Container Review

 I've had some hits and misses this summer with containers. In some cases the plants have wildly outgrown their container, smothering the companion plants. But in other cases I've ended up with a nice combination.

First off, I have to remember NOT to buy lobelia. It needs sun to bloom well but hates the heat, and that just doesn't work in any places I have pots. It all looked beautiful for about a month, and then left holes in my pots.

In the pot off the mudroom porch I used two of the same plants as last summer: one blue salvia (one of the Rockin' series), and several white alyssum. Last year I had a small "optical" grass which just didn't do anything, but the alyssum did well and spilled out over the pot. This year I added some dichondra silver falls. I don't actually like it much, and it out-competed the alyssum. 

The biggest problem, though, is how brittle the salvia is --I've never had this issue with the salvia before, but heavy rain was enough to break off multiple branches, leaving the plant looking pretty bad. I like this plant because it brings the hummingbirds close to where we sit, so next year I'll have to grow it up through some support so it won't break so easily.

The large pot on the south side of the driveway is one where the "thriller" totally smothered the other plants. I chose one of the newer cleome, and it just became a monster :-) I pruned off side branches to try to give the other plants some light, and then a strong wind sent the cleome into a lean it never recovered from.

My favorite plant in the pot is the Blue My Mind evolvulus, but I kept having to rescue it from the cleome. Next year I'm going to plant that in a smaller pot by itself.

The big pot on the north side of the driveway is also not well balanced, but it's not as bad. As usual, the pot looked too empty when I first planted it up, so I put in more red salvia than I should have. I tip-pruned the flowers, and then it sat there for weeks, growing into a shrub before it finally budded and flowered again. Now it's huge. But it's pretty, with the white Diamond Frost euphorbia. A pretty coral red calibrochoa in the front was smothered, and just isn't very floriferous. I also have a blue angelonia, which has survived but isn't very noticeable. I shouldn't have bothered with it. This is what it looked like at the end of June:

And here's what it looks like in the middle of September:

This next pot is in full sun, and has a jasminoides that I found at one of the nurseries. I put a small trellis in the pot for it to climb, and added blue lobelia around it. It was so very happy that it quickly outgrew the trellis. I starting taking the ends and winding it around itself. Then the lobelia was taken out by the heat. Later I added in some creeping jenny from where I have it growing in a flower bed to fill in the hole. 

Once Rob got this pergola set up, I moved the pot into a corner of it. Unfortunately, it can't seem to grab on to the larger support legs, so I've had to clip it up. If I can find this again, I'll grow it up the pergola, putting string up if I need to. It has a very pretty white flower, and it's very vigorous. The bumblebees seem to like the flowers. 

In growing this next year, I might put a petunia in the pot, to get some color contrast. The original dark blue lobelia was gorgeous with it, but the creeping jenny is basically the same color as the jasmine, so you can't really see it.  

There are some additional smaller pots that have done well. This one, close to the maple tree trunk, is in quite deep shade. The impatiens are not blooming much, but both the coleus and the caladium have done really well.

I have a pot that gets a few hours of morning sun, and then is in shade by about 11 am, and this year I tried begonias and a coleus. I stuck an extra sunflower I'd grown in the back. Then at some point after a heavy rain, I realized the pot was not draining --it had about an inch of standing water on top of the soil! I tilted it to drain the water, and then managed to unstop the drainage hole in the bottom somewhat. It stayed really wet, though, for a long time. The sunflower died quickly from drowning, and the coleus has never looked quite right. The begonias seemed to thrive with the excess water, though. 
 

One more that has been fantastic because of one plant is another full sun pot. It's dominated by the cuphia, which is such a hummingbird magnet! I'll definitely be looking for this plant again. This photo isn't the best because of the bright sun, but those little orange flowers seem to have an infinite amount of nectar. (There is another small bowl shaped pot next to it with a pelargonium and petunia, which has also been very pretty.)

So, for next year I need to remember to check the pot that has drainage issues, and stop overcrowding my bigger pots :-) I also need to buy four more square pots that will go in each corner of the pergola. I'm hoping I can find some January sales.

 

 

July Check-In

It's hard to remember, in winter, just how full the gardens get over the summer. It's truly amazing how fast plants grow.

This summer has had a decent amount of rain, and we've moved from moderate drought to abnormally dry. Supplemented with a (new) good sprinkler, everything is doing a lot better than last year.  

I'm especially pleased with the NW corner garden off the mudroom porch --I'm closest to having only green mulch in that garden. It's smallish, and many of the plants are at least three years in. The lack of earwigs in the early spring (probably because the soil temperatures stayed low) helped seedlings get established earlier too, and gave me a very nice display from the Hudson Blue clematis in this bed. This is its fourth year, and the first year I've had a decent number of pretty blossoms. It's continuing to set buds even now.

I also had some sparkler and drumstick alliums reappear (from seeds from the originals, I assume), and they've added a nice bit of whimsy. I put the  phlox in last fall, and it seems pretty happy. I love the way the blossoms are variations of pink and white. We've just started oriental lily season, and the scent off the porch is wonderful.

The garden around the old woodshed is filling in nicely as well. I started it two years ago with two purple coneflowers on either side of the door. Last year I added spotted bee balm, and it really took off. I'm purposely adding natives in here, because any watering has to be done with a watering can. I'm going to move some of the bearded irises to a different area, and sprinkle some gray-head coneflower seeds here this fall.
 

 

I really love this spotted bee balm (apparently another common name is horsemint). The pollinators just love it, and it attracts so many different kinds of bees, wasps, and butterflies. 

Visiting a Stunning Garden

This week Rob and I drove out to Northwind Perennial Farm, outside of Burlington WI. It's about a 45 minute drive for us, but well worth it.

I'd heard of Northwind through Erin@The Impatient Gardner. I love her garden style and videos, and she gardens in a similar zone, up in Port Washington, WI, just north of Milwaukee. Erin has worked with the garden designer of Northwinds, Roy Diblik, to design a wonderful woodland garden at her home. 

The gardens at Northwind are a combination of woodland and prairie, which is very similar to our property.

 

Best of all, though --they had an entire garden designed under black walnut trees. I have struggled with what to grow under our beautiful black walnuts, so it was really nice to see plants that were thriving in that environment. There is a lot more information about juglone-tolerant plants now than when I started gardening here 25 years ago, which is great. But I still worry about investing in plants in that area, so this was so nice to walk around in, and make some notes. 

And of course I came home with some walnut-tolerant plants to try out :-) It will be fun to make a trip next spring, and see what the gardens look like in that season.

 

Misses

I lost quite a few plants this winter. Lots of people in the area did, apparently --two extended cold periods without any snow, and we went into winter in a drought. Even though it has rained this spring, we are still in a "moderate drought" according to the US Drought Monitor.

Plants lost:

Chamaecyparis "Soft Serve". This was just a quart size when I planted it in Spring 2024, but it grew and looked good through the summer. But I think I just have to give up on evergreens in the areas where I garden --we are very much on the prairie and cold weather comes with strong NW winds. Now I realize that there are sprays you can use, and I should have wrapped it in burlap. But as expensive as evergreen pieces are, I likely won't try again.

Stonecrop Sedum "Blue Spruce". I can't even believe I lost a sedum in a hot sunny location that I was watering, but it just disappeared by the end of the summer.

Hoary Vervain. I love this prairie plant, and planted six 3" pots. Not one of them survived. I will try again with this because I like it so much. 

Canadian Anemone. I planted two of these, bare root, and I've never had much luck with bare root plants. They never showed up this spring. 

Little Bluestem. I planted 3 3" pots in an area near a silver maple. I struggle to grow things here, and I'm hoping that the deep roots might help them compete with the shallow maple roots. One of them didn't return, the other two are tiny, but alive. 

I guess I'm lucky in that everything I lost was something I planted last summer. I didn't lose any established plants. Hopefully the ones that returned from last summer's planting will be established enough to deal with a harsh winter now.

Sunflower Experience, 2025

I ordered three types of sunflower seeds last winter. 

First is Valentine. This is pale yellow, 3-4" blossoms, up to 5 feet tall. 

Second is Holiday. This was supposed to be more traditional in color, although the flower size is still only 3-5", 5-6' tall.

The third is Autumn Beauty. This one has the darker flower, up to 8" across, and can get over 8' tall. 

I started seeds of all three indoors, earlier than I should have. I up-potted them in late April/early May, but it was so cool this spring that I didn't get them in the ground soon enough. 

I have also started all three from seed in a raised bed, in late May.

The shortest variety, Valentine, transplanted just fine. I don't particularly like them, though. You can't see the flowers all that well because of how thick the stems are. Definitely for cut flowers, which I don't really do. I don't think this one has pollen either, another reason I wouldn't plant it again. (Note to self: read descriptions more carefully!)

The middle one, Holiday, does not appear to have transplanted all that well. The flower at the top is very small. It is developing branches down the stalk, but those flowers will likely be even smaller. 

The tall one, Autumn Beauty, also does not appear to have transplanted well. The flower at the top is small. It is developing branches down the stalk, but those flowers will likely be even smaller. 

The flowers I planted in the raised bed are much more vigorous. So obviously transplanting sunflowers is not a great idea. Which is unfortunate, because last year none of my direct seeding worked --between chipmunks and earwigs, I didn't have a single sunflower plant. I did buy some wire cloches last year, for other plants, so maybe next summer I can try to protect the seedlings that way, at least from the chipmunks.

I'll likely come back and edit this post with more information about the flowers after the direct-seeded plants bloom.

 

Lots of Color

The area is getting lots of color now, from tulips, daffodils, redbud trees, fruit trees, etc. It got a bit too warm for a couple of days, but now we have a stretch in the 60s again, so the spring flowers will have a few more days before wilting from heat.

 

Spring has been slow this year, but the plus side to that slow warm up is that blooms on trees and shrubs never got set back by a frost or freeze. We only have a redbud tree, but in the general area I've seen flowering almond, rhododendron, and lots of flowering fruit trees, and they are all really full of flowers.

My favorite daffodils are always the ones with the dark center cup. 

 

The bicolor tulips in front here were added a few years ago, and only have blooms every so often. The tulips in the background are darwin hybrids. They started out as a bulb mix with red, pink, and white. Now, almost 20 years later, they've reverted to mostly yellow, but they are still a cheerful sight.

 

Spring Ephemerals

 We have a few spring flowers showing now. I think everything is going to bloom at once this spring, because of the cooler temperatures holding the earliest flowers back.

 

 

This is my first year with some iris reticulata, and it certainly is a beautiful vibrant purple. 

Snowdrops are finishing. I have some new crocus that still haven't bloomed yet, although the older crocus I have has come and gone already. Scilla and glory-of-the-snow are looking gorgeous right now. Daffodils are showing buds, but only a few are showing yellow yet, and only one flower of my earliest type has bloomed. Bluebells have buds. 

I can see the beginnings of the bleeding hearts, and the species tulips all have leaves up, but no buds yet. 

I have definitely lost some things this winter as well. The garden that the turkeys kept digging up has several dead plants. I planted my first hydrangea last summer, which is supposed to be okay growing with black walnut, and I don't see any budding on it yet. On the plus side, the Sweet William is coming back in both areas where I planted it, and I'm hoping it will take over in those places!

Also, I had to chase my first stupid rabbit out of the garden this morning. So far no obvious damage though.