Penstemon Peril

While I consider myself a reasonably successful gardener, there are a few plants I have yet to be successful with--and by successful I mean not kill them. Penstemon is one of those.

I love Penstemon. I have planted multiple varieties and killed each and every one of them. No matter what winter precautions I have taken to insure their success, when I stumble out of my house in early spring, eyes blinking in the weak sunlight, I find nothing more than dead sticks above rotten roots every time.

Scarlet Queen is my favorite victim, with beautiful red and white polka dotted flowers that look like something Mary Engelbreit would paint. I've killed four of them in three years. All of them were purchased from different nurseries---not because I blame the nursery for the plant's failure to thrive, but because if I had returned to the same nursery year after year, I'm afraid they would report me to the Plant Protection Society and I would be placed on the No Plant List for Penstemon.

There was the lovely purple Penstemon my sister gave me to celebrate my surviving living next door to the Neighbors From Hell. To hear my sister tell it, if I had died from the experience she would have sent flowers to the funeral anyway, so I may as well enjoy a plant to celebrate my survival. I pointed out that perhaps all this talk of death was a bit over the top and she asked me if I wanted to argue about hyperbole or did I want to get a shovel and plant my plant? I got a shovel and planted my plant...

Where it survived exactly one summer.

Hand Me Downs

Gardeners make good friends. 

Those that grow veggies will happily share their bounty with you--when the veggie in question is zucchini they will insist on it; those that grow beautiful perennials are happy to share as well.

Unlike annuals -- those marigolds, petunias or geraniums you plant each summer--perennials come back every year and usually double in size. And every couple of years, most perennials benefit from being divided. That's awesome when you are trying to get a new garden bed filled up, but it becomes something of a problem for gardeners once their flower beds are full. Perennials just keep on producing.

If you hang around someone's perennial garden long enough it will be hard to leave with out at least one "gift" plant in hand.

Which is exactly how my garden came to be full of hand me down plants.

My first ever "gifted" plant was spicy pink carnations from Marie Baker. Via Yvonne Sawyer, I have some of Nina Hackney's beautiful purple Phlox and fragrant yellow day lilies. My mind's eye can still see a tiny, sun hat clad Nina, out gardening among the giant Phlox that filled her yard.

I have irises and columbine I "liberated" from the Lagerquist homestead just ahead of the wrecking ball; rhubarb and lemon verbena from Ruth Webster, as well as a vigorous shrub rose she gave me that, every June, "bloom like a house afire and smell like heaven."

My gardens are full of memories. All these gardeners are gone now, but their memories, and their plants, continue to bloom on. I am happy to share this legacy with others.

Give me a shout, bring a shovel and few empty pots (also some hose mender parts for 1/2" to 5/8" hose, as I invariably cut my soaker hoses in half) and I'll be glad to share my memories –and my plants--with you.

Compost Queen 2.0

 

I am an avid composter.
I am also a lazy composter and I never get too worked up about how much green—broccoli, potato peels--- and how much brown---shredded paper, dried leaves—I have, and at what ratios. I just throw it in there and wait for the magic to happen.

And as a lazy composter I rarely—as in never—turn my pile. Every spring I lift my compost bin off of its current location and move it over a few feet. Then I shovel the top 1/3 of the pile—that’s the part that is still identifiable as potato peels or watermelon rinds—back into the bin where it continues to breakdown into the lovely, black magic that makes my plants leap skyward and burst into bloom.

One of the drawbacks of being a lazy composter is that my pile doesn’t quite get as hot as it really should. The side effect of this is, when I add my compost to my planting area, I’m likely to get random volunteer tomatoes sprouting in with whatever it is I have intentionally planted.

Random tomato plant

 

It’s not a bad idea to avoid seeds of any kind in your compost pile, remember: In a tomato seed, out a tomato. That’s not a terrible side effect, having bonus tomatoes---and I once grew an accidental cantaloupe, which was kind of cool, once I figured out what the heck that scaly looking lump was in my flower bed--- but because of this I never—as in EVER—put dandelions or any noxious weed in my compost bin. In a dandelion, out 10,000 dandelions, and nobody wants that.

Note the Garden Fresh manicure

 

The Compost Queen

    When it comes to making compost, Martha Stewart ain’t got nothin’ on me. I make the best—and by best I mean the most expensive-- compost around.

    The compost at the Sume house is full of good intentions: here is the broccoli I was going to steam for dinner; here are the other veggies that were to make up our new, healthier eating life style. It was a life style that never got off the ground because in my family, we like our broccoli best when it’s covered in cheese. And it that case, it’s probably healthier not to eat broccoli at all.

    Our compost is full of freckled bananas, slimy lettuce, and limp celery. Composting helps me feel less guilty about being wasteful.

  Our compost also contains useful, non-wasteful ingredients: coffee grounds, eggshells, teabags, potato peelings, shredded junk mail. (Insider’s Tip: old issues of the Shopper are great added to your compost pile. Be sure to clip this column out first, because of course you will want to hang it on your refrigerator…or maybe it’s just my mom who does that. Hi mom!)

   I know that you are supposed to turn your compost pile at regular intervals but I am far too lazy for that, and so far it’s worked out for me. An occasional squirt from the hose keeps it moist.

    Making compost is not rocket science and even though some people---I’m looking at you, Internet—act like it is, it’s really pretty simple: you put the food scraps and paper in the bin, they magically turn into to compost, you put it in your garden with fantastic results. Try it; your plants will love you for it.

     Next week: what NOT to compost.

Sue Gets Even

 I have decided that having an elk proof garden is a lot like getting a unicorn for your birthday; it’s nice to think about but it’s probably not going to happen.

I have tried EVERYTHING to keep elk out of my flowers: human hair, the urine of three small boys, a big dog, a bigger dog, Irish Spring soap in pantyhose---thanks for nothing, Internet---fishing line strung all around my gardens, scarecrow sprinklers, various stinky sprays, even eye of newt and toe of frog. Nothing was 100% effective.

     Then I stumbled upon a foolproof way to keep elk out of my garden for 30 days: Get a kill permit.

     A kill permit allows you to kill one lily-chewing elk, in your yard, no matter the season, for the next 30 days. This does not mean you get a freezer full of free elk steak. You shoot the elk and clean it---or dress it, or whatever it is one does to a dead elk---and then call an approved charity to come pick up the meat.

     There are seven steps to the kill permit acquisition process. First, you have to sustain substantial elk damage to your landscaping.
 2) Cry, and throw things.
 3) Call everybody---and by everybody I mean people who work for the department of Fish and Wildlife. Your friends may commiserate with you but odds are they don’t have access to the needed paperwork.
4) Complain.
5) Cry some more.
6) When the F&WL officer shows up, show him your elk damage while repeating steps four and five.
7) Hang the kill permit on your fridge.

     That’s all there is to it. You will now go 30 days with without seeing---neither hide nor hair of---an elk.
 

P S A

     We interrupt your normally scheduled Elk Complaint Fest to bring you this urgent Public Service Announcement: WARNING! Zucchini Season has now commenced in Lewis County. All residents that do not normally lock their homes and cars are urged to do so.

     I have my own addendum: make sure all of your car’s windows are tightly closed,  lest your gardening friends be unable to resist the temptation of the open widow and stealthily slide an entire bag of zucchini, piece by piece, through the opening and into your backseat. I have no proof as to the identity of the miscreant, but I’m pretty sure his initials are Tim Kelly.

     Knowing that zucchini season is now upon us, I took some time perusing the internet, looking for some zucchini recipes that didn’t end in “bread” --although one called “Chocolate Zucchini Bread” did look rather tempting. There were recipes for –and you should insert the word “zucchini” in front of each of these and save me from the risk of carpal tunnel for typing it each time—Parmesan Fritters, Chicken Quesadillas,  and a Cobbler.  Pinterest has pictures of zucchinis stuffed with sausage, or wrapped with bacon, or grilled and turned into crust for pizza. There was a lovely Cucumber and Zucchini Carpaccio that I would like to try, and I don’t even know what a “Carpaccio” is.

     Garrison Keillor was the first to alert the nation to this quiet gourd threat and we owe him a debt we cannot repay. Except, maybe, in an abundance of summer squash? I’ll see if I can locate his mailing address. In the meantime, feel free to email  your favorite zucchini recipe to me (ads@highwayshopper.com) or leave it in the comments section of this blog.

Next week: back to “Sue Gets Even”