Calamintha nepeta wasn't a plant I chose. It chose me. Several years ago, I attended a writer's conference and received a plug pack that contained a mixture of Summer Beauty allium and Calamintha nepeta. Neither looked very impressive. But being the plant junkie that I am, I found a sunny sight for them and waited. And man was I impressed! I wasn't struck the way one would be by the enormity of a hardy hibiscus bloom. The fascination came from the way this little plant with the delicate white flowers hosted a United Nations of insects all summer long with no effort from me beyond the first year in my garden. It's a very soft spoken plant. Sometimes those are the ones most worthy of our attention. The frenzy of pollinators darting through it created all the buzz it needed. I love ...
Search Results for: pollinator
Dahlia Fail and a Change of Heart
The dahlias are tucked away despite the fact that I swore off trying to overwinter them again after last year's dahlia fail. I killed all except one variety. It was my first attempt at overwintering dahlias and I thought the garage was the perfect spot. As it turns out, it's not. Chalk this fail, there have been many, up to some serious gardener error. Three crates full of clean, plump, labeled tubers by March had become three crates of shriveled, puckered pods. I learned two things from that experience – the garage is too cold for dahlia tubers and you have to check your tubers monthly. Ok three things. I stink at this dahlia thing. I went to all that effort to store them and basically forgot about them for months, expecting they'd be just as I had left them months before. Well, these ...
Tough Perennials for a Colorful Fall Garden
Place the word "tough" in front of a word and oftentimes you get a negative meaning. Meat. Disposition. Decision. Childhood. No one likes tough meat or a tough childhood for that matter! But put it in front of "plants" and every gardener listens. Tough plant you say? To survive in my garden, you (the plants) gotta be tough. I'm not a plant coddler but instead subscribe to the Joan Crawford school of gardening. So when I was planning my side yard last winter, I focused on tough plants for a fall garden. It's very specific, but being specific keeps me on point and narrows my focus. With so many plants from which to choose, it's easy to get overwhelmed. Here's my criteria: 1. I want flowers until frost. 2. I want to to see them from inside the house. 3. I want to do as little as possible ...
Black-Eyed Susan is the Perfect Late Summer Bloomer
I was listening to an Instagram Live chat between two well-known British garden designers earlier this summer and the conversation turned to the color yellow, or as these Brits referred to it, eff off yellow. I'm cleaning it up a bit here as they used the f-bomb to describe the unwelcoming affect of yellow in the garden. Apparently, it's rather obnoxious to the English eye and it got me wondering about the yellows, specifically the various kinds of rudbeckia or black-eyed Susan, I have throughout my garden. In no way do I find them offensive, maybe because I'm only part English. Whatever the case, I love yellow no matter how offensive others may find it and I thought you might like it too. It's funny, though, how the opinions of others can make you question your plant choices. ...
Going Native One Plant at a Time in My Backyard
I've partnered with the National Wildlife Federation's Garden for Wildlife program for this post. All thoughts are my own. If you asked me 20 years ago what a native plant was, I probably would have said it was anything I couldn't kill. Which pretty much summed up my awareness. In the beginning, I was like a kid in a candy store with little plant knowledge but wanting one of everything. It was purely superficial and based solely on flowers. I quickly learned that the one of everything approach results in something more like a weed patch and less like a garden. I'm still trying to control that impulse, but I've also learned that my tastes have shifted. I still want beauty, but my definition of it has changed. For me, beauty encompasses all that my garden attracts. From the tiniest ...
Treating Chlorosis Is Like Locating Toilet Paper in a Pandemic
Chlorosis is pretty. I wish those dark green veins and yellow margins were an interesting attribute instead of a window into one of the affects of alkaline soil on an acid loving plant. Apparently, I'm not the only one having trouble locating the soil amendment I need to fix my chlorosis problems. June is the month for it. Iron-tone as well as several other products for treating it are flying off the shelves. I never thought I'd write something like that. Then again, I never would have predicted toilet paper's rise in popularity last year either. Who knew a pandemic could inspire such a movement? Until now, soil amendments have been pretty easy to come by. But I'm happy to report I finally found Iron-tone. With the price of gas rising by the hour, the phone was the only way to handle ...
