Focus on Flowers

Most of us, including those who are not space challenged, like to experiment with plants in containers. It is like playing at micro gardening.

The drawback of containers, though, is that as we water them the nutrients in the soil leach out. Therefore, we need to start by filling our pots each season with a rich growing medium and follow through with regular feedings during the summer.

Slow-release granules are often used for this purpose.  Also some gardeners say it is good to mix a little compost with the potting soil to aid water retention and to put a layer of bark chip mulch on the surface of each pot to lessen evaporation of moisture.

Water-retaining granules can also be added to the upper third of the soil mixture in the pot. Always make sure that pots have good drainage holes, as if a pot has no holes or clogged holes, the plants will rot, and the soil will start to smell unpleasant. To prevent the holes becoming clogged, many gardeners use pieces of old clay pots or styrofoam peanuts, which are not as heavy when the pots need to be moved around to follow the sun.

However, another solution is to recycle old pantyhose by putting them over the drainage holes or lining the bottom of the pot with about 10 layers of newspaper. This retains moisture and soil while the water drains.

The smaller the pots the more frequently they must be watered as small amounts of soil dry out quickly. Especially in hot weather, most containers outdoors need daily watering.

Amy Stewart, in her book Flower Confidential, says that florists practically invented Mother’s Day. 

It was actually invented in 1908 by a woman named Anna Jarvis who wanted the celebration to be on the second Sunday in May because it was the anniversary of the death of her own mother. “Crowd it and push it,” she urged florists, noting that May was a month when flowers are plentiful and therefore cheaper. 

Florists jumped on board, and Jarvis’s idea worked as people saw it as a chance to honor their mothers, as well as daughters, wives, grandmothers, and friends who were mothers. 

Jarvis, however, became upset with the floral industry because she wanted white carnations to be the exclusive flower of Mother’s Day. This was because the holiday actually began as a day when children (both boys and girls) would honor their mothers by wearing a white carnation in their buttonhole. 

Florists, understandably, were in favor of using a wider variety of flowers, partly because their suppliers couldn’t supply sufficient quantities of white carnations.

Mother’s Day is now a truly floral holiday, and flowers can even be wired world-wide.

Many of us who love to grow tulips in our gardens have visiting deer who love to eat them. It seems to be such a violent death for a bud or flower. 

 The poet E. J. Scovell, when she wrote the following poem in 1991, must not have had deer in her garden because she describes a more gradual demise. Here are some excerpts of her poem:

 I would, if I could, choose
 Age, and die outwards as a tulip does;
 Not as this iris drawing in, in-coiling
 Its complex strange taut inflorescence, willing
 Itself a bud again—though all achieved is
 No more than a clenched sadness,
 The tears of gum not flowing.

 I would choose the tulip’s reckless way of going;
 Whose petals answer light, altering by fractions
 From closed to wide, from one through many perfections,
 Till wrecked, flamboyant, strayed beyond recall,
 Like flakes of fire they piecemeal fall.

Most of us prefer tulips in a vase when they are closed or just partly open, rather than splayed outwards, wide open, just before the petals fall. Though perhaps, opening wide, is their last defiant gesture of farewell.

This is Moya Andrews, and today we focused on the death of a flower.

Deadheading spent booms on plants is important, especially with perennials.  

Many modern annuals have been bred so that the plant will keep blooming without deadheading. Wave petunia was the first annual where breeders managed to achieve this, but now it is rare for any type of petunias to need deadheading.  

However, this is not the case with perennials, where deadheading makes the plants bloom longer. Otherwise, many perennials will waste their energy producing seeds. After a main stem has finished flowering, cut it down to the base. Many plants will then send up a second smaller set of flower stems.  

With plants that have many flowers on one stem, pinch off individual flowers as they fade.  

With fall flowers, such as asters, you can cut off clusters of the faded flowers so that the plant can produce more.  

With plants that produce just one plume per stem, such as Shasta daisies, cut off each spent flower stem at ground level. 

With flowers that produce large numbers of tiny flowers, such as wood asters, shear off all spent blooms with shears or scissors after the main flush of flowers is spent. 

Dead flowers turn into seeds, and unless you are collecting seeds, don't allow your perennials to waste their energy producing them.  

This is Moya Andrews and today we focused on deadheading.  

The genus Sidalcea is made up of species from western North America, and the best of the species is Sidalcea malviflora, so named because the flowers resemble mallows. The scientific name is actually a combination of two related plant forms, “sida” and “alcea,” because it resembled both the mallow and the hollyhock. 

The most used common names recently are miniature hollyhock and prairie mallow. Other common names in the past were checkers and checkerbloom because of the alternate placement of the flowers on the stem. 

The flowers are cup-shaped and grow on spikes and have five pink petals. The plant adapts well, though it prefers afternoon shade in warm climates, and tolerates most types of soil as long as it is well watered. More flowers are produced if the dead flower stems are cut back. 

The scientific name Sidalcea is actually a combination of two related plant forms, “sida” and “alcea,” because it resembled both the mallow and the hollyhock. Common names are miniature hollyhock and prairie mallow. Other common names in the past were checkers and checkerbloom because of the alternate placement of the flowers on the stem.

Globe amaranth has the botanical name Gomphrena globosa and adult butterflies love this pretty annual. The little round flower heads bloom for a long time in the sunny summer garden and into early fall and dry beautifully for winter bouquets. The pink and orange varieties are especially striking and hold up well in a vase, especially if only one bloom is cut per stem. Fortunately, they have long stems so that is useful for many types of flower arrangements. 

Cimicifuga racemosa, commonly called bugbane, black snakeroot, or black cohosh, growing wild and planted it in his Pennsylvania garden. He then sent seeds to his friend Peter Collinson in England.  

The Native Americans told the colonists to use it to treat fevers, lumbago, rheumatism, and snake bites with a medicine made from the roots. Its common names became bugbane and squawroot. The leaves are coarse and toothed, and the plant produces clumps of leaves, as well as tall, slender racemes of delicate white flowers that can grow up to six feet in midsummer.  

The plant likes light shade, rich soil, and frequent water. The flowers are not available commercially but are used as cut flowers from the garden where they can be striking in arrangements. The spires have also given rise to the folk name of fairy candles.  

Note: Cimicifuga racemosa has been reclassified as Actaea racemosa. Additional common names for this plant are black cohosh and black snakeroot.

The plant variety that produces double flowers is Saponaria ‘Flora Pleno’, which is pale pink and white with a delicate scent. 

Common names are soapwort and “bouncing bet.” The plant spreads a lot, as it will grow almost anywhere and is often found along railroad tracks and even in dust heaps. In gardens, it is best confined to the outskirts not the main flower borders. My advice is that it is best grown only in pots.

Sara Coleridge wrote this poem in the 1800s.

"January brings snow, and makes our feet and fingers glow.
February brings the rain and thaws the frozen lake again.
March brings breezes loud and shrill, stirs the dancing daffodil....