wasps. I don’t recall having seen them before. I think it might mean I have grubs, which I actually already knew. Females burrow into the ground looking for white grubs, stings them, and lays eggs on the them. The larvae pupates and overwinters in a cocoon within the host’s body. Gross, huh?

I see praying mantises every year, however, this year they have been particularly plentiful. I often see them near the back door, so I think they must live in the mint or other herb beds that I have there.

They are so alien-like. Such fascinating creatures.

I get many different birds in the garden. My favorite birds are the goldfinches. They are happiest when the purple coneflowers are loosing their petals. That is when the finches get the seeds. This year I tried hanging a finch sock near the back porch to see if I could watch the finches like I get to watch the hummingbirds. It worked! I get to see lots of finches up close now, as long as I sit still and as long as the cats behave and don’t try to jump at the screen. I get lots of females, but have only seen two males this year.

If you look carefully, you will spot a bluejay in the next photo. There were more bluejays than usual this summer. For awhile each morning I would witness two bluejay parents teaching their fledglings to fly. They would go from tree to shrub to tree, following each other. They were a noisy bunch.

Hard to see in this shot, but there is the bluejay on the left by the bird feeder and one of the neighbor’s cats, Tiger, on the right. My neighbor has at least four cats that visit the garden, three of them more regularly. It is rare for me to be out there and NOT see a cat. The three regular visitors are all orange and white.

Here Tiger has spotted one of the Tiger Swallowtails. Hmmmm, maybe that is how the one lost part of his wing.

Puss loves to nap in the garden. I have to be careful because there have been times when I have almost stepped on her or almost weeded her! Somehow she finds the gravel path comfortable. Not sure what that is all about.

There are many other creatures of the garden, these are just the ones that I happened to have gotten close enough to take pictures of! I love that my garden is welcoming to other creatures. After all, it is just as much for them as it is for me.

Guest Blog Post for Morris Arboretum – Eye Spy: 6 Birds to Spot at the Arboretum Now

My most recent guest blog post for Morris Arboretum is about birds that you can see there at this time of the year. It’s called “Eye Spy: 6 Birds to Spot at the Arboretum Now.” I had fun “researching” for this one. I am not an expert birder by any means, but I am an enthusiastic amateur. I watch the birds in my own yard all the time. This year I moved both my hummingbird feeder and finch sock close to the back porch so that I could get a better look at my visiting feathered friends. It’s been fun watching. Take a peak of what I saw over the last month or so...

Here are several female goldfinches and one lonely (or not so lonely!) male at my finch sock.

I had regular visits from both a male and female hummingbird. This is a male Ruby-throated Hummingbird at my feeder.

This small video shows the hummingbird and goldfinches having a picnic together.

So be sure to check out my blog post for the Morris Arboretum about birds: “Eye Spy: 6 Birds to Spot at the Arboretum Now.”

The Flower Garden in April

As I mentioned a few posts ago, April is crazy-time. It is always a mad dash to get both the kitchen garden and flower gardens prepped for the season. I am so behind this year, but now that I finished my web design certificate and no longer have night classes and homework, I am frantically trying to get caught up.

One of the first signs of spring around our house is when Molly decides she wants to stay out on the back porch with Izzy. Izzy doesn’t mind hanging out even in the winter sometimes (look, Izzy’s checking you out), but Molly is like me and prefers the warm sunshine.

Things start out pretty drab in early April.

But then, after a big yawn, the garden plants stretch out their green branches to the sun, and slowly wake up. Or not so slowly it seems when you are behind with your garden chores.

The lush green color of spring starts to take over, including the lawn.

The birds are about looking for food...and mates.

I sometimes joke that my garden is x-rated in April because there is a lot of bird sex going on, as well as nest-building. You know there will be baby birds soon. (We have our first batch of spring chicks in one of the birdhouses now. The first of what I am sure will be many.)

This is the first year I put out a finch sock in the spring. Boy, was it a hit with the goldfinches. I figured they must be hungry when their fav, the Purple Coneflowers, aren’t in bloom yet. I love watching them from the screened-in back porch.

One of the earliest spring bloomers is the Helloborus ‘Bridal Queen’ in what I refer to as the Secret Garden.

This Hellebore has done so well every since I first planted it several years ago. The leaves stay green throughout the season, even after the blooms have faded.

‘Bridal Queen’ is a double variety of Hellebore. I absolutely adore the white ruffled leaves with pink freckles.

I have another Hellebore now called ‘Onyx Odyssey.’ One I had planted last year and the other I just planted this spring. The deep purple, almost black, flowers are really alluring.

The Crocus bloomed about the same time. This is the only patch of Crocuses I seem to have left that bloom. I think the squirrels must have gotten the rest.

And of course there were daffodils.

And more daffodils...

They are such happy-go-lucky flowers.

An old-fashioned favorite this time of year is the Dicentra spectabilis (bleeding heart). Those interesting flowers never get boring. They make me think of a girl with funny pink hair.

I planted Chionodoxa forbesii a couple of years ago to remind me of a hidden abandoned garden I remember as a child. They sport that pretty blue that I love oh-so-much.

These are planted near my old cat, Montague’s, little burial stone. A flower with a special memory for a special place.

I have come to the conclusion that one of my favorite shrubs is this Spirea that is about 2-3 feet big that is near the back porch. I think it is ‘Magic Carpet.’ This thing changes like magic throughout the season. In the spring it has these bright pinkish red buds. Later it gets bright, lime green leaves, then pink flowers, then turns tinges of red as the weather gets cooler. It is a shrub for all seasons.

Speaking of red...or maybe it is more orange-ish...the Tulip Ad Rem flowers were really lovely this year. They start out orange and then turn more red. They also get this yellow trim on the petals sometimes.

Normally they only have one flower per plant, but this one had a whopping four.

The Ad Rem are planted near some white Iberis (candytuft), which seems to make the red color stand out even more.

The Iberis were full of white flowers and still are. I have one that is in a more shady spot and that doesn’t do as well as the two that are more in the sun.

The Fritillaria meleagris (checkered lily) really fascinates me with its almost geometric-like pattern on its petals. Why did it take me so long to plant these and why don’t I have lots more????

Another plant that has fascinating flowers is this Epimedium x rubrum (red barrenwort). I have to get down on my hands and knees to really appreciate the tiny, fairy-like, nodding flowers and they make me smile every time. There is something almost clown-like about this variety. The rubrum is in the Secret Garden.

I have another variety of Epimedium called ‘Rose Queen.’ The flowers are a little more spider-like and form in clusters. I have three of these in the shady area under the tree on the left side of the back yard (my newest flower bed that I cleared out a couple of years ago).

There is something really fulfilling watching the garden come back to life each spring. I feel like Dr. Frankenstein – it’s alive, it’s alive!!!! But in a different, less scary way. Something that I have nurtured and loved for the past, gosh, how many years now, almost ten, keeps coming back to see me and makes my heart smile every time. Oh what joy there is in the garden in spring!