Sweet Alyssum

Lobularia maritima

I love the scent of Sweet Alyssum in the summer sun. It self-sows abundantly in my garden. I usually pull out a lot in spring and trim with scissor during the summer. I didn’t do much of either this summer.

After hurricane Irene left us a little soggy but without any damage, we are having beautiful gardening weather so I decided to tidy the big patch of alyssum.
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As I started to pull up the plants, I realized how long they were - about 16 to 24 inches.

I ended up with a bale of hay sized pile and a little more room for the Dusty Miller.

Summer Garden

July is the reward for the work of April, May and June. Hot days make gardening slow work. I tend to follow the shade around the garden. It’s a time when I really appreciate the reliable perennials.

The tall lilies ‘American Dream’ (at top) purchased in 2003 from White Flower Farm bloom every year and only require dead heading. They will be cut to the ground after the first hard frost.

Lavender ‘Grosso’ is planted close to a path. It releases its pungent scent as you bursh against it. It gets cut back once in a while when I get around to it. It’s been there for 7 years.

Crocosmia ‘Lucifer’ planted in 2005 sends up its red blooms every year without much fuss – unlike its canna bed-mates that need to be dug up every fall and replanted in spring.

Sweet smelling alyssum and snapdragons self sow in the same area every year. The liatris (Liatris spicata 'Purple Spikes’) is beginning to bloom and only requires deadheading. It has been divided and added to other parts of the garden since 2001.

What are your reliable favorites?

Seedlings

Each spring I'm excited to watch the re-seeding garden come to life. It’s fun to see the garden rearrange itself.

BUT, this year seedlings are everywhere. I’ve been pulling, hoeing, potting and moving seedlings all week. I certainly have a bumper crop.

The snapdragons are the most prolific. (Top photo with Johnny-jump-up.)

The cleome has been productive too. The cosmos and annual poppy join them in their reproductive party. I’ve left most of the poppies because they don’t transplant well. They bloom early so I’ll get them out of the way once they’ve finished blooming. I may be hopping over poppies for a month.

No one needs this many cleomes!

I love the white/green summer look of snow-on-the-mountain (with more snaps, cleome and a few sweet alyssum) – again too many. One nasturtium returned (lower left of center of picture below).

Some of the snapdragons from last year survived the winter and are ready to set buds (upper left of picture below). Under all the snapdragon seedlings are portulaca. I’ll try to pull the snaps and save the portulaca. That may take a bit of finesse.

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I should have a riot of color this summer. And it’s all free! (Note: Labor doesn't count.)

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Garden Bloggers Bloom Day - October 2009

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I’ll share a few October blooms with you and peek into other gardens through Carol’s May Dreams Gardens. Thank you, Carol, for hosting this monthly event.

The snapdragons and alyssum (above) fill in between Dusty Miller and herbs.

An electric blue Lobelia volunteer at the end of a window box of parsley

Rose colored mum – another volunteer



Mom’s mum - transplanted from her garden years ago

Dead Nettle (Lamium)

Purple Cleome

White cosmos

Pink Cosmos

Nasturtium

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"Just before the death of flowers,And before they are buried in snow,There comes a festival seasonWhen nature is all aglow."- Author Unknown

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Scented Garden

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You may have noticed that the three plants in the last “NEED” post are scented plants.

I have been working on a scented garden for six or seven years. The garden is about 10 feet wide by 35 feet long. The Daphne and Casablanca Lily will add their aroma to that garden. (The tuberose will perfume our deck.)

(Picture May 2006)

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I’ve noticed that a lot of flowers in this garden are white. I like the white theme. It’s very restful. I don’t know if this is botanically correct but it seems to me that there are more fragrant white flowers than any other color. Anyone have any thoughts on this?

White blooms:

Sweet woodruff with the tiny white flowers serves as groundcover

White Lilacs bloom in May

Garden Phlox David tall white beauty adds to the summer aroma.

On a summer evening, Nicotiana Fragrant Cloud sends a slight perfume to only the most discerning noses.

The twinkling flowers of Sweet Autumn Clematis lightly scent the air in fall.

Sweet alyssum gives off a heavenly fragrance all summer long.

Other colors: In early spring hyacinths bloom. In April Sweet Shrub’s heady aroma fills this garden and beyond. Summer scent of Lavender Grosso brushes against strollers on the path.

Daphne will add some bones to the garden and add to the spring fragrance. Casablanca Lily will enhance the late summer perfume.

I can’t wait to sit in this garden with a cup of coffee and inhale.

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(Note: Bat white-nose syndrome has been found in Pennsylvania caves. See February 27, 2008 post.)

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Garden Bloggers Bloom Day - November 2008

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(Christmas cactus – earliest of my cacti to bloom, white with a pink tint. )

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In the comments on my October Bloom Day post, HappyMouffetard said, “Welcome to GBBD. It's addictive, and makes you look at your garden with fresh eyes each month.”

She is right. It creates “stop and smell the roses moment.” It is addictive. Another great idea from Carol at May Dreams Gardens. I'm glad I got these pictures taken before the last two days of rain.

(Can you guess the blooms I would not have noticed if it wasn’t for GBBD? HINT: most of them.)

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Deep pink mum – a potted Easter gift - planted in ‘06 and moved in ‘07.

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Yellow mum volunteer – 2nd year.


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Calendula – re-seeds every year. Another reminder of my Grandmother’s garden.

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Sweet alyssum – continues its perfume in the autumn sun.



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Dusty Miller – flower bud removed. Proof in the picture.

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Rose – climber ‘Don Juan’ – the last rose of summer.




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Lamium – Dead Nettle under the locust tree – either ‘Elizabeth de Haas’ or ‘Purple Dragon’

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Nicotiana – another re-seeding annual

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Snap Dragon – stands bravely against the frost.

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Red Azalea – silly shrub thinks it’s spring.

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Also not pictured:
Sedum seiboldii – October Daphne – at the end of it’s color.
Lavender ‘Grosso’ – a few fall blooms.

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July Garden

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I’ll be at Musikfest most of this week doing garden maintenance and just having fun. Since I won’t have much time in my garden, I thought I would it would be fun to compare a section of my garden over the last 3 years.

First, let me explain. I have a new camera this year. The 2008 pictures are not as good as 2006 or 2007. But I’ll keep practicing. The biggest problem with this camera – there is no view finder. Taking pictures outdoors with only a LCD screen is difficult (like aiming a gun when you can't see the target.) All I can see on the screen is a reflection of myself. Great for putting on lipstick but not taking pictures. OK, enough excuses.

This is the way the cottage garden looked in 2006 before our tall pussy willow fell in a storm on Memorial Day weekend 2007. That dramatically changed the garden from shade to sun. Actually, much better for a cottage garden.

In the second set of photos, you can see the pussy willow in the center of the picture (left photo 2007). The right photo (2008) shows the pussy willow has about doubled in size this year. The new growth is coming out of the near side of the stump.

The pink mum (Chrysanthemum ‘Clara Curtis’) blooms almost all summer front and center on both pictures. Yellow Cosmos in the left 2007 photo will be replaced with pink tones (Burpee Sensation Mix) in 2008. I planted the seeds in May and they are now forming buds.

Snapdragons, cleome, snow on the mountain, coleus, sweet alyssum all have returned this year.

As the pussy willow continues to grow, it will again change the light in this garden. I’ll have all winter to decide if I want to do something differently next year.

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Busy Garden Days

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This week is crazy. There are seeds to plant, pots to fill, annuals to put out, weeds to pull, community gardens Blumenplatz and Burnside to plant. And, we’re going to our first Iron Pigs AAA baseball game tonight.

I got to run away from it all yesterday and visited Felicita Gardens in Harrisburg. I’ll post some impressions on Saturday.

The spring garden is exciting. The lilacs and azaleas are at their peak. The re-seeding garden is full of forget-me-nots, cleome, snapdragons, sweet alyssum, red poppies and portulaca. It’s exciting to see what has seeded from last year’s plants.

It’s not so exciting to plan removing and moving the seedlings. Gravity makes the seedlings end up in the path or too near the edge of the garden. I’ll need to move some and remove others. The removing is easy. I can remove a lot of plants in the wrong place with my hoe. The moving takes a little time. The seedlings are too small to move now but, in a week or so, I’ll start my annual – dig them out here and put them over there. Then I can mulch the area and wait for blooms.

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Word Origins

While dusting book shelves, I came across an old book - Word Origins and Their Romantic Stories, by Wilfred Funk, 1978 edition.

I felt compelled to stop dusting. I was never fond of dusting anyway.

I paged through trying to find something romantic, or humorous, or fascinating and stumbled across the chapter “Word Histories of Your Garden.” A few excerpts, in 1978 style, follow:

Poinsettia – The Honorable Joel Roberts Poinsett of Charleston, South Carolina, was a distinguished diplomat, Secretary of War in Martin Van Buren’s cabinet . . . appointed special minister to Mexico. It was while there that he became attracted to the large, flaming flowers that we now know so well. He brought some of the plants back to the States and his name Poinsett gave us poinsettia.


Hydrangea – The seed capsule of these showy flowers is shaped like a cup or miniature water-vessel, and when we turn to our Greek lexicon we find the component parts of hydrangea in hydr-, “water,” and angos, “seed” or “capsule.” They look like a “water” cup.

Alyssum – A dainty plant of slender, silvery leaves interspersed with fragrant clusters of small golden or white flowers. The Greeks regarded the plant as a cure for madness and so called it alysson, a-, “not,” and lysa, “madness.”

Tulip – Again among the descriptive names is tulip which, with its showy colors and velvet texture, has somewhat the appearance of a turban. The word comes to us through the obsolete French word tulipan, from tulbend, the Turkish way of saying “turban.”

Other chapters include words about humans, war words, and words of attitudes and emotions, among others.

In the chapter “Where Words about Human Beings Come From”

Fool – Let those who talk too much take care, for the Latin word folis, which gave us fool, means “a windbag.”

I think I’ll go back to dusting.

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More Weeds

As I continued weeding this week, I realized some weeding tasks are more tedious than others. I have several places that I allow to reseed. Above, nicotiana and alyssum reseeded with weeds (top). In order to save the plants and get rid of the weeds, I had to pick out the weeds one by one. This time-consuming task is worth it to me for free plants. I sit in the shade with a cool drink and pull them out one by one.

Semi-formal Garden

The wide, angled steps off our deck lead to an offset rectangular concrete pad with cement sidewalks heading off to the left and right. Each year I try to minimize the square of it and enhance the illusion of a circle. I’m not a big fan of formal gardens. I tried create the arc with different shades and textures – does this make it a semi-formal garden? (photos from 7/2/06)

When we built the deck 7 years ago, I measured a straight line about 15' from the center of the steps. Then, keeping one end at the center of the steps, I moved the other end in small increments to complete a half-circle. I laid a hose following the line and marked inside with a line of Round-up. Several days later, we removed the sod and dug and amended the soil with compost, peat moss and sand (because that’s what we had). I laid bricks flat along the edge for a border and mowing surface.

I planted the outside edge with fescue (Elijah's blue). I will need to divide & move some of the fescue to fill in spaces this year.

The second layer is dusty miller (which is semi winter hardy in this location). The price is right for these annuals and I love the gray foliage (see February 4, 2007 post). I usually add a row of pinwheels in spring to try to keep the birds from ripping out the dusty miller for their nests.

The next layer is euonymus shrubs (emerald surprise and fortuei moonshadow).

I try to keep the line of the curve in these layers. Last year I added a row of sweet alyssum to the inside mostly because I love the flower’s smell in the summer sun – again the price is right - they come up everywhere in my garden and are easy to transplant.

I’ve tried to create a focal point in the center using a large rock and a hanging solar light. This is also where I put the fallen pot in the summer.

We planted a juniper (Tolleson’s blue) off center. This tree was a poor choice for this location. It has a very hard time out in the open over the winter and will not stand up without being staked. We’ll replace it someday.

Each year I have another bright idea on how to make a circular-shaped compliment to the steps. So far, my ideas have not been entirely satisfactory – I guess that’s obvious since I ammend the plan every year.

This year I trimmed the euonymous on a thinner line. I lost some to scale so this line is not filling in as quickly as I'd like. (see December 29, 2006 post) I adjusted the rock and the solar light to be more directly on center and will move some rocks to follow the arc. I’ll still use alyssum in a row at the inside of the arc, try to keep them trimmed and have the fallen pot in the center.

And so it goes - another illustration of the best garden is always next year's.