Thirteenth Tribulations

Well, everyone, let us give it the old College try, shall we?  As promised before, I'd like to try hosting a monthly blog link party with the subject of garden trials, mistakes, and bad outcomes.  There are several link parties for beautiful pictures or interesting blog posts out there on the web, but I've always thought that I learn better from mistakes.  Maybe by sharing our mistakes here, we can help others avoid them.  We'll call it "Thirteenth Tribulations," because it'll run the thirteenth of every month and because I am fond of alliteration and I needed another "T", and a "tribulation" is "an experience that tests one's endurance, patience, or faith."  I don't know about you, but I find my gardening patience, faith and endurance tested almost daily, so I'll always have plenty of material to link.   I'll open up the linky thing on the 13th of every month and then close it at midnight on the 14th.

And this is the inaugural linking post!  So everyone, please dig in and link to a post on your blog or website that is about a gardening lesson learned;  some plant that doesn't do well in your area, some poor plant color combination that you tried, some episode where the squirrel dug up all your tulips, or a story about that time that the ice storm snapped off your Japanese Maple.  For the first one, we won't worry about how far back the original post was, but after this, we can try to keep to posts within the previous month or so.  Everyone ready?  Link away!

(I'm being especially bold, by the way, because I'm posting this first linky during a period where I'm going to be away from the computer for a day or so.  Well, God loves children and fools and...hopefully...bloggers stretching their abilities). 

The Biggest Disappointments

Sometimes it doesn't pay to get your hopes up, does it?  As my own example for tomorrow's inaugural "Thirteenth Tribulations" blog party, I'll give you a look at a plant that I had the most tremendous hopes for.  Early this spring, the yellow-foliaged plant pictured at the right popped up in one of my beds and I couldn't remember planting anything like it for the life of me.  I was able to identify it later from my plant maps as Coreopsis tripteris ‘Lightning Flash’ (introduced in 2007), which I had planted in 2009 but don't remember seeing at all in 2010.  All spring and early summer it grew up, keeping the delicious yellow foliage until a few weeks ago.  The picture is from April 27th, but the clump eventually got over 3 feet tall and kept that yellow hue to the foliage, a fine counterpart to the bluish Panicum it was planted near. 

Well, at least it kept the yellow hue until it got ready to bloom.  At about the 3 foot height, this beautiful plant turned a nondiscript green and disappeared into the border. I was still hoping for a spectacular bloom from it, but alas, the pretty yellow flowers, pictured up close at the left as they began to bloom last week, are lost from a distance as you can see below to the right.

Talk about your letdowns. None of the published descriptions of  'Lightning Flash' that I could find suggested that it would have a disappointing bloom, although the Kemper Center website suggested that it is "perhaps better known for its foliage than for its yellow flowers."  The plant IS drought tolerant and needed no extra water in full sun, so I'm not going to throw it out of the border, but it has left me wanting.  I'm hoping that all those buds that remain open simultaneously to give me one last, large peep show.  I never expected such an exhibitionist plant would turn so shy as it flowered. 

Daylilies Still

Hemerocallis 'Chorus Line'

I note that my earliest post about daylilies blooming this year is on June 23rd, but here, over 8 weeks later, a number of daylilies are still bravely holding on even after one of the hottest July's on record.  And I'm not just talking about 'Stella de Oro' or 'Happy Returns', either.  Despite the heat, the colors seem to be more vibrant than ever.  Now, I give you 'Chorus Line', a 1981 diploid, in brighter and more refined color than any of the thirty or so pictures of it I found on the web:

Hemerocallis 'Old Barnyard Rooster'

Tetraploid 'Old Barnyard Rooster', a red self, is holding up well and bright as the dickens.

Hemerocallis 'Dream Legacy'

Tetraploid rebloomer 'Dream Legacy' bloomed throughout the season, but seems to have lost most of its purple edging to the heat.

Hemeroclalis 'Frans Hal'

And then, of course there are the oranges.  Old standby 'Frans Hal', introduced in 1955, is a late bloomer that performs well despite the browning foliage supporting it, as does the unnamed orange daylily below.

And, proving once again that you don't need to know your name to be both beautiful and tough, this lovely lavender in my front bed is numbered "7", but I have no idea what its name is today.  Gorgeous, though, isn't it?   

Bird Gifts

While we are on the subject of volunteer plants (see yesterday's post), I'd like to show you another shrub that popped up on its own, this time in a border next to the house.  This is a 6 inch tall specimen of Cotoneaster apiculatus, or Cranberry Cotoneaster, that has seen fit to try to sneak in unnoticed to my landscape.  Compared to my cultivated, nursery-purchased specimens, which are attacked by spider mites and look wretched every year during August, this one is either in a spot more to its liking or it is too small yet to be noticed by the spider mites.  It is green and healthy and proclaiming its right to life, and I think I'm going to transplant it and give it a chance somewhere. 

I always have trouble pronouncing certain species and Cotoneaster is one of them.  Wikipedia tells us the phonetic spelling is  kəˈtoʊniːˈæstər, which is even worse for me than trying to interpret the Latin.  There are symbols there that aren't even English for gosh sakes. I turned, as usual to the excellent Fine Gardening Magazine's pronunciation guide which audibilizes the word for you and which I would say as "Ko-tone-e-aster."  There, now, isn't that simpler?

Because of the uncertain genetics in this volunteer, however, I suppose that I can't assume that it will stay in an expected 3 foot tall by 6 foot diameter space, so I'm trying to find a spot somewhere on the periphery of the garden where it can romp away if it feels a genetic need.  I presume that this one is from a seed spread by a bird, just as the mulberries in my yard must be, and so hopefully it will bear and increase the food available to my flying winter garden inhabitants.  Of course, this bird-sown gift may benefit the bees more, because my larger cotoneaster's are covered in white flowers every spring and the bees flock to them as an early source of nectar.  The birds helping the bees.  There's got to be a metaphor for love in there somewhere.