My Motley Pots

Posted on August 20, 2020 by Janet

For someone growing plants in meadows and naturalistic planting beds at ground level at our cottage on Lake Muskoka north of Toronto, I spend an inordinate length of time each summer watching a few mismatched pots on the upper deck right outside my cottage living room window.

At first it was just a pair of oversized resin pots planted with conventional annuals. In 2007, that meant ‘Profusion Orange’ zinnias, nasturtiums, ivy geraniums and peach and yellow African daisies (Osteospermum ‘Symphony Series’).

In 2011, I planted both pots with an eclectic mix of succulents, agastache and spiny porcupine tomato (Solanum pyracanthos) that I bought at the Toronto Botanical Garden’s spring plant sale.

That was the first year I noticed that the ruby-thoated hummingbird seemed to be enjoying nectaring in the agastache flowers.

In 2012, my pots featured the few succulents I was able to winter over in a sunny ground floor window as well as a swath of colourful portulaca.

In 2015, with photography on my mind, I paid more attention to hummingbird favourites, shopping at a favourite nursery (Toronto’s Plant World, sadly now closed) to buy a selection of salvias and agastaches (aka hummingbird mints) I called my “hummingbird groceries”.

One pot featured deep-pink calibrachoa, orange portulaca and ‘Zahara Double Orange’ zinnias with Agastache ‘Kudos Series’.

The hummingbirds loved Agastache ‘Kudos Coral’.

I added a third pot that summer, planting it with Bidens ferulifolia ‘Campfire Fireburst’ (an over-rated plant)….

….. and some special salvias or sages, including Salvia microphylla ‘Hot Lips’.

The hummingbird supped a little in an ordinary nasturtium too.

In 2016, I couldn’t find all the plants I wanted so I filled in with assorted fancy petunias. I also found holy basil or tulsi (Ocimum tenuiflorum) which is one of the most amazing bee plants. Since I do a lot of native bee photography, I never had to go far to find a huge assortment of bees to photograph…..

…… including the tiny green sweat bee (Augochlora pura).

But that was the year I discovered that hummingbirds love the Wish series of salvias, including Salvia ‘Ember’s Wish’ below.

The next year, 2017 (notice I added two additional very motley pots from the back of the cottage), I had a pleasant surprise. The striped and ‘Wave’ series petunias I’d grown the previous year self-seeded in the soil over winter and…

….. produced a beautiful mix of healthy hybrids in all kinds of jewel colours. I liked them much better than the originals, and some had that old-fashioned fragrance.

I also grew heliotrope (Heliotropium arborescens) for its sweet perfume and was pleased to welcome back self-seeded ‘Apricot Sprite’ agastache (A. aurantiacum)……

….. which is always a hummingbird menu choice.

That year I also grew blackeyed susan vine (Thunbergia alata ‘Susie Yellow‘) on a tripod in one of the pots and caught the hummingbird checking it out on occasion.

In 2018, I worked on my close-up photography. It’s not that easy to get photos of the male ruby-throated (it’s the male that sports the rosy neck feathers or gorget), since males migrate south much earlier than females, usually by the end of July. But here is monsieur on Salvia guaranitica ‘Black and Blooms’.

It was fun to try Lantana montevidensis that year, and someone approved!

As always, the self-seeded ‘Apricot Sprite’ (Agastache aurantiacum) was popular not just with hummingbirds, but with the odd bumble bee too.

For 2019, my motley pots featured the usual suspects in the sage department, and I added a little birdbath which was never visited (though pretty)…..

….. and one unusual Betsy Clebsch (California’s sage queen) hybrid called Salvia ‘Big Swing’. It was visited once in a while, but it wasn’t as popular as….

…..Salvia ‘Amistad’….

….or Salvia ‘Ember’s Wish’.

Which brings me to 2020. Actually, let’s go back to November 2019. When I knew my Toronto source for plants of Argentine sage (Salvia guaranitica) was going out of business, I decided to dig up my tender ‘Black and Blooms’ plants and bring them down from Lake Muskoka to the city. I left the pots on the deck in early autumn for my husband to keep watered when I travelled to Greece to take a botanical tour with my pal Liberto Dario. Alas, my husband also travelled to New York on the coldest night of November and my poor sages sat outside in Toronto as the thermometer plunged to -9C. When I came home, they seemed to have died. But I put them in our basement laundry tubs, gave them a watering, and just watched. Sure enough, little leaves emerged eventually and by March they announced themselves ready to greet hummingbirds for another season.

For some reason, perhaps Covid-19!!, I decided that this would be the year I would return to seed-sowing at home. Alas, I had long ago discarded my old basement grow-lights, but I did have a few LED lights for the gooseneck lamps which I sometimes use for small-scale studio photography. And I also had an empty 3^rd floor guest bedroom window-seat. Voilà, I had seedlings in April!

I had long wanted to try sowing Petunia exserta, a rare, threatened endemic from limestone outcrops in the Serras de Sudeste in Brazil. It was first described in 1987; thirty years later, only fourteen plants were found during an expedition. It is reputed to be a good hummingbird plant, so of course I wanted to try it. A friend in Victoria gifted me seeds and it turned out to be amazingly eager to germinate and grow!

I also thought it would be fun to grow an old French marigold from seed, a tall single form that was supposed to have been grown by Linnaeus himself in his garden in Upssala, Sweden. So I ordered seed for Tagetes patula ‘Burning Embers’. You should know that although this species is called “French” marigold, it’s actually native to Mexico and Guatemala. It got its common name because it was brought back to Europe in the 17^th century by Portuguese explorers. The seeds germinated quickly, but they were a little wonky as they twisted vigorously toward the light.

By June, the annuals were planted in Muskoka and the petunias looked stunning.

I wasn’t sure if any hummingbirds had found them, but I was convinced later when I saw the watercolour that my son’s girlfriend, Italian artist Marta Motti, made for me as a birthday surprise. That’s the male with his ruby throat, by the way.

*Hummingbird on Petunia exserta by Marta Motti*

Late June and early July saw an unrelenting heat wave and drought. On July 4th, I put a thermometer on a chair on my sundeck near my pots and it read 104F-40C. It was a huge challenge to keep the pots watered sufficiently, and I realized these two annuals were meant for rich, moisture-retentive meadows, not crowded pots. And the petunias grow upwards in the fashion of indeterminate tomatoes, making flowers only on the end of the shoot and dropping the withered flowers by the dozens. If you want to revive gangly plants, it’s recommended to shear them back in midsummer to the first branching shoots and new growth will form.

Finally, on July 16^th the rains came. It poured. My meadows rejoiced and the motley pots were saturated. I did notice that the bright red of the Petunia exserta faded to a pale rose in the heavy rain, but that seemed to be temporary. Notice that I had added a few rustic willow arbours to host the red morning glory (Ipomoea coccinea) that I seeded in the pots and has yet to flower.

Fast forward a few weeks to mid-August and the pots look wild, overgrown and the most motley they’ve ever been. Fortunately, I’ve never wanted to win a beauty contest with these containers; it’s all about hummingbirds and bees.

This gold-edged red flower is the classic seed catalogue look of Tagetes patula ‘Burning Embers’,but the seeds I sowed produced a sunset mix of colours, some striped or streaked.

Bumble bees arrived in droves to forage for pollen on them.

They look very festive with the ‘Black and Blooms’ sage.

Though they’re usually listed as growing to 18-24 inches (45-60 cm), mine have reached 41 inches (104 cm) and may well grow taller. I was curious about the connection to Linnaeus, and asked my Facebook friend, Swedish ecologist Roger Holt, who was at one time a gardener at the Linnaeus garden. He said: “I asked botanist Jesper Kårehed, responsible for the Linnaeus heritage parts and got the answer that both Linnaeus and his precursor, the universal genius Olof Rudbeck (1630-1702) who built the first Swedish Botanical Garden (that later become the Linnaeus garden), had Tagetes patula (and erecta) and from paintings you can see that Rudbeck had the high elongated forms. In the 1920’s seeds from a form, said to have been picked in the garden of Hammarby, Linnaeus’s private home, started to be around in the trade. The Linnaeus garden was recreated in the 1930’s, and the tagetes have been there all from the start but probably not the same line of seeds.”

It’s a bit like having Linnaeus’s meadow right outside my window.

The petunias have hosted the odd wasp, and a handsome slaty skimmer dragonfly made it his sunny hunting perch for a few days.

But it has been fun to watch the hummingbird make its way around the flowers, taking a sip out of each.

Here’s a little video I made starring Petunia exserta.

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However, the champion this summer, as every year, is Salvia guaranitica ‘Black and Blooms’.

Let me leave you with a musical nod to my motley pots and their faithful feathered visitors.

21 Hot Dates for Blackeyed Susan

Posted on July 20, 2016 by Janet

Here we are in July, my Paintbox Garden month for yellow/gold. and what more summery illustration of that sunny part of the paintbox than blackeyed susan!

When Carl Linnaeus named the genus of North American plants that include the ones we call blackeyed susan as Rudbeckia, he was honouring someone very cherished in his life, his Uppsala University mentor and fellow botanist Olof Rudbeck the Younger (1660-1740). In 1730 Linnaeus moved into Rudbeck’s house where he became tutor for his three youngest children (of 24 in total by three wives!). It was Rudbeck who recommended Linnaeus as lecturer to replace him and as the botanical garden demonstrator, even though he was only in his second year of studies.

In Wilfrid Blunt’s 1971 biography, Linnaeus, The Compleat Naturalist, the author quotes Linnaeus: “So long as the earth shall survive and as each spring shall see it covered with flowers, theRudbeckia will preserve your glorious name. I have chosen a noble plant in order to recall your merits and the services you have rendered, a tall one to give an idea of your stature, and I wanted it to be one which branched and which flowered and fruited freely, to show that you cultivated not only the sciences but also the humanities. Its rayed flowers will bear witness that you shone among savants like the sun among the stars; its perennial roots will remind us that each year sees you live again through new works. Pride of our gardens, the Rudbeckia will be cultivated throughout Europe and in distant lands where your revered name must long have been known. Accept this plant, not for what it is but for what it will become when it bears your name”.

The painting of Rudbeck, below, hangs at Uppsala University.

I am a great fan of biennial blackeyed susans (Rudbeckia hirta). They have been an integral part of my little meadows here on Lake Muskoka since we built our home in 2002. In fact, they were the plants I sowed initially, along with red fescue grass (Festuca rubra), to retain the sandy soil we placed on the property once construction was finished. And it’s a bit of an understatement to say that they grew well, given they had no competion yet from other tough customers. They grew extraordinarily well here.

When I think back to the summer of 2003, it’s of having these amazing ‘lawns’ of blackeyed susans, which later evolved (with a lot of research and work on my part) into more complex meadow-prairies.

I spent summer 2003 photographing them, and had a little photo show the next summer – long before I switched to digital.

I even wrote about them for Cottage Life magazine, given that they seemed like the ‘way back’ for our property from construction site to buzzing, fluttering habitat (and, ultimately, a much more bio-diverse place than our little shore had ever been).

They became part of the pollinator landscape here, attracting all types of bees and butterflies.

Over the years, I’ve chronicled the lovely plant pairings that pop up – because I never know where this little biennial will be next. Unlike its more refined, floriferous, multi-stemmed, perennial cousin Rudbeckia fulgida ‘Goldsturm’, which I’ll talk about later in this blog, common blackeyed susan is a single-stemmed will-o-the-wisp, its seeds spread by birds, its short 2-year lifespan all there is (leafy rosette the first season, flowers the next). Occasionally, depending on the length of the flowering season, it might emerge and flower in the same year, or it might even hang around to flower a second year, but that is rare. However, individual plants can begin flowering from June well into September, so its plant partners can be highly varied – as varied as the ones in this cottage bouquet I made years ago.

Hot Dates for Susan

1) In my own garden at the cottage, wild beebalm (Monarda fistulosa) is a hardy perennial that I adore for its attractiveness to bees and hummingbirds. In fact, I have two small meadows that I call my “monarda meadows”. And this is how it looked growing alongside Rudbeckia hirta at Niagara Botanical Garden’s Legacy Prairie

Here’s a closer look at this duo in another garden. Note the dark streaks on this blackeyed susan; it’s one of many selected strains that come under the heading “gloriosa daisy”. Genetically, they’re no different from common Rudbeckia hirta wildlings, but have traits that make them worth growing as separate seed mixes, in this case ‘Denver Daisy’.

2) Here is blackeyed susan at the Legacy Prairie with swamp milkweed (Asclepias incarnata). Note that it will tolerate very dry, sandy conditions and remain quite compact, but if grown in the kind of moisture-retentive soil that swamp milkweed prefers, it will grow much taller.

3) In contrast, this is how it looks growing in sandy soil with the more drought-tolerant butterfly milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa) here at Lake Muskoka.

4) Similarly, in dry soil blackeyed susan will be happy with hoary vervain (Verbena stricta), one of the toughest customers in my meadows….

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5) ….. while more moisture-retentive soil creates conditions for blue vervain (Verbena hastata) – and taller blackeyed susans.

6) There is simply no better bee plant than mountain mint (Pynanthemum sp) (unless it’s calamint). Here is Virginia mountain mint (P. virginianum) at Niagara’s Legacy Prairie growing with blackeyed susans.

7) I grow the smaller veronica Veronica spicata ‘Darwin’s Blue’ in my meadows. Surprisingly drought-tolerant, it is lovely with blackeyed susans.

8) Another blueish-purple plant that makes a good sidekick to blackeyed susan is English lavender (Lavandula angustifolia), shown below along with Anthemis tinctoria. A surprisingly hardy subshrub, its main requirement is dry feet in winter; it will languish and die if the soil stays moist.

9) There aren’t many glamorous plants in my meadows, but a brief flirtation with perfumed Orienpet lilies (half Oriental-half Trumpet) several years ago added a touch of the exotic. And I simply love the juxtaposition of a sophisticated lily like ‘Conca d’Or’ with the humble blackeyed susans.

10) Annual mealycup sage (Salvia farinacea ‘Victoria’) is beautiful with fancy gloriosa daisies (Rudbeckia hirta cv.)

11) I adored this colour-echo combination of golden Swiss chard (Beta vulgaris ‘Golden Sunrise’) with dwarf ‘Toto’ gloriosa daisies (R. hirta cv) at Montreal Botanical Garden.

12) An ebullient assortment of gloriosa daisy cultivars mixed with blue cornflowers (Centaurea cyanus) was used in this mini-meadow at Montreal Botanical Garden a few years ago.

Here’s a closer look at that pairing; the gloriosa daisy cultivar is Rudbeckia hirta ‘Irish Eyes’.

The other blackeyed susan I grow is Rudbeckia fulgida var. sullivantii ‘Goldsturm’. After being named Perennial of the Year in 1999, this bushy plant soared in popularity throughout the world. In the “new American landscape” made popular by Wolfgang Oehme and James Van Sweden, it was deployed alongside ornamental grasses in massive sweeps of gold. It continues to be one of the most popular summer perennials, and spreads very easily (too easily, perhaps, for some).

13) In my city garden, I grow a host of pollinator plants in my front garden, and Rudbeckia ‘Goldsturm’ is the perfect, long-flowering companion to purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea). Since I enjoy it so much, I suppose it’s not a surprise that the neighbourhood rabbit seems to like the blossoms, too – as I discovered last summer, finding a large clump deflowered.

14) My friend Marnie Wright (whose garden I have blogged about previously) uses ‘Goldsturm’ throughout her Bracebridge garden. I especially like it with summer phlox (Phlox paniculata), and…