************************************************************* BY The parkway is probably the worst part of your yard for a plant to grow!!! The area between the sidewalk and the street isn’t even very good for grass. Winter brings salt and gravel thrown up by the snow plows and in summer it is hot and dry from being surrounded by sidewalk and street. But not impossible for some plants!
In one spot in
On one corner in In the center of the parkway I have tried a number of plants that have done quite well. The annuals, vinca and the short Zinnias, both bloom all summer and do their own deadheading. Both are only about 12 inches high. The Vinca will need a little more water than the Zinnias. Cosmos are another annual that can handle that area. Off to one side of the sidewalk along the front fence are the Hairy Balls, also known as Love In A Puff (Gomphocarpus physocarpus). The balls adhere directly to the stems that are over six foot tall. They will pop open and float out seeds that have umbrellas almost like those of the Butterfly Milkweed. They do get heavy so I like to have a stake nearby. It takes a saw to cut down all of one season’s growth. Also against the front fence are a number of Blue Spirea (Caryopteris sp), thick with blue blooms, four feet tall and full of Bumble bees and other insects. These bees and insects are not doing any damage but just taking advantage of the nectar in the flowers. The Spirea has also produced a number of seeds and new plants that grow to 4x4 in their first summer. The roots are hardy here so early in the Spring I cut them down almost to the ground. Except for Asters, there isn’t a good deal of blue bloom in the fall.
My Gallardia is another dry land survivor with typical fall colors of yellow, red, and orange. Some are annuals, and others are perennials that bloom first year from seed. They have been known as Blanket Flower or Indian Blanket. They don’t seed as well as I would like so I try to add a few new plants each Spring. Most of them remain under 30 inches tall in the parkway. Moss Rose (Portulaca) is in the Purslane family that loves that hot and dry area and reseeds itself so tightly that I must hoe up at least 50% to 70% of their area every Spring for them to survive. Purslane (the weed variety) will take over any open space, paths, cracks in the sidewalk, even the gutters, so I have a hate-love feeling about the genus.
Copyright 2010 ************************************************************* WHY MULCH YOUR PLANTS? BY The common myth is that we mulch our plants in the fall to keep the ground warm. The truth is we mulch in late fall to keep the ground cold. More winter hardy plants are killed by the freezing and thawing during the winter and in early Spring than from the cold. We also are trying to keep plants from heaving. That is, from being pushed out of the ground by the freeze. So we want to put the mulch on the soil after a couple hard freezes (night time temperatures of 28 degrees F. or below) and then keep the soil cold. I usually do not cover my roses until after Halloween and sometimes as late as Thanksgiving. Do not use those foam cones unless you cut the top out, and then fill the inside with mulch, compost, or soil. On a warm winter day the heat builds up inside a cone that has the top still on it. This heat builds up and heats up the soil, possibly causing the plant to break dormancy. With the next hard freeze the plant then freezes and dies. They are easy and convenient to use, but they do not work. Remember, mulch in the winter to keep the ground cold, and mulch in the summer to keep the roots cool and the ground from drying out. Copyright 2010 |