Tag Archives: Turkish Rocket

Roadside Garden Flowers

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Roadside garden with siberian iris purple flowers, turkish rocket yellow flowers, lupine purple flowers.
Siberian iris, turkish rocket, lupines in bloom.

This is my favorite time of year for the roadside garden. The flowers are in contrasting colors of bright yellow, purple/blue, and white, with lovely green leaves of all shapes and sizes. Despite the cold and rain of the past week, it seems to send off a glow into the gloom. It was a garden formed originally from gifted hardy perennials, and others have naturalized to find their own places, like the white daisies.

Yellow flowers of turkish rocket, purple Siberian irises, daisies, in front of rain slicked pavement road.
Turkish rocket, Siberian iris, wild daisies in bloom.

Before the rain, we planted random and unknown flower seeds in one of the garden beds in the front, and carrot seeds in the other (next to broccoli seedlings). I had also planted zucchini and cucumber seeds in the hugelkultur mound. I hope the rain waters them gently and they sprout. Most of our seeds are from prior years, so it is a gamble. But it did seem like good timing.

And for those who have been following this blog, you might be delighted to learn that after the robins fledged, the parents are now starting a second batch of eggs. Once again, she laid one egg per day, but this time, there are four!

Four blue robin's eggs in nest

Roadside Garden

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Roadside garden strip with green spikey leaves coming up, yellow flowered turkish rocket, and wood chips between plants, plus a broken wood log.

The last couple days I have been sprucing up the roadside strip in front of our house. I had left all the leaves and old dead plant droppings all spring, better for soil enrichment and habitat for insects. The hardy perennials have been greening up, and the turkish rocket is flowering now. I think of this as my no-work garden, and mostly just leave it alone. But two days ago I pulled up crabgrass, and then I have been adding fresh wood chips between plants and along the roadway. We just got a huge pile of wood chips from our favorite tree guy. Such an excellent and free resource!

I’ve also been watching the Chelsea Flower Show on Britbox, and maybe that inspired me to put some odd shaped logs in a few empty spaces between plants. An ornamental crabapple tree fell in a storm last winter, and our neighbor cut it up for us. Some of it can be seasoned for our wood stove, and I have been moving those to our wood pile. But some pieces are just the wrong size–but apparently they are perfect for garden decor. I can see this view above from our front living room window, and it makes me so happy!

Roadside garden with green spikey leaves, next to paved road, neighbors car in the background.

I also like that it now looks a bit prettier for the neighbors. I want folks to realize that wildlife friendly, organic, permaculture gardens can be beautiful too! In fact, someone walking by commented about how much they like our gardens. I hope we may be contributing to a trend. Our neighbors across the street just put in some raised beds in their front yard, and our neighbors to the side were getting heat pumps installed yesterday.

Finally, the other blooming plant right now is a blue mountain cornflower. I only wish I’d put it on the sidewalk side, because we can’t see it from the house. Maybe I’ll move it next year.

Mountain cornflower, or perennial bachelor button, with purplish blue flowers, green stems and leaves.

Beauty

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What we see out our front door: purple, yellow and white flowers on the esplanade

I have been marveling at the beauty of our front esplanade–formerly known as the hell strip. I planted it four years ago, with help from donated plants, and some donated labor too. Right now it is a stunning palette of white, blue/purple, and yellow, over green leaves: Blue/purple Siberian irises, yellow turkish rocket flowers, purple lupines, white bearded irises, and lots of white volunteer daisies are blooming, while other plants’ spiked leaves are filling in with green. Later in the season there will be other blooms. I can’t describe how joyful I feel to see it.

Close up of turkish rocket, purple/blue irises and white daisies
Close up a little further to the right, with white daisies, purple/blue irises, white irises, and a few tiny blue/purple spiderwort flowers just beginning to bloom. Low ground cover of thyme.

I am so grateful for these hardy perennials that require a minimum of care for this abundance of pleasure!

Splendid Strip in Progress

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Last year, in an attempt to outcompete the crabgrass on the strip between the sidewalk and the street, I transplanted two dozen hardy perennials that were given to us for the digging.  (See the prior post for more details on that, and some great “before” pictures.) This spring, most of the transplants were re-emerging with abundance!  I love hardy perennials!  Time for step two.Strip 2019 1

I went back over my plant list to see what survived: Day lilies (yellow), Allium (lavender-colored), Goat’s Beard (leafy), Siberian Iris (blue), Turkish Rocket (yellow), Blue Cornflower, Heliopsis (yellow), Anise Hyssop (purple), White Ruffled Iris, Spiderwort (blue), Lady’s Mantle (yellow-green) and Astilbe (purple-pink).  The color theme as you may have noticed is blue/violet & yellow, with a few others mixed in, (and several repeated). I still hope to add even more Siberian Irises.

But in the meantime, I filled in a couple empty spots with mystery pots (Siberian Iris and/or Day Lilies), two patches of Thyme taken from an overabundant patch in the orchard, and some Lemon Balm for the tough spot closest to the driveway, still leaving room for our trash and recycling bins.  And then, I started laying down cardboard and/or folded newspaper between all the plants, and covering that with wood chips.  I’ve just made a small start at one end, but the project can keep going bit by bit.  All that hauling of wood chips takes it out of me.

I also made a small bed to try and grow a dozen Lupine flowers from seed.  I know–that wasn’t the original plan–to go to all the effort to grow seeds.  But when I was down east last weekend, they were selling the seed packets in a little cafe, and it was an impulse buy.  Lupines are the queen of Maine wildflowers. So I soaked them overnight (well, two nights actually).  I made a little soil bed between some of the other plants: first laying down a very light double layer of newspaper, then some sifted out compost from our pile, mixed with soil.  After I planted the seeds, I used straw as a light mulch over the seeds, and filled in the edges with the wood chips.  I also put a little fence around it, to protect it from unsuspecting dogs and children who might happen to wander down the sidewalk.  I feel happy to look at it.  More later.Strip 2019 Lupine bed

 

Hell Strip to Esplanade

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Planting the roadside strip

Lisa & Myke at work, photo by Margy Dowzer

Last month, Margy and I were talking about the crabgrass that has overrun the lawn in so many places, including the strip between the sidewalk and the street. This strip seems to be referred to by many names–from “hell strip” to “esplanade.”  She is working on other strategies for other places, but I had the idea (after some internet research and an appreciation of what someone in our neighborhood had done to theirs) to see if hardy perennials might eventually outcompete the crabgrass and solve the problem. Then it truly would be shifting from a hell strip to an esplanade!

I started off by moving some turkish rocket from our backyard garden to the front. Turkish rocket is a fast growing perennial vegetable with beautiful yellow flowers. I had planted some last year, excited to try it, but this spring discovered that I didn’t really like the taste of the greens–they were too sharp and bitter for me.  But the flowers were amazing.  So I decided that I’d move it from the food forest to the strip.  Another friend came by and transplanted some yellow day lilies and blue cornflower that needed a new home!

I put out a call on our permaculture meet-up, and was gratified when another member, Sandi, responded by saying she had a lot of perennials that needed dividing and we could have them. That’s the thing–so many wonderful perennial flowers multiply of their own accord and expand out of the area they are originally planted.  So why not use that spreading habit to achieve a better use of the roadside space–for pollinators and for beauty. So I went out to her house and we dug up a whole bunch of plants.

That weekend, our friend Lisa was visiting, and she jumped in to help me with the transplanting effort.  And it was a big effort!  In the end, we had 24 new plants along the strip, mostly with blue or yellow flowers, which we tended to alternate.  Several patches of Siberian iris and several patches of allium; anise hyssop, heliopsis, calendula, white ruffled iris, goats beard, astilbe, mallow, and lady’s mantle.  The other day, I added some catnip–another plant that can spread, but hey, maybe it will outcompete the crabgrass, and we’ll also have catnip for the cats.  The whole thing doesn’t look like much yet–a bunch of scraggly transplants, only a few with any flowers right now–but we’ll see how it goes next summer.  If we can get a load of wood chips, we may put down some cardboard and wood chips between the plants.  But that can happen later too.  I will let you know how it goes.

IMG_7917

Emergence

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Daffodils OpeningI love this week of the year in Maine!  The daffodils just opened today around one of the cherry trees.  Everything is late this year, the weather has been colder than usual.  But they are also just in time, because I am going to New Mexico tomorrow, and I was worried I would miss their grand openings.

Rhubarb opening

[Rhubarb]

I have also been watching the emergence of the perennials we planted last year.

Who knew that rhubarb looked so weird as it comes out?  Like a translucent reddish egg splitting open with wrinkled up green brains inside.

Sea Kale emerging

[Sea Kale]

 

 

 

 

 

And the sea kale is purple and wrinkly too.  It will get much bigger as it grows!

The turkish rocket looks healthy and multiple.  This will be the first year we can really taste these perennial vegetables–I hope we like them!  I’ve also now planted some lettuce and carrots, and the snap peas are just breaking the surface of the soil.  Margy is going to water them while I am away for these next few days.

turkish rocket

[Turkish Rocket]