Monday, November 23, 2009

The Folly of Not Visiting Botanical Gardens in the Fall






We all do it. We take in the spectacular bulb displays at our regional botanical gardens in the spring. We check out the latest offerings of annuals and perennials in our favorite nurseries in the spring. We make time for those destination nurseries in June and keep our eyes open to announcements of garden walks and open days.

Then the hot days of summer come along and our hanging baskets that looked so lush on Memorial Day and the 4th of July start to look a little ratty and its off to the beach. We sort of slack off on gardening until we get hit with bulb planting and our fall lawn work and garden clean up.

This next picture with its deep green and grey combo is visually relaxing after the happy yellow-orange-red combos of which we see so much.

This first is seven sons tree. The bark reminds me of a ninebark, but the color is much richer in its cinnamon hue. After flowering in late summer, the fall flower bracts are a nice peachy orange contrast to the shiny green leaves.

If this sounds like you-- check out some of these pictures showing some of the plants, shrubs, and tree, you might just be missing!

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Collecting Seed
















I have spent quite a bit of time collecting seed this fall from a variety of my more unusual plants. These include plants I want a lot more of, plants I wish to sell or give to friends, or plants that I see a particular specimen has looked a bit more interesting than its cohorts of its species in my garden.

Last year I grew a cleome from seed. One of the plants seem to be bulkier, the first to germinate, yet never grew as tall. I collected seed from it and planted them this year. In turn its offspring yielded some plants with these same characteristics.

Cleomes like it hot and dry. The weather in central Wisconsin was far from cleome weather. We had the coldest June on record, the second coldest July, the wettest September, the driest October. You get the idea. The results with my cleome were far from ideal, yet I could tell this plant was quick to branch and never grew ungainly tall. Although it did flower and set seed, its flower show wasn't the specacular one for which I had hoped. I will collect seed again this year and hope for the best.

The other seed I have collected this year includes rattlesnake master, chelone glabra, liatris, ligularia 'Desdemona', heuchera 'Palace Purple', ligularia 'The Rocket', gaillardia 'Arizona Sun', an incredible peach Japanese tree peony, nicotiana 'Tinkerbelle', seed from some of my nicer open pollinated daylilies, a particularly well-branched and bushy hyssop, and a echiacea 'Magnus' with a flower which was easily 6" wide and very open and flat among others.

Many of these I will winter sow. This is a great method to grow plants from seed without obsessing over temperatures, moisture, and fungicides. For those of you unfamiliar with winter sowing, I incourage you to check out winter sowing in your particular zone at http://www.wintersow.com/.

And as for success with my seed sowing, I'll let you know. It can be exciting as these pictures of daylilies my son hybridized by crossing daylily 'Stella di Oro' with another daylily grown from a packet of daylily seed purchased from Jung's a number of years ago show.

Saturday, November 21, 2009

Kale

Edible ornamentals were everywhere this year,botanical gardens, horticultural testing stations, public parks. In northern gardens, when you get past grasses and the perennials that "look good dead" as Piet Oudolf says in praise of our Midwestern native prairie plants, there's just not a lot going on with annuals. Yes, fall mums put on a big show, but for over-the-top-unusual ornamental kale is where it is at.


This first kale is the Red Peacock hybrid kale. Supposedly it grows 8-12" tall. Not here! This specimen is easily 2 feet tall and 2 feet across. It is a sensational specimen with its extremely lacey, finecut foliage. Purpley-blue outer foliage embrace a hot pinky mauve center making this a standout.

This next photo shows a traditional kale in the foreground with what is referred to as "dinosaur kale" behind the purple fountain grass.


Another of the cole family I recommend is Savoy type cabbage. My favorite ornamental for its mild almost lettuce flavor and wonderfully textured leaves that make a good ornamental, structured border.

In the last picture, you can see the dinosaur kale in the foreground. This picture actually features many different edibles which are highly ornamental. Red Bor kale is right behind the dinosaur kale. This picture was taken at the Allen Centennial Gardens on the UW-Madison campus in mid-September.