Mish-Mash Seed GROW

This post is a mighty mish-mash of miscellany: my monthly Seed GROW post, an OOTS (public plantings) post, a seed swap update, and my favorite Dearborn Garden Walk photo revealed. Deep breath and we're ready!

Seed Grow: Nasty Mish-Mash
It's time for the August post for the Seed GROW Project. (August? How can it be August?!)

Well, things aren't looking so great. I admit I'm just not used to watering plants unless they are veggies. Which, incidentally this corn is, and I did water it, so I'm not sure what's up.

The two nasties are making a little progress up the trellis. Yeah, the hops in the center isn't looking so hot, either. They need more sun and more water, methinks.

The close-up of one of the flowers, with the cute little raindrops, is however, I'm sure you'll agree, noogie!

Out on the Streets — Because Late is Early!
I've lost track of when the official Out on the Streets is, but VP likes us to show public plantings in our area and I've been collecting a few photos.

There are always plenty of wonderful public plantings in my "adopted" (wish I lived there) city of Chicago.

See?

Nice aquatic plants at Trump Tower...

...and regular planters as well. This could change my entire attitude to Mr. Combover.

This photo is purely gratuitous, showing a scene from the Transformers movie being shot in Chicago.

Back in Ann Arbor, and practically in my backyard, is this 15-acre wetland preserve in Mary Beth Doyle Park. It was created two years ago to help reduce flooding and improve water quality in Malletts Creek (into which it flows). It's also aflutter with wildlife.

The wetland has a large central basin that can hold up to 15 million gallons of rain and water runoff during storms. This prevents flooding and reduces phosphorus input from Mallets Creek into the Huron River by a third. Native plants (flowers and grasses) are planted along the edges, and their long roots help clean the water. It's been fun checking the water level whenever I bike by. It's about half full in this photo, though you'd have to see the edges to really tell.

Gray-headed coneflowers (Ratibida pinnata) in Doyle Park.


This traffic circle in Pittsfield Village (Ann Arbor) is well maintained.

Washtenaw Community College where I teach has a few nice planters.

Michigan Avenue in downtown Ypsilanti has nice planters, too. Other parts of town have hanging baskets with ornamental grasses.

This photo is purely gratuitous, showing the Ypsilanti Water Tower, right across the street from my alma mater, Eastern Michigan University. They done teache'd me to write real good.

Had to stop for this bus stop in Westland (south side of Ford, just east of Wayne). It's so out of context with the surrounding area. I suspect the owners of next-door Thrifty Florist planted and maintain it. Good for them!

Save Your Seeds for the Swap!
I know it's early, but start thinking about what plants to save seeds from, to get ready for my third annual snail-mail seed swap in early January (for us winter sowers, holla!).

Favorite Photo — Kew Knew?

Cheryl came closest to guessing that my favorite photo from the Dearborn Garden Walk was this weathered Kew sign. I like the other photos you guessed, especially the stairwell and metal edging (but not those shoes, so not those shoes!), but the Kew sign is by far my favorite. I greatly enjoyed a visit to Kew Gardens in 1999 and it remains one of my all-time favorites. Aside from that, I love mass transit and the sign is in the style of the tube logo. Plus, I love the beat-up, forgotten look, with even the vines covering it being withered. And how even though the sign has holes in the corners, it wasn't even nailed to the fence, just stood up against it.

Plus, the houses on the tour run about $6 million and no expenses were spared in garden design. I'm sure many vignettes were created by professional designers (not even gardeners!), so this forgotten little sign, in an otherwise meticulously cared-for garden, really appealed to me and totally made my day.

Are you still awake? Thanks for stopping by and slogging through this mammoth entry!

I'm growing Nasturtium 'Spitfire' for the GROW project. Thanks to Renee's Garden for the seeds.

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It's time for the July post for the Seed GROW Project, organized by Mr. Brown Thumb, with nasturtium seeds (Tropaeolum majus 'Spitfire') donated by Renee's Garden.



Roooar! I love the fringed end of the petals, which I didn't even see until I downloaded the macro photo!



My three nasturtiums, which I affectionately call nasties, are still going strong. This one started climbing the trellis all on its own.



This one needed a little coaxing. And re-coaxing.



This nasty has the most blooms...



...and should be tall enough to start climbing the corn any day now.



Isn't the corn ('Bantam') tassel cute? Noogie. I only have this one plant, should I be making like a bee and pollinating? I grew it mostly as an experiment to see if it could be winter-sown. The staples in my veggie garden are tomatoes, which I grow in ridiculous quantities, a few hot peppers, and an eggplant. Then I like to mix it up a bit and try different plants each year, even if they aren't the most practical solution for my conditions, just to watch them mature from seed to plant to harvest. As a gardener, I just like to know veggies.



Well, that's it for nasties, but as long as you're still here, let's look at some of the other things growing in my garden. First and foremost, tomatoes! Yes, I have eeny beeny, teeny tiny fruits on five of my (ahem) 18 tomato plants, including 'Big German Pink,' 'Trifele,' and 'Red Short Vine' (all camera-shy).



The biggest is 'Black Russian.'



But 'Green Zebra' (which I can't help pronouncing ZEBra not ZEEbra due to certain English people) has twins!



The black cohosh (Actaea (formerly Cimicifuga) racemosa) on the north side of my house is one of my favorite big-impact plants.



It's pretty up close, too. I like how it starts blooming from the bottom up.



Another big-impact plant (about 6 feet tall) is queen of the prairie (Filipendula rubra). I first saw it during a tour at the 2005 International Master Gardener Conference in Saskatoon, Canada, and knew I had to have it.



I thought the buds looked pretty cool, too.



This 'Uchiki Kuri' squash is doing well. I like putting crazy growers in a container because I don't need the optimal amount of fruit. I've successfully grown zucchini and eggplant in containers, too.



All the rain this spring has been great for the plants, and it also means I've seen tons of these sweet dragonflies in my garden (I live next to a creek)...



But it also means I'm going to have to mow my driveway (ha!).



These are the common "ditch" lilies. I love them. I think if we take the time, we can see new things in familiar faces.



Shasta daisies always make me smile. They are in a huge clump, about 5 feet wide and nearly as tall.



I just love the orange cosmos, which look pretty good next to the chocolate cosmos.



I wasn't surprised a volunteer sunflower was growing in my backyard tree stumps, because I feed the squirrels there in winter.



I was, however, amazed to find four sunflowers growing in the front garden in the shaded interior of my ninebark shrub.



And finally, eight years ago today, Fiona found me. She had been abandoned by her previous family and decided I looked like an easy mark who she could train pretty easily. She is pleased with my ability to provide food, water, and various cat plants, but is amazed at the number of other basic commands I haven't mastered.



I'm growing Nasturtium 'Spitfire' for the GROW project. Thanks to Renee's Garden for the seeds.

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Ruminastions

How did I get here?
This is not my beautiful garden.
These are not my beautiful nasturtiums.
Letting the days go by, into silent autumn
(with apologies to the Talking Heads)

This is ostensibly a Seed GROW post, but it's also a Sundries Sunday post so be ready for random ramblin' ruminastions!

Well, my 'Spitfire' nasturtiums definitely look the worse for wear, especially after last night's low near 40! There isn't enough sun in this location; I've been needing to move a huge arborvitae. The hops is more or less gone, too, but look at the eeny beeny morning glory that popped up!

There are one or two more growing higher on the trellis.

The nasturtiums I planted to grow up my corn are doing somewhat better. To all the hatas who tried to tell me I wouldn't get corn with only one plant, neener neener! I got two corn cobs, but neener neener on me, they were both covered with corn smut, which was so gross I tossed them before even taking a photo. I suspect it self-pollinated (with the seeds above falling on the tassels below). Everything in my garden has to fend for itself, lol.

Pretty turtlehead I received in spring from my friend Joey.

There's something about the forming seedhead of the cup plant I really like.

On July 4 I direct-sowed some zinnia and sunflower seeds. Two months later things are blooming.

I didn't used to like zinnias, but holla!

Ready to bloom any minute now...

...There we go! I can't help but smile when I look at sunflowers.

My tomato crop was suboptimal this year, but I did discover an awesome plant tie: hair clips! Just make sure the ends don't pinch the stem. (These 'Great White' are high enough up to have (knock wood, toi toi toi) escaped the rascally raccoons so far.)

The obedient plant is kickin' ass and takin' names. Most of all mine for not dividing or staking it!

That's my girl!

This corner of my huge front bed is the first thing I planted when I moved into the house. It is now one hot mess, with weeds encroaching the bed. The other side is even worse but I couldn't bear to show it!

When the foliage of the goldenrod (I believe Solidago canadensis) came up, I thought it was native asters. It's not that I don't like goldenrod, it's just that there used to by be native asters in that space as well. The queen of the prairie is about to bloom, way later than the one in a sunny location out front.

I couldn't get the contrast of Big Bluestem grass against the buckthorn in the background to work, so I did an inverse and messed with hue saturation. HA!

Poison ivy growing up a stem of echinacea that the groundhog broke the top off of. Ah, nature. I have tons of small patches of PI like this and huge spreads. I've been hesitant to use Roundup because I often see American toads in this area and their skin is particularly sensitive to absorbing chemicals. Later in fall I'll paint it on.

We were talking on my facebook page about how some gardeners (volunteer at recent workday, left) seem to have a magic anti-dirt shield and others (me, right) very decidedly do not. Lisa pointed out in the comments that the woman to the left is holding pruners and so was likely standing while working. Which is a great observation and interpretation except that there happens to be very little to prune in that garden; mostly everyone was weeding and spreading mulch that day... and everyone finished clean, except me (though I was doing some more rigorous weed removal, lol!).

I got this sweet autumn clematis (Clematis terniflora) from my mom two years ago and this is the first time it's bloomed for me. I winter-sowed two native versions of this plant, virgin's bower (Clematis virginia), and will be interested how long it takes them to bloom. (Where to plant them is a whole 'nother kettle o' fish.)

Large milkweed bugs on (surprisingly enough) my milkweed seedpods.

A while ago I won some cool stuff, including a $20 gift certificate to Lowe's, from Lisa. Even though I had every intention of spending the money on bird seed, I couldn't resist these $3.33 gallon shrubs: two false cypress, two different cultivars of chokeberry, a spirea, and a red-flowered potentilla. No, I have no clue where they'll go.

My elephant's ears 'Illustris' really came into their own this year; they about quadrupled in size. They're gonna need a new pot before they come back in for the winter. Eep.

I've shown Pinky a few times. These are Siegfried (left) and Gertrude. G is named partly after Ms. Jekyll (I chuckle to myself as she hated fuchsia) and partly after my grandmother.

I wonder if I can get Siegi and Gerti to balance on a tight rope like these two? I adore everything about this photo of the Flamingo Trailer Court on Middlebelt Rd. in Farmington Hills, MI.


I'm growing Nasturtium 'Spitfire' for the GROW project. Thanks to Renee's Garden for the seeds.

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