The Yellow Farmhouse Garden

One of the things I hope to accomplish with this blog is to provide you with at least a little bit of gardening inspiration.

I believe one way to do that is by posting photos of my garden and others.

This is a photo I took last week of the perennial garden.

In the foreground you see the rock retaining wall covered with Virginia Creeper. Behind that is an area covered with Periwinkle. These two ground covers fill in the space between the flowering plants eliminating the need for mulch. Watch out for Virginia Creeper though, it has a tendency to get out of hand, climbing all over everything in the garden.

The tall blue flowers are Russian Sage, a semi-woody perennial that adds some vertical interest to the garden.

Next are the white Shasta Daisies. At one time these were Martha Stewart’s favorite flower. There are some near the back too.

Yellow Prairie Cone Flowers have a dominant role in this garden. They add a lot of long lasting color. The Cone Flowers were planted years ago by a landscaper long before I arrived on the scene. They did so well here that I decided to divide them and distribute them throughout the garden, the result of which you see here now.

A long row of bright yellow Day Lilies can be seen towards the top of the photo.
It’s a little hard to make out, but if you look close there are a few Globe Thistle plants off to the left.

In the upper right corner are a few ‘Purple Queen’ Cleome. These are annuals I planted to add more color and texture.

Finally, we have Echinacea, the Purple Cone Flower you see growing in drifts. In the fall, small song birds love to eat the seeds of the Echinacea.
There are other plants hidden away all throughout the garden and we have discussed some of those in previous posts.

The garden view you see here is what a guest sees from his car when travelling up the driveway. To see the other hidden gems he would have to get out of the car and walk through the garden paths.

Bob

Viola ‘Etain’ is one of the plants recommended this year by Judy to her circle of gardening friends. I decided to try them out in a shady spot near a group of trees and other perennials.

Normally, one would expect a violet such as this to stop blooming long before now (due to summer heat), but just like the energizer bunny, these little perennials just keep going and going.

The hot summer we have had has not seemed to faze them much at all. The only thing I have noticed is the very slight reduction in size of the blooms compared to those in the spring.

I’m sure the shady location has helped them to weather the hot weather.

Bob

Our Balloon Flowers (Platycondon) always seem to get top heavy with flowers and fall over, so we took some time today to stake and tie them up.

While in the middle of tying the first stem, I felt a strange sensation on my finger that quickly turned to a sharp burning pain. I had felt this pain a few times in the past and knew what it was immediately… I had unknowingly brushed against a leaf of a stinging Nettle plant.

I was quickly reminded that,in that spot of the flower bed, I often find Stinging Nettle. Most years, I just put on some gloves and pull them out…that’s usually the end of them for the season. I just completely forgot about them.

Our Nettles have long, narrow leaves with fuzzy-looking small hairs all over the plant. It really just looks like a “generic” weed. I’ll tell you what, though, once you get introduced to it like that, you learn to recognize the subtle characteristics of the plant in a hurry.

The fuzzy hairs that you see are actually very small needles made out of pure glass! The needles are so thin, that when you brush against them, the tips break off and become very sharp (as broken glass tends to do), penetrate your skin and irritating chemicals are released, causing the pain and irritation.

(Take a close-up look at those needles by clicking here)

Fortunately, the worst of the pain is gone in about twenty minutes (I timed it). By the time a hour has passed, your skin just feels “tingly”. I must say that my hand stills feels a little “funny” 8 hours later.

I took this as an opportunity to educate my garden helpers about the perils of Stinging Nettle. Of course the first question asked was “how bad does it hurt?”. Trying to describe the sensation in words was just not working, so I invited them to try it for themselves. There were no takers until I rubbed a small spot on the back of my hand with a piece of nettle leaf. (I don’t advise this “hands on” approach to teaching, however). Still no takers… and these were the same guys who just a few weeks ago, were brave enough to chomp down on their first Habanero Pepper! Hmm… maybe they learned some thing from that experience.

Anyway, one did end up trying it on the back of his hand only because a friend of his from Kashmir told him about how parents use it in the old country to discipline their children… talk about differences in parenting techniques !

The Nettle is gone now but not forgotten.

Bob

This is the time of year for these guys, the Tomato Horn Worm:

Anyone who raises tomatoes will eventually have to deal with these pests.

I know some of you are chuckling to yourselves because you have already guessed the low tech solution to the tomato Horn Worm problem. We have, I don’t know… maybe 80 to100 tomato plants in our garden beds. We just use the old hunt, pick,and stomp method of worm control.

The caterpillars are sometimes hard to see because they are the same color of the tomato plant. So just check your plants for bare stems with no leaves.

When you see this, the Horn Worms are close by. Usually, they feed toward the top of the plant, but not always.

When you find them,just pick them off and stomp on them. They make a satisfying sound when stepped on that is just too difficult to describe in words.

If you are too squeamish to step on them, you can use a very high tech method employing specially bred bacteria to infect them with their own brand of the Black Plague.

The bacteria (Bacillus thurengensis or BT for short) is quite harmless to people and pets. Heck, it won’t even kill other bugs, but it is deadly to caterpillars of all kinds.

The mid-tech control is to just spray an insecticide to kill them. I never use that method, seems to me to be over-kill (yes, pun intended).

Sometimes, mother nature steps in and sends in her own worm killers, if you see a Horn Worm with small egg-shaped objects on its back, don’t kill it. These egg-shaped things are the pupal cocoons of the Braconid Wasp, a parasite of Horn Worms.

From each one of those cocoons another wasp will emerge. So, instead of one worm hunter, you now have dozens doing your dirty work. Ain’t nature grand?

photo: Clemson University

So if the Horn Worm is a caterpillar, it must turn into a moth or butterfly right? Yep, it turns into a type of “humming bird” moth (also known as a Sphinx moth). The Horn Worm moths only fly at night. There are other species of “humming bird” moths that fly during the day.

photo: W.S. Cranshaw

That’s the “skinny” on a fat worm. Good Hunting!
Bob

Regular readers of this blog may have noticed a decrease in the frequency of posts lately.

We have been having some computer problems here at home where we write our blog, so the postings have been sparse.

Thanks to our son, Joseph,we are now up and running once more!

So, please check back, we have a lot of fun things to share with you.

Bob