In the Garden June 1st

It’s June 1 all ready! Pots are planted with a variety of herbs, vegetables, and a basket filled with flowers on the front step. I’m doing a bit of a trial to see if the basket on the front step does as well as the pots in the backyard with shards of terra cotta in the bottom. I’ll be looking into the shards versus no shards a bit more this week.

Living Bouquets
I call containers filled with a variety of flowers, living bouquets. I started by lining the basket with a gray plastic bag and poked holes in it. Next, I filled the container with soil and planted the packs of flowers. The little front porch is in the shade for the bigger part of a day, so I used plants that prefer shade. Double impatiens, lobelia, and dusty miller fill the twig basket, left over from my shop, Windy Corner herbs & flowers.

Two medium sized pots of Johnny jump-ups, still blooming, sitting nearby the basket create a garden vignette. As summer wears on, heating up, the Johnny jump-ups will fade and cast seed to the winds. Hopefully some will fall into the front flowerbed.

*Planting Tip
As much as you may hate it, when bringing home packs of flower seedlings, remove all blosssoms and buds. A healthy plant that puts its energy into growth first will display a plethora of beautiful blooms later.

Columbine (Aquilegia)
The columbine that I first saw growing in front of the step has reseeded in the flowerbed with many new plants growing this year. Considered a perennial, columbine bloom in a glorious spectrum of colors in late spring from a deep purple to a pale pink. Festive bi-colored columbines add surprising splashes of colors to flowerbeds and gardens. Hardy plants from zones 3 to 9, the little lovelies do not make good choices for container gardens due to a long taproot. Plan on watering columbines during the warm, dry months to keep them happily thriving.

Deadheading or removing spent flowers extends the season a bit, but leave a few flowers to form seed heads. The plant will reward you by dropping seed and starting up new plants next year. If you don’t want more columbine gracing your flowerbed, simply remove all spent flowers.

Dainty columbine flowers look especially attractive in flowerbeds, but plant in a large cluster for a show of color and textures. A rock garden is another good location for columbine. Hummingbirds visit columbine in search of nectar as do butterflies, so placing it in a garden for wildlife or a butterfly garden invites winged creatures in spring.

Columbine Legend & Lore
Why columbine has been called granny’s bonnet in earlier times is unclear, but perhaps it’s because the flower, always peering at the ground like an old woman beneath her bonnet, trembles at the slightest whisper of a breeze. In the language of flowers, the 1833 meaning was desertion and a few years later, inconstancy, but yet another meaning, cuckoldry, brings mystery to the plant. When and why columbine came to be known as a naughty rendezvous is uncertain.

According to an article published June 20, 1903 in the New York Times’ archive, once upon a time columbine was called cocksfoot or culverwort. A quote by Erasmus Darwin from the article said, “In the columbine, the necktary is imagined to be like the neck and body of a bird, and the two petals standing upon each side to represent wings; whence its name of columbine, as it resembles a nest of young pigeons fluttering while their parents feed them.” I’ll have to take a closer look of the columbine blooming to discover if I see what Mr. Darwin saw.

The botanical name, aquilegia, means eagle probably referring to the spurs, but the common name, columbine comes for the Latin word, columba or dove. The state of Colorado claims the Rocky Mountain columbine as its state flower.

The beauty of columbine and the history of the plant make it a worthy plant to include in your garden. The ease of growing and self-sowing add two more excellent reasons for starting columbine in your garden.

Now get out there and grow!

Is It Garden Snark?

As I meandered across the internet searching for information on…I can’t remember what anymore, I bumped into a blog called Garden Rant via the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. My initial reaction was who the hell do these four women think they are bringing snark into my peaceful garden world. Sure, I’ve argued that growing flowers is just as important as growing vegetables and I’ve written a fair share of flimsy, nothing new garden articles for websites, but hard work begets romance in my garden world and I like it that way. So after reading a few rants I wrote a rant of my own tossing in snark here and there to grow a point. Like all angry, emotional writers, I tossed the missive into the closest compost heap aka the delete key.

Somewhere between checking out each ranters bio and reading a few posts, I came across a blurb about the nonsense of using broken pots in container gardening. Besides what I initially viewed as garden snark, I felt personally affronted that anyone thought my mother’s method of growing was a myth or nonsensical. I learned to garden from my mother who SUCCESSFULLY grew myriads of houseplants all in containers with shards of clay pots in the bottom and from my mother-in-law. Together those two important women in my life made up 40 plus years of gardening experience growing vegetables, roses, herbs, and a plethora of flowers.

After I simmered down, I went back to the Garden Rant and read more. Now that the shock that my mom might have been doing something wrong wore off, I could rate the blog with a less emotional view. Yes, I’m eating humble pie…I liked it. I like the edgy writing and I especially like the groups dislike of too pretty, too fast HGTV gardening bunk. I don’t watch gardening shows on TV. I would add one more dislike when it comes to garden TV and glossy magazines…most of the ideas are too expensive for the tight budgets a good share of Americans are on in the current economy.

We all want something new, but I also delve into the gardens of the past through garden writers like Rosetta E. Clarkson, Gertrude Jekyll, and Henry Beston. I see romance in a flower garden where someone else sees solitude, drama, or whatever. That’s the grand part of gardening….it is whatever you want it to be with hard work. Read the everything’s comin’ up roses blogs, read the poison ivy sting of blogs like Garden Rant, read the facts and check out the legend and lore, but in the end take what you will and make it your own.

Now get out there and read a few garden blogs on a rainy day!

PS I’m doing a little research on my own to discover if placing broken pieces of clay pots or stones in the bottom of containers is indeed necessary. I’ll get back with you on that one.