Wordless Wednesday

A small sampling of what can be found in my garden right now.

Centaurea montana Black Sprite

Digitalis too-lazy-to-go-check-labelii

Baptisia australis

An unidentified Opiliones who clearly hadn't had her coffee yet

(these are commonly known as Daddy Long Legs or Harvestmen and they are ALL OVER my garden this year)

Trasdescantia too-brightus

No, she's not quite that bright but I like the level of detail so I included it anyway

It's JUNE!

It's been a long, cool wait here in New England until we finally arrive at the month of JUNE! Warm weather, good gardening, lots to get done before the heat arrives and it's too late to plant anything else.

The iris in my rain garden are still blooming - the early bloomers are done but I have some late bloomers still going strong.

Penstemon Husker Red is not shy about self seeding. Every time I see a plant growing in a crack in pavement like this I am amazed at nature will find a way.

My Centaurea Black Sprite is just starting to bloom. It's much less aggressive than Amethyst in Snow and I really like the contrast between the nearly black blooms and the yellow-green foliage.

Nepeta is going strong and attracting plenty of native pollinators (this is Dropmore, a shorter version than Walker's Low - the blooms are a bluer purple than they look on my computer monitor).

My Cornus Garden Glow is at it's peak - gorgeous leaves, gorgeous blooms. A bit larger than the predicted 3-5 foot. I've started cuttings in the hope that I can plant this somewhere away from the house and take down these oversized shrubs. I can't seem to find it for sale anywhere or I'd just buy a new one and dig these out (and won't THAT be a chore!).

My Hostas are fully opened. I have a fondness for BIG hostas. I plant them inside the fence and the dogs are a good deer deterrent. We're fortunate that we don't have many deer despite bordering on a couple of hundred acres of woods. I think the coyotes are keeping the deer in check. Just don't let your cats run free around here.

At this point if a plant hasn't poked it's leaves up I'm assuming it didn't make it. 

You made it just in time, Helenium!

By the end of this month I hope to have a fresh layer of mulch in all the gardens and to have made progress on the grass removal in the backyard (sadly not a sign of new beds being put in but of pulling grass away from growing shrubs that I didn't clear enough grass around originally).

And I hope my Buddleia are looking better. They died back nearly to the ground this winter. Not a pretty sight.

Plant of the week - a Love/Hate relationship

My plant of the week for this week is...

Centaurea montana 'Amethyst in Snow.'

I LOVE the way this plant looks right now. I LOVE the way it attracts pollinators, like native bees. 

I don't mind that it attracts ants (ants are good for loosening up the soil).

I tolerate that it's an aggressive spreader (that's ONE plant in the picture).

I HATE that it will look like crap after it's done blooming. It gets infected with a fungus (can you say powdery mildew?) EVERY. FREAKING. YEAR.

I LOVE that I just have to cut it back to the ground and it recovers from the powdery mildew and comes back strong, blooming to beat the band the following spring. That's a good thing for the plant, too. If I have to treat a plant for a disease I'd rather pull it out and replace it with something else. 

No chemicals that kill things for my garden, thank you. I have yet to find a plant that's worth poisoning my local ecosystem (and myself and my family). 

Besides, a fungicide that kills powdery mildew will also affect the mycorrhizae in the soil [don't know what mycorrhizae are? They're soil fungi that are beneficial [and sometimes required] for plant health].

AND I'll stop now, before I get back on my we-all-live-in-the-same-environment soap box.

Miscellaneous Monday

OK, so it's really Miscellaneous Tuesday but that isn't alliteration and I have a thing about alliteration.

1.  Big weekend project.  We had two very, very large Pieris japonica in front of our house.  They were planted as foundation plants but they weren't a petite variety.  Rather than prune them twice a year or allow them to block the windows we elected to attempt to move them.  Here they are in their new home.

We'll have to wait and see if they survive.  The Husband and I had a hard time lifting the larger one so if we didn't get a large enough root ball there is no way we could have.  (Piper, our dog, is overseeing my photography).

2.  I attended a work conference in Connecticut last week.  This meant that Logee's was on the way home.  Logee's is a complex of greenhouses that contain not-the-same-old house plants (they also have mail order).  I had a hard time restraining myself.  I limited myself to three new plants.

This Blue Sansevieria ehrenbergii (no common name).  It does have blue-gray overtones that are not obvious in this image.

A Philodendron called Prince of Orange where the new leaves come in, well, orange.  This is a bushy philodendron, not a vine.

And last, but not least, for The Husband, this Calathea lancifolia, also called a Rattlesnake Plant.  [This isn't the only plant called a rattlesnake plant which is why scientific names are so valuable.]  The leaves close up at night (they stick straight up), exposing their purple undersides.  

2b.  I also picked up this Dracena, probably Lemon-lime.  But I got this one at a Big-Box retailer when I was picking up something else.  I just couldn't resist!  I love pale, yellowy greens, especially in combinations.    And I like large leaves and strong lines.  This plant has them all.  So Sexy!

3.  May was a very rainy month for us.  And we all know what rain brings.  

4.  Back outside - all of my Aquilegia are blooming.  At this time of the year I can hardly get enough of these plants!  This one is Denver Gold.

E.  Lastly here is a new requisition for the outdoor garden.  I was just going to the Local Garden Center to buy some houseplant potting mix and I found this Centaurea monttana Black Sprite.  What a shocking color!  I hope the blooms stay easily visible.  It's in the light and I'll plant paler colors around it to accent it (I'm thinking Perovskia [Russian Sage]).  

I always like the odd and unusual.  You, know, Edgy stuff.

That's the wrap up for this Monday Tuesday at The Edge.  It's been a busy week.  The weather looks to be good this week as well so if you're trying to reach me I'll be in The Garden.