Choosing The New Garden Arrivals
How many new plants have you added to your garden this year... that is, plants that you have never grown before? Have you ever given yourself the thrill of going through the pages or online of one of the seed catalogs and ordering a packet of this and a packet of that that you have never tried? Its amazing how much adventure you will find in the expenditure of a dollar or two. There is still time to sow the seeds of many annuals and see them bloom this year.
In one of the seed catalogs I note the lovely fragrant flowered annual that can be used as a house plant... exacum. Another is the first season blooming biennial - Rudbeckia, similar to the gloriosa daisy. Others are Red zinnias, Chinese forget-me-not, trumpet flower (Datura), annual gaillardia, English daisy. These are just a few annuals, most of them in the catalogs for 50 years or more, but you will enjoy them if you have never tried them.
There is still time to sow hardy flowers such as Salvia, Asclepias, Rudbeckia, Hesperis, Snow Queen and chrysantha.
A Watering System
Have you considered running a few permanent lines of three-quarter inch plastic pipe from the house out to the far corners of the garden? Running a line down each side with faucets spaced at intervals of 40 to 50 feet should enable you to water your entire place with a 50 foot length of hose. It is important, unless you have more than average water pressure, to use three-quarter inch pipe for runs that are more than 50 to 75 feet. Although the plastic pipe is supposed to be non-splitting when it freezes it is always well to have it drainable at low spots.
Early spring flowering plants such as primroses, leopardbane, pink azalea flowers and others can be divided and replanted as soon as they are through blooming. To help them get over the strain of dividing and transplanting, always cut off about half of the foliage. Pruning azalea plants are usually done after they have completely bloomed in order to increase the density of their growth. Its always well to mix a complete fertilizer with the soil. If it happens to be hot and dry, shade them for the first week.
There is still time to plant broadleaved evergreens if they will stand your climate. Because many are grown in containers or balled and burlapped they can be moved much later than bare root plants. Thinking back to the near zero weather, how we did enjoy the broadleaved evergreens that were around our yard... rhododendron, pieris, boxwood, the different forms of evergreen winter creeper (Euonymus), the firethorn (Pyracantha), the American holly, and last but far from least the lowly but lovely yucca. It seems too bad that some people are just a little bit snobbish so they cannot permit themselves to grow this old fashioned yucca.
