A Sunday Ramble

I don't know about you, but I'm ready for autumn. With my son off to Army boot camp and my daughter busy with her senior year in high school,  I'm itchy for change. With no large projects in sight ( I love projects!), I'm happy to welcome the season by enjoying the changes in my garden. 

No name toad lilies from a friend thrive in the moist soil near the Big Daddy rain barrel.

This clump started out as just a few small seedlings.

White mist flower (eupatorium)

Dwarf solidago and coneflower seed heads

'Rotkugel' oregano and dwarf solidago

I have no idea what kind of insects these are but they were all over the solidago flowers.

I think they were trying to make baby mystery bugs so I felt a little weird taking their pictures...

Variegated sedum and aster ericoides grow in very dry shade.The sedum flowers are a very soft pink.

Northern sea oats and variegated Solomon's Seal grow behind the aster and variegated sedum.

This was the first year I'd ever grown ornamental grasses and I really love them, especially these cool seed heads. I saw a dwarf variety of sea oats called French Tickler at the garden center today. Perhaps I should plant a few over by the baby-making mystery bugs.  

My 'Autumn Joy' sedum is a bit mildewy and I don't know why. Do you? Even the flower heads are smaller than usual.

Heart leafed aster (aster divarcatus) and blue creeeping plumbago grow under my Rose of Sharon. Teensy minature hosta grow in the butterfly pot. They were also a gift from a friend.

Empty swallowtail butterfly chrysalis hangs from a coneflower stem. 

'Starman' geraniums bloom in the fall. They like moist, rich soil and partial shade.

My pots of sweet potatoes are packed with potatoes! The pots are so full I can find potatoes almost bursting through the soil. Once we get our first frost, I'm going to harvest them.

I planted this 'Graham Thomas' climbing rose this spring and it's grown almost 4 feet this summer. Thanks to the cooler weather, it's set a few buds and will bloom a few more times before winter.

Blue and pink Wood's asters

'Sheffield Pink' mums and 'Purple Dome' asters will start blooming soon.

This blue mist flower grows in a bit of shade and needed to be cut back to make it bushier. I didn't realize this until it was too late, so it's a bit floppy. Live and learn. It's still pretty! :o)

Obedient plants (phytostegia) are a Virginia native that grows in my front garden. The bees love them!

Lespedeza 'Spring Grove' looks like the cultivar Gibralter but is shorter.

This is a really weird spot near my driveway. When it snows we pile our snow in front of the rain barrel, where the lespedeza is growing. I wanted to plant something there that would be tough but could be cut back in the fall so the snow didn't crush it. I planted this as a tiny stick last fall and not only did it not snow, but we had the warmest winter on record. The lantana are just pretty fillers until the lespedeza grows large enough to fill the spot. It will grow to about 4 feet tall.

New plants for the garden. Hello, Rozanne!

The Worm Poo Wonder

In a dark corner of my basement stands a multi-tiered worm bin that churns out worm compost 24 hours a day. Stoked on a never ending supply of coffee grounds and produce scraps, as well as the occasional stale cracker, my worms live a simple life - eat, sleep, poop, have sex. It's not a bad life, honestly. I have a few single, constipated friends I think are jealous.

However, every summer a few seeds seem to escape the indiscriminate palate of the worms and end up germinating instead of turning into compost. Last year two different types of tomatoes grew amongst the flowers, courtesy of my worms. This year the bounty is bigger. I'm growing cantaloupe in the front yard!

When I discovered this vine, I decided to let it grow just to see what would happen. I thought this area received too much afternoon shade for anything to grow.

Two large cantaloupe are growing! The vines aren't ready to release from the fruit, so they're still on the vine. I've never grown cantaloupe before. Each melon weighs about 3 lbs or so.

The vines are full of flowers but I doubt any more melons will develop since our temperatures have started to cool.

I highly doubt allowing a compost germinated cantaloupe to grow between the dwarf abelia is conventional landscaping advice, but I don't mind. Plus, it gives my neighbors something to talk about. I haven't done a single thing to the melons to help them grow. This area does stay a bit moist so I never needed to water.  

Summer Superlatives

Summer is officially over at the Casa. My tomato plant is starting to look a little weird, the fall bloomers have popped out a few flowers, and my classroom is ready for the preteen onslaught waiting for me on Tuesday. I thought I'd celebrate the end of the season with a list of superlatives - plants that were exceptionally fabulous or truly hideous.

Plant Most Likely to Survive a Zombie Apocalypse

The next time I collapse into a recliner to watch Shaun of the Dead or Zombieland, I'm going to bring this pot of hens and chicks with me. If you need a plant that requires absolutely zero care, hens and chicks are for you. Since zombies are horrible at remembering to water plants, despite the number of brains they've eaten, sempervivums are destined to rule the world.

Best Bloomers

If you have a sunny spot and want more butterflies, add some coneflowers this fall. While they love compost and water during dry spells, they'll bloom from late spring til frost with only a small amount of care.

'Monch's' aster is a blooming machine.It starts in mid-summer and keeps up with the fall blooming asters all through autumn. Orange milkweed, heavy with ripe seeds pods, grows through the lounging asters.

My heliopsis has also bloomed since spring. It likes moist, well draining soil and full sun. Cut it back once in early summer to thicken it up and then just sit back and watch the show. I often find butterflies using the wide flowers as basking spots. Tall annual milkweed grows in the foreground.

My Rose of Sharon bloomed twice this year. I just took these pictures on Sunday. It occasionally blesses me with a few extra flowers after the main show in June, but this year is putting on an encore performance. Lucky me!!

Best Mess

Do you see that innocent little tomato plant sticking up between the petunias in the left side of the picture?

It's growing out of a crack in the patio pavers. Don't let its precarious location fool you. 

It's now growing through the agastache, across the sign, and around the rose.

When this little grape tomato sprout thrust its head between the agastache and Abraham Darby rose in my container garden, I wondered how long its roots would survive the rotten soil under my patio pavers. I needn't have worried. Not only is it thriving, it's launched a full scale attack on its neighbors, scrambling across their branches and vining its way from pot to pot. The tomatoes are tangy and I swear they taste a bit like fish emulsion but I don't care. Any vegetable capable of growing between patio pavers, only to thrive and fruit, can do as it damn well pleases.

Happiest Surprise

My rain garden has been a fabulous addition to the garden. It works extremely well at keeping the water in my garden to replenish ground water supplies. I often find butterflies using the wet rocks as mineral licks after a storm. I'd tried for several years to create butterfly puddling stations around my garden only to find a rancid, sandy mess a week later. But a rain garden full of cheap pond rocks works perfectly!

Last year two Peggy Martin roses were accidentally delivered to me via a computer error in a new ordering system installed by an online nursery I had ordered from. My little mystery roses have grown about 6 feet this summer and even bloomed a bit this spring.

I'll prune them in late winter and train them to the fence.

The Peggy Martin rose is also known as The Rose That Survived Hurricane Katrina and is available at Chamblees.

I had given this pipevine up for dead earlier this summer. Covered with brown, sunburned leaves it looked wretched and I was irritated it wasn't thriving. I cut it back, gave it a big dose of John and Bob's Penetrate, a truly magical solution that breaks up clay soil, along with a couple of gallons of my epsom salt/seaweed solution, and it decided to grow.

I'm hoping to it will cover the front of my porch and attract pipevine swallowtails. This little Daddy Long Legs enjoys the shade of its big leaves.


Best Bad Idea

I've reached the point with these containers that I no longer cringe when I see them. It's actually all I can do not to burst out laughing. They look like a giant green octopus. If only a team of Garden Interventionists had grabbed me and stopped me from torturing these stephandra, I could have a sweet pot of impatiens on my porch. I thought the stephandra crispa, a gorgeous shade loving ground cover, would find botanical bliss in the pots on my mostly shady porch. A low arching shrub that roots where it touches, the stephandra wouldn't be able to root into my concrete patio, thus spilling from their pots in a cascade of mini maple leaf foliage. Desperate for more water and soil, if these shrubs had fingers and anything sharp, I'd be a goner.

Best Pollinator Attractor

Not only do coneflowers bloom all summer, they attract boatloads of butterflies and other pollinators.

 Swallowtail butterfly on the coneflowers. 

The number one pollinator magnet in my garden, next to the Rose of Sharon, is the 'Blue Fortune' agastache. It also blooms from early summer to fall and likes more moisture and compost than most agastaches.

Best Bang for Your Buck

I love zinnias! These were knocked sideways by a severe storm this summer but continued to grow. They just did it sideways. This picture was taken prior to the storm. Pollinators love the nectar, finches love the seed, and because they're easy to grow you can cultivate a large patch for just a few dollars. Zinnias are tough plants but they like extra water and a bit of fertilizer. Be sure to give them full sun and cut them back to keep them bushy.