Back to the Hildreth's to see their tropical makeover
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Last August I shared photos of the "foliage paradise at the Heldreth's,"
the Heldreths being my friends, Laura and Charlie. I think many of you
agreed with...
Showing posts with label cleome. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cleome. Show all posts
Time to chop!
>> Saturday, August 11, 2012 –
castor bean,
cleome,
globe thistle,
pruning
It's been a rough summer for the plants in my garden. Trees, shrubs, perennials, annuals -- they've all had to handle the heat and much less water than normal. Some of them fared pretty well, like the cleome:
I really should have thinned this patch out more, as it was really overcrowded, resulting in many small plants packed together. With cleome that's not always a bad thing though, as these plants get big! Since the flower stalks keep elongating all season long -- this plant never stops blooming -- those arching stems can get out of control. Today I've decided to take some action!
Spider flower
Cleome or "Spider flower" is one annual that once you have you have forever, at least in my experience. I planted just a couple of these when I first started gardening, and I had volunteers for several years before they finally gave out.
In the last couple of years I've decided that I missed these wonderful, ever-blooming bee magnets and planted a lot of them. Since I'm not the best at thinning seedlings, I ended up with a pretty decent (and overcrowded by some standards) planting this year. No effort, big results -- just how I like it.
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These will start looking a little ragged later in the summer if I don't do some pruning on them, but that's not a concern yet.
Here's a longer shot of the bed:
I simplified this planting area this year while still adding some new plants. From front to back there is a Shibatea kumasaca bamboo, the cleome with some purple fountain grass and Agastache foeniculum mixed in, then some hardy bananas (Musa basjoo) surrounded by elephant ears (Colocasia esculenta). That's it for the entire bed. (There's space for one more plant. I'm thinking of another elephant ear, but might do something else too. In fact, I may plant right after I post this.)
Cleome is the highlight right now I'd say.
There's another small cleome bed across the path. It was cleome last year and I wasn't sure what I wanted to do there this year. The seedlings took longer to germinate than those in the other bed did, so for a while this spring I thought I had an empty bed -- a clean slate to work with.
Since I couldn't make up my mind what to plant and delayed too long, it's now a cleome bed again. They're a bit behind the flowers in the other bed, but will soon start blooming.
This just ensures that the bees will have cleome blooms for a longer time, right? Almost like I planned it.
Cleome flowers all summer long will be fine by me.
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Spider flower and bees
I was walking around the garden this wonderfully cool morning, trying to find something to photograph. I was hoping for something insect related, as the night before I was tempted to take a bunch of fly and ant photos but decided to spare you, as the subject matter was a bit too grisly. (If you're curious, I'll just remind you that it's baby bunny season here, and we have a nearly-feral cat as a regular visitor.) Anyway, I was drawn this morning to the Cleome or "spider flowers", and soon noticed several honey bees visiting them. Perfect!
Cleome is to me a very interesting plant, and apparently it was to the bees too. I like it because once it starts flowering it doesn't stop, with each flower head continuously elongating, sort of like an atomic blast mushroom cloud, but of lovely flowers instead of nasty radioactive dust.
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Sunday morning, the garden delights me
>> Sunday, October 24, 2010 –
bald cypress,
bamboo,
cleome,
elephant ears,
flowers,
foliage,
salvia
It's one of those mornings when the garden just hits me right. I'm not seeing the weeds in the lawn (or should I say "lawn of weeds"), nor the overgrown tangle of vines. I'm not seeing the dozens of potted bamboos that still need an overwintering strategy, nor am I seeing beds that need more mulching.
In fact, I'm not seeing work of any kind. Maybe it's the time of the morning (a little later than usual), or the fact that the air is warm -- almost "hot" for this time of year. Whatever the reason, all I'm seeing this morning in the garden is color. Lots of color and texture. There's something wonderful almost everywhere I look.
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Very late, very white
With the end of the growing season fast approaching, and cold weather sneaking its way into the garden every night, there are a few plants that are surprising me right now. Yesterday I showed the thriving volunteer tomato plant with it's many small tomato flowers as one example. Today, it's fewer flowers, but more impressive ones.
Specifically, white flowers. Even more specifically, the single white flower from this Datura inoxia.
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Morning blooms
As I promised, to help balance out all of the "creepy" posts about insects and spiders I've been doing lately, here's a look at some of the late summer flowers that are in bloom in my garden. It's really important to make sure you have plants that make the end of summer and start of autumn interesting. Although it's great having flowers all over the place in May and June, it's also pretty easy as most plants seem to want to bloom then. It's a little trickier to ensure you're looking at blooms now (in early September), but it's really worth the effort.
It really just comes down to having some plants around that flower late. In the spring when you're shopping for plants (most people get the majority of their plants in the spring -- only those really addicted to gardening will visit the nurseries all season long, right?) these late bloomers are the really boring ones, as they don't have any blooms or even buds to entice you to buy. They're all foliage and promises.
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Wildflowers and Annuals
My wildflower and annuals bed is really starting to impress! Although currently the cleome makes up the majority of the blooms, this is the real star for me so far:
That's rudbeckia hirta 'Prairie Sun', and it's like a shot of sunlight right into your eyeballs! It's quite a stunning plant for a "boring old black-eyed Susan".
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Assorted blooms
There are some beautiful flowers starting to bloom in my garden right now, so let's take a look. First up, a sight that I'm amazed to see:
Daylilies. These are 'Black-eyed Stella', and I'm really surprised that I've been able to see these for several days in a row.
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Wild seedlings
I don't know about your garden, but I've got seedlings everywhere! Not just weeds either -- I've got plenty of seedlings from desirable plants. Plants that I probably want to save, perhaps to transplant, or maybe to leave where they are. It's important to recognize the plants you want to keep while they're small, otherwise you'll end up yanking them out with all of the weeds. Sometimes it's simple, like when you're growing in pots, as is the case with this red plains coreopsis:
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