Fall in My Garden

     I reviewed my title for this post and realized that it could have another meaning. After my painful muscle response to all my spring gardening this year, and now with fall cleanup underway, I could have actually taken a spill -- a fall -- in my garden and been unable to get up. Turning 70 has definitely produced more muscle aches and I noticed every time I tried to do more outdoor work, I paid for several days and even some times a week of achiness and stiffness. I even went to see a rheumatologist to check out if this could be my old polymyalgia rheumatica acting up. He thought not and just thought it was the effects of degenerative arthritis and aging. Thank you very much. He suggested Tylenol, the water aerobics and hot tub therapy that I am already doing, and better posture when I am sitting reading. That was it! Well, this retired physician is starting to identify with the opposite side of the check-in counter at my clinic.
   
     I have not gardened much since the intense work of weeding and planting in spring and early summer. I really let my garden do what it wanted this summer. There were some dry spells this year and that has ended my pretty potted plantings. But the fall flowers have done well for me this year. I include some photos of some of these beauties. I wish you a happy autumn and freedom from falls of the other kind.

     In my gardening, I often let volunteers grow even in my formal beds near the house. I have been watching these asters as baby plants for a couple of years, growing in the middle of my entry way bed near the house. This year they had multiple stems so I decided to pinch them as one does with chrysanthemums hoping that they would stay shorter and provide more bushy growth. Well they still grew very tall, but they did produce many blooms. My spouse told me I should pull out these weeds during the summer, but I ignored him, as I usually do, and look what this native North American plant produced.
     These volunteers no doubt seeded from my prairie areas near our front driveway. But here with better topsoil and occasional fertilizer for my bedding plants, they have thrived. The ones in my wild area usually have single stems. The colors vary from lavender, to deep cobalt blue, to purple and magenta rays, with yellow to orange centers.
    

Left and top: New England aster

      I once saw flowering kale or ornamental cabbage (Brassica oleracea) planted in tiny (3 by 3 feet) cutouts in the sidewalks or around trees while walking the pavement in New York City in the fall. I loved the effect. Since then I have been purchasing these plants even in the spring when very small. I plant them along my front walkway. During the summer and depending on the coolness of the weather, some bolt to flower and seed, but this year with our coolness, several formed very nice colorful kale plants. If they do bolt, in the late summer I just cut off the flower stems and sometimes interesting shapes result. Even bolted plants will brighten their color in the leaves with the fall season. And look how the pink ones complement the color of the nearby aster plant. Sometimes during mild winters, some of these plants will survive the winter, especially the flowering kale varieties, and you will get some growth the next year. However, getting a nice circular colorful head like this for two years in a row is unlikely.

     Dahlias can be the star of the fall garden. I have them planted among other June flowering plants in my beds. They come into their own in August and last until frost, a time when the garden needs some of their showiness. They are heavy feeders and my neglect of my garden this summer showed as I didn't get as many blooms. But I love their variety of gorgeous colors. Most of mine are low growing, but I have one 3 foot tall white spider dahlia that I place in the middle of the bed. After frost, I dig up the tubers, air dry them a couple days, and then store them in a paper bag in my wine cellar. Yes, you read that right -- the wine cellar is cooled and humidified -- perfect for the dahlia tubers. I replant directly in the ground in the spring, as soon as I can work the ground. I add some sort of fertilizer to the soil when I plant in the spring -- either bagged manure, or pellet fertilizer, or bone meal or a mixture of these substances. This year I just did not add liquid foliage fertilizer sprinklers during the summer and I think the dahlia's suffered for this.

One of those taller white spider Dahlia varieties.

A low growing dark burgundy dahlia growing next to "Carmel" Heuchera along the sidewalk. Actually I propagated this Heuchera from a cutting this spring. Next year it will be nice and large, I am sure.

Echinacea - purple coneflower with a mum coming into bloom.

Another volunteer from my prairie area, the brown eyed susan, native Eastern prairie plant.

Brown eyed susan, Rudabeckia triloba, with burgundy dahlia peaking through.

     For the first time in many years, this year I planted nasturtium seeds and sweet alyssum bedding plants in many tiny vacant spots along my walks in among my perennials. I am seeing the pleasant results now because both of these annuals planted in the ground are still going strong unlike those planted in my pots as you can see on the left. I used the variegated leaf form of the nasturtiums and really like the bright colors of yellow, orange, and dark reddish orange. Also in this photo in the foreground is the only foxglove plant that survived the past winter as a seedling. This whole area was filled with foxglove seedlings last fall. I covered them with lots of wood chips but all but one still succumbed.
     I am using small inexpensive solar lighting posts along my walks and am pleased with the night affect. These lights have continued working now for two winters.

     The grouping to the right contains a couple brown eyed susan volunteers, nasturtiums, white sweet alyssum, a heliotrope in bloom, and a single blossom of a "White Swan" variety of Echinacea.
     The heliotrope now is responsible for a name of a color which is this deep violet as shown in the photo on the right. Heliotropism is the ability of a plant or other organism to diurnally follow the path of the sun. Helio means sun. It is interesting to see this phenomenon. 

Purple and white alyssum with orange nasturtiums.

   

Fancy coral geranium with colorful brown and green leaves, with tansy to left.

Viburnum berries and Lambs' Ears, which come back as volunteers all over.

                                                                                         
           

                                                                                              I always plant some snap dragons as some of my annuals. They are very colorful, and the tall "Rocket" variety gives excellent height to the garden. What I love most about them is that they tolerate the cold and continue to bloom prolifically into the late fall, unlike many other annuals. During mild winters, some of them may live through the winter and go on strong the next year. Also some self seed. However, I usually buy new bedding plants each year.

My red weigela produced a scant second bloom this summer.

Fall blooming clematis always produces prolific sweet smelling blossoms.

      Above is my oakleaf hydrangea. I have such a bush on each side of my front entrance. I have trouble with the deer eating the buds in the late winter so I have to remember to spray a deer repellent on the buds starting in February. I did remember this year, but still I had no flowering on either plant. I think the buds this year got nipped by the very cold winter that we suffered in Wisconsin. 

     Below is a nice calico aster. This is one of the several native asters growing wild in roadsides, pastures, and prairie remnants in the midwest of the country. It has very small daisy flowers up and down heavy stems that seem almost shrub like. It is fairly low growing but can form quite a nice show in the fall. That is why I leave them growing in beds. Also shown is a blue woodland aster, and a heath aster. These appear throughout my property along with the New England asters. Interestingly the species names have been changed for many asters. Many are now called Symphyotrichum, along with several other species names. They are all still in the family Asteracae.  I don't do anything to cultivate these plants, just avoid pulling them with the weeds. Now is the time of year when they shine. 

blue wood aster

heath aster

calico aster topped by brown eyed susan.

Fall golden leaves and slate grey sky, a great fall color combination in our backyard.

View across our backyard and across neighbor's backyard.

Peekaboo purple coneflower.

A Hemerocallis year!

     Did the title arouse your interest? Most people will not recognize this proper name. Many people will not even know that the name refers to a plant. And certainly the vast majority of my readers will not recognize this name as the species name of a very common and recognizable perennial flower.
Hemerocallis is the species name for daylily. This name derives from the Greek words: hemera which means day and kalos which means beautiful.

   Daylilies are native to Eurasia and now are seen throughout the world. In the United States they are a backbone flower in the perennial border. They will grow and prosper in any well drained soil in an area with full sun to light shade. They are resistant to most pests and diseases and even can survive some drought when well established. They come in every color except true blue. Each flower lasts only a day -- hence their common name, but the bracket of buds provide flowers over a 2 to 4 weeks period of time. Different varieties bloom at different times starting in July (in Wisconsin), so that a combination of varieties in the border will provide bloom for the entire rest of the summer. The complexity of the blooms varies from small single petaled flowers to double and even triple flowers, as well as spidery blooms to frilly ruffled complex blooms with petals edged in different colors.

      The following website has a wonderful listing of variety names with photos. There are indeed over 60,000 named and licensed cultivars of  the 18 named species. Check out the website. You can see from this encyclopedic photo gallery that there is a daylily cultivar that would fit almost any garden need, no matter the color, size of bloom, height of plant or soil and climate requirements
  
 http://www.ofts.com/photo/dl_view.html

     In my garden, last year was the year of the iris. And this year seems to be the year of the daylily. All my groupings are topped with profuse bloom, indeed more blossoms than I have ever seen. I tried to recall if I had remembered to scatter some timed release fertilizer pellets among the daylilies last year. Is that why they are so beautiful this year. But then one of my water aerobic class friends noted that her daylilies were going wild this year as well. so there was something about the climate and weather that has led to this. I read that if you cut off the dead blossoms and don't let seed pods form, you might get more flowers the next year. So I wonder if the drought we had last year interfered with seed production prompting a more profuse flowering this year. Just a theory!

     I commented about the lack of pests that affect daylilies but there is one pest that can be very destructive. That is the whitetailed deer. Deer eat the very young tender plants as they are emerging in the spring. Aside from the temporary raggety appearance that this produces it does not significantly affect the years growth or flowering. Once the growth becomes firmer, the deer are no longer interested in a snack. But then when the flower buds are enlarging there comes another deer risk. Sometimes I think the deer are walking by every night checking out the size of the buds. And just as the largest one is about to open up, the daylily grower can come outside of a morning and the tops have all been nibbled off ending that seasons of flowers. Therefore, I have learned exactly when to use my deer repellent spray du jour. I spray the enlarging buds once a week for 2 to 3 weeks and the deer seem to get the idea. You have to remember that deer are creatures of habit. If you can break that habit of the walk by of your daylily beds, you can protect them and a few interrupted sprays will usually do this.



A prolific stand of Hemerocallis fulva, the Tawny Daylily



A single Tawny Daylily bloom.

      In the 17th century, the first English colonists to North America brought the Tawny Daylily, species Hemerocallis fulva to American gardens. These daylilies escaped from gardens and are now seen growing along roadsides and in many sunny areas. This characteristic has resulted in a plethora of common names for the perennial -- such as roadside lily, ditch lily, railroad lily, washhouse lily and outhouse lily. These hardy spreading types were often planted to mask the outhouse, hence this name.  It has also been called Tiger Lily but it is not a lily at all, but an entirely unrelated family of plants. This species is so prevalent that many people think it is a native North American wildflower, but that is not the case. This fulvous daylily is stoloniferous. This means it grows by underground runner. These original daylilies are therefore very invasive and can take over a garden from other desirable perennials. Due to its invasiveness, one probably should not plant these species daylily but they are often the ones that are shared among friends when it is time to divide the clump.
     I have several stands of Tawny Daylily, because I found an old bed near the ranch house we tore down and replaced with our new house on Lake Michigan. Therefore I divided these clumps and populated my new empty beds with them around my house. In my growing conditions they have been only slightly invasive.


A cultivar of Hemerocallis fulva, not quite as invasive.

      Another of the early imported stoloniferous species daylily is Hemerocallis lilioasphodelus, or an old name, Hemerocallis flava. This species has also escaped into the wild. It is often called the Lemon Lily because it is scented like lemon. The blossom is light yellow and often stands of this species are seen in natural areas. It is not quite as invasive as H. fulva.

Hemerocallis lilioasphodelus, or Lemon Lily.

          The ease of growth and hybridization of daylilies has led to several daylily societies both in North America and elsewhere in the world. England was early responsible for hybridization success. Most hybridization has been done in the last 100 years. H. fulva is a diploid plant. That means that it has two copies of its DNA. But hybrids often have triploid and even tetraploid DNA. That means they have three or 4 copies of each chromosome. This makes hybridization easier. As I mentioned there are about 60,000 registered cultivars of Hemerocallis but there are probably just as many that have been developed but not registered. I discovered that if you go to any of the online purchase websites there are often lots of daylily roots for sale which contain plants that either have lost their names or have never received a registered name. When purchasing new daylilies, it is wise to keep the plants labeled in the garden. That way if the owner ever decides to distribute his daylilies for profit or decides to either show them in competitions or in anyway hybridize them, the name tag of the cultivar is known.

I brought this red cultivar from my old home. I don't recall the name, but it
had the word Christmas in its title. Its flowers are 5 inches across.
 

          The Hemerocallis Society has defined blossom size quantitatively. The above red flowered cultivar has blossoms that would be defined as large, greater than 4 1/2 inches. Small flowered varieties have flowers between 3 and 4 1/2 inches. Much prized miniature cultivars have flowers that are less than 3 inches in diameter. I have a cultivar pictured below that has flowers that are about 3 inches in diameter. Otherwise the colors are almost identical to that large flowered variety pictured above. One can notice that the miniature flowers have more of a triangular shape. This leads us to another characteristic that is used to classify cultivars -- flower shape.

 

 

    Flower shape is determined by the number and shape of the various petals and whether they are recurved or not.   Every daylily blossom has several parts. Usually there are 3 petals and 3 sepals alternating around the central throat. Either the petals or the sepals or both can be recurved that is bending backwards. If all 6 of these flower parts are of similar size, the flower will appear round. If only the petals or only the sepals are smaller or if one set is recurved, the flower will appear triangular. The petals and sepals can be quite narrow in which case the flower is often called a spider form. Or these parts can be equally wide giving a broad flat base for the color. Often the throat is a different color than the petals and sepals. Usually the throat is of medium depth but occasionally the throat is so deep that the flower resembles an Asiatic lily.  Sometimes between the petals and sepals and the throat is another band of color giving rise to so called banded or eyed forms. Some of the more modern and expensive daylily cultivars have diamond dusting which gives a sparkly nature to the petals or sepals.

This flower is rounded and therefore has no recurving. It does have an eye of
darker rose color. And the edges of the flower are ruffled.

     It is often said that Hermerocallis lacks only two colors of blossom -- true blue and pure white. Paging through the photos of daylilies in the above website, there are colors in daylilies that approach blue. Sometimes the blue is only in the center of the blossom. But indeed there are no daylilies yet which have the blue characteristic of the chicory blossom that you see blooming along the roadsides throughout North America. This would be my definition of a "true blue." As for white, daylily blossoms of some cultivars approach white through a very very light yellow, or green, or through a very light melon or peach. I am sure that hybridizers are working on a pure white cultivar.

Here is my "white". It is really just the palest of yellows.

       The following 3 photos are of a very prolific bloomer. I don't know its name but it is a likely cultivar of H. flava. I brought this variety from our old house. The color is an orange yellow with a same color throat. A drawback is that the color tends to fade even during the one day that it is open.

Here you can see the fading and likewise below.

 

    

Here the petals and sepals are equal and rather narrow. This gives the flower
a spider-like form.

      Daylily flowers can be single like most shown on this page, or they can be double as shown here, or even triple. In some cases only the petals or only the sepals are doubled, and then the flower is called polymorphous.


A partially double cultivar of H. fulva.



A unnamed cultivar which I brought from my old house. The sepals are
fairly plain, while the petals have more rose color and a central rib of yellow.

 

     Well, you now know more than you ever wanted to know about daylilies. Add just a few nuances and you could apply to be a master member of the American Hemerocallis Society. Better yet, just plant a few daylilies and enjoy their remarkable ability to proliferate quickly and brighten the entire perennial border. 

 

My stand of H. fulva with Lake Michigan in the background.

 

My Prairie Path

     When we moved into our new house on Lake Michigan in 1998, I determined that I wanted two patches of native prairie plants, one on each side of the drive back to our house. I lovingly seeded these two areas with a prairie seed mixture I purchased and grey headed coneflower seeds I conned from a neighbor. I also got some plugs of split leaf coneflower and purchased a few other mature potted prairie plants. As recommended by prairie experts, I then overseeded with annual rye, in order to give time for the prairie seedlings to get going without competition from the weeds that would move in otherwise. Initially the area to the north of my drive was the better area with more prairie plant success. The patch on the south side was worse soil, with more clay and less topsoil. It took a lot longer for that side to get going. But the big tall prairie plants there did just exactly what they were supposed to do. They put down their long, long roots (up to 6 feet deep) and multiplied and spread. Now that is the best side. I have some trouble with invasion by thistles and crown vetch on the north side so I need to do some corrections.

"the North Prairie"

"the South Prairie" The drive to the street runs right down between them.

     My husband hates these "wild" areas and calls them "jungles." But he does me the favor of mowing both sides of the driveway every late fall to keep the trees and shrubs from invading. We live in too suburban an area to burn these patches which is what is recommended. I am told that whether you mow or burn determines what plants become the most common in your prairie in the end. So I will have a "mowed" prairie, I guess. I am not clear which plants are in which type of prairie. I do know that the split leaf yellow coneflower, the grey headed coneflower, cup plant, prairie dock, sweet black eyed susan, echinacea, rattlesnake master, Culver's root, Joe Pye Weed, wild bergamot, Monarda (beebalm), Canada golden rod, early golden rod, various asters, vervain, speedwell, evening primrose, yellow flag, Virginia creeper, yarrow, Virginia bluebells, , big blue stem, and little bluestem are my main inhabitants. I do also have some non natives which includes a fair amount of dames rocket. I plan to clean some of that out and have already killed the crown vetch. But it is indeed a tall grass prairie.

      Originally I had put some paths through these two patches, but after some years of neglect, the paths are totally overgrown. I determined this year to reopen those paths and try to do some of those invasive corrections I am talking about. We had a cool June and that allowed me to get into that north patch. I decided to dress up the entrance to the paths, by putting up symetrical white metal arbors, one on each side of the driveway. I had tried an arbor before and planted a trumpet vine next to it, but even that strong grower couldn't break through the clay, never bloomed and slowly succumbed. This year I just seeded some morning glories and sweet peas to climb them.

     To remake this path, I had to start right under the arbor, sat on the ground on my old pillow, and began to cut, pull, and spray growths to start to produce what would appear to be a path. I spread wood chips behind me as I slowly moved forward with my slash and spray technique. I swung the path this way and then that way to go around something of value growing there. I was slathered with sunscreen and insect repellent which as the day wore on made my eyes burn. Several more sessions were required. The hardest was getting through the 8 foot tall split leaf yellow coneflower patch. Those stems are an inch in diameter. As I found the old path ( by the ground fabric I had laid down fully 12 years ago), and followed it around the curves into a wooded area at the front corner of the patch, I found an infestation of buckthorn which I still have to clear. The last time I was back there, this shrubby border was made of native redtwig dogwood. Clearly the non native buckthorn is stronger and has killed out the dogwood. I will have to work on that shrub border. The "woods" consists of a colony of quaking aspen. But there is buckthorn to deal with in there as well. In the spring this woody area is covered with Virginia bluebells. When I created the path originally, the destination was a small cleared area in the "woods" surrounded by spring daffodils. I had put two Adirondack chairs back there and sometimes found this little area just 20 feet from the road but surrounded by the aspen colony a wonderful retreat. That small area still exists; I just couldn't have gotten there. Now I can! The clearing needs a little clean up. But there is a wonderful carpet of Virginia creeper that will turn a lovely red this fall.

My rejuvenated path with Monarda, rattlesnake master, and split leaf coneflowers behind.

     We have had that long drawn out hot spell and I was not able to work out there. I went out to check it out and take these photos yesterday. My path is surviving. The crown vetch has died. The Monarda is flourishing since I removed some of the golden rod that was choking it. As I swatted mosquitoes in yesterday's humidity, a humingbird dive bombed the Monarda and then actually perched on one of the 8 foot tall split leaf cone flowers. Wow! That's why I do these kind of things. My little piece of wildness!

     By the way, you might wonder why these photos have kind of a blurred artsy look to them. This was totally unintentional. As I was taking the photographs, it started to sprinkle. I guess the lens of the camara must have gotten a little moist. I should have really come back in and cleaned the lens and then gone back out after it stopped raining. But by this time, I was bit up by mosquitoes and I decided to use what I had for this blog. I don't know. I think the watercolor somewhat abstract effect is enchanting so I decided to mount them here. What do you think?

Echinacea, wild bergamot, Canada goldenrod, and one plant of "White Swan" Echinacea.

Echinacea, grey headed coneflower, and a single bloom of "Turkey Foot" (big blue stem protruding from the top.)

Echinacea and grey headed coneflower.

Anothere stand of split leaf yellow coneflower.

Flowering rattlesnake master in the center of these Echinacea.

Black eyed susan.

Wild bergamot and some stands of blue vervain.

Culver's Root really likes my south prairie. It is spreading all over the place.

My stand of cup plant.

Entrance to north prarie.

Monarda surrounds my bluebird house.

Entrance to my north prarie. The tree to the very left is a young walnut tree. My mother gave it to me as a seedling. Unfortunately it will eventually shade out much of this prairie planting. But that's OK, because it's a walnut. I have read that walnut trees put some chemical in the soil that prevents some plants from growing beneath it. So far I have not seen this with this young tree. Time will tell.

     I have some plans for these areas again, looking into the fall and into next spring. In addition to the continuation of the paths, and the clean up of invasives, I want to move some lupines from my beds around my house and plant them into a sandy area in the north prairie where a pile of sand was left over from our building. Also I want to add some baptisia (false blue indigo). I have one blooming plant in the south prairie and I love it. It is a beatiful blue color and forms almost a shrub appearance in the border. I want to put several in the north prairie. I have some wild columbine from another area to plant in the somewhat shaded area back near by retreat circle. Also I have red trillium and wild ginger to move to the wooded area. They are now growing on the north side of my house and could be thinned to provide stock plants. I have volunteer spiderwort and wild geranium also to seed and transplant to the north wild shady area. Considerable plans! I will let you know next year if I have managed to carry any of these out.

My favorite wet prairie plant in the center: Joe Pye Weed.