Calgary Garden Coach

note to self: skip the teasel next year

Since I'm talking about things I started from seed this year (giant annuals and more annuals), let's talk about teasel.  It has occurred to me that I'm always reporting about what's doing well in my garden but not the things that aren't doing so well.  I'm not trying to deceive anyone, it's just that I've developed a gardener's mentality that I like to try new things and if some things don't work, then no big deal, I chalk it up to a learning experience!  So I make a mental note but since it doesn't seem a big deal I rarely think to talk about it.  One of the great things about gardening is "there's always next year."

Anyway, here's one of my "learning experiences".  I tried teasel this year.  I was sure I'd seen someone growing it in Calgary before, and I thought it would be a fun plant for the kids because the Squirrel character in the Little Grey Rabbit stories that they love always combs her tail with teasel flowers.  So I ordered some seeds and then when the packet came it said "blooms in the second year".  Uh-oh.  Since it's not hardy here, I was pretty sure that meant I wasn't going to be getting any teasel flowers.  And I was right.  The teasel is the plant in the bottom center of the photo above - looking rather uninteresting, wouldn't you say?

more annuals in my garden

Besides the giant annuals I seem compelled to grow every year, I did try to be more restrained this year and grow a few smaller things as well.  Here are some more annuals I started from seed this year:
This euphorbia is pretty, although the variegation did not appear until just a week or two ago so it didn't look very exciting until then.  And it is rather spindly so if I grow it again next year I must remember to plant them much closer together.

Snapdragons - love them!  This year I grew the 'Ribbon Series' which gets about 18 inches tall - not quite tall enough to need staking which means less maintenance for me (because really, I never would get around to staking them until it was too late).  I love them especially because they are very frost tolerant so can go in the garden early and they bloom much later than many other plants for an extra long season of colour.  My kids also like to pick the flowers and make the dragons "snap".

Sweet peas, another must-have!  Actually I tried morning glories as well this year (another annual vine) but they barely even started to grow until recently and there is still no sign of flowers - hence no photo.  After planting them, I found a reference that said they really like heat and therefore they probably aren't the best annual vine for Calgary.  I'm going to give morning glories a pass next year and just plant more sweet peas.  Right now I'm cutting bouquets of sweet peas every few days and the smell is heavenly!  I also have a sweet spot for them because they were in my wedding bouquet!

Painted sage (also called clary sage) self-seeds a little bit around my garden but I always start some from seed to make sure I have more.  I always get questions "what is that plant?" so I know it's a keeper!  The bracts turn pink, purple or white and look very unusual.  This pink one happened to pop up in the new side of the front garden, probably because a seed found its way into my compost bin.  That's bearded iris in the front and catmint 'Walker's Low' and sedum 'Autumn Joy' in the back.

Cosmos - I also love these and start some every year.  So easy to grow and the more you cut 'em, the more blooms you get!  Great for bouquets.

giant annuals in my garden

I only started growing my own annuals from seed a few years ago.  I think I started to get greedy - I could have so many more flowers for so cheap!!  Greedy, but true. And annuals are a great way to fill space while you're waiting for shrubs and perennials to mature.  But by this time of year I'm always overwhelmed with the giant annuals I grow (see the annuals are taking over 2008 and too full 2009).  I must make a mental note for next year to grow some smaller things, because my perennials and shrubs are getting bigger now and I'm running out of room for the big stuff.  Or else I just need to plant less of it...

Nicotiana sylvestris has been easy to grow for me and gets up to 6 ft tall in my garden!  Every year after I plant it, it takes a while to start growing and I think I'm not going to bother growing it again. But then it starts flowering and the scent overwhelms me! So sweet! The big leaves sure grab your attention as well.  I don't really have space but maybe I should make some?

The lavatera 'Silver Cup' is a must-have.  It is getting huge and bush-like but I just keep cutting it back and making bouquets with it.  Love it, love it, love it!

The verbena bonariensis can be seen here in front of purple monkshood, pink lavatera, purple liatris and white echinacea.  This is called a "see-through plant" because it is so wiry that even though it is tall, you can plant it in front of shorter things and can see through to the things behind.  It self-seeds a little bit but I always start some from seed to make sure I have lots in the garden.  It's also a butterfly magnet.

I already mentioned that my castor bean isn't as big as usual this year, but I think that is due to location.  I also start this from seed every year.  I never really know where I'm going to put it but I jam it in there anyway.  And I'm supposed to be a garden designer?

Here's a cloud of borage in the bottom right of this photo.  There are several such "clouds" in my garden.  This plant mysteriously appeared in my garden one year, and once you have borage you will have it forever.  I do love it though (and so do the bees!) and it is easy to pull up and remove any plants you don't want.  This year I started resorting to giving some away.

And finally, there's cardoon, which I wrote about here.

build retaining wall - check!

Whew!  Actually, this is not quite done as we still have to get a few bricks cut to fit the wedge-shaped gaps in the top row due to the curve of the wall, and we still have to replace the patio bricks that butt up against the bottom of the wall.  Still, it was a big job and this is close enough for me.  I have wanted to get this wall done for a long time because it just looked so bad before.

The fact that the wall doesn't look level is mostly an optical illusion due to the fact that the wall angles back into the hill on the right hand side (mostly...).  And look at that poor lawn that had a huge pile of soil sitting on it for a couple of weeks!  Good thing neither my husband nor me are "lawn people" - it'll grow back eventually.

Now I get to plan what I'm going to plant here - the fun part!  Actually I already have a few ideas I'm mulling over but I want to spend some time looking at the wall before I decide.  I'll fill you in soon!

what's blooming in my Calgary zone 3 garden, Aug 25 2009

In the front entry garden, the lilies and veronica are finishing, but the catmint, yarrow and daylilies are still blooming away.  Echinacea and purple sedum just started blooming, and the 'Tiger Eyes' sumac is already changing colour for fall!  Sigh.

Closer to the house, the garden is dominated by Annabelle hydrangea, bee balm and monkshood.  Painted sage and spirea are also still looking nice.

Heading around the side of the house, the lilies have already finished here (more sun) but the globe thistle and clematis are still blooming, and the liatris is just coming into bloom.

In the butterfly potager, the lilies are still blooming (although I really need to protect them with something because the dog keeps stepping on them - hence the cut ones on the picnic table).  Hyssop, daylilies, thyme, annual nasturtiums, poppies and scarlet runner beans are also still in bloom.  The peas are just finishing up and I'm going to rip them out this week.  Joe Pye Weed and hollyhocks have lots of buds on them.

In the back shade garden, the ligularia and hostas are still blooming and the astilbes are just starting.

In the kids' adventure garden, there is lots going on!  The liatris and echinacea are starting to bloom, and the larger annuals such as borage, nicotiana sylvestris, lavatera, verbena bonariensis and cardoon are really taking over.  The castor bean isn't as large this year because I planted in a spot that doesn't get as much sun, but I'm ok with that.  Snapdragons (annuals from seed), daylilies, monkshood, peachleaf bellflower, roses and lilies are still blooming, and sedum matrona and russian sage are just starting to open up.

And in the area of my garden my kids like to call "England" (not because things grow there as if they're in England, unfortunately), the tomates are FINALLY ripening!  This has been a very late year.  I also have sweet peas and cucumber here.  Other edibles are planted here and there around the yard: raspberries finishing, peas finishing, scarlet runner beans just starting, as well as lettuce being harvested regularly and carrots and beets being occasionally thinned.  Yum!

note to self: don't bother harvesting cardoon next year

Here's the cardoon growing at the back of my garden.  I started it from seed this spring on a whim, because I'd read lots of recent articles about it being such an "architectural" plant for the ornamental vegetable garden.  I planted it cause I thought the kids would like it - the leaves are huge and the interesting flowers look like artichokes.  But as I was cutting it back last week-end (because of course, I planted three much too close together), I decided I may as well try to eat some!
I should have known when I started googling "how to cook cardoon", that I shouldn't have bothered.  As far as I can tell, you're either supposed to blanche the stems before harvesting, or peel and boil the heck out of it with lots of salt and lemon to remove the bitter taste, then serve with a heavy cheese sauce.  Hmmm...  So I boiled the heck out of it with lots of salt and lemon, but after a quick taste test decided not to waste the cheese sauce!
Anyway, it was an interesting experiment.  I still like the look of this plant and I'll probably grow only one next year, instead of three, if I can find space for it.

retaining wall update - don't ever ask me to build another one of these!

Sorry for my sporadic and mostly wordless posts lately!  It's busy around my place these days.  Work and family are the biggest priority right now as I go back to my "real job" from my summer off and my oldest gears up for Grade 1.  Let's just say big changes are afoot not only in the garden!!  And if you're hoping for more gardening and design tips, you'll just have to read my blog in the winter or go into the archives!

BTW, I finally went back and updated my winning gardens post and what's happening in my garden Aug 10.

But back to the wall - we had two days a week or so ago to get a big start on the retaining wall project.  Here's what it looked like before we started.

So... how far did we get?  Well, it took the first day just to clear the area to get ready to build the *&$% thing  (I'm not frustrated, just tired!)  Poor hubby had to dig out two tree stumps (the one below is still leftover from our Christmas tree harvest last year):
plus the logs that formed the original retaining wall.  Some of those suckers were huge and buried deep, too!  And I'm not even going to mention the myriad of existing tree roots we also had to cut through to clear the area. Sometimes an established yard with lots of big trees doesn't seem as desirable as you might think...

Here he is at the end of the first day, poor guy!  Does he look tired to you?  But for me, I kind of enjoyed watching swinging his axe and pick around and getting all sweaty!  Tee hee!

The second day's goal was to lay the foundation for the new brick wall and to get the first row of bricks put down.  We didn't quite get that far....  The trouble was we had to dig a trench so that we could lay the bricks flat to figure out exactly where the curves were going to go, but we had to figure out where the curves were going to go so that we could dig and flatten the trench...  You get the idea!  A bit of a trial-and-error process.  I was starting to wonder if we should have called a professional.
But anyway, we sort of got it figured out eventually.  I have to live with a few less curves than I originally planned, but at this point, I'm OK with that!

Here's where we got to by the end of the second day:

Phew! Remind me to never, ever do this again.  Did I mention each of those bricks weighs 30 pounds?

Anyway, the babysitting is used up and now we're slowly getting the rest of the wall done whenever we have a moment or two. We've got 3 1/2 rows of bricks laid now, and the rest should get done this week-end, including backfilling.  Then another week-end to fix the patio around the wall, and we'll be done...  I hope!!  Wish me luck.

stachys byzantina (lamb's ears) - a plant for bees

I planted lamb's ears because my kids love to touch the velvety soft leaves, and I hadn't really thought of it as a "bee plant".  But my little clump has been buzzing away with them, and one morning last week I even found this guy, fast asleep with dew on his back.  It's much easier to take pictures of bees while they're asleep!!

purple daylily in front of agastache foeniculum (hyssop) 'aurea'

hemerocallis (daylily) and self-seeded borage

clematis 'Polish Spirit' and rose 'John Cabot'

asiatic lily and echinops ritro (globe thistle)

what's happening in my Calgary zone 3 garden, Aug 10 2009

This is very unblogger-ish of me, but I'm going to have to post later.  This time of year, it is hard to keep up with my own garden, plus consulting, plus blogging!  But I do want to post some pics for my own records.  We're also busy at home this week with the retaining wall project.  If we're lucky it'll be done by next week...
Hope you're having a good week in your garden.  Check back soon!

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the dry stream bed in the kid's adventure garden: too full?

Way back in spring I planted some lavatera, nicotiana sylvestris cardoon and verbena bonariensis from seed, in order to "fill up" this garden which was only started last year.  Yikes!!  They're all huge and blooming away now.  You can't even see the cardoon at the back and I have to keep cutting the self-seeded borage back.  But still, annuals are a great way to fill up space while you're waiting for your perennials to mature.  I think I'll skip the nicotiana sylvestris next year, though.  It just takes too long to get big - in the spring you wish it would fill up a spot faster, and now it's so huge you can't walk on the pathway beside it!! 

... the lavatera, however, can stay.  It's just too beautiful!!

a backlit calamagrostis 'Karl Foerster' in front of the kid's adventure garden

verbena bonariensis (from seed) in front of peachleaf bellflower and blue salvia

lavatera, asiatic lilies and borage

ribbon series snapdragons started from seed

elderberry 'Black Lace' and asiatic lilies

asiatic lily 'Landini' and sedum 'Matrona'

lavatera, asiatic lilies and blue oat grass

enough rain already!

Normally, as a gardener, I never complain about rain.  It's an opportunity to take a break from my normal morning garden rounds, plus, free water?  Bring it on!  Not to mention that rain water is much softer and warmer than water out of the hose so is better for the plants and soil.

But, this was supposed to be the week I am moving soil out of the way in order to get ready to build the new retaining wall.  This was on my May to do list and guess what, I haven't got around to it yet!  But the grandparents are lined up for babysitting this week-end and that's probably going to be the only opportunity this year I will have to get this project done.  Please, please, stop raining!!

breaking the rules - on moving perennials

This is the front welcome garden viewed from the house.  Although I call it the "established side" of the front garden, it was only finished 2 years ago and still has to fill in a little in spots.  This view was calling for a little something extra so this morning I grabbed some short, orange asiatic lilies from a spot in the back garden (where I had always intended to move them from anyway), and plunked them in here.  They sure brighten things up, don't they?

The general rule is to move spring-flowering perennials in the fall, and fall-flowering perennials in the spring.  The reason for that is that if you move plants close to their bloom time, they will be putting energy into blooming rather than into establishing their roots in their new home, and thus the plants may suffer. 

Bah!  Suffer, shmuffer!  Once you have some experience in the garden and know which plants are super tough, go ahead and experiment.  I've moved plenty of plants against the rules (I also just moved a dianthus in bloom and this spring I moved bleeding hearts, for example).  That said, some fussier plants might not do so well or they just might not flower as well this year.  I'm sure there are a few plants I've moved against the rules and which didn't do so well, but sorry, I can't think of them right now!  I generally don't grow fussy plants anyway.

I sure like moving perennials while they're blooming or at least while they're at full size for the instant gratification you get!  This wouldn't have been nearly as fun if I'd waited until fall to move those lilies.

a happy accident: self-seeded clarkia and iceland poppy

bergenia, hosta and festuca glauca...

...with lilies, and self-seeded clarkia and borage in the background.