You say Tomato, I say Tomato
Week 11 in the Garden
May 11, 2021
by Kate Forrest
“In joy or sadness, flowers are our constant friends.”
— Okakura Kakuzo
Another busy week is in the books. We did some plant shopping and got our tomatoes, so I can finally relax a bit. We also accomplished more in clearing sections of the weeping redbud bed (such a relief to have that started) and planted out lantana and red hot pokers. It’s starting to feel like summer in the tidewater.
Plant Shopping
Thursday night we hit the garden center to pick up some veg and more flowers. We got our tomatoes—one Big Boy and one cherry. I think we may have room for one more, so that number may increase come June. We also got three basil plants and two bell peppers. I didn’t see much variety in cucumbers and couldn’t find the Straight Eights (what I originally intended to get), so I decided to hold off on cucumbers for now.
For flowers, we got some classics: sixteen single plug yellow marigolds (mostly added to the veggie patch to attract pollinators), some pink and white petunias (which I never buy, but they were too tempting to resist), and we picked up two different varieties of pink verbena. I originally wanted either a petite knockout rose or spray roses to add to the clematis pot to help shade its roots, but I couldn’t find roses that size in pink, only red, and I’m determined to stick to my color scheme this year, so I went with some beautiful pink verbena instead and it’s already serving its purpose, protecting the clematis roots during the hottest part of the day.
As soon as we returned from the garden center, we get almost everything planted out, save for a couple petunias and one verbena that I need to find a home for this week.
Saturday
Saturday we got a lot of stuff potted up and planted out. We also mulched in a bunch of plants, including potted up ferns, to help them better retain water. I planted out almost all of our succulents into the shallow part of the cottage garden. It is now the Succulent Nook in the Cottage Garden Corner. We also did the standard chore of weeding—we have weeds galore right now—so it’s a constant task that we both work nearly daily. It’s not unusual to find us digging up weeds in the yard at sunset on a weeknight.
We also had a bit of drama Saturday afternoon. When I went to the shed to get gardening tools, my husband was standing just outside the doorway and the following conversation took place:
Him: “Ya going in there?”
Me: “Yeah…” Followed by a deep frown.
Him: “Take a look at the left wall when you go in.”
Me: “What’s in there?”
Him: “A big spider.”
Me: “How big?”
Him: “The biggest one I’ve seen here.”
Colossal Spider, King of the Shed Kingdom.
Of course, this warranted an investigation from a distance and by golly, he wasn’t wrong. We have a colossal spider living in the shed. Now I can’t go in the shed and I’m waiting for it to haunt my dreams (as spiders are want to do). Spiders are awesome—I love spiders—but man, when I see one that could cover my hand, I can’t help but cringe. That being said…a big thank you to Colossal Spider, King of the Shed Kingdom hence forth, for keeping pests in check (possibly single handedly taking out the entire tick and mosquito population on an acre of land), but please, I ask you, don’t fall on me or crawl on me when I finally build up the courage to go back into the shed.
The big project for the day was clearing more of the weeping redbud bed. We got about a 14-inch-deep perimeter cut into the three sides of the bed (it’s triangular shape with two straight sides and one curved side). It’ll likely take two more days to get the rest of that bed cleared, but I’m happy we got the perimeter established so we could plant out all ten annual lantanas I’ve been holding onto since March. I’ll need at least 20 more to finish lining the bed (I dramatically underestimated the spacing on that). We also planted out the two new red hot pokers alongside our second-year one (which is blooming!). I’m excited because the new plants already have flower stalks coming in on them, so we should see a wonderful display on the red hot pokers this summer. We got that all mulched in, then I potted up our pineapple into the nice ceramic pot I picked up last weekend at Williamsburg Pottery and we called it a day.
Seedings
The Positive
On Thursday, May 7th, we saw germination on the Jazzy Mix Zinnias that I sowed on May 3rd. It’s the quickest I’ve ever had seeds germinate. We also have ten seedlings from the zinnias I sowed May 4th with the seeds I harvested from our zinnias last fall.
The Negative
Y’all, I don’t know what happened. Nearly all of the coleus are gone; I think we have one hanging on out there. The phlox are trying; they have doubled in size. I’ve got a few salvias and one Bells of Ireland; possibly a few blades of feather grass. It’s a sad lot to say the least. I just don’t think I’ll dabble in seeds outside of zinnias until we have more appropriate conditions for seed growing (like lights and warming mats). That’ll just have to be an adventure for our future gardening selves, because we just don’t have the space in our current home for doing a proper seed growing setup.
Garden Inspiration
Today we got in an hour-long walk at Colonial Williamsburg to enjoy a few of the gardens. The Governor’s Palace main beds and the Taliaferro-Cole House pleasure garden are all in peak bloom and they are absolutely gorgeous.
Governor’s Palace Garden at Colonial Williamsburg.
Taliaferro-Cole House Pleasure Garden at Colonial Williamsburg.
What’s Blooming?
At our property:
Spirea from our garden.
- Double Play Doozie Spirea
- Surdiva White Improved
- Marigolds
- Roses
- Catmint
- Strawberry
- Sweet peas
- Chives
- Trumpet vine
- Red hot poker
- Daffodils (yes, that’s not a typo. We still have some flowers on the daffodils that gave us two showings this year).
- Annual Lantana
- Pansies
- Violas
- Verbena
- Petunias
At Colonial Williamsburg:
- All of the above and:
- Peonies
- Foxgloves
- Dianthus
- Lilies
- Irisies
- Mock Orange
- Phlox
- Poppies
- Snapdragons
- Wisteria Frutescens
Alright, all. That’s the latest from Williamsburg. I’ll be taking an intermission from the blog while I’m travelling the next few weeks. If you don’t hear from me sooner, I’ll be back with more updates from our garden June 1st. Until then, you can find me posting on Instagram with updates from my trip.
Happy gardening and enjoy the rest of May, all!
~Kate