Gardening in Vermont - Perennials and Annuals

Fall Flowers in Vermont

2011-08-26T05:42:00.000-07:00

Fall is around the corner and our early mums are showing color. If you see mums in full bloom right now here in Vermont it is because they have been tricked, with the use of dark covers, to think the days are shorter than they really are, forcing the flowers.

Once the mums really get going I like to use them for bouquets, as they are long lasting. Typically I will combine whatever perennials are blooming with with annuals I have on hand. One of my best performing annuals this year has been "All-Around Purple " gomphrena" which has supplied blooms on long stems for months now.

'All-Around Purple' Gomphrena

Another annual that I like for bouquets is didiscus, kind of a light blue Queen Anne's Lace. I hope next year I remember to somehow stake this one.

Didiscus

'Little Joe' Eupatorium ('Joe Pye Weed') is supposed to be a a diminutive version of the species, at 3-4' feet. Not so in my garden - it's still at least 5 feet tall, but the flower is smaller and more refined than the species and it lasts a good long while in a bouquet.

'Little Joe' Eupatorium

Sanguisorbia canadensis ('Canadian Burnet') does its thing right now. I like the foliage of this plant all season and am always happy to have some spikey white flowers for bouquets in the end of summer. Verbena bonariensis is always a favorite of mine providing loads of flowers and I never go without pink lavatera. I don't find the white lavatera is as long lasting in bouquets. It also seems more attractive to insects.

Lavatera 'Silver Cup'

I was a reporter for a daily newspaper for seven years and managed to write something just about every day. You would think keeping a blog would be a piece of cake. Apparently not.

Summer Marches On ....

2011-08-03T11:03:00.001-07:00

The daylilies continue their show and we have started transplanting for next year. The mums are growing fast and need to be spread out. Hard to believe!

'Red Ribbons' (above) is a pretty spider daylily which won 'best spider' daylily in 1992.

Above is a close-up of 'Howard Goodman' and a shot of the row in the gardens. Interesting that I also grow a daylily called 'Howard Goodson.'

Among the new and impressive blooms -

Starman's Quest

Snow Blizzard

Ruth Whitten

Moses Fire

My planting by the milk house did nicely this year

and 'Jackmanii' clematis did particularly well.

Tomorrow I deliver flowers to a wedding in Thetford, so it will be the first time I have missed farmers' market. I'm sure they will survive without me!

Summer is Definitely Here - The Sale Continues

2011-07-25T05:48:00.000-07:00

The hot weather and high humidity slowed me down last week, although the plants seem pretty happy. I like to water in the evening when it is cooler and the water will have more time to do its job. We have put our shade cloth on the biggest greenhouse, so that makes things bearable inside.

All baskets are now $10 each, perennials in quart pots are $2.50 and six-packs are $2.

I have planted containers for a wedding Aug 6. The requested colors are yellow and white, an informal country look, sand I think these will be fine.

The daylily sale (buy five at $6.50 each, get the sixth free, your choice) is moving right along and quite a few happy campers have left with full cars.

Siloam Ury Winniford is one of my favorites. I like all the 'siloams,' but this one is particularly floriferous and perky.

SILOAM URI WINNIFORD

I love the blended colors on Smokey Mountain Autumn.

SMOKEY MOUNTAIN AUTUMN

I sell quite a few white daylilies, and Gentle Shepherd is probably the whitest, but it also has thin pedals and doesn't hold up all that well.

GENTLE SHEPHERD

Because of the nasty "lily beetle" I no longer sell Asiatic or Oriental lilies. Neem oil is recommended when you first see them and I did manage to control the bugs on my one planting of lilium superbum with one timely spray. However, they have returned with a vengeance.

Researching these insects I learned that they squeek when held. The first beetle was officially sighted in Cambridge, MA in 1992. Females lay up to 450 eggs and it is the larvae that are quite repulsive. They look a bit like slugs with swollen bodies and black heads. The reason they start to look particularly gross is because they secrete and carry their excrement on their back. I wonder what THAT is all about.

LILLIUM SUPERBUM (DBA 'Turk's Cap')

I do love these lilies and with the exception of the lily beetle, they are easy to grow. I guess I will offer them next year, although tall plants are hard to handle when grown in pots.

Our three other greenhouses are filled with ... mums. The seasons march on.

Vermont Daylily Sale

2011-07-18T06:25:00.000-07:00

The daylilies have started to open and mine are ALL offered at $6.50 a piece. AND - if you buy five, the sixth one is free - your choice. This is retail only, as I don't ship plants. We grow all our daylilies in the field and pot up large plants. Many of the pots have more than five fans.

- Here's a quick sampling from the more than 100 cultivars offered -

CHARLES JOHNSTON

BURNING INHERITANCE

BARBARA MITCHELL

BUTTERFLY KISSES

NILE NIGHTENGALE

RUBY SPIDER

HOLIDAY DELIGHT

HOWARD GOODSON

We are closed Monday, so it's nice to have the time to pop outside (in the drizzle) and take these photographs. I hope everyone is having a lovely summer.

Vermont - Sale on ALL Annuals

2011-06-23T04:46:00.001-07:00

Finally I have a moment to post. How do people maintain their blogs?

All annuals are on sale at the greenhouses. Six-packs are $2, as are 4 inch pots. Terra cotta 4 inch pots (things like 'Wave' petunias) are $1. All quart (4/5 inch, deep pots) are $3 and this includes some neat perennials that were planted last summer and overwintered in the pots.

The customers continue to roll in, many returning year after year and some visiting for the first time through "word of mouth." I like to think it's a combination of quality and low prices. That's what I'm told anyway! Now here are some quick photos I took yesterday afternoon. First, a shot outside the greenhouse. I am often advising customers to concentrate on foliage, not the flowers, for contrast. This is an example, although the hosta in front ('Sun Power') is blooming I notice, and I left the allium standing, because I think their seed pods are kind of cool.

Last year a customer asked me to sell 'Morden Centennial' rose. The online photos make it look like a double light pink, and mine is more glowing rose. That could be the first blooms. At any rate, it's a beauty.

MORDEN CENTENNIAL ROSE

I mentioned in another post that I didn't care for the double wave red petunia, because its spent blossoms are so messy. I won't grow it next year. But I do like 'Double Wave White' which is not quite so full, carnation-like, and has a pretty, clean white airy look to it.

'Double Wave' White Petunia

I have an elderly customer who comes back year after year for one flower - 'Twinkle' phlox. I usually end up planting the rest for myself, as they seem under appreciated. They are short and adorable.

TWINKLE PHLOX

Marigolds are always good sellers - not the most exciting of flowers, but you can count on them. I try and offer some unusual varieties along with the standard yellow and orange. 'Mr. Majestic' marigold is a dwarf, consistently striped marigold.

'Mr. Majestic' Marigold

And for bright and flashy - I like 'Bonanza Bolero' Marigold.

'Bonanza Bolero' Marigold

I still have some 'Phantom' petunias left, but the all black and 'Pinstripe' sold out right away.

'Phantom' Petunia

As if running four greenhouses and perennial gardens wouldn't keep me busy, I also attend two wonderful farmers' markets, one Wednesday in Danville (see below) and one Saturday in St. Johnsbury. Poor old Danville is undergoing road construction so we have moved to a new (lovely) spot.

Loading the truck, setting up, breaking down and then unloading is a lot of work, but it pays off later in the summer when visitors to the greenhouses slow down. And there's great food at those markets!

Rain in Vermont ...and then more Rain

2011-06-01T04:07:00.000-07:00

We have had record breaking rains here and the poor village of Cabot really got "hammered" with flooding. The local hardware store got hit the worst. Over the years I had been building up a nice perennial garden next to the building. That's gone now.

Bridges, driveways and culverts were washed away all over the place and many roads were closed. Memorial Day weekend is normally our busiest time, but the rain sure slowed people down.

Unless folks have raised beds or very dry gardens, they have been unable to plant. We have not tilled once and our gardens are embarrassing. Meanwhile we did have some flooding in the greenhouses and the cellar took on 8 inches of silt, but we're better off than most folks.

The perennials are loving all the rain. Our shade garden is thriving (as are the snails) and the hostas are in seventh heaven.

Early this spring I tossed some slow-release fertilizer on some peonies. It lets the fertilizer out every time it rains. Well, those peonies are more than one foot taller than usual.

Fern leaf peonies are blooming now.

If we have to have extremes in weather, I far prefer too much rain to a drought, and so do most of the plants. Daylilies seem to do well in wet conditions, and of course Siberian iris prefer moist locations.

I am hoping for better gardening conditions for all of us!

Busy and Blooming

2011-05-15T03:34:00.000-07:00

Ideally, at least once a week I would submit something horticulturally interesting and educating to this blog. I am grateful to be incredibly busy right now, but the people waiting for their pots to be planted (not to mention seeds I MUST get in the ground) come first.

Saturday morning was the first day at farmers' market in St. Johnsbury. After setting up with Rose I returned home and was then picked up by Ed Smith to participate in a one hour radio call-in show about gardening. I was surprised by the number of questions that came in - and the fact that I could answer most of them.

Despite the late spring, everything in the greenhouse has been blooming right on schedule. Here are two of the new introductions.

Calibrachoa Minifamous Double Amethyst

Double Wave Red Petunia

The double wave is quite spectacular and surprising. I'm not so crazy abut the fact that once the bloom has gone by it really needs to be removed, unlike other petunias grown from cuttings. Those blooms just kind of shrivel up and disappear. These are so full I don't think that's going to happen.

Business is booming here, which is a fortunate thing, as the fuel bill averaged $500 a WEEK in March and April. It will take a lot of six-packs to cover that expense!

I have had some of the same customers for 20 years, so there has been much hugging going on in Cabot. Gardeners are good people.

The Greenhouses are Open!

2011-05-04T02:55:00.000-07:00

It is way past time to get new photos up on this blog. The plants in the greenhouses are doing great and if anything, are a bit ahead of schedule. But outside we are 2 - 3 weeks behind when it comes to digging perennials and getting plants potted and laid out.

Last year the ice out at Joe’s Pond was April 5; this year it was April 27, a good indication of the difference between the two seasons.

We officially opened Sunday and the weather was lovely. Next weekend is Mother’s Day and I hope there are a lot of appreciative children out there in a flower-buying mood, as we have lots of blooms ready.

I have a huge soft spot for violas and pansies.

Some of the perennials that we over wintered in pots, like the above columbine, are blooming already.

'Dark Eyes' has always been the most popular fuchsia and it is the hardest for me to size up, but this year the fuchsias are huge and walking down that aisle is like being in a blooming tropical forest.

At the moment some of our perennial gardens are swamp-like and I am hoping those plants will survive until we can get in there with our shovels.

Meanwhile, I am giving an illustrated talk (and plants as door prizes) Tuesday, May 10, at 6:30 in the Cabot Public Library about "new" perennials and annuals for the northern Vermont gardener.

Spring (?) in Northern Vermont

2011-04-02T15:30:00.000-07:00

Last year in the beginning of April we were two weeks earlier than normal. This year the weather has put us at least two weeks later than usual. The photo below is our "pansy house." Normally we would have the sides unrolled, tables set up and be filling it up with our hardier annuals. Those bulges in the plastic along the ridge line are huge chunks of solid ice. Until they melt we can't get the darned thing set up.

Our largest greenhouse is packed to the gills, and we have to move plants somewhere, so we are putting them into the "geranium house" where we managed to get the sides down, but it still has snow on the floor, as you can see by the photo below.

Meanwhile the big greenhouse is packed and the plants are happy for the time being, but we are pinching and are going to have to spread things out soon.

The plants in the greenhouse do not know we are having a colder than normal spring outside and they are growing in leaps and bounds. I'm excited about most of the new varieties and will post photos in the next blog.

The 2011 Gardening Season

2011-03-10T04:17:00.000-08:00

I have closed my various online vintage clothing selling sites and have changed my answering machine to say "Amanda's Greenhouse," so for me, the season has started. Fortunately, no cuttings were delivered in the beginning of the week, because we had a major snow storm. Doubly fortunate is the timely return of my 31-year-old son who went from balmy weather in Guatemala to shoveling paths in the snow for his Mom.

The big concern is the fuel bill. I have a 300 gallon tank that needs to be filled with oil every week for a while. Over the years I have managed to keep my prices low. We'll see how things work out. Meanwhile, seeds are sprouting, cuttings are being delivered at an alarming rate and the workload looks unsurmountable. The again, I always feel that way this time of year.

My Winter Activities

2011-01-08T08:46:00.000-08:00

I have two great loves - gardening and vintage clothing and accessories.

The above earrings and pin are on ETSY

I am fortunate to pay my bills through gardening and my business is at my house.The downside is that from April through September I have no privacy. A constant parade of people come into my house, which is almost eligible for the “Hoarders” TV Show.

Fortunately my customers are great and my “employees” are all good friends.

Whenever I shop during the summer, I try to visit thrift stores or yard sales as well. And some of my customers trade vintage items for gift certificates. So I am always on the hunt. During the winter I sell these items online using eBay, ETSY and Artfire. My goal is to sell enough to pay for the internet and associated services for the year.

The above 1970's velveteen jacket is on ArtFire.

And I recently sold the neat art deco 1930s necklace (above) on eBay. On Etsy and ArtFire my selling name is "VintagefromVermont."

On eBay I am AmandainVermont.

I am also an active member of the Vintage Fashion Guild, a great group of men and women who are extremely knowledgeable about vintage clothing and accessories. I have lots of enthusiasm, but not their education.

However ... There is a huge pile of seed catalogs waiting for my attention and it is time to start preparing the greenhouses for the next onslaught. My first job in the transition from vintage clothing to horticulture is to go through my seeds and check their dates, viability, etc. I will be planting begonia seeds very soon.

New Plants for 2011 - Part II

2010-11-14T15:38:00.000-08:00

Fortunately for me, many of my customers are just as excited to try new plants as I am.

Dahlia 'Dark Angel Dracula'

I've always liked the look of bright blooms on dark foliage, and this dahlia, 'Dark Angel Dracula' won best dahlia at the Colorado State Flower trials. It is compact and uniform and is grown from cuttings.

Callie 'Painted Coral'

Calibrachoa is closely related to the petunia and was first introduced to Europe in the early 19th century about the same time as the petunia. In 1988 wild samples were collected from South America and, after breeding, the first 'Million Bells' was released in 1992. Hundreds of different colors and growth habits are now available and I grow a lot of them including some from the 'Superbell', 'Minifamous' and 'Dream' series. The 'Callie' series have been good performers for me and I am looking forward to trying Callie 'Painted Coral' .

Argyranthemum 'Angelic Pink Delight'

Argyranthemums are essentially daisies grown from cuttings. It would be hard to beat the perfomance of 'Butterfly Yellow," but I have heard good things about 'Angelic Pink Delight,' so they will be on our shelves this year. They have fully double flowers and bloom early in the season and then hopefully throughout the summer.

'Landmark Citrus' Lantana

Another flower grow from cuttings that has won rave reviews at trial gardens is 'Landmark Citrus' Lantana. This is a plant that's good for high heat situations and hopefully will do well in baskets.

I'll have more new varieties to show grown from cuttings and then it's time to share new perennials and plants grown from seed.

NEW Plants for 2011 - Part I

2010-11-04T05:27:00.000-07:00

While there is still much to do in the gardens and with the perennials, I have been busy ordering my plant stock for next spring. I start most of my seedlings in the house and then in the greenhouses, but for the most part it is necessary to buy in rooted cuttings both because they are usually patented (taking cuttings is prohibited) and because I don’t have a good space to over winter plants for cuttings.

'Phantom' Petunia'

It will fun to see how this new petunia (above) performs. Last year Proven Winners came out with ‘Pretty Much Picasso’, (below) and while I appreciate its novelty, I thought the color would be lost in the foliage. I did have a few requests for ‘Picasso’ so I may order it this year.

'Pretty Much Picasso'

I am hoping Begonia 'Million Kisses Devotion' might be a good replacement for folks who have a hard time or with (or don't care for) fuchsias.

Begonia 'Million Kisses Devotion'

Bacopa is extremely popular and it now comes in colors other than white.

Bacopa 'Taifun Mega Blue'

However, I can not “get my head wrapped around” black petunias. I know black pansies have been popular, but this one is NOT going on my Order List.

'Black Velvet' Petunia

More new plants when I next get back to this blog.

YES, I am planning for next year ...

2010-10-24T17:06:00.000-07:00

... and cutting back, taking inventories, cleaning up and covering. At the same time I have started my winter hobby again - listing vintage clothing, etc. on eBay and Etsy.

In my next post I will show some of the new plants I have ordered for next year.

Etsy
VintagefromVermont

Fall Bulbs in Vermont - It's Time!

2010-10-07T15:36:00.000-07:00

As a child growing up in Connecticut our spring gardens were full of flowering bulbs. My Dad concentrated on daffodils, narcissi and hyacinths. The latter have never done well for me in Vermont and I don't care for the over bearing fragrance anyway.

One of my favorite combination plantings is allium 'aflatunense' planted among the daylilies. They come up early and bloom while the daylilies are still putting out their initial foliage. When the daylilies are just about ready to begin blooming the foliage on the allium dries up and disappears. I simply snip off the gone-by allium blooms, but some people leave them as seed pod interest.

Above is this allium planted in a daylily display and below is a close-up. These are not the huge "Globemaster" type alliums, rather they are almost the size of a soft ball, just right in my opinion.

I am planting them in pots now for spring sales, but the best bet is to buy the bulbs now and get them in the ground before it freezes.

Another shorter allium I love for its foliage and spring flowers is Allium Karataviense.

This allium is perfect for the front of borders or rock gardens. It has golf-ball sized blooms on 10 inch stems and it is the combination of those blooms and the broad fleshy foliage that appeals to me.

Years ago I bought a pot of Oxalis Adenophylla from a nursery and they did well for quite a few years in my shade garden as a spring bloomer.

It is one funny looking bulb, and I plant it in pots every fall for spring sales with limited success. But planted directly in the soil it should do fine.

When the first gardeners visit my business in the spring, they all seem to love 'trout lily' (erythronium) or some call it "dog's tooth violet." These have increased every year for me. They go dormant and completely disappear by early summer.

Another plant that folks have asked me about in my spring garden is the species tulip, Dasystemon 'Tarda.' It resembles a crocus more than a the flower we associate with Dutch tulips, but it's a good perennial, self-seeding where happy. The blooms last a long time and are a great way to welcome the new growing season.

For quite a few years I had a showy orange Fritillaria imperialis in a display garden. I tried planting it in the fall in pots for the spring sales and in the ground to dig and pot up in the spring, without any luck. This fall I am planting some frittilaria MELEAGRIS.

It is supposed to do well in a sheltered spot in the garden, and I'm thinking it will be nice with the Trout Lily. This is called the "checkered lily" and the following photo is from the bulb company I use.

It has been around since 1575 and is rated zone 3-8, so it certainly has proven its mettle.

I always buy some tulips to plant in our village and treat them like annuals. There's nothing subtly about my selection for this year's planting, "Holland's Glory." Here in northern Vermont we have a short growing season. Our winters can be cold and mean, followed by a challenging mud season, so we like our blooms loud and cheerful.

I hope this will make folks smile next spring.

Fall Photographs

2010-10-03T09:08:00.000-07:00

I officially closed my business for the season Oct. 1. All but one of the mums sold at farmers' market (some seen here before loading)

I stopped on my way home to take some of the same photos that I'm sure "leaf peepers" take.

We had a lot of rain last week, flooding the fields across the road to the point that three people got in a canoe and paddled around in a pond that covered a hay field.

One of my very favorite plants for winter interest is miscanthus ‘siberfeder’. It stands up to all kids of weather, is lovely in every light, and is still upright and proud in the spring.

I also sell Calamagrostis x acutiflora 'Karl Foester" which was named the 2001 perennial plant of the year, but I only do that because people ask for that one. It grows too fast for my taste and quickly becomes just grass in the garden. I prefer a stand of grass that adds vertical structure my plantings. I haven't had much luck with other grasses, but will keep trying.

When I left the Department of Agriculture 20+ years ago my staff gave me a small weeping crab apple tree which I popped in the lawn by the driveway. It has grown well every year and always provides food for the birds that stick around late into the fall. This year the fruit yield is unbelievable.

The robins will think they have landed in heaven.

More Fall Perennials

2010-09-12T04:02:00.000-07:00

Amanda at St. Johnsbury Farmers' Market ...

We are entering the Mum season big time right now and tend to sell almost all the plants we take to our two farmers' markets.

They look good and "the price is right" ($3.50 - $6.50.) I am so ready to wrap up the season and start planning seriously for next year. There are four greenhouses filled with mums and of course they're outside too.

Meanwhile, I am scarfing up any late blooming perennials I can find for bouquets and combining them with remaining annuals.

The bouquets really are pretty and I sell them for $5 each, because it's a fun project for me. But I tell people if they want one made specifically for an event ... it will be a lot more.

Cimicifugia (bugbane or snakeroot) is in full bloom right now. It is a tall graceful specimen plant that does fine here in full sun or part shade.

Ligularia 'Britt Marie Crawford' has nice bronze leaves when grown here in full sun (other ligularias prefer more shade) and the yellow daisy blooms are welcome in the fall.

Buddleia (buterfly bush) is marginally hardy here. This one variety, 'Pink Delight' did well here for five years, and this fall it is still alive, but not blooming much. I remember these plants being huge and covered with blooms in Connecticut.

Clara Curtiss is the one true "perennial mum" that seems to thrive here.

Another mum that does overwinter, but has been a big disappointment for me, is 'Rosy Igloo.' This is the promotional shot of the bloom, but in fact it's quite small and (to my eye) dull.

As my Dad used to say - Onward!

Late Blooming Perennials

2010-08-31T10:41:00.000-07:00

This is the time of year when perennial gardens are running out of steam and customers come in looking for something that is “...blooming right now.” Unfortunately a lot of the late bloomers are also very tall, so hard to sell late in pots.

Artemisia lactiflora is a nice early fall bloomer.

Unlike most artemisias, this plant is not invasive and it can grow in moist soil. I use the feathery sprays of blooms in fall bouquets.

The species of Joe Pye Weed (Eupatorium purpureum) spreads quickly and can be unmanageable. I like the cultivar, ‘gateway’ which is bushier than the species. I was also excited about the possibilities of ‘Little Joe’ eupatorium, advertised as a “dwarf” version , 3 - 4’ tall, but it’s still at least 5’ tall in my gardens.

In the foreground of the above photo is one of my favorites - ‘Lorraine sunshine’ heliopsis. One of my customers says: “This plant makes me smile.” It has great variegated foliage which has not yet reverted back to green. The flowers are long lasting, making it nice for the garden and bouquets.

Last but not least, is one of my favorites - Purple Showers viola. Often, and it is the case this year, this perennial blooms the entire growing season. It’s grown from cuttings, so doesn’t spread all over the place by self-seeding. Rather it remains in manageable clumps of color. I’ve been using it as a cut flower for small bouquets. It has been called the “energizer bunny” of violas.

Perennials for Foliage

2010-08-14T12:35:00.000-07:00

Flowers come and go on perennials, but their foliage is a permanent part of the garden landscape. I think shapes and textures of the plants are just as important as blooms, particularly as summer comes to an end and flowers are limited.

Hostas are the first plants that come to mind when considering foliage.

Above is an "oldie," Gold Standard. In front of the hosta are the spotted leaves of a pulmonaria.

This above hosta is Sun Power (planted in full sun) and behind is the maroon foliage of Britt Marie Crawford Ligularia. Hosta has its fair share of problems, namely it is filet mignon to the deer and slug population.

Jack Frost Brunnera (above) is a fairly recent introduction to the perennial world and it will become a classic. The silver foliage glows in the shade garden. It has inconsequential small blue flowers in the spring.

Its parent, Brunnera macrophylla, which I call "perennial forget-me-not" is loaded with flowers in the spring, and keeps the nice heart-shaped leaves all season, but doesn't stand out like its sport. Brunnera have no insect problems and the deer don't eat them either.

Sedums also have nice foliage (and few pest problems.) Below is Autumn Charm.

Besides yellow and silver and maroon leaved perennials, the foliage itself may be matted, mounded, spiky or arching, all creating a sense of contrast in the gardens.

With this summer's heat our "shade garden" has been a pleasant place to relax. Below is a photo of mixed foliage, mostly european ginger and variegated carex (sedge).

I love European ginger. Unlike American wild ginger, this cultivar has glossy leaves which gradually carpet the ground. It has strange flowers under the leaves that are unnoticeable.

Another plant I like for its foliage and form is amsonia tabernaemontana. It has pale blue flowers in the spring, which are barely noticeable to my eye, but in full sun it grows into a completely trouble free mounded plant that looks like a shrub. In the late summer I use the foliage to fill in bouquets.

Above the amsonia is seen behind a mat of low-growing perennial geranium.

Cimicifuga is another nice plant for its arching shape. This plant has an interesting collection of common names - "Black Cohosh," "Snake root" and "Bugbane." The foliage also comes in various darker shades, although these grow slowly for me. This one is Brunette.

Folks are straggling in now looking for fall blooming perennials, so that will be my next blog entry!

My Vermont Summer Garden

2010-07-30T15:34:00.000-07:00

It is a cool evening, family and visitors have left, and the weather is once again pleasant. This is a photo of a four-year-old persicaria polymorpha, or giant fleece flower.

Persicaria Polymorpha

Descriptions usually list it as 5' tall. Ours is always at least 8' tall with no particular encouragement. It looks like a cross between a lilac and an astilbe on steroids and it is in bloom for about two months. Customers assume it is a shrub, but it's a perennial and as such needs to be cut back in the fall, quite a project.

Another successful plant this summer is 'red romaine' lettuce.

'Red Romaine' Lettuce

I bought heirloom seeds and was pleased with the rich burgundy color. It brightened up the salads and was a nice garnish as well.

Clematis 'Madame Julia Correvon (above) has always done well for me. It has smaller red flowers.

I also like to use clematis (here Jackmanii) for bouquets. This arrangement also has cupids dart (Catananche caerulea), annual bachelor buttons and tall ageratum.

I rely on lavatera for cut flowers.

Lavatera Trimestris

I put a few coleus and one perilla (above left) together in a pot to add color to the perennial display gardens. I have been a bit disappointed with coleus 'red head' (lower right), as I had visions of it becoming a bright red for the entire summer. It is more of a muted red. But coleus Florida City Yalaha (above right) is a bright winner.

'Fresh Look' celosia (above) is easy to grow from seed and is splashy in the garden. Here I have planted it with 'Lemon Gem' marigolds, which have completely stopped blooming and are non-performers for the time being. I'm not sure why they are on strike.

I always grow amaranthus tricolor ('Joseph's Coat') because I enjoy its tropical look.

Amaranthus Tricolor

Here's another amaranthus that has lost its tag. It came highly recommended from either Fedco or Johnnies. It certainly is a performer, but tends to overwhelm the garden. I do, however, now think it might be fun to have a garden with just amaranthus varieties, as there are so many different types and they are all on the wild side. Next year?

I often suggest to my customers that they think about foliage contrast for the impression of color, since perennials, with a few exceptions, do not bloom all summer. Ligularia 'Britt-Marie Crawford' has dark maroon foliage and does fine in full sun. Here it is planted next to 'Sun Power' hosta.

Another nice foliage plant is heliopsis 'Lorraine Sunshine.' The foliage holds its variegation (many plants revert back to green) and it is particularly lovely when in bloom.

We have actually started to sell a few mums, which is a good thing since they are budding up early. And I am already ordering plants and seeds for next year.

HEAT and HUMIDITY and Daylilies on Sale

2010-07-11T11:23:00.000-07:00

I do not understand how folks survive “down south.” I am OK in 30 below weather - toss another piece of wood in the fire, perhaps find a thicker turtle neck and make sure you are wearing good wool socks.

When the temperature goes above 90 degrees and the humidity is high, as it has been the past week, I switch into a low gear.

Once again, the returning power of new guinea impatiens astounds me. One hot day I neglected to water this big pot in a display garden and it looked the way I felt.

But it bounced back after a good dose of water -

With the help of my son I have been keeping the daylilies watered in pots. They are on sale now (ALL $6.50 each, buy five and the sixth one is free.)

MIDNIGHT MASQUERADE

YOU WIN

GENTLE SHEPHERD

GUS BLANKENSHIP

I am hoping for less humidity in the future. Farmers' markets have been slow and folks are generally dragging. A friend gave me a wonderful birthday gift - a used air conditioner in the kitchen.

Time Marches On

2010-06-21T15:37:00.000-07:00

It was unrealistic to think I could run the greenhouse/nursery business, participate in two farmers' markets and maintain a blog. Finally we have moved almost all the annuals into the "big greenhouse" and we are already transplanting mums.

We still have quite a few baskets, mostly new guinea impatiens because they were slow to size up this season.

Speaking of New Guinea impatiens (some people call these New Zealand impatiens) ((??)) here's one with a variegated leaf - the 'paradise' series.

Vermonters tend to like New Guinea impatiens because they are flashy and bright, and our summers are so short we need splashy colors. One thing that is fascinating about New Guineas - when they are not watered they shrivel up and look like total goners. I found these two eight inch baskets in another greenhouse where they had been forgotten and were bone dry.

I knew they could be saved, so I took a before photo - here -

And then I drenched them and four hours later, here they are!

The gazania enjoys the sunny weather we are having right now.

I am eating fresh veggies from vendors at my farmers' markets and loving it.

Here's a cute little boy enjoying an early tomato.

The Danville Farmers' Market is held Wednesdays from 9 am - 1 pm and the St. Johnsbury Market is held Saturday from 9 am - 1 pm.

TOMATOES !!

2010-06-06T04:32:00.000-07:00

My "tomato house" hardly has any "big" tomatoes left, and many customers have resorted to taking home heirloom tomatoes when they are accustomed to buying 'Big Beef' and 'Early Girl.' I have been asked to print the list of tomatoes I sold here because some folks have no idea what they purchased.

I would love to hear the results of the plantings, as many of these varieties are new to me as well. (I will be planting quite a few.)

I'll start with a photo of 'Box Car Willie', a variety I didn't have on the list, but I did sell. It is described as follows:

"Very prolific over a long season it is well suited for use as a "main crop" tomato. Indeterminate vines."

- - - -

MY LIST (most sold out) HEIRLOOMS - Individual plants - $1.50 each

Aunt Ginny’s Purple - Heirloom Beefsteak - some prefer to Brandywine. Indeterminate - 75 - 80 days. 12 - 16 ounces. Big!

Black Cherry - 75 days. Look like large, dusky purple grapes - rich flavor that makes black tomatoes famous. Large vines yield very well. This one lasted the longest in the late blight season.

Black Krim - 80 days. Dark red-purple fruit, rich sweet flavor. Always places high in tomato taste trials. It’s very juicy. An heirloom from Russia with very unique looking, large fruit.

Brandywine - 80 days. The most popular heirloom vegetable. Superb flavor. A great potato-leafed variety from 1885! Pink fruit up to 1-1/2 lbs. each.

Burpee Gloriana - 70 days - Early determinate with 6-8 ounce globe shaped fruits. “Outstanding yields.”

Cabot - 75 Days. semi determinate -4 to 6 oz. red globe, excellent flavor.

Cherokee Purple - 80 days. An old Cherokee Indian heirloom, pre-1890 variety sweet flavor very large sized fruit. “Real old-time tomato flavor.”

Cosmonaut Volkov - 75 days. A smooth and attractive, medium-large red tomato that has a full, rich flavor. The productive vines yield well even in hot weather, good for canning or slicing.

Cuostralee - 75 Days. 1 to 2 pound fruit, French heirloom with excellent balanced taste - “not mild”.

Delicious - 90 days. Huge 1-to 3-lb fruit that are fairly smooth for a giant tomato, and, as the name implies, these are delicious! In 1986 it set the world record for weight, with a giant 7 lb 12 oz fruit.

Early Rouge - Excellent yields of “top grade” 6 - 8 ounce globe tomatoes.

Earl of Edgecomb - 70 Days High yield of 6 to 10 oz. globe fruits of vivid orange, usually blemish free, assertive, delicious taste.
Kimberly - Very early cherry tomato - sweet and juicy. Set fruit in cooler weather. Productive.

Koralik - 65-70 days. 1" Russian cherry tomato is bright red and borne on heavy trusses of 6-8 fruit, which are sweet and flavorful. Good for small gardens.

Moskvich - Early and recommended for its taste. 6 oz.

Opalka - 80 days., Ind, high yield of 3 to 5 inch long, fat paste tomatoes usually with a knob at the blossom end, great for either sauces (very few seeds and meaty) or fresh eating.

Orange Banana - 80-85 days. Unique, orange, banana-shaped paste tomatoes. These tomatoes are bursting with fruity sweetness. Delicious fresh and perfect for drying, canning and paste.

Paul Robeson - 75 days. Purple-black beefsteak - can grow to 4 inches across. Has won taste awards.

Plum Lemon - - 80 days. Bright canary-yellow 3" fruit, looks just like a fresh lemon. from Moscow. Delicious, sweet taste.

Prudens Purple - 75 Days Purple pink, developed from Brandywine, comparable in taste, but matures earlier.

Red Penna - Huge tomatoes - medium maturity - Indeterminate.

Rief Red Heart - Heart-shaped 1 pound tomatoes.

Siletz - 52-75 days. One of the better early tomatoes. Dwarf, determinate plants produce good yields of perfectly shaped, 8 oz. fruit that are loaded with old-time tomato flavor and are sweet.

Sweet Home - Heavy producer medium maturity - indeterminate - 16 - 24 ounce fruits.

Urban Beefsteak - Early, Ind, oblate, 6 to 10 oz. red, very productive, one cropper.

More New Plants

2010-05-22T03:49:00.001-07:00

My “to do” list is overwhelming and the customers are keeping me busy (hooray!), so the best I can produce for the blog right now is photos of plants I have not grown before. I am a huge fan of pansies and they are flourishing this year.

Matrix Sunrise

Delta Mix Citrus

Basil and rosemary are probably the two best selling herbs here. In the foreground of the following photo is a new variety I am trying, 'Nufar' basil. This is the first fusarium resistant variety of basil and it has a sturdier habit than the other sweet (Genovese) basil I grow from Fedco seeds.

Cascadia Bicolor purple is a variegated and vegetatively grown petunia. It scores high points for the consistency of variegation in the bloom, but the stems are fleshy and more upright than I like, so I will probably not grow this one again.

It is 5:30 am Saturday morning and I must go finish loading the trucks for St. Johnsbury Farmers' Market.

Happy Mothers' Day

2010-05-09T05:05:00.000-07:00

The snow is falling lightly (I hope!) outside and I just wanted to post a few photos before I head back to the greenhouses. Business yesterday was good, despite cold, windy and wet weather. Praise be to the mothers!

First some photos of damage from that last freak snow storm ... the day after.

In the next photo my son is on the right with the red hat. He took apart all the wood and with the help of my pal Rose and a carpenter, rebuilt all the tables.

Part of the roof...

And now for the good stuff - nothing was hurt inside the greenhouses.

"The tomato house" -

A lot of fuchsias went to new homes yesterday...

And here is a "Kids' Corner" customer. I sell plants for ten cents each for children 16 and under (limit five plants each.)

And now I must scurry back to the greenhouses.

(More) New Plants in the Greenhouse

2010-04-29T15:29:00.000-07:00

It's always fun to grow new varieties and see if they live up to the hype. I was excited about mini-famous yellow calibrachoa, as this flower received high points in trial gardens and the photographs were seductive.

The company that developed this flower says: "It has the best plant habit of all the doubles yet, outstanding outdoor performance, and it flowers the earliest." In fact it is adorable right now in the pot.

What I had not anticipated is that the flower is TINY - about the size of a dime.

Another nice new flower is lobularia. I was warned that it was vigorous, kind of a giant alyssum out of control. I have put some in baskets, but I think it's a better plant to put in the ground or use as a novelty flower. The second photo is from the folks who patented lobularia. It's not a great plant for baskets in the greenhouses, as its tiny petals fall on the plants below. (Horticultural dandruff?) Outside it would be fine, but not on someone's porch.

I really like the foliage on this new "sunpatiens" and it seems to branch out more than other new guineas. I ordered in more and the company sent the wrong variety, a solid white. Oh well. I have combined this in a few baskets (sold one yesterday!) with purple calibrachoa. The second photo is from the company that developed this new plant.

We are closed today (Monday) so I will go take photos of yet more new plants for the next entry. We have recovered (physically) from the cave-ins following that snow storm. There's a lot of rebuilding in the future, assuming the season goes well.

Snow Stories - The Bad Side

2010-04-29T02:34:00.000-07:00

At first the unexpected snow was quite pretty.

By Thursday morning more than a foot had fallen. The daylilies (and all the plants) were buried and it was still snowing.

The snow was light and fluffy, perfect snowball weather. My dog, Rudy, loved it.

As the morning warmed the snow grew heavier, bringing down tree limbs in my driveway. Neighboring farmers reported they had no electricity.

Having once dealt with a caved-in greenhouse because of heavy snow, I made sure the snow was sliding off my four houses.

But I didn't predict a problem with the outside "shade benches." The roof is made of slats of wood to provide shade while letting some sun in. Snow fell off a tree and crashed through part of one roof on to the tables and plants.

A tree split and crashed on the plants stored out back.

Then the totally unexpected happened. Another shade roof covering hundreds of freshly dug and innocent perennials buckled under the weight of the snow. Its supports gave way, crashing the entire thing on top of the pots, crushing plants and smashing the tables. This was once two long rows of inviting perennials, covered by a picturesque wood slat roof.

Today the sun is shining. We open officially in two days and they are predicting hot and humid weather for the weekend. We will face the destruction, salvage what we can and, as my Dad would have said, "Onward." Nobody was hurt and everything inside the greenhouse still looks great.

Perennials and the Weather

2010-04-27T15:59:00.001-07:00

It’s 6:30 pm and they are predicting up to 8 inches of snow. Would anyone like to look at some daylilies before they disappear?

We mowed the lawns yesterday. Four days from now they are predicting hot and humid, so I am not going to worry too much about my perennials. This is what we call a “sugar snow.”

Sometimes potted perennials get too much moisture, and I have certainly had my battles with fungal disease. One of my favorite sprays to use later in the season is Pyola, a combination of pyrethrum and canola oil. It hits any pests organically and while the oil attacks insect eggs and larvae, it is also useful for combatting fungal problems.

The bad news is that I have lots more perennials to dig, and I don’t want to do it with a snow shovel.

The good news is that I FINALLY got my catalog finished. It can be downloaded from MY WEB SITE.

And more good news. I have been named one of the top 100 gardening blogs (in the regional section) at this site.

Top Gardening Blogs. Hmmmm - time to start writing again, now that both my catalog and taxes are in the past.

Photographs of the “Big Greenhouse” April 7

2010-04-08T04:19:00.000-07:00

I would like to post something with information for cold climate gardeners at least once a week, but I haven’t started my taxes yet (or even my greenhouse “catalog” ! ! !) so this week’s submission is simply photos taken inside the largest of the four greenhouses.

The above photo is the south side of the greenhouse. On days when it is very cold outside, but the sun is shining, I have to roll up the side to let in cooler air. For this reason right now I do not have plants flush to the side of the greenhouse. The shock of the change of temperature would do them in.

Above I am looking down the center of the greenhouse from the area where I do my transplanting.

The "shady side" of the greenhouse is the home for hanging fuchsias and six-packs of impatiens, hypoestes, etc.

Two of many seedling flats await transplanting.

'Wave' petunias

I always plant a few tomatoes early. The hanging black buckets I got at the dollar store. Danny drilled a hole in their bottoms and I have planted upside-down tomatoes for folks to try.

Here I am half-way through transplanting peppers in four-packs. I plant four different varieties in one pack, so that customers can try different plants without buying six of each.

There is some color in the greenhouse now (the white is lobularia, not alyssum) , but it will be three weeks before any customers can see it. This time of year I am always frazzled and excited at the same time.

CALIBRACHOA (AKA “Million Bells,” “Super Bells,” “Mini Famous,” etc.)

2010-03-31T03:59:00.000-07:00

In recent years many new flowering plants have been developed that are grown from cuttings, not seeds. These plants produce little, if any seed, and must be vegetatively propagated. (All photographs of blooms supplied by the companies selling the plants.)

Calibrachoa, which looks like a small petunia, was first released as ‘Million Bells’ in 1992. It came from wild samples collected in South America in 1988. Wikipedia says that calibrachoas are named after a Mexican botanist, Antonio de la Cal y Bracho, so I learned something composing this blog entry.

Calibrachoa has hundreds of small flowers from spring to fall. “A tiny petunia on steroids” is how I have seen it described, although they are actually an entirely different species. Like most flowers grown from cuttings, you don't have to deadhead calibrachoa.

Dream Kisses Orange Sunset
All the big companies are breeding calibrachoas now. They are great for any container, as they tumble over the side and are loaded with flowers.

My favorite calibrachoas from last year were 'Superbells Plum' and 'Superbells Saffron'. These are both from the Proven Winners series.

Superbells Plum

Superbells Saffron

I like to mix colors in hanging baskets and the combinations sold well last year.

Stay Tuned!
We had five below zero last week, so it’s not exactly planting time in northern Vermont. And yet they are predicting 80 degrees (record highs) for tomorrow.

A new calibrachoa I am trailing this year is 'Mini Famous Double Yellow' developed by Selecta. I have had a few doubles in the past, but they were spotty bloomers. This variety has done well in trial gardens around the country.

Mini Famous Double Yellow

Above is 'Noa Blue Legend,' another new calibrachoa (I wonder what the correct pronunciation is on that word) that I have this year because it rated high in trial gardens across the country last year. I am growing ten different colors this year and I suspect in a month or two I will be posting photos of the results. For now, all is green.

Color in the Garden - Try Coleus

2010-03-24T04:04:00.000-07:00

REDHEAD

Here in northern Vermont we have four distinct seasons, maybe five if you throw in mud season. When it’s finally safe to plant (average May 30 where I live) we look forward to as much color as we can pack into our gardens. Discreet waves of color are pretty, but most of us like big splashes to cheer us through our very short summer.

I am turning more and more to coleus to achieve this effect. Most coleus grown from seed needs and prefers shade, while coleus grown from cuttings likes full sun. In fact, at least here in northern Vermont, the more sun, the brighter the color.

What follows are two photos of the same plant I had hanging in the house all winter. One side was facing the sunny window and one side was facing the inside room.

Coleus benefits from moist soils or regular watering and I always pinch off any flowers to encourage foliage growth. Coleus were popular in the Victorian era as a house plant, and today’s souped-up varieties combine brighter and unusual colors with distinct ruffling and textures. An easy way to show off the colors is to plant them in contrasting color groups.

I grow one novelty type coleus called “tilt a whirl.” It kind of twists as it grows and customers like it.

TILT-A-WHIRL

Fishnet looks sweet right now, and should shape up to a really neat plant.

FISHNET

Florida city yalaha has a bright center.

FLORIDA CITY YALAHA

Coleus are easy to grow and if grown in a pot, they are fine inside all winter. I cut them way back before bringing them inside and continue to trim them back during the winter as well. In the spring I have a huge plant with lots of room for cuttings to pass on the color.

HENNA

REDHEAD

The Snow is Melting ...

2010-03-18T14:48:00.000-07:00

... And I am in my usual spring frenzy of planting seeds, transplanting seedlings and getting ready to uncover and dig perennials. I was wondering how people find the time to write in their blogs and thought it would be fun to take some “before” photos, with every intention of having fabulous “after” photos to show later in the spring.

The “big greenhouse” has a peeked roof and the two layers of plastic stay on it year-round. In the fall we roll up the plastic on our three larger hoop houses, as it gives the plastic a longer life and saves potential cave-ins from snow, which I did have one year.

Above and below is the “pansy house” right now.

And the pansies have been started in the big house..

Below is the "tomato house" as it looks right now.

Stay tuned!

The benches outside are empty and will slowly be filled as it warms up.

We haven’t put the glass (recycled doors) on the cold frame (above) along the big house because if we have a late snow it would break the doors. We are filling up the big house and even have some blooming thunbergia.

The red-winged blackbirds have arrived. The children next door are playing on the swing and I have even seen some motorcycles go by. They are predicting 60 degrees today and then back into freezing temps. Onward.

Great Flowers - Poor Sellers

2010-03-05T13:31:00.001-08:00

Sometimes I am the only customer for some of the flowers I grow. There are a number of reasons for this. Many gardeners are not familiar with these plants and I don’t have photo tags for them. Seed catalogs push new varieties and they also carry the most popular, familiar varieties.

I always plan on advertising the underused flowers better with photos and information .... and I don’t find the time.

One of my favorites flowers is lavatera trimestris or "rose mallow". It is related to hibiscus and hollyhock and can bloom up to five feet, but the common ‘silver cup’ is typically about 3 - 4 feet. Lavateras do best in areas with cool summers, so here in central/northern Vermont they usually do well.

LAVATERA

The most common cultivar is a pale pink. I like 'tanagra' as well, which is rosier, and there is a shorter white version.

'Tanagra' LAVATERA

'Twins White' LAVATERA

Not only is this a showy bloomer most of the summer, it’s also great in bouquets. At farmers’ markets, my bouquets with lavatera sell first.

Summer visitors are always surprised by my tithonia. It’s a bright orange flower and a real stand-out. I have seen it listed as a good cut flower, but I find it better for display, as the stem is hollow and it hasn’t held up well for me in bouquets.

'Torch' TITHONIA

'Twinkle' phlox is an adorable short (8”) grower, good for sunny borders front of borders. It comes in a mix of bright colors.

Twinkle Phlox

I also like tri-colored amaranthus. It's a head turner and is actually an edible herb, although I haven't tried it in that capacity.

AMARANTHUS tri-colored

Verbena bonariensis is a perennial south of us, but here it is a well-loved annual. It blooms from mid-summer until frost and butterflies love it. It is tall (4 - 5 feet), but needs no staking. Its lavender ball-like blooms are somewhat similar to allium, but there are tons of them on slim branches, giving it an airy, swaying appearance. It is one of those delicate looking plants that's actually tough. I have a few customers who buy these by the tray for landscaping, but very rarely do I sell a single six pack.

Verbenea Bonariensis

All of these plants do best in full sun here.

New Annuals I’m Trying from Seed (Part I)

2010-02-24T07:32:00.000-08:00

I like thunbergia and grow it in hanging baskets. I always assumed it was a shorter vine, but apparently it grows seven feet or more. In the baskets I just pinch it when it heads out. This variety, ‘Blushing Susie’ looked particularly pretty.

BLUSHING SUSIE

I have read that if you grow thunbergia in a pot you can cut it back in the fall, bring it inside, and have blooms over the winter.

We have a “pansy greenhouse” which has one heater and still occasionally goes below freezing. We put our tough plants in there like dianthus and dusty miller and of course, all kinds of pansies. New this year will be the viola ‘Endurio Sky Blue Martien’ which is an All American Selections 2010 "cool season award winner".

ENDURIO SKY BLUE MARTIEN

The Panola series is a cross between a pansy and a viola and is very floriferous. I am adding 'Panola Baby Blue Mix' to our collection.

PANOLA BABY BLUE MIX

One of my earliest blooming pansies is 'Purple Rain' and I will offer it again, along with a new variety, 'Rain Blue and Purple. This series spreads and is taller than others. It can cascade, when used as an edging, making it perfect for window boxes and hanging baskets (if you have the patience to dead head them).

RAIN BLUE AND PURPLE

'Rain Blue and Purple' changes in color from purple and white to purple and blue as each bloom matures. The flower is 1.5 inches, smaller than most pansies, but there are so many of them there’s quite an impact.

I like the ‘profusion’ series of zinnias and this year I am also branching out to try some of the ‘zahara' series. These are not cutting zinnias, rather shorter varieties used for bedding. My problem with zinnias in our cooler growing conditions has always been botrytis and the "profusion" series have been trouble free. 'Zahara promises more of the same, with 20 percent larger flowers.

ZAHARA MIX

ZAHARA YELLOW

Deer and My Garden ~ ~ ~ and Deer-resistant Cut Flowers

2010-02-16T06:16:00.001-08:00

I am not a hunter, but when I see deer grazing in my perennial gardens I find myself thinking unkind thoughts about the graceful creatures.

A good fence or a gun are really the only two surefire ways to keep deer out of your gardens. I’ve tried human hair, blood meal, soap bars, urine of all sorts, and all kinds of sprays.

The best product I have used is called Tree Guard. It has Bitrex in it, a bitter compound that has been used to stop children from sucking their thumbs, and also has a latex to adhere to the leaves. Unfortunately the latex gummed up my sprayers and perhaps the company has now fixed this problem. This spray does last a few months with one application, but of course it wouldn’t effect new growth. In my case I have too many plants in too many places to maintain the sprays.

A few years ago the deer were so plentiful that while we slept they were walking up and down the benches of plants for sale, munching whatever appealed to them: a Bambi buffet. And so we constructed a fence around the shade display garden and another fence around the area where we keep hostas and surplus plants.

We forgot to close the door one night and a bear wandered into the enclosure, realized s/he was fenced in, and completely tore down one side of the fence to escape.

Deer are hungriest in the early spring when the first shoots in a garden must look extremely appetizing. One year a friend and I decided to fill our village shopping area with spring flowers. Twenty window boxes crowded with tulips poking out of the soil were ready to move. I put them by the driveway to be picked up. The next morning it looked as if a herd of elephants had attacked the boxes. Half of them were knocked over and every tulip was destroyed. The answer, for spring flowers, is daffodils.

If the deer are hungry enough, they will munch on just about anything, but there are certain plants they generally find unappealing. They’d rather not eat fuzzy leaves like lambs’ ears or foliage with aromatic leaves such as ornamental oregano or most herbs. I have no idea why they gobble my roses, thorns and all, and seem to like tomatoes as well. Supposedly they don’t eat poisonous plants, but they munch on my smaller delphiniums.

From my 20 plus years of donating plants to the deer, I have found they usually leave certain plants alone, and using that knowledge I am planning a deer resistant garden just for cut flowers with the following plants:

Perennials

Aconitum (monkshood)
Achillea (yarrow)
Amsonia
Artemesia
Astilbe
Astrantia
Baptesia (false indigo)
Digitalis ambigua (a true perennial foxglove)
Echinacea (cone flower)
Monarda (bee balm)
Nepata (cat mint)
Peonies
Salvia

Annuals -
Blue salvia
Cleome
Cutting marigolds
Dahlia
Snap Dragons

There is a nursery in Michigan that only sells deer resistant plants, so you can look up www.deerresistantplants.com to see what they recommend. And keep your fingers crossed.

Heirloom Tomatoes

2010-02-01T15:04:00.000-08:00

Tomatoes are the most widely grown fruit in US home gardens. Proponents of heirloom tomatoes say they taste better than hybrids. I’ve tasted some mighty good hybrids, but then again I remember my “first time” with ‘Prudens Purple’.

Reif Red Heart

I define an heirloom as a variety that can reproduce from saved seed and that existed before World War II. Hybrid tomatoes are bred for production and disease resistance first and then flavor. You can not save their seeds as they will not reproduce true to type.

The best selling heirloom tomato is ‘Brandywine’ and it is now offered by most mainstream catalogues. The fruit is a dark pink and the leaves look more like potato leaves.

Brandywine

Unfortunately, so many individuals got involved in saving seeds from this variety that inferior strains came onto the market. Some ‘Brandywine’ tomatoes can taste pretty bland. Furthermore, it has not been a good producer for me and it is late season. I offer it because customers ask for it, but I would also recommend ‘Pruden’s Purple‘ for the northern grower, as it ripens a week or two earlier than ‘Brandywine’ with similar flavor.

Last summer I trialed all kinds of heirloom tomatoes, but the cool wet season topped off by by late blight thwarted most of my efforts.

My customers tend to be enthusiastic gardeners, so I will offer a good selection of heirloom tomatoes again. Among those that I will also definitely grow for myself are the following:

‘Moskvich’ - A really early (60 days) indeterminate, tolerant of cooler weather and with promised good flavor for such an early tomato. Most heirlooms tend to ripen late for my short season.

‘Earl of Edgecomb’ - This is an orange tomato with both “excellent yield and exceptional flavor .” It is an heirloom from New Zealand that matures at 73 days.

‘Cherokee Purple’ - A lot of serious tomato growers pick this one as having the best flavor. It’s on the late side, so I will try to put some good healthy plants in the ground.

I’m not a purist, and my garden will have just as many hybrid tomatoes as heirlooms. I grow the heirlooms more out of curiosity and for fun, hoping I’ll find a winner. The hybrids are the backbone of my tomato garden. Here is a list of other heirloom varieties I will be growing to sell.

Aunt Ginny’s Purple
Black Krim
Burpee Gloriana
Cabot
Cosmonaut Volkov
Early Rouge
Glacier
Kellogg's Breakfast
Kimberly
Koralik
Opalka
Oregon Spring
Pink Brandywine
Prudens Purple
Red Penna
Reif red heart
Siletz
Stupice
Sweet Home
Urban Beef Steak

Tomatoes

2010-01-23T06:35:00.000-08:00

At Amanda’s Greenhouse we offer more than 50 varieties of tomatoes and in recent years the two best sellers have been ‘Big Beef’ and ‘Sungold’. I prefer ‘Sun Sugar’ more than ‘Sun Gold’. It is sweeter and still has enough of that tomato flavor to make it my favorite of them all (until my next “favorite” comes along. )

Here is the “tomato house” early last year.

Just about any full-sized vine-ripened tomato makes me happy, as they all taste 100 percent better than anything you can buy during the winter. I always try to offer plenty of early varieties so that all gardeners will have the opportunity to have some kind of tomato harvest, no matter what happens with the growing conditions.

Besides the popular ‘Early Girl’ I offer ‘New Girl’ which is very close to the same maturity date, but reviewers report better flavor and more disease resistance.

Earlier yet is ‘Stupice’, an early heirloom tomato with 2 - 3 inch fruits which also has good flavor. ‘Cosmonaut Volkov’ is a Russian heirloom that matures at 65 days and is quite a bit larger than ‘Stupice’. This one grows well in containers. Other early varieties are ‘Polfast’, ‘Applause’, ‘Polbig’ and ‘Legend’.

‘Celebrity’, ‘Jet Star’, ‘Big Beef’ and ‘Better Boy’ are among the popular midseason tomatoes.

When I moved to Cabot more than 20 years ago I bought a Canadian heirloom from Veseys for the name, ‘Cabot.’ It turned out to be a heavy and early producer. They dropped it from their line and the only place I can find it now is Sand Hill Preservation Center, a wonderful operation that specializes in heirloom seeds and poultry.

The idea of green or black or white tomatoes does not float my boat, but I will offer ‘Aunt Ginny’s Purple’ for its “....early - excellent yield of deep pink 1 - 2 lb beefsteaks with excellent taste. And I like the sound of ‘Reif Red Heart’ which promises “...large perfect red hearts around one pound ... super taste.”

Last year late blight found its way to my town and cut short the tomato yield, but an heirloom cherry tomato, ‘Black Cherry’, continued to yield for quite a while. The blight did in most of my other heirlooms, but that didn’t stop me from ordering 20+ varieties to try this year.

I’ll write about heirloom tomatoes in my next blog entry. The seeds are arriving here and very soon the gro-lights will be turned on in my living room.

TOMATOES - Late Blight

2010-01-16T12:22:00.000-08:00

Tomato growers in the Northeast had a hard time last summer. Not only was our spring colder than normal, we had record rainfall. Tomatoes are natives of South America and they didn’t appreciate these growing conditions. To top it all off ... along came late blight which thrives with cooler, wetter weather.

My heirloom tomatoes were the first to bite the dust, although “black cherry,” which is much better than it sounds, continued to yield for a long time.

This disease started from infected seedlings grown in the south that were shipped to big box stores in the north.

The strain which caused last summer’s problem was the same strain that caused the Irish potato famine in the 1840’s. The blight releases wind-blown spores, and eventually most of us were hit, regardless of where we purchased our plants. Of course anyone reading this blog would only shop at locally -owned greenhouses, right?

KNOWING and PREVENTING Late Blight

For starters, if any of the diseased material ended up in your compost, definitely don’t use that near your tomatoes.

If you grow potatoes, don’t used saved potatoes as seed potatoes. certified clean.

Lesions on leaves will cross the center vein of the leaf.

Classic symptoms are large (at least nickel-sized) olive-green to brown spots on leaves with slightly fuzzy white fungal growth on the underside. Lesions on leaves will cross the center vein of the leaf.

Keep an eye on the foliage and remove and destroy anything that looks suspicious.

I will be planting more tomatoes in the greenhouse this summer. I have read that keeping water off the foliage slows the development of late blight. Home gardeners could try more potted tomatoes in spots under cover that get the sun.

‘Legend’ and ‘Juliette’ are both varieties that are said to have some resistance to this blight, so I will grow them as back-up. However the only thing I remember about ‘Juliette,’ which is a large cherry/grape type, is that the skin was really tough.

I’m almost finished with all my seed ordering and the next time I write I will list the tomatoes I am growing for customers and explain why I have picked those varieties.

2010 Resolutions and Ramblings

2010-01-12T06:10:00.000-08:00

People often ask me what I do during the winter. I burrow in here, keep the wood stove going and spend way too much time on the computer. To help with bills I sell vintage clothing and accessories on eBay and Etsy. This gives me an excuse to get out there and hunt for treasures, one of my favorite pastimes

http://www.etsy.com/shop/VintagefromVermont

When you are on the computer a lot you make a whole new community of friends. I am a member of the Vintage Fashion Guild and I spend lots of time “over there” learning from my colleagues and sharing information and discoveries.

I also have an online group of gardening friends and am on several lists including Freecycle, AHS members (American Hemerocallis Society) , and one for folks who share a health issue with me.

I don’t “tweet” and can barely understand Facebook. Ultimately it is my great “real life” friends here in central Vermont who mean the most to me and who come first.

I have made two new year’s resolutions which may seem counterintuitive. 1) Get back to this blog and 2) Stay away from the computer for at least one hour after I get up in the morning.

Of course I am also perusing seed and plant catalogs and most of my orders are placed.

I buy in quite a lot started of seedlings (plugs)

Often the cost of a plug is just pennies more than the cost of the seed. The uniformity, easy of transplant and savings in fuel makes the additional cost well worth it.

I also start a lot of my plants under lights in the living room. Writing this blog makes me realize just how soon that process will begin.

New Annuals from Seed - Award Winners for 2010

2009-10-27T06:58:00.000-07:00

Every year new garden seed varieties are named “All American Selections” because (supposedly/hopefully) they have superior garden performance in impartial trials across north America. I always try to offer all of the new AAS plants to customers.

For 2010 four flowers have been selected as the top new varieties and I will be growing all of them.

Gaillardia ‘Mesa Yellow’ is the first hybrid blanket flower on the market. It is bred for prolific flowering and compact growth with three inch blooms. Gaillardia burgundy overwinters in my gardens, so I have to wonder if this will be a perennial as well. I like the burgundy gaillardia, but it does demand considerable deadheading.

Snapdragon ‘Twinny Peach’ is a double flowered shorter snap (to 12 inches) with a blend of pink tones. The photos make me think of the bloom on stocks. I love the taller snaps for cutting and to me this is more of a novelty plant, albeit very pretty.

Viola ‘Endurio Sky Blue Martien’ (yes, that spelling is correct) was selected “... for its unique spreading/mounding and vigorous garden performance.” It is recommended for edging garden beds, window boxes and hanging baskets.

Zinnia ‘Zahara Starlight Rose’ is the last of the honorees and the one variety I am really excited to try. I have a hard time with zinnias and powdery mildew, and this one supposedly has good resistance. With a 2.5 inch bloom it should be a pretty flower for smaller bouquets as it is 12 - 14 “ high.

Houston - We have had Frosts - What is Blooming Now

2009-09-06T13:26:00.000-07:00

Above is "iron weed" or veronia noveboracensis. I don't remember where I got this plant and I always forget about it until the fall when I am desperate for cut flowers and this one is perfect. The dark blue/violet goes nicely with mums and it is long lasting in bouquets.

Summer phlox can be problematic. Deer find it tasty and some years powdery mildew takes it down. This particular phlox is 'Laura' and it seems to be both disease resistant and long lasting in bouquets - and ... very fragrant.

Cimicifuga (white plumed flowers above in foreground) provide a dramatic fall statement. The common name is 'bugbane'. The horticultural folks have decided to reclassify the plant and now it is 'Actaea racemosa', but I finally got comfortable pronouncing cimicifuga - and so it will remain at Amanda's Greenhouse and Perennials. I don't care for the species as it spreads and becomes rather sparse, but cimicifuga ramosa atropurpurea forms a huge vase-shaped specimen plant that always delivers in September and October.

Joe Pye Weed (Eupatorium purpreum) is another guaranteed fall bloomer. It's a "weed" only in the sense that it is a wild plant in north America. It's an OK cut flower and I'm told it can be dried. 'Little Joe' is a new shorter introduction, and I'll be able to report next year on how well it does, as the native Joe Pye can easily be 6 feet tall.

Step away very slowly from this plant, (macleaya cordata or 'plume poppy'.) It is mightily invasive. I might recommend it for the edge of a pond or background in a very wild setting, as it really is lovely in its own overbearing way. I unknowingly planted it among other perennials in a row and have been fighting it back the last ten years. Right now a woodchuck has a happy home in its center. (Plant seen above and below).

I love artemesia lactiflora (white mugwort) for its late blooms and the fact that it is non-invasive, unlike many other artemesias.

Above is sanguisorba canadensis, another very late bloomer that I use extensively in my fall bouquets. The common name is 'Canadian burnet' and when not blooming it has pretty serrated foliage. This one is vigorous, but controllable.

Now I have to figure out how to make my photographs larger for this blog. And I am already ordering for next year!

MUM's the Word ....

2009-08-31T04:18:00.000-07:00

September is peeking around the corner and we are overwhelmed with mums.

I must have had a few senior moments when I was ordering the cuttings last spring, because we have about 500 more than usual ... AND it is a bad year for mums. The early cold weather made them set their buds early. We are selling many of them for $3.50 each or 5/$15. The darned pots cost us 50 cents each!

Four greenhouses are filled, as well as any available landscape fabric on the ground.

We buy rooted mum cuttings in late May and into June. They get planted and established in 4 inch pots and then as the greenhouses clear out of annuals we start bumping the mums up into larger pots.

There’s constant watering, pinching and shaping, and fertilizing involved, so it’s probably not worth the effort. But it also seems a shame to have those greenhouses empty when they could be working.

The only true perennial mum around here is Chrysanthemum rubellum ‘Clara Curtis’.

It’s pleasant enough and does provide late summer flowers, but it spreads a bit too fast and tends to bloom unevenly for me.

Blooms of Bressingham have introduced the Igloo series of mums, with a hardiness rating of 5. I chose “Rosy Igloo” because the photo looked like a reddish rust orange, a color which has been popular with our customers in the fall.

The actual bloom here is more of a washed out copper from my perspective and they have disappointed me..

If this mum does overwinter, the trick is to pinch it back right up to July 4 for a bushier fall bloom. We have some in the ground so they will be tested here. It’s possible that they will pick up more color from being planted in “real” soil. If they survive the winter I may try the yello Igloo next year.

Great Flowers - Poor Sellers

2009-08-23T05:03:00.000-07:00

Oh fickle customers - they do seem to snap up whatever is blooming in the six-packs in the spring, and bypass the “starts” that are still green. I am at fault too, as I should whip up some nice POP (point of purchase) posters to show folks what they will be missing. Every year I offer some “hard-to-find” annuals, and every year I end up with most of them still on the shelves by mid-summer.

For example, blue didiscus (below.) It’s kind of like a smaller version of the white queen anne’s lace, very pretty as a filler in summer bouquets.

Lavatera comes in various shades of pink and a shorter white version and once it starts blooming it is loaded with hibiscus like flowers and makes for a great cut flower. This time of year I am cutting lavatera every day.

Sanvitalia procumbens ("creeping zinnia") is great for hot dry areas.

Tithonia (“Mexican Sunflower”) is a nice splash of color for the summer garden. The stems are hollow and it is not good for bouquets, but it is a show stopper.

While rudbeckia (black-eyed susan) can be a fine perennial (I think the best is 'goldsturm'), there are also many nice rudbeckias that I grow as annuals, including ‘Indian Summer’, ‘Prairie Sun,’ ‘Tiger Eye,’ and the ‘Toto’ series. Next year I will offer ‘Cherry Brandy,’ the first red-flowered black-eyed susan grown from seeds.

I have always thought it would be a good idea to have a “Gourmet Corner” in one greenhouse for the hard-to-find flowers. Maybe This will happen "next year”?

More Bouquets for Farmers' Market

2009-08-19T14:44:00.000-07:00

I thought it would be fun to take various containers and use them as vases for my flowers for farmers’ market. I chose an old tea pot that had a crack, so it couldn’t be used for tea; a sweet pottery vase; a little brass vase; and an older planter with a chip, among other things.

They were meant to be whimsical and quirky, but I sold them all right away to one person to be used for a wedding! I don’t think they even noticed the containers - she just liked the flowers... and at $7 a bouquet, it was a bargain. (Sorry, the second photo should have been rotated one more time...)

Wedding Flowers for a Friend

2009-08-09T14:45:00.001-07:00

One of my best friends is also an employe of 14 years, Rose Bothfeld. Her son, Raymon, got married this weekend and I volunteered to make the table bouquets for the wedding as a gift. It turned out they needed 22 bouquets. Rose and I picked flowers Thursday evening at a friend’s flower farm to supplement what I could provide from my gardens.

I am most comfortable making bouquets with oasis, as compared to “loose” bouquets. It’s really easy and most florist are fine with selling you a few containers and a brick of oasis. I take the round container, place in a hunk of oasis and then moisten it thoroughly with water with preservative.

Then I usually make a general foundation of foliage. Astilbe and peony leaves work great for this, but I also use hosta, amsonia and the dark leaves of ninebark.

I can do this a day or two before the actual bouquets get done. One nice thing about giving the flowers as a gift is that I was told any color combination was fine. So some tables got blue bouquets, while others got shades of yellow with ornamental grass and many just got wild mixes.

They came out really nicely and I was proud to deliver them Saturday afternoon. The first photo is the bottom layer of the truck.

The bridegroom is a farmer and he met me at the house in soiled clothes (“I still have to tie up the cows”). He had three hours until the wedding and he said his tux was ready.

This was a real country wedding with potluck dishes and BYO drinks. And then there was this - a Vermont wedding really needs a pig roast!

Daylilies in Bloom August 3

2009-08-03T12:28:00.000-07:00

One of the most valuable lessons I have learned for my business is to use a number 2 pencil on a plant tag. This will last longer than any ‘sharpie’ made. I have also learned to mark my daylilies in the field with large wood stakes, the cultivar’s name written with a paint marker on one side and pencil on the other.

Some growers bury the name with each planting as well, just in case the tags disappear.

We grow our perennials in two areas and since we are closed on Monday (today) , I headed to the upper field with my camera to take an inventory and see how the plants are doing with all the rain.

One of the showiest daylilies now blooming is called ‘Brilliant Circle’(below). It produces tons of flowers in the field and in the pot. It has a small bloom (3 and 1/2 inches) but the quantity more than makes up for the size.

Brilliant Circle

Another flower with a smaller bloom, but stellar performance is 'Siloam Doodlebug'.

Siloam Doodlebug

I really like 'Dragon’s Eye' because of the wide rose eyezone.

Dragon's Eye

This one is named ‘Outrageous’ which is a bit of an over statement, as it is very similar to 'Holiday Delight' or 'Bandit Man', but I suppose it is one notch hotter.

Outrageous

'Pink Cotton Candy' is from the breeder, Patrick Stamile, who has a whole series of ‘candy’ daylilies and they all do well for me.

Pink Cotton Candy

'Butterfly Kisses' is an older daylily, but lovely with incurved 8” blooms.

Butterfly Kisses

The following daylily is lovely and blooms heavily each year, but its name has disappeared from my inventory list and I can't find a tag anywhere.

I have No Name

I have a special place for daylilies in pots that have lost their tags. It is the "orphan daylily" corner and they sell for $4.50 a clump. Perhaps I will dig some of these next spring for sale as nameless orphans.

New Plants .... some Disappointments

2009-07-28T15:22:00.000-07:00

Just like any other industry, the horticultural people have to come up with “new and improved” plants each year to peak the interest of gardeners. Unfortunately, when you are buying wholesale like me, this means purchasing at least 25 plants, rather than try just one out. But I want my customers to have a chance to grow something new, and of course I am excited to try new cultivars as well.

Last year I offered ‘splish splash’ perennial geraniums for the first time in quart pots. The photograph was irresistible.

I immediately had problems with mildew. The plants in the ground did OK at first and bloomed nicely this second year, but for a very short period, and again - the mildew has set in. And the blooms never lived up to the photograph. This may be a perennial that does well in warmer zones. I have read that it does rebloom if cut back to the ground after the first bloom. It is certainly unattractive right now!

I haven’t decided if I should give it more of a chance or send the plants to the compost pile.

‘Double Decker’ echinacea (cone flower) is another plant that got a lot of hoopla and even turned up on the front pages of a few catalogues. I encouraged customers to try it, as did I. I have yet to see anything resembling the following.

My blooms the second year are all single pedaled and nothing to write home about.

The standard echinacea purpurea is a great plant without any hybridizing.

Another plant that got a lot of hype was ‘big red’ begonia - a cross between fibrous begonia and angel wing begonia. Park seed catalogue called it “...the quickest-blooming, largest, most vigorous begonia the world has ever seen!” (Sounds like a circus barker.) And for this honor they charged $4.95 for 15 seeds.

It was supposed to do well in the sun or shade. Here’s a photo used to promote the new plant.

I put some in the front of one garden and they struggled along in the sum with the leaves turning dark and not a lot of growth going on despite lots of rain and good growing temperatures.

They did better in a window box that’s in part shade, but I won’t be offering this one again.

These are all minor disappointments, I'm already thinking about new plants to try next year.

Daylilies Blooming in my Gardens Today

2009-07-23T10:59:00.000-07:00

The dayliles are finally beginning to open. Here are some photos I took this morning in the "road garden." The first is 'Barbara Mitchell', a pretty pink 6" bloom that has been around since 1985 and was the top vote receiver in the American Horticultural Society popularity polls.

BARBARA MITCHELL

Next is a true white daylily, 'Gentle Shepherd.' I think this may be the whitest daylily available. 'Ice Carnival' and 'White Formal' both have an underlying yellow tint. 'Gentle Shepherd' can be variable with its flower form, but it remains my favorite white (until you ask me next time.)

GENTLE SHEPHERD

'Sunday Gloves' is another nice white daylily, although not quite as pure as 'Gentle Shepherd' it probably has a more consistent form.

SUNDAY GLOVES

'Holiday Delight' makes a bright and bold statement in the garden.

HOLIDAY DELIGHT

And I will end with 'South Seas' which has an unusual bright coral/tangerine coloration.

SOUTH SEAS

A Very Wet Summer in Vermont So Far

2009-07-22T14:30:00.000-07:00

I far prefer too much rain over a drought any time, but this is getting a bit extreme. The slugs and ear wigs are really happy. I laughed when someone told me about slugs coming into their house on their dog, but then I discovered slugs coming up my front steps on their own.

One side effect of the constant wet and overcast weather, combined with a cool spring, is that the daylilies are late to bloom and the mums seem to think fall is here, so they are setting buds prematurely.

Here are some of my daylilies for sale.

Well, the foliage is nice and green! I actually do have some in bloom and they are coming along. This is a customer making her choice.

I was pleased to see Erngium ‘Blue Hobbit’ (sea holly) all over wintered without a problem, although I’m not quite sure how to use this flower yet. The descriptions says 8 - 10 inches tall, and mine are at least 20 inches tall, but that could be all the rain.

And I will end today's entry with three bouquets I made for farmers’ market.

Hardy Vermont Perennials and My Story

2009-07-19T14:02:00.000-07:00

As I get “into” blogging I realize I have said very little about myself. I am a single woman, no doubt considered elderly by many (will be 63-years-old shortly). My parents always loved gardening. It was more of a chore for me as a child, but as I got older I had to have a garden. It got a bit extreme when I married a local farmer and we ended up with 90 acres of small fruits and vegetables.

The farm thrived, the marriage didn’t, and 20 years ago I started “Amanda’s Greenhouse.” I now have four greenhouses and at least half an acre of perennial plantings which we dig and pot up in the early spring for sales. I pride myself on growing the perennials here (zone 4 at best) and only selling plants that I know will overwinter in the colder northeast.

About half my income is from perennial sales and the rest is from bedding plants and cut flowers.

My friends are wonderful and I love living in a small Vermont community. My other passion, besides horticulture, is vintage fashion. I also have four cats and a dog and I am a lousy housekeeper.

And now - to the gardens. Here are three quick and dirty photos I took by the house this morning before I opened for business. I have more gardens further from the house.

I was delighted to see this pretty new daylily, ‘Beautiful Edging’ which I will have enough of to offer next year.

I do have quite a few of the pretty Dublin Elaine to offer at the sale this year.

We have actually had a day without rain and we are closed tomorrow. My "To Do" list is already almost one page long.

LET THE DAYLILIES BEGIN

2009-07-18T15:40:00.000-07:00

I am having a HUGE daylily sale. Every single variety is on sale for $6.00 and if visitors buy ten or more, the plants are $5.00 each. These are all top notch plants with many fans and I have well over 200 varieties from which to choose. Now if we could just have more sun to get them to show their colors. Here are a few samples of what I am offering.

Brocaded Gown is a nice light lemon yellow with lots of ruffling on the petals. It has won the Stout Silver Award, which is the highest award a daylily can receive and only one variety is chosen for this honor each year. This one has is 6 inch blooms.

Chicago Weathermaster is a pretty dark lavender daylily with 6” blooms.

‘Flycatcher’ is what is called a ‘spider’ daylily. It has long narrow flower petals and to officially be labeled a “spider” the petal length to width ratio must be 4 to 1 or greater. This particular flower is 7.5 inches across and a nice strong red with a large yellow to green eye.

I like the name of this last one - ‘Scatterbrain’ (so apropos) and it is a lovely flower. It is a light peach pink semi double, 6 inches across.

All the daylilies I sell are grown here and are offered in one gallon containers.

Pleasing Perennials Blooming Now

2009-07-16T04:00:00.000-07:00

While my all-time favorite perennial shasta Daisy is ‘Becky’ (great for flower arrangements), I like this shorter version, ‘Snow Cap.’

Heliopsis (“false sunflower”) blooms for a long time in my gardens and it’s another good plant for cuts. ‘Lorraine Sunshine’ is a relatively new introduction to the perennial industry. It holds its variegation, and as one customer said, “It makes me smile.”

Catananche, or “cupid’s dart” isn’t particularly showy, but it is an excellent cut flower and because it’s pretty darned close to true blue, it goes with anything in a bouquet.

Vermont Farmers' Markets ... and me

2009-07-13T04:40:00.000-07:00

In my youth (sigh) I was quite good at keeping a daily diary. Somehow I must reinvigorate that energy for this abandoned blog. So I will start the easy way - posting photos with commentary.

Here are early pictures of my setup at the St. Johnsbury Farmers’ market. All of the baskets have long gone to new homes. I placed annuals on the right and perennials on the left and herbs, etc. on the table under the tent.

Here is a shot of the same area last Saturday (July 11). I bring a lot more perennials, no more baskets, and I have started making bouquets.

I have been involved with farmers’ markets for years and love the opportunity for customers to buy from folks who are actually growing the vegetables and plants. Both the St. Johnsbury Farmers’ market and the Danville farmers’ market fall under the “Caledonia Farmers’ Market” umbrella.

I was instrumental in starting the Waitsfield farmers’ market and the Waterbury farmers’ market, both of which I attended for years. I also participated as a vendor at the Montpelier market, but eventually left, as they wouldn’t let me bring perennials.

The Danville market is held Wednesday's from 9 - 1 on the green in town, just off Route 2. Because it is on grass with picnic tables and trees it has a real charm and the vendors are terrific. Many of those same vendors attend the Saturday market (also 9 - 1) at St. Johnsbury. That market is larger and a bit more sprawling and is also a great opportunity to get the freshest produce.

I enjoy both markets, but Danville is my favorite.

DAYLILIES in Vermont

2008-09-01T07:49:00.000-07:00

Today is Labor Day and with a few exceptions, the daylilies have pretty much "had the radish." I field grow @ 150 cultivars and a few weeks ago took some photos that I will share here. Most gardeners now realize that daylilies come in all colors except for blue (and heaven knows, the breeders are hard at work) and all sizes from one inch across and ten inches high to ten inches across and 4-5 feet high. Above are some doubles I picked the one day I was tilling the "upper field."

The same day I picked these others as well.

We are heading into the MUM season big time now and I will post about them soon.

Late Summer Color in the Garden

2008-07-27T13:23:00.000-07:00

Gardeners head for the nurseries and greenhouses in the spring and are often seduced by whatever perennials are blooming in the pots at that time. The result is a colorful spring and early-summer garden, but by late summer and fall the gardeners are wondering .... where have all the flowers gone? This entry will cover some reliable plants for late season color.

Of course you can always buy some mums for a shot of fall color and sometimes they do “come back,” but the only reliable perennial mum I have encountered is ‘Clara Curtiss,’ (above.) It has a light pink daisy-shaped flower with a yellow eye and grows around 18 inches high. This plant is a vigorous spreader and will benefit from a shearing around July 4, resulting in nice full blooms in the end of summer.

Although I think of echinacea (cone flower) as a fall plant, mine bloomed in July this year. Helenium (sneezeweed) is a late blooming perennial with small flowers in oranges and reds that look similar to cone flowers. The unfortunate common name “sneezeweed” comes from the fact that this flower was dried and used as snuff by natives and early settlers.

Eupatorium (“Joe Pye Weed”) is a native plant that grows tall with large heads of rosy pink flowers, a butterfly favorite. The newer eupatoriums have been bred to be shorter, but the cultivars I have tried are still quite tall.

Sedum is a genus of about 400 species of leaf succulents and “Autumn Joy” is the one cultivar that seems synonymous with fall gardens in Vermont. Butterflies and bees love these plants and they look nice paired with another fall blooming perennial, ‘Purple Dome’ aster.

Chelone (“turtlehead”) has dense spikes of rose-pink flowers in the early fall. The deep green foliage looks nice all season and it does well in moist soil.

Cimicifugia produces long white flowers on tall (3 or more feet) stems which grow up from a finely cut fern like foliage. I steer clear of the species and go with ramosa atropurupurea or one of the dark-leaved hybrids because they do not spread. This plant, which is also called “snake root and bug bane,” provides a nice vertical accent in the garden and does well in light shade.

My monkshood is blooming now, but the cultivar ‘Arendsii’ is a real late bloomer, in fact I have lost it to frost some years. This particular monkshood is around three to four feet of height, the shortest & stoutest of all monkshoods.

Next spring when shopping for perennials, consider some of these plants for your late summer garden. Actually perennials in pots are fine to plant anytime during the summer as long as they are well watered.

Wedding Flowers

2008-07-19T15:29:00.000-07:00

Every time I commit to providing flowers for a wedding I come to regret it. In this case it was the daughter of a friend and they were “totally open” to whatever I came up with. “Just use what ever is blooming in your gardens,” I was told.

I like combining foliage and flowers for unusual, but attractive bouquets, so I thought it would be fun. I said I would do the bride’s bouquet and her maid of honor’s piece as well. I never do the corsages or boutonnieres as I’m not very good with the wiring of flowers, ribbons, etc.

A few weeks before the wedding I get a call saying the bride wants burgundy flowers in the bouquets. OK - this is not good. I do have burgundy flowers in the fall, but not in early summer. Then she visits with table cloth samples and the ten bouquets are going on a table cloth the color of ... dark tan. Kind of a difficult color to work with, even though it sounds easy.

She liked some baskets I had on hand, so we decided to go with them - putting in liners and using Oasis. Then I get the call - she wants the bouquets to look “elegant.” Again I am flummoxed. The baskets are already countrifying the look and I imagine she’s thinking calla lily type elegance ($35 a small bunch wholesale). She also has a new favorite color - gold-orange.

At this point I am sweating bullets. I ended up spending $86 at the florists buying spray roses in her favorite color, some alstromeria for blending and various filler flowers.

So, I have been showing photographs of the end results. This last photograph is the bouquet for the bride and her sister. I ended up kind of doing my thing. There’s even some castor bean in one of the bouquets. As I write this they are all sitting down for the meal and hopefully admiring the flowers.

Bouquets from Your Garden

2008-06-30T03:47:00.000-07:00

I enjoy making bouquets for myself and occasionally am asked to supply arrangements for weddings and large events. Because I have perennials growing in the fields, there’s usually something to choose from, and this article will talk about how to make a long lasting bouquet and my favorite flowers for that purpose.

The best time to cut flowers is in the cool of the morning or in the evening. Morning flowers are turgid and less likely to wilt. For a big job I typically cut flowers in the morning, let them “rest” with preservatives in a cool place during the day, and make the arrangements that evening.

The rule of thumb is to cut newly opened flowers without pollen showing. Once the flower is pollinated it immediately begins the process of fading and forming seed.

Using clean scissors, it’s best to put the stems in warm water which greatly increases water uptake. In the field I cut long stems and strip off the bottom leaves to help prevent decay. Once the bouquet is made I cut the stems one more time.

Floral preservatives definitely prolong the life of a bouquet. They supply food and acidifier. Plants take up acidified water (ph 3.5 - 4.5 ) much faster than nonacid water. If you want to make your own preservative, add 1 teaspoon vinegar, 1 tablespoon sugar and one crushed aspirin tablet to 24 ounces of water. The aspirin helps prevent bacteria and you won’t get that nasty smelling water. Another recipe I have seen is to combine 1 cup regular 7-Up, 1 cup water and 1/2 teaspoon household bleach.

Besides appearance, the most important component of a bouquet is that it be long lasting. Generally flowers that dry well also last a long time in bouquets. Yarrow, gomphrena, astrantia and larkspur would be examples.

As I write these words my Siberian iris are blooming away. I cut them in a bud stage, just as they are starting to open. By the time they are delivered most will be blooming. The buds are pretty as well but this flower is not particularly long lasting . Iris and peonies generally bloom at about the same time and are a nice combination.

One of my favorite “cuts” (below, left) is lysimachia clethroides (gooseneck). It can be an invasive beast and I grow it as a row crop, tilling on each side, but it compliments any bouquet and easily lasts at least a week.

‘Becky’ shasta daisy, which won the perennial plant of the year in 2003, (below, right) is also terrific for cutting. Unlike many other shastas, it stays upright and has a long bloom time and is also long lasting in bouquets.

Another excellent perennial for long bloom and good cuts is ‘Summer Sun’ heliopsis. Monkshood provides blue spikes, which compliment any bouquet. Bee balm comes in shades of red and pink. Astilbe is lovely, but after 4-5 days it wilts for me. I’m not crazy about liatris as a flower, but it certainly is long lasting in bouquets.

I like to use foliage in my bouquets and often use the silver stems of Valerie Finnis artemesia and branches from the burgundy-leaved ninebark.

One of the best cuts in the fall is golden rod. People think this flower is a main cause of seasonal allergies. Golden rod is NOT responsible. The pollen is heavy and sticky, designed for insect pollination, not wind. Its peak blooming period coincides with the peak of ragweed season, which is wind pollinated. The only way to get goldenrod pollen in your nasal passages is to stick the flower up your nose! Wind-blown ragweed pollen is the most common culprit for allergies.

Of course there are all kinds of great annuals for cutting, among them zinnias, asters, snap dragons and the later blooming salvia. I fail at growing zinnias. They get powdery mildew and my asters get aster yellows no matter where I plant them. Celosias are fun for bouquets and later in the season there are all kinds of grasses that look nice.

I am a great fan of lavatera. The blooms look like small hollyhocks and it is easy to grow. There are many sunflowers now available just for cutting. I particularly like Sonja which is 3 1/2 feet tall with tangerine orange blooms. I also like the tall blue ageratums for bouquets.

If you don’t happen to have cut flowers on hand, fresh bouquets are available at most farmers’ markets. Next month I will write about perennials that bloom late in the summer.

For gardening questions you can e-mail me at amanda@amandasgreenhouse.com or call me at 426-3783.

Low Maintenance Perennials

2008-04-19T11:58:00.000-07:00

Years ago I was asked to give a talk about low maintenance perennials to a community group in Orange. I selected ten plants and with slides and handout sheets I explained why I chose those particular perennials. When I was finished a gal in the back of the room asked: “Amanda, do you ever sell those plants that come back year after year?”

Now, when I discuss perennials I start with a definition. A perennial is a plant that comes back year after year ... until it dies. Some perennials live a few years and then fade away. Others, like peonies or dictamnus (gas plant) will probably last longer than the person who planted them.

A low maintenance perennial would be one that it is reasonably long-lived, but not what I call a “bully” perennial. These can take over the garden in a few years. When a neighbor comes over with a paper bag stuffed full of bare roots and says it is “... a really easy perennial to grow,” be very careful!

Low maintenance perennials do not need need to be staked, nor do they have to be pruned of dead headed (although that never hurts). These plants are not troubled with diseases like powdery mildew or prone to insects like aphids or spider mites. And these are plants that look good the entire growing season, not just when they are in bloom.

STACHYS LAMBS’ EARS - ‘Helen von Stein’ --- I don’t care for the lambs’ ears grown from seed, because it sends up what I consider to be unsightly scapes and odd blooms which need to be cut. The foliage also tends to die away in the center. Stachys ‘Helen von Stein’ is grown from cuttings, not seeds, and as such rarely flowers. One common name for this plant is “elephant ears”, as the leaves are twice the size of the seed-grown varieties. It provides nice waves of silver in the garden.

SEDUM ‘kamtschaticum’ --- Most people are familiar with ‘Autumn Joy’ sedum, which is nice, but I particularly like the low growing sedum ‘kamtschaticum’. It is a thick green ground cover in the spring that bursts into yellow blooms. When they go by the spent stems and flowers turn a rusty red.

DAYLILIES --- These reliable plants withstand neglect. They can be used as erosion protection or ground cover and they increase in size each year.

If you were to just grow one daylily, ‘Stella de Oro’ would be a good choice. It is a lower growing plant with orange/yellow flowers. It reblooms on and off the entire season. This cultivar is widely used by landscapers.

ASTILBE --- Typically sold as a shade plant, I find in northern Vermont astilbe does fine in full sun, as long as it is not planted in dry, sandy soil. In fact, in the shade it doesn’t bloom much for me. Astilbe has feathery plumes and comes in white and many shades of pink, red, and purple. If I were to pick just one variety, I would stick with ‘Visions,’ which is a lower growing (18”) cultivar that has done well for us in all growing conditions. It has raspberry rose plumes and large clear green leaves.

VIOLA ‘Purple Showers’ --- This plant combines the old-fashioned charm of a violet with modern vigor. Some years it blooms all summer long.

BAPTESIA - (False Indigo) --- Baptesia is one of my favorite perennials. It takes a few years to size up, but then it behaves like a trouble free shrub, about 4 feet tall with spikes of violet blue flowers followed by pods. It has a nice vase shape to it when it’s not blooming and I also use the foliage in bouquets all summer.

AMSONIA (Willow Blue Star) --- This plant has light blue flowers in the spring and is native to the Eastern US. It is totally trouble free. A three foot, upright plant, like baptesia, it almost appears to be a small shrub. The foliage is long lasting in bouquets and turns golden colored in the fall.

SIBERIAN IRIS --- All siberian iris are low maintenance, until four or five years when it’s time to divide them. Then a jack hammer comes in handy, or a strapping young man. Meanwhile, you have lovely flowers in the spring. They bloom around the same time as peonies. If you don’t deadhead the flowers, the seed pods can be used in fall dried bouquets and the foliage looks nice all year, kind of like an ornamental grass.

Hostas are the best selling perennials in the US, but the slugs and the deer love them, so where I live that involves a lot of maintenance.

Every plant needs a bit of attention. A new planting needs moisture to get the roots established and placing some mulch around the base will help with weeds.

What's New in the world of Perennials

2008-04-19T11:42:00.000-07:00

Companies selling perennial plants are always trying to come out with “new “ and “improved” offerings. Unfortunately many of these new perennials are developed in warmer climates and don’t survive in northeast Vermont.

Terra Nova Nurseries in Oregon has registered 500 new perennials since 1992. I can highly recommend some of their introductions, while I have grown others with no success.

‘Excalibur’ and ‘Majeste’ pulmonaria have attractive silver foliage, and because the leaves have a fuzzy characteristic, deer don’t eat them.

Pulmonaria has many common names, such as “Bethlehem sage” or “Mary and Joseph plant” (because the bloom on the species goes from pink to blue) or “lungwort.” ‘David Ward’ pulmonaria has green leaves with a silver edge and coral red flowers.

Perennials do not bloom all season, so I encourage people to consider the color and texture of the foliage when planting a perennial garden. A planting of maroon foliage next to silver foliage can give the impression of color without one bloom. And foliage color is one place the perennial plant industry has made great advances.

There are many heucheras (coral bells) with maroon and purple leaves. Among the best are ‘Plum Pudding,’ ‘Chocolate Ruffles,’ and ‘Purple Petticoats.’ Ligularia ‘Britt Marie Crawford’ has wonderful large dark leaves and there are numerous new cimicfugias (snakeroot) out there with almost black foliage and names like ‘Black Negligé’ and ‘Hillside Black Beauty.’

I like variegated foliage, but it often reverts back to solid green. The relatively new Jacob's ladder, ‘Stairway to Heaven’ seems to hold its variegation nicely.

I like the way the yellow blooms of heliopsis (false sunflower) ‘Lorraine Sunshine’ look against that plant’s variegated foliage.

Sometimes new introductions get a lot of press and gardeners then ask for these plants. I have not had luck with the yellow and orange echinacea (cone flower) over wintering, nor do the yellow leafed heuchera do well for me.

I have seen plants thriving in Montpelier and Barre that I have difficulty growing here because we are just that much colder.

A few years ago I had a landscaper beg for a new daylily, ‘Rosy Returns,’ which promised “... large (4") bright rose flowers with repeat blooming from June to frost. “ I planted 50 of the expensive new plants to evaluate their performance. The flowers, when they did appear, were muddy and after three years of giving them a chance, they all went to the compost pile.

That said, daylilies are a good place to find something “new” that will stand out in the garden. There are about 50,000 registered cultivars and hybridizers are always trying to come up with something different. Daylilies now come in just about every color except true blue, and all shapes from one inch across to a spread of nine inches. There are doubles, “spiders” and “UFO’s”. There are bright red daylilies and white daylilies. A good time to buy daylilies is when they are blooming, because color photographs are often misleading.

Another perennial which has seen improvement over the years is the perennial geranium. These smallish plants are not the geraniums with big red flowers sold every spring in pots. Those are actually in another group altogether and their botanical name is Pelargonium, not Geranium.

True hardy or perennial geraniums belong to the genus Geranium. You will sometimes see them referred to as cranesbill geraniums, because their seed pods are said to resemble a crane's bill. They are low growing plants that spread by rhizomes. The foliage is often toothed and remains attractive. The flowers float on top of the plant.

‘Rozanne’ geranium has been named the 2008 Perennial Plant Association “plant of the year.” It has violet blue flowers and is long blooming.

‘Splish Splash’ is a newer hybrid that grows into a larger plant than most geraniums, reaching 30". The flowers are like small white petunias with splashes of blue ink.

One of the darkest and most intensely colored hardy geraniums is 'Perfect Storm.' It has magenta-pink blooms with a black center and dark veins, which are set against pale gray-green foliage, making the flowers really stand out .

Sometimes a “new” perennial is rated zone 5 and is fine overwintering in my Cabot garden. Other plants promising zone 3 hardiness don’t survive. A gardener’s best bet is to shop locally from people who have experience growing the plants they sell. (Imagine I should give that advice!) The quality of these plants will be much better than mail order and the price will be less.

While it’s fun to try new introductions, gardeners have a vast choice when it comes to perennials and some of the oldest cultivars remain the best.

New Annuals for 2008

2008-04-09T17:09:00.000-07:00

So much to do ... so little time .... before I open my five greenhouses to the public May 1.

Meanwhile, we still have snow on the ground and the possibility of digging perennials seems far far away. This is a photograph of the path to the smaller greenhouses. Fortunately my son has been lugging plants back and forth for me and he is king of the shovelers.

Meanwhile, I have been writing for a local paper and will include the columns in this blog. As a joke, I gave myself the name, "The Garden Hoe" and they are using it!

Here is my first column - - -

Every spring gardeners are deluged with seed catalogues touting “new,” and “improved” or “exclusive” flowers and vegetables. Sometimes new introductions prove their worth, like ‘Big Beef’ tomato or ‘Profusion’ zinnias. Or they fade away into plant oblivion, like ‘Sundrops’ squash and ‘Sunkist’ marigold.

Although I’ve been gardening for 40 years I still fall prey to the lure of glowing prose and pretty pictures.

Vesey Seeds 2008 catalogue features photos of a new tomato, “Applause,” on their cover, promising “exceptional size” and “early maturity.” Johnnies Seeds asks gardeners to try “New Girl” tomato (62 days) which will be “...better tasting and more disease resistant than ‘Early Girl’.” ‘Polfast’ is a new hybrid from Poland that is “extremely early” (54 days) with “flavor similar to good-midseason tomatoes.” Heck, I’ll try them all. Any vegetable you get out of your garden is going to taste better than one you buy at a chain grocery store.

Despite global warming, we zone 4 gardeners are always on the lookout for short-season varieties. Last year was a terrific growing season, but 1992, 1996, 2000 and 2004 were cold summers, so we shouldn’t get complacent. Unfortunately early season vegetables often lack the flavor of later varieties, so I recommend planting some early varieties for a sure bet, followed up with some later maturing plants.

The All American Selections (AAS) have been around for 75 years. Judges from all over the country trial and then select what they consider the best new plants on the market. This year they have only selected three winners, two flowers and one vegetable. Osteospernum ‘Asti White’ is the first African Daisy offered from seed. Viola ‘skippy XL Plum-gold’ has cute “whiskers” and ‘Hansel’ is a miniature eggplant producing fruit 55 days from transplant.

The viola is worth a try with its pretty “abundant” 1 and 1/2 inch blooms. I’ll pass on the osteospernum, because even the cultivars grown from cuttings bloom sporadically for me.

Park’s Seeds pours on the superlatives when describing the new eggplant. “A breeding breakthrough extraordinaire!,” they write. “Hansel is the first eggplant that lets you choose when you want to harvest it! The glossy, dark purple, mild sweet fruits are ready at 2 inches, yet keep their tender texture and rich flavor as they grow, so you can harvest them at any time up to about 10 inches or so!”

So far, so good, (although I could do without all the explanation points). But then the zone 4 gardener reads with amusement: “At last, no more armloads of eggplants going to the neighbors or to church because you just can't eat any more.” Uh oh - they aren’t talking to short-season gardeners. Still, it’s worth a try.

I order seeds from about 20 different companies, but if I were a home gardener who could just pick from one, I’d stick with Pinetree Garden Seeds out of Maine. Their prices are extremely reasonable, the number of seeds in a packet makes sense for the smaller garden, and the selection is great.

You can find all the old favorites here as well as lots of fun varieties to try. This is where I am getting seeds for ‘polish linguisa’, “a huge sausage shaped tomato that weighs two-thirds of a pound” and ‘sunrise serenade’, a double morning glory.

Of course anyone who lives in the Cabot area could skip buying seeds altogether and go greenhouse hopping and enjoy the great selection offered by their neighbors.

My next column will be about recent developments with perennials.

Pinetree Seeds PO Box 300 New Gloucester ME 04260 www.superseeds.com (207)926-3400