If there's one thing I've learned from my cottage garden this year, it's the importance of fencing. For a lot of people, fencing helps keep out pests that like to nibble on garden goodies. If I had invested in some garden fencing, I would have been able to prevent the cottage garden from being weed-whacked. Twice.
Before the rains came last week, I noticed that my laurentia sophia was budding and getting ready to bloom. Laurentia is a new plant in my garden this year. I was drawn to the bluish-purple star-like flowers and had to have some in my cottage garden. (If you have been following my garden column this summer, you may be noticing a theme - I really like blue and purple flowers.) As the summer progressed, the spiky plant grew thick and lush, but there was no sign of blooms until last week.
Imagine my dismay, then, when I went to check on laurentia's progress and found that once again, the lawn service had taken the weed whacker to my garden.
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The weed whacker may have gotten most of my laurentia sophia, but I?still have this flower blooming in my cottage garden.
Now, I accept a lot of the responsibility for this. As I mentioned earlier, some fencing or a stone border would let the lawn service workers know, "Hey, this is a garden." And I have not been diligent in keeping the weeds out myself, so there were definitely weeds mixed in with my flowers.
But nestled in with the violets was a lone survivor, and it had indeed bloomed. I was able to get a photo of the blue flowers I'd fallen in love with in a seed catalog last winter.
Next year, I'll do better by my cottage garden. "Some kind of fence" is the first thing on my list, followed by more laurentia sophia seeds, because this pretty flower is a definite keeper.
In the veggie garden, it's harvest time. I have tomatoes ripening every day, and there are some sizeable peppers that I have plans for in the kitchen this week. My husband suggested that it might not be a bad idea to start preserving some basil for the winter, and my oregano plants are dense and lush as well.
Someday, I'd like to have a vegetable garden big enough to provide produce for canning and preserving for the winter. But that's the beauty of gardening. There's always next season to plant more, plan better and try new things.
Share your gardening tips and tricks with me at mwyko@tribtoday.com