How’s Your Garden?

BY LOIS TRIGG CHAPLIN

CHIVES THAT TASTE LIKE GARLIC

Each August, garlic chives add to their charms with a mass of white flowers. Native bees, syrphid flies, small beetles and other beneficial insects are attracted to them during late summer’s dearth of new garden blossoms. The rest of the year, the lasting attraction of garlic chives is their flat, garlic-flavored leaves. You can use them like the better-known onion chives in soups, scrambled eggs, dip, pizza topping, salad dressings, and other recipes. Just add them near the end of any cooking process because their mild flavor is destroyed by heat. The perennial plants live for years and can reseed to the point of becoming weeds, so give them a spot where they can be managed. Today, dependable, food-producing plants are especially relevant, especially those that can help us flavor a multitude of dishes and are easy to share. Each plant forms a lush clump that grows fast, especially in the cool weather. Plants prefer full sun, but will grow in partial shade, too. Once established they endure summer and winter with no problem; the thing that they don’t like is soggy soil. This herb also grows well in pots, which is a good way to grow it if space is limited. Clumps will naturally grow larger yielding lots of fresh harvests. Seedlings can become weedy, so to avoid seedlings, simply cut off the blooms after they fade so that seeds will not form. You can dig and divide clumps to start more plants or share with friends.

PENTAS, A BUTTERFLY MAGNET

This time of year herbaceous flowering plants sold in garden centers are likely to be flowering tropicals or large annuals and perennials in full bloom. Pentas may be either, depending on where you live. In Coastal Alabama, pentas are sometimes perennial with some winter protection; in colder parts of the state it is a tropical killed back by freezing weather. But no matter what the location, it’s a butterfly and hummingbird magnet in the summer. The plant is named for the characteristic star shape of five petals of the bloom which come in white or shades of red, pink and purple. Buy these in containers to add an instant spot of color in a flower bed or fill a container for the rest of summer and early fall and enjoy watching hummingbirds feed as they migrate through your garden. Locate plants where they get some afternoon shade.

One lily that you can count on in a warm climate and most soil types is the Philippine lily (Lillium formosanum philippinense), also known as Formosa lily. Big, white, Easter-lily like flowers are borne on very tall stalks that reach 6 feet or more. These are great flowers for the back of a flower bed, where the pretty green stalks provide a nice background for other flowers in spring and summer, then are topped in a cluster of white trumpets in August. At night, big hawk moths will visit the very fragrant flowers. Folks who enjoy their garden in the evening will especially appreciate the reflective white blossoms and sweet nighttime fragrance of this perennial lily. Over time, it makes a bigger clump each year that you can dig and divide to share with friends. Philippine lily is a pass-along plant, although it may be found at specialty nurseries and mail-order bulb sources.

Phillipine Lily

SO MANY HEUCHERAS

Heuchera, the perennial that was once coral bells or alum root, has morphed into a coat-of-many-colors over the past 25 years. The original coral bells (Heuchera americana) is a tidy perennial that forms a low-growing clump of plain green leaves with 18-inch stalks of coral, bell-shaped blooms in the spring. Plant breeders have hybridized a family of dazzling Heucheras, grown for their stunning foliage which greatly increases options for shady gardens where colors like this were harder to come by. New hybrids include foliage in many shades of green, gold, silver, red, purple, pink and a huge variety of patterns. Some need shade, while others show their best color in sun. Sizes vary from eight inches to two feet wide, and equally tall. Not all are going to perform the same way, so it is a good idea to just try a few at a time to test performance in your yard. Most of these Heucheras are evergreen, so their foliage will remain through winter, although older leaves may look aged and tattered by spring. Some varieties have showy blooms that work in flower arrangements, too.

Heucheras

ASPARAGUS NEEDS SUMMER HELP

Asparagus, a long-lived perennial, is a great treat to have in the garden each spring. However, summer care tests the mettle of asparagus growers because of its growth and care during the offseason. A bit of a space hog, the lanky, five- and six-foot-tall, tall ferns fall over in summer storms, taking up even more space. It will test your patience, but if one can corral the fronds, fertilize them, lime the soil, and keep the ground clean and weeded it will respond. Pull weeds by hand to avoid disturbing the roots. Thick weeds will interfere with spear production next spring. Cut down the ferns after frost and mulch the planting with compost or other loose organic mulch. Come next spring the summer grunt work will pay off in a nice harvest.