The visitor

I had a visitor to my garden Saturday morning. I was just putting on my shoes to go out and begin some deadheading when he strolled by the window, just as nonchalant as you please. I tapped on the glass as a friendly warning to stay out of my flowerbeds, but he totally ignored me. I have to admit that this caused me a moment's irritation, so I threw open the door--prepared for a confrontation.

Even the sound of my stomping down the steps didn't get his attention and it suddenly dawned on me that the poor creature was totally deaf and not a little debilitated.

The aged and overfed basset hound was now making concentric circles around my yard. He was obviously lost and very confused.

Flashback 10 years to when another dog had appeared on our doorstep. She came and wouldn't leave. We tried finding her owners. No one claimed her. We tried giving her away. She barked and growled at everyone--everyone except me. For some reason she trusted me and attached herself to my side. So much so, that we ended up keeping her and naming her Tag.

But she was psychotic. Really. Whenever I wasn't around she'd go berserk and eat the woodwork or the furniture or the carpeting. If we tried to confine her she'd chew her way out or break her teeth trying. She even ate the dashboard of our car.

Thousands of dollars in repairs later, it was obvious that the dog had to go. Not a happy ending for either of us.

I didn't want the same thing to happen again. But when the basset started that forlorn yowling that only a hound can make, I knew I had to intervene. I marched right into the house and told my husband he'd better do something--and fast. And, bless his heart, he did.

After feeding and watering and resting the beast, he took him around the neighborhood, in search of an owner. No one had ever seen him before.

I was beginning to get scared. I didn't like any of the options that were presenting themselves.

So, the three of us sat down on the front steps to contemplate our plight in silence.

Before long, a blue pick up truck turned into our cul-de-sac and a man got out. The basset's tail began to wag. He raised himself up on arthritic legs and lumbered across the yard.

I felt better.

This time, we were going to have our happy ending.

Plans and priorities

Well, my weekend didn't quite go as planned. I'd scheduled a day off on Friday to take advantage of the picture-perfect weather in order to catch up on some long-overdue garden chores. Thursday night I got a call from 'Lifeline' saying that my mom had fallen. Four hours and an emergency room visit later, we were back at her house--one ankle brace richer. I spent the whole weekend with her and would have stayed today, but she threw me out. (I love you, Mom!)

All this set me to thinking about plans and priorities. As gardeners, we are often fond of making long-range strategies about when we'll do this and when we'll do that. I wonder, if I kept a chart, just how many of those plans I'd find were actually carried out. And of those that were actually carried out, just how many actually worked out the way I thought they would. I'm guessing it would be a small fraction, indeed.

Maybe that's one of the things that keep gardening (and life) so challenging... and so rewarding.

Gardening in your pajamas

I didn't really want to come to work today. I wanted to stay home and go out into the garden in my pajamas and pull weeds in the warm summer rain. But--being a responsible adult -- here I am, at the office, sitting at my computer, staring out the window...

Last night's storm was something of a mixed blessing. The rain was much appreciated. Not so much the wind. My new tuteur blew over with a baby clematis still attached and I'm painfully aware that I must do a better job of staking or otherwise supporting those large flowering plants next year. My 'Casa Blanca' oriental lilies and 'Endless Summer' hydrangeas are flattened. I haven't ventured far enough out into the garden yet to see what else might have been affected. That will have to wait for the weekend.

Planting tiger lily bulbils

How do I know when the bulbils are ready to be picked off my tiger lilies so I can try to plant them for next year?

Judy



Hi, Judy.

Bulbils develop in the early part of the season and fall off several weeks after the plant flowers. The best time to replant them is when you see them begin to fall on their own or when they separate easily from the mother plant. You can pot them up in outdoor pots or plant them directly into a nursery bed. (Bulbils tend to dry up or rot if you try to keep them indoors.)

Bulbils begin growing roots in the late summer and continue through the fall and then go dormant during the winter. In the spring, you'll usually get only one leaf and it may actually take three or four years before you get a plant that flowers.

(Be sure to let some of the bulbils fall to the ground next to your existing lilies until you're sure they will maintain themselves.)

Elegant daylilies

I recently turned down an offer of free 'Stella de Oro' daylilies. It pained me to do so #1 because I'm frugal by nature, #2 because I LOVE plants--especially free ones (see reason #1), and #3 because I'm afraid that my refusal might come off as rejection and I'd never want to hurt anyone's feelings.

But the truth is, I just don't like most daylilies. Sure they are reliable and easy-care perennials, but their hybridized flowers look awkward and clunky to me. Something about them just seems artificial.

Over the years I have found a couple of daylilies that have simple, elegant flowers and I now grow them both. One is the old-fashioned lemon lily (Hemerocallis flava) and the other, given to me by a friend, is Autumn Minaret.

Hemerocallis flava

Flava is a species daylily that was brought to America in colonial days. It blooms early (usually May) and in quite a bit of shade in my garden. Its soft yellow flowers are simple and straightforward -- no recurved or frilly petals. And its mild lemon fragrance is a delight.

Autumn Minaret

Autumn Minaret is a cross between H. altissima and H. fulva. At 6 feet high, it's one of the tallest daylilies and also a late bloomer, just revealing its golden petals last week. I'm told that it will continue now until frost and that also makes it one of the longest blooming daylilies. I just know that its regal blossoms look spectacular framing my kitchen window.

Word of the day

I've been deadheading plants for years. Usually I just whack them off where ever it feels right.

Yes, I'd heard and read about 'basal' leaves but (Oh my gosh, this is embarrassing!) I'd never really bothered to find out what that meant. (Or, if I did, I've forgotten...)

So, the lesson for today is:

Basal leaf--A leaf that grows at the base (Duh...parenthesis mine) of a herbaceous plant, often different in size and shape from leaves that grow on the upright flowering stems.


You're welcome.

The LAWN

As I was mowing my lawn yesterday evening, I got to feeling sorry for it. Thoroughly neglected in favor of my garden beds, it really is little but a patch of weeds. Violets, clover, creeping Charlie, crabgrass and plantains abound--but little else. It's really rather embarrassing...

I'm wondering how other gardeners deal with their lawns. Do you feed and weed? Should I be feeling guilty?

One great rose

I maintain a pretty laissez-faire attitude in my garden and don't really spray or even try to trap many pests. But as I was passing under the arbor this weekend I did pluck a couple of Japanese beetles off my 'John Davis' rose. I felt I owed it to him, somehow. Of all my roses, and I grow several, the 'John Davis' was the ONLY one that didn't die to the ground after last winter's schizophrenic high and low temperatures.

A really rugged rose in all respects, 'John Davis' is one of the Canadian Explorer Series of roses and can withstand Zone 3 temperatures (to 40 below zero) with little or no dieback.

I grow mine as a climber, but he also makes a nice shrub rose, growing to 7 feet high. Flowers are a pure rose pink, double, about 3 inches across, and grow in clusters that cover the plant in June and bloom less abundantly throughout the rest of the season.

Dyed to mulch

I recently noticed that a local retailer was having a good sale on dyed mulch. Since I needed copious amounts of the stuff, I was tempted by the price but not sure if the dyed stuff was such a good idea.

After a little research, I determined that it definitely was not.

It turns out that dyed mulch will actually do more harm than good in your garden. These colored mulches are made from shredded, recycled waste wood--things like pallets and shipping crates and construction debris. And, since the dyes will only penetrate freshly shredded wood, they are not even composted before they're dyed.

Fresh wood chips are never a good idea. They steal nitrogen from your soil and can lead to chlorosis in your plants. Some experts even suggest that toxins in the wood itself (things like asbestos and lead-based paints) could be an even bigger danger.

Bottom line: Leave those dyed mulches at the garden center and stick with an organic mulch like shredded hardwood bark or leaf compost.

Look, Mom, I'm blogging!

I've always thought of gardeners as "hands on" people, so I have no idea how you'll react to this new (to me anyway) form of communication.

I'm wondering what it is that gardeners find interesting about other gardeners. Is it why they garden or how they garden or what they grow?

Well, one thing that I can tell you about myself is that I don't 'do' vegetables and fruits anymore. I'm strictly an ornamentals girl. Have been ever since my family and I tried our hands at 'self sufficiency' back in the '70s. I planted a 100-foot by 200-foot plot of Missouri clay with everything from peanuts to potatoes and rhubarb to raspberries. No power equipment. No chemicals. Everything from seed.

What WERE we thinking?

The goats got out of the electric fence and ate all the fruit tree seedlings. Insects and birds devoured most everything else. I did manage to glean about a quart of peanuts from the two enormous rows that I'd planted. I sent them to my brother for Christmas. (My husband still complains to his friends about that...)

That's the thing about growing food crops. There's all that canning and freezing and cooking to do after the thing is grown. I'll stick with flowers. Flowers ask nothing in return. Only to be appreciated.

I can do that.

One of my favorites this season is Veronica "Pink Damask." I saw it in some high-priced catalog or other last year and succumbed to the advertising copy. (I do that quite a bit, though not as much as I used to.) It's actually lived up to the hype. Its soft pink spires have been in continuous bloom since May--without any deadheading. And it's looked great with everything that's bloomed around it: the Asiatic lilies, lady's mantle, campanula, balloon flowers. I highly recommend it.



Veronica "Pink Damask'