Garden Weasel At Work

It's a thing, going from a grayish green house to a bright barn-red house. I never thought much about what color flowers I'd put up against the old dull siding. I really have to think about what I'm using this year, and I'm loving every minute of it.

The old gray siding is still on the garage. Sigh. We ran out of money. I can't believe our house was ever this color. But I picked it. It seemed safe. Yawn.

Our friend and my hero Marilyn Ortt gave me a start of her Missouri primrose about 22 years ago as a housewarming gift. It's never been more beautiful than this spring, the spring when we lost her. She did more for Marietta than almost anyone I can think of. Started and maintained our recycling program way back before it was cool. Served on the Tree Commission. Started, with my MIL Elsa Thompson, the Marietta Natural History Society. Fought for open spaces and nature preserves and clean air and water...she was amazing. I think of her every time I look at these primroses. Treasured plants are like that. You remember the people who gave them to you.

They say that redheads shouldn't wear pink. Hmm. I disagree. I'm diggin' this magenta and green petunia, with white heliotrope, pink Cape mallow, red Cuphea, pink verbena, and yellow and rose-throated petunias. I don't put pink right up against the siding, but it's fine a ways out.

 I ventured a little red in geranium "Wilhelm Langguth," then swung over to my favorite petunia, "Papaya." I think it looks fine against the siding. Maybe not the red geranium. Still tinkering.

A better shot, in shade. An astute observer will note Kalanchoe or Paddle Plant "Fantastic" in the rear basket. I love those things.

Cobalt blue, as in my beloved lobelias, is the PERFECT accent color for barn red. Yum!!

I'm learning...

Here's my favorite tangerine hibiscus, frozen to the soil, representing with her first blossom since November 23, 2013. It  took a LONG time for her to pick herself up by her bootstraps and send up some shoots. Man, that was a long wait. But she's coming back at last. Her two cutting kids are, too.

While the single orange hibiscus hasn't been replaced in my heart, I have to admit that my ultrafancy hibiscus "The Path," a Logee's Greenhouse specialty which was a gift from my dear friend Donna Quinn, is coming into her own...

TA-DAAAAA!! That's a six-inch blossom there. I like big buds and I cannot lie.

Not only that, but each one lasts two entire days! I've never had a hibiscus last more than one day in warm weather. She's extrasexyspecial. That pink throat kills me. Everything about this plant kills me. She tried to die three whole times in the greenhouse--hated the cold nights. But she hung in there and so did I. She doesn't much like winter, but loves summer. Hey, me too. 

Here's that awesome green and pink petunia again, paired with New Guinea impatiens and lobelia. I'd love to slip a Persian shield plant in there, come to think of it...

A bit of a plant collector...a crazy monkey plant collector. Lori, there's the beautiful variegated agave you sent me!

And the Ruby Red grapefruit tree is in the bottom blue pot. The two grapefruits it's bearing are the size of navel oranges now!! Phoebe has threatened me with harm if I dare eat one without her. Maybe Christmas break they'll be ready? I don't know how long it takes. Anyone? Months? A year? They set fruit sometime in February.

Another planter in the making, with Fuchsia "Betty," Abutilon "Blushing Belle" and Rex begonias "Ring of Fire" and "China Curl." Very pretty combo.

If I have one complaint about the abutilon, it's that it makes too darn many flowers. Imagine that. But really, it gets in the way of its growth pattern! Weighed down by its own blossoms.

Logee's. This one is a bit overbred, if you ask me.

A new discovery for me, also from Logee's, is a tropical spiderwort (Dichorisandra pendula) they call "Weeping Blue Ginger." Well, it's not a ginger, but I adore the growth habit. So very elegant and Oriental. It's covered in blue three-petaled buds that are taking their own sweet time opening. I just dig the shiny dark green leaves and its angular habit. It's going to be awesome when it blooms. I think this is going to be a huge plant. Already two feet tall and reaching for the stars.

Phoebe has developed a penchant for cutting flowers, so I'm planting 40 Blue Point florist's zinnia plants for her. Our little nascent cutting garden, soon to be set out in the beds.

I lost so many perennials to cold (ALL of my beautiful cardinal flower that the hummingbirds loved so much) that I'm going to have to fill in a lot of holes with zinnias, which they also love. Must look for some good cardinalflower. I will miss it so in July. 

The view out the kitchen window. Garden Weasel paradise. Adore my mini Phalaenopsis and Doritaenopsis orchids inside on the windowsill.  If you wonder why so many are in pots, it's because the rabbits eat pretty much every annual I try to plant in the ground. They leave most of my perennials alone, though they devoured my creeping phlox and Virginia bluebells this year, dammit!  They'll reduce a geranium to a pile of leaves overnight. Eat it to the ground. Lobelias, same deal. Impatiens, forget it. We have a LOT of rabbits. Chet, get on that. Little dude goes on bunneh and chipmunk runs about a dozen times a day. No effect.

Yep, looks like somebody lives here, somebody who, after the worst winter ever, can't get enough flowers, sunlight, color and June.

When June comes...

Spread them shadders anywhere.

I'll get down and waller there!

Rench my throat in wild honey 

and whoop out loud!

Part of the James Whitcomb Riley poem my father loved to recite. He'd trail off there, having forgotten the rest. Like father, like daughter...

Being Iowa born, he generally didn't have much good to say about Hoosiers, but he loved JWR's poetry. Me, too. The poetry. Got no beef with Hoosiers. 

The Kindness of Friends

More blessings, showering down. My dear friend Donna from Virginia ordered some fragrant, colorful, sexy plants to be sent to me from Logee's Greenhouse.  One is a South American vine called Angel of the Night, Randia ruziana, described by Logee's as

One of the sweetest, most intoxicatingly fragrant flowers we have ever found, the white 8” long, tubular flowers have a 5-pointed petal that naturally bends but when unfolded reaches 5-6” across. The fragrance is very long-lasting. We picked a flower and dried it on a piece of paper. The next morning, after the flower had been discarded, the fragrance lasted for days on the paper. Another bonus: this winter bloomer will flower for two months or more. To bring Randia into bloom you must allow the flower buds to form in late summer and early fall on the old wood; therefore, only prune once flowering is complete. This South American native has an open branching habit and can be grown under moderate light. 

Hey. That works for me!! Fragrance that lasts for days from the imprint of a single flower? Ho-KAY!! Good plant pickin' Donna!!
-

Here is Angel of the Night, newly arrived, with a little brindle Angel of the Morning for scale and cuteness.

The plants came in subfreezing temperatures, packed in Styrofoam with a chemical heat pack inside. 

In the same box was a hibiscus called The Path. It's a stunning yellow and red monster of a hibiscus, perfect in name and form. It's going to be a huge plant. I cannot wait.

Clearly, Chet Baker can wait. He's waiting anyway.

Randia (who lost some leaves to the too-hot heat pack, ironically) and The Path installed in the greenhouse, bringing it back to life...the freeze alert en garde.

Donna, you fill my heart. You're there every day for me and you send these fantastic plants on top of that. Weep. Thank you seems wholly inadequate, but it's what I've got.

But wait, there's more. A dear blog reader named Laura from California up and ordered me a gardenia. She told Jackson and Perkins she wanted one loaded with buds that would stink up the whole greenhouse. They obliged.

"Hi Julie. May this baby perfume the greenhouse hugely. Thanks for all that you give to the world."

Bawwwww!! 

I couldn't wait to open that box.

Got buds? Mmm hmmmm! Oh my gosh!

I assigned Chet to comfort the chilly gardenia, bring it back up to temperature before it went out to the steamy greenhouse. He obliged.

The plant was fairly shouting. HERE TO MAKE YOU HAPPY!!

IS IT WORKING??

 

Yes!!

YES!!

You betcha!! I promise to love, honor and obey every directive of these three plants as long as we both shall live. For they do speak to me and tell me what they need. And it is my great pleasure to try to satisfy them.

Thank you thank you thank you. 

My sweet neighbor Beth grew four dwarf pomegranates from seed, and she saved the prettiest one for me. I'd never heard of such a thing, never seen a pomegranate, much less a dwarf one. And it's in bloom!

I did a little reading and found out that dwarf pomegranates can get 8' tall, but that they also make excellent subjects for bonsai, having tiny leaves and a tendency to make a woody trunk. Not to mention the cool goldfish-shaped waxy flowers



one of which is now exploding with a crinkly tissue-paper fanfare of orange!

Making a tropical bonsai of this plant is a no-brainer for me.
Amazing how losing most of my plants has introduced me to even more kinds to love. And awakened me to the kindness of friends and neighbors, and people I don't even know who care anyway.

Now to finally decide what I want from Logee's with my gift certificate from Charles from Texas. Got a hibiscus! Got an Angel of the Night! Got a gardenia! That leaves...everything else. Weezy from Texas and Tim from Columbus widen the choices.

Delicious choices.

My friends, you make my life rich in so many ways. I'm humbled by your expressions of love.  Crystal wrote from New York to say that these greenhouse posts have made her decide to make her sunroom into a greenhouse. The thought that someone would decide to bring plants into her life and home because it sounds so nice here makes me warm all over.

And Donna. This photo taken the evening of December 18.  Hibiscus "The Path" has two tiny buds that get bigger every day. 

That little green light is the frost alert, on duty.