Bogturtle's Garden- August 16 to end, 2023

 

It's baaack!  I was so annoyed with how the Trumpet Vine makes a pest of itself that I tried to eliminate Bignonia radicans 'Jersey Peach'. It is a really pleasant color, and did look fine on the end pole of the pool deck, but sprouts, and, or seedlings, were everywhere. So I used herbicide and that was about 8-10 years ago. That end pole is supporting Rose 'Winner's Circle', Lonicera tellmanniana, or Tellmann's Honeysuckle, and more of the white flowered Perennial Pea. So, all these years, it has survived among this competition, without me noticing. 

New Jersey's State Bird, and for years they seldom visited the special feeder. It has attractive yellow, so the Goldfinches notice, and they are everywhere in the neighborhood. Even visiting the regular bird feeder. Aggressive Purple Finches, both nice looking and sweetly singing, are here, also. They bully other birds that try to share the regular feeder with them, even though the other birds are bigger. But they sit, frustrated, by this feeder. Only Goldfinches know how to hang upside down to reach the seed. A male and female are in the photo. Had the feeder for years, but rain would seep in around the little perches and make the seed inedible. A little water omitting clear caulk solved that problem, and fresh seed is doing it. 

Apparently a vast array of hybrids exist, but this may be the pure species, Lycoris radiata. Small and fleeting of flower. It will put out its strap shaped leaves to go through the Winter. Our Winters are mild enough that the plant seems successful, but is not increasing. The fern like plant underneath it is probably Corydalis 'Canary Feathers'. The original bloomed nicely and is gone, but about 5 came into the little rock garden, while none have bloomed, to date. 

The familiar Butterfly Weed, Asclepias tuberosa has succeeded . This individual has returned for over 10 years in the rock garden, and it has provided seed. Easy from seed, the plant is now in various places on the property. Nothing but this orange, among any offspring. Rabbit, Woodchuck and Deer proof, it seems, and very long blooming, but people don't expect that it is very late in emerging each Spring.

Going with the flow. The Southern wildflower, Stokesia laevis, Stokes Aster, does wonderfully here, so the main perennial area now has new ones added. How they will bloom is unknown, but the seed was, mainly, from this white, called 'Divinity', or the yellow called 'Mary Gregory'. They may well all bloom the beautiful, but typical, blue violet, as I am sure the violet is genetically dominant. Not needing any seed, this year, I removed amost all old stems from what bloomed here, to see if new ones would come before frost. This may be the first new bloom. Just an experiment. There is room, here, now that so many choice perennials were crowded out by weeds. The weeds were pulled and put through the chopper, shredder.  Generally, almost all Monarda or Beebalm are gone. I had many sorts. All beautiful. They wander impossibly, so I may not replace them. The taller Phlox were decimated by Deer, and the lower sort, P. divaricata is pretty well shaded out. I rescued some by clearing weeds that were strangling them. Chiefly a Potentilla with double yellow flowers that nobody should ever plant. It sends out long runners and sets amazing deep tap roots that are a deal to extricate. What some call a thug.

Live and learn.  One website said Lycoris radiata had fleeting flowers and I went with that. But another said they make long lasting cut flowers, and I suspect that one accurate, as this bloom has lasted days now. 

Two plants of the Plumbago or Ceratostigma plumbaginoides are doing well in the little rock garden. Shown before. A particularly fine low, not evergreen, ground cover plant that, repeating myself , like the Butterfly Weed, is unusually late in showing up in Spring.