Columns

Gardening with Galligan: Time-out for an August break, and some news

CAROL GALLIGAN PHOTO Here’s my window box on the deck.
CAROL GALLIGAN PHOTO
Here’s my window box on the deck.

It’s that time of the summer — time to sit down for a bit and think things over. Why? To keep your garden book up to date. You won’t remember next summer all the information that you’re so sure of right now. And to order fall bulbs, thinking through carefully what you want and why.

I always need to remind myself of what grew really well. This summer I loved my main floor deck window boxes filled with tuberous begonias in a deep rose and white.

I also used one of my former mother-in-law’s tricks. Instead of adding new ivy from a recently purchased flat, pots of last summer’s ivy, which had done yeoman’s service inside during the winter and looked great, went straight into the window boxes, pot and all. My intent, at summer’s end, is to return them to their previous stations inside. So far, so good. That’s the shady part of the deck and a bit sheltered. Those begonias hold up during the worst rains.

The sunny side of the deck also worked well. I had two large pots of calibrachoa, also known as Mission Bells or Million Bells. They look like teeny petunias and are self-cleaning. When a plant is self-cleaning, you don’t have to deadhead — pinching off spent blooms for further growth to take place. Most of the spent bloom falls off by itself.

If you pinch back shoots, however, you’ll be rewarded with more compact growth.

Calibrachoa grows to about 9 inches and comes in shades of violet, blue, pink, red, magenta, yellow, bronze and white. You can grow calibrachoa in beds as well; it’s an easygoing plant. They want full sun, but will “tolerate” light shade as well as mid-level drought. Like all annuals, they should be fertilized periodically, especially those in containers.

I also have a table full of angelonia: Five pots in a wicker basket and two more in black ceramic containers. Angelonia’s common name is summer snapdragon, and I don’t know why because it doesn’t look anything like a snapdragon.  Its flowers are described as salvia-like and it grows to a bit more than a foot on spire-like stems.

Each of my pots has at least five or six of them. The flowers open on the way up the stem and by the time that stem is spent, another is on the way. They come in shades of purple, white or pink and don’t seem to mind the heat.

My upstairs balcony didn’t do as well or so it seems to me. I have a window box, two large white corner planters and a large blue ceramic pot. Because it’s shady, I use tuberous begonias, but this year I failed to buy enough.

Since I drive all the way to Jamesport to get them at the Glass House, which always has a tremendous assortment, coming home and finding I didn’t have enough was not a pleasant moment. I had to fill in with impatiens and could never find the right color.

In fact, writing this reminds me that I should go upstairs right now and count how many I should have bought. The answer is 12 and there are six more downstairs. That goes in the garden book, right? You should be doing the same thing.

I don’t have enough space for the news I promised but I’ll give you a hint. Did you know there are plants with mosquito-repelling properties? If you did, you’re ahead of me. But I know now and I’ll tell you about them next time. Then on to bulb orders.

Go slow these days, it’s hot!