In the Garden: August 2009 Archives

I adore my herb garden. It's twenty years old, and shows signs of wear and tear, but I feel incredibly fortunate to be able to work with plants that smell so wonderful, and to be able to incorporate them into a raised bed with native flowers.

The only difficulty with this garden is that we never completed the walkways. Originally, we intended to lay brick in the pathways, but we've just never gotten around to completing the chore. Each year, at least three times during the growing season, I've had to weed the walkways. The herbs, as well as weeds seem to like the ground up limestone (chat) as a growing medium. When the chat is dry, it's impossible to weed. I can't figure out how the plants can grow in it. When it's rained, the chat is a breeze to weed.

I spent about two hours, two days in a row, and this was the result:

The "after" picture looks SO nice that you can see why I want to keep those walkways clean.

Below is the "Before" picture for the other half of the job. My garden helper left some plants in the walkway two weeks ago, so it looks worse than usual, but you can see what the rains have done for the weeds and volunteers.

If we don't have rain in the next two days, I'll be watering the path so that I can rip out all the volunteers and clean things up.

We thought for a while that the Summer of Oh-9 might not ever make its appearance. It was cool into July, and blessedly rainy. It was rainy to the point that hearty Midwesterners who are used to cracked, dry clay were beginning to wonder if they were going to need to grow gills and fins. But, all good things come to an end. We have passed through the season of the pretty pinks and burgundies and pale peaches and whites, to the season of COLOR!

When it finally turns hot at Chez Buffy, Rudbeckia save the day. I have two types of rudbekia which are volunteers (thanks to the chipmunks), and a third that I've planted intentionally, called Rudbekia 'Goldsturm.' These are the plants that will carry us through August and into the season of chrysanthemums.

The plant in the picture below is the simplest of the rudbeckias. I think of it as a Black-eyed Susan. The petals are a little rounded, and it's just gold and dark brown.

This plant, with the extra ring of burgundy on the petals, seems to be the one that is everyone's favorite. It's very tall, and unless you stake it, it will drop and flop any way it pleases, usually impeding the use of the sidewalk.

And this plant is Rudbeckia 'Goldsturm.' I have six or seven of these plants scattered throughout the gardens. This is just one plant in the picture. Those that receive more water (or less heat, or more sunlight) are the biggest, but it grows under almost any adverse condition.

I have one other tall gold-flowering plant that has just been planted in the gardens near the front door. This year I bought a gold/yellow version of a purple coneflower. I may look for the "sunset" colored variety next year, to encourage the red shades in the garden.