The Garden Buzz

Name That Allium: Plant ID Help, Please?

I know quite a bit about this plant in question.

• It's an allium
• It has flat slender deep green leaves.
• It blooms are compound and pinkish lavender
• It blooms in July in Minnesota.
• It has fibrous roots, not a bulb.
• It is tough and hardy
• It doesn't seem to re-seed like a chive.

I even think I know where it was purchased. Two owners ago, this garden was tended by a Master Gardener who bought lots of unique and native plants. Neglected afterward by the next owner for some time, I rescued and rehabilitated many plants from within the overgrown property. They are planted along a path I call "recycler's row". I've eventually identified all but this one by way of the Friends Plant Sale catalog; that sale's a hot ticket for all Twin Cities gardeners.

During the garden tour the first week of July, the plants by the driveway were already blooming, with the others along the shadier part were in bud. Both stages of this plant are charming, from the buttony buds to the starburst shaped mature bloom. I was questioned over and over again about the provenance and name of this plant, but I could only speculate.

I have been dividing and multiplying this plant so to speak, working my way down the path by the wild ginger. Now I can't imagine my garden without it. The leaves alone are endearing, better, it comes at a time when you're wanting something kind of onion-like in form but the big bodacious Globemasters and Purple Sensations are past their peak.

I rarely lose a game of "Stump the Gardener. If you've seen this plant and can identify it from the rest of the usual suspects, I'd love to hear from you!

Portulaca: Grandma's Moss Rose Goes Green...

Someone's Grandma (bless her heart)

Grandma flowers, you know 'em when you see them. My first thought would be those red and white pinwheel petunias. Maybe a row of stiff-stemmed gladiolas. But for many it's the moss rose.

Add one of those "fanny granny" yard art things and you know what I mean. I'm allowed to make fun since I know my neighbors probably recognize me from the behind before the front.

It turns out grandma was one pretty smart lady. She didn't have a lot of time for fussy flowers.

Today that same quality translates to 'green'. 

I go on and on so much about tall annuals and perennials, some might accuse me of being "height-ist", but I'm not. Portulaca is a ground hugging plant with plenty of potential.

 Portulaca, Pazazz "Salmon Glow" A big favorite during the tour. The Garden Buzz

With its fat fleshy leaves and bright flowers, it's almost a succulent with low water requirements, but with faster growth that makes it useful and decorative in a number of ways.

I've found it to be a versatile container plant with loads of style. The new Pazazz series has completely charmed me with the waxy single blooms in beautiful colors like "Salmon Glow". Last year I was enamored of a variety called "Neon Rose", a hot fuchsia with a yellow flare. Butterflies love them too.

Put portulaca in terra cotta containers, it loves the heat and well-drained situation, while throwing off a Tuscany vibe. I like to use it on my hot and often-windy deck mixed with million bells, coleus and grasses for a combination that can handle the strong breeze without wilting.

Portulaca "Neon Rose"   The Garden Buzz

Lastly, portulaca can become a living mulch, either in summer beds or pots, keeping out stray weeds and conserving moisture while looking fabulous.

Lookin' good, Grandma.

 

(blogtown.portlandmercury.com)

Lean on Me: Emergency First Aid for a Favorite Plant

If you're a regular reader, you know I have a soft spot in my heart for self-sowing plants. With more chutzpah than hubris, they are the little plants that could. Take my Thalictrum rochebrunianum or meadow rue, maybe, "Lavender Mist". His pedigree is unknown, hence the hesitation.

 
Delicate airy blooms of Thalictrum rochebrunianum, Meadow Rue The Garden Buzz

First it is presumptuous of me to refer to him as mine, and worse that I assign gender and call him a he; even though I didn't plant him and I don't think thalictrum plants are dioecious, that is having separate male and female plants. Still he has endeared himself to me and I point him out among other showier flowers in the garden like a proud mom pushes forward a gawky child grown taller than herself.

So slender as to be hard to see in the photo, note the graceful shadows The Garden Buzz 

As he grew, his purple-tinged stem would swerve ever so slightly one way and then as leaves appeared at that juncture, the growth swayed back, and so on and so forth in the most subtle serpentine fashion. The leaves resemble columbine or maidenhair fern, sparsely arranged in a shade of matte green. The flowers are almost an after thought, tiny purple singlets on compound springs, with even tinier yellow anthers.

The foliage reminds us of columbine    The Garden Buzz

You then, can imagine my horror when the recent rainstorm nearly snapped his slender (or skinny, depending upon your point of view) stem in half. At 6 feet tall and single-stemmed it was bound to happen. I had already provided a number of plant ring supports at increasing heights to bolster him against the wind.

Germinating from seed in between the stone lamp pillar and the gatepost, he had picked a spot that was uncrowded but also precarious in that it was unwatered and subject to small animal traffic. Yet he persevered through two seasons so far, from a few small leaves into a statuesque specimen.

To see him bent over and his stem splayed open with the torn fibers giving a splintered effect, was painful to see. The delicate lavender flowers that normally float above his foliage were dangling inches from the sidewalk.

The thought of snipping the stem at what seemed like his knee, would be an ugly and heartbreaking solution. So borrowing a trick from the tree surgeon's book, I went to work and did a little plant triage. If they can bind bark and broken branches back together to restore the flow of cambium why not the same for a plant stem?

My skill not quite as admirable as my intent, I bandaged the torn stalk with reinforced packing tape while holding him upright with the other hand. It is not the best looking medical intervention but it miraculously seems to be working. With a little water and leaning against the lantern he has been moved from critical to serious but stable condition.

Bandaged stem of meadow rue   The Garden Buzz
  

The patient after treatment    The Garden Buzz

My hope is that he will remain vertical until fall and perhaps even toss a few seeds to the ground. At that point he can go dormant and rest, to return again next year. Because what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger. Well that, and maybe a little help from a friend.

 

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day: July 15 (Part 2)

As promised, more of what's blooming at The Garden Buzz.

Helenium "Mardi Gras"    The Garden Buzz

Campanula, sundrops, Annabelle hydrangea on "Hodgepodge Hill"   The Garden Buzz

Monarda "Jacob Cline" with visitor    The Garden Buzz

"Incrediball" hydrangea The Garden Buzz

The much-inquired about Stachys "Hummelo"   The Garden Buzz

Daylilies with Ligularia "Rocket" in background     The Garden Buzz

The meadow effect in my courtyard The Garden Buzz

Monarch butterfly on Brazilian verbena, but when you say "Verbena bonariensis", you feel like a fancy gardener.     The Garden Buzz

Thanks to May Dreams for hosting Garden Bloggers Bloom Day!

 

 

 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day: July 15 (Part 1)

I'm both happy and sad to say the garden tour is over; it was sweaty, life-consuming work yet so much fun to share the results. Many of us on the tour feel like our gardens never looked better and we should conduct more visits while that's the case. Who knew I should have signed up for two?!

Of course, the most commented-upon and asked-about plants were usually the ones blooming, so it's a no-brainer as to what to include for July's Bloom Day. I'm splitting it in two parts for easier consumption and also to test the timing of my google alerts. You don't mind do you?

Shasta Daisy, grown from the winter-sown technique    The Garden Buzz

Pee Gee Hydrangea in foreground of the courtyard   The Garden Buzz

Hardy Hibiscus "David Fleming"    The Garden Buzz

Henry-dog by the purple Astilbes (ID variety, anyone?)    The Garden Buzz

Invincibelle Spirit hydrangea with chocolate cosmos    The Garden Buzz

Persicaria "Firetail"

Stay tuned for Garden Bloggers Bloom Day Part 2. 
 
 
 
 

Incrediball: The Hydrangea From the Big & Tall Shop

It's known as the "Annabelle on Steroids". This is one big hydrangea.

If you don't believe me when I say those blooms are huge, behold the hand-to hydrangea comparison in the photo.

 

My hands are not dainty or delicate yet they aren't quite hams. I like to think of them as sturdy Dutch peasant hands that slipped through the DNA from my paternal great-grandparents. They are not made for displaying jewels but for digging in the dirt. And I am more than fine with that.

Although I could have done with those slender Scots-Irish legs from my mother. Unfortunately the hands match the ankles.

The Incrediball was one of the most commented-upon shrubs of the garden tour this weekend. The general consensus was "Wow". I mentioned to most visitors that this was its first full season to bloom, as it started as a tiny trial sample from Proven Winners. It's always difficult to place these samples where they can benefit from the right conditions and spacing without leaving holes in your flower borders. I placed these in an undeveloped area and planted around them.

This area receives shade for a good part of the day and then a blast of hot southwestern sunshine. More impressive was, the not one but three gully-washers that left my regular Annabelles in a  flopsy-mopsy shambles, didn't harm the Incrediballs with their extra stiff stems in the least.

What I saw as perhaps a drawback to the Incrediball; large blooms at the middle with smaller outshoots almost like an apron around the lower part of the plant seemed to charm our guests. They felt there was no need to hide its legs in that respect.

Also note in the photo that Incrediball progresses to that same shade of vintage green as the blossoms age.

For fun I planted hardy hibiscus "David Fleming" close by the Incrediball. The luscious pink blooms that usually look Amazonian matched the large scale of the hyper-hydrangea. Extra-tall fennel and Shasta Daisies with a few smaller conifers give this new garden bed a Paul Bunyan kind of vibe. More evidence I'm going Minnesotan.

PS: Butterflies love them too!

The Amazing Story of This Rose Started in...a College Dorm Room

While I'm out in the garden getting ready for the BIG tour enjoy this article from Proven Winners. A while back, I wrote a few articles under David at the University of Minnesota, he's a great plantsman and just a wonderful guy.

 

 

The Amazing Story of This Rose Started in...a College Dorm Room

David Zlesak wasn’t like any other college kid you know.

According to the story recounted on Tim Wood’s blog, Zlesak was so passionate about breeding roses in his college years; he was growing thousands of rose seedlings under florescent lights – in his dorm room!

The result of these breeding experiments? Candy Oh™ Vivid Red Landscape Rose, one of the newest roses from Proven Winner ColorChoice.

Quoting Tim's blog post: “Out of the thousands of seedlings he started out in his dorm room, David found one seedling, a polyantha hybrid, which stood out from all the others. It was vigorous, healthy and very floriferous. The vivid red flower color was so intense that it seemed almost to smolder in the summer sun.”

I received two of these new shrubs as part of the recent trial mailing to garden writers. After just two months in my landscaping, I’m already seeing loads of striking red blooms. And keep in mind these roses are just “quick-turn”/liner-sized plants…I can’t wait to see what these look like as they grow larger!

This sweet landscape rose has loads of perpetual blooms. Large sprays of single, candy apple red flowers bloom from summer until frost. This polyantha hybrid has a dense, mounding habit, and is great for mass plantings. 

Like most polyantha roses, it has numerous small flowers borne in a cluster. It's also hardy (zones 4 – 9) and resistant to diseases such as black-spot.

Little care is needed with this rose. Just trim to shape in spring, and apply a controlled release fertilizer.

Remember, Candy Oh™ Vivid Red doesn’t require any deadheading, and because it was bred in Minnesota, it doesn’t need any winter protection. It’s about as low maintenance as roses get!

To learn more about Candy Oh™ Vivid Red, click here.

Happy Fourth of July!

It's not quite the bummer that a day-before-Christmas birthday can be, but nonetheless, I'd like to move my birthday to some nondescript day like June 10 or July 23. In all the hullabaloo to make sure the Fourth is fabulous I end up working on my day of honor.

As a youngster I was given fireworks for gifts when I would have preferred a pony ride.

These large allium seed heads resemble fireworks in the garden.

Now I'd just like a cold iced tea and a shady spot in the garden to read.

Meanwhile Happy Birthday to the USA.

Here's hoping all your Independence Day expectations are met with fun, good food and friends.