Today I thought I’d share how my new fairy garden held up over the summer.
You may remember that earlier in the season I moved my fairy garden from a cracked cement birdbath into an old wheelbarrow. I needed more space to expand!
Here’s how it looked when it was newly planted in May.
And here is how it looks now!
Um, yeah. It definitely filled in a bit.
The creeping thyme really went to town, filling in that entire front corner …
and nearly smothering the buddha.
The Golddust Mecardonia from Proven Winners also grew like crazy.
I’ve cut that one back several times as it wanted to take over the entire space.
I knew that the wire vine that I trained on the arbor would need some regular maintenance.
I grew this one in my old fairy garden too. It has to be woven in and out of the arbor, and then cut back when it starts getting shaggy.
The various sedum that I planted were a little less rambunctious. They filled in, but they didn’t need cutting back at all.
The dark green plant on the upper right side of that photo above is a dwarf betony, or stachys minima. Unfortunately, it never bloomed for me. But it is a perennial and I’m hoping that if I protect it over the winter it will come back next year and bloom.
In addition to the Feather Boa hosta that I saved from my previous fairy garden, I also planted a new miniature hosta after I’d already shared the fairy garden back in May.
That is a Mighty Mouse hosta and I tucked it in just next to the fairy’s mailbox.
So far both of the mini hostas look great!
In the past I have had mixed results overwintering these mini’s in my fairy gardens. Sometimes they make it, sometimes they don’t. I used to take the top of my cement bird bath fairy garden and place it on the ground up against the house where I would bury it in leaves for the winter. This year I plan to move the entire wheelbarrow into the carriage house for the winter. I’ll likely also cover it with leaves and maybe wrap it somehow.
I’m hoping to keep the Alberta spruce and the Golden Ruby barberry alive over winter as well.
So I’ll just cross my fingers on that.
Overall, I’d say the fairy garden was a huge success this year.
So the next time you see a crumbling old metal wheelbarrow in the free pile at a garage sale (I did see one this summer!), be sure to snatch it up and plant your own fairy garden!
Today I thought I would share how my various summer containers have turned out this year. There were some hits, but also definitely some misses. I have a list of things I want to do again next year, and also a list of things I wouldn’t repeat again.
Let’s start with my galvanized boiler pot window boxes. I have one on the carriage house, and one on the potting shed and I think it’s safe to say that both of them were a bit of a fail this year.
Let’s start with the one on the carriage house …
That crazy pink flower is the Truffela pink gomphrena from Proven Winners. I was trying to recreate the look I got from a different variety of gomphrena last year …
and the Truffela pink totally missed the mark. It grew way too big. Not only that, but the color was all wrong next to the red carriage house. I definitely won’t be putting that plant in any of my containers next year. However, I also put some in the ground interspersed with perennials and it was perfect for that.
I also had a Superbena, a bacopa and a Voltage White Osteospurmum in there and none of them performed particularly well, despite lots of regular feeding.
Ditto for the one on the potting shed …
I definitely need a new plan for these next year, but I have all winter to think about it.
In the meantime, after taking those pictures I went ahead and yanked out all of the plants. I had a small pot elsewhere that was planted with Little Ruby Altermanthera and Sidekick Lime Improved Ipomoea (or sweet potato vine), so I borrowed that and popped it into the planter on the carriage house.
Then I filled in the empty space with some cut Annabelle hydrangea flowers. It’s certainly a temporary solution, I know the hydrangea flowers aren’t going to look good for long, but this will hold me over until I’m ready to put some fall flowers in.
I also filled the boiler planter window box on the potting shed with hydrangeas, but that one I kept simple with just Vanilla Strawberry flowers.
Next up is the bed planter in front of the carriage house.
I filled that one with coleus and ferns. I feel like it gets an ‘OK, but certainly not spectacular’ rating. It filled in nicely, the plants are all healthy looking, but the colors on the coleus are all a little dull. This planter sits in full shade and I think those coleus need a little more sun to bring out their color. I much preferred the caladium that I used in this planter last year, so I may have to go back to that next year.
This year I decided to accept the fact that the two rusty urns that sit on either side of my deck stairs are no longer in full sun (the trees on the other side of the driveway are throwing a bit more shade). So I chose plants that would thrive in part shade for them this time around and I’m very happy with the result.
That’s a Black Taffeta Heuchera in the center, with Summer Wave Torenia and a variegated ivy trailer. I would definitely use this combo again. By the way, that heuchera is one of the $5 ones that I found in the clearance aisle at Gertens last spring.
It has performed quite nicely in a pot. It’s a zone 4 thru 9 plant, so I can’t leave them in the pots over the winter though (you need a plants zoned for 2 zones lower than your normal zone for it to survive winter in a pot, I’m a 4b, so I need a zone 2 plant for that!). I’m not quite sure yet how I’m going to try and overwinter them. I can either pull them out and put them in the ground somewhere, or I may try to put the pots in the carriage house and take my chances (the carriage house is not heated at all).
I repeated the combination of caladium with double impatiens in a couple of planters in my shade garden again this year.
I liked it so much last year that I thought it bore repeating. They looked great again this year, although I preferred the pale pink impatiens from 2022 and could only find white ones this year.
A little later in the summer I added more rusty pots of caladium and ivy to the garden too.
I’d probably have caladium absolutely everywhere if it weren’t so darn expensive, and also so susceptible to the cold. It will die back at the merest hint of cold weather which means we have to wait for nights above 50° before putting them outside in the spring, and they are usually the first to go in the fall.
You may remember that I tried to overwinter my caladium bulbs last year. I never reported back on that because it was a bust. The bulbs were all dried out when I pulled them out of the basement this spring.
By the way, that bright lime green foliage in the foreground right is the Sun King aralia that I put in after seeing it everywhere on the St. Anthony Park garden tour. So far it seems very happy in that spot. As it gets bigger it can fill in all of that space and the pots can be moved elsewhere in the garden.
I have a little trio of rusty urns up on the deck that get enough sun for some full sun annuals.
By this time in the season they are looking a bit shaggy for sure. Especially since I also put that Truffela Pink Gomphrena in the tall one.
It is pretty, and it performed fantastically. But it’s definitely too large for my urns. It totally buried my one-winged angel, remember him?
I really enjoyed the Stormburst Superbena and the Indigo Mini Vista Supertunias in those pots this year though.
Both of them have performed quite nicely.
As have the succulents that I planted in my vintage newspaper log roller.
I already shared my disappointment with my front window box back in mid-July. Shortly after that I ended up pulling out the Amstel Netja Dark begonias and replacing them with a white caladium. Then I also removed some of the Streptocarpus Ladyslippers™ Deep Blue Vein.
I then added in some Rockin’ Playin’ the Blue salvia from Proven Winners.
I was actually really surprised to find that it did really well. I thought for sure that there wasn’t enough sun for it in that box, but it looks great.
The Dark Eyes fuchsia also did extremely well in this north facing location.
The Dusty Miller and Dichondra Silver Falls also both did great in this location, but I didn’t love them. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m just not a big fan of that powdery look.
I would probably not repeat either of those plants, but that’s just a personal preference.
Last, but not least, my herb garden did really well this year.
I grew basil, chives, marjoram, lavender, lemon grass, rosemary and parsley and they all did well. I had to cut back the basil and lemon grass frequently as they really wanted to take over, but everything else did great.
Now, if only I knew how to cook with some of them. To be honest, for the most part we use the chives on a baked potatoes, and the basil on caprese, and that’s about it. I just enjoy watching the rest of them grow.
As for the parsley, well, the other night while I was watering I noticed this guy …
Apparently he is a parsley caterpillar and ultimately he will turn into a Black Swallowtail butterfly. Now, on the downside, he’s probably going to eat a lot of my parsley in the meantime. But what do I care? We aren’t doing anything with it, I’m fine with letting him have it.
So, how about you? Did you have any stand-out containers this year? Or any real dogs? If so, leave a comment and let us know!
It feels a little like I go on and on about hydrangeas, well, mainly because I do. But my paniculata hydrangeas are looking so good right now that it seems wrong to not have at least one Sunday morning post about them this year.
I have to say that these hydrangeas are probably the number one plant in my garden that gives the most impact for the least amount of effort.
The only maintenance they really require is a good pruning in the late winter/early spring. I usually take care of it on the first nice day in April. It’s also one of the only garden tasks I can do in April because our ground is usually still too cold/wet to do any other clean up yet. In fact, we often still have snow pack in the shadier spots!
But I’m always itching to get out there and do something in the garden on that first nice spring day!
Panicle hydrangeas, or Hydrangea paniculata, bloom on new wood, and therefore it’s beneficial to whack them back quite a bit in the spring. The experts say to take off about 1/3 of each stem, but I often go as far as 1/2 (and once I even cut back further, with no ill effect).
Each limb that you cut back will respond by branching out with two or three more. And each of those will end up with a flower. So, you get the idea. Twice as many flowers!
I have a few different varieties of panicle hydrangea. There is a Little Lime next to the potting shed.
I planted this at least 10 years ago or so, so it has reached its full mature height and it’s about 5′ tall.
Right now the flowers on the Little Lime are quite a bit more green than those on the Limelight, and they are also starting to get that tinge of pink that they take on as the temperatures cool off.
I have a Vanilla Strawberry hydrangea planted next to the carriage house. And by the way, that is a Roguchi clematis on the arbor next to it and I just planted that in May 2022. It’s not only vigorous, but also blooms all summer.
The flowers on the Vanilla Strawberry start out white, but gradually turn pink. Right now they are just starting to get a tinge of pink.
Later in the fall the colors on these two will look like this …
Both of them end up with a bit more color than the Limelights.
I have three Limelights in the garden. One is next to our front door.
I whack that thing back hard every spring, and it just re-grows nearly up to the porch roof and is covered in giant blooms.
You may remember that earlier this summer I pruned out the lower branches and then planted some shade loving perennials under it, and that is working out quite well.
I also have two Limelights planted next to our deck in the back. I planted them there to make the deck feel cozier and more private.
Mr. Q and I eat dinner out here quite often, and it’s also our favorite spot for our morning coffee.
I planted a couple of new panicle hydrangeas last year, a Fire Light Tidbit and Little Quick Fire. Both have been really slow to establish and actually seem smaller now than when I planted them. I had to baby them along all of last summer, and once again this summer. Any bit of heat, or lack of water causes them to wilt like mad. I’m keeping an eye on them and hoping they do better next year.
I also have one other Little Quick Fire that is now out next to the carriage house.
This one has also been very slow to establish, but I have to cut it some slack because I moved it earlier this summer. I used to have it where the fairy garden wheelbarrow is sitting now. The thing is, I don’t really like the color this becomes later in the season. It turns a sort of mauve-ish shade, and have I ever mentioned that mauve is the one color that I really do not like.
Here’s a picture that I borrowed from the Proven Winners website to show you the color.
It’s just not my cup of tea. And yet, I planted two of them in my garden before I realized that I didn’t like the color. I actually offered them to my friend Sue at one point, and when she saw the color, she declined the offer.
So, there you go, not all Hydrangea paniculata are winners in my book.
But I sure do love the rest of them!
How about you? Do you have a favorite hydrangea? Leave a comment and let me know.
Whenever I share items that are going to be outside in the garden, I’m frequently asked the same question, ‘will it hold up outside?’
And sometimes the legit answer is that I don’t really know. Especially if I’ve only recently started using a particular product and haven’t had a chance to test it over time. But I’ve got a few years of experience under my belt now, so I thought I’d give you some honest feedback on how some of my things have held up.
Let’s start with transfers.
I added a Classic Vintage Label from re.design with prima to a watering can back in early 2020. I did not use any sort of topcoat over it, although a topcoat is recommended for transfers.
I used it in my front window box that summer, and it held up great for year 1.
I don’t always leave my watering cans outside in the winter, but after leaving it outside for all of summer 2021, I also used it on an outdoor Christmas tree that year.
At that time it was holding up quite nicely.
For summer 2022, I had it hanging from a cupboard door sign on our deck.
The transfer was starting to deteriorate a bit then.
I stored it in the potting shed last winter, and then brought it out again in the spring.
Here’s how it was looking as of a few days ago.
Hmmmm, not so good, right?
So there you go, a transfer without a topcoat on galvanized metal will last about three years.
But here’s the good news. It was super simple to remove that deteriorating transfer using steel wool and a little water.
It barely even took much elbow grease, it just scrubbed right off without damaging the watering can in any way.
So if you want to add a little something to a galvanized piece, but you want to have the option to remove it down the line, a transfer without a topcoat is a great choice.
And you know what, I really liked that transfer on that particular watering can.
So I did it again.
I added back the very same Classic Vintage Label. And once again, I opted not to seal it. I like the idea that it’s somewhat temporary. In a few years I may decide that I prefer my watering cans without labels. Or maybe I’ll want to try some other sort of decoration on it. Who knows?
You’re probably now wondering if adding a topcoat over the transfer will improve it’s durability on an outdoor item, and unfortunately I have to say that I don’t know. I haven’t actually tried that.
Now, how about adhesive vinyl cut with a Cricut machine?
I added our house number to an ironstone platter way back in 2014 after getting the idea from this pin on pinterest.
source: onsuttonplace.com
I simply used my Cricut machine to cut adhesive vinyl to make mine.
I have it hanging outside next to our back door. It’s up all year round, including winter.
And 9 years later it is still going strong. Honestly, I’m rather amazed that it has held up over all this time. I totally expected it to start peeling after one season.
But nope, still looks good.
I still have a few of my pieces of garden china scattered around the garden too.
These were also cut from vinyl on the Cricut. I put them away in winter, but they stay out the rest of the year … and they get wet every time I water my pots. But again, they still look great.
The painted ‘signs’ that I create with stencils and chalk style paint hold up just fine outside too.
Even when they are simply top-coated with some of Dixie Belle’s Big Mama’s Butta, as that one is.
I tend to change these out seasonally, so none of them are out all year long. But I do bring them out year after year and they continue to look great.
Next up is the general category of furniture that was meant to be inside, but I’m using it outside … starting with my repurposed guest bed.
I have to report mixed results with this one. The headboard with its I.O.D. paint inlay has held up fantastically well. And I left it up all winter.
Unfortunately, the footboard planter is not doing as well, even though I put it away for the winter. The headboard gets a bit of protection from rain by the overhang of the carriage house roof, but the footboard really doesn’t. It also gets a lot of splash up from the driveway. Then add in the fact that I have placed heavy planters on a shelf that is attached to the back of the footboard, which was probably not meant to hold that much weight, and the end result is this.
The bottom trim is pulling away, and that has created a bit crack in the paint, which is now allowing more water to get in there.
I plan to pull this apart to see if we can shore it up a bit, and then repaint it, sometime before the snow flies. Or maybe that project will wait until next spring. Either way, I’m not giving up on it just yet.
You may remember that I have used dining room chairs as ‘peony cages’.
and over time all but one of them have fallen apart including the one shown above.
I do have its matching chair still wrangling a peony out next to the potting shed, but I’m sure it’s on its last legs.
And if you’re noticing, yes, this is the one peony I have that has ended up with a fair amount of powdery mildew this year.
Bottom line, indoor wood furniture is not meant to used outside and chances are good that any glued joints will fail after a few years.
Iron furniture will hold up a bit better, and if you like a little rust (as I do), it can work out great outside.
I have an old iron headboard that supports the Annabelle hydrangea next to our deck.
I also have an old iron bed that I keep trying to grow clematis on, and somehow it never works out.
I once had an absolutely spectacular Nelly Moser clematis in this spot, and one spring it just didn’t come back. I’ve planted at least three replacements of different varieties since then, and not a single one has taken off. I can only guess that the amount of shade on that garden has increased over the years. The Nelly Moser is a variety of clematis that is more shade tolerant as well, so maybe I need to try that particular variety again.
I do have one other indoor iron item in the garden, well, two really, a pair of andirons that I grabbed free at the curb.
I’ve placed them on either side of my metal arbor.
One last product that I’ve used on pieces for the garden that I want to include in this post is the Patina paint line from Dixie Belle.
I used the Bronze paint with the green spray on a concrete Japanese lantern …
and on a terracotta buddha.
And I’ve used the Iron paint with the green spray to make numerous garden ornaments rusty.
Some of these items have held up better than others, and that depends on the material underneath the paint rather than the Patina Paint itself. Terracotta tends to allow moisture to wick through from the backside, which then causes pieces to deteriorate. But plastic or metal items are holding up perfectly well, even over several years, and after being outside all winter.
It’s also super easy to spot repair your outdoor pieces with the Patina Paint when necessary, as I did with my buddha.
I hope some of you found this info helpful. If you have any questions about how well particular items have held up outdoors that I didn’t answer above, be sure to leave a comment and ask!
I thought this might be a good time to report back on the performance of some of the new perennials that I put in last year.
First, for those who don’t know, I garden in a zone 4b, and we had a very snowy winter last year, although not an abnormally cold one. In fact, according to bringmethenews.com it was 0.4° warmer than average. So I can’t blame any of my plant losses on worse than normal cold temps for my zone. Also, for those of you from warmer climates who might think snow is bad, lots of snow cover can actually a good thing for gardens. It insulates the plants from extreme cold, and as it melts it provides lots of spring moisture.
Speaking of spring, let’s start with the spring bulbs. I ordered a bunch of bulbs from Longfield Gardens last year (now is the time to order if you want to put some bulbs in this fall). Despite the deer trying to eat them all, the Darwin Hybrid Pink Impression tulips did amazingly well.
So well in fact that I ordered 100 more to plant this fall. I also purchased a roll of green wire mesh at a garage sale earlier this summer that I can put around them to deter the deer.
The daffodils that I put in last year did great as well.
Daffodils are deer resistant, so I ordered some more to put in the spot where the deer did the most damage last year.
I didn’t have quite as much luck with some of the allium bulbs. I planted three different types; Sphaerocephalon Drumstick, Atropurpureum and Nigrum.
The Nigrum and the Atropurpureum performed well enough, but I didn’t really love either one. That’s probably why I neglected to get any photos of them while they were blooming.
The Sphaerocephalon Drumstick was blooming a couple of weeks ago. I ordered it based on this photo …
Isn’t that pretty?
But here’s what mine looked like …
LOL, seriously, is that pathetic or what?
It could be that they don’t get enough sun, but a little online research brings up a number of people who have commented on how these tend to flop. I plan to move them to the cutting garden where they will get more sun, and where it won’t matter quite so much if they flop. I’ll just cut them and use them in floral arrangements.
I admit that last year I was a little obsessed with alliums. Not only did I plant the bulb type alliums, I also planted a couple of the herbaceous forms. I planted one called Windy City and three of the Serendipity alliums from Proven Winners. All are performing really well. This one is the Windy City …
And here are the Serendipity with some Unplugged Pink salvia planted next to them (on the left). By the way, the hummingbirds love that salvia.
In May 2022 I planted two types of clematis. The Jackmanii is what I think of as the quintessential clematis, the basic dark purple clematis that so many people have had in their gardens for ages. Mine bloomed quite nicely, but is still looking quite spindly.
The Roguchi on the other hand is amazing. It has completely filled out, and is constantly loaded with flowers.
I also planted those Fire Alarm heuchera in May 2022.
And as I reported earlier this year, they barely came back in spring … and ultimately I dug them up and tossed them.
I also planted a Northern Exposure Black heuchera last year. It’s the deep purple plant on the right below.
After a slow start in spring, it’s looking amazing right now! The heucheras in the Northern Exposure line were specifically bred for hardiness, and are considered hardy down to zone 3 so maybe this is the type of heuchera I should stick to. There is also a lime green version (along with a few more colors) in this series, so I may need to add that to my plant wish list.
I added some Alexander’s Great brunnera to my shade garden last year, and it was gorgeous when it bloomed in the spring.
The flowers are long gone now, but the plants are filling out nicely and I’m looking forward to even more blooms next year.
Proven Winners has a new brunnera out called ‘Queen of Hearts‘ that looks to be quite fab. I’m thinking of searching that one out and underplanting my Limelight hydrangeas with it.
Now, I know I’ve mentioned this next plant more than once already this year, but I’m just so darn impressed with its performance.
That is a Raspberry Splash lungwort (or pulmonaria) from Monrovia. Just look at the size of that thing! OK, it might be hard to tell from the photo, but it’s 2′ across (I measured). Comically, the tag says it grows to 18″ wide. Um, mine has exceeded that by quite a bit in just one year.
However, I should also mention that I planted a 2nd one near my large fountain and it didn’t do nearly as well. Apparently pulmonaria don’t like to be in damp soil, and that fountain does splash quite a bit. I guess the ‘splash’ in the name isn’t literal.
Anyway, I moved that one away from the fountain and it is recovering nicely, but definitely is not as large yet.
Now for a quick lilac hedge update. For those of you who might be new here, I have been attempting to create a lilac hedge on our back property line since 2011. Good grief, that’s 12 years now! Jeesh! Do I wish I’d just gone with a Limelight hydrangea hedge? You bet I do. Hindsight is always 20/20.
Over the years I’ve eventually pulled out every single lilac I planted originally as they never flourished. I really never figured out exactly what the problem was, they get plenty of sun. I blamed it on various things; rabbit pressure in winter, overspray with lawn weed killer, delicate new hybrids, etc. I replaced some of the plants with old fashioned common lilacs a few years back, and those are now about 10′ tall.
My plan was to do that all the way along the line, but last year I couldn’t find any common lilacs, so I planted three newer varieties on the west end of the hedge, a Yankee Doodle and two Ludwig Spaeths.
So far, so good. They are about 4′ tall and have remained nice and full, however, they did not bloom this year. Fingers crossed that they continue to do well because this year I planted an Albert E. Holden and a Charles Joly at the other end of the line. I’m dreaming of the day when we have a solid 10′ hedge of lilacs back there!
Another plant that was new to me last year was Stachys moneiri ‘Hummelo‘, or you may know it as betony.
The flowers were already a little bit spent when I took that photo unfortunately. I’d seen this plant on The Impatient Gardener’s Instagram and had to have it. Fortuitously, my neighbor nnK had it growing in her garden and gave me a couple of chunks of it last year. I liked it so much that I bought two more and added them this year.
Here’s a photo that I grabbed online that gives you a better idea of what the flowers look like.
I planted a few Proven Winners plants last August with mixed results. The Pugster Amethyst butterfly bush did not come back at all. The Magic Show Purple Illusion veronica is looking OK, but didn’t put on much of a show so far. It may not get enough sun in my garden.
I am totally babying the Fire Light Tidbit hydrangea that I put in last year. It struggled to get established last summer, and I’ve had to water the heck out of it this summer to keep it from wilting. It’s starting to put on a little bit of growth, but is still really small. Like, I’m lucky if it’s 8″ tall, small.
I seriously considered just pulling it out and getting a new one for that spot, but in the end I didn’t have the heart to do that. So I planted some annuals around it to fill in and am hoping it will continue to perk up.
Lastly, I planted a Golden Shadows Pagoda Dogwood, also from Proven Winners, in the fern garden.
It might be a few years before it does the job I planted it for. I want an understory tree to fill in the area under my huge maple tree, but above the ferns. It should grow 10′ to 12′ tall and have strong horizontal branching. It has put on a lot of new growth this year, but hasn’t gotten more than a foot or so taller. I’m still waiting for it to pop its head out of the ferns. Fingers crossed for next year.
So, overall I’ve had mixed results from new plants I added last year. Some winners, some losers. How about you? Did you put in anything new that is really spectacular? Leave a comment and let me know.
Before I get into this morning’s post, I wanted to share some disappointing garden news.
Do any of you recall the beautiful row of trees on my neighbor’s property line that I shared last fall?
I’m talking about the brilliantly colored orange/red trees (I believe they are some kind of maple) in the background of that photo (not the yellow foreground tree). There was a line of five or six of them all the way down the property line. And they were simply stunning in the fall. I mentioned how much I loved seeing their fall color in a post last year.
Well, yesterday we spent the day listening to chain saws and the occasional crash as each tree came down. And now all but one of the trees are gone. Such a bummer.
The property they were planted on is a double-wide lot, and it was sold recently. Apparently the empty lot itself was split off and now someone is going to build on it.
Unfortunately, this is how things can go when you don’t own 20 acres or so immediately surrounding your property. Neighboring home owners can remove trees at will, and lots can be split up and built on if there’s room.
The loss of those trees coincides with what I like to call the August slump. I always start to lose steam in the garden about now. By mid-August, lots of things are starting to look a bit tired out. The peonies are getting powdery mildew, the lawn is dried out, the trailing verbena is getting leggy and those darn Japanese beetles are going full throttle.
I’ve been attempting to grow hollyhocks successfully for years, and this was the first year that I got one to actually bloom.
It looked great last month, but little did I know that Japanese beetles LOVE hollyhocks!
I have had to go out and knock dozens of beetles off the plant into a bucket of soapy water in the last couple of weeks. I finally gave up the other day and just pulled out the entire plant. I’ve decided the hollyhocks just aren’t going to work for me.
That has pretty much been my strategy for dealing with Japanese beetles, pull out the plants they love. So far I’ve pulled Virginia creeper, roses, and a wild grapevine out of my garden, and now a hollyhock. I’m just hoping they won’t go for my crab apple next.
I’m sure some of you have also experienced a garden slump now and then, and one way to motivate yourself to get back out there is to get inspired by others. So as requested by a couple of you, here’s a list of some of my favorite garden vloggers on YouTube.
First up, of course, is Garden Answer. Seeing as they have 1.78 million (yes, million!) subscribers, I’m guessing that many of you have already heard of this one.
Without a doubt, this is the vlog I watch the most. Probably because they post a new video every day! When you have 1.78 million viewers, and your vlog is the full time job of husband and wife, and several full or part-time employees, you can pump out enough content to post every day.
I really enjoy Laura’s vlogging style, and her gardening style. I learn a lot about new varieties of plants from watching this vlog. I also get ideas for plant combinations that might work for me. I do admit that watching the massive, and very pricey, projects they undertake may not be everyone’s cup of tea. They recently added a gorgeous pond to their property that would cost at least $80,000 or more (although it sounds like most of the parts and labor were gifted to them). And I can’t even imagine how much their Hartley greenhouse cost. Even some of their ‘smaller’ projects, like adding a row of gorgeous concrete urns that probably cost around $1,000 each are out of reach for most of us.
So if you can’t look past that sort of thing, this might not be the right garden vlog for you.
Erin’s garden is much more realistic for most of us, as is her lifestyle. She has a day job, she does all of her gardening herself on evenings and weekends with only occasional help from her husband, or as she likes to call him “Mr. Much More Patient”, and while she does get some promotional items free, most of her garden projects would be within the realm of possibility for the average person. I also like that she is in Wisconsin in a zone 5b, not quite my own zone 4b, but not too far off.
Kaleb has taken over his grandparent’s farmhouse where he gardens right next to cornfields in Iowa. In addition to gardening, he also includes baking, cooking and other lifestyle content on his vlog. As you may know, I don’t really cook, but I’m tempted to try some of his simple recipes.
I also like that he gardens on what is a much more realistic level for most of us. His garden style leans a little bit more modern (think succulents, agave, and native plantings) than mine, but he also focuses more on foliage than flowers, which I can relate to.
I would consider those my top three garden vlogs, but there are a couple of others that I watch on occasion starting with Gardening with Creekside.
Jenny and her husband own a garden center in North Carolina. Probably the main reason I don’t watch her as much as some of the others is because she grows quite a few things that won’t grow in my zone. That being said, she gives lots of practical advice. I learned what a hori hori garden knife is from her, and now it’s one of my most used garden tools.
I have to chuckle a little bit over this one because he calls his a ‘northern garden’, but he gardens in southwest Ohio in zone 6 … so not quite as northern as my own garden.
He recently moved to a new house and left behind his established garden, so he is starting over from scratch. I think it will be interesting to watch his progress and see what he does with a blank slate.
So, if you feel like you’re in a bit of an August garden slump, check out a few of these vloggers and see if they can’t motivate you to get back out there.
And if you have some favorite gardening channels on YouTube, please share them in a comment. I could use some more inspiration to help get me out of the August slump myself!
We had a bit of rain last week, and when it stopped and the sun came out in the evening, the shade garden was looking particularly lush. So I thought it would be the perfect time to get some pictures to put together a little tour of this area for you guys.
Let me explain the layout a little bit. Our gravel driveway runs along the east side of our house and goes to the carriage house which is all the way back at the southeast corner of our lot. The shade garden sits between the driveway and the house, and pretty much runs the entire length of the house.
OK, now the basics. I garden in zone 4b in the Twin Cities (for those who don’t already know). This garden ranges from part shade on either end to full shade in the middle. It’s shaded by two huge maple trees on the other side of the driveway, and a couple of ancient pine trees down the middle of the garden.
This particular garden is definitely the one that gets the most attention from me. There are a couple of reasons for that. First of all, I much prefer working in the shade over working in the hot sun. It’s so much cooler. So I find myself wanting to spend more time weeding there. Second, it’s very visible from inside the house. Most of our windows look out to this side of the house including our large picture window in the piano room.
So we get to enjoy this garden from inside the house as well as outside.
We never could get grass to grow in the area between the shade garden and the house, although we tried for years. It’s a fairly high traffic area because our spigot is just next to where you see the watering can on the chair on the left. We eventually gave up on grass and put in the flagstone. Ironically, when we started digging up what grass was there, we found a layer of sand under it. So at some point in the past, this area must have been paved in some fashion. No wonder we couldn’t get any grass to grow!
I’ve always wanted to extend the flagstone all the way down, and then create a path to the front door as well, but um, yeah, that’s probably never going to happen. There are too many other things ahead of that on the wish list.
The fountain that you can see down at the end has been located in a couple of different spots since we purchased it, but I like this one the best.
My garage sale statue, Cossetta, sits in the middle of the shade garden.
She’s actually quite tall, but so are the plants surrounding her. There is a fern around her base, and some fairy candles (a.k.a. Black Cohosh, Black Snakeroot, Black Bugbane or Cimicifuga racemosa) behind her. Those fairy candle flowers are taller than me. I think the way Cossetta emerges from the foliage looks rather magical.
This garden is full of shade loving plants. Some of my favorites (other than hostas, which are a given) include tiarella, or foam flower …
Japanese painted fern …
Maidenhair fern …
Canadian wild ginger …
and fernleaf bleeding heart (this one continues to bloom for most of the season, and doesn’t start dying back this time of year like the other bleeding hearts).
All of these make great companions for hostas.
Speaking of hostas, my neighbor nnK’s mom, Judy, gave me three Curly Fries hostas as a thank you for helping in her garden earlier this summer. I planted them in a triangle in front of the wrought iron bench that came from handyman Ken and his wife, Arlene.
Aren’t they fun? Their texture contrasts perfectly with the large blue hosta behind them.
I’m trying to follow a new rule in my garden, and that is to plant at least three, if not five, of a single type of plant. Planting in groupings of odd numbers like this feels more natural and harmonious than having lots of single specimen plants dotted around.
I have definitely not always followed this rule! I mean, let’s face it, it’s 3x more expensive to buy three of a particular plant rather than just one. But, I’ve been working on dividing existing plants into groupings, and whenever I add something new I try to add more than one.
That being said, I definitely still have some single specimen plants like these hostas.
That is a Guacamole on the left, and a Lakeside Dragonfly on the right.
The Sun Power hosta packs a big punch with it’s bright color, so I think it can stand alone as well.
It’s flanked by two June hostas, and that yellow blooming plant in front is a freely self-seeding Corydalis lutea. It pops up all over the place, but it’s also quite easy to pull out if it shows up somewhere that you don’t want it.
Something that I’ve been experimenting with a bit more this year is interspersing some annuals in with my perennials, usually to fill in a space where a neighboring perennial won’t reach full size for a couple of years. I pulled out some bleeding heart last year and after popping in three of the budget heuchera ($5 each!) that I found in the clearance aisle at my local nursery this spring, I also added in some King coleus to fill up the space.
It has created a gorgeous swath of colorful foliage.
Another good way to fill up some empty space is to place pots right in the garden.
My ‘Sun King’ aralia will eventually fill in this whole corner, but in the meantime a couple of my rusty pots filled with caladium look pretty here.
By the way, have I mentioned that I prefer my gardens to be jam packed with plants? It really cuts down on weeding.
There can be some issues with plants that are crowded in like this, they are competing for water and nutrients and there is a greater risk of disease and insect pressure. But personally, I think it’s worth the risk.
I hope you enjoyed this little tour of my shade garden. If you have any questions about particular plants, be sure to leave a comment and I’ll do my best to answer them. Otherwise, I’m heading out to enjoy a cup of coffee in the shade garden!
Today I thought I’d ask you all the question, ‘hosta flowers, yes or no?’
In the past I’ve mentioned that I tend to cut the flowers off my hostas as soon as they appear. But that’s partly because I have 500 (small exaggeration) of this old variegated variety of hosta in my garden …
and it has tall, spindly flower stalks with tiny lavender flowers on them. You can see a couple of stragglers that I missed clipping in that photo.
If I just let them go, they look really messy and chaotic to me. So, I have always trimmed them off.
In fact, in the past I’ve tended to remove the flowers from almost all of the hostas in my garden.
But this year it seems like the flowers on quite a few of them are really looking good.
Rather than having spindly flowers poking out in every direction, they have nice full clumps coming from the center of the plant.
Maybe it’s because they didn’t suffer any hail damage this spring. Or maybe it’s because I top-dressed a lot of them with compost this year. Or maybe it’s because I have been very diligent about keeping them watered. We’ve had a very dry summer so far, currently we are experiencing what is considered a moderate to severe drought, so I’ve been doing a lot of watering.
Or maybe it’s just that I’ve never let them reach their full glory before!
Whatever the reason, this year I’ve decided that some of the hosta flowers deserve a spot in the garden. In fact, I was standing over at nnK’s house across the street the other evening, and I noticed that from a distance it looks like my garden is full of purple blooms right now, and that’s not a bad thing.
One of the most prolific bloomers at the moment is this one …
This is a hosta that originally came to me from my friend Sue, and I’m fairly sure it’s called Golden Tiara. Over the years, with lots of splitting here and there, I now have at least a dozen of them.
Another that’s full of flowers right now is this one.
I’ve got it tucked in between some Golden Tiara hostas on the right, and that glorious Raspberry Splash pulmonaria on the left. I have no idea what this one is called, it’s similar in size to the Golden Tiara but is solid lime green.
Most of my hostas have pale purple flowers, but I do have a couple that get white flowers.
Wouldn’t that be a pretty addition to an all white blooming shade garden?
This next one starts out with pale lavender buds that fade to white as they open.
Not all hostas bloom at the same time. I have several borders of a plain green hosta (also gifted by my friend Sue) that aren’t showing any signs of blooming yet.
In fact, oddly enough, although I’ve had these for years, I can’t even recall what their flowers even look like. Clearly I don’t grow this variety for the blooms. Instead, they make a great edging plant for a perennial border. In fact, I just dug up two of them, divided the pair into 10 plants (yes, 10!, five each) and replanted them as a border under my Limelight hydrangeas.
They don’t look like much right now, but they will fill in quickly and create a solid border.
And speaking of hostas that aren’t blooming yet, one of my readers, Annie O, gifted me with a Royal Standard hosta that she says gets beautiful, and highly scented, white flowers. But it’s also one that hasn’t bloomed yet (on left).
As is the Shadowland Autumn Frost hosta to the right of it.
I’ve done a little research and as far as I can tell, it does not harm your hosta in any way to remove the flower stalks before they open. And you should definitely remove them after the flowers fade to reduce the amount of energy the plant spends on producing seed. It can then devote that energy to growing more roots and foliage instead.
So I’m curious, do you whack the flowers off your hostas right away? Or do you leave them until the flowers are done? Do you have a particular hosta that you grow for its spectacular flowers, or do you pick hostas for their foliage alone?
I used to love going to the Tangletown neighborhood garage sale, it was always one of my favorites. Unfortunately, it’s one that bit the dust during Covid. The last one was held in 2019, and they haven’t brought it back. Such a bummer.
But last weekend I found myself in Tangletown once again, this time at Tangletown Gardens.
If you are local, and looking for some garden inspiration, this is a spot you should check out. It would be better if you’ve recently won the lottery, because I’m not going to sugar coat it, their prices can be high.
That may be partly because they have a lot of unique offerings that you won’t find at your typical garden center, like this Tibouchina grandiflora, or Princess Flower.
They have this one planted in what I’m going to call their boulevard (a.k.a. verge, tree-belt, the section between the sidewalk and the street, what do you call it?) border.
More on those borders in a minute, but as for that Princess Flower, it was $24.99. I did a bit of googling and found that it is grown as a shrub in tropical climates, it’s hardy in zones 9 to 11. So clearly not here in Minnesota, meaning that we would grow it as an annual. That’s certainly a pricey annual!
But really, despite the high prices, Tangletown Gardens provides a wealth of inspiration starting with the various planters scattered around.
You definitely aren’t going to find your traditional petunias here. I like the use of Scotch moss in the planter above, at least I think that’s what that is.
I also like that they used birch logs in this next planter.
Of course, we’ve all seen birch used for winter arrangements, but turns out it looks pretty good in summer too.
I also like how they’ve carried over the plants in this next trio of planters to the ground surrounding them, it’s as though they’ve spilled out of the planters and onto the ground.
Let’s take a closer look at the plants themselves.
I believe that bright yellow grass is Hakonechloa, or Japanese forest grass. The front center plant seems to be a coleus, and there is a cala lily behind it. In the upper right of the photo is an upright fuchsia. Have you seen these? I actually bought one by mistake earlier this year. I was rather annoyed when I got it home and read the tag because I wanted the trailing version for my front window box. I ended up putting the upright version in the Gregory’s Catalogue bed planter and now, a couple of months later, I’m realizing that I really like it. I may buy some on purpose next year.
As you can see, it’s holding its own height-wise amongst coleus and ferns.
Although the planters at Tangletown were fantastic, the star of the show for me was those boulevard borders that I mentioned earlier.
They were nothing short of spectacular.
Isn’t this a fun little plant …
I should have paid attention to what that was called, but unfortunately I did not.
They used a wide variety of plants in these borders, both annuals and perennials, ranging from your typical things like zinnias, gomphrena, celosia, grasses, and coleus. But they also had some more unusual things like that Princess Flower I shared earlier.
They also used a plant that I’m finding is super trendy right now, Angel Wings, or Senecio candicans. It’s the plant below with the big, silvery wings … I mean leaves.
Isn’t that gorgeous? As I mentioned last week, I’m not typically a fan of silvery foliage because it looks like powdery mildew to me, but I might make an exception for this one.
They also used one of my new favorites, Verbena bonariensis. It’s the tall, wispy plant with purple flowers …
I’d been seeing a lot of this plant on my favorite British gardening show, Gardener’s World, and although I looked all over for it at my usual nurseries I couldn’t find it at any of them. I did end up finding it at the Abrahamson’s in St. Croix Falls, but I now know that I can also get it at Tangletown Gardens.
The main reason I was visiting Tangletown Gardens this time around was to look for scented geraniums. My friend Jackie, who loves to grow plants for their scent, told me that this was the place to find them. And she was right.
They had quite a number of different varieties.
I know it’s weirdly confusing, but the flowers most of us call geraniums aren’t true perennial geraniums at all, they are pelargoniums. Basically geraniums are perennial plants like this one (also called Cranesbill) …
or this one (Geranium macrorrhizum, or Bigroot Geranium) …
Pelargoniums are annuals usually grown for their flowers, or in this case, their scent.
In my opinion, most scented geraniums are not grown for their looks. They tend to look a bit spindly, and their flowers aren’t usually very impressive. So keeping that in mind, I chose both of the ones I purchased strictly by smelling them. Scented geraniums come in lots of different scents like apricot, chocolate mint, rose, peppermint and nutmeg, but I chose two that both have a lemon scent.
First up is Pelargonium ‘Mabel Grey’.
And the 2nd one I chose is Pelargonium ‘Prince Rupert’ variegated.
I’ve placed these on the tiered plant stand that I found at the Fridley garage sales (after giving it a quick coat of black spray paint).
It’s sitting in between my newspaper roller planter of succulents and my galvanized tub herb garden. You may remember that I mentioned having chosen a couple of the herbs for their scent as well; lemon verbena and lavender.
Our outdoor dining table is right next to this, and this is often where I sit to have coffee in the morning. Mr. Q and I frequently eat dinner out here too. These scented plants are best enjoyed up close and personal. I find that you have to brush against them to release their fragrance, so this is the perfect spot for them.
Although they were priced just a little higher than what I would normally pay for an annual at $7.99 each, I plan to over-winter them as houseplants. I hope to get many years out of them.
So tell me locals, have you been to Tangletown Gardens? Or have any of you grown scented geraniums? Leave a comment and let me know.
As you may know, I have a window box along the front of my house. Here’s a picture of it from last year.
At 11′ long, it ends up taking quite a few plants to fill it with annuals every spring. Not to mention mums for fall …
and evergreens for winter.
I find that there are two ends of the spectrum when it comes to filling window boxes; at one end you have the gardener (not naming any names here) who plants exactly the same thing in their planters every year without fail.
Then there are gardeners like Erin from the Impatient Gardener who can’t stand to do the same thing every year and thus tries something new each spring.
I think I fall somewhere in between. When I find something that works I like to stick with it. But I also don’t want to fall into a gardening rut. So this year I decided to step outside my comfort zone and experiment with some new things in the front window box.
Unfortunately, in my opinion, the resulting combination is a bit of a fail.
Before I start listing the plants for you, I’ll point out that this window box faces north and is in full shade which limits the plant options considerably.
My starting out point was a Streptocarpus Ladyslippers™ Deep Blue Vein that I found at the Amish nursery in Wisconsin that nnK and I visited in spring.
I’ve grown this plant as a house plant in the past, but had never put it outside in a planter. These plants were just loaded with gorgeous purple flowers when I saw them at the nursery so I thought they’d add a fabulous pop of color. And actually, they did look great for about 6 or 7 weeks, but lately the blooms have petered off quite a bit. After doing a bit of research I learned that temperatures above 80° will cause that. So … maybe not a great choice for an outdoor planter in summer. They also haven’t grown much, so they are getting swallowed up by some of the more vigorous plants.
My next ‘mistake’ was taking the advice of a random stranger at the garden center who suggested that Dusty Miller would be a great companion to the Streptocarpus.
I hadn’t grown this plant in forever. I can remember planting it in the ground way back when I was new to gardening. So when she suggested it, I thought ‘why not?’ After all, I’m experimenting with some new options.
But I have to say, I don’t really love it. It’s doing great, but I think I’m just not a fan of ‘silver’ foliage.
Which leads me to my next plant choice, Dichondra Silver Falls.
I’d been hearing about this plant on various gardening vlogs lately and I needed something to tie in with the Dusty Miller, so I gave it a shot. I will say that it is also performing exceptionally well, I mean, just look at it (photo above). It clearly loves this spot.
But again, I don’t love that silver foliage. You know what I think it is? To me it looks like these plants have a bad case of powdery mildew.
I also opted to add a second pop of color with a couple of Amstel Netja Dark begonias.
An Amstel begonia is a cross between a tuberous begonia and a wax begonia. Again, I hadn’t grown begonias in years. I’d never had good luck with them in the past, I tend to overwater them leading to root rot. They are rather picky about not sitting in wet soil. But these newer varieties are improvements over those I planted in the past, so why not give it a shot.
And once again, I was drawn in by that gorgeous color. It’s always tricky to find a plant that will bloom reliably in the shade.
Although these have done fairly well with continuous blooms for color, they also haven’t really put on any additional bulk. Much like the Streptocarpus, they aren’t holding their own against the other plants in the box.
I did put a couple of old favorites in the window box too including a Dark Eyes fuchsia.
These always do really well in this north facing location. They tend to be messy plants, dropping those flowers all over the place, so I wouldn’t use these in a spot where they would hang over a deck or patio. But there is a garden beneath this window box and the flowers all fall down under the plants below.
Finally, I also planted some Diamond Frost Euphorbia in the window box.
It always makes a great filler, but this year it is quickly taking over and almost smothering the other plants.
So, in the end, I’m calling this year’s front window box a bit of a fail. Although most of the plants look rather pretty up close, in combination and from a distance they just look rather anemic to me.
I don’t think I would repeat any of them, except the fuchsia.
I would use the euphorbia again too, especially if I ever decide to do another all white and green combo like the one I did in 2014.
That one included the euphorbia along with white impatiens, a white caladium, some jester ferns and some ivy. And it was one of my favorites.
It was a fun one to transition into fall too. I simply pulled out the impatiens and added white mums and pumpkins, and some flower heads that were turning green from one of my hydrangeas.
I have to give the award for ‘most spectacular combination’ in a window box to this one from 2021 though.
That combination of coleus, sweet potato vine and lemon coral sedum just pops.
There were some white New Guinea impatiens in that mix too, but as you can see they got rather swallowed up as well.
In the end, I learned some valuable lessons from the choices I made for this year’s window box. I think next year I may try another all white combination again. In the meantime, I may try to salvage this year’s combo by pulling out the Streptocarpus and the begonias and replacing them with something else. We’ll see.
But how about you? Have you learned any lessons from garden fails? Leave a comment and let me know.
q is for quandie 