Garden questions

We opened our garden a week ago Saturday, and people had lots of garden questions. I figured my internet friends do too. And I have answers.

A special thanks to everyone who came out. We enjoyed the visit. We put a lot of love and work into the garden, and it’s nice to share it.

It was a glorious day. We even had a rain shower that lasted about ten minutes. People huddled in the garage until it was over. I wish I had taken photos of the visitors, but I forgot. I was busy answering garden questions.

If you plant it, they will come.

This beautiful artwork is from my good friend, Dana George. I love everything about it, especially the bluebird.

As I’m writing, I hear a male Eastern bluebird singing in the trees. Male bluebirds have a very distinctive song. When I moved here in 1989 (Bill was already living here since 1976), bluebirds were endangered. One of the first things we did was build some bluebird houses. Back then, you couldn’t just buy them.

The fire burned up most of our split rail fence, and we lost two of our bluebird houses. For Bill’s birthday, I ordered some constructed from Eastern redcedar. It seemed a fitting end to trees that burned up our entire neighborhood.

As I was talking to one of the visitors, he noticed our bluebird houses and asked if we had any bluebirds. Right on cue, a female bluebird flew down in front of us, grabbed a worm, and then flew back into the trees near a birdhouse. She impatiently waited for us to move on.

More garden questions

What is your lavender? How do you grow it? Why is it so tall?

I grow several varieties of lavender. The really tall one is ‘Phenomenal.’ Lloyd and Cindy Traven found it in their Pennsylvania garden, Peace Tree Farm. This rainy summer will be a real test to see if any of my lavender survive, but ‘Phenomenal’ can handle a lot of humidity. It is now a Southern Living Plants selection and has its own Facebook page.

My secret to growing lavender in Oklahoma, if there is one, is choosing the right variety, growing it in a raised bed that happens to be concrete (more alkaline), and not giving it much water. I still have to replace the occasional plant, and I lost two rows to the fire. I just recently moved some seedlings into the places where I lost some. You can buy ‘Phenomenal’ online, but I’m also starting to see it in local nurseries. ‘Phenomenal’ does grow really tall. Plus, it’s been a good spring for lavender this year.

Do you have trouble with deer?

Not much, but I purposely do a few things to discourage them. My back garden is surrounded by a fence, and I’ve planted a lot of swaying deer-resistant grasses and other large trees and shrubs around the interior. Deer don’t like to jump into an area where they can’t see their feet.

Also, I plant deer-resistant plants anywhere they might want to nibble like ‘Millenium’ alliums. Deer also don’t like fuzzy-leafed plants, and those with silver leaves like lamb’s ears and, coincidentally, lavender.

What’s that butterfly?

On a sunny day, my garden is full of butterflies. Our state has a large butterfly population, but the one stealing the show on the day of the open garden was the Giant Swallowtail.

Some cool facts about this fabulous creature are:

• It’s the largest butterfly in North America, and we have it right here in Oklahoma!
• Their caterpillars look like bird poop and eat a variety of citrus plants along with Ruta graveolens, common rue and Zanthoxylum clava-herculis, prickly ash, which is native to Oklahoma, among other places.
• Adults aren’t picky eaters. They really like my lavender, but this may be because my citrus trees sit in pots nearby. They also like tall garden phlox.
• The top (dorsal) side is mostly black, while the underside (ventral) is yellow. This gives the Giant Swallowtail a really cool look as it flies with those great big wings.

Why aren’t you killing those worms/caterpillars on your sunflowers?

The caterpillars in question were from the Silvery Checkerspot butterfly. While they can be a real nuisance on coneflowers and sunflowers, I put up with them because I like to see their parents flitting around my garden. I usually remove the sunflower leaf with the cats or shake them into my hand and then move them to Rudbeckia ‘Goldsturm.’ Nothing can kill ‘Goldsturm’–not even me, while these little guys can be very destructive to sunflowers especially.

One of the most frequent garden questions was, surprisingly, where do you buy your daylily/plant tags?

AAA Quality Engravers. Please tell Bernie I said hello!

What do you fertilize with?

I use Back to Nature cotton burr compost to break up my clay soil and improve my sandy soil. BTN has manure in it, so technically, it could be considered a fertilizer, but I don’t use it all the time. I mulch with arborist wood chips that degrade and improve the soil over time. After the ice storm in 2020, we had a lot of trees to remove. I used the chips from those trees and found them to be the best mulch I ever had. You can order arborist wood chips to be delivered from various tree removal companies.

I also sometimes use FoxFarm Happy Frog soil conditioner, but I don’t specifically fertilize anything except the roses and daylilies.

Plus, some of my native plants want to grow in very lean soil. Instead of automatically using fertilizer, I try to think about what each plant needs to thrive.

How do you do it all?

I don’t. Remember, I started this garden in my 30s, and I’m now almost 61. I get some help at the beginning of spring in March when we cut back all of the perennials, the roses, the ornamental grasses, etc. Before I open the garden, I get help laying mulch and weeding. You’ll still see weeds. It’s a normal if large garden.

Also, my garden doesn’t always look tour ready, and honestly, if it were on a sponsored tour for a garden club, it would look even more put together. Recently, a visitor said, “It’s much bigger than it looks on Instagram.”

Yes, yes, it is.

Another garden question was, are those smokebushes? Are they a special variety?

Yes, they are ‘Royal Purple,’ and no, it’s the most common variety. I also have a ‘Grace’ smokebush, but the old-fashioned cultivar performs just as well. I cut my smokebushes back every spring to about waist height to keep them from turning into large trees. I like for them to stay bushy with lots of purple foliage.

I hope that answered some of your garden questions. If you have more, please feel free to ask in the comments below. Also, I’m taking appointments for garden coaching if you need some help planning your garden. I love garden coaching. It’s my favorite thing to do.

Our weekly podcast might also answer some garden questions. Here’s this week’s episode. We also have a free Substack newsletter which is fun.

Talk to you soon.