Tracilee's gardens and questions

This is an email from a new gardener, Tracilee, they had been here for the tour. She is in a home with some established plantings, and is just beginning to learn about gardening.

Thanks Marna! We had such a great time!!!! Attached are some photos of our gardens, pretty base, but you can see the retaining wall that I want to fill with wildflowers. I also found a double lily today!! How fun! And our leaf had 3 caterpillars on it - Ed, Fred, and Ted!!!! I'm so excited! thanks again, talk to you soon!








Her double orange Daylily







The retaining wall that has great potential as a backing for plantings! We will definitely be able to help her plan for a new garden there.



And the wonderful foliage of a non-blooming Hydrangea! Great topic for a future post.



An update on her Monarch caterpillars:

Just want to let you know the caterpillars are doing wonderful!!! We actually have 3!!!

Thanks again for giving us such a special experience!

And a question on identifying a vine:
attached are pic of the ivy stuff hanging from our trees. upon closer look, there are two types, a 5 and 6 leaved version... any ideas?

In this picture it is clear that there are 5 leaves. This is Virginia Creeper, Parthenocissus quinquefolia, which is a member of the Grape family, Vitaceae. It is a native vine, to 50+ feet. It has great fall color, often peaking before the trees begin to turn. It has greenish white flowers which turn to bluish back berries on bright red stalks. It is listed on the MA State Native Plants list.


This photo does look like there are 6 leaflets, but it's hard to distinguish with so many leaves in the photo. Did you actually get up close to the vine and determine there are 6 leaflets? They look like the same vine, but it is hard to tell from the photo.





Questions from Diana M.

Hi - My Pink Bleeding Heart doesn't look very good. The leaves are all yellow. Am I supposed to cut them back?

Bleeding Heart does not last all season. Because of the frequent rains this year they have lasted longer than normal. Usually, in the past, bleeding heart would be dying down as Hosta come up, which is why they are such good planting companions. It is up to the individual gardener to decide at what point to cut back dying plants. For Bleeding Heart, I have found that if I cut back the yellowing stems down to the joint where there is new growth, that I can prolong the foliage for quite some time. Even after letting my plants go to seed this season, I just cut back some of the yellowing foliage and found a lot of new growth at the lower joints, so I decided to leave the bottom part of the plants for the new growth to have the opportunity to develop.
Regarding the mums(Chrysanthemum), I have found differing opinions. In order to promote a bushy lower plant, you need to pinch back your mums. When they get to be 6" tall you pinch off 1 inch from the top of each stem, all around the plant. When these new shoots reach 6" you do it again. Crockett's Victory garden says to stop by July 15th. The mum.org site says August 1. If you pinch back too late you risk taking off all the buds and not having enough time for them to develop new ones. You could try a few stems to see how they do this year. If they do not produce new buds you will not have lost the whole plant bloom. Then you'd need to make a note of the date you did it to have that info for next year.

Also, is it to late to trim back my mums?

I don't use mums any more. I find them too time consuming, and I would often forget to so the pinch back and would have spindly, miserable looking plants. I changed over to asters years ago. Yhose you can pinch or not and they always look great tall or shorter.

Gardener questions and photos

Updating files, needing to get caught up on email questions and photos.

Babs sent this picture to see if I know what the plant is. I do not. Anyone know what this is?



Krissy sent a picture of this Echinacea, Purple Coneflower, calling it a Siamese twin!!



From Krissy, beautiful photos of her plants. Asiatic Daylily




Moonbeam Echinacea



Cornflowers


From Krissy:

"My grandmother has this plant in her garden, Do you know what this plant is?"

My response "Looks like a Joe Pye weed, but different leaf and color flower. I'm just not sure. Can you get a close up photo of the leaf and photo of full plant?"




These are the pictures she sent. From the leaf shape and how they are spaced on the stem, I find the plant in my "Peterson Field Guide for Wildflowers".

The leaves of the Pye weed are not alternate as with this plant. The serrated edged leaves are also different.


On closer inspection of guidebook, I find that this is most likely New York Ironweed, Veronica noveboracensis.



Googled it to be sure. Yes it is New York Ironweed.



Krissy also sent this beautiful butterfly photo, loving her Echinacea. This is a Fritillary, Argynnis, Brush-footed Butterfly, of which there are over two dozen different Fritillaries, with very subtle color differences. It is hard to identify it from just the underwings.



From Krissy and Kim. This is a Spotted Wintergreen, Chimaphila maculata, native to our area.




Kim sent this photo of Sassafras, which I had never seen before.



She has discovered Fern on her property, which she had been wanting to plant around her fish pond.



And this red berry shrub is one she thought might be Spicebush. Was sorry to have to tell her it was Honeysuckle, so she would not be able to have a Spicebush Swallowtail caterpillar after all.




Kim also sent a picture of this great Garter snake. For some reason this year I am seeing very few Garter snakes. I usually have them sunning right outside my front door all summer. The grandkids are very disappointed that we haven't found any to catch at all. Often in the spring we round up lots of babies for them to learn how to handle and catch them.




These photos came in from Babs.

Lupine seedlings



Monarch on Butterfly Bush




Unidentified insect on Echinacea




This is her porch garden at the beginning of the season.



This is the progress as it is developing



And this is it in full beautiful form!



Thanks for all the photos and questions.

Krissy's pictures

Garden photos from Krissy


This is the front garden. This is a Harvest Moon Coneflower, Echinacea

Does anyone know what these are?




This is the far garden.



This is the shade garden.




This is the side garden.


(From Krissy's email)
That fire pit was built by my brother all by himself with extra bricks my dad got when he worked at a stone yard.


Oh Kristina - It is so beautiful - that patio looks like a great place to hang out - Did you folks put all the rocks around?

Yea it is nice, we had a whole bunch of rocks when my dad re-did the backyard and he pushed them over and put it all together. The rocks in the gardens were left when they built the house and we built gardens around them because some were way to big to move!!!

What a beautiful piece of workmanship in the fire pit. What creativeness in the gardens! - Such artistic abilities in the M. Family! Mike and Miranda - I'm sure you are very proud of what your children have helped to create. You have your own little slice of heaven!

Identifying wildflowers

So is it a wildflower or a weed?

And I have no idea how I got that green underline!!
Email question from Kim:

Anyway, my driveway or what will someday be the SHARED driveway, has daisies and a few other wildflowers growing along it, and there is some wetlands where ducks and geese swim and the catanine tails (not sure of the spelling) grow in abundance. There are pink and purple flowers along the way but never knew what they were so I never dug them up because I wasn't sure if they would overtake everything.

nb:(can't get font to change, so I changed the color for my comments)

The "catanine" referred to, is Common Cattail or Typha latifolia, common in wetlands.

So I am attaching a few more pics of the different flowers along the drive and maybe you can help me to identify them and tell me if it would be worth digging some of them up to bring the closer to my property.

nb: You would need to be sure what you are wanting to dig is not on an endangered species list. Those plants, like Jack-in -the -Pulpit and Lady Slippers are not supposed to be dug up unless they are on your own property. I have taken seeds of wildflowers that I am interested in and brought them to my gardens that way, except for Milkweed, which I transplanted for my Monarch Butterflies. Milkweed is not on an endangered species. The Monarch Butterfly lovers have been asking people for years to plant milkweed to give them places to lay their eggs. So many of the open fields have been developed and in the process wiped out so many native Monarch breeding grounds.

The sun is setting quickly, so I will go see if I can get the pictures before it's too late.
IF you could help me to identify them I would be truly grateful. :-) I looked in the books I have and online under wild flowers and the sub-categories and didn't find these.

Pictures are attached as to what is growing in the wild. The kids, grandkids and I walked after dinner tonight as much of the acreage (sp?) as we could as there is a lot of wetlands, and that hollyhock is a loner! No more to be seen anywhere up here. Isn't that strange?

There is a picture attached of a spikey purple flower similar to a liatris then there is another with my 5 yr old standing next to it. Look at the height of the thing.

This is Lythrum salicaria, also called Purple loosestrife. This plant is on the MA Prohibited Plant List, which I discovered when looking for a list of MA native plants. The full list can be found at http://www.mass.gov/agr/farmproducts/proposed_prohibited_plant_list.

This is the plant that has been invading all our wetlands, and choking out the native plants in ponds and lakes. If you have any it needs to be completely destroyed - it will take over your gardens, and choke out existing plantings. I am having a problem with Bittersweet that came in from my neighbor's yard. When I got sick, and not in my garden for several years, it just came in and took over several areas - it choked out all my heather and several roses, and is in my Quince gardens, which I will have to prune to the ground to eradicate it! Luckily the Quince will grow back. My other plants weren't so lucky.

This plant is the wonderful Black Raspberry, now being picked by Mia in our gardens! When fully ripe it produces a small black berry, which is the sweetest tasting berry!! And oh, how tasty right off the bush! I have cultivated them and also Blackberries, which have a much larger berry, and a very similar plant. I don't even try to tell them apart. I can do that when the berries start to grow. Some people refer to these two as brambles - they are very thorny and grow wild all over this area.

This is Queen-Anne's-Lace, or Daucus carota, var. carota. This will sometimes have one or two red or black dots right in the middle. It is said that it is the blood drop from Queen Anne's finger. There is an annual form called False Queen Anne's Lace, which has a similar flower.
This is a biennial, which I love, and have all over the gardens. I make sure to deadhead most of it so that it doesn't end up everywhere.


This is Common Yarrow, Achillea millefolium. I really limit this in the garden - I have a few plants down near the street to be able to show it to people for identification purposes only. It spreads by seed and underground runners, which can be a pain to deal with. I have also had a pink variety which I have had in the garden, but I find it too much trouble to keep in check.


This is Butter-and-Eggs, Linaria vulgaris, a sweet wildflower that kids adore. It's like a tiny Snapdragon.


This photo shows Loosestrife and what looks to be a Fleabane, Erigeron philadelphicus. I have this in many areas (the Fleabane) - it is a sweet daisy like flower. I just make sure I deadhead it as it is quite invasive, but looks so nice with the Lupines and Black Eyed Susans.


This is Common St. Johnswort, Hypericum perforatum, much sought after by herbalists. I have it in the street area.


This is Common Mullein, Verbascum thapsus. I consider it a weed in my garden, as it is so large.


Looks like it could be Spotted Knapweed, Centaurea maculosa.


This is Rabbit-foot Clover,Trifolium arvense.

This is a Yellow Clover, a filed clover, Trifolium Campestre, also known as Low Hop Clover. Thank you Carey for your help with these two identifications.