Sweet Smelling Four O’clocks November 12, 2009

I love, love, love the scent of four o’clocks(Mirabilis jalapa), they smell like summer nights to me. When I sit on my porch in the late evening an at night, I just cannot stop myself from commenting on how good the four o’clocks smell. My husband just laughs and says you say that every time you are out here at night. The reason I always say it is because it’s true. The do smell good. I have several different colors of four o’clocks, but the most fragrant in my gardens are the yellow ones that I grew from seed that my husbands father gave me. I don’t really know why but the yellow ones also seem to open their blooms a littler earlier in the afternoon than the others I have.

Four o’clocks are perennial in the middle south where I live, but even in colder locations where they must be grown as an annual, they quickly grow to 2 to 3 feet high and wide. They begin to bloom in early to mid summer and will bloom until killed by a freeze. They produce hard, black somewhat rounded seeds and will self sow with abandon. Do not plant four o’clocks in an area that you don’t want them reseeding in. While the volunteer seedlings are easy to pull, there are so many that it is very easy to miss some. Where I have mine, I just pull seedlings as I weed and don’t worry about the ones I leave behind.

Flowering Tobacco Nicotiana November 6, 2009

If you have an outdoor area that you enjoy at night and would like to add a little fragrance to the air, you might want to give flowering tobacco a try. Although the common name seems to bring to mind something less than fragrant, trust me flowering tobacco smells wonderful. There are several cultivars and the one I grow is Nicotiana alata. Be sure when you purchase seed for Nicotiana alata that you are purchasing a fragrant variety as there are many varieties that either lack fragrance altogether or have a very faint fragrance. Most of the non fragrant or slightly fragrant varieties bloom in varied colors with flowers opening in the daytime, while the fragrant variety has white blooms that open in late afternoon filling the evening air with its sweet scent.

Nicotiana alata normally grows 2 to 3 feet tall. It does best in an area that receives at least morning sun and requires little care. It self sows in my garden as well as behaving as a rather hardy perennial. It is not supposed to be as cold hardy as it has been for me, so it may be that it is just in a micro climate within my garden that is a little warmer than the rest of the area.

Another fragrant flowering tobacco that I have not grown but have heard wonderful things about is Nicotiana sylvestris. This plant grows to five feet tall and is said to be even more fragrant than Nicotiana alata. It is a good choice for a location with more shade.

Antique or Old Garden Roses November 2, 2009

I love roses, of course I love all flowers, so it’s no surprise that I love roses. Roses though have a bad reputation as being disease prone, needing lots of extra TLC and just generally being more trouble than they are worth. All of this is true to a certain extent. If you have tried growing roses with little to no success, it is probably because you are trying to grow hybrid tea roses.

While there are some hybrid teas that are fairly easy care, many if not most of them are anything but easy to care for. I have one hybrid tea rose Oklahoma that is absolutely gorgeous, with huge very fragrant, deep red blooms. For the last few years it has performed very well, with little to no blackspot or other disease problems. Unfortunately, it has started to send up sprouts from the rootstock and the grafted plant itself seems to be in a state of decline. My antique variety roses however just keep getting better with age.

Antique roses are also known as old garden roses or simply old roses are roses that were in existance and widely grown in the 19th century and some even earlier. The American Rose Society classes antique roses as any rose known to exist before the first hybrid tea was introduced in 1867. These roses have stood the test of time for lots of reasons. The main reason being their relative disease resistance. Yes, old garden roses can still be disease riddled, but most are disease free and very easy to grow.

There are several different classes of antique roses. The classes of antique roses are Alba, Bourbon, Centifolia, China, Climbers & Ramblers, Damask, Gallica, Hybrid perpetual, Moss, Noisette, Polyantha, Portland, Rugosa, Species roses and Tea. The Chinas, Noisettes and Tea classes are cold tender and will only grow in the warmer gardening zones. Chinas and Teas in zones 7-9 with Noisettes extending the range into zone 6. Most of the other classes can be grown into zone 4 and some into zone 3.

My favorites are the Chinas because they do especially well climate, which is hot and humid in the summer. The China class generally has a smallish bloom, a light fragrance and very good repeat bloom throughout the summer. Chinas sometimes have a very different color change than you might expect. Usually flower blooms fade in color as they age. China rose flower blooms often deepen in color as they age. Mutabilis is one example where the blooms open as yellow and then turn peachy pink and then a deeper pink. I grow the China rose, Archduke Charles and its flowers open a light pink edged with darker pink (the picture on this page is a bloom on my Archduke Charles antique rose)and then deepen to a deep crimson pink. The combination of colors makes it really eye catching even from a distance.

I have had great luck with antique rose ordered from www.chambleeroses.com. This is a family owned nursery that has been around since 1953. The ship own root roses in 1 gallon containers. I have ordered several and have been please with all of them.

These sites also sell antique roses.

• www.antiqueroseemporium.com
• www.ashdownroses.com
• www.countrysideroses.com
• www.heirloomroses.com

This site, http://www.helpmefind.com/sites/rrr/roses.html is a great resource for researching roses of all kinds.

Rose Campion a Magenta Standout October 29, 2009

Rose Campion (Lynchnis coronaria) is another beautiful old fashioned flower for your garden. Rose campion is a biennial that is very easy to grow from seed. Seeds are available for varieties in several different colors including a very bright magenta pink that is my favorite, a solid white variety and also a white with a pink eye called “Angel’s Blush”.

The foliage on rose campion is a silvery grey, somewhat like lambs ear, but not as fuzzy. The plant forms a mound of leaves just a few inches high and then sends up multiple flowering stems around two feet tall. The flowers are about one inch across and last for one day, but there are many flowers on each stem and the plants continue to produce blooms for several weeks. Besides the fact that I just like pink flowers, one of the reasons I like the magenta pink variety is the contrast between the grey leaves and the pink blooms is quite striking.

Rose Campion, at least in my gardens, reseeds freely and once you have established plants, you probably will not have to plant again. Any unwanted volunteers are easy to pull up or you can transplant them in very early spring.

Rose Campion looks best when massed as it really makes an impact then. As with most plants with grey foliage, rose campion is a very drought tolerant plant requiring very little water or attention making it a great easy care selection for your flower gardens.

Foxglove Plants for a Spiky Accent October 26, 2009

There are both biennial and perennial varieties of foxglove (Digitalis). I have grown and like both, but in my opinion the biennial varieties are much showier than the perennial varieties.

While some biennial variety seeds (Foxy) say they will bloom the first year, they did not bloom until the second year for me. The biennial foxgloves bloom start to bloom in early spring and will bloom into early summer with purplish pink flowers.

Foxglove prefers partial shade and will not do very well in hot climates if it doesn’t have shade in the afternoon. In my garden I plant them where they get morning sun and shade in the afternoon and they seem to be happy there.

The biennial foxglove often reseed where they are happy, but for me the flowers on the volunteer plants are never as showy as the ones I start from seeds. The blooms tend to be more light pink to white and are still very pretty, just not as vibrant as the ones started from seed. Depending on the variety planted foxgloves can vary in height from two feet to around five feet.

You can buy started plants and transplant them to your garden or grow foxglove from seed planted in the spring or fall. I like to wintersow many different kinds of seeds and foxglove is one that I have tried and had success with.

Larkspur Flowers Add Beauty to Your Spring Garden May 13, 2009

I love larkspur flowers. I took the picture here a few days ago of some of the larkspur blooming now in my garden.

While the flowers in the picture look quite blue, the are actually a very clear purple. I also have larkspur in a lighter color of purple and in both light and deep pink.

I like them all, but my favorite are the purple larkspur.

Larkspur is an annual but once you plant them they tend to reseed, so you probably won’t need to replant. Because they reseed you never know where they might pop up in your garden, which is one of the things I like about them. The purple larkspur and the salmon poppy in the picture were both a result of reseeding and made a nice combination quite by accident.

Larkspur flowers are individual blooms along a stem that forms a spike of color. They grow to about three feet tall. The foliage is very fine textured with a somewhat ferny look. In addition to the pink and purple or blue colors, there are also larkspur flowers in white.

Larkspur begins blooming in April in my garden and continues blooming until the weather turns really hot sometime in the middle to end of May. They are excellent cut flowers and I always have to cut some and bring them inside to enjoy.

The first time I planted larkspur, I bought a seed pack with a mixture of colors, but every plant the grew had light or dark pink blooms. I really wanted some of the purple so I bought a package of light and a package of dark purple larkspur and now I have both pink and purple. The seeds I bought came from T’s Flowers, she has a huge selection of seeds for a very reasonable price.

If you would like to grow larkspur in your garden it is really very easy. Larkspur need cool temperatures to germinate so you can sow them in your garden in late winter for flowers the following year. You can also winter sow them like I did for much better results than direct sowing in your garden.

Why I Grow Old Fashioned Flowers May 11, 2009

I wanted to start this blog because I love flower gardening and many of the flowers that I love are of the old fashioned varieties. I love any style of garden, but my personal favorite is a cottage style garden.

One of the reasons I like old fashioned flowers is because most of them are very easy to grow and have very few disease problems. That  is why so many of them were grown for years be gardeners all over the world. Now there are some beautiful new hybrids and I enjoy and grow some of them as well, but it is hard to beat a plant that has been grown successfully for years.

I will be sharing pictures and information on some of the different plants I grow in future posts. I hope that some of my favorites will encourage others to plant more of the well loved older varieties of flowers.