Ferdinand is a moniker given to me at some point by someone here.
I just got home from the garden store with two new evergreen shrubs. Flowering plants are a passion I inherited from my parents. We have a cabinet full of silver cups that they won at flower shows. My Dad grew championship roses and my Mother created beautiful arrangements from them.
I’ll never put the effort into those activities that they did. I’d rather be paddling but any day outside…
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I loved planting things, but finally decided that I have no talent for it. Watching something wither that you nurtured and enjoyed is . . . Discouraging.
I had some Stargazer lilies that kept multiplying. Each year, I bought the after season half price sales that had a few withered blossoms. The fragrance came in through the window and filled the space next to my back door steps. I divided them and last year, they didn’t come up. Very frustrating.
Only the pink roses survive. I gave my sister her puck of two yellow roses, her’s is full and lush, mine didnt survive the summer.
You have a gift, string. My best option is to log where the blooms are along the bank of the water, then visit those spots at the right time
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My gift has come from killing enough plants to find out what can survive me.
Good old zinnias come in many colors sizes and forms and are TOUGH.
I’ve had some luck with a couple of azaleas , cannas, and day lillys.
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Day lilies resist my effirts to kill them. It’s my favorite flower. I read an article that listed them as an invasive species . . .
There’s nothing as uplifting as paddling in june to see that splash of orange color along the banks. A vine that can be a pest in a garden but is in it’s ielement along the river is honeysuckle durin the end of May, swamp roses at the end of summer . . . Being a plant killer males me appreciate the wild all the more.
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we had a Hosta around our pool, when the old pool died and I had them build a new one all the plants around the old pool were torn up.
I fished out some of the excess dirt to fill in elsewhere, and sure enough that hosta came up where I filled in by the sidewalk.
For years it stat there getting mowed over ever year and coming back.
Finally I decided to transplant it and let it live.
It did well for two years but I think its dead now.
so my green thumb works like this.
If I want to keep it; it dies. If I want to kill it; It survives out of plain spite.
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I learn to love anything that thrives on its own. I note on my trip logs all sightings of wildlife, the duration of blooms, fragrant blossoms, rare plants and eagles last year I had three trip sightings of a golden eagle which is rare in this area.
Zinnias are the bomb. I struggled to grow them at my old house – too much shade and there seemed to be some sort of parasite in the soil that turned them brown and slimy very early in the season. But the new place I moved into 2 years ago is a double lot with vast sunny planting beds. Rather than lifting any of the hundreds of perennials from the old place (which is less than a mile down the street) for fear of bringing bad soil, I dug up several large beds and established as many perennials as I could afford the first two Springs here, but started many trays of zinnias to fill in between them. Had spectacular success and the butterflies and bees went nuts – constant activity out there – and people driving by would slow down as they passed and yell compliments on the colorful garden if I was working out there.
This year I plan to hire somebody to till up a giant bed in the grassy empty 1/3 acre lot beside the house and fill it with native wildflowers and zinnias. And gird my loins to battle our backwards borough that has already tried to cite and fine me $300 a day for having “noxious weeds” instead of a scalped monoculture putting-green lawn. They pulled that stunt when I let 6" high red clover, native lechuga and “indian” strawberries take over most of the lawn in front of the house, which became a favorite collection spot for the bees from the hives that my neighbor 2 blocks up keeps.
Zinnias from last summer:
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They tend to get a powdery mildew on the leaves. Marigolds are easy to grow, but need sun. One thing that is doing very well is my Dawn Cypress.
I’ve had almost too much success with marigolds here. The first year they were nothing but foliage, even though i had started them early indoors as seedlings, until late July. This year I planted most of them directly and even though they were supposed to be dwarf and low bush varieties, they formed a 30" high hedge that shaded and overwhelmed a lot of the other plants around them.
Lavender has loved this location and I have a hardy spreading mass of it beside the front porch that rebounds with vigor when I periodically cut back the flowers. I tripled the bulb beds last Fall and am expecting close to 100 mammoth purple allium, which did great last year above the stone retaining wall along the driveway. I dedicated one new bed to varietal tulips and so far my strategy of planting them interspersed with handfuls of semi rotting garlic cloves and scapes (that one of the local farmer’s market truck farmers was happy to sell be a large bag of for a few bucks) and then covered with chicken wire and several inches of sawdust mulch, seems to have thwarted the squirrels. Protecting them from the damned deer herd will be another issue once they pop up. The nightly browsing herd is up to 8 to 12 head that crowds the property. There was a nasty two car wreck catty-corners across the road 2 weeks ago when one of the motorists swerved to avoid the herd suddenly dashing out of the adjacent greenway. it’s a semi-blind 75 degree bend in the road and I hear squealing brakes daily when the suicidal cervids fling themselves into the traffic.
I’d love to have a vegetable garden but I already lose most of the output from the apple and pear trees to them and they mowed down my black raspberry bushes to the ground and dug up and destroyed all the sweet potatoes last Fall. Still no fruit on the copse of fig bushes though I have done everything that was recommended to coax them. The concord grape vines were wiped out by the lantern fly nymphs and a young buck knocked the ancient arbor down .
I will either have to build some huge fences (at least my one redneck neighbor shoots the tunneling groundhogs when they show up) or construct a greenhouse. Bummer to have so much property with good soil and great exposure and not be able to plant much because it becomes a wildlife salad bar, or the local lawn police bureaucrats won’t allow plant growth. Among the idiotic regulations here is that NO fences are permitted in front yards. I have a 200’ by 40’ of front yard and can’t protect it. The 1/3 of an acre spare “meadow” lot is a favorite group grazing and overnight rest stop for the white tail gang.
Dang! I plant things around the yard to test the sun exposure. Front and a corner that gets afternoon through evening sun is goid for hot and dry plants. It killed a butterfly bush. When I built an addition on the back, I dug up a butterfly bush and some azaleas. Threw them on the side, and they trived for about 3 months. The scraggly little azalea is the most resilient. I took the butterflly bush to the dump because it was gnarly, but I should have kept it. The one I bought lasted about 5 years, then last year, kaput. I like lavender.
I am old now, but after many years of trying different plants, the trusty old Daylily seems to be about my speed. I love them and they don’t keep dying! Also Hostas which I have always loved, and have had good times with. Lately the summers here on Cape Cod are pure drought, and the Hostas love moisture which they are not gettingetting anymore. They are slowly getting smaller and more sparse, and I am afraid they are dying
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Only half of those things are still alive. I can buy kayak and other things with the score of plants Ive sacrificed. I keep seeing references to Hostas, which I never cared for but lately I’ve developed a fondness for them. I like plants that bloom, then fade to reveal a succession of blooming flower from the first blush of spring through the fall. My sister keeps telling me to plant camilias, which bloom in the winter months, but not sure I have a suitable spot. I think I’m a born killer.
I can’t afford to feed Hostas to the deer … they eat them to the ground and then come back for another bite should another bit of green emerge. At least they only eat the flowers off the day lilies.
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I inherited splendid hostas at my last house when I bought it in 2004 from an avid perennial gardener. This lime green clump along my front walk was crowded against the concrete and sometimes spread to be nearly 5’ across. I divided it several times and started more of them all around the yard. I planted the striated one to the left of it (beside the potted lantanas) about 7 years ago and it took well also in my shady yard. The big leaves are Japanese butterburr, AKA Elephant ears, one of the few foliage plants that the deer ignore – I don’t recall the speckled lungwort (other end of the porch steps across from the lantanas) being on the deer’s preferred menu either.
It wasn’t until the summer of 2019 that the deer herd in our neighborhood reached some sort of critical mass and they started munching the hostas to the ground. I was only able to preserve them thereafter with near daily spraying of stinky DeerFence. I considered lifting a few to bring over to the new yard when I sold that house but they would not have survived here. The new owner fenced that little bit of front yard for her dogs so maybe the hosta will be protected from cervid predation.
If you’ve got a shady garden, the lungwort is great. The dark green leaves with their spots and beautiful purplish blue flower spikes are really pretty, it spreads like crazy and the foliage stays green all winter, even in the snow. A friend gave me one plant and within 3 years it had filled in several empty areas around my porch and even spread into the neighbor’s large flower bed, where she was delighted to find it.
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I became interested in Hostas (because they live) when I saw different varieties and when the flowers spikes emerge.
What are the pink flowers in pots. I tried rhodadendrans at least 15 times. They thrive for a few months then die.
Rhododendrons, azaleas and mountain laurel all do well here in our rich Appalachian soils – I had no luck with them during my 8 years in Michigan sand and clay.
The potted flowers are lantanas, which come in a spectacular range of colors and will bloom continuously all summer and into Fall if you deadhead the blossoms and seed pods. One of my favorite showy container plants. The blooms go through a range of colors as they open and most have 2 or 3 mixed shades on one plant. I used to get them at a local nursery as hanging baskets but last year I ordered live starter seedlings from an online vendor – Might have been Holland Bulb Farms. “Luscious Berry” is one of my favorite varieties which shades from hot pink to orange to yellow. The deep green foliage makes a nice backdrop and I have never had problems with pests or wilting with them
Another plus is that the deer and rabbits avoid them. The green and purple berries are toxic to mammals when ingested. They have fatally poisoned children so be aware of that. I snip off the spent flowers before the berries develop on the stem swellings anyway.
Though they are annuals in our Zone 4, I have sometimes managed to nurse them through a winter indoors and gotten a second year from them. When I visited Spain they were everywhere and grew to enormous shrubs covered with blooms. Here are some pics of them (from along the paths climbing to the Alcazaba Moorish fort overlooking the Mediterranean in Malaga.)
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The mountain laurel is thriving. The azaelea that blooms twice is holding its own. I tried to grow the rhododendrons under white pines, but both of the mature pibes died a year apart. I think probably an insect or sone other malady hot one, then the other. My kids got the saplings in school. We planted them at the old house and moved them about 30 years ago, so it was sad to see them go.
I have a group of Lantana that gets larger every year.
That must be the case here as well. This past fall the deer started eating junipers and mugo pines even before the first significant snow. They don’t ordinarily bother either of those.
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