Last Rose of Summer

This last rose of summer  is one my family called the Mamie Keith rose after the lady who gave it to my mother.  I have been acquainted with it for at least fifty years, and it has been around much longer.  It is sturdy, straight-stemmed, and very pretty.  This rose starts blooming early in the spring and is just now finishing up.

Winter Gardening

We really only have a small hobby greenhouse, and this is our first full winter trying to grow plants. 

At our church bazaar, we found this heater for only $10.  It can be set to maintain a temperature of 42 degrees, which will safeguard our plants when the temperature really goes down.  Its best feature is the oil in the coils, which tends to hold the heat.

 We have some plants we are trying to get started and some others that have to be protected in the winter.  

 But we really would be most pleased if we could grow some winter tomatoes and peppers.  My husband has started the plants, and we are going to try. 

I guess the odds are against us, since we have no experience at this.

A Beautiful Carrion Cactus

I have mentioned the carrion cactus before, but here it is again.  I couldn't resist these pictures my husband took yesterday. 

 Their blooms are running a bit late this year, since the plants were relegated to the basement last winter. 

 I was hoping all the buds would open at the same time, but the cooler weather has slowed them down.

The day wasn't very sunny, and the flies weren't as plentiful as usual.  The rotten meat smell, however, was in full force.  It is surprising that something so beautiful can smell so bad.  Notice the delicate hairs on the petals. 

This is a true passalong plant.  My friend JoAnn gave it to me with a warning about its smell.

I am including a picture from last year that shows the blow flies.

Perennial Ageratums Again

I was going to use this post to point out that I had neglected to pinch back my ageratums by the end of July so they wouldn't get leggy.

We had about five inches of rain over two days, and they were flat of their faces.

But by the time my husband took this picture, they had straightened themselves up decently.

Incidentally, a friend of mine asked for a perennial ageratum at a garden shop, and they told her no such thing existed.  I guess everyone just passes them along.

Angel Trumpets Again

I couldn't resist these angel trumpets.  I have only two colors now--pink and yellow.  The yellow is about eight feet tall and was cut back to about six inches and stayed in the basement in a big pot for the second year.  The big stems will be great cut into foot-long strips and put in a bucket of water to root.  The pink is in a pot for the first year.  They are blooming rather late and will continue till frost. 

Violas

The viola is such a dainty over-looked flower that some would consider it unworthy of comment.

Most years I set out several about this time.  Usually they are on the sale rack at about 25 cents for a six-pack. 

They bloom late into winter and return even prettier in the spring, continuing to bloom until well into the summer.  They have a blooming season similar to pansies and snapdragons.

 The flower book calls them a biennial trying to  be a perennial.    The fall leaves will soon almost cover the litlle row of violas shown below.

                                                     

Fall

The 34-degree temperature about ten days ago helped these native dogwoods really show their colors in the mountains of western North Carolina.  This picture also shows how much I appreciate these passalong chrysanthemums.  I got this one at my mother's, where it has grown for decades.  I have not had one of those beautiful store-bought mums to survive more than one year.  The chocolate vine on the left side of the trellis is growing, but it didn't bloom this year.  It was planted about six months ago.

Frost

The question for today was--Should I bring my plants inside?  The forecast for the morning of September 24 was for frost in my town of Franklin in the western mountain section of North Carolina.  This could be a record-breaking low.  Usually we make it into October with no really cold weather.  The neighboring television stations said our low was 32, but they never are close to what the town has.  Our thermometer was at 41 with just a bit of frost on the roof.  There seems to be no harm to all the flowers I didn't bring inside. The forecast is for warmer the rest of the week.

Oxalis

I wandered through my plant encyclopedia to see if I could identify which oxalis I have.  It is not wood sorrel or the invasive weed kind of oxalis.  It is a very reserved plant that has to die back and go to the basement in the winter.  The oxalis pot is full of small bulbs which have to be protected in Zone 6.   In late summer its red leaves and really pale flowers are striking.  Actually its leaves are pretty all summer.  Some one saw it peeking out from beneath a rhododendron bush and as is so often the case thought it was growing in the ground.  Actually this pot of oxalis is at least fifteen years old, having wintered in my mother's basement before it moved to my yard and basement.

Another Recycled Fountain

This bear fountain is a favorite. It is surrounded by late summer flowers-sedum and rudbeckia with yellow lamium hanging down from above.

Dusty Miller

The dusty miller is sold as an annual.  I planted these during the spring of last year.

They usually doesn't make it through the winter here in

Zone 6.  But last year we could almost have been labeled Zone 7.

The mountains of North Carolina are usually considered one zone colder than the eastern part of the state.  But last winter was so warm that slugs and bugs and snapdragons and dusty millers made it through.  Now if it would get warm enough for the lantanas to survive.

Lamb's Ear

These pictures show that an older lamb's ear can look better than a blooming one.

Rooting Roses

I have several roses that have been passed along from person to person over the years.  They are not like the tea roses or knockout roses in the stores nowadays.  The Dr. Van Fleet goes back to 1910 and was commonly introduced in 1930.  The Seven Sisters from which I got a cutting dates back to at least 1940 and is still growing in a yard on the other side of town.  Others really don't have an official name.  My mother named a pretty yellow rambler the Genett Thomas after the lady who gave it to her sometime before 1950.  The Helen Snyder rose,  a dainty pink rambler, dates back to about the same time. My mother called an erect beautiful pink rose the Mamie Keith after the woman who gave it to her.  And so it goes. 

But the important thing is to take cuttings and root them.  I am not particularly good at this. I just cut a six or seven inch stem at an angle and take off excess leaves, leaving two or three at the top.  I do use Rootone on the underground part.  I put them in a pot of mixed rich soil  or in the ground  in a fairly damp place.  I say I am not very good because I am lucky to get a couple of new roses out of the dozen I might put in a pot.  I am sure other people do better, but I am happy just to get one new plant out of each planting endeavor. 

The successful one is the yellow rambler.  The other one is probably a failure.

Then I either leave the survivor in its original pot or put it in a larger pot and set it down on the edge of the woods to grow.  Some root where they were placed in the ground and get to stay there indefinitely. This wandering Mamie Keith was rooted in the dampness of the downspout and is settled there temporarily.

Later I put the larger plants in a row in my garden. Sometimes I have to wait for them to bloom to know which is which.

Hen and Chickens

The succulents hen and chickens just seem to wander around.

Everyone seems to have gotten them from some one who got them from someone else.

If you have an old pot or kettle or empty corner of a flower bed, they will settle in.  They will spread the family around by forming little offsprings that can be readily transplanted to another old pot. 

They are winter hardy and very undemanding.  A very hot day summer may cause them to die back a bit, but they come back in good health in the fall.  The winter may slow them a bit but not forever.

The yellow pot would have been better off with a little sealer, but it is ok.  I got it from my mother's old house.

Incidentally, be sure there is a hole in the bottom of the pot so they won't drown.

Hen and chickens do well in the corner of a flower bed.  In fact, I sometimes have to raid a flower bed to fill an empty spot in a pot.

Virgin's Bower, or Common Clematis

This passalong clematis is blooming again this year.  It can be a wild plant and is callled Virgin's Bower, or common clematis. 

The Greenway has some wandering clematis vines, and my Great Smokies wild flower book says they are quite common in the park. 

Sheila up the street, who gave it to me,  decided that its thirty foot expanse on her fence was too much and cut it to the ground.  

Actually the feathery fruit of the vine is as pretty as the flowers.

More Carrion Cactuses

This hot green house corner is where little stems of carrion cactuses grow into big smelly plants.

Apostle Plant

This is one of the sturdiest, fast growing plants I have seen. It is called the apostle plant because theoretically it sends out twelve long shoots with blooms in the spring.  It is also called the walking iris because of its beautiful iris-like blossoms.  Each new growth that appears can be rooted. When planted in the ground it can travel easily, or walk.  I am sorry we didn't get pictures of the flowering plant this year.  We left it in the basement too long and it gave up on us.  It is hardy as far as Zone 9.

Spider Lily Again

I had just posted the spider lily pictures when I was reading a really great new book called  Heirloom Gardening in the South.   It quotes a lady named Elizabeth Lawrence as saying the Lycoris radiata came to New Bern NC about a hundred years ago from Japan.  She then tells how it moved around the South.

Spider Lilies

My red spider lilies are in bloom now, perhaps a little late after a rather dry summer.

I was looking at my passalong plant book for information about them.  They were called naked ladies in the book.  We passalong gardeners usually think of the tall, large pink lilies that bloom in late July as naked  ladies. 

The two flowers have in common the classification Lycoris and the luxuriant green foliage that appears in the spring and then dies back to the ground. So obviously they are relatives.  Their bare stems do give each the naked lady name. 

These are the large pink naked ladies.

Sedum Rooting

My favorite fall flower is the sedum because of its beauty and its sturdiness. 

I decided to root some stems this summer.  I just put them in the ground or in a pot and kept them watered occasionally.  They are the easiest thing I have rooted. 

My husband made me a shady bed where I put some roots and some needy plants.  You can see how well the sedum is doing after a few months.

Fern

I showed you the begonias that spend the winter in my basement and the rest of the year under the maple trees in my yard.  This fern does the same thing.

It came from my mother's house and is at least twenty years old.

 It looks scraggly after a winter of semi-neglect in the basement, but after about a month of watering and fertilizing, it is okay again.

This arrangement really suits me because if I try to plant something under the tree, the tree roots destroy it within a month or so. 

Night-blooming Cereus

This cereus blooms only a few hours one night a year.  The three plants I have bloomed in July by surprise and  the blossoms had died before I realized they had bloomed. 

 I had ten blossoms last night and about 11:00 we went to the lower deck to get some pictures.  I could tell from the upstairs bedroom that they were in bloom because of their fragrance.

The cereus is easily rooted and when I accidentally break a stem I just stick it down in a pot. 

Probably most of these plants come from a common ancestor. A friend whose passalong plant also came from my mother had 53 blossoms at one time.  But her plant was too much for her to bring in and it died when cold weather came. In Zone 6, the huge plants have to winter in the basement.  Therefore they require some effort to keep.  But you can see why they are worth the trouble.

Cone Flowers and Gold Finches

Lots of rosy coneflowers are in all corners of my yard.  They spread too much from old plants and from thousands of seeds.  They bloom in late summer when other flowers are gone.

I never have decided why the garden people call these purple echinacea.  They are echinacea, but they certainly are a bright rose color.  I have also had a white coneflower, but they are not as hardy as the passalong ones, which have been shared for generations.

The gold finches love coneflower seed.  Therefore I leave ugly old coneflowers all around long past the time they need to be cut back.

Butterfly Bush

Since I am interested in passalong plants, I like to see the differences in bushes that have been passed along for generations and the new improved ones.  The old variety above has much smaller purple blossoms.  It spreads much more vigorously and usually doesn't grow quite as tall.   This new variety has very impressive large blossoms and tends to grow larger.  The bush itself is usually more likely to succumb to neglect.