Mosaic Monday #44: Gardening Galore

Blue flax - from wildflower seed scattered last fall

I have so much to share with you, dear friends.  The ongoing transformation of my garden.  My burgeoning knowledge about the plants in this region.  The challenges of gardening in the woods with critters of all kinds. My embryonic plans for next year’s garden.  Are you seated comfortably?  Then let’s begin.

In my previous garden posts (June 9 and July 21), I have featured 70% of my formal plantings.  Today you will see the remainder, again through collages illustrating their progression since the snow melted!  (Click on the collage to make it bigger.)

I always thought of Goldenrod as "common" - but it has

"grown" on me - LOL!

Bee Balm was in my June 9 post, but before blooming

Coreopsis - in the upper middle photo, the plants are 

barely visible.  They exploded into my most prolific plant,

all by self-seeding.  I transplanted many of them just to

make the flower bed look a little more shapely (lower middle

 shot is "after").  This is also the plant most plagued by deer.

Aster - far right plant was drastically nibbled by deer

earlier this summer - silver lining?  Abundant flowers

on the ends of multiple stems

Prairie coneflower - I love this plant.  Began blooming in

mid-July and is still full of color.   Knock on wood, deer

don't bother it.

Goodland apple - I wrote about the apple trees in my

June 9 post - at that time, they were still in flower.  The

Goodland has 12 apples.  We beefed up the protection on

this tree after the 1 small apple on the Honeycrisp 

disappeared.  Suspect?  Chipmunks.

Scarlet Gilia - given its delicate nature last summer, I was surprised it returned at all.

I have since learned by observation that it does not grow back from its base, but only

by self-seeding - we must have over 140 "volunteers".  I have also learned from visiting

the nursery that it will not flower this year but next.

Russian Sage - another love.  As you can see, it grows back from its base and becomes

this sprawling web of purple.  And the deer don't bother it.

Black-eyed Susan: another plant that returns only via self-seeding.  It takes a keen eye to spot

these "volunteers", and some patience to see how they develop before deciding to keep or

to pluck.  Shortly after the last picture, deer came along and ate this bloom and several of

the buds closest to opening.  Grrrr ….

Speaking of deer – perhaps it is obvious that our “deer defense” system has ceased to be effective.  I guess those clinking beer/cat food cans are now music to their ears!  Few plants have been immune to their affections, but the coreopsis below the mudroom has been nibbled almost every night for the last month.  Good thing I have a lot of it – I have deliberately left some sections uncovered in the hopes that the deer will focus on those.  Friday we installed an “Animal Repeller” – when it senses an animal, it emits a high-pitched noise, and if at night, flashes a strobe light as well.  So far? Mixed results since I do have deer tracks this morning.  Might need to move it slightly.  This has also taught us that we need to change up the defense system.  Cans for a period, then sparkly ribbons, then the repeller, and so on.

Black aphids also returned to the pearly everlasting and the yellow penstemon in mid-August.  The good news?  The Columbian ground squirrels have gone into hibernation!!!  At least one less threat to deal with!

As you can see from some of these pictures, the “formal” landscaping is quickly outgrowing its defined boundaries.  I am torn between a desire for “order”, and the joy of nature doing its thing.  Just given my personality, this will be an ongoing tussle, but I am determined to encourage a natural garden, so “disorder” is the preferred condition.  This means allowing many plants to grow until I can figure out what they are – the benefit is less weeding (at first)!   Each time I realize I have a new volunteer, it’s like a instant shot of joy. 

It is much easier for me to accept “chaos” in our “prairie”, which you may recall was planted with a grass seed/wildflower seed mix last fall.  It’s the gift that keeps on giving – I can almost always find something new out there. 

Clockwise from upper left: Larkspur; Coreopsis variant; Lupine; Purple Coneflower; Blue Flax; Black-eyed Susan

I learned that Blue Flax flowers last less than 24 hours.  I took the above picture in the morning and I was glad I did!

Yarrow

It seems each day brings new learning for me, and from a variety of sources.  Most of it is plain observation.  For example, the aster plant that was significantly pruned by deer produced the most flowers.  And once a plant is flowering, the deer don’t eat it.  And I have been amazed (and pleased) that most of our plants are as advertised – they thrive even in our dry conditions.  Of course, the Web is a superb source of information, but sometimes you need a fellow human, and in that case, the Center for Native Plants has been a god-send.    While the wildflowers have been easy to identify, the grasses have been much more difficult.

I called Hooper’s Garden Center (which provided the grass/wildflower mix), and they gave me a list of grasses that was included in the mix.  I studied each of them, even sketching diagrams in my garden journal, and teaching myself about grass anatomy.  Unfortunately, most of them did not seem to match the grasses outside.  I reached out to a friend who works for the Forest Service, and he recommended two sources: the book “Plants of the Rocky Mountains” and the Center for Native Plants in Whitefish. 

I ordered the book and it was helpful to identify some of the grasses, but I still had gaps.  So, on one of my weekly trips to Whitefish, I stopped in the Center and talked with Sarah about my challenge.  She referred me to the nursery manager, Hailey.  She suggested Hailey might come out to our house (for a fee plus gas), but that she might also be able to identify the grasses just from pictures.  Sold!  That night I sent off a series of emails to Hailey, and within a few days she had responded.  Most importantly, she was able to tell me that only one of the grasses is highly invasive. 

Lower middle is Cheatgrass - highly invasive.  Fortunately, I only found two small patches of it - pulled it up

carefully - trying not to spread seeds - and threw it away.  Only three of these matched the list given to me

by Hooper's.  Go figure!

While I am enjoying the plants which are blooming in the garden now, half of me has already turned my attention to next year’s garden.  At the end of July, seeds were ready to be harvested from both columbine and blanket flower plants.  Since then, I have also collected the following seeds: aspen fleabane, lupine, chives, goldenrod, nodding onion, aster, coreopsis, rocky mountain penstemon, red poppy, bee balm, coneflower and yarrow.  It gave me great joy yesterday to give some seeds to a friend who recently moved into her new house.

At least half of my seeds are to be planted in the fall, so I am creating to-scale drawings of each of my flower beds, including all the volunteers.  This will allow me to decide where to augment the landscape, taking into account size, color and the time frame for blooming.  I would like to make sure that every flower bed has something in bloom at all times.

Red Osier Dogwood

In early August, we transformed the area near our “address rock”.  Our neighbor on the hill had previously given us nearly 20 rocks, and had carefully arranged them in a semi-circle using his tractor.  After driving by it numerous times, I decided for a different look, and he willingly came down the hill with the tractor and re-arranged them in real time.  And gave us a scoop of dirt.  And dug a hole for a dogwood we plan to place there.  What a pal!  The barter system is alive and well in Montana; he was happy to help us out in exchange for the water he has been able to access from our well head throughout the summer! 

We will be adding some top soil to the area, and then fall seeding will begin using the design you see below.  The Red Osier Dogwood will go in the hole – it is meant to provide some contrast with the pines, and to anchor that end of the flower bed.  A few transplants, such as juniper, will complete the fall planting and we will let Mother Nature do her work until it is time for spring planting of the other seeds.  I am so excited to see how this develops.

Re-focusing on events closer on the time horizon, I wanted to get a jump on the deer and/or the elk that might take a shine to the apple trees and maples. (You may remember my post from September 29 last year, when elk had seriously pruned one of my maples and also nibbled the apple trees.)  Not this year, my friends – we bought taller caging material and put it around both maples and the apple trees. 

Soon we will harvest the apples to prevent them from attracting bears.  And frost might nip away at my flower pots as early as next week.  But in the meantime, I will relish all the beauty that they have to offer.  

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