GARDENING QUESTIONS

This post is going to be for questions that people coming to my gardens ask.

- ARE THERE DIFFERENT VARIEITIES OF BLACK EYED SUSANS IN MY GARDENS??
My garden has only 1 variety. These plants in my gardens have 2 entirely different looks. One is very tall, thin, leggy and sparse looking. with light green small leaves; the other is lower to the ground, bushy and had rounder, larger dark green lush looking leaves. The difference is due to conditions within the garden. The tall, thin ones grew in an area where they were very overcrowded, so had to grow upward to get any sun - thus, they didn't produce much in the way of leaves. They flower the same, but you might notice the flowers are smaller. The others had sufficient room to grow - were not crowded by other plants, so had plenty of sun to produce lush greenery, and a larger bushy plant which will produce larger flowers. Black Eyed Susans can get so big that they fall apart from the center outward, and need to be thinned. They can also be pruned all the way down and will come up again more compact.

HOW CAN I TELL WHEN SEEDS ARE READY TO HARVEST??

It depends on the plant. Right now I am harvesting many varieties. For Grape Hyacinth and Chives, if you wait too long they will spread seed everywhere. Today i was able to gently pull each stem holding a seed head and they came up quite easily . I have cut in the past, but find this much easier. If you cut off just the seedheads on the chives, you will get that stem in with your clippings when you go to cut the chives for cooking and have to sort those tough stems out before using - picking the entire stem with the seedhead when you want to harvest the seeds or deadhead the plant will eliminate that process.