Cait's Garden

The two fluffy white Limelight hydrangeas in this photo are not different sizes due to forced perspective. The one in the foreground is more than twice the size of the one in the background. Both shrubs were purchased at the same time from the same store and started out the same size, one on either side of my front door. The smaller shrub is actually in better quality soil than the larger one, which is kind of stranded on a patch of earth between the sidewalk and driveway. The difference? Sunlight! Both face west, but the smaller shrub gets shading from the house, whereas the larger shrub is outside of the shade’s influence, on the corner of the house. It gets full sun from almost all sides. I believe this shows the difference the sun can make to sun-loving shrubs.

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I had to snap a photo of this amazing sight I saw while walking around the neighborhood this morning. At first, I thought the trees were starting to turn colors a bit early. Then I realized these weren’t orange leaves, but orange flowers. Yes, my friends, this person is growing an extremely large bugle vine on an extremely large tree. The vine goes up about 16 feet or so. Since the tree is on a corner, it’s getting enough sun from the sides. I do wonder what the squirrels think about this, but I admire the fact that someone finally found a place where a bugle vine has enough room to grow to its full height.

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This was a shot of my vegetable garden from about two months ago when everything was full of promise. Let’s focus on that shot, because the current one isn’t as pretty. For the fifth year in a row, I have proven a mostly unsuccessful vegetable gardener. I don’t know how the farmers in Illinois ever grow a crop with our bizarre weather.  My one success this year was preventing early blight on my tomatoes. I think it was the regular application of liquid copper fungicide. These are the tallest tomato plants I’ve every had…and the leaves have stayed green, too! I’ve had one great tomato harvest and now am hoping for another good crop of tomatoes to prove that I really was successful at growing them this year.

To me, as long as I have a good tomato crop, I count myself lucky. There is no substitute for a home-grown tomato. Fortunately, there ARE substitutes at the store for my garden fails, like cucumbers and pumpkins. I learned that you can’t get cucumbers or pumpkins unless the bees do a good job fertilizing those pretty yellow flowers. Blame the world-wide bee blight, but my flowers did not turn into pumpkins or cucumbers. And then last week the blight set it anyway and turned all the green leaves to brown-spotted horrors. The vines have been excised. Garden fail. On a related note, the lettuce turned out bitter this year (won’t be trying that again) and the cilantro was pickable for only a heartbeat. Barely worth planting. Peppers also give me trouble. The bell kind anyway. So far, I have had one excellent pepper from each plant. Just the one pepper. Can’t explain why exactly.

The pole beans are interesting looking. A pretty green wall. The bean yield has been sparse, but at least they are still alive and producing. Therefore, they make the cut. What cut? The cut of the crops I’ll grow from now on. I am done with cucumbers, squash, pumpkins, lettuce, and most herbs. Next year, I am only growing tomatoes, jalapenos, and bell peppers (despite their sparse yield), plus another go at the pole beans. I have had enough of struggling to grow anything else. As with my flower garden, I’ve learned what is hardy and thrives. Half the job of being a good gardener is knowing when to cut your losses and change plans.

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Who can resist the plant sales that start in August? It’s like you realize the winter is coming and if you don’t buy plants now, you’re out of luck till next May. That’s too long a wait to contemplate for me. Plus, I’ve gotten some of my most unusual and beloved plants in August. August is a great time for buying fall bloomers and prairie plants. For the third year in a row, I’ve purchased an exciting prairie plant. This one is “Aster azureus” or “Sky Blue Aster.” If you live in the middle or eastern part of the country, this is probably the same tall blue aster you’ve seen by the sides of the road and in fields. It is supposed to tolerate any soil type imaginable and still thrive. My kind of aster! I love asters, but have so much trouble with rust and mildew on my old-fashioned short varieties that I’ve given up on those. This will be a tall, majestic beauty next August! (Right now it’s a pathetic few canes, kind of like a Charlie Brown plant.) I planted it next to my white “Swamp Aster” which is also a prairie plant. Should be an outstanding combo. Also purchased on this plant sale shopping trip was Harvest Moon Coneflower. Not my showiest coneflower, but an arresting light orange color with a pretty cone. And finally, Plumbago or Leadwort. This was a groundcover recommended to me by my mother. It blooms with deep violet-blue flowers this time of year, when flowers are most needed. All three plants were rather root-bound (one of the hazards of late season shopping), but some extra attention opening the roots up should fix that. I wish my three new babies good health for years to come.

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Okay, I’m being a bit dramatic. We gardeners are sensitive people. But tall phlox truly are a mixed bag in any given summer. Prone to powdery mildew, this plant has its good summers and its bad. I have collected varieties that promise to be mildew resistant, but not all live up to their claims. (Regular application of a liquid copper fungicide can sometimes help, but it rained too much to apply it regularly.) This summer, my usually hardy and spectacular Blue Paradise Phlox were taken out early by the incessant rains. But two newer varieties, planted just last summer, were surprising winners. Not only did they avoid the dreaded mildew, but they bloomed two weeks later than my other phlox, meaning that they have single-handedly extended my phlox season. Shown in the photo is Red Volcano and Candy Stripe Volcano (“Volcano” being a brand of phlox bred for mildew-resistance). The red is an unusually deep, hot pink and the candy-striped looks just as promised. A dazzling combination, I think.

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