Author Archives: talesofanashvillegardener

Old names for this relative of Joe Pye Weed are Blue Eupatorium, Mistflower, and Hardy Ageratum. The new Latin is Conoclinium coelestinum. It is a hardy perennial wildflower that blooms all over Middle Tennessee, but one must look to mail order to bring it to southern New Hampshire. It is a notorious leaper and goesContinue reading “Blue Mistflower”

Poor fertility, mostly sand, sharp drainage. Ground suited for Sweet Fern and lowbush blueberries. Scrub land, where farming was so hard in early New England that Yankee soldiers, after the civil war, moved their families and farms to the fertile, flat, and predictable Midwest. Here is a garden planted in that stingy soil- There areContinue reading “August 1st-The Dry Border”

This is the orchid flowered canna “Intrigue”‘. In the first photo the companion plants are Salvia “Ember’s Wish” and Verbena “Bampton”.

Early Goldenrod, Solidago juncea, is blooming now. The plant in my dry border is a volunteer, and it is thriving. It is a clump former, and not a root runner, and its leaves are basal and hug the ground. Its companions here are Silver King Artemesia and Globe thistles. Still to come in this borderContinue reading “Early Goldenrod”

In the garden close to the house in Bow the coneflowers are blooming. In the lower garden they have been gnawed on down to leaves by deer. The house garden has motion light protection at night, and this may be why these coneflowers get to bloom there When the colored coneflowers appeared in the 1990sContinue reading “Coneflower Medley”

Veronicastrum virginicum “Fascination” is blooming now in the half shade garden in Bow. This plant came from the plant sale area at The Fells, the John Jay estate on Lake Sunapee. It is three years old, and it is planted on the richest soil in the Bow garden. Above is the Blue Vervain , VerbenaContinue reading “Elegant Spires”

I bought Agastache “Blue Boa ” this spring at Goffstown Hardware, and it is proving to be one of my smarter choices. I am excited about this plant because it is a purple that will contrast beautifully with my myriad goldenrods and the Showy Evening Primrose in mid to late summer. As fine as theContinue reading “The Hardy Agastaches”

This is my second summer growing the large nicotianas “Mutabilis” and “Alata”. I have also added this year “Crimson Bedder”, which I found on line at Annie’s Annuals. When I bought small plants of the first two in 2020, they formed basal rosettes around a foot wide, and their flower spikes reached three to fourContinue reading “Nicotiana”

I waited three months for a California on line nursery to catch up on back orders so I could finally put Plectranthus argentatus “Longwood Silver” into a garden again. Gray foliage is elegant. It is sophisticated and it shines, and to my mind “Longwood Silver” is the finest gray leaved plant I have grown. ItsContinue reading “Longwood Silver”

We have had some unsettling weather this past week. Ninety four degree temperatures and Mississippi Delta humidity for three days followed by three days of cold rain that has battered plants and flowers into the mud. And yesterday, while sitting at my dining room table, I looked out the door into the dooryard to seeContinue reading “Bright Colors on a Gray Day”