Fall nursery clearance

Taking the garden design class at Brooklyn Botanical Garden really helped me not splurge on plants this year. It really taught me to plan and think and make lists and sketch. Then, with the arrival of October, I realised that it was time to go and visit my local garden nursery to see what they had on sale and were trying to get rid of. Choice is not always great but I find it's an excellent way to stretch my gardening dollar.

First stop was Hollandia Nursery in Bethel, CT. There was slim pickings but I managed to get:

3 Monarda didyma Jacob Cline (HB)

6 Agastache Blue Fortune (I had to remove the bees from these before putting them in the car) (HB)

2 flats of 10 Lobelia cardinalis (Cardinal flower) (HB)

2-3 Aster divericatus (white wood aster)

2 Heuchera "velvet night" (Coral Bells)

1 Aquilegia canadensis (Wild Columbine) (HB)

1 Aquilegia Ruby Port (HB)

1 Aquilegia (I forget the name) (HB)

This past weekend I hit up the local Agway - perenials and shrubs etc were 70% off. I admit I did go a little nutty but because I've spent most of the summer not buying but researching, planning and sketching, I was able to look through what they had on offer and buy things that I needed rather than things on a whim. So from Agway I got all the following 26 plants - some large well-established) for $100 (labelled prices added up to over $300)

2 large Nepeta subsellis 'Candy Cat'

2 large Nepeta faassenii Dropmore

2 Salvia sylvestris Blue Queen

2 large Salvia Endless Love (HB)

2 Deparia pycnosora (Big Brother Fern) (need to get the woodland area started)

1 Aster diveraticus (White Wood Aster)

1 mystery plant - I had no clue what Centaurea dealbata was other than I liked the leaf shape (it's a cornflower)

1 Oenothera fruticosa (Winter Primrose)

2 Heuchera Swirling Fantasy (Coral Bells)

1 Aruncus Misty Lace (Goatsbeard)

1 Solidago Sweety (dwarf goldenrod)

1 Veronica Darwin Blue (Speedwell) (HB)

4 Eupatorium dubium phantom (Dwarf Joe Pye Weed) (HB)

3 Aquilegia Nora Barlow (Columbine)

1 Aquilegia vulgaris Grandmother's Garden (Columbine)

I took Tuesday off work as Bob was home and while he worked I gardened and got the hummingbird garden (HB) established and structured, I moved the foxgloves that had self seeded in the wrong places around the yard and also moved and divided my Echinacea magnus (the 4ft high buggers) so there's some height at the back of the borders to. I'll take a pic shortly to show how its coming along. I also had plants for the partial shade perennial bed I am wanting to start in the back "garden" (euphemism).
I'd like to fill in some gaps I left in the HB garden with Salvia Coccinea, Lupinus perennis and also plant some Scarlet Runner Bean and Purple Hyacinth bean on the arbor in the front. I'll grow these guys from seed.

Humingbird garden

So it has begun. A south-facing area of the front garden has puzzled me for the longest time as to what to do with it. It is the area. When we viewed the house almost 4 years ago it looked like this - it's the area on the right hand side in front of the addition.


We very quickly ripped out the yew bushes and started over cutting back the depth of the border and enlarging the lawn. The depth of this one area made it hard to design. The hummingbird garden seemed to fall into place as I had also wanted to ring hte house with a 24" band of pea gravel for when we eventually have the siding replaced. I also had some very tall echinacea magnus (tall purple coneflower) hogging the front that had to be moved.


So the first step was digging out the gravel buffer and putting in the edging.


Then I laid landscape fabric and topped with gravel. I recently did my fall visit to local nurseries to see what they were clearing out so I've had lots to plant both here and elsewhere but I'll cover that in another post. Oh and I added a half barrel and liner so there will be a wee pond for them which also breaks up the area into more manageable borders.

Hummingbirds

I had been thinking more about my magic encounter with the hummingbird and started researching plants for them as I have an area of the garden that I have not really known what to do with. So I drew up lists (like you do) and acquainted myself with all the top hummingbird attractors. I also noticed that the landscaping at work had large areas of lobelia cardinalis (Cardinal Flower). I did not look for h-birds though.
About a week later I was walking to the cafe when I noticed that the landscapers had ripped out all the lobelia and put in 'Mums. Still I made no connection until I saw two women by the door, staring at the ground and then staring up. There were two hummingbirds on the ground by the door. One was dead and one was just sitting there. They thought they were baby birds that had fallen out of a nest. It was clear that they were RT Hummingbirds. I picked the dead one up and the other one flew off. Poor buggers suddenly had their mega-lobelia buffet disappear just like that.
The next day I went to the cafe and there was another dead h-bird lying in the same spot (the picture above). They really do weigh literally nothing - amazing to see them up close (in the photo you can actually see the long tongue sticking out to the left.

Now totally resolved to build a hummingbird garden.