Category: flowers

Garden surprises

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I spend a lot of time fretting over seeds that are not germinating or plants that are not doing well. I need to give equal time to the delightful surprises that the garden brings almost every day. Today:

Rugosa blooming in side yard
First zucchini flower
Lacy phacelia has come back on its own
We ate peas for the first time today!

Dye garden

CatherineLeave a comment

So much is happening in the garden. I can’t keep up. But I have to post about the dye garden. This is the first year I’ve tried to grow plants specifically for dyeing.

Dye garden looking toward grape arbor

I planted this bed on June 14 from seedlings started on May 31. Much too late. Some plants caught up and are blooming, others are struggling. The tall plant and best performer so far is the garland serrated chrysanthemum. Second best is the dyer’s coreopsis. These seeds came from Grand Prismatic Seeds in Utah.

Safflower just starting to bloom

There are a lot of buds on the safflower. It’s an interesting plant, new to me.

First bloom on Tango cosmos

I’m looking forward to growing much more of this cosmos. The flowers are stunning and the dyeing power is strong. I won’t be using it to dye until I get more than one flower!

Fly on chrysanthemum

This is my star, the serrated chrysanthemum. I heard about this plant from Suzanne Grosjean. I’ll grow this again.

Dyer’s coreopsis with dyer’s chamomile foliage in background

I love the deep reds and yellows of these flowers. Will grow again. I’m not sure what’s happening with the chamomile. Its foliage is lush, but no flowers.

St. John’s wort, hypericum, growing wild outside the bed

Seeming to know it belonged here! I was really gratified to see this volunteer St. John’s wort growing next to the dye bed. The flowers are so pretty. I haven’t dyed with it but I saw a video by India Flint showing her use of it in the being (t)here course. The video is called “local colour.”

Other plants in the dye bed that are languishing are black night scabiosa and black hollyhock. I’ll keep at it with these as I’d really like to grow them.

  • More dye plants are growing outside the dye bed in the main garden. Most significant is goldenrod, which I didn’t plant. Also:
    • Hopi black dye sunflower which is growing tall but not blooming yet
    • Shades of Gold marigold – huge plants, very happy in the garden, but only a few flowers so far

    Healthy stand of goldenrod inside the garden in the flower border

    I’m having trouble keeping up with the garden let alone dyeing, but I did manage to use some of the chrysanthemum and coreopsis recently. This silk broadcloth strip must have been mordanted with iron earlier (the importance of keeping records!), because the prints turned out very dark. These dark silhouettes have their own beauty though.

    Dyed silk with coreopsis and chrysanthemum sprigs

    Garden scan

    CatherineLeave a comment

    Row by row scan:

    Flower row with garlic bed beyond. Mostly poppies and daisies at this time, but sunflowers coming.

    Three sisters row. Corn (a few stalks), squash, green beans. A few volunteer potatoes. Horseradish at one end and comfrey at the other.

    Broccoli (Aspabroc and DeCicco). Started under row cover. Vulnerable to porcupines! Saved by electric fence, now harvesting. Some cabbage, I think.

    Fava bean row, plus some Dazzling Blue Kale and volunteer wild arugula from last year.

    Parsnips, first and second year. Turnips. Beets. And a patch of broccoli rabe bolting. Will replace with some carrots.

    Mixed greens row. Chard, radicchio, ruby red orach, Salanova lettuce, escarole, some volunteer dill, baby Turkish rocket, and some room for succession planting.

    Soybeans just flowering, fingerling potatoes, carrots. Artichoke at the end of this row and three others.

    Tomato row. Plus one marigold at the top.

    Fence row – scarlet runner beans (not shown), rudbeckia perennial, zucchini, patty pan squash, Hopi black sunflowers, Chinese cabbage.

    Lettuces under the corner trellis. Also visible – a few cucumbers starting to climb.

    Corner trellis report

    CatherineLeave a comment

    I spent a humid hour and a half in the garden this morning. Plants are growing and need a little help. Okay, a lot of help in some cases.

    Mostly I weeded under and around the corner A-frame trellis. And laid out more hay mulch in that area.

    The scarlet runner beans are just starting to bloom. Two hummingbirds perched on the tomato trellis in anticipation.

    Scarlet runner beans starting to bloom behind a maze of fencing

    I dug out a huge mass of white clover which was overtaking the front doorway of the A-frame. The oak leaf and Encore mix lettuces needed only a light weeding. They look great. The Ovation mix is overgrown and mostly bolted. Hard to pick it.

    The arugula quadrant has not done well at all. Mostly weeds. I tried first Sylvetta with no luck, then I planted Bellezia. A few feeble sprouts. I don’t get it.

    I also started to train my 8 cucumber plants to climb the trellis. Some are too short to reach it, others are just disinclined to climb.

    Bianka’s white runner beans are doing nicely at the four corners of the trellis.

    Corner trellis area

    There are a few little green tomatoes.

    The fingerling potatoes have a nasty case of aphids.

    Happily, cosmos and poppy seeds have germinated in flower pots – a late experiment.

    Poppy sprouts

    Cosmos sprouts “Tango”

    Good Life poppies

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    Always a special day when the poppies first bloom. They seem so extravagant in their color and their delicacy. These were drenched in a sudden thunderstorm.

    Seeds originated from the Good Life Center in Harborside, Maine, the farm of Helen and Scott Nearing. I first grew them last summer and saved them over the winter.