Sun Follows Lee

Wisdom is reported to accompany age.  Perhaps age forces us to work smarter because we have a new found difficulty working harder.  Developing planting areas in our former pasture used to start with cutting out and removing sod blocks.  That is strenuous work.  We have recently discovered that grass clippings and time will kill the sod in place.  Raking grass clippings is also hard work.  Today brought the arrival here of a lawn sweeper.  Sweeping clippings is more like play than work.  With all of the recent rains the grass is growing at an alarming rate making abundant hay.  Today also featured brief periods of sunshine.  Storm aftermath makes travel impossible in three directions as the roads are simply gone in places.  We are here, so we might as well rake hay.

Cardinal flower, lobelia cardinalis, is a favorite here.  This plant survived without our intervention.  Its four stalks show that we did not divide this second year plant.  Now each stalk is making up to six daughter plants.  Crowded does not begin to describe the situation here.  Experience has taught us that none of these plants will survive winter if we divide them now.  As winter approaches we will loosely cover this cluster with the dead stalks.  Division will wait until early spring.  Without intervention these daughter plants will crowd each other out with none surviving.
 

Hardy chrysanthemum, Clara Curtis, looks great next to the stone wall.  Its appearance now is a not so subtle announcement that we are in the third season of the year.  A single purchased plant has undergone countless divisions.  We have them widely planted hoping that some will see spring.  These are indeed a treasure.
  

Cardinal Flower

Lobelia cardinalis is described as a short lived perennial. We have nearly lost it more than once. How a plant that freely seeds, forms daughter plants and layers can be so hard to keep alive is a puzzle. The seeds must be tasty to some critter since the new seedlings are few in number compared to the millions of seeds we allow to drop. Each spring the rosette of daughter plants heave and freeze after frosty nights turn their bright green new leaves into grey mush. This year we have Cardinal flower in eight different places in the garden. Some have actually been pulled as weeds. Winter's lasting snow cover helped save many plants ,but that condition is uncertain.




These four Cardinal flowers were placed in 4" X 4" X 5" pots very early this spring. The rosettes of daughter plants were separated just as soon as the soil could be worked. Basement protection was given to these plants when cold freezing nights threatened. All of these potted plants grew well after being planted out when the weather stabilized. Similar plants set immediately in the garden did not all survive. Freezing and heaving killed many of those transplants.

A coarse mulch of tall phlox stems applied after the ground was frozen protected several other plants. Mulch for Cardinal flowers is tricky. If the mulch is too fine or applied early rot is the result. I did not expect much from the open airy stem mulch but it worked well.




The structure of each flower is as unusual as the color is bright. Three downward pointing lobes and two erect lobes are joined by a fused stamen that is tipped in white. Humming birds own these flowers here. More correctly, one humming bird owns these flowers. Aerial combat follows the approach of a second bird. Occasionally flying below the wall allows the second hummer to feed on the nectar unnoticed by bird one. For us the combination of the color of the flowers and the antics of the birds, keep us on the bench for considerable stretches of time. There is much to recommend this short lived perennial.