Photo Friday: Burgundy Gaillardia

This gorgeous plant has been blooming since June and is going strong into October. Originally, I planted 2 or 3 small plants that have since died out, but it's okay because this one readily re-seeds itself. It's not a problem, however, since some of the plants die out and I've rather like where it's reseeded itself. For the plants that are where I don't wish them to be they are easily pulled up. Not at all like the Evil Veronica. My favorite reseeded plant was the one that planted itself next to the Shasta Daisies. Red and white daisies? Gorgeous! Far and away the best fall (and spring and summer!) perennial in my garden.

Photo Friday: Limelight Hydrangea

I've fallen in love with hydrangeas! This one is the Limelight. I love so many things about this shrub and highly recommend it. It takes more sun than most hydrangeas which makes it perfect for the southeast corner of my house. It gets sun most of the day but is protected from the very hot western sun. It's doing very well. I also love the lime-green blooms that turn pink and then burgundy in the fall. It goes very well with the Tiger-eye Sumac growing next to it. Gorgeous fall color!

Gardening Around the Web: Research Sources

I used to volunteer at the University of Minnesota Extension on the Horticultural Line when I was an active Master Gardener (I'm lapsed! Just got my letter today...I'm going to have to remedy that). It was some of the best education I've ever had. My job was to answer the phone of course and  answer people's horticulture questions. Sounds daunting, right? 

I thought so, too. Fortunately, the first thing my supervisor told me was unless I knew the answer for sure, I needed to just get the information and call the person back. He then showed me how to research for the answers I needed because his view was, no one knows it all, not even himself. This was a man with a master's degree in horticulture so he knew way more than me. He was a good person to learn from. So in addition to learning lots more about horticulture I also learned how to do good research to get answers to my own gardening questions. 

University of Minnesota Extension
Obviously, as I worked for the U of M Extension, their site was one of the primary resources we turned to. One of my favorite tools they have available is "What's Wrong with My Plant".This is a diagnostic tool for identifying disease and insect damage. It breaks it down by type of plant, specific plant and then symptoms. It's complete with pictures which makes it easy to pinpoint problems. Also, I recommend the Yard & Garden News for Minnesota gardeners as it provides timely state specific gardening information. You can subscribe by email or rss feed.

Dave's Garden
I use this resource quite a bit in my work at the greenhouse. I've found very few plants that aren't in the plant files. What I like about this database is that it has all the scientific information I need about a plant such as zone, height, sun requirements as well as a gardener's forum for each plant. Members of the site can upload their pictures of the plant and give their comments about that specific plant. They also rate their experience with the plant as positive, negative or neutral. I find this invaluable because the scientific information is necessary but it never tells the whole story. Some plants are invasive in some areas, some don't do well although they should. To have gardeners with actual experience with the plant share their information is invaluable because sometimes what you really need to know about plant you won't learn from the scientific information or the retailer who's trying to sell it to you. The site also has insect and bird files as well as a tool for figuring out frost dates in a given zip code. 

While browsing through gardening sites today, I came across one with a headline that read "Buy Water Butts Online." Well, you know I had to check that out! Turns out that water butts are nothing more than these. I can't even fathom how they came up with that name but then again, I don't live in the UK. I do have to say that all of these are much nicer than my water butt!

Photo Friday: Autumn Joy!

I've traditionally disliked rudbeckia/Black-eyed Susans. In general, I don't like  yellow flowers and I've rejected these flowers as too traditional and "not my style". My son and I planted seeds 2 summers ago and they didn't decide to grow until this year. The first plants up were these rudbekcia. I left them only because they were in the back of the yard and I figured they were better than weeds. Imagine my surprise to discover how much I LOVE them with the Autumn Joy sedum back there. Sometimes Mother Nature really does know best.

Design Container Gardens for Multiple Seasons

With the upsurge in container gardening, I read much about seasonal containers. Spring containers, summer and fall containers. Even winter containers. Living in Minnesota with it's short growing season has not afforded me the luxury of more than one container garden season. I'm also stymied by seasonal allergies which makes fall gardening more than a little unpleasant. I suppose it can be done, but is there another way?

Here are the facts about frost dates here in western Minnesota: The risk of frost is from September 27-May 10. We have an average frost-free season of about 140 days. However, we are almost (note the almost) guaranteed not to have frost from May 21-September 16. That's actually only about 116 days (less than 4 months!) that we can generally count on.*

The advantage to container gardening is that we can plant earlier because containers can be moved into a protected area if there is a frost warning. This can extend our season by as much as 3 to 4 weeks as long as day time temps are warm enough. However, that's not always the case either. Yes, gardening in the Midwest is sometimes an exercise in frustration! I think that's part of why I love it. You just never know what you're going to get. 

I did do up some fall containers last year. They looked pretty good but the amount of time I got to enjoy them was fairly short. I wanted to enjoy them as long as possible because I had put the money into them and I ended up leaving them until the first snowfall and then had to drag those heavy things into the garage. As much as I love gardening, this is not ideal for me, nor is it money I care to spend for such a short period of time of enjoyment. 

The idea of planting up pots that would look good in the spring, summer and fall came to me last spring while working at the greenhouse. A friend of mine mentioned that she loved pansies but wasn't happy with them during the summer months. I said the trick was to plant them with other things that would do well in the summer so the pansies weren't the main show at that time. They look good in the spring, decline slightly during hot summer months and most times will spring back in the fall. 

That got me thinking about other plants that are less than spectacular in either the spring or summer but excellent in the fall. The first to come to mind was ornamental kale. I absolutely fell in love with it after my boss took this picture last fall.

Not that we need to see snow just yet but what Minnesota gardener doesn't love a plant that looks great through the snow?

However, kale isn't all that spectacular in the spring, and not all that much to look at through the summer either. It really isn't in it's full glory until the fall. This is not overly problematic when planting in the ground but for containers, it can be. My experiment this year was to plant the kale in a container with blue and carmine Picobella petunias in the front through the spring and summer. I loved the carmine and blue with the colors of the kale even though the kale wasn't full grown. I figured by the time the kale was gorgeous, the petunias would be played out. 

I was right and I was wrong. From the curbside the containers were eye-catching. The petunias were gorgeous all summer long, although towards the end of August they got a little played out. The kale didn't detract from the container, but didn't add much to it either until the end of August. Now, the kale is gorgeous AND the petunias have sprung back and look as good as they did in the spring! Turns out petunias can tolerate cool weather. From where I stand, I'd say they prefer it. 

Why I didn't know that before, I don't know. I now have a new found respect for petunias that I love anyway. This is one of the things I love about gardening. I always learn something new and I will never know it all ensuring that gardening will always provide challenges. 

The container today exceeds my expectations. Aside from some tweaking (there's always tweaking!) such as planting just one kale plant and getting something to keep the cabbage moths away from the kale, I will plant this container again next year.

Beside pansies, petunias and kale, other annuals that do well in the fall are dusty miller, calendula, bachelor's buttons. diascia, lobelia and nasturtium. Consider using these plants in your containers with other plants that do well in the heat of summer. Make sure to water containers well in the high temps so cool season plants won't die out. In the fall, you'll be pleasantly surprised when these cool season plants revive and take center stage again.


*Frost date stats from Dave's Garden.

Gardening Around the Web

So much great gardening information to be found around the web. Kind of makes me wonder how we gardened or did anything else for that matter before the Internet! Here's some garden links I found interesting this week:

You Grow Girl: Make Your Own Pop Bottle Irrigation System 

This is a post from 2001 but it seems more relevant today than ever. This combines two things I love: drip irrigation (I'm lazy, there's nothing more to it than that) and recycling. I have looked at commercial variations of this same thing. Of the commercial products I have looked at (and not purchased, I might add), one was simply a set of spikes to attach to recycled 2 liter bottles. The other was a more "scientific" and "highly engineered" system that included both the spike and bottle in addition to a special disc that was supposed to guarantee proper watering. Whatever. It didn't work. Sometimes things can be just too thought out. I like the idea of using things I already have and re-purposing them for something else. I think this could also work with smaller pop bottles for house plants as well. 

No Dig Vegetable Gardens

This site caught my eye precisely because I'm a lazy gardener. However, I'm also a marketing major and prone to skepticism when I see claims like this. Turns out this is just a really clever way to talk about raised bed gardens, which for many of us is an excellent idea. This site is not selling anything other than the idea of raised bed gardening and has wonderful information about vertical gardening, children's gardening and other general gardening information. Is a raised bed garden a no dig garden? Technically, but they are still work initially so the idea that this is less work will depend on interpretation. However, there is a wealth invaluable gardening information regardless if you use raise beds or not.

Overwintering Geraniums

Ok, yes, this is my own article so I didn't have to search very hard for it. I included it for it's seasonal timeliness. This article was written based on my own personal experience with overwintering geraniums. I don't have a sunny window in which to overwinter geraniums in pots and I don't have a cellar that is cool and dark. What I do have is a finished basement that is heated because my children's bedrooms are down there and, of course, the big TV. I had read about how you're supposed to overwinter geraniums by hanging them upside down in paper bags in a cool dark place. Since I don't have those requirements (not even a paper bag!), I decided to see what would happen if I put the plants in a cardboard box in the laundry room next to the dryer since it was the only out of the way space I had. What happened was that out of 15 plants, 11 survived. Talk about drastically cutting down on the spring flower bill! Of the 4 that did not survive, 3 were ivy geraniums. I will do the same this year to see if I get the same results from the ivies.

Photo Friday: Endless Summer Hydrangea

Endless Summer Hydrangea nestled among Purple Ruffles Basil. Looks great, smells heavenly. As most of us here in Zone 3-4 are aware, Endless Summer is not fully hardy here. Also, our soil won't hold blue blooms for long. I do baby this little beauty by covering it with leaves every fall. It's been slow going but bit by bit this shrub has been growing and blooming more. By no means a showstopper and a little extra work but seeing this beautiful bloom at the end of September? Yeah, I'll take it.