Lessons Learned In the Garden: Spring 2013

With age comes wisdom, or so they say.  Having recently celebrated another birthday, I can safely say I am wiser than I was thirty or forty years ago.  But I am far from a sage yet, and I still have so much more to learn.  That is certainly true when it comes to gardening. Once again I have found out how much I still don't know about gardening and am joining in with Beth at Plant Postings for "Lessons Learned" this spring.

"A thing of beauty is a joy forever," wrote the poet John Keats.  However, gardeners know that is not necessarily so.  While trees may last many lifetimes, the blooms of trees and other plants are usually fleeting.  Nowhere was this more evident to me this spring than in my Baptisia.  My lone Baptisia is in the roadside garden, and one day while working there, I noticed the first blooms on it and couldn't wait to see it covered in purple.  A week went by before I thought of it again and realized I wanted to get a good photo of it this spring.  But when I went down the lane with my camera, there were no blooms to be found!

These were the only Baptisia blooms I saw this year.

 Now you have to understand that this small flowerbed is at the end of our lane which is about 1/8 mile long, so I don't make a point of walking down to check things out every day.  However, I do pass it every time I drive somewhere, so what happened?  Was I just not paying attention as I left on errands, or did it even bloom fully?   Sadly, I'll never know.  But I have learned my lesson--even if you don't have time to work in it, pay attention to your garden every day, or you may miss something beautiful.

I almost pulled out this "weed"--which turned out to be a Rudbeckia!

Recently fellow blogger Carol posted on Facebook that she was offering a course in weed identification: the workshop would be held in her garden, participants were to bring their own hoes, and the class would last until all the weeds were gone.   Carol's post may have been tongue-in-cheek, but I really could use a course in weed i.d.--except, let's hold it in my garden, please!  I can recognize dandelions, of course, along with bindweed, henbit, purslane, and the weedy grasses that are the bane of my garden, not to mention countless others whose names I don't know but whose appearance immediately tells me they must be banished at once.  But there are so many plants I don't recognize as seedlings. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has nurtured a plant only to discover weeks later that it's a weed, or pulled a weed-lookalike, remembering later that I'm missing a new plant...unmarked, of course.

Actually, besides a course in weed identification, a good book on weeds would be an invaluable resource.  One with clear color photos of mature weeds as well as the seedlings, with an easy-to-use cross reference of  leaf size and shape.  If such a book already exists, please tell me--I'll order it immediately!

On a positive note, I have finally learned the secret to growing annual poppies and larkspur.  After several years with no success in growing poppies, I followed the advice of another blogger (sorry, I've forgotten who it was!) who recommended sowing poppy seed in late winter by sprinkling it over the melting snow in the garden. As the snow melts, the seeds sink down into the soil and germinate when they're ready.  I've done this for several years now and have done the same with larkspur the past two years. Voila!  Success!  Next winter I'm going to get out my seed packets earlier and try the same technique with other annuals that require some cold stratification.  Casting seeds out on the snow is certainly easier than filling my fridge with seed trays of 'Rocky Mountain Penstemon' and babying them for a few weeks as I did this spring, only to have nothing germinate.

The first of many poppies to come!

The only problem with this method of sowing seeds is that you never know exactly where the plants might come up or how many will germinate.  I don't just have poppies this year, I have a plethora of poppies.  I also have a plethora of volunteers. Remember the nicotania that re-seeded itself all over my arbor bed last year?  At the time I attributed it to the mild winter we had in 2011-2012.  But apparently, nicotania just likes it here.  Once again, I have seedlings all over the arbor bed. 'Victoria Blue' salvia also re-seeded itself, which I didn't discover until after I had bought a flat of it, naturally:)

This Nicotania escaped being pulled.  A pretty white flower, but a few are enough!

Last year I dug up and transplanted many of the 'Victoria' volunteers elsewhere, and I dug up dozens of Nicotania volunteers to give away.  Not this year, which brings me to another important lesson I've learned this spring: sometimes you have to be ruthless in thinning out plants.  I'm a saver by nature, and it's hard for me to throw perfectly good plants onto the compost pile, but really, sometimes you really can have too much of a good thing.  I've pulled or hoed out most of the nicotania, leaving a few in an empty spot (and will probably be pulling more seedlings out as they pop up all summer!); I've hoed out the excess 'Victorias' that have strayed into the wrong territory; and, I've thinned out some of the poppies for now, and will be pulling most of them after they've bloomed, rather than leaving the seedheads.  It's been a hard lesson to learn, but I know I will be so glad I did this as the garden fills in this summer.

Best friend Beckie, aka my "plant enabler," talked me into buying this basket, so of course I had to go shopping again to find some double impatiens to fill it!

Finally, I have vowed this spring to cut down on the number of annuals I buy in the future, or at the very least be more organized when I go plant shopping.  Every year there are certain old standbys I always buy, but while I'm out shopping for the best buys on those, I always find something new to entice me.  Once I arrive home, I find I need another coleus to finish this container or something trailing for that one...and off I go, shopping again.  I spent much of the end of May and the beginning of June planting everything; meanwhile, the weeds have grown by leaps and bounds, and I haven't even begun to mulch.  Planting is my favorite part of gardening, but when it starts to become a chore, it's time to re-think and prioritize how I really want to spend my time.

The largest of the Asiatic lilies, 'Brindisi' signals the beginning of summer and lily time!

There will be more lessons learned in the garden through the rest of the year, more than enough to post some this fall, I'm sure.  And that's a good thing--all this new knowledge helps to keep the old brain cells from atrophying.  Besides, if I knew everything there was to know about gardening, it probably wouldn't be as much fun anymore!

Thanks to Beth for hosting this topic every season; you may learn something new yourself if you visit Plant Postings' wrap-up of lessons learned by other bloggers.

GBBD: Blooming Days at Home

After a few weeks of posts about this year's Fling in Asheville, you might think I haven't spent any time at all in my own garden.  But nothing could be further from the truth. It's been a flurry of early morning activity--before it gets too hot--catching up on weeding, planting, mulching, and watering.  In fact, June is literally "bustin' out all over" with lots of color.

Here are some of the blooms in my garden this Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day:

Poppies were everywhere we visited in Asheville, but they're blooming in central Illinois as well.

Nicotania has slightly fragrant blooms that open up fully in the early morning and again later in the evening. They're so sweet I can't bear to pull them out.

Why should I want to tear them out? Well, as you can see, they have taken over my arbor bed!  Since last year was the first time I had success with them in my garden, I don't know if they normally self-seed so prolifically or if it was due to the mild winter.  I have dug up many seedlings to give away and pulled countless others, but still they keep popping up everywhere. I just don't have the heart to pull up flowers, but I'm giving them another week or two, and then they're definitely going to be thinned out to make room for everything else.

On the other side of the arbor bed, another volunteer--'Sonata' white cosmos.  They have been much more polite than the nicotania, and I wouldn't mind if these spread even more.

This side of the arbor bed also shows I didn't keep my vow last year to stop planting everything so close together.  Blue delphinium rise above spreading mounds of 'May Night' salvia and emerging liatris.

In fact, it wasn't until I downloaded the previous photo that I realized there were a few liatris already blooming--they're almost lost in the crowd.

Also nearly hidden and in need of a move is the new phlox planted last fall, 'Blue Paradise.'

It's hard to believe that until recently I didn't have any phlox in my garden at all, but now I have several including this NOID phlox in the lily bed.  This one almost met its demise last spring, because I didn't even remember planting it and thought it was a weed emerging!

My favorite of all, pristine 'David' is just beginning to bloom.

The red Knockout roses are blooming like crazy this year.  I saw the first blasted Japanese beetle on a bloom yesterday, so I will enjoy these while I can.

The climbing 'Don Juan' is also blooming profusely in the arbor bed, though it's still not quite tall enough to climb up the arbor bench.

Nearby, what was supposed to be 'Zephirine Drouhin" is, I'm afraid, the surviving root stock instead.  I'm don't know enough about roses to know whether I should pull this out, but again I'm such a patsy for blooms--and it's full of blooms--that I don't have the heart to get rid of it.

'Endless Summer' hydrangeas are covered in many more blooms than last year.  That is, one of them is--the other 'Endless Summer' was hit by the late freeze in April, but it's starting to catch up.

The shade garden is all about foliage, but the airy blooms of Heucheras make an eye-catching display.  This is my favorite, 'Tiramisu.'

Although everything has bloomed earlier than usual this year, I think the rate of acceleration has slowed down in recent weeks.  The Asiatic lily 'Brindisi' is only slightly ahead of schedule.

The daylilies are also just beginning to bloom.  After the reliable 'Stellas,'  'Moonlight Masquerade' on the left is always the first to bloom, followed by 'Canterbury Tales' on the right.

Chosen for its appropriate name, 'Prairie Blue Eyes' appreciates a much-needed shower.

Echinacea 'Big Sky Sundown.' As much as I enjoy seeing all the daylilies come into bloom, June for me means the happiest time of all in the garden . . . 

Yes, it's the beginning of coneflower season! 

To see what else is blooming all over, be sure to check out May Dreams Gardens where Carol is hosting her monthly celebration of Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day.  You're all welcome to join in!