Today Post::UFOs in the Garden

No, we haven’t been invaded by aliens. UFOs - unidentified flowering objects. Scattered around the garden are a number of plants that I can’t identify, one of which has been bugging me for years.

It’s a pretty little flower which has grown on our rockery for at least thirty years. It’s a hardy perennial which creeps along at ground level, is drought tolerant, grows happily in minimum soil in the cracks between the rocks, and in June/July puts out loads of daisy-like flowers from the rosettes of leaves. It also seeds easily - a couple of years ago I took some of the seeds home to grow on the balcony. I posted about it then in fact, but with only the seedling to go by, no-one managed to identify it. It did fine until the heat struck and then couldn’t take it.

But what is it? I’ve not been able to find it anywhere on the net or in gardening books. Any ideas? I’d love to resolve the mystery.

The garden is full of bulbs. Every time I turn over a forkful of soil it brings up loads of them. Many are just bulblets which are not yet ready for flowering, but I’m saving them all and dividing them into types. Most will go straight back into the garden when I’ve finished weeding the beds, but some will come back to Milan with me so that I can find out what they are.

One type is already sprouting. A lot of them were in the middle of the lawn. I have no idea how they got there or what they are, but I’ve dug them up and replanted them all together in the bed which I yanked all the borage out of the other day, in front of the daffodil bulbs. I hope they’ll go well together.

Another mystery plant growing in the lawn is undoubtedly a weed, but one I’ve not come across before. I dug it up thinking I’d find more bulbs, but no - there’s an ominous looking taproot. For the moment I’m going to have to ignore it. When the lawn is mowed it hardly notices, as it just looks like a thick leaved grass, but it grows at a rate of knots in comparison to the grass and soon becomes evident if you don’t go round it with the lawnmower frequently. It’s probably something I should be dealing with, but I’m afraid I don’t have time …

And then there’s this little plant which is almost as invasive as the borage which I talked about a couple of posts ago. It’s everywhere, including in the lawn, despite the fact that I thought I’d got rid of it last time I was here. I don’t actually mind it in the flower beds. Until I’ve got anything else to put there, it at least provides ground cover, and it’s better than grass or borage. But what is it? It has pretty, heart shaped leaves, a thickish root and produces purplish seed pods. I took a few of them back to Milan two years ago, but couldn’t get them to germinate. Ironic, as they clearly self seed like crazy here. I’ve never seen it in flower - if there are flowers of any note they must bloom at a time of year when I’m never here.

So - if you have any ideas about any of them, please let me know so I can take them off the UFO list. I’m sure that really they all have a rational explanation…

Today Post::Synchronised leaf stripping

I found these caterpillars in the garden yesterday - they’re quite clearly in training for the next Olympics, which are being held a couple of miles from here. The synchronised leaf stripping event. Not bad - though the ones on the bottom need to get their tails up a bit more if they’re to be in with a chance. I could wish they’d waited a bit longer to move into the area though - my garden is not the Olympic Village and they’re polishing off what little is left of my poor roses. Oh well, sport has to be encouraged amongst the young, I suppose …

Today Post::A good new border plant - but not quite?

Senecio fuchsii (S. nemorensis seems to be more or less the same).

One of those plants that should have been a British native, but isn’t, and although it does a fantastic job of brightening up the dark and dreary hedge bottom at a time of year when not much else does, is not the sort of thing which leaps out at you as the perfect new border plant.

A plant which raises questions then.

First of all, why is it all over woodland edge habitats in hilly areas from Belgium down to Bulgaria (from whence comes my stock) but not Britain? And why doens’ it look quite garden worthy.

Its absence from the British flora can only be put down to everything having been scraped off by the last Ice Age and it not having a chance to blow back in, when the English Channel effectively pulled up the gangplank on the full flora of northern Europe re-establishing itself.

And its looks? Too much like ragwort for some (related of course, but completely different in its details of leaf and flower shape, and not toxic). The leaves are a lovely dark green, the flowers plentiful and a good yellow, but there are petals ‘missing’ so there is a kind of scruffy feel. And a re-design would definitely make it a bit shorter than its current 1.2m, and therefore less likely to flop.

One for some selection and improvement?

Today Post::Hydrangea Dilemma

Wow, can we grow hydrangeas. They are one of the few things which continue to thrive in the garden despite the neglect. They’re all pink mopheads, and I’ve noticed that these have been getting a bad press around gardening blogs recently. But I love them.

Yes it’s true that they can start to look tatty when the colours start to fade, and the pink becomes a dirty cream colour, like the ones below. And if, like mine, the dead growth hasn’t been cut away for two years, they look even tattier, with dry brown heads everywhere. But I love them just for those weeks when they are an enormous mass of pink flowers …

They’re also nice used as cut flowers for the house - they’ll last for a week or so in water …

We have three in the garden, two at the back and one at the front. They must have been there for at least thirty years by now. When Dad was alive he would turn them blue - not difficult here as we have a naturally acidic soil - but they’ve long reverted.

Over the past week I’ve been tidying them up a bit. I’ve got rid of the blackberry bramble that was growing all over the one below, and cut away the dead heads and stems. With the result that they now look a bit battered. But they’ll bounce back.

I’ve also taken cuttings. I put them into a propagator the first day I was here, and they’ve now rooted. One at least will go home with me to the balcony, but I’m not sure what to do with the others. The idea was to plant them in the beds which are currently being taken over by grass and borage, hoping that they’ll survive the winter (please, please let it be mild) despite the fact that they’ll not have had long to establish themselves. Perhaps if I mulch well …

In particular I thought of establishing a hydrangea hedge in the bed that separates my garden from my neighbours, plus a couple out back. The dilemma is : what’s better, a bare garden full of weeds or one that seems overrun by hydrangeas?

Planting a lot of other stuff is out of the question. The house is in such a state that it’s draining the budget, and anyway there’s just no point spending money on a garden which, quite likely, no-one is going to look at again till I come back. I have picked up a couple of special offers at our local DIY centre - 200 mixed daffodil bulbs for £10 and four bush roses for the same price. OK, it’s not the ideal time for planting either - though I’m just within the limits for the daffs - but it’s the only time I have.

So I suspect one of these days in the years to come you’ll be reading a post which reads something like damn-hydrangeas-why-ever-did-I-plant so-many. Oh well…

Today Post::Yergh - Borage

Never, never plant borage in your garden unless you can keep it in a container and be there to cut off all the flowers before they go to seed. Yes, I know I said that two years ago. But it’s still there. Despite digging - I thought - every single root out of the garden when I was last here, it’s back as if nothing had ever happened. It’s in the flowerbeds, it’s in the lawn, it’s in the cracks in the paths … Borage must be the most invasive plant in existence.

Needless to say, I didn’t know that when I planted it about fiften years ago. It seemed such a pretty plant, with its broad green leaves and stems of blue, starry flowers. but since then it’s been a constant battle which I know I’m not going to win until I can actually stay here for a year and deal with each plant one by one, and each seedling as it germinates, taking action at the first sign of sprouting leaves.

The problem is that digging doesn’t help unless you can be sure of getting every single bit of the root. And it’s almost impossible. Borage has huge taproots which will grow back if you leave even a bit in the soil. So I’ve tried another strategy this year. Despite the fact that I generally avoid chemicals, I sprayed with a systemic weedkiller to try and kill the plant before starting to dig.

That has meant a nail biting wait - and all the heavy work in the last weeks of the holiday(should that be “holiday”??). The weedkiller had a fairly evident effect on the leaves almost immediately - but I had to wait to give it time to work on the roots. And in the meantime I started to see the plants I’d missed - healthy green new leaves sprouting amidst the curled brown ones. So I had to go round those with more spray - and wait again. And then do a third round for the ones I’d missed both times.

I think I’ve now got it all, and I’m starting the digging. I tackled a small bed in the back garden first - I thought if I could get a few of my daffodil bulbs in, it might spur me on a bit to a job I’m really not looking forward to. It’s heavy work and I’m going to bed each night with pains in muscles I didn’t know I had. There were relatively few plants in the small bed - but some of the roots were monsters, and they still filled an entire bucket.

Did I get them all? I doubt it, but I’m just hoping that the weedkiller had had time to get down to the bits I missed. The bulbs went in and I’m now fighting the squirrel who keeps digging them up again. He doesn’t seem to want to eat them, and in a comment on another post Daffodil Planter said they were poisonous. So I suspect he’s just taking advantage of the soft earth to bury his acorns and hoicking my bulbs out of the way in the process. Anyone know any good squirrel repellent?

Back to the plot. The disadvantage of waiting so long is that I’m not going to be here when the seeds germinate in the nice earth I’ve prepared for them. Last time, by digging early I manage to hoe the new seedlings before I left. This year, though I may have dealt with the roots more effectively, I may even have created a worse problem. Ah well - come back in two years time. There will undoubtedly be a post in August 2011 which starts Never, never plant borage in your garden ….

Today Post::tomato photos

Giant Belgium

Orange Blossom and Big Beef

Cherokee Purple and New Girl

Sungold and Brandywine Suddoth’s Strain

Hillbilly

Mortgage Lifter and San Marzano
Purple Calabash

Here’s a photo of each of the varieties of tomatoes I have growing now. One plant of each. I have 5 plants left (of 16 planted) at my community plot and 8 (of at home.

Today Post::My latest guest blog: The Real Flower Company.

Many of you who follow me on Twitter will know that I have a few different projects in the pipeline at the moment.

The latest was creating a guest blog for The Real Flower Company.

I was very excited to be asked to write for such a great company and I hope you enjoy the current and future articles!

You can leave comments at the bottom of the guest blog too!

Today Post::melons and martinis

Charantais melon

Crane melon and Sugar Baby watermelon

Anne Arundale melon plant under the corn stalks

My melon plants are looking really scrawny still. The cool, wet weather has not been good for them. They’ve ended up buried beneath tall corn or rampant squashes. But this week is finally perfect melon weather - 90*F and full sun. Fruit is setting. But it seems late to me and I’m wondering if any will have time to ripen.

The real farmers have plenty of melons already. I had a very nice melon from Picadilly Farm (NH) last night. The good news is I’ve discovered another delicious martini! Perfect for the hottest days of summer. Cheers!

Today Post::photos of my tomatoes

Today Post::this week's harvests

Today Post::bees in flight - busy pollinating my vegetables!

(BugGuide ID request for this bee)

I heard a nice story on NPR the other day (The Buzz On Bees: Coping With Vanishing Colonies, August 7, 2009). Mostly about urban bees.

I didn’t know there are 227 bee species in New York City - all year-round residents. And 4,000 across the US. Its wonderful to think of such biodiversity in backyards.

Unfortunately, bee numbers are still declining. “There’s been an estimated … 36 percent decline .. since last year.”

I was interested in the description of a recent study. So far, no single factor explains bee decline. “All of the research over these past years have left us still kind of scratching our heads. In fact, one of the largest [studies] we just published earlier this week, where at least 61 or so variables were investigated in colonies afflicted with the CCD or colony collapse disorder kind of syndrome. And the long and the short of it is, is that no one factor really seems to have a strong correlation with the disorder. And so what seems to be the case is that there’s a combination of many different factors…” (vanEngelsdorp, et al., 2009, PloS ONE)

Probably many different problems all together are affecting bee populations.

My experience with bees this year has been positive. My cukes and pumpkins are being pollinated fine and I see lots of bees in both my gardens. More than last year. I also notice a lot more flowers and around my neighborhood and our community gardens. More interest in gardens here. That’s got to be good for the bees.

(BugGuide ID request for this bee) Xylocopa virginica (Eastern carpenter bee)