If you have not added daylilies to your garden you are missing a great perennial.
I am not talking about the common orange daylilies that one sees growing along the roadsides of the Midwest in June. Rather, I am referring to the many new cultivars, which seem to be added to the market yearly.
The daylily genus name is Hemorcallis. The genus name Hemorcallis comes from the Greek words "hemera" which is "day" and the word "kalos" which means "beautiful."
The flowers of most daylilies opens at sunrise and whither at sunset. A new blossom opens on the same flower stem or scape the next day.
Though blooming time is seasonal and lasts about one month, with careful planning, a gardener could have an early blooming variety (about the time of the daffodils) and a later blooming variety which goes well into an Ohio or Midwest September.
With over 60,000-registered daylily cultivars, there are many varieties to choose. Some daylilies:
- Bloom through out the season and are generally smaller flowered varieties. The most popular is the Stella d'oro variety which blooms heavily in the early summer and then sporadically through the summer and early fall.
- Are dwarf varieties only obtaining 5-6 inches in height with smaller flowers
- Are fragrant.
- Have two sets of flower petals
The best attribute of daylilies are that they come in a variety of colors, shapes, and sizes and grow well with minimum care in a sunny or partially sunny area.
As for the pocket book, daylilies are relatively inexpensive and can be easily divided and your favorite divisions can be added to many different locations in the gardens.
Over the years of gardening, one learns, by mistake, that some plants are too aggressive in the garden and should never be planted, as they will crowd out many desirable plants.
From personal experience, I am going to describe three plants to avoid introducing into your perennial beds.
The plants are the common Orange Daylily, Purple Loosestrife, and Ajuga.
I was lured into planting the aforementioned perennials. All three have attractive flowers and leaves and in my design, they would have been perfect. However, in a few short years, I was to learn planting them was a blunder.
This is my list of plants to avoid, but every gardener has their own list of plants, which they could readily compile.
The common orange daylily Hemerocallis fulva, is seen blooming along highways in late spring and early July. Native to Eurasia, including Japan, Korea, and China, this orange daylily was introduced in the Americas by the 17th century English and escaped human cultivation. The orange daylily is now so common, people (myself included) mistakenly think the plant is a native plant.
Years ago when I was landscaping, a person offered me all of the orange daylily clumps I could handle and I readily took them home to add to my small developing perennial garden.
Now, I have a very large garden area of just orange daylilies and can appreciate why the person wanted to get rid of them.
Very aggressive, this common orange daylily spreads by its rhizomes and cannot be bound by rock boundaries or edging. Hard to eradicate, the common orange daylily has been deemed a noxious and invasive weed by some states.
A gardener needs to be very careful before introducing the plant. It is not a matter of will the orange daylily takeover the garden, but when will the orange daylily takeover.
Because the orange daylily is here to stay I can recommend a landscape use. Still keep it out of the gardens because you will not tame this beast.
However, the orange daylily makes an effective plant to use on eroding banks of soil. Because of the plant's very hard and compact roots, soil erosion is prevented. When in bloom, this daylily's orange blaze of color is to be appreciated.
Another plant that has been sold and is still regrettably continuing to be sold in some Ohio garden centers is Purple Loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria). I purchased several plants for my own garden and gave a plant to my parents because of the purple-pink midsummer blooms.
Big blunder. Though the Loosestrife flowers are pretty in midsummer, the plant’s stems are very woody and has overtaken many wetlands and crowded out other beneficial native plants which provided nesting habitat for birds.
A heavy seeder, Purple Loosestrife will take over your flowerbeds and appear in the flowerbeds of your neighbor, along fences, and cracks in the pavement.
By law, Purple Loosestrife is a nuisance species in Wisconsin. Being deemed a nuisance plant, in Wisconsin, Purple Loosestrife is illegal to sell, distribute, or cultivate the plants or seeds, including any of any of its cultivars.
Most of us have had some need for ground covers in the landscape.
Ajuga was one plant that caught my attention. Ajuga has purple leaves, hovers close to the ground, can grow as an understory plant to the taller perennials, blooms, and can be tucked into the crevices of a rock garden.
Unfortunately, Ajuga likes to move around and will eventually creep into your lawn. In a season, where there was lawn, soon there will be patches of blue blooming Ajuga in the spring.
This is the time of year sweet corn stands are being set up throughout northeast Ohio.
There are many local sweet corn growers in our area of Copley, Ohio. As most of you who like sweet corn, locally grown sweet corn is the best and best served the same day it is pick. Running a bit later than next year, growers are starting to harvest their corn this week.
Like most gardeners, I have grown sweet corn; however, it is too late to put it in now. This blog will serve as a guideline for planting sweet corn next year!
To understand sweet corn, one has to understand the physiology of the plant.
But let’s go back a little bit further. Sweet corn has very different uses than field corn.
Field corn is harvested for use as animal feed, cooking oils, corn syrup; cornstarch; and corn meals. Besides animal and human consumption, corn by-products are used to produce ethanol, batteries, medicines, paper and adhesives. Unlike sweet corn, field corn is allowed to dry in the field before it is harvested. This is truly a very valuable commodity.
Sweet corn on the other hand stores two times more sugar than the seeds of field corn and is served frozen, canned, or corn on the cob. Unlike the field corn, the kernel is not served as a dry kernel.
Despite the difference in uses, field and sweet corn grow much the same way.
Corn can be planted from seed when there is no more risk of frost, and the soil temperature has reached about 50 to 60 degrees.
Corn requires pollination in order to grow healthy stocks. Corn pollination depends on the wind. Yield is increased if corn is planted in patches or blocks rather than singly in long rows.
Actually, the slightest of breezes help the tassels drop their pollen on to the female silks of the corn plant.
After the pollen has dropped on the plant, in about 5 days the corn is fertilized and the kernels start to form and are mature in about 20 days. (Again sweet corn is harvested when the kernels have just matured and field corn is allowed to dry out in the fields.)
Because of pollination needs, corn is planted in several rows so they can pollinate and is planted far from other varieties so cross-pollination does not occur.
Think of corn as a variety of grasses and therefore the corn plant requires heavier amounts of nitrogen than those plants, which are grown to produce fruit. Fertilizer recommendations would be 10-10-10 or 10-5-5 with nitrogen being offered in the highest ratio.
A great blog to read is Growing Corn.
Remember the movie the Color Purple with Whoopi Goldberg?
In true Steven Spielberg fashion, the most memorable scenes in the movie is when the characters are walking in a field of purple cosmos.
In my garden, the purple, white, pink and orange cosmos are just starting to bloom and will bloom through September and early October.
Well, this simple flowering annual should be added to your garden next year, if you want a beautiful carefree appearance as cosmos mixes well with other annuals and perennials.
Cosmos is very easy to grow by seed (my preferred way) or you can purchase the plants from nursery and garden centers in flower packs. Flower packs of cosmos will provide a quick addition to your flowerbeds; however, plants grown from seed directly seeded appear to be much sturdier.
The cosmos is native to scrub and meadowlands of Mexico, parts of Florida and South America. There and there are over twenty species of this flower both annual and perennial. For most gardeners, the annual flowers are preferred.
Sow the seed directly into your soil, early to late May, and the plants will become well established. As with all seedlings, thin the plants so they are about 12 inches apart. If you don’t thin the seedlings, the plants have a tendency to be short, scraggly, and shallow rooted as they compete with each other for the soil spaces.
Cosmos produces an abundant amount of seed, and will easily re-seed them and you may have a second crop of plants emerging later in the summer. However, gold finches also love the seed heads.
Don’t let the birds consume all of the seeds as the seeds are easy to collect and you can plant them again next year in your garden without having to purchase seeds every year.
I put all my collected seed in glass jars in a cool part of my house and have more than enough seed to have a large cosmos planting year after year.
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| Orange Cosmos |
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In culinary terms, both summer and winter squashes are generally considered as vegetables, but like tomatoes are actually classified as a fruit. This fruit classification is because squash develops from the ovary of the female flower and the seeds are surrounded by a fleshy pulp and rind.
Squashes are from the plant genus Cucurbita. There are many species of squashes with Cucurbita maxima (hubbard squash, buttercup squash; large pumpkins); Cucurbita moschata (butternut squash); and Cucurbita pepo (pumpkins, acorn squash, summer squash, zucchini, yellow crookneck) being the species most North American gardeners are familiar with.
North American gardeners group squashes into two additional categories: summer squash and winter squash.
Summer squashes like zucchini are harvested when the fruit is small and tender. Winter squashes as acorn and pumpkins are harvested when the fruits are large, skins are hard, and need to be cooked to be eaten.
Besides the squash fruit, seeds, mature and immature flowers, and the young tendrils of many squashes are used in many recipes.
The Cultural Requirements for Squashes are:
- Squash require full sun, warm weather, and good air circulation to mature.
- Plant squash in humus-rich, well drained soil; work in organic compost the autumn before planting or spread compost in the growing bed during the growing season.
- Sow squash outdoors or set out seedlings when the soil temperature reaches 70ºF. Sow seed ½ inch–1 inch deep. Thin successful plants to 36 inches apart in all directions.
- Squash is often planted on slight mounds or hills. Sow 4–5 seeds 2–3 inches deep, 3–4 inches apart inhills raised 12 inches spaced 3 or more feet apart. Thin to 2 successful plants per hill.
- Regular and even watering. Keep the soil just moist. Avoid overhead watering so as not to spread fungus-bearing spores, which start infecting the leaves and flowers.
- Squash are heavy feeders; apply lots of compost to the soil or a 5-10-10 fertilizer
If you have not planted any summer squash, you will probably have some success if you do so now after the Fourth of July picnic!
