Showing posts with label Growing in the garden. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Growing in the garden. Show all posts

My Photo Journal: Buddleia 'Grand Cascade' and a Common Buckeye Butterfly

Look deep into nature and you will understand everything better.
Albert Einstein

It's been a while since I attempted to make any gardening notes - it always seems so overwhelming on top of tending to the garden itself. However, I have resolved to keep more conscientous observations about what I have planted in the garden and how these plantings do over the year and hopefully, in years to come.

Here to kick things off is a Buddleia 'Grand Cascade' that was introduced to the back garden in 2022:
Now, even though the tag says full sun, I have had some success with butterfly bushes in partial shade before. This shrub was planted in a full sun to part shade location, and I have to say I was quite happy with the first season progress that it made.

It started producing masses of flower buds beginning of August, and boy, did it attract a ton of butterflies when it started blooming profusely in late August. It continued to flower vigorously into early November when it started getting brown and done. I feel that my flowers came out looking more pink than lavender (see first picture at top of page) but that might have something to do with the quality of the light when I took the photo ― late summer afternoon, deep shade. Despite the profusion of blooms, I must admit the perfume was quite underwhelming ― the scent is a lot more subtle than any other butterfly bush I've ever planted.

I garden in a Zone 5B and it's been a fairly mild winter so far so I am keeping my fingers crossed that the Grande Cascade will shower me with more love next year. However, just to be safe, I did mulch about 4 inches thick and piled bags of unopened compost all around the bottom part of the shrub to provide a bit of a wind break as well as additional warmth to the surrounding soil.

© FieldandGarden.com. All rights reserved.

By the way, here are a couple of photos from the Walters Gardens site to show you how large this perennial shrub can grow. You can also find descriptions of the plant on their site. [Images below belong to Walters Gardens.]

My Photo Journal: Zinnia elegans 'Benary's Giant Salmon Rose'

Ah, summer, what power you have to make us suffer and like it.
Russell Baker

Are you experiencing sweltering heat where you live? This has been a pretty crazy end of summer in our Zone 5B garden. Temperatures were in the chilly single-digits last week but headed higher into the high 20+ degrees this week (30C+ with humidity). While most of our blooms don't seem to know what to do with themselves (some are really leggy, some are very floppy, more than a few are leggy and floppy), the zinnias that I planted in late spring are thriving and trouncing almost every other plant in the late summer garden sweepstakes.

The flower images shown here are the Salmon Rose variety of Zinnia elegans from the Benary's Giant series. The Benary's Giant line of dahlia-like zinnias was developed by Ernst Benary Samenzucht, a 170-year old seed breeding company with an interesting history. Benary's Giants are truly ginormous (as my daughter likes to say), with flower heads ranging from 3 to 5 inches across, which are very ably supported by their sturdy stalks that stay upright without staking, something I can't assert about my dinner-plate dahlias (lying face down in the dirt even as I type). I haven't seen any pest activity on these beauties but this is only my first year of growing this type of zinnia so time will tell if they are as insect and disease-resistant as claimed. I think I will switch these superlative annuals around with my weak-stemmed, aphid-infested dahlias in the front yard next year, perhaps in a wider variety of colours and in greater numbers so I can also use them as cut flowers in the home.

Have you spotted any Benary's Giant zinnias in your neighbourhood or are you growing some? Share a photo or story in the comments below. :)

© 2020 FieldandGarden.com. All rights reserved. (Originally published 2017.)

My Photo Journal: Paeonia lactiflora 'Lady Alexandra Duff'

I took a close-up photo of this beautiful cottage garden peony during the Peony Festival, held yearly in the Oshawa Valley Botanical Gardens.

This fully double, pale pink beauty is the Paeonia lactiflora 'Lady Alexandra Duff.' 'Lady Alexandra Duff' is an heirloom variety that dates back to 1902, having been bred by Kelway and Son, once the largest nursery in the world. It takes its name from Lady, later Princess, Alexandra Duff (1891 - 1959), the daughter of Princess Louise of Wales and Alexander Duff, 1st Duke of Fife. You can find more information about the plant here.

Do you have this attractive shrub growing in your garden or do you know someone who has? Share a picture and let us know how it's doing in the comments section. Below is a photo of the peony in full bloom (photo credit follows).

Paeonia lactiflora 'Lady Alexandra Duff' in springtime
by Andrey Korzun on Wikimedia Commons

© 2020 FieldandGarden.com. All rights reserved. (Originally published 2015.)