DAN’S PAPERS
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April 11, 2014 Page 45
GARDEN
CALENDAR
What’s happening in our microclimate.
Events for families, kids and singles.
Interplanting Flowers for Gardening Success Now that I have seeds for the vegetable gardens, I’m beginning to think of flowers to interplant. The most important reason to plant flowers with vegetables is to attract beneficial insects and pollinators. The more flowers, the better for bees and butterflies, and the more bees and butterflies, the better for the gardener! Bees and butterflies are both in danger, so it behooves us to provide them with nourishment wherever possible. I have always planted marigolds with tomatoes and beans and tucked more in between squash bushes. They repel bean beetles, tomato hornworms, (oh, how I hate them!) and squash bugs. Use the short ones, in fact, the shortest possible. I also really like the fragrance of marigolds! I have also always planted nasturtiums. They are edible—flowers and leaves—and depending on the variety, can be short and bushy to vines. You don’t want the wrong size in the wrong place, as they are vigorous plants. I plant nasturtium seeds but marigold plants. There are vines I like to plant. There’s always room for a tee-pee if needed. Morning glories and sweet peas just need to be in a vegetable garden. Both can be planted as seeds. Be sure to plant according to directions. Sweet peas are cool weather plants
I love the tall, rangy nicotina with and their fragrance seems to herald its drooping white flowers and it summer. self-seeds! Biannual hollyhocks Caobea scandens, cup and saucer disappoint me, so I use alcea ficifolia vine, is just as extraordinary as any instead, which is a perennial, and it catalogue picture. They bloom later in also self-seeds. the season and are a unique addition to I also like to add pots of flowers to the garden. In a couple of gardens last the garden. Since tropical plants need year, I planted thunbergia, black-eyedto be in pots in my gardens, I might Susan vine, and mina lobata,Spanish use some as a touch of the exotic flag. They added welcome splashes of among vegetables. bright color to fences. I want my vegetable garden to These are my “standards.” Other be productive and beautiful. I’m as flowers can be added for cutting or careful and deliberate when planning just for “looking at.” I add cutting and planting a vegetable garden as flowers at the request of my clients, Flowers complement vegetables when I’m preparing a flower garden. I but for the benefit of the garden I like to add: sunflowers, cosmos, snapdragons, zinnias, want the vegetables to be luxuriant and the garden calendula and tall marigolds. Bread poppies can be as a whole to be exuberant. I recently received a catalogue from The New York grown from seed and, while I would not grow them for a crop of bread seeds, the plants and flowers are Botanical Garden for classes, lectures and symposia. beautiful. They are especially nice planted with blue It’s also possible, with a prescribed course of study, to earn a certificate in a number of plant-related scabiosa. Bees love lavender flowers which are edible and fields, including botanical illustration, gardening, smell wonderful. There’s always room for a plant botany, floral design, horticulture landscape somewhere. Lavender plants can be very large, so design horticultural therapy, nature writing and plant one sized for the spot. Bees also like calmintha. photography. There’s a lecture series on woman Both have fragrant foliage and are good planted landscape design pioneers. For anyone who can together. Herbs are not usually grown for their flowers, make the time, this place is an extensive resource but the lovely blooms of grey sage do not affect for all things plant. If only it was on the East End of Long Island. its usefulness. If possible, somewhere on the side of the garden, For more info, visit jeanellemyersfinegardening.com. I like to see nicotiana sylvestris and hollyhocks. Thinkstock.com
By jeanelle myers
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