Fall Bulb Ordering
It is time to order fall bulbs! I’m definitely going to plant more lilies this year. I would also like to plant tuberose, but I’m having a hard time finding anyone who has the bulbs in stock. Here is my list of plant/bulb catalogs that I normally order from:
I really like having all of these in one binder so that when I’m looking for a particular plant, it is easy to go from catalog to catalog. Please let me know if I’m missing some other great plant/bulb providers.
I should probably plant more freesia, that fragrance was a wonderful way to start spring.
Any other suggestions for fragrant bulbs that would to well in a mild climate?
Fast-Growing Brugmansia
I’m amazed at how quickly my little Angel’s Trumpet has matured. I planted it just four months ago. I put the pictures side-by-side so that you can see the progress:
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- June – Brugmansia first Planted
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- September – Full bloom
The Fragrance of Lilies
My garden used to be filled with lilies at this time of the year. But over the years, with water in short supply, I have let them die off. But this year I planted a Casa Blanca bulb in a pot by my doorway and the fragrance is so heavenly that I have fallen in love with lilies all over again. 
I decided to research them a little more and discovered that the best time to plant them is in the fall. So I’m visiting gardening sites and getting ready to place an order when it cools down a little here. I will have to redo my watering to make sure that the patches that I plant them in will have plenty of summer time water.
Here are the resources that I found on growing lilies:
Angel’s Trumpet
My Brugmansia bloomed! But alas, it is not the color stated on the tag. This is the story of my life. It was supposed to be “frosted pink” but it is white as snow. It turns out that I planted it next to white roses, so it will look great. But why is it so hard to get the color properly marked on plants?
Color aside, I’ve been rewarded with a heavenly scent wafting through the garden. I’m also amazed at how much it has grown in just one month! It made me realize that I need to read up on how to prune the brugmansia properly so that it fills the space horizontally instead of getting very tall. These are the resources I’m studying on how to prune my little angel’s trumpet, but I have to admit to being slightly baffled. I wish someone had done a nice video on how to prune one of these beautiful plants!
Fuchsia
Years ago I bought a little fuchsia and put it in my wheelbarrow by my front door. Unfortunately it didn’t do well and had a bad case of fuchsia mite. The leaves were all curled and I had to cut it back to almost nothing. I couldn’t bring my self to throw it in the compost so I stuck it in the corner of my yard. It must have loved the spot because it has supplied endless blooms every year for several years.
Then last year I noticed that it just didn’t seem to be doing as well. I thought it probably needed pruning, so I did some research on just how to prune it. I pruned it quite heavily in February and it came back with a vengeance. Here are some of the resources that I collected on pruning and caring for Fuchsias. There is also a fun video in here featuring a fuchsia hybridizer and his new varieties:
I just wish those beautiful blooms had some fragrance!
What to do with a baby birch?
I found this little volunteer birch growing in my garden last year. It was only about three inches tall, so I gently took it out an put it in a container behind my blueberries in the backyard so that it would get some water. I was surprised when I saw it yesterday peaking over the blueberries. It is well on its way to becoming a real tree!
Now the question is, what do I do with it? There is no room in either my front or backyard for another tree. Put it on freecycle?
Pruned Japanese Maple
Japanese Maple in the process of Pruning
Yikes, this maple looks like my son’s haircut. Both are jobs I probably should have left to the pros. I’m still kind of working on this, but it is hard when you have let a tree go too long between prunings. I also probably should have done this in winter before it started to leaf out. I’m still working on this, but I think I will review that pruning information in my binder again before I head back out there with the saw.
On a happier note, I found a lovely Angel’s Trumpet (Brugmansia) to replace the cape mallow that my kids helped me take out. It was labeled as “frosted pink” so it will be interesting to see how it looks when it flowers. I’m excited to add one more lovely scent to the garden.
On the same trip to Golden Nursery, I managed to pick up a Clematis Armandii. This is the ever-green clematis that is supposed to have a great fragrance. Of course I have no where to put my new little plant. We are planning an arbor to go over the front door, so I put the clematis close to where the posts will go (replacing the existing structure) and I hope to get the arbor done before it takes off. I also added some sweet alyssum to the wheelbarrow by the front door to add an alternative fragrance to the sweet scent of the carnations. I found the wheelbarrow under the garage when we first moved in and loved its character, so I filled it full of flowers and parked it by the front door.
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- Japanese Maple after Pruning
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- Sweet alyssum added to the carnations in the wheelbarrow
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- New Clematis Armandii
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- Brugmansia
Pruning a Japanese Maple
Aka Shigitatsusawa in need of pruning
I love Japanese maples. I have them scattered throughout my garden, my backyard, and yes, I even planted one in my neighbor’s yard. I have had this Aka Shigitatsusawa for about 10 years. It has the most fabulous colors in spring and fall. But you can see that it is in desperate need of pruning. This will be my project this weekend. It is such a beautiful tree and I’m always afraid of ruining it, so I have to take a deep breath before I dive in. It had a lot of dead wood this year that I have already cut out of the middle, but now I have to deal with that left hand side where it has grown well beyond where it should be.
Fortunately I found some great resources on pruning Japanese maples. This binder has those resources as well as pictures of the many maples I have scattered throughout my garden:
Selecting Fragrant Flowers
In my last post I chastised my children for being tough on my garden, but yesterday they helped me pull out a cape mallow that wasn’t doing well under the birch tree. Isn’t that always the way with kids? Just when you want to smack them upside the head, they do something to make you smile.
Now I have a hole in my little garden where the cape used to be and I have been trying to figure out what to do with it (space in my little garden is an exciting opportunity). I’d love to add yet another fragrance to my garden, but the spot is mostly shaded by the birch, which limits my choices. I was thinking about an Angel’s Trumpet or maybe Clethra ‘Rosea’.
As I was researching fragrant flowers, I came across clematis ‘Armandii’. This is an evergreen clematis with fragrant white flowers. I clearly need to add this clematis to my collection – the problem is finding a little fence space for it. I suppose I could get a obelisk use it to replace my mallow. Though I think it may just run up into the birch tree and leave the obelisk looking blank at the base.
I will continue to research it, but I would love suggestions as well. Here are all the sites that I found on selecting fragrant flowers for the garden:
Most destructive garden pest – my kids
I used to really enjoy when my kids were little and they wanted to help me in the garden – they didn’t always do exactly as instructed, but for the most part, the garden recovered quickly from their over-enthusiasm. But now that they are older, they are really tough on the garden – soccer balls flying through the roses – a football in the fuchsia. Just the other day I went out in the morning only to find several large holes like this one scattered around the yard:
I'm not sure what they were trying to trap...
What were they trying to capture – raccoons? The dog? Me?
I’ve asked them to only play with balls in the backyard, but then they have friends over and forget to tell them the rules. I hate yelling at them and their friends all the time.
Does anyone have a happy solution to dealing with my most destructive garden pest?
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