RE: OT/SIB/SPEC--bloom report

Heather, thanks for your garden tour--sounds absolutely lovely!

Barb, in Santa Fe, where I have the hollyhocks, but not a lot else at the 
moment, but the spurias are beginning to bloom.
IrisMaven@msn.com


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From: 	iris-l@rt66.com on behalf of Paul and Heather Bruhn
Sent: 	Friday, June 13, 1997 10:22 PM
To: 	Multiple recipients of list
Subject: 	OT/SIB/SPEC--bloom report

Hi everyone!  Greetings from a beautiful, lush garden in (now sunny)
Pennsylvania!

The temperature finally got into the 80s this week and everything popped
open.  I have more dianthus in bloom than I thought possible!  The Sweet
Williams I started from seed last year are finally blooming, and what a nice
surprise!  One variety is salmon with light salmon petals and a darker
salmon eye (sort of the color of cooked and uncooked salmon, if you know
what I mean!).  Another is a double fuschia-pink that's very ruffled and
dwarf (6" high).  There's a similar single dwarf variety.  I have a tall
lilac-purple (never seen that color on a Sweet William before!) and then
lots of the more standard whites and velvety reds.  (The Sweet Williams in
the back yard are all bee crosses and are much more interesting: lots of
polka-dots, stripes, bulls-eye patterns, etc.).  In between a lot of the
Sweet Williams are allium moly, bright lemon yellow clusters of bloom.  I've
also added some neat colored marigolds and some petunias to round out the
color spectrum.  The allium and marigold are interplanted with the dwarf
Sweet William, some lamb's ears, some Alwoodi pinks (more dianthus!) and
petunias in strips about 1 foot wide on either side of the front walkway.
At the bottom of the walkway is a large triangular bed of bearded iris,
mostly older varieties.  Except for the I. variegata (yellow with
maroon-veined falls) they're nearly done.

 In the main border there's more diversity.  Continuing up the walkway, near
some stepping stones, I have some dwarf white Siberians called Wisserzweig
(bought on sale at a local place, probably not registered?) that are quite
lovely and very delicate looking.  Then there's a lot of coral bells with
bloomstalks extending over the walkway and onto the front steps.  Behind
these I've put in some chartreuse nicotiana and more (tall) Sweet Williams
in every possible color.  There are also daylilies that aren't blooming yet,
and an unknown blue Siberian that has buds.  At the back of the border,
planted against the yew bushes (that I'm not fond of because they're taking
up lots of space in a very small garden) are a lot of delphiniums (finally a
year that they survived!) and foxgloves.  The foxgloves are white and
apricot, very lovely.  The delphiniums are just starting to show color and
it looks like the one with the tag saying it's pink is actually a sky blue.
The other plants in this border are chrysanthemum (old fashioned mums and a
more delicate double feverfew), coreopsis "moonbeam", a pink sedum from my
grandmother, English daisy, pyrethrum (trying to grow ant killer!), peonies,
and lots of Siberian and Japanese irises.  Later this year I'll be getting
lots of bloom from the Liatris spicata and hardy glads I put in everywhere.
One of my new Japanese irises (new from George Bush this spring) is showing
buds and nearly all the Siberians are in bloom or nearly so.  To top off the
color riot in the front, I've put a pot of PURPLE WAVE and PINK WAVE
petunias on the steps so it can spill over with blooms.  GORGEOUS!!!

At the far left of the front border (the walk is on the far right) is where
the drainage comes down from the gutter.  That's where I have a bed of
Pseudacorus, ROY DAVIDSON, I. ensata, and some misc. other Japanese and
Siberian irises.  On the other side of the corner yew bush (they're spaced
out around the corner of the house) is my "I don't know what to do with it
yet but I'm keeping it" garden.  Believe it or not, it's looking really nice
with lots of lambs ears providing contrast for PURPLE WAVE petunias.  The
side garden has a few bearded irises blooming, of which the best by far is
STIPPLED LADY, given to me by Jack Norrick last year.  There are also some
bright fuschia trascadentia blooming on the "daylily hill" that snuck in
somehow when I planted the daylilies, and hid when I thought I moved all the
trascadentias!

The front left corner of our lawn is ablaze right now with I. pseudacorus
(it's a low swampy spot).  It seems like all the buds opened in one very hot
day.  Providing contrast are a few Siberians.  The best Siberian in my
opinion right now (might change when something else blooms) is FROSTY RIM
which George Bush gave me last year (I gave him some BLACK GAMECOCK and this
was the return gift).  The deep royal blue color really glows against the
pseudacorus, and the fine white edge keeps it from fading in the shade.
It's a fantastic, beautifully tall iris.

Other than the odd columbine and buttercup in the back yard (and the
bee-cross Sweet Williams) there is nothing really happening out back save
for vegetables thriving in the veggie garden and the hollyhocks that I
recently  started from seed growing a whopping 4" tall.  So that's my
report.  Happy gardening!

ps--one tip.  Do any of you live near any of the All-America test gardens?
Penn State has one and it is run by my next door neighbor, Rob Berghage.
They have volunteer nights once a week (Thursday evenings for us) where
volunteers come in and help plant everything.  The great part about it is
that once everything is planted you can take all the extras home with you.
Even when there's a lot of volunteers to share with it's possible to take at
least 2 flats home a week (and that's about 50% perennials!).  I'm not sure
if this is a practice unique to Penn State, but it's a really great way for
starving grad students like me (and a lot of other gardeners) to get free
plants.  It means that we're really eager to volunteer and Rob has had a
pretty easy time getting all the plants into the ground in a short period of
time (our last frost wasn't that long ago!)  The really cool thing is that
I've ended up with a lot of plants I never would have considered buying from
my local nursery.  Plus there's the satisfaction of being able to go out to
the test garden, point to the plants and say: "I planted that!"

ENJOY.

Heather
********************************
Paul L. Bruhn            plb123@psu.edu            Heather McCune Bruhn
State College, Pennsylvania, zone 5 (almost zone 6 but not quite!)
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