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Post by Liz n Dicksgiving on May 21, 2020 11:38:28 GMT -5
Does anyone have any tips on how to get rid of gophers? Preferably something I can plant that they hate, not like traps or murder. I use castor oil pellets to try (with moderate success) to keep voles out of my garden. I think the packaging says gophers are equally disinterested in it? |
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Post by 🐍 cahusserole 🐍 on May 25, 2020 1:24:09 GMT -5
Bastards got my Job's Tears last night, and there was a suspicious pile of loosened dirt near my garlic. I have peppers I want to plant but I fear putting them in the ground without protection. And I don't want to have to go shopping for stuff but I fear I have a Dollar Tree run in the near future.
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moimoi
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Post by moimoi on May 25, 2020 11:32:48 GMT -5
Bastards got my Job's Tears last night, and there was a suspicious pile of loosened dirt near my garlic. I have peppers I want to plant but I fear putting them in the ground without protection. And I don't want to have to go shopping for stuff but I fear I have a Dollar Tree run in the near future. I thought rodents stayed away from stuff like garlic and peppers. Is it just the roots they go after or the shoots/leaves? You might want to keep the peppers in a container if that's the issue. |
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Post by moimoi on May 28, 2020 10:55:34 GMT -5
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Post by ganews on May 28, 2020 23:00:35 GMT -5
With the tomatoes put in yesterday, 19 of 20 rows are planted. Don't know if I'll do something with that last row or not.
I've been saving lawn clippings in a big trash roller for 10 months, and half of that sticky mulch was enough to surround every eggplant, pepper, tomato, and cucumber mound.
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Post by sarapen on May 29, 2020 8:25:34 GMT -5
I've joined the ranks of you disgusting bougie turds and am now gardening. I'm not growing anything edible, I'm actually trying to start a pollinator garden to attract bees and butterflies. My actual goal is to take pictures of weird bugs that I can post to iNaturalist but I need to lure them in first. I'll probably attract a few birds that prey on the bugs as well. The lawn is all-natural - no chemicals and very sporadic mowing - so it's already got more biodiversity than a typical yard. There's a family of robins that come back every year and I've seen cardinals and woodpeckers as well. Lots of butterflies and bees regularly come by and last year I even saw a few dragonflies. Anyway, now I'm going to make a conscious effort to grow native plants and make more of a biodiversity hotspot. I've been digging up burdock since the burrs are a damn nuisance but it's also an invasive species so I suppose I was already doing light ecological management. I'm storing a few seeds in the refrigerator until the 2nd week of June since apparently some native seeds need to experience at least 30 days of winter temperature before they'll start germinating. In the meantime, I've bought a few plants that were ready to go from the garden centre. Two echinacea plants have been established for a couple of weeks now, with one shooting up in height and the other not growing as much thanks to a few holes chewed in its leaves, possibly due to a slug I caught near it, which I've since dumped into the compost bin to eat to its heart's content. I wouldn't mind the whole "eating the plant I paid good money for" thing if the echinacea was better established but for now I've spread some coffee grounds around the roots and will be turfing any trespassers for at least the next week. I also have a garden phlox plant and a couple of Black-eyed Susans newly planted and hopefully they'll settle in better. I've also planted some coreopsis seeds and I hope that a few of the things I see growing are what I actually want. It's really hard to tell what's a weed or not but just to be safe I'm letting everything grow until something resembles the pictures of seedlings I've seen online. I also read that you can skip the cold stratification for milkweed if you stick the seeds in some boiling water, though the germination rate isn't as high, so I did that for a few of the seeds and now I'm also seeing something growing where I planted. I also hope some of those are what I planted, but we'll see. I think the biggest negative to this whole gardening thing is that it's taking time away from me exercising, but native plants are generally low-maintenance so once things get going I should be able to start slacking off on taking care of them. Edit: Oh yeah, I found this bird skull the other week, that was pretty neat.  |
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moimoi
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Post by moimoi on May 29, 2020 10:31:16 GMT -5
I've joined the ranks of you disgusting bougie turds and am now gardening. I'm not growing anything edible, I'm actually trying to start a pollinator garden to attract bees and butterflies. My actual goal is to take pictures of weird bugs that I can post to iNaturalist but I need to lure them in first. I'll probably attract a few birds that prey on the bugs as well. The lawn is all-natural - no chemicals and very sporadic mowing - so it's already got more biodiversity than a typical yard. There's a family of robins that come back every year and I've seen cardinals and woodpeckers as well. Lots of butterflies and bees regularly come by and last year I even saw a few dragonflies. Anyway, now I'm going to make a conscious effort to grow native plants and make more of a biodiversity hotspot. I've been digging up burdock since the burrs are a damn nuisance but it's also an invasive species so I suppose I was already doing light ecological management. I'm storing a few seeds in the refrigerator until the 2nd week of June since apparently some native seeds need to experience at least 30 days of winter temperature before they'll start germinating. In the meantime, I've bought a few plants that were ready to go from the garden centre. Two echinacea plants have been established for a couple of weeks now, with one shooting up in height and the other not growing as much thanks to a few holes chewed in its leaves, possibly due to a slug I caught near it, which I've since dumped into the compost bin to eat to its heart's content. I wouldn't mind the whole "eating the plant I paid good money for" thing if the echinacea was better established but for now I've spread some coffee grounds around the roots and will be turfing any trespassers for at least the next week. I also have a garden phlox plant and a couple of Black-eyed Susans newly planted and hopefully they'll settle in better. I've also planted some coreopsis seeds and I hope that a few of the things I see growing are what I actually want. It's really hard to tell what's a weed or not but just to be safe I'm letting everything grow until something resembles the pictures of seedlings I've seen online. I also read that you can skip the cold stratification for milkweed if you stick the seeds in some boiling water, though the germination rate isn't as high, so I did that for a few of the seeds and now I'm also seeing something growing where I planted. I also hope some of those are what I planted, but we'll see. I think the biggest negative to this whole gardening thing is that it's taking time away from me exercising, but native plants are generally low-maintenance so once things get going I should be able to start slacking off on taking care of them. Edit: Oh yeah, I found this bird skull the other week, that was pretty neat. Welcome fellow pollinator! I live in the city, so my backyard is the size of a postage stamp and unable to sustain much produce - the only edible plants I currently grow are strawberries and blueberries heavily guarded by chicken wire to thwart the damn raccoons. In my front yard, I have two structured flowerbeds with creeping phlox, alliums, tulips, pansies, and alysium. I also have three types of rose bushes, a multi-colored hydrangea, two types of hosta, columbine, and echinacea in front as foundation plantings - plus a windowbox with bleeding heart and begonias in urns. In back, I have an 'native' bed with a crabapple tree (very proud of this since I planted it as a stick I got in manila envelope for free from the Arbor Day foundation) and annabelle hydrangea bush as foundations, around which are planted wild geranium, wabash iris, baptisia, solomon's seal, mayapple, jacob's ladder, hepatica, turtlehead, trillium, lady's mantle, and wild ginger for groundcover. The other bed by the garage (the 'fragrant bed') has more roses, clematis, lavender, bee balm, veronica, artemisia, and a dying peony  . I also have containers with nasturtium, cinquefoil, delphinium, calla lily, obedient plant, hollyhock, chrysanthemum, white marigold, etc. - whatever takes my fancy. I've also got a bunch of daffodils and crocuses filling in odd spots. I don't use chemicals either, aside from minimal weed killer between pavers and organic mosquito control pellets. My tiny lawn is overrun with clover to choke out weeds and that's the way I like it (especially since clover stays green in the winter). Favorite garden visitors are butterflies, bumblebees (of course) and fireflies, though I do get the occasional dragonfly as well. Good on you for planting milkweed from seed - I tried many times and finally ended up buying a seedling from a catalog. I just realized that in a matter of hours, I will be headed to the Garfield Park Conservatory to pick up my plant order (stuff that they can't use for cancelled spring shows). So exciting! |
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Post by sarapen on May 29, 2020 13:29:34 GMT -5
moimoi I also live in the city but I don't think I'd want a larger lawn anyway, the current one is already a bunch of work. It's pretty impressive how much stuff you've got growing, though. It's a good sign that you've got fireflies, they're really sensitive to environmental disruptions and their presence is a sign of a healthy ecosystem. I wish I'd known about cold stratification of milkweed seeds, though, I could have started in March and had it all ready a full 60 days as of mid-May. Apparently there won't be any blooms until next year at the earliest, but if there's any growth at all then monarch butterflies will still be laying eggs for the caterpillars to eat the leaves. Fingers crossed that the milkweed grows, this whole thing is mostly meant to be a monarch waystation and the other flowers are there as extras. And oh yeah, I forgot to mention that there are a couple of apple trees in the back yard. I think they're crab apple as well. There's an odd aftertaste in the fruit not present in apples that come from the grocery, but I made an apple pie last year and didn't die so I guess it's fine. Kind of a pain how many windfall apples I have to pick in the fall, though.
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moimoi
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Post by moimoi on May 29, 2020 14:23:44 GMT -5
moimoi I also live in the city but I don't think I'd want a larger lawn anyway, the current one is already a bunch of work. It's pretty impressive how much stuff you've got growing, though. It's a good sign that you've got fireflies, they're really sensitive to environmental disruptions and their presence is a sign of a healthy ecosystem. I wish I'd known about cold stratification of milkweed seeds, though, I could have started in March and had it all ready a full 60 days as of mid-May. Apparently there won't be any blooms until next year at the earliest, but if there's any growth at all then monarch butterflies will still be laying eggs for the caterpillars to eat the leaves. Fingers crossed that the milkweed grows, this whole thing is mostly meant to be a monarch waystation and the other flowers are there as extras. And oh yeah, I forgot to mention that there are a couple of apple trees in the back yard. I think they're crab apple as well. There's an odd aftertaste in the fruit not present in apples that come from the grocery, but I made an apple pie last year and didn't die so I guess it's fine. Kind of a pain how many windfall apples I have to pick in the fall, though. I've been working this garden for 7 years now, so yeah, it's mostly planted in a way I'm happy with. When I first moved in, there was only rose bushes and hostas. I had to take a lot of stuff out and reconfigure the patio in a more sensible way (people selling houses don't put a lot of thought into the sustainability of their landscaping). In the first year, I planted some heirloom irises I bought from a catalog, but since I didn't know what I was doing, it wasn't until this year that I got them to properly bloom after several relocations. I also spent two and a half years unemployed, so staying busy in the garden was key to maintaining my health and sanity. It really is good exercise and being outside just feels good too - I think it's the soil bacteria. My neighborhood garden club plants native species pollinator waystations on the corner bits where sidewalks cross at intersections. I learned a lot about native planting through them - although we all have very different gardening styles - and I've been organizing an annual plant swap to help diversify on the cheap (and get rid of the extra hostas I always have). |
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Post by 🐍 cahusserole 🐍 on May 29, 2020 19:09:22 GMT -5
I've stopped using dryer sheets and still have part of a box, I'll try that tip. And I guess I have evolved gophers who prefer the good things in life since at least two of my garlics are now gone. |
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Post by The Stuffingtacular She-Hulk on Jun 6, 2020 14:17:02 GMT -5
I bought sage plants from the local farm last weekend and put them in a windowsill box out on the back porch, which gets all the afternoon light. (Along with my pots of basil, rosemary, mint, parsley, lemon balm, and hot peppers.) I've been trying to figure out what kind it is and Google is being surprisingly unhelpful. It smells like and has the texture of the culinary sage I'm used to buying from the supermarket, but the leaves are easily four times as large, very broad - at least 3 inches across - and about 4 to 5 inches long. I'm sure it's edible but I'm not willing to be my own guinea pig and experiment on myself. The farm used handwritten labels that only said "sage" and the price. Any advice?
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moimoi
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Post by moimoi on Jun 6, 2020 16:50:33 GMT -5
I bought sage plants from the local farm last weekend and put them in a windowsill box out on the back porch, which gets all the afternoon light. (Along with my pots of basil, rosemary, mint, parsley, lemon balm, and hot peppers.) I've been trying to figure out what kind it is and Google is being surprisingly unhelpful. It smells like and has the texture of the culinary sage I'm used to buying from the supermarket, but the leaves are easily four times as large, very broad - at least 3 inches across - and about 4 to 5 inches long. I'm sure it's edible but I'm not willing to be my own guinea pig and experiment on myself. The farm used handwritten labels that only said "sage" and the price. Any advice? I've found this Plant ID Facebook group pretty helpful so far: www.facebook.com/groups/156706504394635/ |
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Post by sarapen on Jun 8, 2020 21:01:30 GMT -5
Okay, so turns out that the best way to identify what you've got growing is to google your plant's scientific name and "seedling". It seems I have a couple of coreopsis seedlings. However, the damn seed packet didn't mention cold stratification so the germination rate is way low. Really glad I haven't been pulling up stuff willynilly, though. Also I have one common milkweed seedling growing out of like the 20 or so seeds I stuck in boiling water before planting, but that's not too bad considering I didn't do cold stratification at all. At least I finally know which shoots to start pulling up as weeds.
Also, the 30 days of refrigerator time ended yesterday for my echinacea seeds and the rest of the milkweed seed packet, so I've planted them and now their fate is in the hands of a greater power (Satan). I had more milkweed seeds than space to put them so I just threw the few dozen leftovers in various corners. I won't bother to take care of those but we'll see if any of them make it.
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Post by sarapen on Jun 10, 2020 22:15:14 GMT -5
Wow, cold stratification really does work. I only planted the milkweed seeds 3 days ago and I'm already seeing a few tiny leaves poking out of the ground, though I'm not sure if the echinacea seeds are germinating. However, I'm starting to think my earlier non-refrigerator seeds were a bust. I don't care about the earlier milkweeds since I've got a ton more planted but I really hope at least one coreopsis plant makes it. Also, the black-eyed Susans are doing well but the garden phlox looks rather stressed. I didn't realize the roots got exposed before but I'm hoping I can turn things around now. The echinacea plants I got from the garden centre are doing well, at least. Week 1:  Versus today, Week 5:  They grow up so fast! Though it feels like that took forever. But there's a thunderstorm coming tonight and I'm worried there will be hail. Man, no one told me gardening was so full of anxiety. |
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Post by Lt. Broccoli on Jul 1, 2020 12:14:10 GMT -5
Vast fields of hemp for making rope and blankets
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Post by sarapen on Jul 3, 2020 22:03:54 GMT -5
Well, I can admit it, none of the coreopsis seeds I planted have survived and I'm almost positive it's the same for the echinacea seeds. Also, something ate most of my milkweed seedlings. I suspect the culprits are the little black caterpillars I found on some nearby plants, and possibly some cutworms I found when digging (at the time I thought they were just some especially ugly larvae). However, at least one seedling survived, and then I found a couple more today. I guess the strategy of not having all seeds germinate at once is paying off for the milkweed parent plant. I'm hopeful that next year I'll see some actual monarch caterpillars eating the mature plants.  Godspeed, little fella. The sticks are there because I got paranoid when I thought this was the only milkweed that survived. However, if you look in the back and to the left you'll see another milkweed seedling growing away. It's too close to the bigger one so I'll have to transplant it when it's grown a few more inches. In non-plant news, all this time in the garden has given me more opportunities to take pictures of bugs and I posted like three different species in a row to iNaturalist. I'm slowly increasing my research-grade pictures with the weird bug people. |
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Post by Liz n Dicksgiving on Jul 6, 2020 10:45:48 GMT -5
Harvesting of the alliums has begun! My garlic crop was not great this year, and was done early, too. None of the heads we grew are very big, but it wasn't abject failure. Just... not the best garlic year ever. (I don't know if the problem was all the weather extremes in the springtime, or if the seed garlic just wasn't that fantastic.)
On the other end of the spectrum, though, is our outstanding shallot success. We planted two types, and the little French shallots were ready to come out this weekend. They are quite small, but they were wildly prolific. I'm up to my eyeballs in shallots, and haven't even picked the other half of the bed yet, where we planted the standard-sized ones!
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Post by moimoi on Jul 6, 2020 12:24:23 GMT -5
hey fellow gardeners,
Do the tops of your feet start to look like tanned buckskin in the summer? I'm wondering if I should be SPFing my feet. Sorry if this belongs in General Overshare...
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Post by ganews on Jul 6, 2020 17:00:13 GMT -5
hey fellow gardeners, Do the tops of your feet start to look like tanned buckskin in the summer? I'm wondering if I should be SPFing my feet. Sorry if this belongs in General Overshare... I wear shoes and long pants to the garden. More skin covered is less target area for mosquitoes.
But I have definitely had sunburn on the tops of my feet after going to the beach.
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Post by sarapen on Jul 10, 2020 18:41:11 GMT -5
I also wear shoes in the garden. I'm actually trying to wear my flip flops more when I'm hanging out in the back yard to avoid my feet looking all pale and weird when compared to my tanned legs. Also, the echinacea is starting to bloom and I'm also starting to get the hang of taking extreme close-ups of bugs.  My app says it's a striped sweat bee. Anyway, there are some more flower species that haven't bloomed yet but they're coming along. I think the garden will look nicer in the next couple of years when the current plants have spread their seeds a bit. |
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Post by moimoi on Jul 10, 2020 21:21:12 GMT -5
I also wear shoes in the garden. I'm actually trying to wear my flip flops more when I'm hanging out in the back yard to avoid my feet looking all pale and weird when compared to my tanned legs. Also, the echinacea is starting to bloom and I'm also starting to get the hang of taking extreme close-ups of bugs. My app says it's a striped sweat bee. Anyway, there are some more flower species that haven't bloomed yet but they're coming along. I think the garden will look nicer in the next couple of years when the current plants have spread their seeds a bit. Is that a green bee? Neato! Do you have any experience dividing echinacea? I'm going to attempt sometime this fall to divide and replant one short variety and one long variety to even out the front flowerbed. |
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Post by ganews on Jul 10, 2020 22:47:15 GMT -5
It's shaping up to be the best garden year since 2016, when I was unemployed in the spring (obviously my garden quality is inversely proportional to my access to lab). This may even be the long dreamt-of time when every row yields significant produce, knock on wood.
I picked a few gallons of green beans this week, and just today the start of okra and purple mustard greens.
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Post by sarapen on Jul 10, 2020 22:53:17 GMT -5
Is that a green bee? Neato! Do you have any experience dividing echinacea? I'm going to attempt sometime this fall to divide and replant one short variety and one long variety to even out the front flowerbed. Absolutely none, sorry. This is the first time I've tried growing plants since the beans I drowned for a grade 4 science experiment. |
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Post by Liz n Dicksgiving on Jul 14, 2020 13:08:19 GMT -5
hey fellow gardeners, Do the tops of your feet start to look like tanned buckskin in the summer? I'm wondering if I should be SPFing my feet. Sorry if this belongs in General Overshare... I always neglect the SPF on my feet and legs, because my brain seems to think the sun doesn't reach them or something. I have a permanent tan line midway down my shins from running in capri-length pants, and now a permanent tan line across the middle of the top of my feet from where my "garden shoes" moccasins fit. That tan line hadn't been too bad until that time I spent an hour picking blueberries at midday in July a couple of years ago; I'd hoped it would fade a bit, but it seems to be here to stay. |
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Post by sarapen on Jul 14, 2020 19:52:25 GMT -5
 I don't know what the hell wasp this is but it was goddamn terrifying. I did not plant the false spirea it's resting on, that was already there when I moved in. It's invasive, and in fact most of the plants around the yard are. It's kind of annoying to discover this when I set out on making a native plant haven. Anyway, looks like the echinacea is really good at attracting native bees. I'm seeing a larger variety than just regular old honeybees. Like this oblique longhorn bee, for example.  I think the rudbeckia is close to popping and the garden phlox may be ready to bloom in a couple of weeks. The milkweed is growing like, well, a weed, though it won't bloom until next year at the earliest. Also the Joe Pye Weed is shooting up at a ridonkulous rate and I now believe what the label says about the average height being 5-7 feet. It'll probably get there by late August or early September, despite me not planting it in a location as moist as it prefers (I just have to be super diligent about watering everyday). |
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Post by Not a real doctor on Jul 24, 2020 8:36:49 GMT -5
We've been blanching and freezing kale for a while now,and have gotten a few broccoli crowns off the raised beds at the house. I did the first round of green bean canning from the community garden plot this week: 16 pints. I'll probably do one more round of 8 before I'm sick of it.
Tomatillo pollination at-home and at the community garden seems to have been successful so that'll be a fun thing to have this year.
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Post by 🐍 cahusserole 🐍 on Jul 31, 2020 15:15:24 GMT -5
I water my patch on Monday and Thursday evenings. For the past two Thursdays, I have arrived to find a freshly-watered patch. This is fucking annoying because it means I can't step in to weed or harvest anything without getting mud all over myself. Also I had to shore up the earth around one of my serrano pepper plants because it had gotten knocked over by the watering. I put up a note last week saying "Please do NOT water my patch unless I ask you to" and left it up for a few days before the shame of being a passive-aggressive note-leaver got to me. But it will be be going back up this evening, and I guess I'll leave it there for the whole week.
I don't understand why someone would do this. Like I get you think you're being helpful, but uh fuck off?
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Post by ganews on Jul 31, 2020 21:05:19 GMT -5
New recipes with garden produce so far this year:
roasted spiced okra
zucchini tart
zucchini noodle lasagna
zucchini chips
cucumber-infused vodka
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Post by sarapen on Aug 2, 2020 17:42:09 GMT -5
It's kind of annoying for me to discover, after deciding to carve out a small space for native plants, that most of what's growing in the yard are actually introduced species, with many being invasive. Garlic mustard, Norway maple, common buckthorn, Chinese privet - these all grow and propagate too easily, thanks to having no native bugs that feed on them. (FYI I highly recommend Google Lens for a quick education in identifying plants). But I've got plans now for next year. I'm getting a bit more ambitious and already have seeds for cup plants, which can grow up to 9 feet tall, as well as Canada anemone and other groundcover to replace all the damn garlic mustard. I'm going to dig up one of the false spirea bushes and replace it with a shrubby St. John's wort plant and hope that grows into something substantial by next year. Unexpected thing: it seems that the bloodroot seeds I ordered need a period of double dormancy to germinate, which in the wild is achieved by going through 2 winters. I'd rather not wait 3 years to see any results, so I'm doing the accelerated cold stratification that the seed packet says. Basically I fold the seeds into a moist paper towel, stick that into a ziploc, then transfer it between the fridge and the freezer every 24 hours for a week. Then I keep it at room temperature for 2 months, then do the fridge-freezer thing for another week before finally planting. As for the current stuff, nothing much is happening. The echinacea is flowering nicely and as you can see, so are the black-eyed susans and the garden phlox.  To be honest, I've kind of lost interest in the plants that are in bloom and spend most of my mental energy urging the growers on in their missions. Speaking of which, I planted a couple of oxeye sunflowers which should bloom in fall, as will the Joe Pye weed, which I fully expect to reach at least 5 feet by then. The milkweed is chugging along and is already contributing to the local ecosystem - aphids are sucking its juice and ants are milking the aphids for their juices in turn.  The big one is about 4 inches tall and is the same teeny seedling I posted before. If you go to the original picture and enlarge you should see an ant and some yellow specks on the new leaves emerging from the tip of the plant. Those are the ants engaging in their aphid farming. At first I was kind of annoyed when I found them, but there are 5 other milkweed plants so at least one of them will survive to host monarch caterpillars next year. Anyway, it's nice that all the work I did in the spring is starting to pay off. |
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Post by moimoi on Aug 2, 2020 19:20:18 GMT -5
But I've got plans now for next year. I'm getting a bit more ambitious and already have seeds for cup plants, which can grow up to 9 feet tall, as well as Canada anemone and other groundcover to replace all the damn garlic mustard. I'm going to dig up one of the false spirea bushes and replace it with a shrubby St. John's wort plant and hope that grows into something substantial by next year. Unexpected thing: it seems that the bloodroot seeds I ordered need a period of double dormancy to germinate, which in the wild is achieved by going through 2 winters. I'd rather not wait 3 years to see any results, so I'm doing the accelerated cold stratification that the seed packet says. Basically I fold the seeds into a moist paper towel, stick that into a ziploc, then transfer it between the fridge and the freezer every 24 hours for a week. Then I keep it at room temperature for 2 months, then do the fridge-freezer thing for another week before finally planting. It seems we have very similar approaches to gardening, though unfortunately my stupid iphone doesn't seem to want to let me upload pics anywhere. My coneflowers are also looking nice and the roses will continue to bloom with deadheading. I think the only other thing in bloom is the milkweed I bought and both hydrangeas. I guess the hostas are doing their thing. I'm enjoying a nice little harvest of blueberries. My big plans for Fall are dividing a prosperous artemisia to provide more groundcover in the rose bed, dividing and giving away some of my allium bulbs, planting some new bulbs along the neighboring fence line since they've switched out their blue-grey fence for a white one (my all-yellow daffodils really used to pop against the blue, but now I'm going to add deeper colors like tulips in violet and magenta), and building an arbor for one of my clematis that's threatening to take down the garage gutters. I also ordered more irises now that I've found a good spot for them near my native-species bed and some ground covers to try out. Next spring is all about under-planting because I am sick of pulling up violets. My current puzzlements are what to do with my extra lady's mantle and what to plant in a certain container embedded in the rose bed. I have three lady's mantle plants bordering the native-species bed, but they've gotten too big and I want to take two of them out to make room for turtlehead and iris. My original plan was to cut them back and then move them to border the front flowerbed this fall, which has two large spots left in front of the coneflower from hostas I removed because they were scorching. However, I see the lady's mantle leaves also scorch in the summer so I'm wondering if they can handle full sun in a west-facing bed. As for the container: I have a set of three lovely matching planters placed on different sides of the garden. The two smaller ones face each other across the garden in shady spots, so I usually fill them with my favorite white begonias. I want to put something white in the larger pot too - preferably something that blooms in late summer/fall. My first thought was chrysanthemum, but white chrysanthemums are apparently unlucky. Then I tried white marigolds, but they were finicky and didn't bloom. Most recently, I tried white shasta daisies and they didn't take to their container - I probably should have deadheaded sooner. I really want to find something that's as happy in its container as my delphinium, hollyhock, and balloon flower. I now feel better about my bloodroot not taking in the native-species bed. Good luck - it's a beautiful plant! |
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. I also have containers with nasturtium, cinquefoil, delphinium, calla lily, obedient plant, hollyhock, chrysanthemum, white marigold, etc. - whatever takes my fancy. I've also got a bunch of daffodils and crocuses filling in odd spots. 
