I scattered a bunch of crimson clover seed a while ago as a nitrogen-fixing ground cover, but I wasn’t quite prepared for how pretty the flowers are.
Crimson Clover
Category: Plants
Allium Starbursts
The giant alliums have put up their starbursts of flowers in our sidewalk treebeds — mostly purple, plus this one even-larger white specimen. These bulbs were planted a few years ago and seem quite happy to come back every spring.
Pollinator-Friendly Seeds
Thanks to our neighbor Anne who donated a pint of seeds harvested in her own garden last season from pollinator-friendly flowering plants: yarrow, coreopsis, echinacea, joe pye weed, black eyed susan, and sage.
These have been scattered into planters and tree beds throughout the garden and I expect to see some of them later this summer, with others remaining dormant and cropping up in subsequent years.
Thanks again, Anne!
Violets in Bloom
Our violets are not shrinking — in fact, they’ve fully established themselves in one corner of our sidewalk treebeds and come back in full force every year — although admittedly you do have to slow down and look in order to notice their blooms.
Daffodils on Broadway
The daffodils I planted in the giant barrel on the corner of 105th Street have made a small but decent showing this spring.
After cleaning out some litter, I spent a few minutes digging in a couple dozen sunflower seeds in the open spaces in hopes of having another big display later in the summer.
Spring Bulbs in Bloom
With our weather pattern shifting from daytime high temperatures in the 40s a few weeks ago to now 50s and even 60s, the perennials in our sidewalk garden have woken up and kicked into gear. The crocuses were the first to bloom, followed a week or so later by the daffodils and now hyacinths.
American Asters
This six-foot-tall mini-thicket of late-blooming asters is providing another lovely spot of color in our garden despite the recent cold snap — I almost cut them back in November and I’m so glad I waited!
I don’t know which variety of asters this is, but I have my fingers crossed that it’s one of the rhizomatous perennial species and will return again next year.
Fall Mums
Just as all of the other plants in our sidewalk garden are starting to die back, the mums are flowering.
Grandpa Ott
My favorite variety of morning glories continues to be the Bavarian “Grandpa Ott” with its deep purple blooms.
They do a great job of climbing the fence — or bamboo rods, or tall plants, or anything else they can find for support — and although their flowers don’t stay open for long, there are so many of them that they provide a constant stream of color for months throughout the late summer and into the fall.
Sweet Potato Vines
Someone left a sprouted sweet potato lying on the dirt in one of the garden planters this spring, so I dug it in just to the level of the surface and it’s been very happy, with four vines coming off of it, each six feet long and happily tangled in the fence trellis.
I’ll need to do some research to know how to over-winter it — do I just leave it in place and assume it will die back and resprout in the spring?
