After my brief rant this weekend about not buying mixed-color packets of seeds, I espied this red Easy Wave in my petunia planter bowl on my way to work this morning. I’m so very pleased to see it, but now it makes me want to grow even more petunias. It will hit 100 degrees today but these petunias seem to do quite well in the planters, as long as they get a drink every day.
That time of year again when all the remaining plants you had left on your to-do list finally get planted. Since the temps in North Texas warm up in the vicinity of 100, anything not in the ground tends to bake in their thin plastic pots. I got around to planting the rest of the Purple Star verbena, the majority of the ornamental pepper seedlings, felicia, tricolor sage cuttings, leftover marigold seedlings, and a few of the lemon thyme cuttings. And because I couldn’t bore a hole in my last ceramic pot (a freebie from Kathy), I had to transplant the Aztec red verbena, a dusty miller and the last red-eyed white vinca into a planter box.
I spent the day ducking in and out of the heat, clearing debris and dried out plantings (leftover violas), trimming vigorous plants (zealous Thai basil), and weeding wherever I could. In some places like the tree ring, I tamped down loose and exposed plantings and filled holes dug by industrious squirrels. Tons of the cosmos seeds are coming up now, and I am waiting eagerly to see the results of this week’s cosmos sowing.
While gardening, I made some exciting discoveries. The one remaining thai chili pepper is bearing fruit. It had been flowering for the past week, and today I found 3 fruit on it, with several more nubs showing.
A couple more of the vincas have bloomed; one from my February starts, while another from the outdoor starts. Both seemed to be in the pink color family. Several more vinca seedlings are already budding, including the two I left in my planter box. The neighboring Confetti lantanas have nearly tripled in size since planting, as well as the Purple Star verbena which get the most exposure in the front yard bed.
The daylilies are still flowering strong. An observation I made of the front bed Dallas Stars is that they are a good 1-2 feet taller than the Dallas Star in near-full shade. Still a no-show however is the Hyperion daylily, though I did notice it had a single scape on it. Whether it had already bloomed or planned to bloom is a mystery.
I’m so disappointed that none of my home-started Easy Wave petunias are red. I was hoping for a patriotic planter bowl for the Fourth of July, but currently everything in the bowl is either blue or white. I expected at least 1 out of the 10 seeds I purchased to be a red petunia (I sowed 9, and 8 are currently planted), but it seems that this wasn’t the case. Next time I plan to purchase the colors separately–and yes, I will grow them again since they were relatively easy to start and grow as it warmed up. (Just keep them covered during the first month as tiny seedlings.)
I hacked down a lot of the wildly growing pineapple mints and hot & spicy oregano. A shame I didn’t get to use most of them, but right now they are strictly ornamental. I have to wonder: if I took a purely cream-white cutting of the pineapple mint, would it continue grow white or will side shoots revert to green or variegation? I’m intrigued because despite the heat, this solid white shoot remains happy, if a little crisped on the edges.
New wishlist plant: variegated lantana camara Samantha aka Lemon Swirl, lantana camara Greg Grant, and variegated lantana montevidensis.
It’s hot. Pushing 100s hot. I was crazy to work the garden this weekend in this weather. But I got a lot accomplished and made some observations. For example, my first petunia seedling to flower (which I failed to photograph) was an Easy Wave white bloom.
A couple more marigolds, yellow and scarlet–though the scarlet wasn’t being photogenic–also
made an appearance in the tree ring. Except that yellow marigold is the same one that first bloomed. The tree ring’s first salvia also bloomed, but it is the coral nymph and not the Lady in Red that I’ve been waiting for.
Because it’s been sweltering, the man decided to water everything today…including the freshly mowed lawn. Methinks he cut it too low this go-around. He’ll let it get an inch or two next time. But the dry conditions gave him incentive to plant my purple pastel and mulch the hostas. I didn’t see, but he said the hostas were having a bad time of it.
The half inch cutting of Lanai Purple Star verbena grew about an inch long in opposite directions and produced flowers! This was a throwaway piece of verbena and it decided to take root and bloom barely a month later. The heat also agrees with the lemon verbena that I almost killed with neglect. It’s coming back in leaves in its original pot. I’m still debating on where to plant it however.
All my toiling yielded me my first and only bouquet of flowers from this year’s lily garden: 2 stems of Navona asiatic lilies which I had knocked down while working the lily bed (and running for my life from raging wasps). Nice to have home-grown floral arrangements for a change.
And it’s also nice to see the tiny nubs of the planter bowl caladium–White Delight–making a showing. I imagine the other caladiums in the shade bed should be popping out about now. Well, that is, if the cedar mulch hasn’t covered it back up again.
I coaxed more seeds out of the white nymph salvia I installed in a planter box. I’m hoping that as the weeks progress, I’ll have a nice size baggy of seeds to plant next year in the front flower bed, or perhaps the tree ring.
I headed out to NHG today to pick up at least one coral bells and perhaps find my verbena. What I came home with were 1 Amber Waves heuchera, 1 Lemon verbena, 1 ginger mint, 2 jumbo White Dynasty caladium bulbs and 1 jumbo White Delight caladium bulb. Of the above, only the lemon verbena remains unplanted. The heuchera and the 2 White Dynasty caladiums found an immediate home in the shade bed. The White Delight went into a planter bowl along with the two Regatta lobelia and all of the Wave petunia seedlings. I split the ginger mint into half and planted it straight into the herb garden, along with the hot banana pepper and the habanero. I also decided to drop all 6 of the garlic chives pots into the herb garden as well, to see if they will fare better. During my efforts, I stumbled onto two lime basil seedlings, which I’ve repotted.
Meanwhile, the man got busy with the tree ring and front flower beds. He added 4 of the vinca seedlings, and 4 of the Lanai Purple Star verbena as border plants. He also dropped another Hot Lips salvia into the vacant space next to the Autumn Twist azalea. Hopefully this salvia will fare better in this spot. Taking 12 of the marigold seedlings, he started them in the outer ring. I resolved to start paring down the lemon thyme plant to take more cuttings and hopefully create more plants. I’m convinced that this herb will make a remarkable border plant. It will take no more than a year to create a solid circle of variegated lemon thyme, if I do this right.
I still have basil planters to create, but I’m waiting on the cuttings to take hold. It seems I may have some success with the Pesto Basil since I took a cutting right off the top. I’m also waiting on the tricolor sage to take hold as well. I kept some cuttings under glass on the Burpee mat. I have great hopes that they will endure.
Now I am just waiting for some basil and salvia seedlings to mature so that I can get them out into the garden.
It’s been a week since sowing, and the first plants out of the gate are the basils. Nearly all the basil plants have sprouted their first set of baby leaves. I have to remind myself to look closer at the Red Rubin basils because their dark purple color blends into the soil background. It only took 3 days for the basil to put out their first roots. I regret not having collected some of the lime basil seeds while I had them available. I hope to find some volunteers in the garden this spring.
Monday holidays are for shopping. So I put in a large order of seeds at various outlets:
Artemisia vulgaris Oriental Limelight 2x Accents from Home & Garden
Felicia amelloides variegata Variegated Felicia 2x Accents from Home & Garden
Petunia x hybrida Easy Wave Series Flag Mix 1×10 Swallowtail Gardens Seeds
Aquilegia caerulea Origami Blue & White 1×15 Swallowtail Gardens Seeds
Aquilegia caerulea Origami Red & White 1×15 Swallowtail Gardens Seeds
Delosperma floribunda Starburst 1×50 Swallowtail Gardens Seeds
Heteropappus meyendorfii Blue Knoll Chrysanthemum 1×15 Park Seeds
Phlox drummondii 21st Century Blue Star 1×15 Park Seeds
Cosmos sulfureus Cosmic Red 1×50 Park Seeds
Cosmos sulfureus Cosmic Yellow 1×50 Park Seeds
Catharanthus roseus Vinca Titan Mix 1×25 Stokes Seed
Lobularia maritima Wonderland White 1×250 Stokes Seed
Lobularia maritima Wonderland Copper 1×250 Stokes Seed
Lobularia maritima Wonderland Mulberry Mix 2×250 Stokes Seed
Thymophylla tenuiloba Dahlberg Daisy 1×50 Stokes Seed
Salvia coccinea Lady in Red 1×25 Burpee
Dianthus chinensis Valentine 1×75 Burpee
Out of the order above, only the Artemisia and Felicia are live plant orders. I suspect I may not get these plants until Delaware comes out of their freeze. I should remember to pay attention to such things…and January is just too early to be ordering plants.