In my last post I showed you some of the perennials around our vegetable garden. In this post I’ll show you some of the perennials in the garden around our deck.
Despite my title not all of these plants are perennials. One of the most striking plants in this grouping is in fact an annual – the moonflower. It blooms in the late afternoons and evenings, plus looks great on arbors! I hope to start several of these indoors in biodegradable pots before planting outside. I suspect rabbits took a few nibbles and delayed the growth of moonflowers in my 2009 garden. In the foreground is one of my favorite perennials ‘Oranges and Lemons’ Gaillardia and is surrounded by mint. The mint is contained and was used frequently in our southern ice tea – I like it sweet! The blue flowers you see near the moonflower is a ‘Longwood Blue’ Caryopteris. I like caryopteris for its fall blooms. It reliably flowers every September here and is a perfect pollinator magnet. In between the gaillardia and the caryopteris is a spent gladiola. I try to leave foliage on my bulb/corm plants as long as possible to help them get as much benefit from the sun as they can.
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This is a nice area too Dave. Do you soak your Moon flower seeds? I did not have one to germinate last year..you just reminded me to go look and see if I have any left.
Darla,
I did soak the seeds for 24 hours in warm water. They can be tricky to germinate. I know I started several at the same time but only three every did much. Still, they are very cool plants well worth trying if they can just get started!
Dave, I know soaking helps but have you ever scratched the coating of the seed with an emery board. I tried that & seemed to have better luck with them germinating.