English lavender (Lavandula angustifolia), Russian sage (Perouvskia artiplicifolia) and fernbush (Chamaebatiara millefolium)
It’s FAC time in The Art Garden! Grab your favorite beverage and pull up a chair. You didn’t really want to work this afternoon anyway, did you? Leave a comment to join the garden party.
Today’s topic:
Honeybee heaven! This collection of plants, now in full bloom, is covered with honeybees and other pollinators. What's the bee magnet in your garden right now?
These fernbush flowers have a delightful, light fragrance. Slightly sweet, with pine and sage overtones.
Today, as part of the Garden Designers Roundtable monthly garden design discussion, I’m focusing on underutilized plants. I’ve chosen to highlight a few plants from my xeric meadow garden: USDA zone 5, altitude approximately 5,350’, sandy-loam soil, full sun.
Caragana microphylla, littleleaf peashrub
Peashrubs are often dismissed as being uninteresting or worthless. Not true! This mass planting along the east property line of my back yard serves as a backdrop to my meadow garden and creates a subtle screen to the neighbor’s property. The very fine texture makes an interesting contrast to their bulk; these shrubs are 8-9’ tall and 4-5’ wide, but don’t feel heavy or imposing. They are like a lace curtain – allowing for air movement and light play - rather than a brick wall!
Pale yellow, pea-like flowers cover the plants in late spring, just as the delicate, pinnate leaves emerge.
Note, too, the silver “wire work” tracing along the smooth, olive colored branches; a lovely detail to discover.
Caragana microphylla are fast growing, sun loving, xeric, and tough---no snow load damage problems here! Plant with bold foliage companions such as Helianthus maximiliana, Verbascum bombiciferum, Yucca sp., Callirhoe involucrate, or …
Phlomis cashmeriana, Kashmir sage
This bold, architectural perennial is fairly new on the garden scene (introduced by Panayoti Kelaidis of Denver Botanic Gardens), and is the perfect addition to any xeric garden. The soft, lavender- pink flowers appear in whorled clusters on tall spikes in very late spring, and last for several weeks.
The large, basal rosette of foliage is especially interesting: a net-like texture covers the surface and the edges are strongly serrated.
In my dry, sunny, meadow garden, this plant will bloom out at 4-5 feet tall, but in one of my other planting beds that gets afternoon shade, it tops out at about 2 ½ feet.Companion plants for Kashmir sage might include Cytisus purgans Spanish Gold®, Delosperma nubigenum, and Agastache sp.
Dalea purpureum, purple prairie clover
This is a beauty. Long blooming “rods” of vibrant, red-violet flowers offer a bold contrast to the delicate, lacy foliage.
Many xeric plants feature soft, gray-green or silver foliage; purple prairie clover’s is a refreshing, deep blue-green. My plants form an upright, rounded silhouette, about 20” tall and wide.
By the way, purple prairie clover is a deep rooted legume that adds nitrogen to the soil---an ideal way to add fertility to a naturalized garden area. Plant it with Artemisia frigida, Helictotrichon sempervirens, Tradescantia occidentalis, and Mirabilis multiflorus.
All of these plants are a bit unusual (though not impossible to purchase locally) and I rarely see them featured in the private gardens that I visit here in the Denver area. Be the first on your block to give them a try!
For more ideas and inspiration from professional garden designers visit these participating members of the Garden Designers Roundtable:
It’s FAC time in The Art Garden! Grab your favorite beverage and pull up a chair. You didn’t really want to work this afternoon anyway, did you? Leave a comment to join the garden party.
Today’s topic:
Got pollen?
Gotta have pollen, of course, for fruit and seed production (AKA sexual reproduction). Today's assignment---look at the flowers in your garden. Can you identify the pollen? What color is it? What kinds of pollinators (bees, butterflies, birds, etc) do you see?
Extra point bonus question: has pollen ever been used as a pigment (my inquiring mind wants to know!)?
The corn was even taller this week the cobs are starting to form and the beautiful corn silk is showing. Lettuce is still going strong but with the heat and wind the peas did not fare so well this week. There was also a lot of nibbles on the beets; we are assuming from a rat. We harvested many radish pod for both eating and seed saving for next year. The garlic was also ready, we harvested ½; some will be eaten and some saved to plant this fall.
Everything is growing well at Cambie Square garden the corn was over 2 feet tall and the tomatoes had many flowers. The lettuce and peas are plentiful with even a few beets and very colourful dragon carrots. The radishes have also started going to seed, we picked a few because they taste so good on salads.
The apricots are ripening quickly now! Their weight is dragging down the tree's branches and changing its character. What used to be a tight, dense canopy is now awkward and splayed out. I imagine the tree will give a huge sigh of relief once it's relieved of its burden!
As this apricot crop is a new experience, we've been speculating about the most efficient ways to harvest and preserve this fruit. My grandmother's old edition of "The Good Housekeeping Cookbook" (which also features a recipe for Squirrel Fricassee, by the way), seems to have the most complete information on multiple ways of preserving specific fruits and vegetables.
Right now I'm leaning towards a combination of gorging on fresh fruit, freezing some, and drying a bit, too.
The sun is finally shining in July and the corn is huge, the beets are delicious, and the sunflowers are blooming next to the new garden sign. Soon we'll have lots of tomatoes and squash too as we've got lots of flowers now.
We've found that the tomatoes shaded by trees have done better than those in full sun and that radish seed pods taste delicious. We've also found that beans and corn grow really well together, the climbing beans just grow right up the corn as it gets taller, they were made for each other!
Can you believe the beautiful iridescence and bits of gold? When in flight around my little pond, the spotted wings of this species of dragonfly are their dominant feature.
This guy looks like he's contemplating his next move.
Unfortunately, I don't think he's going anywhere...
It’s FAC time in The Art Garden! Grab your favorite beverage and pull up a chair. You didn’t really want to work this afternoon anyway, did you? Leave a comment to join the garden party.
Today’s topic:
I just realizedthat for the first time in months I don't have a single woody plant in bloom!In fact, I had to run across the street to get this photo of my neighbor's American linden (Tilia americana). I love the scent of these flowers! Do you have shrubs or trees that are flowering right now?Tell us about them...
It’s FAC time in The Art Garden! Grab your favorite beverage and pull up a chair. You didn’t really want to work this afternoon anyway, did you? Leave a comment to join the garden party.
Today’s topic:
It's a vacation weekend, yea! Where are you spending your holiday? Have you ever vacationed in Colorado? Where?
