Gardens Inspired: July 2012

July 30, 2012

Give your garden a late summer trim

Clip off any broken stems and spent flowers to make way for fall splendor.

- by Debra Anchors

Fairy Roses and Lavender

August is the perfect time to renew the garden. If you give beds and borders some extra attention in late summer, the garden will come back to life and carry on well into fall. Begin the important task by sprucing up perennials that have finished blooming. Cut back all the straggly flowering stems clear to the base of the plant.

Remove all the dried seedpods of daylilies and iris, being careful to prune the woody stems all the way down for a tidy appearance. Then gather up your courage and cut back any tattered foliage that makes your garden look over the hill. Particularly in a dry summer, daylilies, iris, cranesbills, lady’s mantle, speedwell and even astilbes take on a decrepit look that won’t improve without this kind of radical action.

Mulch around the newly groomed plants with compost or well-rotted manure, and water them well.

Fill in the blanks – Make some notes about which areas are now vacant before the foliage grows back; these are ideal spaces to plant bulbs in the fall. Next spring you’ll have drifts of color between perennials before they leaf out fully; and by the time your daffodils and tulips have finished blooming and their leaves have turned yellow, the perennial foliage will expand to cover the spent plants.

If you enjoy this website, you might like my magazine, Gardening Life.

Thank you for stopping by to spend time in my garden. If you liked the article, please take a moment to let me know. I will be delighted if you would suggest Gardens Inspired to your friends, follow me or subscribe to my Blog.

Leave a legacy, but garden like you’ll live forever!
-Debra

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July 23, 2012

Gardening with annuals

- by Debra Anchors

Collage of Annuals

Annuals are superb problem solvers. As most experienced gardeners will attest, annual plantings are unequaled for providing affordable color - filling gaps, extending the garden’s bloom, and providing a seemingly endless supply of cut flowers.

If you are willing to start from seed, annuals offer a very economical way to fill the garden with color. Even if your landscaping budget is limited, you can still afford almost instant gratification if you plant your designs initially in annuals. To give the garden permanence, phase in perennials as you can afford them.

Direct sown vs. transplants

The selection of annuals you’ll find as garden-ready transplants at your nursery is plentiful. But, to gain access to the full diversity of annual flowers, you must be willing to start plants from seed yourself.

Typically, this is done in one of two ways – by sowing seeds indoors on a sunny windowsill, or by sowing the seeds directly into garden beds. Indoor sowing is popular in the North because it gives the gardener a head start on spring. Direct sowing, however, is less work and produces just as good a display – especially where the growing season is long, as in the South. Many kinds of annuals may be started by either method. Some species, though, only respond to one kind of planting method. Snapdragon and petunia seeds, as examples, are so tiny that they are liable to wash away if sown outdoors and are therefore routinely started indoors. And, ageratum seedlings are so delicate that they do not cope well with the stress of an outdoor nursery. Iceland poppies have extra-sensitive roots that seldom tolerate the disturbance of transplanting. Although occasionally started in peat pots indoors, poppies generally grow better when direct sown.

A Brief List of Annuals to Direct Sow	Annuals Best Started Indoors

Baby’s breath	Ageratum
California poppy	Coleus
Feverfew	Flowering tobacco
Giant sunflower	Heliotrope
Godetia	Hybrid verbena
Iceland poppy	Impatients
Larkspur	Lobelia
Love-in-a-mist	Petunia
Nasturtium	Snapdragon
Opium poppy	Spider flower
Pot marigold	Zonal geranium
Scarlet runner bean
Sweet alyssum
Wind poppy

Annuals are genetically predisposed to stop flowering as soon as they have set seeds. To keep your display in bloom, you must pinch or snip off all the aging flowers as they start to fade.

The limited life span of annuals is a great advantage when it comes to pest control. Perennials can develop fixed pest populations that overwinter and then reappear each year with the plant. By varying the kinds of annuals you plant in any given spot each year, you ensure that your floral display never develops a similar problem.

If you enjoy this website, you might like my magazine, Gardening Life.

Thank you for stopping by to spend time in my garden. If you liked the article, please take a moment to let me know. I will be delighted if you would suggest Gardens Inspired to your friends, follow me or subscribe to my Blog.

Leave a legacy, but garden like you’ll live forever!
-Debra

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July 16, 2012

Night-Scented Flowers

- by Debra Anchors

Odorless by day, their fragrance at night is intoxicating.

If you spend time during the evening in the garden, or if you have the window open as you sleep, you would really enjoy night-scented flowers. They are some of the loveliest scents of the plant kingdom, and they engage snooping. Even when you take cuttings for a vase, these flowers “remember” to release their fragrance at dusk and then hold tight to their scent during the daylight hours. Some of the night-scented flowers are listed below.

Four O'Clock

Four O’Clock flowers come in cheerful shades of reddish-purple, yellow, pink, and white (some are bi-colored). They open in late afternoon and smell lovely throughout the evening and night.

Night-Scented Stock
Photo courtesy of TM Seeds

Night-Scented Stock looks so unassuming by day that you could toss it aside as a weed, but at night its cross-shaped pinkish-purple flowers release a heavy, intoxicating aroma.

Hosta, Royal Standard
Photo courtesy of Hosta Patch

Hostas, for the most part, are scentless, but some smell very sweet at night. ‘Royal Standard’ blooms for weeks in August and September with large white flowers on stalks three feet tall. Other fragrant hostas include ‘Fragrant Blue’, ‘Honeybelle’, ‘So Sweet’ and ‘August Lily.’

Tobacco

Tobaccos are available in a variety of colors and include many species with flowers that release a rich, sweet fragrance at night. The plants often look inelegant and they have sticky, smelly, poisonous leaves. But, many gardeners are willing to overlook those faults for the sake of their floral perfume.

Other flowers perfuming the air at night include many species of Lily (Madonna, Easter, Gold-band, Regal, and the Aurelian and Oriental hybrids), Moonflower, and Soapwort (this one is invasive and grows anywhere, so plant it away from your garden beds).

If you enjoy this website, you might like my magazine, Gardening Life.

Thank you for stopping by to spend time in my garden. If you liked the article, please take a moment to let me know. I will be delighted if you would suggest Gardens Inspired to your friends, follow me or subscribe to my Blog.

Leave a legacy, but garden like you’ll live forever!
-Debra

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July 10, 2012

Window-box basics

-by Debra Anchors

The eyes are windows to the soul, it is said. Similarly, windows themselves may provide clues to the character of a house. Surely a home adorned with colorful window boxes is one ready to welcome us with open arms!

The primary advantage of window-ledge gardening is that just about everyone can participate. Fresh potting soil, plentiful water, and a few dollars’ worth of annuals are all a gardener needs. Apartment dwellers that complain of a lack of full sun can join in, too. Plants such as caladiums and fuchsias, as well as today’s astounding range of single and double impatients, stand ready to fill a shady container.

Tips for creating a beautiful and healthy window box –

v Choose plants best suited to the container’s location; small dahlias, scaevolas, nasturtiums, snapdragons, and bedding geraniums in window boxes on the south side of the house, for instance, and trailing fuchsias, violas, and tuberous begonias on the east side.

v Select plants with similar cultural needs (moisture and nutrients) for the same container.

v Promote bushy growth by pinching back young plants and pruning leggy stems. Deadheading spent blossoms will encourage plants to produce more flowers.

v Plant closely to create a full look from the beginning.

v Fertilize with a balanced fertilizer (such as a 16-16-16 or 15-30-15 formulation). Avoid using high-nitrogen fertilizer, which promotes leaf growth at the expense of flowers.

v Never allow containers to dry out completely, as the soil will be difficult to remoisten. If regular watering will be a problem, you may want to purchase a window box with a water reservoir.

Thank you to Gofflebrook Farm for the images.

July 1, 2012

Attract wildlife with a bird bath

-by Debra Anchors

Photo: Johnson's Nursery Inc.

Birds are fascinated by water. They’ll come to a fountain or pool and hop around the edge, staring and exploring, occasionally bending down for a quick sip.

Birds also love to dip and splash, but are fussy about where they bathe. From their point of view, the ideal bird bath is in a cat-free neighborhood, close to brushy shrubs where they can hide if they’re disturbed and feel protected as they dry. If you’ve put out a birdbath that goes unused, try moving it. When it’s in a suitable location, birds will find it soon and return regularly.

In hot weather, birds bathe daily, and you’ll have to refill the bath every morning or evening. The water should be shallow – one to two inches is deep enough, and the bottom should provide good traction. If you have a birdbath that’s slick inside, spread a layer of gravel in the bottom. In cold climates, a birdbath with a built-in heating element will keep the birds happy all winter.

If you enjoy this website, you might like my magazines, Upcycled Garden Style and Gardening Life.

Thank you for stopping by to spend time in my garden. If you liked the article, please take a moment to let me know. I will be delighted if you would suggest Gardens Inspired to your friends, follow me or subscribe to my Blog.

Leave a legacy, but garden like you’ll live forever!

-Debra

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