Seasonal Color For Your Garden
The poet was right when he wrote: Lives there a man with soul so dead… Who never to himself hath said, ” This is my own, my native land …. ? ”
He quite well could have been thinking of his garden. Every tree, shrub and flower takes on added beauty when it is our own. Like the volunteer sunflower seed dropped by the birds that came up in front of my bedroom window. It became a mass of yellow flowers, and grew to the top of the gable. After blooming it was three or four inches across at the base, and it took an ax to cut it down.
Everyone’s children, or the grandchildren, or their dog or whatever happens to be their greatest interest at the time… is prettier, smarter, or something better than what anyone else has. Other peoples brats are cherubs in the eyes of their own moms and dads.
Sometimes I am suspicious that perhaps I am not quite normal. You see, I never just happen to have some pictures of the kids, and Ive had no operation to talk about. But do let me tell you about our chrysanthemums.
I’ve mentioned how some of the plants had withstood dry weather, especially the petunias. Along the garden walks we alternated these with mums. From late fall until frost they were eye-filling, to say the least.
But the ones in front of the house became a traffic hazard. Motorists would be quietly zooming along, minding their own business… we suppose… when they caught a flash of massed color in our yard. Suddenly they would slow down to get a better look. The car behind was trapped. Nothing short of a brake-squealing stop would keep it from hitting the car in front.
Sometimes we would have a half dozen cars lined up. One day I was even conscious of a florists delivery truck pausing to gaze. Fortunately there were never any casualties.
To get the complete picture, and the effect referred to above, lets go back a bit. Our house faces south, and in front of the double windows is a planter. To the east of the office comes the garage, and it originally had a matching pair of double windows.
When the greenhouse was added one of these windows was cut down to floor level to make an entrance. The foundation for the greenhouse was made of cement blocks topped off with bricks, and in front on both sides, brick planter boxes were built up to just below where the glass begins.
For several seasons we had satisfactory results with petunias, pansies, etc. But we decided to plan a whole season ahead. The preceding fall we put towards the front, for early blooming, a row of species tulips (Kaufmanniana). In the back row we had Red tulips, which bloomed next. Between we alternated pink, blue and white hyacinths. These came along while the red tulips were still blooming away.
This was done in the planters along both sides of the greenhouse, as well as in front of the office window. These bulbs did exceptionally well. As the foliage was dying back we put in coleus. Then we added started petunia plants, alternating with rooted chrysanthemums. In front of these we set out some potted plants of pink-blossomed trailing geraniums.
As the mums grew and needed room, we pinched back the coleus and the petunias. Of course the mums were also pinched to make bushy spreading plants. By blooming time the mums, all dwarf low growing varieties, were solid. We had alternated white, lavender, salmon and golden yellow.
Whew! What a sight! Those yellows were so bright I sometimes wondered if they didnt make the sun envious. We had continuous bloom from the early tulips, until after the garden mums were frozen, for the south location protected these for several weeks of extra blooming.
As you may gather, we sort of liked the idea of these masses of colors. Needless to say we will repeat it this season. I am thinking of starting more mums and growing them in pots in the back yard during the summer or build a backyard bridge. Then at blooming time I will line them out along the rest of the house front, where earlier plants have finished blooming.
There is still time to get mums started. I’m sure you’ll enjoy them as much as we do. You’ll find so many beautiful ones, that it is hard to decide which ones to select.
