Brown Bunny’s Potager, an update

I’ve had a lot of plans for the potager but haven’t had the time to go all in with them yet, so when the NC Botanical Garden plant sales opened back up by appointment and no contact pick up, I couldn’t resist leaping at the opportunity to get some pollinator plants into the space. 

While planting perennials this time of year means a lot of watering and care, we’re already doing that for the vegetable plants, so it’s just a matter of standing with the hose a bit longer than we already do.

I’m going to do separate posts on the new plants I’ve added, but the list includes Appalachian bergamot, narrow leaf mountain mint, foxglove beardtongue, Atlantic blue-eyed grass, and climbing aster.

This is the main vegetable section, with lettuces, chard, and kale still going, cucumbers going crazy, and tomatoes and basil. There are also two bronze fennel that will be for pollinators - they’re growing but really blend into the landscape in this photo!

The squash side with yellow squash and zucchini, plus a couple of new tomato plants.

To prep the pollinator plant bed I wet the ground, then put a layer of our compost, put down plain cardboard (recycled from packaging) that I wet thoroughly on both sides, then another layer of compost. Wetting the cardboard down makes it easier to dig through when planting. 

And the finished new bed. It’s hard to see the plants with the grass behind but once they settle in and grow I’ll get a better shot. I also didn’t take a larger photo of the entire area, but this pollinator bed will be the central focus of the potager when you come through the gate. 

If you look to the left of the wheelbarrow in this photo you’ll see the three climbing asters not yet in the ground. I’ll be putting two posts in the ground and a 10-foot wire panel for them to climb. When mature, along with the hazelnut to the left, these will create a nice screen along the fence line. 

To the left of the interior potager boundary fence, in that corner just outside the potager, I’m building a two-bay compost area where we can compost manure and garden wastes for easy access to the garden beds. I’m thinking of putting wire panels in the back of the compost bays to plant something like native coral honeysuckle which will carry the screening along the perimeter fence line. 

This week if the rain doesn’t prohibit it, I’d like to get the climbing asters situated with their panel, get the compost bays set up, and upcycle our old huge mailbox into garden tool storage here in the potager. 

I’ll probably be adding some new vegetables to the lettuce bed as those finish up, and maybe a few melon mounds. And in the fall I’ll add more flowers to this space along with a couple of chairs for sitting. It’s starting to take on the potager “feel” I had when I first came up with the idea to make this space, and that makes me happy. 

Bloom update: elderberry flowers!

The elderberry live stakes we put in during December came up beautifully and suddenly the ones in Poplar Folly are blooming! I’m really happy with how the live staking worked. 

We put them in areas that get a lot of water flow during rainfall, and we put the stakes in during December, midwinter in NC, to allow the stakes to develop very strong root systems on until spring. The roots secure the ground, the elderberries thrive on the big rain events, and erosion is decreased significantly.

The lives stakes look like sticks, and at our local native plant nursery the cost was 80 CENTS each. At this price you can easily purchase many and really address storm run-off issues for very little cost.

The fact that it’s elderberry is icing on the cake. Elderberry blooms are lovely, feed pollinators, and the berries are wonderful  and feed wildlife and can be used by humans to make the amazing elderberry syrup, wine, etc. I’m eager to see these mature and hope we can harvest some in the next year or two.

What’s Coming Up In The Garden, 49: swamp milkweed

This escaped me until yesterday when I noted it’s ready to bloom. I misidentified it as Joe Pye but realized today that it’s swamp milkweed - the major clue being that it’s blooming way too early to be Joe Pye. I see it’s coming up in a few places in the garden beds, but this one is the most mature and will bloom out any day now. It’s really lovely and butterflies love it.

More info:

Asclepias incarnata subsp. pulchra 

Common Name(s):

 

• Eastern Swamp Milkweed

Phonetic Spelling

as-KLEE-pee-as in-kar-NAH-tuh PUL-kruh

Description

Eastern Swamp Milkweed is a native wildflower found in bogs, marshes and other wet sites. It can be found on the coast, Piedmont and mountain areas of NC. It is similar to A. incarnata but can be distinguished by its broader leaves, bushier appearance, and deeper bloom color (though it can be highly variable). It grows 2-4 feet high and the 5-inch seed pods persist into winter. It was chosen as the 2005 NC Wildflower of the Year.

Although it naturally grows along ponds, streams, swamps and bogs, this plant will do well in low lying areas of the garden that retain moisture. It is tolerant of clay soils and will grow in full sun to partial shade. It is pollinated by bees and is a host plant for the monarch butterfly. Use in a native/pollinator garden. 

More information on Asclepias incarnata.

Bloom update: swamp milkweed, narrow leaf mountain mint, hoary skullcap, coneflower, rattlesnake master

There are a number of new things blooming, things that got started that are now going strong, and some new things getting ready to pop out. There are many native bees in the garden this year, but I’m not seeing my honeybees yet! When I sit with the honeybee girls in Arcadia, they are taking off in the opposite direction of our house, so they’re foraging elsewhere right now. It will be interesting to see if they find the pollinator beds up the hill from them, right next to our house. 

A few photos from today’s garden walk. More coneflowers. Today I saw the first hummingbird of the season feeding on them. I wasn’t outside so couldn’t get a photo but hopefully I can manage one soon.

This is a close up of the narrow leaf mountain mint flowers. They are tiny but so beautiful.

A bumblebee has found the hoary skullcap!

I’m correcting this - I misidentified it initially. This is swamp milkweed. It’s lovely!

I’m having a moment about what these are... tick seed? Swamp sunflower? I have to dig in to figure it out, again. Whatever they are, they’re about to be lush and happy in this section of the garden.

The rattlesnake masters are so close! 

I didn’t get photos but the buttonbush are also prepping to flower. 

Another thing I didn’t get photos of are the weeds. It’s past time for me to get out there with my hoe and cart and get to work. 

Also, Blogger has gone to a new format and I can’t figure out how to make the photos larger. I sure hope they didn’t take that ability away, but I’ll sort it out soon.

Bloom update: Stokes’ aster, hoary skullcap, Queen Anne’s lace, and a bumblebee

I took a walk with the dogs today and grabbed a few quick photos along the way. If I focus my phone on a plant, they come running to see what I’m aiming at, so I have to be quick when they’re with me!

We have a lone volunteer Queen Anne’s lace plant on the side strip along the driveway. It’s over four feet tall and I got this close up of the flower but then the male dogs came and lifted their legs on it, so I moved on without getting the quite beautiful leaves below. I’ve grown up seeing these flowers along roadsides and it’s nice to have one right here at home.

The hoary skullcap I planted is just starting to bloom and oh, how lovely it is. It will be wonderful when these spread a bit and create a larger patch of color.

More Stokes’ aster (Peachie’s Pick) in the garden. This plant has flowers that are opening much wider and flatter than the others are doing, and as always, it’s interesting to see how in the same patch of ground things just grow differently. The beauty of a garden! If I were a bee I think I would snuggle into the soft center of this one for a nap.

And down at the other grouping of asters, I captured a bee going from one to the other. The sun drops, the butterfly weed, and these asters are all abuzz with activity today, as are the coneflowers.

In other news, something is eating the original shade bed plant leaves (except for the ginger) and also ate the leaves off the baby dogwood tree. Bunnies? The turtle? I don’t know. I may have to put a little fencing around that bed if it keeps going.