More photos 31 May 2008

Sundial lupine (Lupinus perennis) as of yeseterday

And as of today:

The second bloom opening today:

The first bearded iris opened its first bloom finally overnight. Check out the height of ‘Mme. Chereau’!

Hailing from 1844, ‘Mme. Chereau’ is one of the oldest bearded iris cultivars still regularly grown. Here it is as seen from the other side:

From what I’ve read, Iris swerti AKA Swerti - a natural hybrid discovered in the wild and introduced to gardens around 1672 - is very similar to ‘Mme. Chereau’ and often confused with it in today’s gardens. Apparently the easiest way to tell them apart is that the blooms of ‘Mme. Chereau’ uncurl as the bloom further opens whereas Swerti’s remain partially curled.

The Small’s penstemon (Penstemon smallii) that has been doing the best (out of two planted this spring) is opening its first bloom:

It’s unfortunately difficult to tell in this picture, but the silver thyme planted below it is opening its tiny blooms right now as well. They’re a pinkish color, a lovely counterpoint to the purpley blooms of the penstemon.

The Carolina lupine/false lupine’s (Thermopsis villosa) first bloom is finally spent:

I can’t tell yet if it’s going to put out any more blooms.

I can’t remember if I mentioned here that I got a second erodium (storksbill/heronsbill) to go with the first one since it was doing so well. This one is doing just as well! I’m so pleased with them. This one was labelled as the cultivar ‘Charm’, the pale pinkish blooms with richer pink veins that’s the focus of this shot from today:

With it is in this shot is the first erodium I planted (white with pinkish stripes), the perennial sweet alyssum (yellow blooms), a bloom of the creeping Mt. Atlas daisy (white with yellow center; ferny foliage; a second bloom is in the background by the thyme), foliage of autumn-blooming crocuses (arching over the lot of them), and the lemon thyme I got at this week’s farmers’ market. ‘Charm’ seems to be the most widely available erodium in the States so far.

Yesterday the first California poppy bloom finally opened. Here it is pictured today with the blue-on-blue felicia and a still-opening chive bloom:

A bumblebee yesterday on one of the felicias:

(Click photo for larger view) The accidentally-planted blue-on-blue felicia seedlings (Felicia heterophylla) have turned out to be wildly popular with the bees and smaller wasps that visit the front garden. The bee in this shot wandered from felicia to felicia the majority of the time I was taking photos yesterday.

The same bee also stopped briefly at the sweet alyssum:

Agastache blooming:

I thought this one was called ‘Acapulco’. It was only when I tried to look it up that I realized Acapulco is a series, not a specific cultivar. Regardless, this agastache goes better with the lantana planted next to it (not blooming at the moment) than with the pansies and violas planted at its feet (they were there first, in their defense). I didn’t think it would be blooming so heavily so fast; I figured the violas would be dying by the time it really got going. So for now I’m trying to have patience with a color scheme I wouldn’t have chosen, till the weather changes it.

The amsonia has opened its first blooms as well:

That is the anise hyssop in front of it there.

This week in the garden 29 May 2008

The local farmers’ market started yesterday. I always get at least two lavenders there - ‘Lady’ and ‘French Fringed’, which are consistently sold by one of the longest-running organic farms there and not usually hardy here - as well as cooking thyme if it hasn’t survived the winter and some six-packs of annuals. So this week I got both lavenders and the cooking thyme, as well as lemon thyme, an especially pretty geranium (this one has petals with bright pink outer petals and white inner petals, as well as unusual leaves that are much darker in the rest of the leaf than the very outer edges) and six-packs of marigold ‘Safari Red’, marigold ‘Honeycomb’, and generic mixed gazanias, all from one farm I’ve been buying plants from for many years.

I also found out that the farm that’s been selling the best, most robust perennials I’ve ever had the pleasure to grow is leaving the business after sixteen years, and next week will be their final time at our farmers’ market, so I got two perennials from them (at least half their week’s plants had been sold in the first half-hour of the market by fellow panic buyers, so by the time I stopped there, their stock was already limited), monkshood ‘Sparks’ AKA ‘Spark’s Variety’ and delphinium ‘Butterfly Blue’. The farmers told me that unlike other delphiniums, this one prefers full sun and likes hot conditions, so that’s where I planted it when I got home yesterday, and so far it’s doing great even though I haven’t even taken the time to hand-water it and it’s almost eighty F and brilliantly sunny today. According to the farmers, monkshood ‘Sparks’ can easily attain heights of six to eight feet (two-plus meters) and is completely unfazed by strong winds. Today I poked about a bit online and so far, nothing comes even close to that estimate. However, I think it’s the monkshood grown by a local gardening friend and hers easily reaches five feet, often more. I don’t know if New England is a better place to grow it than the climates of what I’ve been reading or what else. I’ll be curious to see what height it gets to in the garden here.

There’s a new farm at the market this year that specializes in herbs, and yesterday they had a stand full of herb plants, but they didn’t have any signs identifying themselves as organic and the staff wasn’t the friendliest yesterday so I didn’t ask them about it, and am not sure yet whether they use pesticides/etc. or whether they are like some of the other farms and just aren’t certified as organic despite using all-organic practices (which means that they’re not allowed to use the term, now that the US government has a certification process for it). There are a few other farms at the market that are the latter, so I know it’s a possibility. Hopefully I’ll get to ask them next week. They had some gorgeous geraniums, but I forced myself to stop at buying the one from the other farm. My geranium fanaticism is getting to be a bit much.

On Tuesday (the 27th) we had severe storms, thunder rattling the buildings with rain coming so fast and thick that the gutters couldn’t hold it all and it rolled off the roof in waves, pouring past my windows as I stood at one watching newly fallen rain blow off other roofs before it even had a chance to roll off. This rain has apparently been most excellent for the garden, as so much more has been happening in it since.

For example, some of the California poppies have finally abruptly budded; here’s one:

The sundial lupine has continued its blooming progression:

A third bud has formed since the rain, too.

The blue-on-blue felicias have gone crazy, tons of their buds opening now.

The salpiglossis have budded:

Shown here with stock (peach bloom in center), euphorbia (upper left), and quicksilver (silvery fuzzy leaves on right).

Some of the new stuff –

Marigold ‘Honeycomb’

It is one of my favorite marigolds.

Marigold ‘Safari Red’

Lemon thyme

Gazania (orange) with pansies and a snapdragon

Most of the gazanias at the farm stand were already blooming. I picked a pack in oranges and yellows to balance out the (still not blooming) ‘Talent Mix’ gazanias I bought at the nursery. In my experience ‘Talent Mix’ tends to bloom primarily in mauve and pale yellow.

Another gazania (two blooms)

The two bronzy-leaved plants and the variegated one are all lantanas. The two are ‘Lavender Trailing’ and the third is a new-to-me (not sure if it’s new-in-general) one, ‘Samantha’. I’ve grown ‘Lavender Trailing’ several times before and it’s the one lantana I try to grow every year. ‘Samantha’ is budded (has been since I planted it) but has not yet bloomed. It’s supposed to bloom in a lemony yellow.

Another gazania

I don’t know if you can see the tiny pollinator on one of the perennial sweet alyssum blooms down below the gazania in this shot. This is the first year I’ve grown perennial sweet alyssum and I’ve been amazed at just how big a hit it is with small pollinators (many of whom also go on to either kill pests or lay eggs that turn into hatchlings that kill pests).

One more gazania

Dianthus ‘Double North’ with lavender foliage and iris foliage

This one’s new at the nursery this year. I got it there recently and planted it yesterday. It’s got a nice fragrance.

The front garden, half in sun and half in shadow:

Bloomy day 26 May 2008

A photo of the blue-on-blue felicia!

The sundial lupine (Lupinus perennis) is opening its first bloom!

The Mt. Atlas daisy (Anacyclus) finally opened its first bloom!

Now there’s a surprise! 25 May 2008

One thing about buying a plant before it flowers is the unknown. Sometimes a tag is wrong; sometimes a tag provides partial information that leads you to a particular conclusion that turns out to be incorrect. With me and the felicias, it was the latter. As I mentioned here earlier this spring, I bought two or three six-packs of felicia seedlings and planted them around the front garden. As I said at the time, I did it because felicia did so well in the front garden last year and because I loved its cheerful little blooms of sky blue petals surrounding a bright yellow center, like a little sun in a tiny sky. The nursery where I got the single pot of already-blooming felicia last year had six-packs this year, with a tag that identified them as blue-flowering felicias but provided no further information on their identity. I assumed that it was the same one. Oh, how wrong I was! It turns out to be an entirely different species. The felicia I got last year was probably Felicia amelloides and, now that three are finally blooming today instead of their perpetual budded state (all the ones I planted have had several buds for at least a couple weeks), I see that these ones are actually Felicia heterophylla, which I did not realize existed until today. Their blue-on-blue is incredibly striking - one might fairly use the term “breathtaking” - though it is certainly not the effect I’d expected to have, design-wise, from my planting. Right now they are one of the few true unifying things in the front garden, being scattered around it. (My repeated use of silver/blue-green leaved plants is the other biggest unifier at present.)

So far I’ve had no luck taking photos of their buds nor blooms, or I’d add photos here.

…

For the first time I can remember, some of my pea plants are yellowy. (The yellowy ones are in a clump, so they’re likely all the same cultivar.) First I thought I’d check Rodale’s book of problem-solving for vegetables, herbs, and fruits (I believe it’s out of print, but I regularly see it in used books stores). Their suggestion was that it was some disease afflicting the plants and that I should immediately destroy them. I don’t know why I was suspicious of this idea, but I was. So I thought I’d check their more current book on vegetable problems, Rodale’s Vegetable Garden Problem Solver (published at the beginning of 2007). This book had more than one idea for possible problems causing yellowing of pea leaves. One of them was that the roots had started to rot. This was much more plausible to me. In the harsh front garden’s conditions, I have been paranoid about them not getting enough water, and will sometimes hand-water the little pea and fava patch with a watering can. Since I mulched them with compost as well, it’s certainly plausible to me that I’ve been overestimating the dryness of the soil and have thus been overwatering them. It’s also plausible to me that the cool conditions and recent downpours in and of themselves have made the pea roots prone to rotting. This book, too, suggested simply pulling up the affected plants. I don’t like to pull something up unless I know it won’t survive or know that its continued presence is going to endanger other plants. Since I’m not even sure yet what’s wrong with them, much less whether it’s fatal, I am adopting a wait-and-see approach for now, and am going to see how cutting down on my watering affects them.

…

More photos taken yesterday -

Bearded iris, budded

The leaves going sideways in the above photo are Siberian iris leaves being blown by the wind. This is one of two bearded irises (out of seven) in the garden to have buds so far. Some others in other gardens in the area are blooming now, but it’s just the early ones so far.

The amsonia/bluestar sprouted late and slowly at first, and then shot up abruptly. Now it’s suddenly budded.

I was told that this would likely adapt to the front garden, but nearly as soon as I planted it last year all of its leaves died. I was sure that it had died and was so shocked to see it reappear this spring that when it was still a wee thing I thought maybe it was a self-seeded plant or something I’d forgotten planting or somesuch. I have no idea how on earth it survived.

Fire zinnias

African daisy with pansies

Other African daisy with lavender

Rosemary ‘Arp’ lit by sun

Skipping ahead 24 May 2008

I hope to write some longer posts about things that have been going on the past week-plus in the garden (bits of it summarized in the post before this one) but for now I’m going to talk about today.

The Carolina lupine/false lupine (Thermopsis villosa) has been blooming for several days.  Here’s what it looks like as of today:

The sundial lupine (Lupinus perennis) has been budded for at least a few days.  Here’s its biggest bud as it looks today:

The pansies have been doing better in this mild weather with sporadic clouds and drenching sometimes-rain. Here are the pastel ones with so many other things.

Creeping snapdragons (in pink and yellow) in front of the pansies; African daisy (orange) and perennial candytuft (white) and felicia (budded by the candytuft) directly behind them; the edge of the perennial sweet alyssum (bright yellow) and bacopa (light lavender) to their left (with a seedling).

Here’s a closeup from the same section, some of the pansies with one of the creeping snapdragon blooms

So cheerful that maybe it should be illegal, isn’t it?  I’m so glad the slugs have finally stopped eating all the blue-and-yellow pansy blooms.

More pansies, this time with violas and sweet alyssum:

The sometimes red, sometimes yellow, sometimes both viola is that new(ish) one ‘Tiger Eye’ or Tiger Eyes’.  Interesting, the color seems to vary depending on how much sun vs. shade it gets.  From what I can  tell so far, the more sun the bloom gets, the yellower it is. The more shade, the redder.   Additionally, see how well the sweet alyssum has filled in?  I’m glad I planted it spaced instead of all crammed together.

The focus of this shot is euphorbia ‘Diamond Frost’, that I talked about here around the time I got it. I wanted to take a photo to illustrate the airy look I was talking about.  It is that airy green plant with white-with-green-centers flowers in the middle of this shot.

Blurry in the foreground are lamb’s ears ‘Silver Carpet’, dianthus ‘Beatrix’ (blooming earlier than it naturally would because I ordered another one from Select Seeds this year in case the two I grew last year had winterkilled, as it was my best-performing dianthus last year, blooming in flushes sporadically all summer and a bit into autumn; I am guessing it has some border carnation heritage), and California poppy foliage. In the background is echinacea foliage and bearded iris foliage, amongst other things.

The agastache I got this week at the nursery

Rose campion ‘Gardener’s World’ (center, silver stalks/leaves) looks like it’s going to bloom soon:

I planted this last year, but it didn’t bloom, just formed a rosette that survived until an ice storm coated the garden in early December.  In the foreground are dianthus bloomstalks with buds, a pansy, one of the two Small’s penstemons I planted this year (reddish leaves), and the variegated catmint I planted this year (at the foot of the rose campion). Directly behind it is one of the lavenders that survived the winter.

This is one of the two creeping bellflowers I planted last year:

It survived the winter more robustly than the other one, though you may be able to see that it hasn’t crept as far as last year (a little bit of its remnants from last year are still visible).  It looks like it’s formed a couple buds.  I can’t remember which species of creeping bellflower it is so I’m not positive when it’s supposed to start blooming.  This one is planted near the sweet alyssums, close to the retaining wall’s edge and in the windiest section of the garden.  The other one is planted towards the other side of the bed (also close to the wall’s edge) and only within the past week or two did its leaves get big enough to become recognizable.

Stock, still blooming

The single-flowered ones are getting much leggier much faster this year than the doubles.  I don’t know why.

One of the new-this-year euphorbias (the purplish-red leafed one) has been blooming its heart away. I planted salvia ‘Brenthurst’ next to it this year.

It’s not a color choice I would choose for the long-term, but the fact that the euphorbia is going to go out of bloom led me to do such a risky color pairing.  I grew salvia ‘Brenthurst’ (tender here) last year next to the tender foliage plant quicksilver, which has very silver, very fuzzy, very large leaves on reddish stalks.  I decided to do the same again, but for now quicksilver is getting its footing, like it did last year.  (It needs a period of adjustment to my garden’s dry, windy, hot conditions and then it will flourish.)  So for now I have the quicksilver leaning against the stock clump for support, and the salvia with the chartreuse euphorbia “blooms” (I imagine they’re really bracts, like they tend to be on euphorbias). Last year ‘Brenthurst’ took some time to adjust to the wind conditions in the garden, but it seems to be doing better this year with them (and have we ever had some very windy days, for here, since it was planted). I think it might be because this year’s plant has more stems and is less leggy than last year’s initially was, but I’m not positive.

The perennial candytuft has been doing great. Here it is with a small insect on one of the blooms.

In the background in the above shot is what’s in focus in the below shot, a white-flowering heliotrope,  drooping.

Heliotrope is like quicksilver - it needs some time to adjust to this garden’s conditions.  This year I mulched it with compost, hoping that would help, but it seems to not be making much of a difference so far.  For heliotrope, it needs a little time to develop a taproot.  I know of heliotrope’s taproot (which I haven’t seen mentioned in any references, though perhaps I just haven’t read the right source) because I once kept one in a pot and was so pleased at how well it was flourishing, and then went to move it - and realized it was doing so well because its taproot had gone out a hole in the bottom of the pot and rooted into nearby soil.  This white bloomer is much less common than varying shades of purple.   Heliotrope blooms smell like vanilla.  Newer cultivars don’t always have as much of a scent as the parent species and older cultivars, so if you’re buying it in a nursery, sniff ones with open blooms to see.

I got a tip this morning that the big-box grocery store, of all places, had decent-quality geraniums on sale at around $1.75 each.  Apparently word had been spreading on the steal of a price, and the tipster warned me that they might be sold out by now.  I went down there this morning - geraniums are enough of a weakness for me that I overwinter them - and bought six in interesting colorations.  I’ll pot them up soon (meant to do it today, but the day has gotten away from me).

More another time.

Quick garden update 23 May 2008

Till I can write a few long posts, here’s a summary one.

Recent happenings regarding the garden:

• Last week, I got a few more herbs and Gold Coin (an annual I grew last year) at the nursery, and the plant order I placed with Select Seeds earlier this spring arrived.
• Last Thursday (the 15th) I did some work in the back garden, which I wrote about in the recent post “A morning of work”.
• Last Saturday (the 17th) I did a lot more work in the back garden, finishing planting all the plants in large pots and some of the ones in smaller pots.
• Last Sunday (the 18th) I did really a lot of work in the front garden, planting almost all the plants I had yet to plant there, including the new arrivals.
• On Monday I stopped by the nursery on my way out of the neighborhood just to see what was new. I discovered a lot of new stuff there. On my way home I stopped back to pick up lemongrass and two hardy begonias (Begonia grandis syn. B. evansiana; the nursery had the species flower color [pinkish] as well as ‘Alba’, which is just Latin for ‘white’). I had been wanting to try my hand at hardy begonias for a while, but for some reason had been having some trouble finding a source for them. When I saw them at the nursery at my first stop there on Monday, and saw that they didn’t have very many of them and that the nursery was already pretty busy that day, I had a feeling they’d go quickly. By the time I stopped by later that day, some of them had already been sold.
• On Wednesday (the 21st) I got a ride to the nursery to buy some more pots and some big bags of container mix. While I was there of course I found something else (whee) - I found Texas sage ‘Lady in Red’ and a petite cultivar of agastache (not hardy here, like most agastaches, but oh how I love them anyway). I potted up everything I had to pot up at the time - two windowboxes of heirloom petunias, one windowbox of tender geraniums (scented and zonal), one windowbox of basils, one windowbox of two fuchsias and a sweet violet that isn’t hardy here which Select Seeds sent me as a thank-you for my order, and the lemongrass. I also did a little more planting in the front garden, including the aforementioned agastache (I’d already planted three agastaches I’d gotten through Select Seeds).
• Yesterday, having nearly finished planting everything that had to be put into the front garden, naturally (sigh) I responded by insisting my friend pull over when we went by the historical society estate that last year’s herb sale was at and saw a sign saying “Herb Sale” by the side of the road. I was really really hoping to get Cape mallow “Elegant Lady”, which seems impossible to find here (if only I’d known last autumn…), as that’s where I got it last year. However, they turned out to be partway between their annual herb sale and their annual perennial sale, and thus selling the leftovers from the former sale with what they’d already put out for the latter sale. Still, I ended up getting some stuff, lured in by how well the things I bought from them last year had done (the echinaceas I got from them last year are looking so robust after our recent rains that it’s almost lewd), and at such good prices - I got a tiny dianthus, “Pike’s Pink”, that turns out (I discovered via a websearch for info on it) to be one of BBC’s recommended varieties, as well as two tiny hardy geraniums and winter savory (surprisingly difficult to find here) and a dwarf hybrid catnip or catmint (the label says “catmint” but, confusingly, also identifies it as a Nepeta hybrid) and a lavender cotton (Santolina chamaecyparissus). I’m not sure why I didn’t grow lavender cotton last year, as it’s supposed to do well in the front garden’s conditions and its silver foliage and yellow flowers both fit in well with my design scheme, but I’m giving it a go this year. I grew it one year in an old garden, and it did well that year but winterkilled, as it usually does here, only being rated hardy to USDA cold zone 7 by most references. They also had a green version of it, which I found curious but a bit odd - I thought part of why people grew it was for its pretty silvery foliage, and green foliage is just, well, average.
• Today, I sowed things: I sowed some garden beans, one cowpea, two okra (”Clemson Spineless” and “Burgundy”), one lima bean/butter bean, hyacinth bean “Ruby Moon”, and runner bean “Painted Lady”, and in with them, two kinds of flat-leafed parsley and three kinds of tall sunflower (”Autumn Beauty”, “Pan”, and a third one from Renee’s Garden Seeds whose name I’m currently forgetting), and then mulched the entire section with a fresh layer of compost. Later I also sowed zinnias, marigolds, and sulfur cosmos, though it was a very gusty day and probably not the best one to be doing that. Lulled into thoughts of summer bean harvests by the warm day with tropical-style rain - sudden cloudbursts that literally disappear within seconds - I didn’t realize how crisp it was supposed to be tonight, and I am glad I reserved most of the seeds from all of these in case it’s too early this year to sow them. I did sow one of my favorite beans, though, “Royalty Purple Pod”, which allegedly germinates better in cool moist soil than the average garden bean, so I guess we’ll see if that’s true. I also, hallelujah, finally found a source for a decent-sounding compost screen (I have been imagining having to try to construct one myself, since almost every source suggests just using wood and wire and power tools to make one) and ordered it. Hopefully it will come next week. I’ll report here on it, I’m sure.
• Garden-related plans for the long weekend: I’d like to finish planting in the front and work on the back. I’ve not got much left to plant in front but there’s a heap of work still to be done in back.

Another day out 22 May 2008

I went to Garden in the Woods, run by the New England Wild Flower Society, today.

Large Yellow Lady’s-Slippers (Cypripedium pubescens) were one of the many species in bloom:

A day out 21 May 2008

Lots to update on the garden.  First though I would like to share a few of the many pictures I took at my latest outing to the Charles River.

Canada Geese goslings

Herring Gulls trying to catch herring in the river

Adult and juvenile Herring Gulls

Female Wood Duck and ducklings

The male Mallards are starting to molt

I saw adult Cormorants (probably Double-Crested) with at least one young one, and then an adult Cormorant fishing alone (not sure if it was one of the same ones; it was a little away from the other sighting), but unfortunately, none of my photos turned out.

The weather has been very unsettled here late today.  We’ve had sudden storms and squalls and, judging by the clouds on the horizon, another is on the way.  Just after one abruptly ended, the sun suddenly came out and made the raindrops on the windowpanes shine.

Just after this shot was taken, the sun disappeared and it started pouring again.

A morning of work 17 May 2008

Thursday morning (the 15th) I did a bunch of work in the back garden. Amongst other things, I planted a bunch of stuff. I wanted to focus on planted the smallest things and the large currently blooming things first, so that’s what I planted (minus a few of the large plants, as I ran out of time and energy). Below are some pictures I took at the time.

This is one of the back beds after my Thursday plantings in it. In this one, I added the saxifrages (2), the corydalis, a lungwort, one of the woodland phloxes, and two downy yellow violets (the regular species and the smooth variant).

This bed already contained a lot of colchicums (the big leaves at the bottom; while they bloom in autumn, almost all garden-grown species produce their leaves in spring and then go dormant again in early summer), a fern-leaved bleeding heart (Dicentra eximia), a monkshood (the squirrels turn out not to have killed it after all!), an aster, goldenrod ‘Fireworks’ (which likes richer soil than many goldenrods, so is planted in the back unlike the others I have), comfrey, and a patch of Solomon’s seal. My first experience with the native Solomon’s seal was when some birds seeded it under a bramble of raspberries at an old garden (it produces berries in summertime). Since then I’ve figured that if it can successfully compete with raspberry roots, it can successfully compete with just about anything’s roots. So far I’ve been correct. (Click to make this photo larger, as with all photos.)

Here is a photo of the lungwort I planted in the above bed.

It didn’t seem to be doing the greatest there when I checked on it today, so I moved it a little up the slope.

Here is part of the other main back bed (the one I did the most work on last year).

In this one, on Thursday I planted the larger-potted, taller nemesias (3), the twelve remaining larkspur ‘Giant Imperial’ seedlings, primrose ‘Blue Sapphire’, and chervil. I also moved the nemesia ‘Sundrops’ that was doing the worst to a new spot (I think it may have been too late; it hasn’t improved yet - but we’ll see).

Here it is from a different angle.

The brightest plants below are the nemesias (both the older, taller kind and the newer strain ‘Sundrops’).

I got the aforementioned primrose ‘Blue Sapphire’, to plant with primrose ‘Harbinger’ that I planted last year. Here are the two together.

I’ve been working on a post about herbs (it’s not done yet). I bought some herbs this week and here is the chervil I mentioned planting in the back garden; it is near the bronze fennel.

Chervil (Anthriscus cerefolium) is one herb that is for some reason not very well known here in the States. It’s also an herb that prefers quite different growing conditions from many other culinary herbs - a richer, moister soil and a shadier (partial shade is generally best), cooler location help it produce lush growth and keep from going to seed longer. In a hot, sunny site, it will quickly go to seed. It’s best added to dishes shortly before finishing cooking. This is the best page I found of more information on chervil in a fairly short search. In the past I’ve grown chervil from seed, but I find that the competition of tree roots tends to make fewer non-weed seedlings germinate in the back yard than what I am generally used to.

Yes, that’s a dandelion beside the chervil. Perhaps I am one of the few who doesn’t mind dandelions, but that’s all right with me. Their blooms are cheerful and provide nectar, their seeds provide food for birds, their young greens are pretty good to eat, and their roots are medicinal.

Here are some more pictures from the back on Thursday -

The variegated honesty has kept on blooming away

One of the alpine strawberries (Fragaria vesca) is already blooming. Here it is with one of the nemesia ‘Sundrops’.

Leopard’s bane’s (Doronicom orientale) lone bloom with another nemesia ‘Sundrops’

It looks little right now, but it will form a clump over time. In a few years it should be a pretty good size (compared to its current size) and have a bunch of blooms all gracing it at once.

The beautiful native sedum, Sedum ternatum, is blooming away while still waiting to be planted. (The larger version of this shot is really pretty if you like sedums.)

Brunnera ‘Hadspen Cream’ (my favorite brunnera cultivar), blooming its clear blue blooms while waiting to be planted.

Most of the trees in back are maples, but one is an oak (my favorite). It leafed out in the past week.

I’ve read that you’re supposed to plant beans when oaks leaf out, but that is definitely not true this year. The soil is still too cold and they would likely rot before germination could occur.

Here are some of the aforementioned maples.

This is my newer composter that I switched to this spring.

It is the tumbler kind. (The old one was the hand-aerated kind.) Some tumbler kinds are fully enclosed and some are not quite enclosed; this is the latter kind. That kind creates compost tea. The black tray under the composter is to collect it. The white shining thing at the bottom of the photo is a bucket to keep bits of wood and sawdust and such in, as this composter also needs something good at absorbing moisture added to the compost to make it work.

I did a ton more work in the back garden today, but that’ll have to wait for a separate post.

Tovara, rock cress, and more 11 May 2008

A few more pictures from earlier this week -

Pansies, violas, and sweet alyssum

The sweet alyssum has really been nicely filling in the spaces I left between the young plants.

Creeping snapdragons, budded

There is something (I’d guess a bird, but I don’t know for sure) that likes to clip off the buds of creeping snapdragons and leave them lying beside the plants (you can see one at the very front of the plants in this shot). The same thing happened last year. For some reason, whatever is doing it seems particularly prone to clipping off the flowers that are at the very front of the plants, lying on the wall. I don’t know why and I’ve yet to find a way to make it stop, so I just allow for that probability. The vibrant green leaves soften the wall anyway, even when some of the flowers are removed shortly before they can bloom.

Foliage of tovara ‘Painter’s Palette’ (bottom) and bearded irises (with pea seedlings visible at the very top in the background)

The two bearded irises pictured here have done the best of any I’ve planted in the front garden. They are planted towards the top of the slope, so fellow dry-site gardeners may want to take note. The tovara, ‘Painter’s Palette’, is  a cultivar that is found much more often than the species form of this native plant, Polygonum virginianum (syns. Tovara virginiana and Persicaria virginianum). It has the maroon chevron marking pictured here and leaves display varying degrees of marbling with cream and white and paler green (there is little to none seen on the leaves here, but older leaves tend to display more marbling than young ones). It is best known as a foliage plant for partial to full shade gardens, but it will grow decently in a fair amount of sun as well. When it is happy it will seed around with abandon, and the seeds come true to cultivar form.  It’s seeded a little but not much everywhere I’ve grown it.  Every time I start a new garden I’m given some young plants by a friend who always gets many seedlings of it in her own garden. I have two plants in the front garden, and given that I’m used to growing it in moist shade, I’ve been impressed with just how well it’s done here at the base of taller plants partway down the slope. It doesn’t attain the heights it does in shadier, cooler areas, but then, many a plant is shorter in front than it typically is. I think the strong winds alone tend to encourage many plants to sacrifice height for robustness.

California poppy foliage (center) with young salpiglossis plants (rich green at top), rock cress bloom waving in wind (left), and pansy blooms (bottom)

The rock cress (just planted this spring) has done so well it’s almost unbelievable to me. Not only have all its preexisting buds bloomed, but it’s put out not only new buds, but whole new flower stalks! It’s coped so much better with the initial shock of being planted into this inhospitable site than even most other xeriscaping plants.  As of this moment, I would highly recommend it to others in a similar situation - a dry, poor-soil, sunny, windy slope of a site. Hopefully it will continue to do as well as it’s done so far.  (There are at least a few different plants that have the common name rock cress. The one I’m referring to is in the genus Arabis. I would guess it’s a cultivar of Arabis blepharophylla but the nursery tag doesn’t specify.)