GARDEN TOUGHIES
Do your bedding plants
suffer from “good intentions”? You start out the season intending to water,
fertilize and weed your annual bed, only to find that kids home from school and
family vacations prove to be obstacles to those goals. Well, you can dump your
petunias and pots of salvia, and still achieve notable results with the
following annuals.
Cosmos, sunflowers and
cleome have proven to be hardy and resilient under even extreme conditions. My
soil is predominantly clay, and during any heat or drought conditions, will
bake to a point of resembling adobe bricks. Still, these three flowers have
grown and bloomed when many other species have shriveled. Cleome especially
seems to enjoy abuse. Last year, the seeds I had carefully sown and tended
didn’t germinate until they were submerged under a foot of water for one week
after a massive rainstorm. I ended up with a bumper crop of flowers. These
flowers also self-sow readily, and I’ve had the happy experience of purchasing
seed one time, and having the beds renew themselves every year with open-pollinated
surprises. I’m not a purist regarding color, so many of these second-generation
flowers have stripes, spots or other characteristics indicating that the
bumblebees have done some hard work in the pollination department. Birds help
distribute these flowers as well, so you may end up considering them weeds
after a few years. But they’re the prettiest weeds anyone could have; I save
the wrath of my scuffle hoe and cultivator for last with them.
Cosmos is the shortest of
the three, growing only 2 feet tall, and looks as delicate as a waltz with its
fernlike foliage. Flowers are 2 to 3 inches in diameter, and come in white,
pink shades, fuchsia and red. Cosmos makes an excellent “filler” flower for cut
bouquets, and a field of cosmos in bloom is an eye-catching sight.
One of my market customers
calls cleome “the flower from Mars,” and it does look extraterrestrial. The
flower heads are large globes of pink, white, lavender or two-toned. What makes
these flowers distinct is that the seed pods emerge from within the flower
globes, giving the appearance of tentacles. Another name for cleome is “spider
flower.” Cleome attracts hummingbirds and butterflies in droves, so adding this
5-foot tall plant to your wildlife garden is essential. There are two downsides
to cleome, however. The first is that the stems are covered with sharp thorns.
The second is that their fragrance is reminiscent of a skunk’s parting shot or
a tomcat’s signature. You can use cleome as a cut flower as long as you singe
the stems with a flame to seal in the thick sap, but with their odor, you may
not want to use them indoors.
Thanks to Martha Stewart’s
use of sunflowers in arrangements, the sunflower has been the subject of
extensive hybridization during the past few years. Sunflowers now come dwarfed
(2-3 foot stems), doubled, multistemmed, and in shades of red, gold, lemon
yellow, orange, bronze and white. Many new varieties are also pollen-free, so your
table decorations now won’t leave stubborn yellow stains on your tablecloth. A
side benefit of maintaining a sunflower patch is that it attracts many
seed-eating birds, most notably members of the finch family. I’ve had flocks of
two-dozen goldfinches gorging happily on sunflower seeds, totally oblivious to
my presence in the garden. These birds feed upside-down; watching their
acrobatics and listening to their ebullient singing inspires joy.
There is still time to put
in annuals, and these three flowers can be found as bedding plants at most
garden centers. Try them this year, and let these tough guys easily win your
heart.
