It's Not Work, It's Gardening!: salvia

Showing posts with label salvia. Show all posts

Showing posts with label salvia. Show all posts

Replacement plants (should I really tell?)

>> Friday, May 25, 2018 – foliage, herbs, salvia

Last year was a "weak" one for me when it comes to the garden. I didn't do too much out there and added very few plants. In fact, I had a goal to spend no money on plants last year, so visits to area nurseries were few. I did come very close to that goal by the way.

This year I have no such goal. The garden is more important this year, and it's time for me to get it back into shape. To some extent I'm not concerned about spending on plants this year... but should I really admit to that?

Another surprise

>> Wednesday, July 5, 2017 – overwintering, salvia

Yesterday's post was about my biggest surprise of the year (baby fish). Today I will share a smaller one, found in the front walkway garden:

The area takes a little while to get going, but is starting to look good now. The "surprise" item is a plant...

Fall is for planting!

>> Tuesday, October 29, 2013 – clematis, planting, salvia

At least that's what the local garden centers all remind you, as most casual gardeners plant in spring and that's it for the year -- or that's how I perceive it. Of course fall is a great time to plant perennials, shrubs, trees, and bamboo, with the ground staying relatively warm for a while still, cooler temperatures and more rainfall (in theory).

Although I pretty much plant new stuff during spring and summer too, I've been spending some time recently getting plants into the ground. Some of them have been growing from seed all summer, but others are brand-new plants picked up on sale as nurseries try to reduce inventory for the winter.

Clary Sage

>> Friday, June 7, 2013 – blooms, herbs, salvia

Last year at one of the Schlafly Gardenworks events -- I think it was the summer gathering -- I picked up several free herbs. One of them was completely unknown to me: clary sage.

I planted the little thing in a large container in the sunny side garden, and watched it get huge last summer, muscling out the other herbs I had planted along with it. Now, this biennial is blooming.

Making me stop

>> Monday, October 22, 2012 – castor bean, papyrus, salvia

As noted in yesterday's post I visited my friend Mike's garden again this weekend. On the way back I drove by a garden display which I've seen every time I visited him for the last two years, at the St. Louis Community College Meramec campus.

It was this planting of castor beans that got me to finally stop, take a closer look at the garden, and take some photos.

Salvia, so many

>> Saturday, October 6, 2012 – flowers, salvia

There are times when doing daily posts gets difficult for lack of topics. I typically have several days worth of ideas and photos queued up, so each morning it's just a matter of picking which topic I feel like writing about. Sometimes though, the list dwindles or disappears entirely, and I get nervous that I won't be able to think of a topic for the next morning's post.

That's when I grab the camera (weather permitting) and head out into the garden, hoping I'll find something worthwhile to share. This happened two days ago when I was looking around the yard thinking "there's nothing here exciting me", a little knot of worry starting to tie in my belly. Then I saw the Salvia coccinea and thought "I'll take some Salvia photos -- there are a couple in flower right now!"

Cool! Observations

>> Friday, September 14, 2012 – bamboo rhizomes, cactus, canna, flowers, insects, salvia, seeds

I've noticed some cool and interesting things in my garden over the past week. Some more obvious than others.

For instance, this obviously is a plant you don't want to get too close to, right?

Spring chores finished?

>> Sunday, August 19, 2012 – planting, salvia, sedum

Like all gardeners, every spring I have a long list of things to do: clean up, cultivate, weed, plant -- you know the list. It's not surprising to me that some of those tasks get delayed, and I don't get to them as soon as I'd like to. Starting seed? Sometimes a bit late. Getting veggie seedlings into the ground? Same there -- sometimes later than I'd like. This year though, I think I set a record.

See this pot of heat-ravaged sedum? Last year this contained Colocasia, and it was going to this year again too. I put the sedum there last fall as a place they could overwinter. They did beautifully too -- until June came around with its record heat and fried many of them. So today at long last I move them.

GBBD: April 2012

>> Sunday, April 15, 2012 – columbine, flowers, roses, salvia, violets

It's the 15th, which means it's time for Garden Bloggers Bloom Day -- a meme I participate in a few times a year when I actually pay attention to the calendar and have some flower pix to post.

So here's a look at what's been blooming for the last week or two in my garden. The roses are particularly lovely right now -- they loved the early start to spring for sure!

A few last blooms

>> Thursday, November 10, 2011 – flowers, salvia

As the forecast temperature tonight is 29ºF (-1ºC), our first freeze should take care of any remaining blooms in my garden. I've been taking a few photos over the last week or so (in between pond digging sessions) and it seems like an appropriate time to share them.

I'm starting with the scarlet sage - Salvia coccinea. It's an annual here, but it's a permanent part of my garden now. It grows pretty much everywhere, right up until the first hard freeze takes it out.

Would you like a purple, bee?

>> Friday, October 28, 2011 – bees, flowers, salvia

I mentioned a few weeks back that the Salvia leucantha plants in my yard seemed to be blooming later than normal. I wasn't sure at the time, but now I am -- they're definitely late this year. I think I got them into the ground later than I should have, or maybe our heatwave/drought this summer set them back a few weeks.

For whatever reason, this lateness means that the hummingbirds didn't get a chance to sample neither their purpleness nor their fuzz, but at least somebody is having a good time with the four plants I have in my garden this year: the bees.

A taste of autumn

>> Wednesday, October 19, 2011 – autumn, foliage, salvia

It seems to happen every year. We have a warm, dry September and early October, and it seems like colder weather will never arrive. Then the leaves start turning, the temperature drops severely, we get several days of rain, and the next thing you know the trees are bare and winter is here.

This year I actually looked around a bit before this happened, and captured a taste of autumn.

Fuzzy!

>> Sunday, October 2, 2011 – flowers, salvia

It's that time of year when the Salvia leucantha starts blooming. I thought it was a bit late this year, but I checked my post from last year and this is the right time for it.

They're just getting going, so only a few photos today.

Driveway crack garden

>> Sunday, July 17, 2011 – salvia, weeds

My concrete driveway is about 40 years old. Since my yard slopes down from the front to the back, the driveway does too, except for the area behind the house that is level. What happens when you put large slabs of concrete onto a hill and expect them to stay flat and in one place? Gravity laughs at you and starts moving those slabs ever so slowly. Eventually you end up with gaps between the squares -- on my driveway they are about 2 inches (5 cm) wide.

Every year these catch all sorts of seeds not only from the birdfeeders, but also from the plants in my yard in general. Every spring I start out keeping these cracks free of greenery, but by the middle of summer I've got a grid of plants that I need to deal with.

Some color lingers

>> Thursday, November 18, 2010 – color, flowers, foliage, grasses, ratibida, rudbeckia, salvia

We had another freeze the other night, but amazingly some flowers have survived, and the autumn colors are lingering, giving me a little final taste of what the garden was this year.

Soon I may need to refer to this blog as "browns and bamboo", but for now there are still some other colors.

More fall color - wow!

>> Friday, November 12, 2010 – bamboo, color, foliage, grasses, salvia

As the leaves of the deciduous plants around me lose their chlorophyll and develop anthocyanin pigments, we're treated to a few days or weeks of brilliant color displays. (Or maybe just dull browns, depending on the tree.)

This Japanese barberry jumped out at me yesterday while I was testing my newest vintage camera lens, and its colors really amazed me. I don't remember this plant looking so spectacular last year, or even just a few days ago. Is it the warm, dry weather we've had after the hard freeze last week? I don't know, but I like it!

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.

Fuzzy! Fuzzy! Purple! Purple!

>> Thursday, October 7, 2010 – flowers, salvia

As you can tell by the title of this post, it's all about the fuzzy and the purple today, compliments of a single plant: Salvia leucantha, or "Mexican Bush Sage". This is one of the last plants to bloom in my garden, but it's definitely worth waiting for.

If you're not a big fan of purple, or have some aversion to fuzziness, you might not want to continue reading this post.

Salvia explosion

>> Friday, September 17, 2010 – flowers, salvia

One of the first flowering plants that I put into my garden, probably around 2002, was Salvia coccinea or "Scarlet Sage". I'm not sure what attracted me to it, but it was probably the brilliant red flowers.

It certainly wasn't the fragrant foliage, because it's pretty unpleasant when crushed or brushed against. The flowers though... wow!

I'm tired of this planting bed

>> Friday, September 10, 2010 – cleanup, elephant ears, salvia

This is my wildflower and annuals bed. Although it was fresh and beautiful earlier this year and should still be looking pretty good now, the heatwave we had in the middle of the summer really took a lot out of it. This is how it should look in a month, not right now.

There are also a lot of weeds in here (mainly crabgrass and violets), and I'm just tired of looking at this ugly mess. Luckily I have a lot of plants in pots still, so I can give this bed a makeover without too much effort.

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