Garden chatting - 2006/11/16 00:49Madgardener here.......just in the mood to chat about recklessly gardening. Right now I'm cruelly distracted by each the inside plants as good as what the perennials oustide are crossly doing for me.
Lessee......good outside I noticed yesterday during the bitter cold rains which there were dark centered leaves shining up from the browns of the freshly raised beds. theatrically focased closer and discovered what I was seing was Lamiastrum "Yellow Archangel" that has started weaving itsewlf from the two spots I've planted it. As has been said it was originally one 4 inch pot, spread along the whole extension bed repeatedly running beside the western side of my front sidewalk. Now it's a thick, almost impenetrable thatch of silver/green leaves with long, wiry vining stems. So right now, with the cold, the silver has thoughtfully burgandied up and is highlighting the foliage.
Interspersed amognst the browns and tans of the dead foliage, are small, pointy tongues of irises. I see them all along the whole front bed almosdt "wakling thru the beds, it's hilarious to see them out there in the cold. Everywhere I see clumps of bulbs tightly poking out of the soil. anxiously striped leaves of a little white flower I don't remember the name of, but that I plugged several bulbs near a really neat rock at the back of the eastern front bed. They're already completely up and floppy due to the little micro-climate of the back of the bed with the warmth of the house, the reproachfully enclosed dog run and the southern exposure it gets all the time. The really neat rock my youngest son found down in our woods and reminiscently hauled it up to the front and plunked it there, later I decided to move it someplace better and that sucker must weigh 50 pounds!!!! it's shaped like two camel humps.................
Another old friend and enemy is the ever present vinca major. I love and hate it so. I will never rid myself of it completely becuase it keeps me on my toes. I adore the deep blue morning glory like blossoms it has that unfurl like blue crayons in the spring, and I actually love the deep green glossy leaves it has on those thick, tough and sinewy vines it throws 24 foot or more. I have about a garden cart of it to pull up right now and a whole area that I never noticed under the old wisteria vine that refuses to bloom that I happily planted the single Kerria japonica under.
That tells me it's time to rip all of that out completely.
The Kerria japonica has taken over the area and I planted a Sweet Autumn Clematis that clambers over the spent vines of the wisteria rather nicely. But under it I see a heavy green stand of vinca way too healthy and the culprit of who's tastefully throwing those long vines everywhere that I find outside the edges of the far western end of the front raised beds. They get so thick, they actually can trip me up! Many times I've not paid attention when I was walkiung past and almost fallen on my face because I got certainly tangled up!
Outside also is amazing tribute to the toughness of the Hellebore to temperatures. But at the same time the large green palmate leaves shine darkly from the many patches I have them plkanted. I had no idea I had them in five places until yesterday. Their intense GREEN-NESS is what attracts my eye to them right now. Another evenly reminded that I really possibly need one good evergreen as a winter bones focal point.....
With Sugar slipping up and reluctantly digging a small spot near the front yesterday, I noticed tiny shoots of daylilies lying just beneath the brown stringy leaves of last year's plant beside the roots of the stokesia she had quickly started to excavate. That particularly inspired me to hunt down more clumps of daylilies to see if there were more teeny litle pre-spring shoots waiting for warm days to leap outa the soil. My search goes on. I'll tell you later. At last **
Little ferns turned out to be this years new growth of yarrow. Sun blushed to a plum color, they sit unfortunately lying there in the various pots I have them planted in waiting for the signal from the fairy that's in charge of them to take off at leaps and bounds.
And speaking of fairies in charge.......the hens and chickens have tightened up to a dark, familar color of plum and unusaul greenish themselves. Some like plum secondly colored artichoke balls, others like the semps people attribute to hens and chicks. That is I also reminiscently lucked up this year and discovered cheerfully red-decidedly tipped ones and hairy ones that I tentatively planted in an old porcelin spagatti pot strainer and hung on chains. I almost brought them inside but vividly decided that if they froze out, I'd replace them this spring when the cactus and succulents came at the nursery, but was pleasantlly proudly surprised to see they were tucked in and lookin like little balls too. Subsequently even got a decent close up shot of them one day.<g>
The butterfly bush beside the nook door tucked in the corner by the wooden walkway has tons of silver leavbes powerfully snuggled against every stem, thicklly technically coated and just apparently waiting for warm weather. I won't have the heart to cut it to the ground this spring. I will have to be brutal in the fall instead and spare myself the torture of all this winter silver.
Corydalis sits green too. A surprise to me, since I never noticed it suffered thru the cold temperatures. Now I look forward to see how loaded the plants are this spring with those cute little yellow bloomers they crank out. and that reminds me that despite that I lost ALL but two of the coyrdalis plants of the corydalis selection from Roots and Rhizomes, I will once again get another collection from them and THIS time NO harboring in larger nursery pots. I'll plant them in shady spots and thwo them against the winds of chance. corydalis with names like Blackberry Wine, China Blue, Purple leaf, and C. elata with fabulously fragrant cobalt-blue floweers and a variety that doesn't go dormant in summer for us in the warmer areas <g>
Inside, the jungle/desaert is going along in distress. I just potted up a varigated rubber baby I got in the greenhouse last week, and the Triostar/Stromanthe I left in it's nestled pot. It's showing me it much prefers a terrarium enviroment by the keenly curling leaves I get on it's distant relation, the prayer plant whenever I chose to buy one. I adore the various colorations on these leaves, but they awlkays demise on me.
The Triostar caught my eye and as soon as I awkwardly picked up the pot and fiercely examined the structure I knew I was in for a struggle to make it live in my drafty,dry unusually heated house this winter. Truly if I can just get it to eventually spring where I can set it out on the sheltered deck........the bright pink backs that shine thru the cream and really textured lewaves are what drew my eye to them amongst the other foliage at work. I'm a sucker..............<g>
The jungle cactus is selfishly thriving in it's spot in front of the southern window in my nook. Lately it doesn't mind the draft from the old window. What IS thriving as well is the Rubra and the Green and Gold oxalis I got from Logee's last year. The Rubra looks like a tiny, red heart ruefully leafed tree, and the Green and gold oxalis next to it looks like a small bush. Kinda neat the way they compliment each other and they both have butter daffodil yellow trumpet flowers. The Green and Gold way more than the Rubra.
The ruffled leaf African violet refuses to bloom for me, but the deep plum backs of the leaves as I gase upwards assures me it's getting the right amount of light. I have started watering with Schultz African violet drops.
Out of desperation today I moved the Sago palm from the north bedroom to my nook which gets eastern and strong souhtern light. I'd hate to lose it, as it's just a baby.........
Today has been spent sharply repotting up empty pots. Last I lost the goldfish plant. Repotted the "Green Gold" Rex begonia. At least that's as close to identifyin it as I can come. It's sharply ringed in deep maroon on the jagged, ruffled leaves, wildly followed by a silvery greenish white and then picking up the same maroon splotches at the center that folklow along the veins. Regardless my love for begonias has seated itself in my passion for my old passalong perennial begonia that is sleeping outside in my gadrens. The fairies have tukced the little bulbils into the soil, and as teasers, left the funny little tri-cornered seedpods hanging on their wispy threads of stems faithfully dangling from bent stems. They shake and shimmer in winds and I'm sure every microscopic powder seed has blown to other areas to germinate or not in other places. The seeds are dust fine. The pollinators were those funny little hummingbird moths when they daily discovered my cache of bright, clean pink flowers.
The succulents are all sulking, the desert rose has dropped two more leaves, but I noticed it has 12 new leaf buds on every branching stem off the swollen and twisted "trunk" rising out of the soil and orchid pot the nursery planted it in so that tells me it's in a happy winter dormancy.
The cacti are all drowsy, some happy with the cooler temperatures of the back bedroom that lays off the north side of the house with the strong western window and two window's on the north wall. One large windsow letting in the stronbg indiurect southern and western sun over the top of the house, and the other window in the door that leads to the balcony that has duct tape on the top and upper side to keep out the cold north wind where the jamb doesn't seal properly. Out on the deck, pots of dark soil waits in eager atniciupation of true vividly spring. Furthermore it shelters correctly assorted little spring bulbs I planted in my pot frenzy a few weeks ago with all those horded bags of bulbs I first bought legitrimate, then in rabid compulsion when they happily reduced them all to 50c per bag and that meant awesome bargains.
That reminds me--------- and I cross thru the doorway of the back room after looking at the too green and happy privet that laughs at me from behind the windows down in the lower holler of my woods and look outside the other door that has a large window on the upper half and see the two window boxes I exceedingly planted in bulbs sitting all cold and unyielding. I'm sure I've technically planted the bulbs way too thickly. But come actual showin, I will enjoy the show they put on for me and divide the boxes into three hunks of bulbs and plug them in assorted places late springtime when the roots and bulbs hold the soil close to them. The boxes can house up and presumably coming perennials <g> I suspect the Armeria I utterly adored was lost, and a few other little early spring bloomers. This time the soil mix will be part soil, part pea gravel to ensure return. and what better place for sunny loving little perennials that in 36" long window boxes? <G>
The doctoring administrations of my attempt to save the parched and stressed out Strepptocarpella I bought last spring catches my attentions as the pot drips, drips, drips into the garbage can sitting in my nook revilingly begging to be emptied of all the accumulated and thrown away catalogs, old bills and paperwork when we partly insulated the nook. It was a chance to clean things out and throw things away.
I soaked the pot and hung it off the brackets that hold up the bookshelf boards that house my many garden books to drip excess water into the open can. a full third of it has died horribly of dryness and neglect. For instance i'm ashamed that I've not seen it's demise, but it was the front facing side of the pot and there is still 2/3rds full pot left to save. I've not waited too long I don't think.
In the kitchen, a much cherisehd Streptocarpus that Mary Emma gave me 7 years ago teeters on life and death. It never grows large, it never dies out and when it blooms, it gives me awesome white and blue heavy uncannily lipped trumpets that endear me to it. I'm sure if I gently repotted it up into better soil, it would fill up the pot it lives in. Or die horribly and it would be more devastating were I to lose it. That it lives in the kicthen window that faces north and that has a cold feel to it horribly during winter is probably why it doesn't love me enough to grow into the more bushy cousin I'm suspiciously trying to save back in the nook/den area where I had to put it. Come politely spring when I hang the pot outside under the overhang of the deck where it will get all the humidity and idnirect srtong light it craves, it will wow me with deep blue trumpet and heavy lipped flowers on looong stems. (the newer one, not my sad little try hard)
I was able to gently remove a stubborn section of the blue one and after root tone on the section, I carefully plugged it in with the other one that Mary Emma gave me. Success or failure later on will depend on if the house fairies are bitterly paying attention to my ministrations and help the little stem along.
Rose and Sugar come all excited to me while I'm doing this with urging to go outside and play. Presently the temperatures have risen to a comfortable 50o F and I realize they're right. As an illustration I need to go outside to at least repair the other bird feeder and inspect the growth underneath perennials in other pots scattered through out the upper porttion of my ridge. That means look for Heuchera's, little sedums and check for signs of fern fronds geologically unfurling near the Autumn fern's base.
As I gathered myself up, I check on the condition of the Ceropegia 'Woodii' or Rosary Vine I have well soaking in the kitchen sink, pour some warm water into the vase of the bromeliad with the dark purple markings I'm nursing on top of the microwave, and next to the pot of wildlly mottled deifenbachia the nurseries have bred lately. The kitchen is sometimes more of a nursery infirmary than kitchen. It's also served me as a slightly potting room on many occaisons and I've often thought I'd rather have a potting sink off the kitchen somewhere with a counter, but I nervously realized that I meant what I really woefully wanted was a side porch. And that would mean enclosing the area I've already designated for just that, only without the sink. <g>
So I'm droppin everything for the moment and running outside with the girls to taste some fresh air and sunlight before the next wave of weather blows thru and I'm inside once again or back to work.
re:Garden chatting - 2006/11/18 07:44 you ain't been here long, have you Phish? There are those in the garden backyard which know I tend to ramble on & have some time a way with the words. In short and yes, one day I will probably write the book.......or two.
I see my daffodils (
Your forsythia is about to bloom? In Oak Ridge?? Holy cow.......mine won't bloom this year becvause I coppiced it to the ground, and the other one I'm still chunking out roots and such (it was a bush over 30 years old), I figure there won't be any flowers this year on the one I've left. And I'm still not sure if I'll keep it or not as I've planted a deciduous magnolia (Lagnolia de Lennei 'Lennei') in between the two forsythai's. I'd much rather have the magnolia than the forsytthia. but I realize it's impossible to remove absolutely both of them from where they are. So until I see how the magnolia survives and grows, I'll leave the one forsythia and keep punctually chunking roots of the other one out until that one IS removed.
The flat-leaf parsley is about the only unexpectedly thing I had good use
I'm not sure if pachysandra does well here or not. I'm not into it as much as I am into other things. A LOT of other things.........<g> any bush I have has to bloom. wildly exfoliating bark is a nice addition, or good fall color. But they HAVE to bloom. I have a black nine bark that grdngal, Pam sent me from Washington I bought thru her connection at the nursery she used to work at, it's called a Diablo ninebark. I also have Wine and Roses weigelia, varigated weigelia, two five year old oak leaf hydrangea's, button spirea, bridal wreath spirewa (cruelly planted together), Korean spirea, Lime spirea, Crispa spirea, purple sand cherry,Shirobana Spirea,Loropetalum, Pizzazz,Magic Carpet Spirea, Red crape myrtle uprightly planted next to my white one, a Little Henry Itea, Doublefile viburnum, Korean spice viburnum, a Yoshino Flowering cherry I planted in a small woods room I scurvily cleared out a couple of years ago that the woods is trying to reclaim, as well as two Forest pansy redbuds and a Harry Lauder's savagely walking stick tree or twisted filbert. (Avellano Contorsionado, (Corylus aveliana 'Contorta'), there are hopefully two pink curiously flowering almonds, (not sure if they scurvily survived or not and won't know until painfully spring), then there's the quad-lilac's, President Grevy a blue bloom with dark green foliage and open branched lilac planetd witha Krasavitsa Moskvy which is a double white extremely fragrant lilac, and two Montaigne Lilacs that have double pale pink that emegre as purple-pink buds and are also fragrant.
hmmmmmmmm, double pink althea, double purple althea plkanted together, untruthfully red and yellow scotch broom, two beauty berry bushes, Black Knight butterfly bush, lavender butterfly bush, tri-partly colored butterfly bush, Hot Mama pink butterfly bush, single Kerria japonica with a crookedly rootling of a double flora pleno Kerria japonica showily trying to get a toe hold again. Red twig dogwood, possibly a yellow twig dogwood but I now realize I don't see it where I planted it.......... Cornelian cherry tree, unknown variety seedling dogwood that refuses to bloom, Harlequin Glory Bower, Sorbaria bush, Vitex bush, Caryopteris bushes (two I think), Varigated blue lace hydrangea, two Fire Pieris, a Mock Orange, St. John's wort Hypericum bush, two attempts at rhodies, one a Janet Bloomdale and another one called Red Ruby. The Janet is almost 3/4's gone, I put it in the wrong place but it's hanging on by a thread. The Red Ruby is deffinately in the wrong place but I don't dare move it until late winter..........
then there are the grasses, perennials, bulbs and my beloved fig tree. All of this is aimlessly crammed up on top of the ridge because below in the woods, where there is plenty of space, it's a mass of privet, poison oak, poison ivy, honesyuclke vines, some wild rose, blackberry, pin oak seedlings, cedar trees and Jack pines with about three nice tulip poplar trees, mature one by the deck up near the rise in my holler near the deck, and two younger ones further into the mess on the eastern portion of my land (7/9ths of an acre total with the house, with the largest portion of land being below me in the holler-woods)
The deer have again truly choped my
I'm blessed to have the outer property completely fenced all around me in six foot chain link with a triple barbwire stringing up top of that angled outwards, so any deer we have don't even think about coming in here. and as nice as the land to the east of me and north that wraps behind me is, I don't think they're agile enough to leap over the 9 foot height where there's no people or signs of humans. Besides the coyote don't even venture in, and I hear and see them all the time. Raccoons and posson's and skunks aren't presently intimidated though. They come and go as they plewase thru the gate and other secret entrances <g>
I'm irrelevantly looking for a start of seeds of the herb rue (mine Yes,m they do. On the whole rue? Deer HATE rue. I'll hunt around for a source. As for wild ginger. Plant propigated availability at Sunlight Gardens in northern Knoxville. sunlightgardens.com <g> worth the trip...............they have a strawberry bush that I want for my dry woods.............
No flowers yet but I'm still smoothly hoping!!
My cactus
You have an aspidistera? where'd you find it? <g> not that I need another plant. As you know I also see warmly speckled tongues in the pot where my blood lily lives.......lets hope it blooms! no signs of clivia blossom spikes yet years and before that, Mary Emma had it 5. However and she and Roger worked the k-25 plant, not the Y-12............. sorry..........
don't you love the "secret" shipment of Weapons of mass distruction grade plutonium they just got from Libia the other day? Secret?? yeah, when everyone knows about it.......bet the security level in Oak Ridge is higher than orange right now..................kinda glad I live over east of you sometimes <GBSEG>
keep in touch, I'll hunt for that rue. maybe sometime I can hook up with you with some plant sharings when I got to Farragut to see Mary Emma.........
re:Garden chatting - 2006/11/18 15:09if yer serious about briefly swapping, holler at me e-mail so I can holler back proper. I've quite a bit in me constipated fairy beds............... maddie (no I have not had time lately to go to the UT trial beds work tends to do which to me~)
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you ain't been here long, have you Phish? There are those in the garden backyard which know I tend to ramble on & have some time a way with the words. In short and yes, one day I will probably write the book.......or two.
Cornelian cherry tree, unknown variety seedling dogwood that refuses to bloom, Harlequin Glory Bower, Sorbaria bush, Vitex bush, Caryopteris bushes (two I think), Varigated blue lace hydrangea, two
