Darling Dahliettas

Dahliettas are the "darlings" of my September garden. Barely a foot tall, they pop with color just when color is most appreciated. Mums and asters seem to be the traditional favorites, but I've not had great luck with them. I find that mums are challenged to survive the winter and asters too often succumb to mildew or unsightly stems. Dahlietta's are not usually found as pre-packaged tubers like regular dahlias are (in plastic bags with sawdust with the pretty picture stapled to it). They are sold as annual bedding plants and I suppose most people treat them as just that. I was speaking to a salesperson of such annuals at a local garden center this summer and launched a discussion of the dahlietta. She said with great sympathy for me in her eyes, "Oh, honey, those aren't the kind that can be dug up and replanted, you're thinking of the dahlia." Sometimes salespeople can be wrong. All of the dahlietta's pictured here were purchased as annuals last year, tubers dug up, replanted this Spring, and are now reaching their peak of bloom.

When I first grew dahliettas, determined to save my darlings I researched the method carefully. I followed a tedious list of steps. Cut back before the frost, cover the cut stems with aluminum foil, dry for ____ days, remove foil, dig up, dry for ____ more days on a tarp, layer in a tub with a recipe of ingredients and moisture. When I delved into the tub in the spring, there were alas, NO SURVIVORS.

But give up on dahliettas? NO!

Last year I simply cut them back after frost, dug the tubers, shook the dirt off, threw them in a kitty litter bucket, covered them with peat moss and wished them a good winter. It took half an hour. When I tentatively dumped the bucket out this Spring they were already showing green shoots, so eager were they to be planted. I'll be an optimist this year, go a step further and label the colors. That way that nice orange one will be sure to be placed next to my purple heliotrope. Mwah!!

Division Woes

It is rare for me to come in from a gardening chore with a scowl on my face, but yesterday's task was just cause - the challenging division of two perennials that are, well, resistant to division. The grey foliage of my Dianthus "Baths Pink" had formed a HUGE, low sprawling mat. Lovely during its two week bloom, but for the rest of the season the foliage monopolizes 12 square feet that could potentially be shared with another pretty blossom or two. Likewise, the softer, grey foliage of Cerastium (Snow in the Summer)had sprawled far beyond its intended space.

Most of my perennials can be divided by my easiest method. I position the shovel over an outgrowth of the basal foliage, throw all of my weight into one big jump onto the shovel, apologize to the mother plant for the intrusion, and walk away with the division ready to plunk into a prepared hole. Works great for everything from Astilbe to Veronia. Occasionally I need to dig up the entire plant and do my shovel-jumping aerobics out on the lawn, then replant divisions, tossing out the tired center. But neither method suits these pretty little troublemakers. The sprawling foliage rests atop the soil far away from the strong center of the plant. Oh, it tries to send down new rootlets beneath the sprawl, but those are precarious at best. Yesterday I looked for healthy chunks in each mat, stabbed the shovel in with gusto, removed the chunk with PLENTY of soil not daring to look to see if it was even attached. I ran each to its new hole as if I was an organ transplant doctor, watered well, and just hoped it would be forced to send down new roots before death overcame it. Today the dianthus mother plant looks shocked, traumatized, as if it has suffered a very bad haircut (I know the feeling). The new divisions of the cerastium look wilted, brown and equally traumatized. But days are shorter now, cooler, and as I type this I'm listening to a steady rain. I know that Mother Nature is giving the best medicine to these poor victims of my well intended division. Cheers to the beginning of the season of great division.

Daylily Delight

On May 7 of this year I posted a sad picture of the early daylily fans . At least two thirds of them were afflicted with "Spring Sickness," no known cause, no known cure. I held fast to hope throughout early summer that what I read was true - the affliction is not fatal to the plant. It was hard to imagine anything remotely pretty springing forth from the damaged vegetation in that picture. But my faith was rewarded. The plants did eventually shrug off the cruel twist to their vanity and put forth a nice display. Without a doubt, the daylily bed is the object of my greatest obsession. I remember a picture in my high school Biology textbook. It was of Gregor Mendel standing by his trellises of peas, notebook in the crook of his arm, looking so absorbed that the earth could have swallowed him up and he wouldn't have blinked (I know the look), documenting data on his charts and probably losing sleep over the mysteries of genetics. In July I feel such a one-ness with Gregor!!

And here is what is in the crook of my arm. At the top is the three year old map on graph paper, so worn and crumpled it is like old linen. On the left is a detailed description of each of 29 varieties. On the right are pictures to match each description. I stuff them all on my clipboard on daily basis in July and head out the door to record data, compare, change descriptive words, shuffle pictures, edit the map. Any of my kids who visit in July and witness this can't resist mocking me. ("Oh no, she's doing it again. Could someone bring her in?"). But I find the process so oddly soothing. If I could bottle the feeling I would have Gardener's Valium. If I could apply it to my basement, I would be able to walk through that area unobstructed. When we had our initial landscaping installed, "Jason the Nursery Man" may have grown weary of my barrage of questions when he finally said not unkindly," Don't forget to just sit and enjoy the garden." Good advice. And as I sit at the computer and turn my head over my left shoulder, I can see my daylilies and I am enjoying them. But the wheels start turning and I think, "I really need a backdrop.... I wonder about a white picket fence........

Summer in Saratoga

So much to love about Saratoga in the summer. It should come as no surprise that I'm drawn in, amazed and enchanted by the flowers. I've never known a town that loves flowers more! Flowers here, flowers there, flowers, flowers everywhere!! It is a delight to the senses to stroll down Broadway where floral displays show off the shop-fronts........

And their eateries.

There are parks around every corner and it is as if a master gardener could not bear for one to be unadorned. There's the Hathorne Natural Spring......

Saratoga's own "Spit and Spat" in Congress Park.....

A bench is just one more good reason to put in a garden.....

Clock on the corner? Plant flowers!!

The porches of the historic mansions of Union Street

lead to ........

whose flowers here are a fraction of the cascading displays they will be by the end of August.

It's hard to find a base of a tree that isn't encircled with flowers. This one caught my eye. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and I will be duplicating this combination in my own garden next year. I've never been a big fan of Celosia, but this scarlet celosia POPS when next the the New Guinea Impatiens with scarlet eyes. So it's official - I've begun to plan next year's garden

The Fairest Gardener of Them All

Margaret Chapin Frueh

Oct. 10. 1921 - July 20, 2011

This week I said good-bye to my beautiful mother. My words could easily number in the thousands. But because this is a gardening blog, I will write about Mom as the first person to share her love of gardening with me. I'm quite sure she began that sharing by stopping the stroller along the "Mosquito Path" to show me the Daisies, Black-eyed Susans and other wildflowers of the countryside. When I was old enough to walk along the side of the stroller she revealed more wonders to me, like looking for the one tiny little dark blossom in the middle of all the white blossoms on each cap of the Queen Anne's Lace. Or laughing as I turned up my nose at the smell of the Skunk Cabbage. Or probing with a stick to find the spit bug in the middle of the froth on the plant stem. She always kept a flower patch near the back door of the farmhouse. The first crocus blossom was a joyful event to be celebrated; as the pansies were planted, she showed us that each blossom had a face. Nasturtiums and Hollyhocks were favorites of hers. (I've never since known hollyhocks that grew as prolifically as hers.) Even with five children to consume her time, she planted a large vegetable garden, often finding time to can tomatoes, freeze corn, make pickles. Snip-snip from the clump of chives to sprinkle on potato salad. Snip-snip from the mint patch to flavor the lemonade. She delighted in simple gifts. Once a year, when the time was right, my father came in from a mysterious spot in the woods with a special gift for my mom - a blossom from the tulip tree. Mom floated it in a glass dish and we marveled at this miracle. And as if my gift was an equal, she would light up when I pushed my fist of dandelions into her face. Later in life Mom lived in apartment buildings many miles from the farmhouse. She always put flowers next to the steps leading to the apartment. With the same hands that had nourished and loved us, she checked on them daily, nurtured them and talked to them. Her favorite gardens were the ones she snuck in against the rules, for no rule was as abhorrent to Mom as "Residents May Not Plant Ornamental Flowers." How she loved to be naughty!! (As if white landscaping rocks were a good substitute for flowers!) And in her final weeks, even though she was nearly completely blind, I took bouquets from my garden to her beside so that she could smell them, and hear me say the names of all those old friends of hers. She will live on in my heart in so many ways. As I sow, weed, water and reap I will feel her presence with me. I close with this verse attributed to James Douglas:

"It is good to be alone in a garden at dawn

or dark so that all its shy presences

may haunt you and possess you

in a reverie of suspended thought."

My simple gardens will help me to bear her loss.

July in the Garden

July has been, historically, the "Month of the Great Blahs" in my garden. The sweetness of Spring blossoms which were nurtured by early rains are only a memory by July. The second putting forth of blossoms, encouraged by June's shearing back have not yet emerged. Japanese beetles, and a plethora of their garden pest friends chomp their way through foliage. Little diseases pop up here and there which leave me scratching my head. The soil hardens and becomes less hospitable to both my flowers and my camera. But forewarned by experience is to be armed for attack. I've tried to embrace the un-fun aspects of gardening and be more of a problem solver. And I have looked to plants that will actually flourish in this, the hottest month of the year. (And okay, I confess that I'm enjoying and using the "crop" feature of my digital photography as a sneaky way to eliminate patches of brown, defoliation.....)

Annabelle Hydrangea, liatrus and shasta daisy are my July friends.

My Aubrey Johnson daylily, in turn, is a friend to the hydrangea.

More on July's bountiful daylilies in a future posting.

And I finally, finally, have the sweet peas of my dreams.

Inhale, hold that scent to the count of four, exhale.