What Is A Gardener To Do?

What can we do?  Nothing, about the weather, are you tired of the heat, tired of watering, tired of yanking out shriveled plants?  I am learning the hard way that annuals with big root balls do not like confined containers in the heat!

My list is getting longer by the day of what not to plant in the lovely springtime.  Try to imagine 100 degrees and think of plants that not only will survive but might like it.

Coleus can be a staple in the heat affected garden, give it some water and it will perform for the long hot summer.

Coleus Redhead

Trusty Rusty Coleus

Indian Summer Coleus

Wild Lime Coleus

Wild Lime and Indian Summer Coleus

Sedona Coleus

These are the best of the best.  I am sure there are many others that are great performers, but I have found that year after year these do not disappoint.

Spillers are almost a must for most containers and two of the best I have found are:

Blackheart Sweet Potato Vine

Caroline Sweet Potato Vine

Phlox can be counted on to perform in the heat but it is not a xeric plant so does need to be watered.

Peppermint Twist Phlox

Blue Paradise Phlox

Blue in the morning, magenta in the afternoon

Miracle Grace Phlox

Rozanne Geranium

Rozanne takes the heat give her a light trim every so often.

Bob's Blunder Geranium

I am liking this one in its first year of bloom, low growing, gently weaving.

Peach Flambe Heuchera

This one is a winner on the north side of the house, some sun throughout the day, beautiful color.

Heucherella Stoplight

Very green on the north side and very yellow in the south back border

Daylilies are great in the heat and some are very long blooming, like Chicago Rosy and ....

Red Rum Daylily

Entrapment Daylily

Lady Lucille Daylily

Space Witch and Joan Senior Daylilies

Cherry Cheeks Daylily

Pop Art Red and Yellow Zinnia

Zahara Double Fire Zinnia

I started the zinnias indoors under lights and these have not disappointed.  You get very few seeds so it is important that most of them germinate.

Purslane takes the heat on the south side of the house, love it, but do not plant in the garden, only pots, reseeds everywhere.

Sunpatiens

These have been an experiment this year, started out in containers, not working.  The leaves became mottled with brown spots and flower buds fell off.  I had seen them at Ball Horticultural last year in full sun, not thriving for me in full sun.  They have thick stems and are very tall and stiff compared to regular impatiens.  I moved them to areas with part shade, planted them in the garden soil, and they are doing much better.

 

 

Let's keep going, watering, watering, watering and learning from this unusual season!

The Lurie Gardens

We have a former coworker in from South Carolina who had never been to Millennium Park before moving down south.  So, a group of us all boarded the "milktrain" into the city getting on at various stops along the way.  The extra time to get there was fine with us because we are never without a great deal to talk about.

The Bean is what most people come to see at Millennium Park.  After so much controversy when it was being built, it has now becomes the main draw for families and adults alike.

In the beginning the controversy was centered about the money it was costing to achieve this gleaming finish.  It is like a landscape painting looking at all of the reflections of the people, buildings and skyline of Chicago.

This is the water wall that is a huge attraction and activity for the children.


There is a lot of construction going on so the bus that usually departs for the park outside the train station was no longer stopping there.  We just kept walking east towards Lake Michigan and in no time we had arrived, again too much talking.

The Pritzker Pavillion is very futuristic looking with steel jutting out in all directions.

We were thrilled to hear the rehearsal for a tribute to Frank Loesser who wrote the music for Guys and Dolls, great music!

The Lurie Gardens (planned by Piet Oudolf) are probably in the hottest section of the park with very little tree cover.  Even though the temperatures approached 90 degrees that breeze from the lake made the gardens bearable with short respits along the perimeters where there were some trees.

Chicago Apache Daylily

The specimens are not identified as they state that they are not a botanic garden, but it is frustrating to walk through a display garden such as this and not have anything labeled.  They do identify all of their plants on the Lurie Garden website but is is like a game trying to match a photo to the name.

The philosophy, structure such as spiky, soft, arching, color, tall and rough.  These are all working together without that patterned look.

I am the last gardener who could implement this look in my small garden, but I can certainly use this philosophy of not worrying about our age old planting system of repeating plants, planting in threes, fives, etc.  I am now looking at structure, colors, mood, softness and trying to repeat these attributes rather than just using the same plants throughout the border.

There is a major use of Allium Summer Beauty throughout the plantings and the flowers still look great.

Prairie Dropseed With Allium

Softness, Filipendula rubra venusta

Anemone hupensis japonica splendens

Spikiness and roughness also works with softness

The Karl Foerster grass looked great much better than mine up in Wisconsin.

Veronicastrum Virginicum Diane

This is a spiky grass that also has softness, Panicum Shenandoah.  I am trying to incorporate this into my back border so there is some color during the winter.  Shenandoah is a shorter grass, narrow, and blends in great with perennials.

Again, we see the extensive use of allium, with some coneflowers and the softness of Amsonia Hubrichtii in the background.


I have come to the conclusion that most of us cannot have a Piet Oudolf garden but we can use some of his ideas to make our gardens more seasonally interesting. 

Well we were headed back home on the "milktrain" again but time flew as we were still talking!

Close

It was not my intention when first planting my garden to make it weed and heat resistant.  I had this small space and wanted to grow so many plants that I had to layer them for successive bloom times.

Becky Shasta can become floppy after a storm or when they get as large as they have this year.  The firmness of the Knockout roses in the foreground give them some stability.  Once the Becky Shastas and Lavon Lilies are finished, they will be trimmed, lilies a small amount and shastas to the ground.  The roses will take over again and bloom until the first frost.

Red Rum is a shorter daylily in this full border.  They will be cut down when finished blooming and again the roses and heucherellas, perennial geraniums and brunnera will take over.

There are many benefits to growing plantings close together, i.e., weed control, moisture retention because the roots are shaded, support for surrounding plants on the sides and back and blooms throughout the season.

This is a mid-season blooming phlox, unlabeled last year at Home Depot.  I think it might be Peppermint Twist.  You can have phlox blooming all season if you plant varieties with different bloom times and extend them even further by deadheading.  Blue Paradise in the background is the first and last to bloom in my garden.

Laura is a shorter phlox and covers up the stems and possible brown leaves of Franz Schubert.  I always grow something in front of phlox, such as, daylilies, roses, etc.

Chicago Rosy Daylily covers the stems of Franz Schubert on the driveway side.

Bubblegum Phlox is beginning to bloom in the island bed.

Eileen Clymer Daylily blooms in front of it on one side and Lavon Lilies on the other.

Orienpet Lavon Lilies

Chicago Apache Daylily

Don Stevens Daylily

Orienpet Conca d'Or

This is wonderful mid-size lily that is striking in the front border.  When cut the stalks will be hidden by the shrubbery and and other plantings.  The lighter colored lilies do better in the heat, darker ones tend to fade in full sun

The heat has been intense, over 100 degrees with little rain but all of these plantings have weathered well with some water each day.  The hydrangeas and rhodies do not do well in the heat no matter how much you water (one rhodie lost).

Supertunia Vista Bubblegum

It was 102 degrees when I took this photo.  Lots of plants in the garden look a little weepy, not this one!

My goal is to have plants that hold up to the heat in containers and there aren't many.  However, this is one that does in baskets on my fence.  It isn't always exciting to have just petunias in a container, but it's alive and beautiful with minimal watering!

Again, not always exciting, cactus, crotons and purslane, but they love the heat and look great all summer.

Our climate is not what it used to be and slowly I am beginning to choose more appropriate plantings and using methods such as more dense planting to conserve soil moisture in times of extreme heat.  I have also learned that the larger the planter the easier it will be to maintain container plants throughout the season.  Makes sense doesn't it?