August Rocks: Garden Tour 1

The August cooldown is here. A Canadian air mass is holding sway and the air smells of hay and sweet wine. 

I took a garden tour last night after spending much of the day mowing, raking, weeding, and preening my flower beds. I don't do a lot of preening. There's too much of the other stuff to be done. 

I'm celebrating right now because I am no longer in pain. I returned home from New England to find two weeks' worth of grass growing wild on a saturated lawn. It had rained for most of the time I was away. I mowed it into soggy windrows, the mower gagging on the clumps, and Liam and I raked the whole damn yard the next day, after the sodden green wad of clippings had had a chance to not dry overnight. It was like raking wet cow manure. My lower back went into spasm from overuse and stayed that way for almost three weeks. Oddly enough, getting in and out of my car was the most painful thing I had to do. I'd sit and think about how I was going to complete the maneuver for about 30 seconds, then begin the process. I felt 100 years old. Having a complaining back affects almost everything you want to do. I send this message of hope out to back pain sufferers everywhere. It does heal. I mean, an overuse injury does. I also give you this link to Lawrence Gold's simple floor exercises which Liam and I did together. Not surprisingly, he healed a lot faster than I did. These exercises sped the process for both of us, for sure.

Anyway. Pain is boring. I wanted to take you on a little garden tour because the rain that brought the pain has also brought such beautiful flowers to my gardens.  We'll start at the front door.  I'm happy with this hanging basket. Supertunia "Honey" is finally showing some good color after being a bit bleached out for most of the summer. 

I don't think I bought a single lobelia plant this year. They're all seed volunteers from various planters and pots in the greenhouse, carefully picked out and nurtured in separate pots when they volunteer. That's how I roll--scrounging and saving, getting as much as I can for nothing.  I did buy some seeds of multicolored lobelias and was happy to get this one. I was going for the dark amethyst but the rabbits ate most of them to the ground. There's a theme here. If I want to grow rabbit candy, I have to elevate it.

The Achimenes are FINALLY blooming. They got a very late start thanks to freaking chipmunks (I'm looking at YOU, Tilda Sixbuttons!!) 

who climb my bonsai shelves and dig up the rhizomes to eat. Then they chew up the plants just to make sure everything is completely dead. 

I had this beautiful scheme this year to grow Pink Nighty plants for sale at the Marietta Farmer's Market. I had long planters all planted with my best rhizomes, saved back from being sold at my talks (I sold a passel of 'em this spring!). And chipmunks ate all but about 13 rhizomes. I know now I'll have to start them inside next year. I'm thinking about using the glassed in tower room as a sort of auxiliary greenhouse for such tender n' tasty things, when it's gotten too hot and sunny to have them in the greenhouse proper. 

This is "Pink Nighty," and man, oh man is it pink. Shocking Pink Nighty. The iPhone exaggerates, and takes away some of the nicer coral tones, but it is that bright!

I just love this little gesneriad. Adore it. And am so happy to finally have some abloom on the benches. I don't dare put them on the front porch. Tilda will definitely devour them, if Notch the bunny doesn't get there first. 

A chipmunk-planted black-oil sunflower came up amongst the evening primroses in the front bed. It's too tall for the front but it's so charming I let it stay. 

A first for me: Fuchsia magellanica, native to temperate parts of southern South America, and hardy in Ohio, started blooming in July! It usually waits until September. Don't know why, just grateful. And Hosta "June" is incredibly late to bloom, so I have this probably unrepeatable combo going in the front shade bed. Hummer heaven!

I absolutely love having a hardy fuchsia around. So durable, too. And it roots from cuttings in plain  water. What's not to love?

Moving on out from the front door, Chet pauses to make sure he is in the photo. You can see those big beautiful hibiscus thoroughly enjoying their summer at camp. They just love sleeping under the stars.

Creole Lady says YEAH!!

An awful photo of that gorgeous little dwarf pomegranate bonsai which is exceeding all expectations for flowers and fruit!!

It's got at least four garnet-red pommies about the size of cherry tomatoes and a continuing cascade of neon-orange ballerina tutu flowers in leathery calyxes. What an awesome plant!!

Let's head out along the garage sidewalk toward the vegetable garden. Rudbeckia "Goldsturm" is battling with a hardy hibiscus  for supremacy. I've about had it with the hibiscus. So big and leggy and woody and thuggish, and it makes babies everywhere. But the thought of digging it out makes my back twinge. Maybe I can poison it. :D

I'd really rather grow roses, zinnias, cosmos and Rudbeckia. The foliage to flower ratio is much better on those.

Yes. Dig out those hibiscus. I will help you. Well, I will supervise.

Look how his little paw is just striking the sidewalk. 

The Ongoing Garden Tour

 I can already feel summer slipping away, see it in the yellowing leaves and hear it in the tree crickets and the mournful kowp of the cuckoo. So I've saved it here, and I'm enjoying going through blossoms present and past and sharing them with you. Here's Rose of Sharon "Satin Blue," much the finest Rose of Sharon I've seen. Great big glorious blue flowers, shiny big dark green leaves. Its breeder seems to have conquered the spindliness that makes so many older Rose of Sharons look ungainly and out of place.

 

I miss the snow peas already. I got a bad batch of seed, labeled "Sugar Snap" and actually about 95% snow peas. They were delicious anyway, but I'm not going to buy them at Apex next year. Somebody was asleep at the wheel in the bulk seed section.

  

My friend Nancy gave me a spectacular calla lily called Flame. 

 

Never having grown one, I was enchanted by its single long lasting flame-orange flower, and its speckled tropical leaves.

 

 It comes from a big bulb that I'll dig and save over inside. It's too precious to leave it to the elements.

In the same shaded garden, Fuchsia magellanica is blooming like mad. Native to Chile, it's hardy over the winter, a most disarming thing: a hardy fuchsia that comes bravely up in spring and blooms hard until frost. Hummingbirds love it, of course. I like to wonder if it's the progenitor of many cultivars.

 

Speaking of hardy plants, here's an iceplant Delosperma cooperi. Apparently it's native to South Africa. I'd always hoped it was native to California, since I saw it growing amongst the rocks in Monterey. Hmm. Clarification needed. It persists through the winter and blooms all summer long. Very nice solution for the stone steps on the side of our house.

Of course I'll have my fancy little annual portulacas, too. I love those plants. My dad always grew them and called them "moss roses." For some unfathomable reason the rabbits left them alone this year. Usually they're wabbit candy. Yay!

 

 The lavender hedge was spectacular this year. It was buzzing with bees and ever so fragrant when brushed against. Of course I let it sprawl all across the sidewalk just so we can brush it with our legs. Phoebe deliberately careens into it while riding her razor scooter so she can smell of lavender, if not of old lace.