Companion planting run amok

One of the knocks against rose gardening is the unappealing look of ‘soldier’ rows of bushes naked from the knees (or waist) down. I deliberately did not design my garden in rows. For one thing I didn’t have the room, and for another I was afraid my front yard would look stupid. So I wound up with circles and curves. My biggest frustration as a new gardener was all the empty space around the tiny new roses and later the unleafy state of my young bushes. So I made the decision to add companion plants in an effort to reduce the pressure to perform on the roses and on me. I figured with other stuff to look at my ugly roses wouldn’t be so noticeable. So my garden became cottage-y.

My learning curve was pretty steep. Every plant was an experiment. I learned that very few plants when placed in a watered, amended Florida garden do not become gargantuan. Plant after plant was eliminated due to their bulk in my tiny garden and the fact that the roses were filling the empty space on their own. So my cache of companions were few: Salvia farinacea, daylilies, Purple Coneflower, Dianthus chinensis, and this year dahlias. Admittedly, there are some that I haven't tried, but I got gun-shy. There are a few that reseed, returning in winter or early, early spring like nigella ‘Love in a Mist’ and larkspur, but they’re done in by the heat eventually and are gone by June.

Last year I went nuts with Purple Coneflower seeds, and when the seedlings sprouted I was so covetous of them that I barely thinned them, not realizing these babies would grow into beasts 15” in diameter (and more) with a root system even broader and reaching for China. The lovely non-rhizome-spreading Salvia farinacea is a reseeder as well but in the current season. Though easily thinned, it can fill a bed if left alone. The thrill of spring became the wonderment of mid-summer and the terror of fall.

Now, the cottage gardener would love this bed, but upon hearing that there's a 4-1/2 by 6 foot rose bush in there the rose gardener would have heart failure.

When I was taking these 'before' shots back in mid-October after my summer hiatus, I was stunned by the density of the companion plants. The liriope had become huge; the salvia with glorious abandon had spread everywhere even overtaking the Purple Coneflower plants. By the way there are three rose bushes in there.

This is 'White Maman Cochet' no doubt struggling to breathe.

The pulling began shyly at first. The sweet purple flower stalks were so lovely.

Then reality hit home. If there's no light, there's no life, and I found lots of deadwood at the bottom of WMC. The short greenery is weeds. Apparently, they don't need light. The larger leaves on the right are young Purple Coneflower plants, raring to go.

Believe it or not 'Madame Antoine Rebe' is actually blooming under that pile of companions - even the 'Aaron' caladiums gave up the fight.

Here's the opposite angle.

'Souvenir de St. Anne's' was originally planted too close to 'White Maman Cochet' which was bad enough, but then the daylily grew and the coneflowers grew and she is fighting for her space.

My attitude finally became 'take no prisoners', and I think WMC is happier already.

She has a few blooms and buds and a very strong will.

There are a few salvias in the middle that I didn't have the heart to pull. Maybe I'll be able to tuck them in somewhere. Kept under control they are my preferred in-the-ground companion now.

I added more space to the back of the bed, meaning I pulled up the weed cloth, broke up the compacted sand, threw in some Sphagnum peat moss, bagged soil, Milorganite and alfalfa and trusted that liriope isn't as nutritionally demanding as roses) and moved three of the 'Super Blue' liriope along the new back line.

I stuck coneflowers and salvias in between the liriope. I hate to throw away plants.

Don't mean to cause eye strain, but I just had to include this near-dark last shot of the day. The Program setting on the camera made light where there was no light, but the camera just could not focus on what it couldn't see. These are the coneflower plants I salvaged. I think there are six. Several small ones were thrown away. Oh, the pain. My plan for next season is to keep them in pots and scatter them throughout the garden. Requiring a shovel and several deep cuts around the rootball, these are impossible to pull by hand. They have grand root systems. Mother Nature can be very proud. Of course, there will also be the seeds from this year that will be sprouting from now on. Must stay on top of those.

'White Maman Cochet' does have some new growth after last month's feeding but nowhere near what she would have had with more light and less root competition. Poor thing.

Here is 'Madame Antoine Rebe'. She has struggled since her move to this bed in early spring but looks amazingly well considering her environment for the last few months. Unfortunately, she's one-third the size she was back in February.

David Austin's 'Tradescant' will be planted in here soon, and 'Souvenir de St. Anne's' will be moved over.

Overplanting with companions had its negative effects elsewhere in the garden. I believe these are six - no, seven - Penta plants put in on June 28th for fill in the 'Le Vesuve' center bed. My poor 'Le Vesuve' has had a terrible year of dieback to the extent that recently I was giving strong consideration to replacing him with 'Belinda's Dream'.

Gone now are the Pentas. The Purple Coneflowers would have been, too, if I had had my shovel.

This photo says a thousand words to me. Look how far the bush extends past the right edge (rear) of the bed, and look how far away from the front edge he grew - or rather didn't grow. He did try to put on new growth, but most of it died. Those pentas were just sucking up the nutrients and pushing back the rose's toes

Here's a shot from the other side. You can see there's not much bush on the right side, and look at that huge clump of coneflowers. Not thinning seedlings to one individual is a dereliction of a Florida gardener's duty. Companions are lovely, but roses come first.

This photo from directly behind and back near the house shows that 'Le Vesuve' is a very one-sided bush. The left side even extends beyond the photo frame. How sad for him, but at least he survived. Roses really are tough.

And this June 28th photo says it all! 'Le Vesuve' was a balanced bush back then with many more canes than today. However, his decline had already started on the left side due to the coneflower plants, I'm sure. I only added to his problems with the addition of the pentas. Apparently, the salvia on the right is a less intrusive plant and less demanding of nutrients than the coneflowers and the pentas which grew to almost three feet tall. I'll be putting daylilies back along the edges.

I will be much more conservative about my companion planting in the future. Perhaps in other regions/climates where these perennials are not so robust and the soil is richer they would not pose the same threat to roses as they have in my garden. Naturally, even in Florida a larger garden would be effected less, assuming the gardener didn't get greedy (who me?) and plant too far under the roses' canopy. The daylilies do not seem to have this deleterius effect, thankfully. Perhaps I can use the pentas in pots, too, maybe even partially sinking them in the soil - or not. And maybe the restrictions of the pot will limit their size. At any rate this year has been another learning season filled with as much fretting as the previous ones - different year, different problems. I am grateful to the true Master Gardener for these opportunities to learn, and I should pray to become a better student.

From little seeds mighty zinnias grow

This ‘Purity’ zinnia was the first zinnia I’ve ever grown from seed, in fact, the only  zinnia, so believe me when I say that I had no idea of what these seeds are capable.

Here she is in all her glory, filling a whole corner of the garden. However, you can save yourself some embarrassment if you don’t assume that there are several zinnia plants in this photo. That would be the wrong assumption. This is one plant, and she’s flopped over on her side. If she were vertical (verticality is an illusive thing in my garden), she’d be eight feet tall.


‘Purity’ finally needed to go when she made it impossible to see ’Souv de la Malmaison’ the younger in the front garden. This by the way may have been a blessing in disguise since the grasshoppers couldn’t find her either. She was fully leafed out when I pulled the reclining zinnia off of her.

Eight feet of zinnia? Shouldn’t that be the subject of a scientific investigation? Perhaps I'm easily awestruck. Perhaps newbies like me are more easily impressed than seasoned gardeners. Perhaps stems of .75 inch and all this plant life from one seed is not as impressive as I think it is.

 

All I can say is that next time I’ll stake this baby and an acorn has nothing on a zinnia seed.

Why am I surprised?

Only I could be surprised that a plant by the name of Giant Apostle's Iris would become huge. I mean, even in the Bible names indicated character.  Names mean something!  And yet here am I, one who gardens in a very small garden, adding plants to it that someone thought reasonable to name Giant.  I can only attribute such ditziness to...  Oh, wait!  I didn't know its true name when I bought them (one giant is never enough).  They were labeled "Purple Iris".  Oh, saved by the bell! I am not the nitwit that I thought I was.

Alas, that still leaves me with three of these plants (I divided one in two before planting) that are rapidly growing into their name.  By rapidly I mean in five months.  Here they are when I planted them.

Here's half of one on February 24th. It is only two or three fans, and that's all. The other half is in the background behind the daylilies in the other bed.

Here is the same plant two days ago.  (Gee, I wonder how big it is today!)  Now this bed is five feet long from the corner of the patio on the right to the brick edging on the left.

I didn't measure it, but this baby's got to be three feet tall - easy.  Are you sensing my terror yet?

Here's the other one.  The turquoise pot is 24" in diameter!  And perhaps you've noticed how lovely they are.  They are even more gorgeous in person.  Believe me, the camera does not do them justice.  They are very beautiful shades of green.

Again, this bed is five feet wide also.  Aren't they gargantuan??  But the pressing question is how much more gargantuan will they become?  Am I going to have to be dividing these every six months?  How big is giant?

These two plants have not bloomed yet.  The other one in the driveway bed had a flower bud when I bought it, and that stem has bloomed several times, the only one that has.  I believe this plant is also called walking iris because of its habit of bending down and rooting where its stems touch ground. Well, there will be none of that!!  On the other hand I may have a gold mine here.  At $12.98 a pop I could make some real cash by selling the divisions out at the curb, but probably digging them up delays their blooming so I best wait to cash in.

Perhaps someone who grows these beauties could break it to me gently. How massive do they get? Maybe I should cut back on the alfalfa and no more composted horse manure!!!

Coneflowers, etc.

Faded glory. I deadheaded it today.

I love echinacea!!!

'Pink Parasol' - This is a single plant grown from seed.

More daylilies are coming! Love those rebloomers!

 

Another foxglove blooming. Hurray!

My neighbor loves my 'Red Cascade' pouring over the fence.

My new rain gauge has 1.65 inches of rain in it since Thursday evening. Double hurray!!

Sundry delights

Imagine my excitement when I saw this beginning of a flower stalk on a Foxglove plant. It's the only one on several plants grown from seeds. I thought they preferred cooler temps and would have been done by now - not just getting started.

'Blush Noisette' (1814) blooms in large clusters, and this is one of them. This bush hasn't looked good this spring, and I was beginning to dislike it. The truth is my watering system had again been attacked by squirrels, and it was simply in need of water. Now it's beginning to look better. Roses do like their water.

This daylily is called 'Frilly Bliss', is quite large and has Unusual Form. Why would anyone think that?

'Souvenir de la Malmaison' and friend

Orange isn't my thing, and I don't know this one's name, but I really have taken a liking to it waving in the breeze on its tall, thin scapes. I bought a box of them at Sam's some years ago, then was disappointed that the color turned out as it did. I'm not disappointed anymore. They add so much fun to the garden.

Such a bright lime yellow! And a big bloomer as well. I ordered it from a less than upstanding online nursery before I knew anything about daylilies and didn't make note of the name. It won't be long before I can divide it, and then I'll have TWO!!

'All American Magic' was a much deeper wine color than the camera was able to capture but, apparently, just for this one cool day. Since then it's been lavender/pink (lighter than this photo) but beautiful nonetheless and a nice cluster bloomer.

'All American Magic'

'Becky Lynn' - I love her color which the camera was really not able to capture. This color is nice but not as nice as the real thing.

The box label showed a pink daylily, so I was disappointed again when the flowers were gold. Well, it didn't take me long to recognize how much they popped in the midst of foliage and pink blooms. I love them, and naturally I want more.

'Clotilde Soupert' (1889, polyantha) - she's a bloom machine! Her flowers are a scant 2" in diameter, but they have a ton of petals. In other parts of the country they say she balls a lot but hardly at all here. She blooms in clusters of about ten flowers and has a lovely fragrance. Very healthy, too, maybe because one of her parents was a Tea Rose.

Looks like something from a creature feature, doesn't it? It's today's photo of yesterday's flowers. They don't get their name for no reason - "day" lilies. Today a stunning flower, tomorrow a star of scary movies. It's name is 'Blueberry Frost'.

Here's the real 'Blueberry Frost', bluer than this in real life but not really "blue", if you know what I mean. Maybe in someone else's soil she's bluer. She's planted in front of 'Le Vesuve'.

'Bermuda's Anna Olivier'

Here's all of 'Le Vesuve' (6' wide by about 4.5' tall) with her sidekicks 'Bluberry Frost' daylilies, and way over on the left is 'Pearl Harbor' daylily.

Don't they look like sweet buddies? 'Pearl Harbor' and 'Le Vesuve'.

Here's 'Blueberry Frost' again.

And again.

I managed to get one plant of Zinnia 'Purity' seeds to survive infancy and grow in the garden. Now it's about 3' tall and the blooms have changed from slightly more than single to this big one, probably 4" in diameter.

The previous flower is in the background of this photo. Doing the seeds and seeing the seedlings grow into mature - and different looking plants has been an enjoyable education.

A cluster of 'Souv de la Malmaison' in the front garden

I think this is 'Chaleur'.

These are two flowers of 'Bow Bells', David Austin's rose from 1991. This rose steals my heart every time I look at her. She's in almost complete shade due to summertime sun-shift, and she doesn't seem to mind a bit - yet. So healthy, too.

Is over-exposure possible for 'Souv de la Malmaison'? Personally, I can't can't get enough of her.

These are the biggest leaves I've ever seen on my 'Aaron' caladiums. They're huge.

Catch ya later!