Beefing Up the Shade Garden

When I went to the plant swap this past weekend I was hoping to find some shade tolerant plants to add to the corner shade garden. Something new or unique would be a great addition to the shade garden. I saw several hostas at the swap. Almost everyone loves them (I don't know anyone who doesn't) and they are easy to divide which makes them a great plant for trading. Even though we already have several hostas in our garden I came home with two more. I just can't resist a hosta. One of them is very small plant (not pictured yet) that I'll just place in a pot for the summer and keep it in the shade garden. The other does not have a name but it seems to be a fairly common variegated hosta.


The night before the swap I was contacted by someone who wanted one of my red-twig dogwoods. (Those went fast I'll have to make more cuttings for next year!) I looked at her list and saw some heucheras and since I'm a big fan of heucheras I agreed to a pre-trade. I came home with this little Coral Bell called 'Fireworks'. We'll see what kind of sparkle this little heuchera can add to the 'Palace Purples' next door! 'Fireworks' is supposed to have a long lasting flower display from May to August.


Here's another plant that I didn't have that is a fairly common one in gardens: Variegated Soloman's Seal (Polygonatum odoratum 'Variegatum'). I think this is a pretty cool plant. If you grow it primarily for its foliage you can't go wrong but it has some really interesting flowers in the spring that form along the underside of its stem in pairs.


I brought home four of these woodland plants and placed them near our Oak Leaf Hydrangea. Hopefully the variegated foliage will reflect the variegation in the hostas. They are a little taller than the heucheras and hostas and should add an intermediate height between them and the Hydrangea. My goal for this area is to create a natural looking woodland shade garden.

Now I just need to get some mulch over here!

More Sedums for the Garden

One of the plants I was looking for at the plant swap this weekend was sedum. We have a small area between our driveway and our sidewalk that I want to convert into a sedum bed. We already had three varieties of sedum ('Blue Spruce', 'Autumn Joy', and another unidentified sedum) and we wanted a few more to add to the bunch. I was hoping that there would be some available at the swap since sedum are notoriously easy to root and as good fortune would have it we found three sedums to add to our sedum garden. All three succulents are suitable for use as a groundcover.

The first one pictured here with the bright canary yellow flowers is Sedum acre. We may have to watch this one carefully as it has a tendency to become invasive. Since the location it will go in will be between two hard surfaces I think it will be manageable.

This next one is a small cutting from a sedum known as 'Angelina' (Sedum repestre 'Angelina'). It will have yellow flowers in the fall and grows up to about 6 inches.



This one has to be our favorite of the moment: Dragon's Blood Sedum (Sedum spurium). The reddish tints make it easy to see why it got its name. Dragon's Blood Sedum grows up to 6 inches tall and blooms with red flowers.



You can bet I'll be propagating a few more of these sensational succulents! We brought home many more plants but I thought breaking the posts into several smaller posts might work better. Tomorrow I'll tell you what we added to the Corner Shade Garden!

Plant Swap Tomorrow

The Middle Tennessee Plant Swap is tomorrow. I'll write more about it later. Here is what I'm bringing:

4 Russian Sages
2 Red Twig Dogwoods
14 Japanese Dappled Willows (Salix integra)
12 Euonymous fortunei ('Emerald Gaiety')
4 Blue Spruce Sedums
8 Purple Leaf Plums
4 Nandinas (courtesy of the birds)
2 Chrysanthemums of an unknown color and variety.

I'll tell you about what I bring home on tomorrow evening or Sunday, this should be fun!

5 Days 4 Catmints (Nepeta faassinii)

Last Saturday I was shopping at a nursery where I found a 'Walker's Low' Catmint (Nepeta faassinii). I've talked about the benefits of Nepeta before so it may not be a surprise that I bought one. I planted it the other day in our front sidewalk garden even though the cats may like it. If they do they have an excellent taste in plants. Simply brushing the leaves between your fingers leaves you with a wonderfully minty aroma. It's a pretty plant overall although my catmint is a bit leggy at the moment but that can be taken care of with some periodic pruning that will encourage a bushier habit. 'Walker's Low' is named for a garden in England and not the plant's actual growth habit. This catmint will grow up to 24 inches tall and 18 inches wide.

It's probably not a shock to anyone who has read this blog that plant propagation is an obsession of mine. You can probably guess what I'm about to tell you...I took cuttings of my new catmint. In fact I did that the same day I bought it! Last Saturday evening I made three small stem-tip cuttings, dabbed them in rooting hormone and stuck them in my sandbox. You're never to old to play in the sandbox right? The sandbox I have is really just a few aluminum baking pans that I put sterilized playground sand in to use for my cuttings.

Here you can see the three little catmints in black and white.


Yesterday afternoon I checked my cuttings and found that all three Nepeta faassenis had rooted!








I potted them up yesterday for them to grow in the dirt. It's important to move your cuttings into soil to get nutrients since the sand is devoid of the good stuff.



Five days and now I have four catmints.

How Much Salvia Is Enough? (Garden Blogger's Bloom Day)

How much salvia is enough? I really don't know the answer but I can tell you that I haven't reached the salvia threshold yet. The easy answer is when I run out of room, but most likely enough will be reached well before that point. If you have salvia in your gardens you can probably identify with me. It is such a great plant that you just want more. We have Salvia nemorosa in almost every garden around our house right now with the notable exceptions of the rain garden, the corner shade garden and the front sidewalk garden next to the house. The rain garden is not completely without salvia as it contains Salvia splendens, but it has not been there long enough to flower. The purple salvias, along with the irises and 'Purple Homestead' verbena, are the only plants that are currently providing a bounty of color in our gardens. I suppose we need to add more spring flowering perennials for next year.

The purple color of the salvias is a good match for our purple irises. The irises are a lighter shade of purple, almost a lavender. We have three kinds of Salvia nemorosa in our garden 'May night', 'Caradonna', and 'East Friesland'. The 'May Night is up in our Mailbox Garden. The 'Caradonna' is in our Birdbath garden and the 'East Friesland' is in our Front Porch Garden. Boring garden names yes, but they are descriptive!



Here's a look at our salvia display!

'Caradonna' Salvia nemorosa

Next to some iris foliage.


A close up of the flower stalks.


Standing tall like soldiers in a row.


This salvia is standing in front of a skyrocketing coneflower and behind two budding coreopsis plants. I'm looking forward to seeing the flowers of the coreopsis since it is one I raised from seed last summer.



'May Night' Salvia

Salvia with an achillea standing behind it.

The fading flower stalks of our 'May Night' Salvia in front of the achillea.

Thanks for stopping by to visit the salvia! For a tour of some other gardens be sure to visit Carol at May Dreams Gardens for Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day!

Name that Plant: Blueberry Bush

It's about time I positively identify the Name that Plant. It was a 'Duke' Blueberry bush. Our eldest daughter loves blueberries and while I'll eat them occasionally they were planted for her. I planted two this spring and while we are hopeful that this Northern Highbush blueberry will bear fruit we may have to be patient and expect it next year. From what I have read on the Duke variety of blueberry (vaccinium) it is nearly guaranteed to grow well in zones 4-7. Blueberries are one of those power foods that are high in antioxidants, good stuff for fighting off free radicals.



We typically eat our blueberries plain but there are many ways to eat them. Blueberries go well in muffins, pies, and there is even a blue berry soda! Go check out the recipe by Alton Brown if you don't believe me!



So who got this one right? Only two got it right from the beginning: Lola and Tina. Skeeter and Nancy both found a hint and get second prize!

Here are the current scores:

Tina (In The Garden): 2
Lola: 1
Jen (Jen-O-Topia): 1
Nancy (Soliloquy): 1.5
Chey (A Maritime Gardener):1
Melanie (Old Country Garden): 1
Skeeter: 1
Jillybean (Post-it-Place): .5

A Walk in the Garden

Like a picture, a walk in the garden is worth a thousand words.

Gardening in 45 Minutes

I needed to get a few things done in the garden today but I had a limited amount of time to do it. The oldest girl (2 years) went down for her nap just when the youngest one (just over 5 months) woke up from her nap. When their naps overlap is when I can get something done, but that didn't work out today. Eventually the youngest fell asleep again for her second nap and I was left with 45 minutes of garden time.

Here's what I did with my time:

• I planted two more 'Homestead Purple' Verbenas. They were a $1.99 4" pots at the nearby nursery. A great price for a great plant! We picked them up on Saturday. I put one on the opposite side of the verbena at the mailbox garden and the other is near some salvia in our front porch garden.
  
• I planted two more Silver Mound Artemisias. They were also $1.99 4 " pots. These went in the new sidewalk garden.
  
• I planted a very nice looking white flowering astilbe that was a $2.99 find. It's now hanging out with the heucheras in the shade garden. That sounds like a good segment for Gardening by the Yard, "Hanging with the Heucheras."
  
• I planted 8 White Impatiens in the shade garden. I mixed them in the gaps toward the front border near the coleus.
• I transplanted a daylily to the opposite side of the sidewalk next to a large rock.
• Then I planted my 'Walker's Low' Catmint (Nepeta x faassenii) where the daylily had been in the front garden.
  
• I also put in two more Roma tomato plants in the vegetable garden. Viva Italia! That's the variety name.
• After all that planting I bet you can guess what I did next. Watered!
  

It was then that I began to hear the children on the baby monitor. The rest of the garden would have to wait!

A Container Planting for Mother's Day

This week I put together a container planting as a present for my mother on Mother's Day. I couldn't talk about it here as a post until after today since she checks my site regularly. This was my first real attempt at arranging a decorative container. I've gardened in pots for a long time but it was usually vegetables with the occasional one or two decorative plants in a pot. I tend to think of putting plants in the ground rather than containers but after this experience it may be something that I dabble with in the future. It was kind of fun to find the right plants to fit together to match the right kind of container.

If you think about it there are so many possibilities with pots. The container could have been a square planter, a pedestal planter, terracotta, plastic, glazed, colored, molded, concrete, handmade, or one of many other possible options. Here is what I picked.

At first glance you would probably say that it was a glazed terracotta pot. That's what I would guess but I would be wrong. It's really made of fiberglass! A fiberglass container has some advantages over its terracotta cousins. It's lighter and much easier to move around. You also have the flexibility to easily add more drainage since all that is needed is a drill to put a few more holes in the bottom.

Once I found the container it was time to go to the part that was the most fun: Finding the Plants! When I was searching one plant really stood out as a good centerpiece for the container.

Meet Cordyline australis 'Red Star'! This plant likes it in the sun and partial shade. It's hardy down to 15 degrees Fahrenheit so it may not overwinter outdoors well here in Tennessee, but it could excel as an indoor houseplant and a summer patio plant. It's a native to New Zealand where it grows up to 20 feet tall at maturity. It's a member of the Dracaenaceae family and does well in drought but as a container planting it will need regular watering as all container plants tend to dry out fast.

The cordyline became the tall specimen plant in the back of the container and now I needed something to stand beside it. Something colorful that would blend well with the burgundy colored foliage and reddish tint of the container. I found something that would work, Helenium 'Dakota Gold'. This helenium is an annual that has nice yellow flowers that blend well with the burgundy cordyline. The foliage is also very different being green and narrow, yet still kind of grass-like.


Now what could I put in the front of the pot. I wanted something low growing and colorful. With all the red-tinted colors of the pot and the cordyline I thought yellow might be a good option again. I picked some 'King Edward' Yarrow (Achillea lewisii) that would work well in the front of the pot. It's a low growing pale yellow flowering plant with a maximum height of six inches. That may vary depending on soil conditions. I bought two of them thinking that they would both fit in the pot but I was very wrong. Too bad I didn't have the container with me when I was plant shopping.



I wanted an intermediate color for the container. Something that wasn't yellow but wasn't red either. I found these marigolds that fit the bill. One six pack of these annual flowers was enough to fill the gaps on the sides of the container, provide a little height behind the achillea, and add that intermediate color. Marigolds are also a good companion plant for many other plants.

Here is the final result.

I was very pleased with this container for my first real attempt at flower arranging. These plants should look good for this growing season. The cordyline will need to be overwintered indoors when the temperatures get colder. The hellenium and the marigolds are both annuals that will fade away come fall while the yarrow could be put into mom's landscape for next year. I'll share a picture of it with you in a few weeks when it's all in bloom.

Happy Mother's Day Mom!

A Great Way to Get New Plants

If you are like me and are always trying to find economical ways to improve your landscape and gardens then you should consider visiting a plant swap. Coming up next Saturday at Henry Horton State Park in Middle Tennessee is one such opportunity. The folks over at the GardenWeb: Tennessee community organized a plant swap that meets once a year in the spring. This year it's on May 17th. They have been swapping plants for several years now but this will be the first year at Henry Horton. If your garden plants have increased and you've made divisions or, like me, you enjoy the propagation path then bring some of your increases to trade for plants you don't have. You can even bring garden knick-knacks like bird-houses, garden-art, garden tools, craft items, or any other item another gardener might want to trade. I have never been before but I am looking forward to going and trading with other passionate (obsessive) gardeners.

There is also a guest speaker who will be talking about drought tolerant perennials and annuals. That is valuable information that many gardeners have on their minds these days.

There are a few things you should know before you go.

• You need to register! This way they will know how many people are coming.
• You need to bring plants. If you have extra daylilies, hostas, heucheras, vegetables, seedlings, seeds, or any other plant related item to trade bring them! If not they say to come anyway and there might be some leftovers.
• Bring tables and chairs for sitting in and displaying your trade materials.
  
• Bring food for a pot luck lunch, enough for you and your compatriots.
• Bring bugspray since it will be in the woods. Unless of course you and the mosquitoes get along well (They really like my wife).
• Bring a pen and paper to keep track of your trades and those you trade with.

You can look all these things up at the Middle Tennessee Plant Swap Website.

Here are some of the plants I'll be bringing: Japanese dappled willow, Russian sage, Salvia nemorosa, purple leaf plum, blue spruce sedum, and maybe a red twig dogwood.

My Mailbox Garden

I did a post a while back on my front yard garden spots where I wrote about the mailbox garden and felt today that I needed to update what I've done since then. I really haven't done much but I can definitely tell you that a little mulch goes a long way toward making a garden look great. Aside from the water retention benefit and the addition of organic mulching cleans up an area. It prevents weeds and helps cultivate the ground for your plants. Aesthetically it changes everything. Here is a pre-mulch picture of the mailbox garden that wasn't weeded yet. It looks pretty ratty. The plants themselves look good but the area around them looks very unkempt. Weeds are sprouting up all over last year's mulch and are taking away from what the flowers are there to do.



Here's a similar shot after the mulch has been added. The mulch makes the plants stand out much better than they did before. I used the old newspaper trick underneath the mulch as a weed barrier. I just laid down newspaper and wet it before putting the mulch over it. The newspaper breaks down over time helping to enrich the soil and taking care of many of the weeds. There will still be some weeds popping up close to the plants themselves but these weeds will be far more manageable. I don't like using landscape fabric unless I will positively never plant anything in that location. Newspaper is easy to cut through and extremely easy to come by!



In my mailbox garden I used drought tolerant hardy perennials to create a low-maintenance garden. I wanted something nice to look at that didn't need much care. I picked two 'May Night' Salvia nemorosa plants, two Verbena plants, one Achillea millefolium and four bearded irises. One of the verbenas died last year but the 'Purple Homestead' verbena has thrived. I highly recommend 'Purple Homestead' verbena for a low growing, drought tolerant, hardy, groundcover-like flowering plant. I say groundcover-like because its spread is somewhat limited to about a 2-3 foot spread but with several plants you could easily make a nice display. It propagates easy, so that makes me a big fan!




'May Night' Salvia nemorosa is another of my personal favorites. Yes, it's very popular right now for some very good reasons. It's another drought tolerant, hardy perennial that looks fantastic. It repeat blooms and just loves to grow in Tennessee. The flower stalks add visual interest and height to my mailbox garden. There are many variations of Salvia nemorosa and they are all worth a look for your garden!



Our Achillea millefolium or Yarrow is another good fit for this little garden. It matches the other plants drought properties and will provide you with offshoots that you can move to other places in your gardens. It's foliage is pretty cool too. You can see how the Salvia and the Yarrow fit together in the mailbox garden.




Here is one of the many irises in our yard. It is one of a handful that I put in the mailbox garden. Right now this is the only one that is flowering by the mailbox. Given time I'm sure they will all bloom.



In this last picture you can see the spot where the other verbena should be. I'll replace that soon with another to match the right side. Not everything will live all the time. What I like about this little garden is the combination of textures and colors. Each plant has a different type of flower and foliage. From the fern-like leaves of the achillea to the straight and pointed irises each one has different aspects that work well together. When you observe the flowers you can see the cloud-like flowering plane of the achillea is broken by the spires of the flowering salvia. The verbena takes over the ground in the front while the iris floats above the clouds of achillea.

I have plans to eventually expand this area beyond the light pole to the left but that project will have to wait. I still have many things to do before I can tackle that one!

An Iris Profile

Here you are, up close and personal with a purple bearded iris.

This is just one of many irises we we're given by my parents. They had quite a few that they divided last year and didn't have places for them all. They are definitely dressing up the landscape!

Has this ever happened to you?

Has this ever happened to you? You cut a tomato open only to find...

it's growing!

Our tomato we sliced open for dinner on Wednesday was sprouting new plants inside of itself. It was ripe and was still in very good shape. I guess the seeds were just ready to grow!

A Greening Rain

One of the more vibrant times to observe the yard and garden is just after a rain when the sun is beginning to shine. The rain replenishes and nourishes the plants better than any watering I could do. The leaves are brighter and they glisten with the glaze of the rain still coating them.


Over an inch of needed rain fell today in Tennessee. It cleansed the air and the foliage making the plants seem brighter and healthier. It's amazing how much better plants respond to rain than water from the tap.



The grass is subject to the rain effect as well, becoming more rich and green right along with the trees and shrubs. A greening rain is what we needed!

Don't Forget About the Evergreens!

In our haste to welcome the new gardening season many gardeners only think of the flowers beginning to bloom. The flower buds and blooms sure are interesting but why not take a look at the evergreens? Our collection of evergreens is relatively small but here are a couple that we have in our garden that are showing some nice color: the Canadian Hemlock (Tsuga canadensis), the Bird's Nest Spruce (Picea abies 'Nidiformis'), and a yew (Taxus x media 'densiformis').

Below is a picture of the Canadian Hemlock's foliage. The bright green really stands out against the foliage of the previous year. There are four hemlocks in our yard that form a hedge row, at least they will as they grow. I spaced them about 5-6 feet apart to create a privacy screen. I really like the feathery evergreen foliage. Hemlocks are great trees, unfortunately the hemlock woolly adelgid likes them also and is attacking them in the Smokies. Here is some information on the woolly adelgid from Pennsylvania's Department of Forestry.


The bright green leaves of the Bird's Nest spruce appear soft, fresh, and very touchable. It's a slow grower that reaches three to five feet tall and up to six feet wide. We kept this little plant in a pot for awhile until we moved into our house and now it's in the front garden. It will take it a long time to reach those dimensions, if I let it.



Another evergreen that is showing its fresh greenery is our yew (Taxus x media 'densiformis') . It's also known as a spreading yew. It will grow up to four feet tall and has a width up to six feet. It's primarily used as a foundation planting. Ours five yews are small ones that I purchased for about $2 each. They were frost damaged but all that was needed was some careful pruning and now they have green growth everywhere. One word of warning about yews, they can be very poisonous. If you have a pet or small child that could potentially eat the foliage you may want to steer clear. As long as it isn't ingested it's a great plant!

Here is the yew with some new growth beginning to show. What evergreens are greening up your garden?

Sidewalk Garden, The Other Side

Last week I posted some pictures of our front sidewalk garden. This past weekend I moved ahead with my plans and put together the garden for the other side of the sidewalk. You can look at my last post to see the layout. As you can see in the above and below pictures on the yard side of the sidewalk there is only grass. Don't get me wrong I like grass but I also like the idea of walking down a sidewalk surrounded by foliage and flowers. It's not a significant reduction in mowing area but every little bit helps.



Here's what I had before I made the garden bed. It's a fairly straight sidewalk path leading from our driveway to our front door. It's a fairly plain looking sidewalk and anything to dress it up a little will help.


You can see a slight bend in the sidewalk here. Hidden in the shadows of the house there are two rosemary plants that are across from our front steps. Rosemary can be great as an ornamental evergreen shrub as well as a culinary herb, at least here in Tennessee.



I gradually skimmed the sod from the top layer of soil. It was important to keep the grass root systems intact since this area has some pretty good grass. The grass clumps were transferred to another area of the yard in need of some of the greenery. I used the sidewalk sections as a guide and did one segment at a time with a width of 18-20 inches. I didn't measure it or use a guide other than my eyes but I think I did a good job of keeping the lawn side edge even. I've used the garden hose trick before and that might have helped here. Just line the hose in the shape you want the bed to be and dig the area up