I Spy – My Favorite Peony
Ah, I was so happy to see this bloom in the garden late last week. This plant made the long journey to Maine with us from our garden in Ohio. It was dug up and moved in December, which is not the ideal time for moving plants, especially in this zone.
There were several peonies that made the trip, two of them survived, the rest did not. I was happy when I saw this particular peony had survived. This beauty was one of the first plants I ever purchased and planted in my garden in Ohio. That was probably 15 years ago.
Way back then I didn’t tag plants, take photos, or keep track of plant varieties. I have no idea what the name of this peony is. I’m sure with research I could find it, but I’m glad I don’t have to track it down to purchase it.
My ‘Sarah Bernhardt’ peony didn’t seem to make the trip, so I purchase one this spring at a local greenhouse. It’s one of my favorite peonies, so graceful.
I also have an heirloom peony that came from my grandmother’s house, it was at the house when it was purchase when my mom was a little girl. She got starts from my grandma and I had one of it’s offspring growing in my garden back in Ohio as well. I need to get a start from that one once again so it can live on here in my garden in Maine.
Peonies are wonderful garden plants, hardy and long lasting. They truly are perennial unlike many other plants bearing that label. Plant one in the right spot and you will be graced with it’s beautiful blooms for years to come! I miss all the lovely peonies I had established in my garden back in Ohio. I know I had: ‘Dr Alexander Fleming’, ‘Bowl of Beauty’, ‘Sarah Bernhardt’, ‘Suzanne Kreckler’, and ‘Felix Crousse’ along with a few unidentified ones. Here are a few photos of them:
If you’d like to learn more about peonies, the different types, growing tips, etc – head on over to Peony’s Envy, they have everything you need to know about peonies.
At least I have photos of them and I know the names of my favorites, I just have to track them down. It certainly isn’t a cheap proposition to reacquire my favorite plants, luckily I was able to bring starts of many and I can get starts of many more from my mom and fellow gardeners.
Do you have peonies in your garden? Which is your favorite?
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Friday Favorite: Strawberry Season
Last night we have our first flush of ripe berries from the garden, they were delicious!
I planted these last year, we have ‘Sparkle’ Junebearing strawberry plants and everbearing ‘Seascape’. I wanted to give overbearing a try to see how they did. Last year they didn’t produce very many berries but it was their first year. We will see how they do this year.
We enjoyed the berries on strawberry shortcake, one of our favorite summer meals. If you’d like the recipe I posted it a few years ago on this post.
Next year we should have even more strawberries, our plants produce lots of runners. I’ll be moving all the ones that come this year to a new spot in the garden. Strawberries do well if they are moved to a new location every 3 years. I plan on adding a new section in the garden before the old one is exhausted so we alway have lots of berries.
What’s your favorite way to enjoy strawberries?
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Keeping Track
I’m really not very good at keeping a garden journal. Invariably I will completely forget to make any entries for months. That’s one of the reasons I take lots of photos of the garden, it’s my journal of sorts. I try to make sure I take photos throughout the seasons and of any new plants I add.
One thing I also do is take photos of the plant tags along with the plant. This gives me a great resource in case I forget which variety of plant I purchased. It also gives me a date since that’s in the metadata of the photo.
I will often take a photo of the pot in the location I put the plant in the garden as well. This helps me remember when things were plants and where I planted them. I know I’m not the only one that plants something and then can’t remember where in the world it was planted!
I make duplicates of all of these images and keep them in a special folder in my photo software. They are also tagged with plant name and any other appropriate tags like: perennial, bulb, flower color, planting location, etc.
The key to my system is tagging each photo with keywords so that they’re searchable. Also keeping them in one folder helps because they are all in one place. If you can’t seem to keep a journal going I’d highly recommend giving this method a try. As long as you keep these specific plant id images in one place you’ll be golden!
What method do you use to keep track of what you plant in the garden, and when and where you plant it?
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Little Lovelies
I’m a big proponent of herbal lawns, meaning I don’t like to spray out the wild flowers that provide variety and food for pollinators. Often dandelions, creeping charlie and clover are the herbs that grow, but when you are far enough removed from spraying and chemicals. Here in Maine I have a few patches of Veronica umbras (aka creeping veronica) in the lawn. It’s quite lovely, small and with beautifully blue flowers. It’s a small plant, only growing to about 6 to 8 inches tall and will spread out a couple feet wide.
The flowers are tiny, smaller than a dime and the most lovely shades of blue and light purple.
In one area of the back lawn it has spread into the flowerbed and it’s quite lovely without the competition of the grass. I plan on taking a few starts to plant along the edges of the woods. The leaves durn reddish in the fall so they add even more color at that part of the year. This is another great reason to not add weed killer to your lawn!
What’s your favorite lawn “herb”?
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Black Gold
A week or two ago I had a five yard load of compost delivered. If you remember, last year I ordered 28 yards of compost – that’s a lot of compost – and I have the biceps to prove that it was all spread with a shovel, by me, alone.
This year I purchased compost from a different company. It’s not that I wasn’t happy with what I got last year, I actually loved the compost and will be purchasing from Kinney Compost again next year. This compost is made from lobster, fish and leftovers from local seafood restaurants.
This compost is made right down the road, only a few miles away. I saw a sign for Earthly Compost at the post office and called to chat with them about their product. It sounded great and I had a five yard load delivered. This compost company is close so I don’t have to pay for delivery, I can also get five yards at a time instead of all of my compost at once. I’ll probably be calling them again in a few weeks to have another five yards delivered.
Since this compost is made from fish waste it will contain different micronutrients than the manure based compost I purchased last year. It’s always good to alternate different kinds of amendments and composts in your garden. This will help balance things out so you don’t end up with too much of one thing and not enough of another. I feel very lucky to have two fantastic sources of quality compost so close. When we lived back in Ohio it was hard to find places that made good compost, the one company I purchased from was fare away and delivery was pricey!
Do you ever purchase compost from local companies? Have you discovered any great sources in your area?
