Garden Maintenance–Late Summer and Fall

Spent a couple of hours in the garden this past week doing the tidy-up. 


Late Summer is a good time of year for some simple maintenance and gives the garden a fresh look.  By removing all the brown, what is left is the green foliage, and blooms that were buried in the debris.


Here some coneflowers and Joe Pye Weed got some help standing tall. They were weighed down by the heavy heads and new bud that are forming. By propping them up, sun light and water can get to the plants, and freshen up the foliage.  Also removed some weeds that were hiding.

 


As I have said before, we lost several large trees last year, and this Caryopteris is liking the extra light.  New shoots and some great blue blossoms are a treat. The Liriope and it’s pale lavender spears are just beginning to bloom.
 



Yesterday, I trimmed back behind the rock border Sweet Woodruff.  The pathway was getting smaller and
needed to be groomed. 


Late summer is a great time to divide perennials.  Here I moved some daisies that were in another bed that is getting turned into lawn.  They do not look fresh at this time, but by keeping them moist for the next couple of weeks, the roots will take hold and will turn into a nice stand of daisies next spring.

Daylilies are another plant that divides and transplants well.  This area is where a Blue Spruce once stood, and is gradually getting filled in with my new plan for a border.  We also put some daylily root sections in these two red containers.  I hope they take hold and survive winter.  They may need some added winter protection which I’ll discuss later.



This is the Solar Eclipse Redbud we planted last spring.  A rainbow of orange, peach, lime, and gold are present in the new leaves as they mature.
The green border of the mature leaf here is certainly living up to my expectations.





Maintenance of the late summer garden includes providing water.  Yesterday, this hydrangea was drooping and blossoms were hanging low.  After a good drink, today this side of the garden is perky and vibrant.


This pile of debris is from the front garden where I cut back Spider Wort, Tradescantia, and dead fronds of daylilies. 


The pathway is visible once again after Lamium was trimmed back.  Just another bit of tidying once in a while.

 
This rose is the Sunny Yellow Knockout® rose.  I choose to leave the rose hips on the shrub.  It is a bit of color in the winter, and besides, pruning it is just one less thing I need to do on the fall maintenance list. 


The spent blooms of Hosta have been trimmed off.  I’ll wait till the rest have faded to remove them.  The Astilbe in this bed will get to keep their seed heads through winter.  As I told a fellow gardener recently, I’m a lazy gardener, and if I can keep from one more chore I will and call it ‘winter interest’.


These tarps of debris will get added to the compost pile.  With visions of future ‘black gold’ ready for the garden in spring.
This large amount of debris is really misleading as to the time and effort it took me to gather it.  Over several days I spent less than two hours in the garden removing the brown and renewing the garden for a few more weeks of beauty.

Watering took a day of moving sprinklers every hour to cover the whole yard.  Even though we have had some more rain this year than during the drought of 2012, our area in Ohio is still about 4 inches below average rainfall for the year. Trees, shrubs, perennials, and lawn all needed this supplemental watering at this time.  And if the rains remain scarce, I will continue to water through the fall and into early winter until the ground freezes.

Thanks for stopping by today.  And enjoy your time among the plants.

Landscape Matures–Update on April and Adam’s Landscape Project

In 2010 I lost a large pine tree to some blight.  This opened my once shady garden into a sunny space.  So out came azalea’s, hydrangeas, pachysandra, and hostas.  To make room for sun loving plants, and create more lawn, April and Adam collected daylilies and hostas, and some other plants from my deconstruction project. 





April collected plants and we laid out a plan for the front garden. 


In the mean time, the large pine tree in April and Adam’s front yard went the way of the chainsaw and chipper in much the same way as my pine tree.  But nature has a way of balancing out and the added sun has made this front garden a bright and colorful addition to the landscape. 


Many perennials need time to develop and mature.  The first year of a transplant the roots need to just get established.  Keeping plants evenly moist is critical during the establishment phase.  The plants will sleep, in the fact that the foliage and the blooms are not draining the transplant of needed energy to the roots. 

The second year after a perennial is in the ground, the roots creep along, become more in mass, and take in nutrients to help the plant mature.  The second year the plant will product foliage and some blooms.

But just wait!

The third season – this season for Adam and April – the perennials literally leap from the ground with a spectacular show.



This zebra grass is surrounded by a variegated liriope.  The tall grass anchors this corner of the house without much maintenance.  A shearing to the ground in the late winter or early spring will allow new fresh foliage grow.


This is one of the hosta that was moved, and to the front of it is this ‘Husker Red’, a full, healthy Penstemon with seed heads attached.

 


With the pine tree gone, this sunny area has outdone it’s original plan. Daylilies, Hemerocallis, will produce bloom in part shade, but the added hours of sun to this garden has been a pleasant surprise.  This native spiderwort, Tradescantia was also a surprise.  The strappy foliage was mistaken as a daylily in October when this garden was planted, but the vibrant blue looks well with the yellow daylilies in bloom at this time.



One other design feature to be pointed out is the curved walkway to the front door.  This curve, as opposed to a straight line, is more inviting to a visitor, and frames these beds well.
 
Landscapes need the time to mature, and this is a great example of waiting for the seasons to pass and reward our patience.

My July Garden in June-2012

Summer Garden is Early

Wow, what a strange year we are having!  So many blooms are three to four weeks earlier than usual. 

Daylilies are usually putting on their show near the July 4th holiday.
 
As are the oriental lilies.
 

The plumbago, normally seen in bloom in my August garden, is starting to show it’s blue petals.

This cactus is blooming! 
The blooms only last a day, so I was thrilled when two blossoms bloomed the same day!

The red monarda has a cute visitor.  See the hummer?

Another early scene this year is the loving, couple here on a rose – Japanese Beetles!  Generally see these guys the first week of July.  I noted in my Japanese Beetle blog of 2010, that I had seen beetles on June 9.  So my typical sightings are getting earlier. (Check out that post for remedies for Japanese Beetles here.)

 
Tomatoes are showing signs of blossom end-rot so Hubby gave the plants a feeding of Winchester Gardens Bone Meal.  Bone meal is a good source of calcium which the tomatoes need.Winchester Gardens Bone Meal  has an N-P-K of 9-6-0, and a 7% calcium – all natural, all organic.(Winchester Gardens has given me these products in exchange for a review.)


The yard reno is still moving forward.  We’ve had such low humidity, and cooler temperatures, that I’ve been able to move the Penstemon, Husker Red and partnered it with the Heuchera, Purple Palace.  I like the burgundy shades of each.



I transplanted eight daylilies to the new bed too.  Stella D’Oro, a repeat bloomer is at the back, and a reblooming red daylily is tucked in to the front.  I’m not sure which variety this is.

This space was where the daylilies were, and the stacked stone wall is going away soon.  More grass is coming.  Yet another area where we are reducing planting areas to make more lawn. 

I have been ruthless in this area.  A yellow circle flower, Lysimachia, and Obedient plant were dug out.  Both plants are just so-so to me, and I won’t miss them.



This mass of yellow is a St. John’s Wort.  I gave it a couple of handfuls of Triple Phosphate in the early spring.  The phosphate is a root and bloom stimulator and I can definitely see the advantage of this feeding.  Last season I had a mere six or eight blooms.  Quite a difference!


Also fed the hydrangea we divided last summer.  In its original location I went
four or five years without any flowers. 

I know we had a very mild winter, so I’m not sure what caused this shrub to
perform, but I like the results!


Even the Endless Summer hydrangea is thriving!   It got the Triple Phosphate feeding too.

Rose Campion is a favorite of mine.  It likes full sun, at least six hours a day, and is drought tolerant.  The flat blooms tend to seed readily, and I’ve had Rose Campion appear here and there.  It is easy to deadhead, if the seeds become a problem.  As a short lived perennial, I like new seedlings to keep things interesting.
Garden is really changing.  I like the new ‘feel’ and that is why I garden in the first place. 
Thanks for stopping by today.