Back to the Cottage Garden

While I've spent a lot of time on my vegetables this spring, the thing that really got me into gardening was the ornamental part of gardening. I love the beauty of gardens--from the flowers to the shrubs.

If you read some of my old posts, you'll see I spent a lot of time planting shrubs and perennials during those first couple of years in our house. I wanted a cottage garden look fitting of our English-style cottage. Since they come back year after year, they don't need quite as much attention as the vegetables, but they still need upkeep from time to time.

I spent much of my last two weekends working on some of the flower beds. I started on the rose bed in the very front. I planted two lavender plants there back in 2013. One of them died last year (or so I thought), so I bought another one. When I started cleaning out that bed though, I found that the lavender plant had started growing back from the nub that was left. I planted he new one in there anyways, hoping to fill out the bed a little more in between the two.

I thought this lavender plant was dead, and cut it back to a nub. It rewarded me with new growth this spring. Now I just need to keep the oregano from taking over.

I tucked the lavender plant I just bought back between the two old lavenders.

A side note about lavender. French lavender is notoriously hard to grow in most of the Southeast. It doesn't like our heat and humidity. If anyone wants to grow lavender here in Georgia, I recommend Spanish lavender--it tolerates the humidity much better. But I liked the look of French lavender better, and somehow, seven years later, it's still alive. I swear I found the right variety and the right location. I bought 'Munstead,' a dwarf lavender variety, from my favorite local nursery. I planted it against a retaining wall along the sidewalk, so it gets plenty of sunshine, good air circulation, and good drainage. The other secret: I water it as little as possible. Most of what it gets is rainfall and whatever runs down the hill. During the hot summer months, I'll water on particularly dry weeks. Somehow that formula has worked.

Lavender with the roses

In my garden I mostly tend to stick to perennials and shrubs, since they're a gift that keeps on giving. However I have a couple of spots in the front where I'll rotate through annual flowers to get an extra splash of color, and I'll usually plant a few in pots, as well. For this summer, I decided on lime green coleus, white fan flower, and this Calibrachoa whose color I just couldn't resist.

'Colorblaze Lime Time' Coleus

'Whirlwind White' Scaevola - also known as fan flower. I liked the upright growth habit of this hybrid.

'Superbells Holy Moly!' Calibrachoa

I find it hard to find flowers that will stay beautiful through our scorching summers, but I had good experience with coleus and fan flower in the past. Both manage to still look healthy in July and August. The calibrachoa was more of a toss up. Fingers crossed that it makes it. I also changed out one of my planters with a coleus and fan flower, plus this fuschia ivy leaf geranium I loved. Maybe it's because I spent so much time in Florida's Palm Beaches, but I think lime green and hot pink is a great summer color combination.

It's going to be good year for my roses. I never got around to giving them their annual pruning or fertilizer, but they look as happy as can be at the moment. I think it was because of all the rain we got this winter/spring. They just soaked it up and gave them a nice healthy start to the year. Even when plants look dormant, they're still "growing," it just looks different.

'Soaring Spirits' is looking particularly healthy this year.

Well, my work on the flower beds is far from over, so more on that soon!

April Showers Bring May Flowers!

I can't believe it's been over a month since I've blogged...April just flew by. In addition to the usual spring garden projects, I just started an herb business called Itty-Bitty Herb Farm. This was my first week selling herbs at the farmers market, so I feel like I can finally take a breath after the whirlwind of preparations.

When I stepped out into my garden this morning, I was delighted to discover several of my plants came into bloom this past week. You know what they say: April showers bring May flowers. One of my favorite things about gardening is how my garden is constantly changing, and in the springtime there's always something new to enjoy. A flower coming into bloom is like receiving an unexpected gift. I thought I'd share what's blooming in my garden right now. 

Some friends dug these irises out of their yard
for me a couple of years ago, and they've
settled in quite nicely. I think it's Iris virginica
(blue flag iris).

Pink 'Flower Carpet' rose

Foxgloves (Digitalis purpurea) are biennial,
so I wasn't sure if they would come this year.
Looks like they had some babies last year who
bloomed this year. 

My 'Munstead' lavender isn't quite in full bloom, but I
think the delicate buds are lovely.

My 'Red Drift' rose just exploded in blooms! I've had it since
I lived in an apartment, and it's clearly settled into its new
home since I planted it in my landscape last year.

I inherited this mystery rose when we bought our house,
and this is the best it's looked since we moved in.

I had an itch for some white flowers, so I planted this little
container with some white petunias and white fan flower
(Scaevola aemula).

If you have any questions about these plants, feel free to leave a comment below! I'm happy to answer any questions you have.

The Beautiful Edible Garden

I finally got to spend some time cleaning up my garden this weekend. It was a busy weekend, but I took a free hour to pull weeds, remove dead plants, and do some light pruning. I hurt my back a couple of weeks ago, so I couldn't get in the garden until I recovered last week. When I finally checked on it there was a 3-inch-long tomato hornworm that had defoliated about 25% of my tomato plants. Fortunately, the vines were already huge to begin with, and the big, fat green tomatoes were untouched. But learn from me: check for tomato hornworms constantly before they get out of hand! If you keep an eye on your plants, there's no need to use chemicals, just remove the worms as you see them.

I had a hard time getting a good close-up of the giant
tomato hornworm, but you get the idea.

I'm delighted one of my lavender plants (which were kind of an experiment) has finally come into bloom. The red Flower Carpet rose behind it looks spectacular, too, so the front corner of my yard makes me smile every time I come and go.

Lavandula angustifolia 'Munstead' and 'Flower
Carpet Scarlet' roses bloom near the sidewalk.

I just finished reading The Beautiful Edible Garden by Leslie Bennet and Stefani Bittner. I am the sort of person who gardens more for the beauty than for the fruits and vegetables, but I also like the idea of harvesting my own home-grown produce (you can't beat a home-grown tomato). The title of this book intrigued me: the idea that I could have a beautiful garden and free vegetables in the same space. The colorful pictures on the cover were eye-catching, too:

The Beautiful Edible Garden by Leslie Bennet
and Stefani Bittner. Isn't it pretty?

The book was just as inspiring as the cover promised. The two authors outline the basic principles of designing a garden, and then go into detail on how to flesh that out in your various spaces: the front yard, back yard, side yard, and containers. They also cover basic principles of keeping your garden healthy and fruitful: soil preparation, light, water, fertilizer, planting techniques, tools, and more. To polish it off, they sprinkle the book with various indoor arrangements to make with a combination of flowers and edible plants, so you can enjoy the beauty of your garden indoors as well. Overall, the tone is practical, down-to-earth, and filled with specific examples.

I really enjoyed their many plant lists. They offer examples of edible plants that tolerate shade, that have low water requirements, that bloom in different seasons, or that lend themselves to different garden styles. They frequently refer to different kinds of fruits or unique varieties of vegetables or herbs that you would never see in a grocery store. It inspired me to grow my own food simply so I could try Fuyu persimmons, fresh chervil, or yellow wax beans. I loved the many pictures throughout the book; the pictures alone gave me ideas for my own garden.

The book is filled with lovely photos like these. I borrowed
these images from the authors' blog.

The one limitation to the book is that they frequently refer to tropical plants, such as citrus trees, that can't be grown year-round in Georgia (unless you want to bring them inside every winter). Likewise, for my Florida readers, they list plants like pear and apple trees that need cold winters. Before you get too excited about a specific plant, you'll want to double-check in your favorite plant book (or on the internet) to make sure it can grow in your climate.

In summary, if you want to get inspired to grow your own fruit, vegetables, and herbs in a unique setting, I highly recommend this book.

Curb Appeal

My foxgloves started blooming this week. I've heard they're hard to grow here in Middle Georgia, but I had to try anyways. They're one of the few really beautiful, showy flowers that like the shade. I love the color on these, too. They start out creamy and get a hint of pinkish purple as they open.

Foxgloves in my garden

In our neighborhood we get a lot of walkers--people walking the dog, going for a jog, or just enjoying an evening stroll. There's a retaining wall along the sidewalk at the front of our yard, and I've long thought how nice it would be to have flowers cascading over the wall for passers-by to enjoy. My house is up a hill, so you can't see the garden very well from the street except for what's immediately by wall. The roses I won in February have a low, spreading growth habit, so I thought they'd go perfectly near the wall. Since visibility is an issue with backing out of our driveway, I needed some lower-growing plants to go in front of them, closest to the sidewalk.

The 'Flower Carpet' rose didn't look like much when
I planted it by itself in March.

I love the purple and red combination, so I chose heat-and-sunshine loving purple verbena ('Homestead Purple') to go with my red roses. I saw some dwarf lavender ('Munstead') at the garden center I couldn't resist. I've heard mixed reviews about whether lavender will grow in the South, but I thought if it will grow, the sunny slope by my retaining wall might offer the best possible conditions. I bought a couple of lavender plants to fill in between the verbena, spacing out the plants according to their expected final size. Since the flower bed is so far from the house (and right next to the hot concrete), I chose plants that are all drought-tolerant in case I forget to water them. Roses like a lot of water in general, but these low-maintenance rose varieties ('Flower Carpet' and 'Red Drift') will tolerate drier conditions.

Verbena 'Homestead Purple'  with 'Red Drift' rose (left)
and 'Munstead' lavender (right)

If your garden is limited to a patio or balcony, this flower combination would also be beautiful in a large pot in a sunny or part-sun location. I bought the 'Red Drift' rose a couple of years ago, and it lived and bloomed quite happily in a pot for the past year. It's the red rose that's blooming in the pictures (the 'Flower Carpet' rose I won hasn't bloomed yet.) The dwarf lavender might also lend itself well to a container with its compact size, and verbena is always a winner in container plantings.

'Red Drift' rose, 'Munstead' lavender, and 'Homestead
Purple' verbena complement each other.

After figuring out the approximate spacing of my plants, I roughly planned out the size and shape of my bed. I decided it would be a nice extension of the current holly/ivy bed on the corner. My husband dug up the grass in March, and I prepared the bed with plenty of compost. I finally finished planting and mulching it last week. So far the mulch hasn't been washed down the slope by the rain. I'm crossing my fingers.

I expect the plants to fill in the entire bed by the end of
the summer.

It doesn't look like much yet, but it should be quite eye-catching when the roses and lavender double in size and are covered in blooms. Being a gardener requires a lot of patience. What have you planted to add to your curb appeal?