Saturday, July 25, 2009

The Wave of Delphiniums has Started

Here are some photos of the large raised bed with the blues and purples of the delphiniums just starting at the back of the bed. The breadseed poppies are also blooming now, but because I didn't thin them, many are small this year.

By the way, I'm having a terrible time with poplar suckers popping up in my raised bed. Glyphosate (Roundup) only seems to kill the few leaves onto which I drip the herbicide directly and the suckers just keep on growing. I'm going to eventually lose control over my raised bed if I can't get the suckers out. Any ideas? I can't pull all the huge cable-like roots out without pulling out my plants. Does Roundup even work for trees?
Large raised bed:

Large raised bed:

The alpine garden looks much nicer in late evening photographs. Maybe the rocks create too much glare in midday? I just removed the tallest perennial, a Scabiosa columbaria, because it wasn't small enough; its 18 inch height was towering over the dwarf and low-growing plants. Instead, I left the Scabiosa japonica "Pink Diamonds" plants that I grew from seed. Those are much shorter, though they have similar flowers.
Alpine Garden, showing lots of color:

Alpine garden, with a dense mat of the hardy succulent Delosperma nubigenum at the center and dwarf mugo pine at the back:

Alpine garden, with wooly thyme at the foreground and nest spruce at the left:

I bought this next plant from a local store at an end of the season sale. They were selling a bunch of stuff as annuals though I bet that they were actually perennials, even in our climate. I must have a good sense for plants, since the row of Salvia nemerosa "Marcus" did very well over the winter and are now creating a highly-visible punch of purple at the front of the center raised bed. They are my replacement for the catmint, which had just become weedy and invasive because of its self-seeding.

Zinnia "Uproar Rose" is in my half-barrel planters. It is one of those plants that makes me think "Wow, that's just too nice a flower for the little effort it took me to start that from seed a few months ago". Truly, it is easy to grow and looks spectacular.

6 comments:

CanadianGardenJoy said...

I absolutely love your gardens ! The use of natural rock stacked to make the borders and beds is my dream garden : ) I can just imagine what it must look like at sunrise and twilight.
Beautiful !!
Joy

Sigrun said...

My garden stretches from about 30' to 110' from the poplar trees. The first 30' or so is lawn, then the garden for the other 80'. I get poplar suckers in the whole garden and the lawn. I pull mine when they are very young but they keep coming. Maybe pulling makes them sucker more. I read somewhere that cultivating over poplar roots creates more suckers. Lois Hole (our late, local garden guru) said in her Trees and Shrubs book that there is one 17-acre stand of aspen poplars somewhere that all originated from one tree by suckers. I was just mentioning to DH that I figured in 3-4 years of neglect, my garden would be a young forest.

I love your rock borders, not to mention the lovely flowers.

Unknown said...

You garden looks fantastic this year...and the delphinium are especially great. Mine are still in bloom but have had a lot of problem with the rains and wind. Still, I mutter, tie them up again, and enjoy them anyway.

Yukon Willy said...

Those are some nice rock walls. Kudos. I've had similar problems with both aspen and cottonwood creeping up from very deep places. We actually had to tear down one section of a rock wall enclosed bed and used a backhoe to route the errant roots out. They were from a long since dead stand of the original trees on the property. Them natives be tough. We love your pictures

Northern Beauty Seeker said...

Your raised bed has a lovely variation of textures and graduated heights. Beautiful :)

Wish I knew the answer to the suckers as I am having the same problem from an old caragana hedge we removed and had ground out. I fear that I will pulling them for the rest of my life.

Unknown said...

Hi! I love your gardens! And your pictures are always lovely... About the poplar suckers I´m not sure if it´s the same, but you could try triclopyr, I think the commercial name is Garlon, and in Potugal, I use it to kill invading Rubus and Acacia sp. Maybe it can help!