Bringing life to a late summer garden!
First – a quick reminder about last month’s newsletter - and the use of fertilizers to keep your gardens and pots looking presentable and buffed up. It’s doubly important now! We’ve just come through a REALLY intense weather pattern with truly tropical air, heat and other weather more appropriate to the sun belt than for us – but that’s been our reality! It’s been a challenge even here at the store to hold on to the vitality of the plants. And – per usual in my world!! – we’ve been experimenting to see what other tools we could use (other than heavy duty chemicals – that we have NOT had to resort to!) to help the plants stay as healthy as possible. Stop in and see if we were successful (and we can show you a couple of really interesting results!) – and we’ll happily help you troubleshoot your own garden challenges (PLEASE put any insects or diseased leaves into a closed zip lock bag – you wouldn’t believe what flows through our doors!!).
Now that we’ve addressed the real issue of last season nutritional support, it’s time to figure out how to keep your gardens looking good (and productive for winter storage – think pickles!!) – but also producing food for all of our local pollinators and other beneficial insects. It’s easy to think that there’s nothing much happening this time of year – so many of our basic groups – daisies, astilbe, daylilies, iris and peonies are well past bloom and the season can feel a little flat – or at least basic green! And we’ve been busy with vacations and the start of back-to-school madness… So, it’s time to relax a bit and check out the upcoming color to be found here at the store…and be sure to check out the huge arrange of insects that you’ll find on the flowers! Don’t worry about them getting in your car. If there are some really clinging chums, we’ll take your plants through the store and the insects will stay here at the store and your trip home will be challenge free ☺
Let’s start with this list – and it’s not definitive – there are other options as well!
Boneset – heck of a name – and the Native Americans used it to do exactly that… Here’s a link - that provides a picture and description – but the real thing is better than any picture! Ours is in color and you’ll find a very specific array of insects visiting it…
Ironweed – another crazy name – but it really is incredibly hard to kill this one. It is tall – but an excellent back of the garden plant form for mid-August through September bloom. Check this link out - Ours is budded and just barely starting to bloom.
Then there are ALL of the Rudbeckias – those classic black-eyed Susans that everyone grew up with…no links here because there are too many and all are bright and in color until the middle of September. Sizes range from small to tall and everything in between.
And we can’t forget the WHOLE Echinacea group. There’s been so much breeding and color changing that it’s hard to remember that the original color is purple. We have the new colors but we also have plenty of the true purple color that most of the pollinators prefer. Check out this link for Echinacea Wild Berry for a fantastic classic purple on a much more compact plant. Ours are budded but not yet in color so all of that color is still to come.
Now for one of my personal favorites – Mountain mint! It’s probably one of the BEST for pollinator support. The pin wasted wasps absolutely love it as do the itty bitties and you can see them here at the store on the plants. The cut flowers also make excellent cut flower fillers and the roots are sturdy enough to hold a bank in place. Here’s a link - but you really should check out the plants themselves!
And we have spotted bee balm! - you really need to look at this flower up close to appreciate it’s complexity. Of course, ALL bee balms are useful in any garden (and we have them too!) but this one really is unique.
I could go on and on since every one of our late bloomers has a story to tell but it’s easier to invite you in to check out the plants and their insect companions. Even if your garden is full up, it’s still pretty wild to look at the combinations of insects and plants. We even had an entomologist who stopped by and slid her hand under several bees to bring them closer to look at. No stings, no drama – just a pretty cool moment in a day with someone who knew exactly what she was doing around the pollinators. Glad I was there to see it ☺
Here are the upcoming workshops:
August 17: 1:00-2:30pm Growing Quality Cannabis Part 3: Harvesting the crop correctly. Learning the technicalities of drying down the crop, finessing the storage of the buds so that they don’t lose quality and you can still enjoy your harvest in the depths of winter. $35.00/person.
September 7: 10:00-11:30am Houseplant Care and Re-potting. Houseplants are hot!!! And so incredibly critical to a healthy indoor living environment for the winter. We’ll go over how to safely bring all kinds of plants inside and either store or grow them for the winter and we’ll go over how to effectively pot on a favorite houseplant. Bring one (1) houseplant that you want to work on and we’ll go over each plant individually. $15.00/person plus the cost of potting mix and any pot needed for the repotting.
September 21: 1:00-2:30pm Looking at Trees of all kinds. There is so much more to trees than the standard Bradford pears, crab apples, red maples etc.! There’s nothing wrong with those trees, but how about an edible forest? Or a pollinator/insect support forest edge plan? Or how about introducing hardwood seedstock trees to damaged woodlots? Join us as we look at all things trees. FREE
October 5: 10:00-11:30am Fall Mineral Mixing. If you have a yard or garden then you probably know that gardens don’t always perform the way they’re supposed to. Most soils are damaged and are non-functional or intermittently functional. Poor nutrient cycling is inherent in how these damaged soils operate, but fall is THE time to fix this! Join us for a mineral mixing day at the store on we walk everyone through how to mix different minerals together to wake up and strengthen soil systems. $15.00/person plus the cost of the minerals you take with you.
Comments