GBBD July 2018

Welcome to the July Garden Blogger Bloom Day at Clay and Limestone. It's hot and humid and while many flowers thrive in these conditions, it's a challenge for others. I am hoping the Phloxes will last a bit longer, but, if they fade away we will have the Rudbeckias to celebrate later this month.

Without further chatter, here are some of the blooming natives in the garden.

Liatris spicata the dense blazing star or prairie gay feather, the blossoms begin opening from the top of the spike downward. Bees and butterfly love it. I plan to add even more, especially the fall blooming Liatris that are also native to middle Tennessee.

Echinacea purpurea 'Ruby Star' with a bee friend.  I love purple Coneflowers and wish I could get a huge stand of them...There's not enough sun and winter drainage is a problem, but, I do keep planting them.

Lonicera sempervirens 'Major Wheeler' has been blooming since early April...The hummers stop by everyday, but first they visit the Monarda!

 Bee balm/Monarda didyma 'Jacob Cline' ...I wish I had a hummer to show you here, but they visit when I am working in the garden and not when I am photographing it!

Cup plant/Silphium perfoliatum is one tall wildflower! This just opened and there were no bees visiting the morning I took this photo! This is a great plant for naturalizing; for a screen or the back of the border.

Phyla lanceolata/Lanceleaf fogfruit, a cutie pie relative of Verbena was the June Wildflower Wednesday star and is still blooming.

Helenium ‘Marti Gras’ — Yellow flowers aging to orange, rich chocolate brown centers, 3 – 4’ tall. Keep the soil moist and spent flowers deadheaded for long bloom. I love Sneezeweed, unfortunately some of the best cultivars never make it to the Nashville nurseries.

Phlox paniculata 'Jeana'. This cultivar was discovered growing along the Harpeth River near Nashville, Tennessee and named after its discoverer, Jeana Prewitt. It's a butterfly magnet and does not mildew!

Coreopsis rosea, a sweet flower that will bloom most of the summer if deadheaded or cut back. I find it's easier to keep it happy in a container than planted in my too dry clay summer soil. The little bees love it.

Phlox paniculata, let's just call it a seedling of a cultivar! Carpenter bees are notorious nectar robbers. That big body makes it hard to fit into many flowers and they will drill or cut into the corolla of a plant to get at the nectar. Not to worry, there are plenty of other visitors to pollinate them.

Chamaecrista fasciculata/Partridge pea, is an annual and a bumble bee magnet. Readily self-seeds in medium to dry soils, growing to 2’ in height. It's the host plant for Cloudless sulfur butterfly caterpillar. I expect to always have it in my garden. One plant in the Susan's bed is now 10! The leaves close up/fold up at dusk.

 Phlox 'Jeana' again...The Swallowtail butterfly love her. The plant that's budding next to 'Jeana' is Rudbeckia subtomentosa 'Henry Eilers'.

Non natives in the garden blooming this month

Hemerocallis 'Autumn Minaret' introduced in 1951 by Stout. It continues to be popular because it blooms late; is extremely tall (up to 66 inches); and, is fragrant. I love all that, but, appreciate the simple flower shape. I hope it reblooms and that the deer don't discover it.

 African Blue Basil is a hybrid of two different basil plants that has inherited a camphor flavor from one of its parents. Although, edible, some say it makes a tasty pesto,  I grow it because it's a bee magnet and flowers all summer.

Happy Bloom Day my dears,  now take the magic carpet ride to May Dreams Gardens where host extraordinaire Carol links to gardens all over this great big beautiful world.

xoxogail

PS If you want to grow beautiful plants that attract pollinators to your garden you must never, ever, ever, ever, ever use pesticides. I really do mean never!

Gail Eichelberger is a gardener and therapist in Middle Tennessee. She loves wildflowers and native plants and thoroughly enjoys writing about the ones she grows at Clay and Limestone. She reminds all that the words and images are the property of the author and cannot be used without written permission.

Wildflower Wednesday: Trillium cuneatum

My garden has taken a beating the last two winters and it wasn't from the weather. It's been decimated by voles. Native wildflowers have disappeared. Gone are Trilliums, Erythronium albidum (white trout lily), Hepatica, Dicentra cucullaria (Dutchman’s breeches), Camassias and several other ephemeral beauties.

Trillium cuneatum was one of the first native plants that I discovered when we moved here, so it was the first on my list to be replaced. The garden wouldn't be the same without that dramatic mottled foliage and those twirling sessile flowers!

Old stands of native ephemerals are precious and impossible to replace in a season

Finding replacement plants was not easy. Long time readers know buying local is important to me, but, when I couldn't find it at my favorite native plant nurseries, I had to go on the internet. Luckily, I found Trilliums for sale at Cottage Lake Gardens in Washington state. Susan Egan, the owner, shipped them bare root, wrapped in moss and ready to be planted. I couldn't be happier.

planted and mulched in shale and covered with a wire basket to protect from marauding squirrels

It's extremely frustrating to discover that a healthy practice I advocate~using leaf mold to mulch wildflowers~ was the very one that made it easy for voles to feast on the plant crowns, roots, and bulbs/rhizomes. I found their shallow runs when I pulled the mulch away to look for emerging plants. I was heartbroken to see depressions in the soil where my beautiful spring ephemerals ought to have been. Of course I did a mad search to see what other gardens were using to deter voles. I decided to use expanded shale/PermaTill in the bottom of the hole and also as a mulch. Voles have been described as a cross between a mouse and a mole. They're about five inches long and covered in brownish fur. The mole part of them makes them great diggers, but, they are supposed to dislike the rough shale and thus avoid the protected plants. I will let you know how well it works.

Not my garden

What better way to celebrate Trillium cuneatum's return to the garden, than to make it the star of March Wildflower Wednesday.

 Sweet Betsy can still be seen in remnant woodlands all over my neighborhood. Sixty or so years ago roads were bulldozed through farmland and forests west of Nashville to build one of the city's first planned communities for the growing post war population. Our little bit of the neighborhood with its shallow soil and exposed limestone bedrock had never been farmed, but, had been logged; what you see now is secondary growth with a few untouched areas in the hills and ridges surrounding us. The indigenous wildflowers~ False Soloman's Seal, Spring Beauties, Rue Anemone, Trout-lily, False Garlic, Blue-eyed Grass, Wild Sweet William and Sweet Betsy, have never  disappeared from roadsides and wooded lots. Each spring they delight residents with their arrival.

dark maroon sessile flowers above three broad mottled leaves

Long time readers might remember that I built this garden around those native beauties. The first spring in the house, I found Sweet Betsy in the wayback backyard and transplanted it to my new woodland garden. I remember carefully digging around it to get all the rhizome and roots and gently placing it in the garden. They survived and thrived despite my gardening ignorance.

It will be years before this one flowers

Trillium cuneatum typically flowers from early March to mid April. It can be found in rich, mostly upland woods, but, it is especially happy growing on Middle Tennessee's Ordovician limestone soils (neutral to basic soil). The two I transplanted multiplied to many. Trillium will be happy in your garden, if you give it a rich, moist soil, in shade, protect it from browsing critters and keep aggressive perennials from crowding it. They can live for a long time and usually do not flower until they are several years old. It's found growing across Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.

seeds waiting to ripen and be harvested

It might be a few years before the new Trilliums will bloom, but this morning, I saw Trillium seedlings poking up. It looks like the ants did a great job on dispersing seeds before the voles ate the parent plants! Trillium is making a comeback! Hokey smokes, you know I was dancing in the garden.

Trillium cuneatum

Common Name: whip-poor-will flowerlarge toadshade, purple toadshade, and bloody butcher

Type: Herbaceous perennial

Family: Melanthiacea, Little sweet Betsy falls within the sessile group
Flowering: flowers from early March to mid April. Showy, fragrant

Native Range: Southeastern United States

Zone: 5 to 8

Size: 1.00 to 1.50 feet tall and will spread to 1 foot

Bloom: Maroon to yellow to orange to reddish-green

Sun: Part shade to full shade

Water: Medium

Maintenance: Low

Foliage: Colorful

Pollinators: produces pollen, but, I have never seen its pollinators! I assume Hymenoptera insects, including honey bees, bumblebees, and wasps visit the plant.
Propagation: Ants collect and disperse the seeds of Trillium spp. They're attracted to the elaiosome, which is a large, lipid-rich structure attached to the seeds. The ant dispersal process is known as Myrmecochory.  The ants take the seeds to their nest, where they eat the elaiosomes and put the seeds in their garbage (midden), where they can be protected until they germinate.Yellow jackets are also seed disperses.
Wildlife: Can be browsed by deer and roots and rhizomes can be eaten by voles.
Comments: Never pick flowers or leaves, you will lose your plant. Each plant in the genus Trillium features three leaves in a terminal whorl. A single flower emerges on a stem which is either peduncled (on a stalk) or sessile (stalk absent). Trillium cuneatum is a sessile form. It's the plant of the year at the Georgia Native Plant Society!

**You can search the internet for more information about controlling these little rodent thugs. I ask only that you never, ever, ever, use poisons to kill them! You don't want any roaming critters to eat a poisoned vole.

Happy Wildflower Wednesday,
xoxogail

PS MR LINKY ISN'T LETTING YOUR THUMBNAILS SHOW, BUT, I WILL FIX IT LATER. YOUR LINKS ARE FINE.  I AM ON GIGI DUTY RIGHT NOW.

Welcome to Clay and Limestone's wildflower celebration. Wildflower Wednesday is about sharing and celebrating wildflowers from all over this great big, beautiful world. Join us on the fourth Wednesday of each month. If you want to share a story about a dormant native wildflower, please do, after all, winter is a long season.  Please leave a comment when you add your url to Mr Linky.



Gail Eichelberger is a gardener and therapist in Middle Tennessee. She loves wildflowers and native plants and thoroughly enjoys writing about the ones she grows at Clay and Limestone. She reminds all that the words and images are the property of the author and cannot be used without written permission.

Late winter and early spring is a perfect time to think about pollinators

False Rue Anemone floral pollen attracts small bees and flies but it has no nectar!

Planning for a pollinator friendly garden is not complicated, but there are a few must dos to make your ecosystem a healthy place for all the critters that visit and live there.

The Golden Rules for a pollinator friendly garden

*Choose plants that make sense for your garden. Local pollinators have evolved with native plant species and are more likely to be attracted to native plants, you can check with your state native plant society or wildlife garden guides for planting ideas.  Yo can also check out the pollinator guides that the Xercis Society has put together.

Toothwort will form small colonies and then disappears until next spring

*Plant large swathes of nectar and pollen producing plants. Plant at least three of each plant~Many bees practice flower constancy, working one flower type at a time, so give them a lot of each kind plant and a lot of different plants.

*Plant host plants~don't stop at nectar and pollen plants. The Monarch butterfly is a great example of a pollinator that needs a specific plant, in this case milkweeds, in order to reproduce and live in your garden. There are many others that a plant specific~like my dear Susans/Rudbeckia hirta,~they're a larval host plant for the Silvery Checkerspot butterfly.

the pollen of Hepatica nobilis attracts small bees and flies

*Avoid hybrid strains with 'doubled' flowers, they often lack pollen, fragrance and nectar as a result of the hybridization. A good way to check a flower out before you bring it home is to observe it for any pollinator visitors while shopping at the nursery. I stay away from pretty flowers that have no visitors and stock up on those that are pollinator hotels!

Hamamelis vernalis is still blooming

*Plan for bloom from late spring to early winter.  Since bees are most active from February to November (longer in mild climates) late winter blooming Hamamelis vernalis and the earliest spring ephemerals (like the toothworts, hepaticas, spring beauties, and False rue-anemeone seen in this post) are perfect plants for a variety of pollinators when gardens are too cold for other perennials.  I've even noticed honeybees are visiting the crocus on warm sunny days.

*Bee sure to include water.  Shallow birdbaths, mud puddles or even just a small saucer with sand and rocks helps supply pollinators with the necessary water and minerals they need when ever they are out and about, but especially in the long, hot, dry summers.

*Provide nesting sites for a variety of visitors.  Leave a three foot square of bare soil for ground nesting bees and ix-nay on the plastic landscape cloth~bees cannot tunnel through it. Leave decaying logs for beetles and tunneling bees. Build or purchase specialized bee houses...trust me.building your own Pollinator Condominium is a fun project!

*Wait until spring to clean up your garden. Get over thinking that fall means garden clean up time~spring cleaning makes sense! I leave dried flower stalks and grasses standing all winter for hibernating insects. Did you know that many beneficial insects overwinter in decaying leaves and in plant stalks? The one exception is summer phloxes~I always cut down and dispose their stalks in the trash to keep the phlox bug from over wintering and decimating the plant the next season)

and, finally...

*Never, ever, ever, ever, ever use pesticides! You know, I really do mean NEVER!


Your pollinators will thank you! Now, go have fun planning your garden.
xoxogail

In case you want to read earlier pollinator posts~

Now Is The Time To Bee-gin Thinking About Bees ( here)
This Is The Place To Bee ( here)
If You Could Plant Only One Plant In Your Garden~Don't (here)
Must Bee The Season of The Witch (here)
Go Bare In Your Garden (here)
We can't All Be Pretty Pollinators (here)
Eye, Eye Skipper, Big Eyed Pollinators (here)
What's In Your Garden (here)
Royalty In The Garden~Monarch Butterfly (here)
Carpenter Bees (here)
Got Wildflowers?(here)
It's Spring and A Gardener's Thoughts Are On Pollinators (here)
The Wildflower and The Bee (here)
A Few Good Reasons To Plant Milkweek (here)
Got Shade? You Can Have Pollinators ( (here)
A Pollinator friendly Shrub (here)
Big Goings On at C and L (here) 
Where Have All My Pollinators Gone (here)

Other bee posts you might want to read~

Count Yourself Lucky To Have Hoverflies ( here)
Bumblebee Hotel (here)
Still Taking Care Of Bzzness (here)
My Sweet Embraceable You (here)

 Gail Eichelberger is a gardener and therapist in Middle Tennessee. She loves wildflowers and native plants and thoroughly enjoys writing about the ones she grows at Clay and Limestone. She reminds all that the words and images are the property of the author and cannot be used without written permission.

Big Ideas From Small Gardens ~Buffa10

Last summer a friend asked me if I could leave my garden....here for the post. Back then the notion of selling the house and leaving C&L was just a tiny possibility out there in an unknown future. The lovely gardens we visited during Buffa10 have nudged that idea to the forefront ... After all, I am an 'une femme d'un certain age' and feel ready to decrease heavy garden chores. I am also aware of a longing for a change~An urban garden in Nashville would be a big change from my acre lot in the 'burbs! Maybe, I am more ready to have a smaller garden then I thought. One with beautiful native plants and flowers complimented by evergreens shrubs and fun garden art. Gardens as attractively designed and as well thought out as the Garden District gardens didn't seem postage sized to me. In fact, they didn't seem all that small when you looked at what the gardeners have been able to incorporate into yards the size of many two car garages and suburban patios. In the photo above you can clearly see a well designed and intimate seating area that sat next to the fence lined driveway. There's plenty of space for a containerized Tiger's Eye Sumac, gorgeous burgundy leaved dahlias, Verbena Bonariensis and those spectacular monardas we saw in many of the gardens. The monardas in the above garden were tall enough to act as a privacy screen from the rest of the garden. Very nice.
There was so much color, variety and interest packed into the gardens that it was easy to imagine myself tending them! It wasn't long before I was visualizing how to go about creating intimacy and visual excitement at Clay and Limestone.
Could I create the room effect we saw in Buffalo through the use of colorful shrubs around my own paths and curves.
Would limbing the trees allow more light into the garden~Oh, to have those delicious sun loving perennials!
Could adding some vertical lines and 'different' focal points fit in the staid 'burbs of Nashville?
I don't know what will come from these musings, but, I left Buffalo energized and excited to start.


~and that's big!


xxgail

If You Squint Your Eyes

This will probably be the only snow we will get this season, so here is my official blog photo.  

The photo is taken from the porch steps and if you  look closely   (squint your eyes and use your imagination), at the end of the walk is our driveway.  Directly across the driveway is my official wildflower garden. The wildflower garden was my first native plant garden and the reason you will find me waiting in line for the Howe   Wild Plant Fair to open each year.  This year it is March 28-29. at Cheekwood.    I'll be there.  Hope to see you.  

As long as I have your attention!  To the left of the sidewalk is a small bed of native shrubs, spring ephemerals and perennials. In its former life it was a badly landscaped foundation bed sitting in front of one of those worthless bricked in planters (a dry sunless place) that are ubiquitous to this neighborhood.   There is a good mixture of everygreen plants...PJM Rhodos (Olga Mezitt), Christmas Fern (polystichum acrostichoides), foam flower (Tiarella cordifolia)  and phlox divaricata (May Breeze).  There is also a  woody shrub,   my all time favorite native shrub Oakleaf Hydrangea (Hydrangea quercifolia).  Sprinkled throughout are  grape hyacinth bulbs, miniature  dafs and Trout lily.    We planted River Oats (Chasmanthium  latifolium)  and Christmas Fern in the planter...both ought to survive, I just hope I don't regret planting the river oats....they are very thuggish and reseed madly.  

I love natives and recommend them to folks whenever I can!  They make sense...and they survive in my yard.  But when you see my garden you will notice that there are plenty of non native plants.  So don't think I am anti non natives....it's just my prefered  choice is native.

I have only seen the  new and improved  foundation planting/bed in the fall.  The color was lovely.  Can't wait to see how it looks in bloom this spring. 

Thanks for letting me ramble.

Gail