Don’t forget flowers
It is seed catalog season. I recently spent an evening browsing through a 530-page seed catalog, and even made a long list because I’m a no-holds-barred dreamer. The list is a page long already, and I’m only to the P section. It would take a team of dedicated gardeners to tend to all the plants on the list, but that’s reality, and right now I’m just dreaming.
What I notice on the list, however, is mixed in with basil from Ghana, blue peas and too many peppers, are a dozen kinds of flowers. Gardeners who listen carefully know that flowers are good companions in the garden. They attract bees and butterflies, they might offer a pleasant scent, and the colors certainly add to the garden’s charisma.
Rachel Carson in Silent Spring recounted how a city in the Netherlands interplanted marigolds among roses in a park and was successful in ridding those beds of nematodes. Marigolds have a strong scent that many pests do not like, and neither did my dad, but he planted them anyway to protect his bush beans.
Marigolds are probably the most common companion flower for gardens because of their ability to repel pests, but I’ve always liked them because of the bright showy flowers, usually a combination of yellow, gold and maroon that brightens the corners of a bed.
Nasturtiums are similar in that way with colors from deep red through orange and gold to pinkish white, many with splotches or streaks, but besides a strong pest-averting scent, the leaves are plenty edible and nutritious. Some gardeners maintain that nasturtiums benefit cucumbers. They might even creep up a fence or trellis for an extra display of color, and left to their own devices will reseed themselves.
Regarding reseeding, I planted a few yellow and orange cosmos seeds years ago and my garden will never be without them. My only task now is in spring to decide which ones remain and which get an early trip to the mulch pile. The plants become a tall and gangly hangout spot for butterflies, bees and their friends.
Also tall and gangly but colorful are hundreds of yellow rudbeckia flowers. They were here before me, and based on what I’ve seen every spring they might never leave. Insect pollinators like them, and other than getting tall they don’t seem to present any issues.
Flowers such as lobelia, violets, and alyssum are small and cute, and garden landscape geniuses like myself position them in propitious corners, beside pathways or in front of the pea trellis. Salad burnet performs the same duty but with simple, less showy flowers.
Low-growing flowering natives arrive promptly to every spring. Golden Alexanders are hardy locals that appreciate a clearing in the woods. Their flowers are yellow umbels.
Goldenrods are perennials that grow in clumps with yellow feathery flowers on stalks that sway in the breeze. The young leaves are edible, and the plant enriches the nitrogen in the soil. Plus, I didn’t bring them here – they’re here because they want to be.
A delightful native in my garden is fire pink (Silene virginica), a happy bright red local that remains in small clumps and returns every spring. I look at them and it’s like somebody just told me a heartwarming story. They seem to present a simple but deep history, and they return to the top margin of the garden and nowhere else. They apparently prefer the shade of a hickory tree.
Also each spring, bird’s foot violets put on a periwinkle-colored display to complement the fire pink pandemonium.
The list goes on and on for flowers in the garden… Mexican sunflowers, pineapple sage, calendula… and next year I’m going to grow blue balloon flowers because they’re blue and they’re balloons, and I don’t have enough of those.