A Post

So, it's been a while. Lots of life got in the way. Marta died, after a long battle with death. I held her while she languished and then kicked, fighting death, and was gone. Sandy died, aided by humans because she was just suffering at this point. She wasn't upset. Looking into her eyes I felt like she knew what was happening. I held her, and that was it.

I'm sorry that is so depressing.

I've been cooking more. Pizzas with eggplant and capsicum, kabocha soup, the first pesto I've ever liked, hoddeok with persimmons and walnuts. Somehow putting all the extra effort into making pizza sauce from scratch makes me feel better.

The garden is closed. Winter cleanup for me means raking up some of the leaves but otherwise leaving most of them and the dead plant matter up. This way seeds, especially those of native plants, will spread and add to the natural seed bank. Hopefully some of the Joe Pye weed seeds from the garden make their way to somewhere it can compete with honeysuckle. The leaves and plant matter also insulate the roots of the perennials while breaking down into tasty morsels for the plants. I don't know why the current trend is to leaf blow everything into sterility. That looks so cold and barren to me. I know I need some insulation from the cold when I'm outside.

To float on

I'll take photos of the garden tomorrow.

Tacki Cacti

So, I bought these tacky guys:

Yeeeup, "Moon" cacti. Grafted abominations. But I have a good reason! Look at the boring guy underneath the gaudy one. See him? The one with the chlorophyll? He's a Hylocereus undatus, or DRAGONFRUIT PLANT. Did you know those grew on cacti? Did you know about them at all? Look at this crazy thing!

Source: here

Now I don't expect to get any fruit from them (if they live to that point), but I do expect, eventually, for the precursor to fruit. F-L-O-W-E-R-S. And what flowers they have!

Source: here

The flowers only open at night and last a few hours. I hear they're pleasantly fragrant. Oh, and did I mention this is a tropical, semi-epiphytic cacti? The easiest. Like a Christmas (Or Thanksgiving) cactus. If you don't have experience with those, WHY NOT? THEY'RE SO PRETTY! and basically, they're easy plants resistant to disease and tough to overwater and underwater.

So how do you get this plant, without the tacky and parasitic Gymnocalycium at the top? Patience, like this person:

So I'm just going to be patient and fight the urge to pluck the tacky graft off. Maybe one day, when I am old as heck, I'll see my beloved cacti bloom. 

What happened?

I loved you so much, Supertunia Bordeaux. What did I do wrong?

How did you go from this:

To this:

It wasn't the temperature or lack of sunlight. I gave you water and fertilizer, but you still felt weak and wilted. I checked for root rot, but you seemed fine. I noticed that other locals had this problem with your cousins. I cut you back, and you're producing a few blooms, but nothing like before. Oh well. It was fun while it lasted, Bordeaux. 

The Unplantables

The thing that started my love of plants was my mother's sudden obsession with trees. You could say she planted the seeds. (Too good/predictable to let slide!) She, um... would look at trees while driving and try to identify them. I didn't like this, but it made me very curious as to what the big fuss was about.

The problem is, I became better at it. She's not a gardener. She loves wooded areas and wildlife and she knows her oak from a maple and she knows the common names to a few plants, usually invasive ones, but not much else. But that's neither here or there. The topic I'm trying to get to here is i-n-v-a-s-i-v-e-s. So many garden plants still available are unfortunately invasive. Not in the garden sense, but the ecological one. I love the forest, the swamps, the meadows, and I can't with a good conscience plant species that are ecologically damaging. Even ones that aren't (yet) in New Jersey, but I feel could be.

Like:

Photo courtesy of Monrovia

(Pennisetum alopecuroides)

I love that plant. I love the way it looks. So whimsical, light, and airy. It softens other more rigid plantings and looks great with wildflowers. What I don't love about it is that it potentially invasive. Although, I hear that purple fountain grass is fine to plant. It's an annual here anyway.

As far as I know, there is no good native substitute for this. I tried both white and pink muhly grasses (Muhlenbergia capillaris) last year, and although they're meant to be good to zone 7 and sometimes 6, only the largest clump that I found at a local nursery survived. They did incredibly well all summer, tripling in size, and then never came back. I attribute this to improper drainage, maybe. They weren't in a wet area, but maybe still too wet for these xeric beauties. Maybe I could get them to work if I had a sloped area in full sun (spoiler alert: I don't.).

Rip, muhly guys.

Another unplantable:

 Photo courtesy of Missouri Botanical Garden

(Duetzia gracilis)

That one is even on our unofficial state list that I refer to, which you can browse here if you really want to. Deutzia is a beautiful, beautiful shrub. I have a weakness for white flowers. The good news is native Clethra and Philadelphus shrubs can fill the white-flowering-shrub void. 

Last unplantable of the post:

Photo courtesy of White Flower Farm

(Clematis terniflora)

A classic. Sweet autumn clematis, or SAC. You drive me crazy, SAC. You are too pretty to be real, but so damn invasive. I see you strangling trees all the time. Luckily I know of an almost 1-for-1 native alternative. Clematis virginiana, or Virgin's Bower, looks almost identical to SAC. It also blooms around the same time. This will likely be an addition to my garden very, very soon. I hope it's just as vigorous as SAC, because I have a lot of fence to cover.

That's it for now. Here's an extra photo of my monster Supertunias. Note how they've started trying to take over the other plants. There is no escape.

I'm beyond impressed with their (borderline) invasive performance.

Violas & Virginity

So, I finally lost it. And by it, I mean my spray paint virginity. I'm no stranger to painting, ya know, when you dip a brush into some goop and spread it on to the desired surface as evenly as possible. I considered painting this old, rusty, found shepherd's hook with metal primer and oil paint, but with all the little nooks and crannies I decided it was time to just man up and to spray it.

Before

Originally I wanted to go with oil rubbed bronze, to "match" the door handle and light, but my local big box big store didn't seem to carry it so I settled for "hammered brown". Truthfully, the hammered texture is a lot subtler than I thought it would be, and for that I'm thankful.

After

Not perfect, but I don't care.

The petunias were $4 or so, and worth it just to tide me over until next year when I can do my own thing. I want plants trailing down to the ground!

So, tips. Other than follow the instructions, I repeated this mantra: "If you're a-sprayin' your arm better be a swayin'." (Obviously from YHL!) It really helped to make the paint go on evenly and without drips. If you spray full strength ahead at any one part, you're bound to get drips. Keep your arm moving and a thin later of paint will be deposited. The more thin coats, the better. When you're satisfied with the coverage, leave. Just leave and let it dry. Oh, and you have better been wearing a mask and eye protection while using the stuff. 

As for prep, I sanded down the very rough parts and then hosed it down and let it dry. There are still a few uneven spots, but they're covered in paint now so further oxidation isn't an issue right now. You'd have to get pretty close to the hook to see the uneven spots, and if you did I would ask why are you so close to my shepherd's hook.

Now, for the mystery violas! Last year, right before Hurricane Sandy, I planted many pansies. I planted both the cheaper regular type and "cool wave" pansies. Of the two, the cheaper ones are much better in the ground, and the cool wave in planters. The cool waves, as a groundcover, were cool in theory and did well... up until a point. Then they got leggy and awful looking, but it was almost summer anyway, so I guess their time was up. I'd recommend them for planters rather than the ground. Their real strengths are the spring after looking awful all winter (nobody can blame them). Can we do a before and after? Let's go for it.

Immediately after planting

Early spring

Pansy Peak

I like this pansy trick. Plant these anemic looking little things in the fall, have a few blooms until it gets real cold, and then in the spring you'll be in pansy heaven. Nobody believed me that they would live through the winter, and especially not in a galvanized planter, but I proved them wrong. An elderly neighbor even stopped by and bent down and touched them "to make sure they are real". It wasn't even hard to overwinter them. I threw snow on them when it snowed or gave them water when the soil got dangerously dry. They didn't look so good, but they were green and supple. Sleeping, I guess.

Anyway, the point. The pansies reseeded!! So now I have some mystery violas. 

Viola x ???

This is pretty exciting stuff, to me. Pansies are hybrids, so I have no idea how these will turn out, but I guess time will tell. In the meantime I guess I'll find another galvanized planter and do it all again.

Stairs

This is a project that both Shannon and I are really tired of doing. But, it's much cheaper to diy it than to hire out and the results are great.

It began in the autumn of 2012. Mama and I couldn't live for one more minute with the green carpet on the stairs, so we tore it up. The house we live in has red oak hardwood everywhere except the bathrooms and kitchens. If you haven't done this before then a really good pair of pliers really helps with gripping the edge of the carpet and pulling up staples. Or whatever works. Really, it doesn't matter as long as you get the carpet up.

The wood wasn't in the best shape, but it wasn't in bad shape either.  It was very rough though and the polyurethane very yellowed. We sanded down to the raw wood but not far enough to get many of the scratches out, because that would eat into the wood too much. They're really not that noticeable in person. We sand with an electric sander with 60 grit sandpaper until the raw wood is reached and then finish it with 160 or higher so the wood is smooth. Then, cleanup. That part is not fun. Then, polyurethane!! I apply satin oil-based polyurethane with a foam brush, making sure to apply it slowly (to reduce bubbles), thinly, and evenly. It usually takes around 5 thin coats.

Top: before, Bottom: after

The hardest parts are around the corners and the balusters I couldn't get out. Usually you can dislodge them but a few were seemingly glued and nailed in. That seems really unsafe to me, but it wasn't mine or my family's doing so what can I do. 

The difference in finish is great. They're perfectly smooth on bare feet, whereas before they were rough and splintery. The satin finish looks very natural. I love the way the light reflects off of them. I do like when treads are stained darker, but I don't mind the natural color of the red oak either. It's Mama's preference, so whatever makes her happy makes me happy. 

At the moment there are still 3 (out of 13) steps to go. Life always gets in the way but we usually get a stair done in a day when it's a good day to do it. It's a noisy, messy, stressful day though. All the necessary coats of polyurethane usually take a few days, with everyone skipping over the step until it's dry. After the stairs are done I'll be painting the risers a clean, glossy white. After that, maybe a banister project. We'll see...

Summer goes by too quickly.

Soon it will be over again. The common garden mums are heavy with buds and sometimes the occasional bloom. The joe pyes are tall, handsome, and blooming. The sedums are developing a flush on their buds. Dogwoods are slightly golden from afar, with a small amount of rose up close. The growing season just seems to go by so quickly.

Eutrochium Purpureum

I'm anxious to see how the muhly grass will bloom this year. It did so well during the growing months last year, but the smaller clumps I had didn't make it at all and the larger one seems to have died in the center. I'll be surprised if it makes the winter this year. It's supposed to be hardy to zone 6, but I think mine didn't fair well because of drainage issues. The land I garden on is very flat, with rich soil that holds on to moisture pretty well (but is still "well draining", for certain). This being New Jersey, the soil is also fairly acidic, which is why I think dianthus doesn't seem to want to live for me. I keep trying anyway. I can't resist the silvery foliage and pink flowers. Please, dianthus, pls.

Dianthus Gratianopolitanus "Firewitch"

I'm also doing some zone pushing on some gaura I couldn't resist. It was labeled to zone 6, but I've heard that is just a label. Gaura likes drier locations, so I fear I'll have the same problem like with the muhly. Oh well. It's worth it even as an annual. I'm thinking... containers? For next year!

Gaura Lindheimeri "Ballerina Rose"

Let's end this with a little bit of impatiens gradient.

Impatiens Walleriana in various colors 

A Trip to Washington Valley Park

Washington Valley is one of the best if not the best of the Somerset County, NJ parks. It's always clean and litter free and has many different habitats and species to enjoy. It's strictly a park for hiking and woodsy things, which I prefer. It's very "untouched", in a good way mostly. Unfortunately there are also a lot of invasives, but it's hard to find anywhere without them anymore.

So charming.

Monotropa Uniflora

Centaurea spp.

My intentions were to collect wineberries (Rubus Phoenicolasius) and possibly chanterelles, which I have seen there before. I struck out on the chanterelles, but not wineberries! There are still many more that need to ripen so we'll be back. Here's what my sister and I collected in about 2 hours:

Boooooty.

I'm thinking some sort of baked good. It will be gone in 10 minutes in this house. Back when mulberries were in season I spent a few good hours between collecting mulberries, making a pie crust, and assembling the pie. It didn't last, which I should take as a compliment. 

Proven Winners? Definitely.

It all started last year with some innocent enough plant browsing. We all do it. At that time annuals other than impatiens were not on my radar. I thought they were a waste of money and probably too hard to grow. (What was I thinking, right?!)

So I walk by the marked down section, and among the totally dead plants was this little plant, obviously parched and pale and 50 cents. I figured that the effort I'd put into resuscitating the plant would be worth the small price.

Nothing but NJ dirt + water + sunlight later and:

Where'd that Marta come from?

It was like I had a freshly purchased plant. I was captivated with the habit and the happy pink flowers.

Even later on:

...and that's with out cutting them back or fertilizing all summer! At that point, I didn't know it was a good idea to. I did however sprinkle garlic powder on them to keep the deer from sampling them. So that's where this obsession with this particular color of Supertunia and in general Supertunias comes from. These pink ones are Supertunia Vista Bubblegum. I'm growing these again this year as well as other Supertunias. So far they haven't let me down. 

Here's "Bordeaux" and "Vista Silverberry" in the background. I'll have to get a better photo of those guys later.