QC Garden - Quad Cities Gardening » Plants

Perilla Fantasy is Fabulous

boo — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 18:28:40 +0000

If you’ve grown Perilla in your garden before you might be hesitant to ever add another plant by the same name. I love Perilla but it can be a self-seeding thug in my zone. I’ve seen gardens taken over by the purple masses. Although, I think its pretty easy to hoe away or pull seedlings, my mom has never stopped cursing “that weed” I brought into my garden.

Perilla Fantasy hasn’t been the same nuisance (I wish). I’m not sure if the plant was bred to be sterile but it has never has gone to seed in my garden. This means that every spring I fork out cash for a snobby little annual but, oh it’s worth it!

Perilla Fantasy has beautiful color that is prettier than any Coleous I’ve grown and it handles the heat & full sun. I use them in pots and I plant them directly in the ground. Burpee sells this gem for $16.75 Burpee (3 pack). The plants grow so quickly and can be pinched back so they become even fuller. Since I start so many annuals from seed it really has to be a special little hybrid for me to spend money on one. This one is worth it!

Sempervivum – Hens and Chicks

boo — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 11:10:14 +0000

Last year I divided my sempervivum so they weren’t so compact. I gave away boxes, and boxes of them and then I planted some in containers around the yard. I’m not sure how they will do overwinter, but last summer the semps (sempervivum) in tubs did very well. I had planted them sparely and by the end of the season the top of the tubs were covered with the colorful succulents.

Now they are covered with snow so I haven’t been able to see how they’ve fared.

I like the idea of being able to grow them year round in containers because maybe I’ll actually be able to keep some around the patio.

Raccoons and squirells love these as much as I do. They love to flip them over and chew them. They propagate them accidently while making them look like crap. They love to switch their name tags around so I have no idea what I am growing. At one time I had over 80 different sempervivum, now only a hand full are labeled, but even without their names they sure are interesting.

Things Are Pop’N

boo — Mon, 04 May 2009 19:01:00 +0000

Outside things are really looking beautiful.

Indoors, not so much. I think I’m growing the most pathetic tomato plants ever. They stayed in jiffy plugs too long & when they finally got potted up they were half dead. Really. I’m embarrassed so I will spare a pic. I’m hoping they will perk up now that they were potted and given more light. I’ll be kicking their little butts outside after the 15th. I hope they make it because I doubt I’ll find any of the plants I want by then.

The plant sales are on and I haven’t attended one of them yet. Sick with the flu for the last two weeks but I’m hoping maybe by this weekend I’ll feel like going to a few local garden sales.

It’s great to be back blogging!

A Place For My Trees

boo — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 00:08:00 +0000

Not a very pretty picture but a very useful space. We tilled a place for my trees. I’ll have to rake the roots out, lay fabric & some sort of border before planting my trees. The trees are in pots and were basically sticks when I bought them so they should be ok in pots for awhile.

I’m still hoping that someday I’ll have a place to plant them so I haven’t given them away yet. I still have large pots of wisteria that I planted from seeds a few years ago. Isn’t it sick? What’s rather embarrassing is I find myself looking for the white flowering variety when I haven’t even planted the purple yet. Since we still plan on moving ((someday)) I’ll keep the madness going.

While walking around the garden I happen to run across a bunch of coral bell volunteers. This is the first time I have ever noticed them self seeding like this. I think it might be because I didn’t mulch real heavy with wood chips in that particular area. I hate to pull them up so I think I’ll let them stay this season and then pot them up in the spring. I’m sure I know someone that will give them a good home.

Will To Live

boo — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 16:44:00 +0000

This daylily I got from Wild. I don’t know the name but I think it was one of their bonus plants. Anyway it was kind of a small division when it first came but I planted in the back part of my yard hoping that it would make it. Well, something got a hold of it and dug it up. I found a piece of it many days later when I was mowing. No leaf on it but a root the size of the tip of my pinky. I was going to toss it but decided to plant it. I walked around my flower bed and removed a small rock so I could have a bit of ground to plant it in. Yeah, my garden is that stuffed. Then I stuck a little cage around it so I could keep tabs on it. Well, that summer two little leaves emerged but no blooms of course. 2nd & 3rd year, still no blooms but the leaves were growing well. This year I have blooms!!

I think this plants will to survive is amazing. I wish the hybrid coneflowers were just as good. Personally I think they are bred with issues and are very suicidal.

Hostas Love The Rain

boo — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 17:53:00 +0000

The last two summers I’ve been dragging the hose around to water all my shade plants so all the recent rain has been great in that aspect. Of course we haven’t had to deal with all the horrible flooding. Hostas seem to flourish with all the rain.

I have added a couple more to my garden.

Hosta ‘Green Eyes’
Hosta ‘Imp’
Hosta ‘Chartreuse Wiggles’
Hosta ‘Limey Lisa’
Hosta ‘Marilyn Monroe’
Hosta ‘Rock Island Line’
Hosta ‘Little Sunspot’

Rose ‘Hot Cocoa’

boo — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 21:01:00 +0000

Two years ago we bought a Rose called ‘Hot Cocoa’ to put on our pups grave. It’s blooming now & I am so happy that we went with this color.

Rose ‘Hot Cocoa’

The garden is wild with weeds & bugs. All the wet weather has really jump started the germination process of weeds from years past. It’s such a mess.

Ornamental Grasses

boo — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 13:47:00 +0000

My shipment of ornamental grasses arrived packaged very well and looked great, but then Haley managed to run off with one. It was badly chewed, all dirt shaken from its roots but I planted it anyway. She’s such a little monster.

The List of Ornamental Grasses

Acorus gramineus Variegatus
Calamagrostis acutiflora Avalanche
Calamagrostis acutiflora Overdam
Carex elata Bowles Golden
Carex morrowii Ice Dance
Carex oshimensis Evergold
Deschampsia cespitosa
Miscanthus sinensis Bluetenwunder
Miscanthus sinensis Gracillimus
Miscanthus sinensis Kaskade
Miscanthus sinensis Little Kitten
Miscanthus sinensis Little Zebra
Miscanthus sinensis Malepartus
Miscanthus sinensis Morning Light
Miscanthus sinensis Mysterious Maiden
Miscanthus sinensis Nippon
Miscanthus sinensis Puenktchen Little Dot
Miscanthus sinensis Purpurascens Autumn Red
Miscanthus sinensis Rigoletto
Miscanthus sinensis Sarabande
Miscanthus sinensis Silberfeder
Miscanthus sinensis Strictus
Miscanthus sinensis Super Stripe
Miscanthus sinensis Variegatus
Miscanthus sinensis Zebrinus
Panicum virgatum Shenandoah
Phlox paniculata David

Of course the Phlox isn’t a grass but we lost our phlox a few years ago and that particular one has an amazing aroma, so I bought a replacement.

It looks like a pricey purchase but I actually bought these last fall during their year end sale when all the grasses were so discounted it came out to only a couple bucks per grass. I opted for the spring delivery because at the time I was too busy with other stuff. I feel like a stinker because of that option I got their spring inventory at the fall price. Very happy with the roots on these wonderful plants.

My garden is now full of ornamental grasses!!

On another note: Yesterday I finished spray painting the layout for the new walk way. For days Cliff has been saying, “This is BS. Blah, Blah It won’t look good.” After he could visually see what has been in my head he admitted that it looked pretty cool. At this point I’m really surprised he still doubts that I know what I’m doing. tee hee hee I guess I can’t fool him, but it is turning out rather well.

Related Links

University of Illinois Extension – Ornamental Grasses – Understanding Ornamental Grasses, How to Plant, Care and Maintenance, and Types of Ornamental Grasses.

Some Bloomers

boo — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 19:32:00 +0000

It’s overcast and 53 degrees right now, which is probably as good as it’s going to get today. I started moving rocks around to the new beds but I got sidetracked by a few bloomers. So instead of working on the new beds, I took some pictures. I don’t know if we’ll see a frost so better shoot the flowers before they are mush, since the lows have been in the 30’s.

Large tulips that we bought from Brecks 9 years ago.

A miniature thrift that is in my miniature conifer garden.

Here is one of my favorite bleeding hearts with yellow foliage.

Little Water Feature

boo — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 01:20:00 +0000

Wed 1 Aug 2007

I saw this old postcard on ebay and had to have it. Not the postcard, but I’m lusting the waterfall because it would look amazing running down our ravine. Won’t ever happen but the dream keeps me from thinking about my foot.

My foot has been giving me problems so there isn’t much gardening going on. I’m waiting till the weeds are waist high so I don’t have to far to bend, nor will I have to scoot around on the ball of my foot while doing garden squats. I’ll have a lot of clean up to do once I’m feeling better. Until then here is a pretty hardy hibiscus blooming that I grew from seed… not all is bad.