All the Dirt on Gardening

The only catalog I place an order from the day it arrives is Old House Garden s. I have success with their bulbs at least 75% of the time and that's a terrific record for our crazy back yard where critters dig up bulbs as fast as we plant them some years. Here are the fall-planted bulbs I selected - Drought tolerant and flexibile about soil type Rhodophiala bifida or Oxblood Lily (Called Hill Country Red by Plant Delights ) Cold hardiness zones 7a through 11 Sun to part shade Red flowers late summer to early fall 15 inches tall A bit pricey at 3 bulbs for $22.50 but they have a reputation for spreading. Easy to grow White Trillium grandiflorum Snow Trillium  for the shade garden Trillium grandiflorum moist humus soil Height is 12 to 16 inches Zones 4a to 7b 10 for $28 Here's a fun bit of information about how they form colonies from Easy to Grow - ants, flies and beetles pollinate trillium flowers and the seeds are dispersed over short distances by ants....

Martagon Lily in our garden on this rainy morning. Last fall when the lily bulbs were carefully placed into established beds, we could only hope that they would grow into the beautiful specimens they are this spring. The Martagon Lily, Lilium martagon,  f rom Old House Gardens  is even prettier than it was in their photo! It is loaded with flowers and seems to like its location under a deciduous red maple tree.  Even as far north as Minnessota, the North Star Lily Society comments that they are the darlings of the shade garden. While I love my bulb source, another one that is highly recommended is B & D Lilies though I haven't ordered from them yet. If you have, let us know what you think. These lilies need a cold winter so they are recommended for zones 3 through 8 with protection but no hotter. That's why I put ours in part shade. These are a Turk's Cap variety with dozens of little flowers that dance in the wind. Other colors include white, dark red,...

Martagon Lily Old House Gardens specializes in heirloom bulbs and we order something from them every fall for October shipping and planting. As the summer begins to fade away, ordering bulbs for spring helps ease the blues caused by the realization that, oh, no, the garden is fading. Here's what I ordered this morning (all photos are from OHG site) Coral lily Martagon lily - European mountain lilies Early flowering, pink turk's cap type flowers, 3-4 feet tall and a bit fussy according to the OHG catalog. Zones 3-7. Prefer part shade. Coral lily - native to Siberia! Zones 4-8. Can be short-lived but self-seeds. Early flowering. White Windflower Anemone - Strong white flower for bright shade in zones 5-8. Here they grow to about 6-inches tall in the mid-spring. Avalanche daffodils/narcissus - grows 16-18 inches tall and has clusters of sweetly scented flowers. It was discovered in Scilly Isles but has grown well in our garden for years. We needed mo...

Daylilies or Hemerocallis come in so many heights, colors, and flower forms that only a public garden could have a significant number of them in a collection. Even though yellow is not a flower color I aspire to have more of in our garden, this Kindly Light Daylily is one that is so lovely, it is hard to resist. Old House Gardens catalog describes it as "decidedly different" and the first spider Daylily. The roots are $7.50 each at http://www.oldhousegardens.com/display.aspx?cat=daylily&page=2 Daylily Diary has a gorgeous photo at http://daylilydiary.com/day_kindlylight.htm The American Hemerocallis Society's website says it blooms mid-season and grows to 2.5 feet tall. Click over to their site at http://www.daylilies.org  to learn more about these wonderful plants.  If you click on search all, you arrive at a link with 76,000 daylilies to browse. You will find that Daylilies can become the backbone of a flower garden because they are so eas...

In zone 7 USA it is time to put spring blooming flower bulbs into the ground. This year I ordered some sale daffodils from Cherry Creeek Daffodils for our own garden, but did a large order (750 bulbs) from Colorblends for a few nonprofit organizations. We are adding several hundred daffodils to public spaces for the March 29, 2014 Daffodil Day in Muskogee at the Thomas-Foreman Home and at a new city garden.  Daffodil Brackenhurst Last year was our first year trying out the event and it was a stormy, windy day but we had 50 visitors and since no one could be outside we thought that was pretty good. Muskogee Garden Club had planted 1,000 daffodil bulbs and this planting will bring the total to 1,500. Next year we are doing the same event: for $10 Start at the Three Rivers Museum and tour it if you want to, park there and take a trolley ride to the Thomas-Foreman Home, enjoy the daffodils, tour the home and enjoy a tea provided by Muskogee Garden Club members. Everyone...

Thomas Foreman Homedaffodil bulb planting , 1419 West Okmulgee, corner 15 ST Saturday, November 3, 11 am The Thomas-Foreman Historic Home is a jewel in Muskogee that only a handful of residents know about. Also known as the Grant Foreman House, the farm house was built at 1419 West Okmulgee in 1898 on a tract of prairie. It is on the National Register of Historic Places and contains the original furnishings of Indian Territory judge John R. Thomas, his daughter and son-in-law Grant and Carolyn Foreman. The Foremans were historians and prolific authors. The Thomas-Foreman Home is a satellite museum of Muskogee’s Three Rivers Museum ( www.3riversmuseum.com ) with Sue Tolbert serving as executive director of both. The board of Three Rivers Museum is currently working to restore the grounds of the home. The funds needed to remove dead trees and clean out fence-lines is currently being raised. Contributors so far, include: The Kirschner Foundation, A More Beautiful Muskogee...

The front driveway bed is mostly tall plants such as these daylilies and hardy phlox. Other plantings over there include Joe Pye Weed, Asters, crape myrtle, etc. This Coreopsis Golden Dream is a new plant introduction from Blooms of Bressingham that is simply beautiful. The demure size of both the plant and the flowers make me want a dozen more to plant in a cluster. Black Pearl ornamental pepper is one I put in last year for the first time. Everyone who walks the garden notices it. There's something about the purple-green leaves, pink buds and black peppers that combine to be sheik rather than gaudy. I saved some seeds last fall and overwintered one plant. Some seeds that were left on the ground last winter came up in the past two weeks but those plants are only about 4-inches tall so far. Atom Gladiolus from Old House Gardens came up for the third year in a row. What a trooper. I ordered enough more this year to have some to give away.

Peonies are called the Queen of Garden Flowers for their month-long, annual display of huge, scented, single and double blossoms. Ideal for low maintenance gardens, peonies have large, attractive leaves that stay pretty all season, on a 3-foot tall plant. Flower colors include white, cream, pink, coral, red and purple. The plants need a cold winter and plenty of sun in the summer, though they appreciate some afternoon shade in August. A northern exposure suits them best because a south facing location tends to freeze and thaw several times a winter. Since peonies prefer to grow underground throughout the winter and emerge early in the spring, they are bought and planted in the fall. Spring planted or transplanted peonies will take an extra year to bloom. Each plant or division should have 3 or 4 eyes. If the division has less, the plant will need extra years to grow more eyes before blooming. The most common cause of peonies not blooming is that their eyes were planted more than an inc...

The flower is a scented gladiolus, ABYSSINIAN GLAD from Old House Gardens . If you don't have any yet. Click on over there and check them out. - 10 for $6.25 - I wish I had ordered the 50 for $27. They really light up the September border! Dee Nash from the Oklahoma City area is getting started in the garden writing biz. She is an experienced gardener (over 25 years) and writer but new to combining them at the Examiner. Please click on this link http://www.examiner.com/x-711-Oklahoma-Gardening-Examiner and take a look at what Nash is up to on her western Oklahoma 7.5 acres.

Harold Koopowitz is the author of a new book coming out in February, "Tropical Slipper Orchids: Paphiopedilum and Phragmipedium Species and Hybrids". Wonderful slipper orchids are the ones that always catch my eye when I see a book about orchids. Timber Press is the publisher of this beautiful and informative volume. The link will take you directly to a description of the book at the Timber Press site. It is 8.5 by 11-inches with 400-pages of photos and descriptions of tropical slipper orchids. The material includes information for those just learning about orchids and experienced growers. Koopowitz is a plant biologist and professor emeritus of ecology at the University of California in Irvine. If you are attending the World Orchid Conference Jan 23 and 24 , you will have a chance to hear Koopowitz speak. NEW AND OLD PLANTS TO GROW My email mailbox is full of offers from the seed companies for free stuff with my seed order. I love free things but wish they would just r...

The red lily on the left is one of the new additions to our garden from Old House Gardens . There were several additions and each one has seemed remarkable in bloom. The wonder of these bulbs is that they seem to take care of themselves after they are planted. The stems are strong and the flowers are breathtaking. The Spicebush Butterfly Chrysalis was on the side of the container last night but gone this morning. A search of the immediate area yielded nothing so there are two possible outcomes. Either the butterfly emerged and flew away or another insect used the Chrysalis as a late night snack. The photo of the leaves folded over is where the next generation of tiny caterpillars hangs out during the daytime heat and the photo on the right is one of the youngsters. It's easy to get into looking for new plants in new places. It may come as a surprise that the wonderful whirl of a succulent in the planter came from good, old, reliable Park Seeds and not one of the many new compan...

The daylily pictured came with us when we moved from the west coast to Oklahoma and has bloomed reliably every year no matter what weather Mother Nature provides. This little guy or gal spicebush swallowtail butterfly caterpillar was on a spice bush I just bought in order to attract spicebush butterflies. You have to be amazed by their finding the plant within a few weeks after its arrival. And, by the way, what a strange looking little thing with the eye markings. Double click to see more detail. We had almost an inch of rain, thankfully. All those seedlings for the garden tour sale are getting the right stuff for June 9th. The lavender flower is a pole bean I bought from an Italian seed company. I'm not impressed by their germination rate - about 50% in our garden. We shall see how they produce. In the meantime the flowers are very pretty moving up the trellis. The poppies are already making their seed heads for next year, the blackberries continue to make hundreds of flowers a ...