I have been busy in the garden the last couple of weeks. The cooler weather called to me and I decided to it was time to tackle my weed infested gardens and add a few new plants. It was the Scott Arboretum Plant Sale last weekend, so it was a good excuse to pick up a few plants. I also decided it was time to plant the Southern Magnolia near the driveway, which I have been thinking about for the past couple of years. Unfortunately the plant sale wasn’t going to have any so I headed over to Mostardis. Of course while I was there I picked up a couple of extra friends for the garden. I still have a good bit of work in the front garden (in front of the bay window), but I have at least started edging and weeding.

As I mature as a gardener, I am starting to become much more selective about the plants that I buy. I am much more interested in foliage and creating a patchwork of beautiful patterns and colors, and much less concerned with the flowers. At the same time I am still learning about properly placing plants. I lost quite a few perennials to the wet spring and summer. So my goal moving forward is to not just look at sun verses shade but also look closely at the type of moisture requirements. I also now have a much better idea of how each of my planting beds functions. I am also trying to buy native plants where possible. I don’t think I would ever go to a completely native garden, but seeing how the birds and bugs love our garden, it has inspired me to give them a good habitat.

One planting bed that has changed over the years in this small bed adjacent to our driveway and the property behind us. Originally there were terrible prickly overgrown evergreen shrubs here. I pulled those out years ago and started with mostly annuals. The bed is pretty dry and gets a fair amount of wind from the adjacent street. Although this bed isn’t in our line of sight most of the time, it can be seen from some angles and if we ever put an addition on the house, it will be visible along with the van that parks there and street beyond. For the shorter term I planted some Rose of Sharron along the fence to provide a quick screen. However these aren’t evergreen and they self-seed way more than I would like. The only good thing about them is that they have a deep tap root so they don’t require watering. After contemplating multiple plants including traditional evergreens, I decided that a southern magnolia would be perfect, except that the traditional varieties are way too big!

I have always thought that Southern Magnolias are quite beautiful, but until recently hadn’t really thought of them as suitable for my yard. Fortunately there are a couple of smaller varieties that are suitable for our Zone 6B/7A climate. I had originally searched for a ‘Little Gem’ but one of the local nurseries had ‘Kay Parris’ (which is related to little gem) in stock in a suitable size (i.e. not tiny but could still fit in the car) so I took the plunge and planted it over the weekend. This one should stay in a suitable size with lower branches to be the perfect year around screen. From what I have been told, they are pretty sturdy trees and good in full to part sun and doesn’t mind dry soil. Yes!  And did I mention it should have beautiful white fragrant flowers in the spring? I have filled in the rest of the bed with some of the perennials that survived the weeds including some columbine, grasses and ice plants. I also added some Russian Sage that I got on clearance at Home Depot.

One surprise to me was how quickly my side bed has changed from full sun to part shade with the addition of the river birches. I guess it shouldn’t really be a surprise, but in the last year my full sun plants have really suffered. In the spring they start out strong but by midsummer a lot of my plants that normally thrive looked pretty sad. I see some lots of transplanting in my future! This bed is also quite wet during heavy rain. The one new plant I picked up for this bed is Eupatorium serotinum late flowering thoroughwort. This beauty is about 4′ tall and has white flowers in the fall. It is another native which the bees seem to quite like. It likes wet soil and is suppose to do well in full sun to part shade.

Another new plant I picked up is Scutellaria incana, hoary skullcap. It is another native that get blue flowers. It prefers dry soil and sun to part shade. I planted these beauties near by bamboo patch.

 Finally I picked this euphorbia up on clearance at a local nursery. I have had mixed luck with spurge. I managed to kill several beautiful purple ones over the summer. They are not particularly fussy about light requirements but they don’t like to get too wet. So my sideyard was not a good spot. This variety Cushion Spurge ‘First Blush’ is petite and pretty. It gets yellow flowers in the spring but I am smitten wit the green and white leaves with reddish edges. These will be planted in full sun in a much drier spot in the front yard. Hopefully they will do well there!

What have you been planting lately and what are on your plant list?

PawPaw Fruit in July

One of the questions I get most often when people visit my garden is about my pawpaw tree. What is it? What are those weird potato looking fruits? What does pawpaw taste like?

PawPaw Flowers in Spring

I first came across the PawPaw tree (Asimina triloba) in my tropical garden phase about 7 years ago. Here was a plant that is totally native (to most of the eastern US), but had tropical qualities including a fruit I had never heard of! Fortunately at the Scott Arboretum plant sale (held every other year) they usually have small trees for sale. I patiently planted one almost 7 years ago and waited and waited. Meanwhile I had never actually tasted this custardy fruit (I went purely on the what I could find online).  About 4 years ago I finally got to taste one (from the Farmer’s Market in Reading Terminal). I bought it home and cut it open. It wasn’t as good as I was expecting. It was soft,  mushy and messy and it had giant seeds inside which made it even harder to eat. I thought that maybe I had made a mistake and I was going to end up with fruit that I didn’t actually like but took solace in the fact that it was a pretty tree. It wasn’t until another year when we got a lone pawpaw off of our tree (the squirrels ate a lot of the flowers in the spring). Again I thought the taste was okay, but not everything I hoped for. Finally last year, when we had 5 or 6 ripe fruits, I actually tasted one to my liking. I am pretty sure now that  I didn’t let it ripen enough. I had been waiting for them to be soft to the touch like a peach, but I think pawpaws are actually better once they are all brown and look like they are going bad. I cut one of my brown fruits up (thinking that I would probably be throwing it out)and tried it, and discovered that it was in fact quite tasty! It had a tropical flavor of a mix between a banana and a papaya I thought. Of course this was the last of my fruit for the year, so I have be anxiously awaiting this years fruit to see how it tastes! Fortunately this year it looks like we have about 20 or so fruits ripening.

PawPaw Tree in my yard

So why plant it? First of all because it is a lovely medium size native flowering tree (in fact the Zebra Swallowtail Butterfly only lays eggs on this type of tree). Secondly because it provide a fruit that you can’t buy at the store (or not normally at the Farmer’s Market either). I had one of the Amish farmers from our Farmer’s Market tell me last year that they keep the pawpaws to themselves and make pawpaw butter. Third it is really interesting tree and fruit and a good topic of conversation (interesting fact: it is the largest edible ingenious fruit in the US). Another benefit is that it is a really good source of vitamins.

Ripe PawPaw Fruit

In my research I discovered that it was an important source of food for the Native Americans and early settlers and that is was a popular tree on farms though out the US (Lewis and Clark wrote that they were quite fond of them as was Jefferson). It lost popularity in the last 75 years as produce began to be shipped. These potato looking fruits bruise easily and are not the most attractive looking specimen. Apparently there area lots of old farm cookbooks that have recipes.  The good news is that there is a small cult following of pawpaws. There is even an annual festival in Ohio every year. I found this interesting article which includes a recipe for PawPaw Ice Cream. I think I will be making some later this summer!

I have about 10 seeds saved in the fridge from last year. I am thinking of trying to grow them to see how many I can get to germinate. So please let me know if anyone is interested in giving one a try and I will send you a seed to grow yourself!

Here are a few more interesting PawPaw Links:

Kentucky State University PawPaw Program

PawPaw Lassi Recipe

NPR’s Food Blog: The Salt’s Story on the PawPaw

Toad Lily Buds & Flower

Common Toad Lilies (Tricyrtis hirta)

Type: Perennial (Zones 4-9).

Light Requirements: Part Sun to Shade

Moisture/Soil: Average to wet moisture.

Blooms: Early to mid  fall. 36″ Tall.  Orchid like flowers are white with dark purple spots.

Leaves: Medium size pointy leaves on multiple arching stems.

Size: Height: 36″ Tall.

Additional Info: I bought my first toad lilies last year. I bought some big plants at an end of season sale and divided them and put them in the ground. They bloomed for a long time, during a period in fall when most plants are past their peak. This spring they all sprouted right back up and I have been anxiously waiting for them to bloom.

Pros: They are low maintenance and bloom when not much else is in bloom.

Cons: The bunnies have eaten the buds closer to the front of the border.

Origin: Not native to the US. Asia.

Varieties: There are a few varieties with several different flower colors including purple, white and yellow.

Plant Combinations: These look good paired with variegated hostas.

*The Plant of the Week is based on plants that do well in my 7a/6b garden in SE Pennsylvania.

Butterfly from this morning

One of my 2 original Butterfly Bushes

Same bush as above from the Kitchen window

One of the first things I planted when we moved into our house were 2 dark purple ‘black knight’ butterfly bushes (and a nikko blue hydrangea). I really wanted some butterflies in our pretty boring landscape and I heard that Buddleia grew quickly and were quite hardy. And sure enough the first year we planted them the butterflies showed up as soon as they started to flower! As I sit here, I have seen 3 pass by the window.

I have since expanded my collection (with some good and some not so good varieties). Now that I have a lot of other plant varieties in the yard, I don’t find the Buddleia quite as aesthetically appealing as I once did (although they do reliably bloom in July and August). They can look kind of rough towards the bottom (if possible I recommend underplanting them with some perennials). I also recommend cutting them back quite heavily (either in the fall or spring). The older branches tend to be less attractive and have a tendency to break over time. Also if left to grow unchecked mine have reached 15′ tall. If you want to avoid seedlings, cut back the spent blooms before they turn to seed. I have had a number of volunteer plants from the seeds (both in good and bad locations), but ultimately I keep them because I love the butterflies. It is interesting that these plants are not generally native to North America, but somehow they seem to be the butterflies favorite food! I have also added Orange Butterfly Weed to the garden as well as a number of other butterfly friendly plants, but I see the butterflies mostly choosing the butterfly bush.

Although they won’t make my Plant of the Week because they can look a little rough at other times of the year, I still highly recommend planting at least one, preferably where you can see it from a window. We have them planted so that you can see them from 2 of the kitchen windows and I get to enjoy the butterflies while I make dinner. Sometimes it is the little things that make you smile.

'Purple Rain' Salvia before dividing with yucca roughly placed still in the pot

One of the two pots of divided salvia

Divided Salvia in new location w/ Yucca

I use to be afraid and too intimidated to divide my perennials. I started out a few years ago dividing hosta (when they would get too big for their spot). They are one of the easiest plants to divide.  Take them out with a spade (this typically requires lots of heavy lifting), remove them from the hole and divide with a big saw, making sure to leave some leaves and roots on each section. Alternately you can take a spade and try to chop off a section and leave a portion of the plant in its place. Hosta are typically quite strong and thrive on being divided. However with most other perennials I was nervous about killing the plants! The rest of my perennials I started dividing purely by accident. I would be moving a plant and discover that as I was digging it up to move to a new location that it could be easily split into several plants (at which point I couldn’t help myself). Typically, I try to leave one bigger plant (to try and ensure its survival) and plant the smaller ones in new locations (and discard any really woody or rotted portions). Now that I know more about a lot of my perennials, I have discovered that a number of perennials prefer to be divided (i.e. when you see the middle part dying out or the plant seems to have lost some of its vigor). One of my favorite activities is pulling up a plant and seeing how many plants I can get out of it! Depending on the plant, dividing is done with one of a couple of methods. The best way to determine how to divide it is to pull it out and carefully wash off the dirt. A number of plants can be divided by simply teasing apart the roots and sniping the plants apart (i.e. like Salvia). Woodier roots will require a saw or clippers (i.e like daylilies). Typically plants with tap roots should not be divided (i.e. the root looks like a carrot such as Baptisia). Fortunately if you aren’t sure it is very easy to look up what type of root most perennials have.  One downside to this is that the area where you pulled out the plant will look kind of sad for a while (which calls for dividing in early spring or the fall to minimize the bare spots during the prime garden season).

A couple of weeks ago I dug out one of my huge  ‘purple rain’ salvia to divide (and because I wanted to rearrange some of the plants in the bed). This time of year is not the ideal time to do this! Early/mid spring or fall is much easier on the plants (and requires less watering), but sometimes I need to divide in non-optimal times. So is the case with my salvia. When I dug the plant up, I managed to divide (by removing the dirt from the roots and pulling apart the roots, while leaving some leaves on each root) the plant into about 10 plants. I put a couple back near the original location, with my new Yucca and the rest into a couple of pots filled with compost. I added some compost to the the plants that I put back in the ground. I also cut back the flowers, so the plant would concentrate its efforts on it roots rather than its flowers. I also watered every other day (when it didn’t rain) for the first week and a couple of times a week for the first month or so. Whenever I do something like this I hope for about a 75% success rate. I have found that it is unrealistic to assume that all of the plants will take (especially this time of year). However, less than 2 weeks later I have new leaves starting to grow at the base of all but one of the plants! Today I am going to chop off the older larger leaves and stems down to the new leaves.

So don’t be afraid, go out and divide and make more plants! Happy gardening!

'Purple Rain' Salvia paired w/ ice plants and coreopsis in a dry sunny bed adjacent to the driveway

'Purple Rain' paired w/ Bearded Irises and Autumn Joy Sedum

Close up of Flower Stem

‘Purple Rain’ Salvia verticillata (Lilac Sage, Whorled Clary )

Type: Perennial (Zones 4-9).

Light Requirements: Full Sun

Moisture/Soil: Average moisture.

Blooms: Early summer (reblooms in fall if cutback after first bloom). Tall 18″-24″  floppy spikes with beautiful of purple flowers that tend to cluster in balls (the more sun the taller the spikes tend to be)

Leaves: Large soft fuzzy green oval shaped leaves that form in a mound.

Size: Height: 18″-24″ tall and wide. It is a soft untidy mound.

Divided 'Purple Rain' waiting in compost to be replanted (they look sad but they should perk up pretty soon)

Additional Info: Not only is this my favorite salvia and is one of my Top 10 perennial for my garden (I also grow ‘May Night’ which has darker purple flowers and is more upright). I love the untamed cottage garden feel that they have. I also like the soft leaves.   Mine tend to like to be divided every 3 years or so. If not the middle will tend to open up and not look as good.

Pros: They are low maintenance and the butterflies, bees and birds love them. Will typically rebloom if flower heads are cut off after initial bloom. These can also be divided quite easily after a couple of years (I just divided 1 very large plant into about 10 plants). Deer and rabbits typically don’t like Salvia.  They also make a good cut flower.

Cons: If you don’t like “natural” or “wild” look then this plant is not for you.

Origin: Not native to the US. Europe/Asia.

Varieties: There are a number of varieties of salvia to choose from. Here are a few of my favorites:

‘May Night’ has nice dark purple/blue flowers.

‘Caradonna’ has a medium purple flower.

‘Snow Hill’ is a white salvia.

‘Marcus’ is a dwarf version (more like a ground cover).

Plant Combinations: These look good paired with small grasses and taller more erect plants. Also looks great with orange and yellow lilies like Stella de Oro. I also just planted some with a Yucca.

*The Plant of the Week is based on plants that do well in my 7a/6b garden in SE Pennsylvania.

Magnolia asheii in bloom (5/16/2011)

Magnolia Ashei w/ perennials

Magnolia Ashei leaf

Plant of the Week: Big leaf Magnolia, Ashe Magnolia
(Magnolia ashei or Magnolia macrophylla subsp. ashei)

Type: Small Tree  (Zones 6-9).

Light Requirements: Full Sun to Part Shade (Mine is in part-sun but it can be planted as an under story tree)

Moisture/Soil: Average moisture. Sheltered locations help protect the leaves from fraying.

Blooms: Giant white flowers w/ pink accent (6″-10″ wide) late spring to early summer (mine just finished blooming). Also has red burrs after flowering.

Leaves: GIANT Green leaves (up to 24″ long). Have a unique prehistoric look.

Size: Height & Width: 10′-15′ (In tends to grow more upright in sunny locations  and wider in shady spots.)

Additional Info: I purchased mine at the Scott Arboretum Plant Sale 4 years ago. It has grown about 18″ since then. I think it is very unique and interesting. It has grown sideways as much as upright (looking for the sun). When people visit the garden they always comment on the giant leaves.

Pros: Unique specimen plant. Beautiful leaves. It flowers at a younger age than its larger cousin.

Cons: Fairly slow growing. Not for a windy location.

Origin: Native to the Florida panhandle (it is very rare in nature). Its bigger cousin Magnolia macrophylla is native to the the SE US (Carolinas through Florida).

*The Plant of the Week is based on plants that do well in my 7a/6b garden in SE Pennsylvania.