Pinetree Garden Seeds

Pinetree Garden Seeds is rapidly becoming my favorite seed catalog. Not only do they carry the flowers that I want to grow, but their prices can’t be beat! While most companies are pricing their seeds in the range $2 to $3, Pinetree Garden Seeds sells almost all of its seeds for less than $2. Their seed count and germination rate is excellent. I find myself ordering more and more from them every year.

New to my garden this year are:

Castor Beans (Ricinus communis) I first saw these at Rutgers Gardens. I didn’t fall in love with them until last year when I began to see them in different places and various settings. They really stand out among more ordinary flowers. I’m hoping that they will help camouflage the Ugly Green Fence.

Dahlias I’ve long resisted growing anything that I have to dig up every fall and replant every spring. I lost my resistance to dahlias last year at Chanticleer. After that trip, I seemingly saw them everywhere and when I found that I could grow them from seed rather than expensive tubers, I decided to give them a try.

Lemon Mint (Monarda citriodora) I fell in love with a picture in a catalog. Along with the claim that it “was a real eye catcher in our trials.” It’s also supposed to be an excellent bee plant so I’m sure that I can find room for it.

Chinese Foxglove (Rehmannia elata) I’ve actually grown this once before. Only one plant bloomed, but it was striking enough (and likes shade) that I want to try it again. It blooms all summer, something I lack in the border along the back of my house which is filled with spring flowers.

Seeds of Change

My first seed order arrived today. I love the large selection of herbs and native plants offered by Seeds of Change. They are a little pricey but their seed is 100% certified organic. Here are the new (to me) things from them that I am trying this year:




Orange Temple Bells (Celosia cristata). I fell in love with the different varieties of celosia at Rutgers Gardens. This is the cockscomb type. The color is what caught my eye. It will look perfect against the Ugly Green Fence.



Tall Fernleaf Fiddleneck (Bee Plant) Phacelia tanacetifolia. I’ve never seen this plant, either in person or in a catalog. I’m intrigued by its unique shape. It’s a California native and attractive to pollinators and beneficial insects. It also tolerates a little shade. Sold! The Purple Garden will have a new resident.



Yellow Echinacea (Echinacea paradoxa). I’m growing three different varieties of Echinacea already. Two purple, Echinacea purpurea (passalong) and Echinacea purpurea ‘Magnus’ (grown from seed) and the white, Echinacea purpurea ‘White Swan’ (also grown from seed). This year, I’m adding a yellow one to the Butterfly/Hummingbird Garden which has predominantly red, orange and yellow flowers in it.

I’ll be wintersowing all three of these along with Wild Purple Foxglove and Cardinal Flower (also in this order). The Cardinal Flower did not germinate for me last year and I think I know why. A closer reading of the catalog tells me that in addition to 60 days of cold stratification, the seeds should be surface sown. So noted on the spreadsheet.

Moments

I’ve been working on a Special Edition Master Gardener newsletter. Lots and lots of pictures. All of them submitted by fellow Master Gardeners. And frustratingly, all of them are landscape. I had one tiny space on the front page that was just screaming for a photo using portrait orientation. Perhaps I had some photos that would fill the bill? Alas, no, but while looking, I was reminded of a photo I took in September that just took my breath away.

EARTH Center vegetable gardenSeptember 21, 2008

This is exactly how it came out of my camera. No photoshopping. I just love the deep rich colors and the contrasting shapes.

Sometimes moments just happen.

The Last Gasp

One of the advantages of the long growing season in NJ (zone 6), now prolonged thanks to Global Warming, are the number of plants still in bloom in October. Not shocking, I know, to those of you in warmer climes but still a wonder to those of us who were raised in much colder areas of the country. I brought my camera with me today so that I could capture the beauty of the Display Gardens at Rutgers Gardens before the plants are removed and the beds raked next weekend in preparation for winter.

Photo of the Day

I love that the seedheads are all leaning to the side contrasting with the rigidly upright stems. The ornamental grasses in the perennial borders captivated me. I have a love/hate relationship with ornamental grasses. In the spring and summer, they repulse me. I wonder how anyone could possibly plant such ragged, weedy plants in their flowerbeds. But in the fall and especially the winter, when they come into their own, I am bowled over by their beauty. I am determined to add them to my landscape. I carefully choose spots where they will look best in my yard. And then, in the spring, the cycle repeats itself. I find myself at the nursery, staring at ragged, weedy plants in pots wondering how anyone could possibly plant such ugly things in their flowerbeds.

Look at the color! The patterns! Who could resist this?

Personally, I like this photo more. It looks like a child scribbled on it.

I’m still struggling with light. Since I was photographing in strong afternoon sunlight which I dislike, I tried getting around it by shooting shaded subjects like this:

That same harsh light, though, produces magical photos like this:

The Yellow Garden Cosmos (Cosmos bipinnatus) in my plot is finally blooming and yellow:

The earliest flowers were white, but like the Seashells Cosmos which curled as the season grew later, these cosmos have become yellow at the end of the season. I like them so much that I think I will grow them at home next year.

Another flower that I would like to grow at home is lantana.

I haven’t figured out how to use it, but after seeing these berries and falling in love, I’m going to try harder to find a way to include it next year.

Just like in my own yard, insects were everywhere.

The sky was an incredible blue today, as you can see from the first photo in this post. While I was photographing the bee, I looked up and saw this:

Blooming in My Garden

The green marigold continues to unfurl its petals. I hope that it has a chance to fully open before a killing frost hits.

Calendula officinalis
I’m continually surprised at how many insects are out and about in my gardens.


My hardy mum continues to delight.


Even when the flowers have begun to fade, the delicate pink of the dying petals enhances the bloom.

Busy as a . . .

Random cosmos picture. I just liked the color.

Blooming in My Garden

Anemone bud


My one truly hardy chrysanthemum is starting to bloom. Like the zinnias, I am documenting the buds opening.


Who is that in the web? The hunter or the hunted?

Blooming in My Garden

Anemone x hybrida ‘Honorine Jobert’

Aster novae-angliae ‘Purple Dome’
I'm so thrilled to see my New England Aster blooming. I've been trying to grow them from bare roots ordered from various catalogs for many years. Last year, I bought a plant from Well Sweep Herb Farm. I've had my fingers crossed all summer that it would bloom. It didn't disappoint.

Hageman Farm

I was invited to participate in an apple pie contest today (more on that in my next post) at the Hageman Farm, a nineteenth century farmhouse preserved by The Meadows Foundation as part of their first annual Fall Festival. While waiting for the judging to begin, I wandered around the site taking photographs.

I could go on and on about the wonderful restoration work that has been done on the farmhouse and is going on in the cow barn, but instead I found myself drawn towards the structures and parts of structures that hadn’t been restored. The hand-hewn beams, stone foundations, old tools and ironwork called out to me as if begging to tell their stories of the people who had built this place and used these buildings and tools.

Those stories weren’t all recorded well today. I am still struggling with my new camera. Each shoot shows more of what it can do and what I need to learn to get more out of it. One story did come out well resulting in the Photo of the Day:

Here are a few more of my favorite shots from today.

This shot would have been in the running for Photo of the Day if it had been straight. At first I was disappointed by the intrusion of the tree branches but after further consideration decided that they added rather than detracted from the picture. I love the geometric patterns and the wonderful blue of the sky. It is a blue that you only see in the autumn.

I’m going to have to start carrying around a cheat sheet of settings for various lighting situations. I know that there is a way to have photographed this with more light in the room and the ugly scenery in the window blurred. I’ve lightened this up a little in Photoshop. It was a gorgeous setting.

Fellow Straw-hatter, “A”, pointed out this grasshopper to me. Too bad that the flower he was resting on wasn’t more attractive. The zinnias in the borders along the walk were incredible. I hope that the caretaker of the property will tell me what mix he uses.

You can see all of my photos of Hageman Farm on Flickr.

Blooming in My Garden

Aster
Asters
Cosmos
Cosmos
Viola
Zinnia
Zinnia
Spider on Lavender