by Meg Lynch, Editor

I wasn’t really thinking when I decided to experiment with different plants and different colors in my front-yard mailbox garden this year. Don’t get me wrong—I am all for trying new things, especially plants. But doing it at my mailbox is something like experimenting with body art by putting a temporary tattoo on my forehead. Of course, I could just scrub that off once I realized it wasn’t for me. But I couldn’t bring myself to tear out the plants I soon learned do not look good together, so they’ve been out there front and center, looking bad all summer. At least most of the duds are annuals, and I am happy with the few perennials I put there.

This photo shows three keepers. They did great despite receiving very little supplemental water and not much rain. (As evidenced by the wilting impatiens and dead grass.) The orange-flowered shrubby plant is perennial Helenium ‘Mardi Gras’, which has been blooming since early July and is just starting to wind down now. The common name is sneezeweed.

The low plant in the foreground with the pale pink and purple flowers is Coreopsis ‘Limerock Dream’, also perennial, blooming since mid-July and still going strong. Common name, tickseed.

The flowers of both these plants continue to look interesting even as they fade and go to seed.

The purple-flowering groundcover next to the street is annual ‘Oriental Nights’ alyssum, which I started from seed. I’d plant it again next year. 

I won’t show you the other side of the mailbox. I planted a row of sunflowers across the back and they are just starting to bloom . . . sort of. I’ll post a photo later this week. 

See my other notes on my mailbox garden.

8/29/2007 9:28:18 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [0] 

by Meg Lynch, Editor

I love signing into my e-mail in the morning and finding Les Brake has sent me a message from Alaska. Les is a great writer (you've likely read some of his articles in Horticulture) and a great gardener. His keeps me clued in to what Alaskan gardeners are up to. Les recently sent me a few photos of his blue poppies (Meconopsis) and a pink-flowered lily relation, with this note:

"Our list of plants isn't nearly as long as that of gardeners in more temperate climates, but I feel like what we lack in quantity is made up for in quality plants such as the blue poppies, and this lily relative, Nomocharis pardanthina.

"Many of our best garden plants come from the same region in the high Himalayas as the poppies, including that peony that leaps out of the ground every year (Paeonia veitchii). Here's how elevation corresponds to latitude. Plants from latitude 26 that grow at 10000 to 12000 feet are right at home from sea level to 1200 feet at latitude 62 [where Les gardens].

"Notice how all the plants from that area have nodding flowers. That's because, according to what I've read, they get a daily misting at that elevation, and therefore the flowers have been made to protect the pollen. Very clever, I think."

Visit the Alaska Botanical Garden web site

Read Nan's blog

7/3/2007 9:46:03 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [0] 

"Just talk to yourself"

In the past week the violets and bleeding hearts in my garden have (just barely) started to sprout up. I am particularly excited about this because I transplanted them from my grandparents’ garden late last spring, just after the house was sold. I dug them up and drove them home on impulse, wanting to have a memento of the yard in which my mother and her siblings had grown up and in which my cousins and I had also played. I am happy that these plants seem to have survived their first year in my garden.

These plants are also special to me because my grandparents once tended them. My grandfather was a great veggie gardener and my grandmother had a pretty flower border. In the last year of my grandfather’s life he and I had some nice conversations about the value of gardening. He felt strongly that everyone should try his or her hand at growing something. He saw great benefits in being out in the fresh air, keeping active and being constructive, and creating something of which to be proud. Gardening also presents a great opportunity for you to “just talk to yourself,” he would say. I wasn’t sure what he meant by this at first, but now I relish my time in my garden or working with my houseplants because it does give me the chance to think quietly. Any worry I might have usually seems much less worrisome after some time in the garden. If I have a problem, I often find a creative solution or at least a brighter perspective after a chat with my plants.

I mentioned in my last post that I was looking forward to seeing some goldfinches as the weather warmed. About two days after I wrote, and about every day since, four of them have been visiting the bird feeder. The four are always together. I thought they wouldn’t be here until late spring. I just looked them up in my National Audubon Society’s North American Birdfeeder Handbook and learned they live in my area year-round. I also learned they are brownish gray in winter, and in spring the males become bright yellow and the females, yellowish. Maybe they have molted and that’s why I’m noticing them? The book also says that they feed on tree seeds, thistles, dandelions, evening primrose, sunflower, goldenrod, and lettuce seed. I want to make my yard and garden a safe, welcoming place for birds and pollinators this year. I have just started reading Letters from Eden by Julie Zickefoose (published last fall by Houghton Mifflin). It is very inspiring.

Read Sara's blog

4/18/2007 1:42:53 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [0] 

What’s Up?

We had good weather this past weekend (sunny and near 60 degrees), which made me want to garden. I did a few chores out back and took stock of the signs of spring.

First, the bird activity is way up. We have black-capped and Carolina chickadees, tufted titmice, cardinals, and juncos (my favorite) at the feeders all winter, but there seem to be more of them lately and they are flying and singing with more vigor. The blue jays are also around more, as are the mourning doves. Neither of these really thrill me. The mourning doves can be cute, though, when they hunker down in a patch of sun or waddle around pecking in my garden. There were lots of robins in the grass this weekend, too. I am looking forward to the goldfinches that come with the warmer weather. Last summer there was one that used to sit on the top of a big blue columnar cactus that I put out on the deck once it gets warm enough (nights over 55).

In my garden, I noticed columbines, tiger lilies, perennial phlox, and sedum are starting to grow. The neighbors’ daffodils are up, but not yet blooming.

I started Johnny-jump-up (Viola tricolor), forget-me-not (Myosotis sylvatica ‘Blue Bird’), and dwarf morning glory (Convolvulus ‘Blue Enchantment’) seeds indoors several weeks ago. They sprouted sooner than I expected (in about five days rather than the ten days indicated on the packets) and now have their first sets of true leaves. I plan to start other Viola species this weekend.

On the light stand at the office I have candytuft (Iberis sempervirens) seedlings, alongside Liz’s cucumbers, tomatoes, and strawberries. I saw candytuft in a display at the New England Spring Flower Show, fell in love, and bought a packet of seeds. I’m not sure where I’ll plant it in my yard, but there’s time to figure that out; we had a nice weekend, as I mentioned, but the temperature has gone downhill since then!

4/3/2007 2:22:48 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [0] 

A Field Trip in the City

“New England Grows,” an annual green industry trade show, took place this week in Boston. Landscapers, garden designers, nursery owners, arborists, groundskeepers, teachers, and other garden professionals come to this event to see the plants and equipment that will help them do their best work in the coming year. The show includes a series of lectures and demonstrations, too.

Liz and I had a chance to visit the show yesterday. It was a cold, windy walk from our office to the Convention Center, marked by a few wrong turns. But the sight I saw when we finally got there warmed me right up. (With help from the hot chocolate we managed to hunt down.) The front lobby looks down on the main exhibition floor, which, being covered with garden supply exhibits looked much like spring.

Besides admiring the exhibits of plants, pots, and tools, we sat in on a pest-management lecture given by Leanne Pundt of the University of Connecticut. The talk was geared toward industry people (naturally, that being the audience), who are trying to fight pests and diseases on a large scale. But I did pick up some tips to use in my own garden:

1. Learn the cultural requirements of my plants and meet them as best I can. Healthy plants are more able to fight pests and diseases.

2. “Scout” my garden regularly. Look for symptoms on plants, the pests themselves, and the activity of pests’ natural enemies. Inspect new plants as I get them.

3. Choose native plants, which are more likely to attract beneficial insects and the pests’ natural enemies.

From the slides I recognized that last summer some of my columbines (Aquilegia) had columbine leafminers. The columbines were some of my favorites of what I planted last spring. I have Aquilegia canadensis ‘Little Lanterns’, A. alpine ‘Alpine Blue’, and A. vulgaris plena ‘Rose Barlow’. I will follow Leanne’s advice to be sure to choose native columbines. (Of the three that I have so far, only A. canadensis is native, and I do think it was not affected by the miners, though I’m just going by memory. I have to keep better notes!)

Read Sara Begg's blog

2/9/2007 11:33:45 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [1]