With Apologies for the Lengthy Delay

I've been a bad blogger.  It's partly because I had foot surgery and have a big ol' boot on my foot, which makes gardening a bit trickier.  But I had fallen behind on blogging even before the surgery.

Anyway, I'm back, big ol' boot and all.  And I want to explain today why I'm really glad that nothing with fruit seems to want to grow in my garden.

Meet Mr. and Mrs. Pigeon.  They drop by daily.  Actually, they swoop in like my back yard is a landing strip, and start poking around at the far end.

Then they wander the whole garden, paying no attention whatsoever to the blogger on the chaise longue snapping photos of them.  Once they determine that there's nothing good to eat, they fly away.  I'm just as happy that my serviceberry bush is not going to provide them with a nice fruit snack.

I'm not being entirely accurate when I say there is no fruit in my garden.  Because little Red Sprite Holly has four berries!

(Only three are visible in the photo, but there is a fourth.)  Eventually, they will turn red.  I've transplanted her into a bigger pot, and I hope the shock to her roots doesn't do any harm to the little berries.

The rest of my garden is in pretty good shape.  Remember the window boxes that I planted with purple heucheras and Stained Glass hostas?

I'm happy to say they're thriving, though the heucheras have taken on a sort of frosted, greenish-purple hue (they resemble the Palace Purple heuchera, which I don't love).  They were definitely redder/purpler when they arrived!

Anyway, I'm pronouncing the window box a success and planning to get more boxes for next year.

The Fire Chief heuchera has also changed his hue a bit.  He arrived looking like this.

And now he looks like this:

The outer leaves have gone much greener than they were - but the new leaves are really, really red.  Heucheras are supposed to be great shade plants, but it's becoming clear that the vivid colors need sun to sustain them.  Still, those little red leaves are gorgeous when they appear, so I don't think I'm going to give up heuchera gardening just yet!

Lastly, I wanted to mention that some things have bloomed.  Hostas are generally grown for their foliage, not their flowers, but they do bloom.  Two of my four Mouse Ears hostas did (though I failed to get a photo) and my Key West hosta did too:

 OK, that's a really lousy camera angle, but you try photographing plants when you can't crouch down because you're in a stupid boot after foot surgery.
 

New Plants from Connecticut

I visited my friend Liz in Connecticut last weekend, and we spent a good amount of time visiting garden centers.  Naturally, since the last thing I needed was more plants, I bought more plants.  I kept meaning to take photos at the garden stores, and photos of Liz, but then we'd get out of the car and I'd be overwhelmed by plant fever and forget my plans to document the trip.  Sorry, readers.

Anyway, here are the new plants:

Look, it's another hosta.  This one is called "Wheee!"  I kid you not - somebody  named it that.  Kind of fun to say, isn't it?  Wheee!  It reminds me of my favorite GEICO commercial:

Fortunately, the hosta did not say "Wheee!" all the way home.  I planted it in the Land of Hostas:

"But wait," the more observant among you may say.  "There was already a hosta in that spot."  Good catch.  I moved that other hosta to a bigger pot.

I've been telling you all spring that this is the Victory hosta, which was going to be giant.  But yesterday, I looked through the tags that came with all my plants, and realized that this is, in fact, the Patriot hosta.  Which is not going to be giant.  Oops.

Moving right along, I know you will all be surprised to learn that I bought another hosta.

As the tag says, this one is called "Key West."  And it's already probably too big for the spot where I put it.

"Wait!" says my imaginary hyper-observant reader.  "There was no room in that pot either!"  True enough.  I removed a hydrangea and took it to Connecticut to live with Liz.  My hydrangeas are surviving here but I have a feeling they'd rather get some sun.

Plant number three is not a hosta - it's a heuchera.  Say hello to the Fire Chief.

I just love the colors on this one.  Fire Chief sort of puts Paprika to shame, size-wise.

And finally, you remember my whining about the purple heucheras that took two months to arrive.  Well, they're here.

They didn't travel too well but I'm wishing them a speedy recovery.  The three green plants came from a packet at Home Depot - $7.99 for three plants.  They're Stained Glass hostas, and they look reasonably good for coming out of a plastic bag imported from the Netherlands.  As you can see, I planted them in a plastic windowbox, and we'll see how they perform.

Who's Surviving, Who's Thriving, and Who's Still Dead

As we head into the long weekend that marks the unofficial beginning of summer, I thought I'd walk you through the plants and how they're doing.

First, let's talk about the winterberry hollies, both of which appear to be thriving.   Jim Dandy, the male winterberry, is even blooming.

Ideally, he and Red Sprite should bloom at the same time, so that his blossoms can pollinate hers.   (Or, as my friend Mal recently described it, "plant sex.")  Unfortunately, Red Sprite seems to be a little behind schedule.  She's got buds, but they aren't blooming yet.

 

If she doesn't hurry up and bloom, there will be no berries this winter.  That would be sad.

About a month ago, all my hostas in the Jim Dandy pot were approximately the same size.  You can see how Victory has flourished.  It's going to need its own pot very soon.  I've bought the pot, but haven't gotten around to transplanting yet.

The Raspberry Sundae hosta has a couple of leaves that don't look so hot.

Too much watering?  That's my best guess, but if anyone can name that plant malady, let me know.

The New Guinea impatiens and the astilbes (one from my friend Liz, three bought online) are definitely thriving.  Mr. Bowling Ball (the arborvitae), not so much.

Not enough sun???  I'm going to give him a good pruning and see if that helps.

The paprika heuchera went through a rough patch, with most of its initial foliage browning up and dying, but there's been plenty of new growth, and a couple of the new leaves have that nice red coloring that makes "paprika" an appropriate name.

Upright Japanese Yew: surviving.  A little browning around a few needle tips.  The fern is thriving.

 

Serviceberry and hydrangeas: surviving.  There's been no sign that the hydrangeas are thinking about blooming.  Creeping Jenny: thriving.  Happily creeping in all directions.

 

Japanese maple and Blue Mouse Ears hostas: thriving.  The Japanese Maple is very leafy.  Two of the four hostas have buds that will turn into flowers.  Hostas are really known more as foliage plants than as flowering plants, but they do flower.

The darker green Japanese Maple leaves came before the frost this spring; the lighter ones came after.

Guess who's still dead.

But the European ginger and the hens-and-chicks seem to be thriving.

 

The plants from Jenn (hellebore and bleeding heart) are also thriving.  The bleeding heart seems to create new leaves on almost a daily basis!

And finally, a bit of good news: the Forever Purple heucheras have been shipped!  Hooray!

Waiting for Purple

Let's talk about the Forever Purple Heuchera.

 

I ordered two of these plants from Wayside Gardens two months ago, and they still haven't arrived.  In fact, they haven't even shipped.

In retrospect, I should have realized that this was a new plant variety for 2016 and therefore there was no way to know if supply could meet demand.  If customers go crazy over your new cultivar, you can't just run back to the factory and make more.  You have to split your existing plants to propagate new ones, and that takes time.  So somebody has been frantically splitting these suckers to meet demand and then waiting for them to grow, and people who ordered in March, like me, are still waiting.

Meanwhile, Wayside Gardens is still offering the Forever Purple heuchera for sale, with no mention of the two-month backlog - and now they're cheaper than they were when I ordered.  But no, they can't give me the difference between the price I paid and the price they're charging now, because, and I quote, "the plants weren't on sale when you ordered them."  Um, yeah, I know that.  BUT YOU HAVEN'T SENT THEM YET, nor have you charged my credit card, so why must I pay the price from two months ago?

Did I mention that I've never gotten a single email from them about the delay?  I'm not expecting an apology, but I'm miffed that they have not even sent an email notification.  I think in future, I may consider vendors other than Wayside Gardens.

So, do my fine readers have any advice on what I should do?  These are really pretty plants and I'd love to have them in my containers.  However, I can cancel the order at any time before they ship, and order different plants that actually are in stock, not to mention on sale.  For the price of two of these, I can get three other heucheras, in other colors perhaps not quite as pretty as Forever Purple, but pretty enough.  (I could even order them from some other vendor!)  Let me know in the comments what you think.

In which I Belatedly Follow Mary's Advice

Sorry for the hiatus, gardening fans.  There have been things going on - nothing momentous or even particularly interesting, just non-blogging things.

But I wanted to give you a look at the latest garden upgrade.  A couple of years ago, a Facebook friend (my high school friend Mary) suggested that I look for plastic tiles designed to look like wood, on the theory that anything would be more attractive than the concrete slab that is my garden floor.

I filed the idea away under "Things I Might Get Around To Eventually," and this spring, I decided that "eventually" was "now."

I found my tiles of choice at Home Depot.  I thought about wooden tiles, but the wooden tiles are subject to tannin leaching.  What does that mean?  It means that the natural preservatives in the wood (the tannins) can stain the concrete underneath.  And while the concrete is pretty ugly anyway, it doesn't belong to me, it belongs to the building.  So I went for plastic, which will not stain.

Here are my tiles. 

Water can run underneath them, so they don't create a drainage problem.  They snap together like Lego, so it was a pretty simple job to snap them together on the ground. 

Here's the job partially done.

And here is my completed deck.  It's not perfect - the rest of the ugly slab is still there, though I suppose I could cover the rest of it too, for a price.  But it's a start.

Anyway, thanks, Mary, for planting the idea in my brain.  I think it looks reasonably nice, don't you?  Next up: some kind of tiny tool shed so I can finally get the potting soil off the table.

Next time, we'll talk about what's thriving, what's surviving, and what's still dead.

The Street Plants of New Orleans

I'm on vacation, so there will be no gardening news until I get home.  Until then, I thought you might enjoy these photos of the container plants and other streetside and public plantings in the Central Business District of New Orleans.

 

Roses, already?

Good to know that ivy thrives here too.

Also, totally off topic, but I really love the various street clocks of New Orleans.

Home soon.

In Which Liz Arrives Bearing Plants

I actually want to start off tonight by showing off my new macro lens.  Let's take a look at my Jim Dandy winterberry holly, which is about to bloom.

All those little spherical objects are buds that will soon be tiny holly blossoms.

The English holly down the street is already blooming.

However, having only my male holly bloom does no good.  The male and the female holly both have to bloom at the same time for pollination to occur.  Fortunately, Jim Dandy is not only an early bloomer but a long bloomer, so Red Sprite has a little while to catch up.  Which is a good thing, because though I stare intently at her every day, so far there's no budding action.  I occasionally hallucinate a single bud at the center of a group of leaves, but I think it's probably just more leaves.

If Red Sprite doesn't bloom, I'll get no berries this year, and berries are pretty much the whole point of winterberry holly.

Now I want to tell you about the plants my friend Liz brought me last night.  Liz has a house in Connecticut where she can grow plants in the ground like a normal person.  She very kindly brought me three shade-loving perennials for my collection.

First is the lamium (Lamium maculatum),  One website describes it as a "tough yet showy perennial groundcover."  Sounds like my kind of plant.

 

I planted the lamium with Red Sprite, though it may get a little crowded in there.

As you can see, I moved Red Sprite closer to Jim Dandy in the hope that pollination will eventually occur.

Second is the European Ginger (Asarum Europaeum).  It too will spread to become a ground cover.

I put it under the Dwarf Alberta Spruce.

As Liz pointed out, it's a bit leggy.  "Leggy" as applied to plants is a term I've learned only recently - basically, it means that the stem is longer than you'd want it to be.

Finally, the Astilbe (Astilbe).  There are 18 different species of Astilbe, and I have no idea which of these species this one belongs to.

Astilbe is one of the few flowering plants that really love shade.  I'll be looking forward to seeing what color this one turns out to be.

It's moved in with Mr. Bowling Ball and the New Guinea impatiens.

I am definitely running out of room.  Fortunately, there's only one plant that still hasn't arrived.