2024 July Edition
Tall and (Small) Tales from the Great Basin of
Northeast Nevada
It is July, the basketball and hockey playoffs may be over, but it is nothing but net on the garden scene. All sorts of plants should be doing their thing! July usually brings talk of fireworks and speaking of fireworks, the dianthus (pictured left) looks like a firework in full display, but it is much prettier and it last longer! Dianthus is a perennial (we will learn more about what that means later in this edition) that adds a beautiful pop of color anywhere in your flower bed. Dianthus come in many colors mostly in the shades of red, pink and purple! Long story short, WOW!!
Pictured below: Snow in the summer, sweet william, peony and dianthus
News from the garden
If you like fireworks, you will enjoy the garden in July, boom, pow, ooooh and aaaawwww! The colors and variety are spectacular and popping with all the colors of the rainbow! Unlike a firework display, your puppy or dog doesn’t mind a walk through the neighborhood checking out the fireworks in the gardens this July! Enjoy the views!
Innovations and Ideas
The next great widget, what will it be? What is a widget you may ask, in economics, a widget it a generic name given to a purposeful invention for hypothetical discussion! Now days a widget is also a small software application, gardeners are always on the lookout for the next great gardening widget.
Inner Work
Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words!!
Plants in Science:
In this edition we learn more about annual, biennial, perennial, and self-seeding, these are all terms you may hear people talking about when they discuss plants and you may be thinking, what in the heck does that even mean?? If you finish reading this article you will not be able to think that any longer!! Annual, biennial, perennial, and self-seeding are basically terms used when talking about how plants reproduce themselves, because many are so pretty and fun, we need more of them!
There is actually some logic behind each term, seed packets or plant markers will usually note if a plant is an annual, biennial, or perennial.
Annual means the plant completes it entire life cycle in one growing season. You may get fooled when so-called annual plants pop up the following year in your garden, but that may be because the annual is also a self-seeder and if you just let an annual that produces a lot of seeds die its natural death in your flower bed, some of those seeds will drop and do their thing the following spring! Some examples of annual plants are petunias, nasturtiums, zinnias and poppies, all of these can also be self-seeding!
Biennial, not to be confused with bi-annual, biennial plants are plants that grow their foundations (leaves, stems, roots) in the first year and then go dormant for winter, in the second year they will produce flowers and produce seeds. Some biennial plants include sweet william, hollyhocks, and foxglove. They may be confused with perennials because once you get them going, they may be there to stay!
Perennials are plants that will come back year after year! Perennials are the dream of the busy gardener and come in all shapes and sizes. You will want to learn how the perennials you like best grow over the years, so you make sure you put them in the right spot. Favorite perennials include aster, coneflowers, columbine, shasta daisies, iris, lavender, and peonies!!
Fun fact: Annual, biennial, and perennials also apply to fruits and vegetables!
Last, but not least: Composting
Composting is basically natures recycle center and a way to make more dirt! Make more dirt, WHAT, is that even possible? Well, it is not just dirt, it is natures gold, in the gardening world.
Not all your waste can be composted, however it is surprising how much can, this handy guide below is a quick reference for what can and cannot be composted. If your waste is green or brown, then chances are it can be composted. Ewwww, gross you may say, does it smell, does it attract critters? Surprisingly, if done correctly, there is no offensive smell or offensive critters, you may see a few worms and they really help convert waste into dirt!
Composting is a great way to utilize much of your kitchen, yard, and garden debris, such as leaves, lawn clippings, pruning remnants, as well as your kitchen scraps. You can keep a small compost jar by the kitchen sink and when full, add it to your larger compost outside. There are many composting options these days, if you are going to get serious or just want to see how it all works, do a little research and begin the adventure sooner than later! Composting can go from highly sophisticated to pretty simple, and there are a ton of resources online or talk to some local composters, many will swear by this method or that method, but find and do what is easiest for you!
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