Colorful flowers are still blooming in and around my cutting garden.
Fortunately, there are many flowering plants that blossom this time of year, including rudbeckias, phlox, balloon flowers, and sweet peas - and my large flower garden, located just behind my main greenhouse, is filled with them. My goal for this garden was to always highlight unusual flowers from different parts of the world using seeds from trusted sources and seeds I find during my travels. I really enjoy seeing what pops up during the season.
Here are some photos - enjoy.
There’s always something to see whenever I walk through my flower cutting garden. Right now the garden is filled with Echinacea purpurea, or purple coneflower – a hardy perennial. Echinacea purpurea has a large center cone, surrounded by colored petals that brighten the garden in mid-summer. Echinacea is a genus, or group of herbaceous flowering plants in the daisy family. Look closely to see a happy bee on one of the flower centers.
Nicotiana is a genus of herbaceous plants and shrubs of the family Solanaceae, that is indigenous to the Americas, Australia, southwest Africa and the South Pacific.
It is also called tobacco flower, or flowering tobacco – and yes, Nicotiana has high concentrations of nicotine.
Ageratum houstonianum, a native of Mexico, is among the most commonly planted ageratum variety. Ageratums have soft, round, fluffy flowers in various shades of blue, pink, or white.
These are the showy flower heads of rudbeckia. Rudbeckia’s bright, summer-blooming flowers give the best effect when planted in masses in a border or wildflower meadow.
Here’s another variety of rudbeckia. In general, rudbeckias are relatively drought-tolerant and disease-resistant. Flower colors include yellow and gold, and the plants grow two to six feet tall, depending on the type.
Shasta daisy flowers provide perky summer blooms, offering the look of the traditional daisy along with evergreen foliage. They are low maintenance and great for filling in bare spots in the landscape.
This is a balloon flower, Platycodon grandiflorus – a species of herbaceous flowering perennial plant of the family Campanulaceae, and the only member of the genus Platycodon. It is native to East Asia and is also known as the Chinese bellflower or platycodon.
Balloon flowers get their name from the unopened buds, which swell up prior to opening and resemble little hot-air balloons.
This is a double, white, bell-shaped flower. Balloon flowers thrive in sun or partial shade. It likes well-drained, slightly acidic soil; and although the balloon flower plant will tolerate dry conditions, it prefers plenty of moisture. This cold hardy plant also does best in cooler conditions in summer, so afternoon shade is a good idea for warmer regions.
I have many, many roses in my flower garden and in various other areas of the farm. This perfect yellow climbing rose is blooming on one of the arbors in the garden.
Here’s another rose growing on the fence – such a beautiful pink. A rose is a woody perennial flowering plant of the genus Rosa, in the family Rosaceae. There are more than a hundred species and thousands of cultivars.
Also growing on the fence surrounding the flower garden is this dainty perennial sweet pea or Everlasting Pea. It is a herbaceous climbing vine with beautiful bright flowers that grows up to 10 feet tall. This pink and white variety is one of our favorites.
Here is another one in crisp white. The perennial sweet pea blooms in summer, and blooms are on long peduncles above the foliage. It climbs by tendrils and can be trellised or used to cover a fence or other structure. It also makes a nicely mounded ground cover.
Euphorbia marginata is a small annual in the spurge family. It is commonly called snow-on-the-mountain, and is a warm-weather annual native to prairies from Minnesota and the Dakotas to Colorado and Texas. The foliage is so pretty. Snow-on-the-mountain is great to use in borders, meadows, and cutting gardens.
The phlox is thriving in the garden. Phlox has superb heat and mildew resistance. Phlox is a tall and upright grower that’s great for the back of the border, or even planted at the edge of the garden among the shrubs. Phlox also comes in a range of colors from pure white to lavender to even red and grows happily in most parts of the country. If properly planted and sited, phlox is largely pest and disease free too – a perfect perennial.
This phlox is called ‘Robert Poore’. The deep green foliage is topped by large rounded clusters of fragrant magenta pink flowers from summer into early autumn.
Here’s another phlox variety. The flowers bear a mild fragrance and come in a wide range of colors. These perennials also attract hummingbirds and butterflies.
And here’s beautiful white phlox with pink markings in the center.
Morning glories are annual climbers with slender stems, heart-shaped leaves, and trumpet-shaped flowers of pink, purple-blue, magenta, or white. The vine grows quickly—up to 15-feet in one season.
The anemones are also holding strong. Anemone is a genus of flowering plants in the buttercup family Ranunculaceae. Most anemone flowers have a simple, daisy-like shape and lobed foliage that sway in the lightest breezes. Depending on the species, anemones can bloom from the earliest days of spring into the fall months. This is just one of many growing just outside the garden.
And of course, the sunflower – the popular and cheerful annual whose giant, round flower head look like the sun. Sunflowers come in vibrant yellow, but they’re also seen in orange, red, bronze and even white. Young sunflowers turn to face the sun as it moves across the sky. They face east at dawn and then slowly turn west as the sun moves. During the night, they turn back east to begin the cycle again. This is known as heliotropism and is due to the presence of auxin, a growth hormone in the stem. This process continues until the sunflower is mature. I hope you’re still enjoying the late summer blooms where you live.
Now that it's mid-August, it's the perfect time to plant some fall brassicas - broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, kale, and Brussels Sprouts. The end-of-season cold weather will sweeten them up and make for a great harvest.
A few weeks ago, my head gardener, Ryan McCallister, started several trays of seeds for our autumn crop. When planting brassicas, it is important to plant seedlings rather than seeds so they have time to become established before any drastic temperature fluctuations. Yesterday, the plants were big enough and strong enough to put into the ground. And then it's just six to eight weeks before we're picking fresh fall greens once again.
Here are some photos.
We start many of our vegetables from seed inside my greenhouse where they can be nurtured until they are ready to transplant. If you follow this blog regularly, you may recall Ryan started these trays just weeks ago.
The trays are kept inside our Urban Cultivator until they germinate, and then they are brought out into the main greenhouse to grow some more.
It doesn’t take long, but now they’re ready to get into the ground.
First, the beds are cleared of any organic debris left over from the last crop. For fall planting, as soon as early-season plants have passed their prime and appear close to bolting, they can be pulled out and the area can be replanted with a different crop. Rotating crops will help avoid diseases particular to one plant type and balance nutrients in the soil.
In this bed, Ryan measures the area for cabbage. The cabbage seedlings should be spaced at least 12 to 18 inches apart in the row…
… and then those rows should be two to three feet apart. Proper measuring will ensure the vegetables have enough room to grow. Our cabbages have been so beautiful and large in this new garden.
Cabbage seedlings have roundish leaves with very small teeth. As they grow, they get a thick center stem and then the green or purple cabbages in the center.
Ryan gently removes each seedling out of the tray. Seedlings should be about two to three inches high before transplanting, and after the seedling has its two “true leaves.” True leaves are the leaves that grow after the initial seed’s cotyledon leaves appear.
Ryan is using a stainless steel widger from Johnny’s Selected Seeds. This is one of our favorite tools for working with small plants. The unique convex stainless steel blade is ideal for delicately separating seedlings and transplanting.
The seedling should be planted at the same depth it was grown in the tray. Ryan scoops a handful of dirt to make a hole.
And then gently places the seedling into the soil.
As with every plant, Ryan then tamps down on the surrounding soil carefully to make sure there is good contact.
Here is the bed all planted – it won’t take long before these grow. They will be watered and checked every day. We still have a lot of summer vegetables growing, so there is always something to harvest during the season.
This is a tray of Brussels sprouts. Like most vegetables, Brussels sprouts need a minimum of six hours of sunlight daily. They also like fertile, well-drained, moist soils with plenty of organic matter.
Ryan looks through the tray and thins the seedlings. He selects only the strongest, healthiest, and most compact plants.
And then using the same widger, Ryan removes the plants from the tray and places them where they will be planted in the garden bed.
Brussels sprouts need room to spread out, so Ryan places them 18 to 24 inches apart also with two to three feet in between rows.
And then just like the cabbages, he plants the Brussels sprouts as deep as they were in the tray and then tamps down lightly around the plants. These require a fairly long growing season, about 80 to 100 days to harvest.
The leaves are similar to broccoli and cauliflower, but more circular in shape and grow in whorls. Once developed, the plants will be upright with a single stalk thickly set with small, firm, cabbage-like heads.
Ryan also plants new beds of cauliflower, broccoli, Romanesco, mustard greens, and kale.
With the right timing and care, any garden is one that keeps on giving. I look forward to every harvest. We’ll be picking again very soon!
Aside from their beauty and intoxicating sweet scents, roses can continue to flower throughout the summer.
If you follow my blog and watch my televisions show, "Martha Gardens" exclusively on The Roku Channel, you may recall I redesigned a new rose bed behind my main greenhouse earlier this year. The 68-foot by 30-foot space now includes three types of roses - floribunda, hybrid tea, and shrub roses - all with gorgeous color, form, and fragrance. And all bordered by lush green boxwood. Now, several months later, the entire garden is thriving.
Enjoy these photos.
This garden was completed in spring and already all the rose bushes have grown – we planted more than 120 roses in this space.
The entire garden is surrounded with boxwood. Large boxwood shrubs anchor the corners and mark the middle and main footpath of the garden. These smaller boxwood, which I’ve nurtured from bare-root cuttings fill in the rest of the perimeter.
Buxus is a genus of about 70 species in the family Buxaceae. Common names include box or boxwood. Boxwood is native to western and southern Europe, southwest, southern and eastern Asia, Africa, Madagascar, northernmost South America, Central America, Mexico, and the Caribbean.
Boxwood leaves are evergreen and remain on the plant through the winter. They range from half inch to one inch long and are dark, glossy, and green on top. The back of the leaf is usually a lighter green with a distinct white mid-vein.
All of these roses came from Danielle Hahn, author of the new book “The Color of Roses,” published by Ten Speed Press.
We planted floribunda roses, hybrid tea roses, and shrub roses. This one is a soft cream. color.
Hybrid tea roses, also called large-flowered roses, usually have only one flower per stem and tend to flower in three flushes from summer to late autumn. Floribundas or cluster-flowered roses have many flowers per stem and tend to repeat-flower continuously from summer to late autumn.
The leaves of the rose are described as “pinnate” – meaning there is a central rib and then leaflets off to each side, with one terminal leaflet. Rose leaves can have anywhere from two to 13 leaflets. And rose stems are often armed with sharp prickles – they aren’t thorns at all. Unlike a thorn, a prickle can be easily broken off the plant because it is really a feature of the outer layers rather than part of the wood, like a thorn.
This garden includes a variety of different pastel colors from pink to apricot to lavender, yellow and creamy white.
Yesterday, my outdoor grounds crew mulched the garden. Mulching benefits roses through soil amendment, water conservation, weed control, and disease and insect control.
It also makes the garden look very neat and tidy. Here is Phurba spreading the mulch around the roses and in the footpath. The mulch should only be about three inches thick.
To produce an impressive show of flowers, always use nutrient-rich compost, composted manure, and other organic and natural fertilizers, such as fish emulsion. Organic amendments also help to encourage beneficial soil microbes and a well-balanced soil pH. I am fortunate to be able to make my own rich mulch right here at the farm.
Here is a beautiful pink rose. A rose is a woody perennial flowering plant of the genus Rosa, in the family Rosaceae. There are more than a hundred species and thousands of cultivars.
When selecting a location, plant roses in a sunny spot where it can get at least six hours of sun and good drainage.
We also planted strong disease resistant varieties. Many roses are bred and selected to resist the most common rose problems.
This week, we’ve had several overnight showers, so the plants and blooms are a bit wet, but when watering roses, give them the equivalent to one-inch of rainfall per week during the growing season.
Here is a gorgeous cream rose – opening perfectly.
And here are some just beginning to unfurl. Given the right care, healthy roses can bloom al the way until early fall.
And when cutting roses for an arrangement, try to do so in the early morning when they’re fully hydrated.
This rose garden is flourishing. I am so pleased with how it is doing. For more great gardening tips on planting and caring for roses, be sure to watch “Martha Gardens” on Roku.
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