Gardening

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Category: Flowers

Plan ahead for fall blooms

This is a tough time of year: We're watching our annuals peter out and there aren't a lot of perennials that come into their full glory in the fall. Of course, there are always mums and asters, but I've never had much luck with mums and I sometimes forget to pinch back my asters or I time it badly and they bloom too early.

(Side note: A gardening friend who conscientiously cut back her mums in early summer now has a thriving, bushy stand of them. Maybe next year she'll come do mine.)

Whenever Bob and I take a walk, we keep an eye out for what looks good in other yards. Several years ago, we began noticing a terrific white-blossomed vine that started blooming prolifically just when the rest of the border was fading.

If you're not familiar with sweet autumn clematis, you should make a point of getting to know it. We had one in our previous yard and bought another for our Ann Arbor yard as soon as we identified a good spot.

Like any clematis, it likes sun on its face and shade on its feet, but it seems a little less picky than other varieties. We have it training to grow up an arbor and it's simply charming.

As a bonus, it has a strong, sweet fragrance that can fill a yard. I've noticed other sweet autumns with bigger scents than ours, so I think it would pay to sniff first and buy second, although if you're like us, fall research for payoff a year later may not be in the picture.

It's not been bothered by pests or wilt, and it has nice foliage to boot. While it may not wow you in July and August, by September you'll be glad you planted it.

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Category: Flowers

Geranium makes it to 2nd summer

I've never had much luck overwintering annuals, such as geraniums. Plus it didn't seem worth it to drag them inside, given that they weren't very expensive plants to begin with.

But last fall the pretty foliage of a red geranium and its robust nature swayed me to try once more. I wasn't going to worry about it: if it lived fine; if it died, fine. So I simply placed the plant, in a terra cotta pot, on a ledge near a larger-than-normal south window in the basement, which tended to be cool. I watered the plant twice or so, and was stingy with the water each time. I just wanted to keep it barely alive.

By spring, it was a shriveled, but still green, bunch of stems with ragged looking leaves. I trimmed in down, put it outside and viola! It not only survived, but has thrived this summer.

Now I feel obligated to bring it in again (and try my luck at a new house). Then there's that new geranium in the front-porch planter that is such a nice color red ... maybe I'll try my luck with that.

Uh, oh. This could get addictive.

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Category: Flowers

Tree rose is alive and well -- so far

I'm on my third tree rose in the last three years. The first two died - not exactly a great track record, but I'm hoping this year will be different.

All the plants came from Costco and I planted each in a large planter for the deck. The first one was a beautiful white rose with a nice rounded shape. I left it in its planter and didn't protect it from the cold. That was the end of it. The next one, a fragrant yellow rose, was put to bed (a flower bed away from the house) at the end of the summer.

But I forgot one crucial thing: the location of the crown (where the branches and roots meet). When a rose is pruned into a tree shape, the crown ends up 3 feet or more on a stem. When planting a regular rose in the garden it's recommended you have the crown only an inch or two about ground level, then cover it up with 6-8 inches of dirt before temperatures drop in the fall. So the crown of my tree rose swayed in the winter winds and the plant soon met the fate of the first one.

I wasn't going to buy another one this year, but there they were again at Costco and before I knew it, one had hopped into my cart. Given my past, I'm sure the plant wanted to be adopted by someone else, anyone else.

This one is a Jackson & Perkins hybrid tea rose called "Black Magic." The buds do start out to be very dark, then turn a brighter red. The flowers are round with lots of petals and lightly fragrant. The flowers are on long stems and, wow do they hold up when cut. I had three roses in a vase that lasted more than a week. What a welcome change from so many roses bought at the florist.

This rose's tag says it's a European hybrid, but I'm not sure what that means. The plant's leaves did get eaten earlier in the summer, but a dose of rose spray cured that. Not a speck of black spot (so far). I wish I had cut the stems a little shorter after it first bloomed because it's gotten tall and kind of gangling now. But it's a keeper and I wish I had bought another.

My plan is to put it in the garage for the winter, with the crown all snug in a covering. The tag says it needs protection when temperatures hit 30 degrees. Got it!

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Category: Flowers

Ipomoea truly is glorious in the morning

Everyone should save a spot for morning glory in their yard.

The annual is a repeat visitor to my garden. After much trial and error, we've settled on Ipomoea tricolor "Heavenly Blue." Its color and growth habits are surefire winners -- if you can protect the seedlings from the squirrels in the fall -- and seeing their blue faces unfurl in the morning never fails to bring me joy.

I know some people eschew annuals, but I rely on them to fill in the empty pockets of the garden as well as bridge bloom times for perennials. In particular, I have heard gardeners comment that morning glories "aren't worth it" for their relatively short bloom time.

Trust me, they're worth it. This year, I didn't start my own seeds because of a spring trip to Italy, so I started with healthy, nice-sized plants. But they've been blooming now for nearly a month and are still going strong.

The squirrels in our yard consider them a tasty snack, so often when I plant them, I sprinkle red pepper flakes around. This seems to be just enough of a deterrent to let the seedling take hold, but I also generally plant more than I think I need to account for any that go AWOL. You can usually find good prices on them at the farmers market -- this year I think I got sseven for $5, which is a worthwhile investment in my book.

They are heavy drinkers and enjoy a nice dose of fertilizer now and again, but inevitably I plant them, forget about them and then one day am dazzled by their beauty. I think they're a natural for twining up railings and lattices and anywhere else their feet can take hold. But their leaves are very similar to bindweed, which is not something I want to encourage in my garden.

They'll often bloom until frost, and it's always nice to keep the garden going until fall.

I let them go to seed each year in hopes that I'll have a volunteer crop the next year, but that rarely happens. Sometimes when it does, it returns as a different color.