NEIGHBORHOOD GARDEN FOR JULY 23, 2011

NEIGHBORHOOD GARDEN FOR JULY 23, 2011

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THEY CAN TAKE THE HEAT!!!

BY GLADYS JEURINK

Here comes the heat of July and August. If you add wind, life is harder for most plants except for the tropicals. Water becomes very important, especially for container plants as they are usually crowded and roots don’t have very much soil to draw on. Pots, especially dark colored ones become very hot. To overcome this for your delicate ones they can be double potted with layers of paper between. Some may need to be watered 2 times a day. If crowded they will also need more often fertilizing. I don’t like a big number of plants in my pots. If the pots are not too big to handle, it helps to rotate them. Dead heading becomes very important to keep blooms coming.

Among the heat lovers I find Joe Pye Weed to do well but it also likes water. There is a tall one for the background and a shorter elsewhere. Both of them are favorites of Butterflies. It is not a water plant, but place it where it is easy to add a little water. I have the tall one and have counted as many as five different butterflies on the same bush. It has a large purple bloom, and is a native of eastern United States. It blooms the middle of the summer into fall with no hurry to come up in the spring (but it always does).

Grasses of many kinds do well in the heat. Their root systems go far to find water. Sea Oats Grass grows about 3-4 feet high and have “blooms” of oat like plumes that do well in winter bouquets if you pick them still green. Completely mature ones will shatter when dried. I have seen gorgeous bouquets spray painted silver or gold at Christmas time. They will spread quite easily when the blooms shatter in the fall. My favorite grass is Karl Forester, a feather reed grass (Calamagrostis), that can get to 5 feet tall, and blooms in June, earlier than many grasses. It is a clump grass that stands up well in the winter.

Not blooming until early fall is Helenium (aka Helen’s flower). It

was earlier called Sneezeweed, but does not cause sneezing. It is over three feet tall with several color arrangements of red, orange and yellow Daisy like blooms. The blooms last quite well in a bouquet and the plant blooms for quite a long time. Some people are allergic to the foliage.

All of the Agastache species seem to be heat lovers. The Anise Hyssop (Agastache Foeniculum) sometimes call Licorice Plant is one I have had for years. If you rub the leaves on your fingers it smells like licorice. Now I have 3 Sunset Plants that are supposedly loved by Humming Birds. My Anise one is not hardy here but produces many seeds so I have many little ones each year. I had a visitor from Arkansas delighted to see them and pulled several flowers heads off and ate them!

Sea Holly (Eryngium species) doesn’t seem to be bothered with heat and produces large amounts of sharp edged blue blooms. It is a vigorous plant sending out roots in various directions. It is also a good seed producer. I like to think I have Egianteum but I have had it too long to know. It has an interesting story of a well known gardener in England, Miss Wilmott. If she visited any ones yard, the next year the plant Egianteum was growing in their garden so was named “Miss Wilmott’s Ghost”. It grows about 4 feet high with toothed spiny leaves.

I have the Cup Plant (Siphirium perfoliatum) that never seems to be bothered by heat. It is a giant for your background, usually over 6 feet tall with yellow blooms not unlike a sunflower. It spreads by roots very slowly as well as seed. The leaves are large and coarse with pairs along the stem across from each other that form a cup that holds water. Also called Prairie Dock or Rosinweed, they like heavy soil for their bulk. If you watch closely you can see small birds drinking out of the cups.

The latter part of June the Soapweed, also know as Dagger Plant, Adams Needle, or Spanish Dagger, comes into its huge, white, 6 foot bloom. Be careful where you put it. It doesn’t spread fast but one takes an awful lot of space. Then if you try to remove it, the roots are deep and send up new plants for several years. There are some dainty ones, and some with red blooms. During a drought periods they may seem to be the only plants doing well. I have mine in the parkway and during full moon those tall white stalks are gorgeous.

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MY FIRST TOMATO

BY GLADYS JEURINK

Sun Gold, the little grape sized yellow tomato, won the race for the first this year. I picked 3 on June 28, 2011. Two years ago it was first while last year Sweet Seedless took first. Fourth of July has not won for me ever. Big Momma, a large Roma type, did not even have little tomatoes by the fourth of July so I should have tomatoes until frost.