June 2010 Archives

Found my Missouri gray tree frog friend "Doug"  again, this time in daylight!

Looks like he's trying to stay out of the limelight, doesn't it.

as I was anging out on the back porch with a glass of lemonade at sunset. This Missouri gray tree frog was perched on a flower pot hook - see the tell-tale yellow on his leg?

Not any plants. These are water wise, deer-resistant, perennials on sale, and geraniums for 12 cents each, hauled home and planted right before a long warm Missouri summer rain.

One Phelps County Master Gardeners said she knows someone who moved to Rolla "just because"  of  the 2-yr old Missouri Native Plant Garden at Rolla, Missouri's Visitor Center, 1309 Kingshighway.

She wasn't talking about the tall yellow mullein plant growing in the middle of Rolla Visitor Center's front native plant bed.

Rolla's Visitor Center was one of the gardens featured in Phelps County's 9th Annual Master Gardener Garden Tour June 13, 2010.

Missouri mullein plants can be found along Missouri roadsides, open fields and, apparently, visitor centers. The wildflower garden caretaker said she didn't have the heart to pull out  the mullein where it planted itself, possibly with the help of a passing bird. Mullein has deep roots so it may not have easily cooperated.

Mullein is called the "diaper plant" because early settlers literally used the very soft, gray green leaves for baby diapers.

Once the flowers bloom, birds like to eat the seeds off the very long seed head.

You may have seen these next Missouri plants before and not known they are wildflowers; florists love to add blazing star spikes to flower arrangements. Butterflies and bees are also fond of these lovely pink Missouri wildflowers.

Down Rolla Visitor Center's sidewalk from blazing stars are another kind of Missouri plants, the taller, gray-headed - I call them balding - coneflowers.

Gray-headed coneflowers are tall compared to black-eye Susans, which I also found blooming around the side of Rolla's Visitor Center.

Lovely how the setting sun reflects off the Missouri native plant petals!

Butterflies are frequent visitors to Rolla Visitor Center garden beds, like this black swallowtail on pink verbena wildflower.

Speaking of pink, here's another one of my all-time favorite Missouri wildflowers, purple coneflowers, also a butterfly favorite.


Wildflowers are well marked  so you can visit Rolla Visitor Center's Native Plant garden any time.

Next on our tour, a formal private garden; no black tie required.

Charlotte

Gardening to Distraction on a  MO Hill

My gardening blog, and garden, wouldn't be the same without Margaret.

Found as a kitten in a cardboard box with paws duct taped together, she was a rescue taken to the local animal shelter slated for early euthanasia after she figured out how to open her cage door.

I had just lost my almost 24-yr cat so I adopted Margaret as a companion to my remaining cat. She's now been my companion for 12 yrs, a white cat with Siamese genes and a keen sense of determination.

Although she likes cushy naps inside, Margaret is also great garden companion. Not that she's an outside cat but she's convinced me she's trustworthy enough to sometimes take on a walk in the garden to keep me company. Except for the time when I was talking to her next to the pond and, out of the corner of her eye, she saw a frog jump in and jumped in after it. Frog and cat were fine, although someone's pride was a little damp.

Margaret will head me off on the way to the computer, her tail held high as she jumps on the desk to wait for me to settle in. Once I start typing, she piles onto my right arm.

After a few minutes, and close calls with the delete and return buttons, Margaret will curl up next to the computer, head against my hand so her chin gets scratched as I type.

She's so comfortable with the computer, makes me wonder. Have you seen this profile on Facebook??

Name: Margaret

Former University of Missouri-Rolla Chancellor Gary Thomas told me when parents see a campus taking care of their landscaping, they will trust the university to take care of their children.

Almost a decade later, that same campus, now named Missouri University of Science and Technology, features record enrollment and lovely flowers all over campus, which were featured in Phelps County Master Gardener's 9th Annual Garden Tour June 13, 2010.

One of my favorite spots were the gardens around the historic Chancellor's residence off 9th Street, which was built early 1889 as a dormitory. This is the Chancellor's cutting garden, featuring daylilies, purple coneflowers and yellow black-eyed susans.

One of the lovely aspects of the gardens surrounding Missouri S&T's Chancellor's home are the different forms of green foliage. Here's a Japanese Painted Fern peeking out from under a variegated hosta.

The formal path leading to Missouri S&T Chancellor's front door changes every year; this is where guests go into the  home for dinners and drop-ins before special events, like presentations at Castleman Hall, across the street. This year, the path welcomes visitors with red begonias and white vinca.

 On the shady side of Missouri S&T's Chancellor's home, different shapes of hostas keep blue hydrangeas company.

On the other, more sunny side of Missouri S&T's Chancellor home, late afternoon, blooming hostas mingle with yellow lilies.

I liked the lines of this bamboo border  growing down hill from Chancellor's home.

Next on our tour, Rolla's Visitor Center Wildflower Garden.

Charlotte

Gardening to Distraction on a MO Hill

This has been a good year for peas in my little Missouri vegetable garden. Cool spring days have meant I've picked a good half to a dozen peas every night - not that any of them actually make it into the kitchen, they're best eaten right off the vine!

One of the fastest 'slights" of flowers comes from peas. Have you noticed how quickly a pea flower becomes a snap pea pod?

It's easy to get caught up in garden catalogs waxing poetic about the latest rose hybrid.

This old-fashioned, single "nearly wild" pink rose reminded me there's such beauty even in the simplest pink rose.

One of the hardiest Missouri flowers- well, it's really a shrub but I think of it as a flower - and a perennial at that I've ever planted is a tuberous plant with sword-like leaves and beautiful white flowers called a yucca, or Adam's Needle.

They're frequently found on MO road sides, abandoned fields and restaurant parking lots,  a sure testament to their hardiness but sometimes these plants don't flower. Turns out these stately plants depend on the Yucca moth for pollination, and they send out "an invitation" with a scent. 

It wasn't until I got close this year I realized how beautiful yucca flowers are - they remind me of giant snowdrops.






This is the first time I've actually looked into the Yucca flower; it's usually grouped on a stem of several flowers facing the ground.

Yuccas are another one of those wonderful, low-maintenance perennials that don't require a lot of water; have a distinct look year around, including winter, and easily fill in a bald garden corner. I also think their flowers would make a pretty addition to a garden hat.

They've become part of my morning routine, checking on my two bee hives.

I still don't have names for the hives but the Minnesota Hygienic bees seem settled in; I found them flying around flowers in the garden about 4 days after the hives were in.

It's interesting to see bees at the end of each day, and first thing in the morning:

These are worker bees, up early to make coffee...

I was startled to hear friends react to my bee-keeping with variations of "ewww." Maybe that's one of the reasons why bees are on the decline,  yet about 35% of all the food we eat is pollinated by bees. 

The other hive is also doing well, especially after a busy day...

Right after my wooded property was cleared for the house to be built, a neighbor watched as I moved my favorite orange day lilies into my first flower bed. Yes, I was planting before the house was finished.

"You're putting ditch lilies in your flower beds now?" he asked, pointing to the large clump of precious - to me - lilies I had sticking out of my car trunk.

Missouri's orange daylilies, sometimes considered weeds, have proven to be faithful garden friends, their long, thin leaves expanding quickly into both sunny and wooded bald areas.

They're hardy, tolerant of all kinds of soils and forgiving when there's little rain - some people even complain once they're established they're hard to remove. They will dig in and hold on to soil, and they will grow a new plant if you leave just a piece of a root in the ground. My kind of plant - determined, and beautiful to boot!

If you drive along Missouri roads, you'll see white ox-eye daisies and blue chicory blooming along with these 3-foot perennial flowers. Great color combination!

Each of the orange flowers last only a day but many buds on a stem means there are many flowers during their blooming season. Those buds, and flowers, by the way, are also edible. Many Missouri wildflower guides and books about the Ozarks will have at least one recipe for how to batter-fry orange daylily buds.

I use orange day lilies in front of flower beds to provide cover for spring bulbs and new flower beds. I have a few still under the deck I keep forgetting to plant and they're still growing...If you don't think you have a green thumb, these plants will change your mind!

Missouri's ditch lilies also make wonderful cut flowers. I used hundreds of them in vases for a water park grand opening a few years back and they withstood very hot weather all day.

I love planting them along garden pathways, to be discovered as I round a corner...

 

I was still baffled by the small round trenches I keep finding in my little vegetable garden on one of the few level places I have on my property.

Settling on my garden bench with a glass of lemonade, I tried to reason who would be kicking up little piles of soil. I had suspected squirrels, raccoons, possum, even deer- but it never occurred to me that this little guy could first, climb over raised garden beds; secondly, make all those soil rivets or thirdly, enjoy a strawberry so much!

The idea was simple enough.

I had just spent a week in CA going through a relative's estate, stirring up memories as we traveled through Salinas Valley where locally-grown artichokes were 4 for $1.

One of the earliest memories of time spent with my aunt and uncle in San Francisco was learning how to eat an artichoke.

When I found the  remaining white ceramic artichoke holder I remember using to learn to eat artichokes, I hand carried it on the plane, missing two wonderful relatives now both gone.

When I found a baby artichoke plant at a local gardening center,  I thought why not grow an artichoke this year, in their memory!

The plant info stake was missing but the plant itself was interesting; 4" jagged gray green leaves growing from a center.

This plant will grow vertically, like a fern, I thought.

I picked out a nice clean pot from the storage shed and found a sunny spot on the deck.

After I settled the plant in the pot, I searched for information on growing artichokes.

Well now, they're a thistle! They take 110 days to mature  and they grow 5 feet tall and 5 feet wide.

I cleaned my glasses to make sure I was seeing right - 5 feet, not 5 inches??

I headed back to the garden center to get a bigger pot.

Five feet high?

Five feet wide??

The little artichoke start moved from the original pot (on left) to a bigger pot - on casters. Just in case.

Well, I comforted myself, this is not California. I'm counting on artichokes not growing so big in Missouri...







Charlotte

Gardening to Distraction on a MO Hill

If you live in mid-Missouri, plan on making the 9th Annual Phelps County Master Gardeners' Garden Tour Sunday, June 13, 2010.

From native flowers at Rolla's Visitor Center (photo) - do you recognize that pink flower - to private home gardens and Truman Elementary's Experimental Garden, which will include "easy" buttons you can push to summon a helpful student, the annual tour will have something for everyone.


Did I mention the wonderful plant sale featuring plants lovingly potted by Phelps County Master Gardeners? My extra plants have been ready for 2 months!

For those of you following my little adventure in traditional MO vegetable gardening - well, my version, at least - by the end of May 2010, the Missouri vegetable garden is starting to show real growth: asparagus leaves and peas were up and starting to bloom; strawberries, tomato plants and peppers were settled in, and my favorite vegetable garden tip so far - I was waiting for cauliflowers to be the size of door knobs so I could tie leaves around them to keep them white.