Posts Tagged Nasturtium ‘Cup of Sun’
2014 Renee’s Garden Seeds Review
Posted by piedmontgardener in Favorite Plants, piedmont gardening on December 18, 2014
Cosmos ‘Sonata Knee High’
My apologies to my dozen or so loyal readers for my prolonged silence. A gardening-related injury sidelined me unexpectedly. I start physical therapy tomorrow, and hope to be ready for another growing season by the time it arrives.
Zinnia ‘Berry Basket’
I am overdue to summarize my experience with the free seeds Renee’s Garden provided me with as a member of the Garden Writers Association. First, I was unable to try three of the varieties I requested. The two sunflower types and a Four o’clock mix all required direct sowing. Unfortunately, my garden experienced no measurable rain for the first two months of the growing season, starting right about the time I needed to sow the seeds. By the time the rains returned, it was mid-July — not a good time to start any flower seed in the piedmont of North Carolina.
Asclepias ‘Butterfly Bright Wings’ with Spicebush Swallowtail
However, the seeds I was able to sow in my greenhouse in early March all germinated magnificently, and I was able to transplant out a number of seedlings that performed quite well for me all summer long.
Zinnia ‘Berry Basket’ mix
I didn’t try any veggie varieties from Renee’s Garden this year. Here are the flower varieties I grew.
Asclepias ‘Butterfly Bright Wings’
The yellow version of ‘Butterfly Bright Wings’
This is a non-native, tropical species of milkweed that was described as floriferous and tender, meaning winter should kill it. When I planted this, I had not read that these tropical milkweeds are actually confusing Monarch butterflies, especially in the western US, where groups migrating south are becoming confused by these flowers. Instead of resting and then flying further south, they are laying their eggs on these tropical milkweeds, thereby disrupting the life cycle pattern of the Monarchs. I don’t think this is an issue in the southeastern US, because the first freeze kills this variety to the ground.
The red version of ‘Butterfly Bright Wings’
As you can see from the photos, the seeds I planted produced some plants with pure yellow-orange flowers, and some with red-orange flowers. The red ones were especially stunning. My plants bloomed all summer until hard frost, and grew to a height of about four feet. The plants were sturdy, requiring no support to remain upright even during thunderstorms.
‘Butterfly Bright Wings’ produced abundant seeds.
They produced many seed pods, and the resulting seeds yielded a number of volunteer seedlings in the bed where I transplanted this variety. I’m assuming all were killed by the first freeze. I’ll let you know next spring if any reappear.
Marigold ‘Summer Splash’
I didn’t take a single picture of this variety that I liked enough to put in my blog. This variety produced larger plants than my favorite Queen Sophia marigold, and the branches broke and split early on. The flowers themselves were kind of a ho-hum yellow. Give me Queen Sophia any day.
Cosmos ‘Sonata Knee High’
Cosmos ‘Sonata Knee High’, white version
I tried this Cosmos variety, because it is supposed to be shorter than some of the others. It may have been slightly shorter, but mine all grew eventually to a height of about 4.5 feet — not where my knees appear. As is true for most Cosmos varieties, a spell of heat and humidity combined with hard rain turned the plants into fungal mush. But during the early drought period I mentioned previously, they were very happy.
Cosmos ‘Sonata Knee High’ mix
All three colors in the mix were lovely. As is often the case, the white flowers tended to look the worse for wear most often.
‘Sonata Knee High,’ magenta version
The pink and magenta versions stayed lovely for several days. After the fungus killed the plants, I pulled them up and left that bed empty. In September, a number of new seedlings appeared, clearly the offspring of the many spent flower heads I had snipped off to keep the flowers blooming.
Echinacea ‘Paradise Mix’
Echinacea ‘Paradise Mix’
This is the only perennial from Renee’s Garden that I tried this year. It often takes perennials a full year’s cycle to grow large enough to produce flowers. But one of the plants I grew managed to produce the lovely bloom above. This mix was advertised as producing flowers in the red-yellow-orange range, so I confess I was disappointed when the one flower I got looked very much like my native coneflowers, only slightly larger. Very late in the fall, another seedling produced a flower bud that looked to me as if it were going to be red, but a freeze killed it before it could open. However, all the seedlings I planted out grew well throughout the season, and I’m hoping for lots of variably colored flowers next year.
Dahlia ‘Dwarf Watercolors’
A double-flowered Dahlia ‘Dwarf Watercolor’
Dahlias are usually considered to be perennial flowers in my area, but the seed package from Renee’s Garden called this variety an annual. I love dahlias, but most are large and take a lot of room, plus deer love them. The description of this variety was irresistible. My sowing yielded 5 plants, 2 of which were eaten by voles early in the season. Of the three that survived, one was a lovely white with pink undertones, one was a double yellow, and the other was a single yellow.
The single-flowered yellow dahlia
All bloomed nonstop all summer, no doubt aided by my attentive snipping of spent flower heads. I also sprayed them all summer with deer repellant. I interplanted them with two other varieties from Renee’s Garden, and because these dahlias really were dwarf varieties, they were a bit overpowered by what turned out to be larger flower varieties. But that did not prevent the pollinators from finding them.
The pinkish white dahlia
After frost zapped these plants, I decided to see what their roots looked like. To my delight, all three had formed a significant number of tubers. They seemed to be in excellent condition, so I bagged them up with some dry potting soil and put them in my cool garage for the winter. I’m hoping the tubers will re-sprout for me next spring, despite their description as annuals.
Salvia ‘Coral Nymph’
A close-up of Salvia ‘Coral Nymph’
I tried this annual last year and failed. It would not germinate for me in the greenhouse. What a difference a year makes. I got abundant, vigorous seedlings this year, all of which successfully transplanted, eventually growing to large (3.5 feet), multi-branched, perpetually floriferous bee magnets. For reasons known only to my camera, I didn’t get any great pictures of that bed, but trust me, they are well worth growing.
Salvia ‘Coral Nymph’ looked great all summer beside my front walk.
Snapdragon ‘Butterfly Chantilly’
In bright sun, these snapdragons faded into the background.
This snapdragon mixed-color mix germinated well, and the flowers bloomed all summer long. However, the mix did not produce colors I liked. They were mostly muted and muddy. One pure lemon yellow one was the exception. I won’t try these again.
My favorite color of the snapdragon mix, with a young Salvia ‘Coral Nymph’
Zinnia ‘Berry Basket’
Zinnia ‘Berry Basket’ mix
This zinnia mix did not grow as large as the variety I tried last year. Instead of attaining heights of nearly eight feet, this variety stopped around the five-foot mark, which was fine with me. Even so, the stems eventually began to fall over and split from the weight of side branches laden with flower buds.
A Silver-spotted Skipper enjoying a Berry Basket Zinnia
Despite their tendency to fall over and their eventual disfiguration by humidity-enhanced fungal diseases, these flowers kept producing until hard frost. Every bloom attracted abundant pollinators, from bumblebees to butterflies.
Berry Basket Zinnia
I loved the mix of rich colors and forms in this variety. They made for fabulous instant, long-lasting bouquets of cut flowers. I would happily grow this mix again, but next time I’ll space them farther apart, and I’ll introduce a support system early on, before they start collapsing under their own weight.
Nasturtiums
Nasturtium ‘Cup of Sun’
I grew three varieties this year. This is my third year growing ‘Cup of Sun’. I just love it. It’s a clumper, not a climber, and in my garden, it remains politely in its place until late summer. For some reason, at that point in the growing season, it tends to go a little nuts, overgrowing anything in its path. Fortunately, by that time, most of the beds are done for the season.
‘Cup of Sun’ with ‘Empress of India’
I interplanted ‘Cup of Sun’ with a new variety for me — another clumper called ‘Empress of India’. It was not nearly as vigorous as ‘Cup of Sun’, but it was quite lovely, producing leaves that were more blue-green than ‘Cup of Sun’.
‘Cup of Sun’ and ‘Empress of India’
The climbing variety I interplanted with my pole beans this year was called ‘Moonlight’. It produced a pale yellow flower that was not nearly as vigorous or visually effective as the ‘Spitfire’ variety I had grown before. If I grow a climber again, I’ll probably go back to ‘Spitfire’.
Nasturtium ‘Moonlight’ was OK but not memorable.
I direct-sowed all the nasturtiums when I planted my veggies, which is why they managed to become established before the early drought set in.
By the time the first hard freeze killed the nasturtiums, I was secretly relieved. They were mounding over paths and beds in all directions — gorgeous — but reminding me just a little too much of that evil southern invader, kudzu.
In summary, my test varieties this year were mostly very successful. I’d grow most of them again.
And I’m looking forward to what Renee’s Garden will be offering for next year’s growing season. Thanks, again, Renee’s Garden, for giving me the opportunity to test your seeds in my garden.
Renee’s Garden Seeds Review: Flowers
Posted by piedmontgardener in Favorite Plants, piedmont gardening on November 15, 2013
A Raggedy Anne mix zinnia and admirer
It was a mixed-results year for my Renee’s Garden flower seed trials. Top winners included the two nasturtium varieties I tried last year — Spitfire and Cup of Sun. They were so gorgeous last year that I just had to have them back again, and they did not disappoint. In fact, they exceeded all the expectations I had based on last year’s results. More on that in a moment.
Fabulous!
The other big winner this year was a zinnia: Raggedy Anne. These are old-fashioned zinnias that produce long stems, making them ideal for cutting to use in indoor arrangements. I’ve had trouble with such zinnias in the past. Usually the heat and humidity of typical North Carolina Piedmont summers are too much for them. They bloom for a bit in early June, then succumb to fungal diseases and drought. Not this year.
My zinnia patch on July 10.
Two factors likely played pivotal roles. First, the weather this past summer in my region was atypical. We never hit 100 degrees, nor the high 90s, even during the dog days of the season, and we never went into drought. I haven’t had a summer growing season without drought in over 15 years. I had truly forgotten what adequate rainfall can do for a garden — and, alas, the weeds — but that’s another story.
A more typical zinnia form.
The other likely contributor to the success of the zinnias was the compost mix Wonder Spouse and I added to the vegetable/flower beds in the spring. This stuff was truly black gold; all the plants reveled in the nutritional bounty of this supplement.
All were lovely.
How happy were the zinnias? I started one batch early in my greenhouse, transplanting them out in late April. They were blooming by mid-May, and they didn’t stop until our first freeze killed them in mid-October. And they eventually grew as tall as the sunflowers I tried this year — well over 7 feet high. These were sturdy-stemmed plants that lifted abundant, constantly produced large zinnia flowers to the sky without any support from me. I actually had to stand on a stool to cut the final flowers before the cold got them. They were amazing.
Too gorgeous for words!
So pleased was I with the transplanted bunch of Raggedy Annes that I direct-sowed the remaining seeds in the package. This is usually highly risky, but the abundant rainfall ensured nearly 100% germination. Then I had two tall patches of rainbow-colored flowers, most 3-4 inches across, in shades of cream, orange, yellow, and pink. Forms varied from more cactus-type flowers to what I think of as traditional zinnia shapes.
They were still growing strong when this shot was taken on August 22.
They made wonderful cut flowers too, lasting at least a week indoors. I was able to create several lovely zinnia-based arrangements that I presented as hostess gifts at various events over the season. I’ll probably try this variety again, just to see what kind of results I get during a more typical growing season. Although, maybe, if I’m very lucky, adequate rainfall will become typical of my summer weather again. How great would that be?
As for the nasturtiums, the rain and compost gave Spitfire the enthusiasm of that notorious southern invader, kudzu. Seriously, after the tomatoes and beans surrendered to fungal diseases in August, Spitfire vines took over those trellises. Paths were swallowed, orange, subtly fragrant blossoms dangled in abundance from rounded leaves the size of saucers. I was actually relieved when the freeze turned them into mush, fearing I had unleashed a monster.
Nasturtium ‘Spitfire’ was almost terrifyingly productive.
Last year, the beautiful nasturtium, ‘Cup of Sun’, surrendered to the drought by early August. This year, it continued to flourish until the freeze. Cup of Sun isn’t a climber, so it remained a much more polite plant, confining itself to the beds where it was planted. I love the subtle variations in color in this variety.
Nasturtium ‘Cup of Sun’
Having proved their worthiness across two vastly different growing seasons, I suspect these nasturtiums will remain a part of my vegetable garden for the indefinite future. I may not even need to plant them next year. I noticed seed pods all over the garden. I direct-sowed both nasturtium varieties when my soil had warmed enough to plant the bean seeds. They took it from there without any further aid from me.
Nasturtium ‘Cup of Sun’. Both varieties make lovely little cut flower arrangements, preferably in smaller rooms, where their subtle fragrance can be appreciated.
Because I like variety, I decided to try a sunflower seed mix from Renee’s Garden this year. I chose Sunflower ‘Royal Flush Bi-Color.’ Direct-sowed seeds yielded 100% germination in my moist compost-enriched garden. Plants shot up straight and tall, topping out at about 6 feet.
Sunflower ‘Royal Flush Bi-Color’
Flower size was moderate — large enough to make an impact, but not so large as to be too heavy to stand upright without support. Most, but not all, of the flowers were bi-colors, producing two-tone blossoms in a range of yellows, oranges, and reds.
Sunflower ‘Royal Flush Bi-Color’
As always, the sunflowers were reliable pollinator magnets. Several bees always lingered on them, and during the height of the swallowtail butterfly population explosion, those beauties competed with the bees for spots on the sunflowers.
A more obviously bi-colored Sunflower ‘Royal Flush Bi-Color’
These blossoms are supposed to be good for cutting too, but I never do it. I never seem to have that many, and unlike the zinnias, these plants die after the first flush of flowers. Still, I love their lofty enthusiasm, and most summers, they are the tallest flowers in the garden.
I enjoyed the variability of this sunflower mix.
I might try this variety again, but Renee’s Garden always offers so many tempting sunflower varieties that I might feel obliged to try yet another one.
The other Renee’s Garden flower varieties I tried were not as successful. Because they were so resiliently lovely despite the drought and heat of last year, I tried Cosmos ‘Little Ladybirds’ again. They did not like the abundant rains of this past season, remaining small, blooming unenthusiastically, and eventually expiring from a fungal disease.
I tried sowing Salvia ‘Coral Nymph’ and Monarda ‘Butterfly Bergamot’ in the greenhouse. I do this successfully with many flower varieties, herbs, etc. However, despite quick germination, I could not persuade the salvia to thrive. All the seedlings eventually died of fungus problems. I had a few seeds left, and decided to direct-sow them in the garden. One germinated and managed to bloom. The flowers were lovely, the plant didn’t seem to be strong enough to stand up without support. I never managed to get a good photo of it before it expired.
The monarda variety struggled in the greenhouse, but I managed to raise about six plants to transplanting size. Monardas are notoriously susceptible to fungal diseases in my region, so I was not surprised with the problems I had with these seedlings. However, once they settled into the compost-rich garden, the plants grew tall, flowering beautifully.
Monarda ‘Butterfly Bergamot’
As readers of this blog know, I love purple flowers, so I was thrilled with these beauties. Alas, after three days of blooming, we got another rain. The plants almost melted before my eyes, becoming piles of green mush, victims of the rampant fungal diseases that flourished during the rain-soaked summer.
Talk about fleeting beauty! I’d have missed them entirely if I’d been on vacation that week.
Finally, I’ve always been an admirer of Cornflowers. I think my appreciation began with the crayon named for this flower’s color in the big boxes of crayons that I loved during childhood. When I saw Renee’s Garden was offering Cornflower ‘Blue Boy,’ I had to try it. I was disappointed. In their defense, I suspect the rain and compost were at least partly responsible for the rampant growth of this variety. Plants grew three feet tall before they began to produce flowers.
Cornflower ‘Blue Boy’
Flower size was small, relative to the size of the giant green plants, nearly disappearing. The plants all flopped over, reducing the impact of the flowers further. Perhaps a drier year would produce different results, but I am disinclined to find out.
Wonder Spouse’s hand provides scale, demonstrating the small size of the flowers.
This concludes my two-part review of the Renee’s Garden seeds I tried this year. I want to thank this fine establishment for offering members of the Garden Writers Association like me the opportunity to try their products for free. Without this chance, I would never have discovered the subtle beauty of a planting of Nasturtium ‘Cup of Sun,’ or the relentless productivity of Zinnia ‘Raggedy Anne.’ Thanks, Renee’s Garden. I hope you’ll give me the chance to try a few new varieties next growing season.
Renee’s Garden Flowers in my Piedmont Garden: Part 2
Posted by piedmontgardener in Favorite Plants, piedmont gardening on July 25, 2012
Nasturtium ‘Spitfire’
If you have not had an opportunity to enjoy the delightful rose-like fragrance of nasturtium flowers, I encourage you to do so as soon as possible. They smell just like old-fashioned roses to my nose — without all the fuss of pruning, thorns, and battling diseases and insects. And the colors are rose-lovely too — as long as you like warmer oranges, reds, and golds.
I continue to adore the two nasturtium varieties I grew from seeds from Renee’s Garden. As I explained in my last entry, this seed company offered me the chance to try out a few seeds as a benefit of my membership in the Garden Writers Association. I will gladly use my own money to grow these nasturtiums again.
The gorgeous, fragrant climbing nasturtium above is Spitfire. I interplanted it with my Fortex pole beans, and they climbed their way to the top of the trellis almost as quickly as the beans. As I had hoped, they offer pops of color to what would otherwise be a monotonous wall of green beans. The nectar that delights my nose with its perfume must also be very tasty, because the Ruby-Throated Hummingbirds defend this trellis as enthusiastically as the feeder near my front door. I am routinely scolded for intruding when I harvest beans in the morning.
Spitfire has continued to bloom nonstop despite our record string of 100+-degree days and moderate drought. Of course, they have benefitted from the bit of extra water I’ve been giving the pole beans, since they grow intermingled with them. When temperatures exceeded 100 degrees for two weeks, some of the tender leaves of Spitfire were damaged, but because the vines continue to produce new growth, the setback was temporary.
I am equally enthusiastic about the mounding nasturtium variety I acquired from Renee’s Garden. ‘Cup of Sun’ has produced a gorgeous mix of deeply fragrant flowers in sunny shades of gold tinged with varying amounts of orange, as you can see from the close-up at the top of my last blog entry. Before the heat wave, their mounds of constantly blooming flowers floating above the leaves were quite eye-catching. Because I was unable to spare much well water for them, they suffered during the heat wave and persistent drought, but the recent slight moderation in temperature and the addition of a bit of rain has them rapidly on the mend. Here’s what they looked like in June before the heat heat:
Nasturtium ‘Cup of Sun’ creates flowing mounds of loveliness.
As gourmet salad lovers know, the flowers make beautiful, peppery additions to salads, but I confess we haven’t taken advantage of this fact. They are just too pretty to eat. I direct-sowed the Spitfires, which germinated a day or two behind the beans. I sowed Cup of Sun seeds in my greenhouse and transplanted the happy plants after I got the veggies settled in.
Cosmos ‘Dancing Petticoats’
I’ve also enjoyed the two varieties of Cosmos that I tried. A speciality mix of several colors and forms called ‘Dancing Petticoats’ is still producing abundant flowers in shades of magenta, pink, and white. The plants surrounding a shallow tray of water in my garden have been healthier than the ones growing in another bed, because they receive more water. By dead-heading spent blooms, I have been rewarded with a constant parade of new, large, colorful Cosmos beauties. The down side to larger Cosmos for me is always their floppiness. I started with sturdy transplants grown from seed in my greenhouse, but as soon as they settled in their beds, they shot up stems too spindly to support their weight without staking. As they’ve grown, I’ve just let them flop and drape as they please, as you can see here:
The weight of the large flowers of ‘Dancing Petticoats’ makes them tend to droop over time, but they still look lovely.
The flowers attract a constant parade of bumblebees and solitary bees. When we finally got a prolonged, heavy rain last weekend (hallelujah!), the Cosmos plants became quite bedraggled, as you can see here:
Cosmos ‘Dancing Petticoats’ after a hard rain
After they dried a bit, the stems were able to lift the flowers off the ground again — mostly. The flowers of this variety look great for several days, which makes them useful for short-term flower arrangements indoors.
I also grew Cosmos ‘Little Ladybirds’ — a mix of warm orange, yellow, and gold flowers growing on sturdy plants that topped out at about 1.5 feet. They are spectacularly floriferous, as you can see here:
Cosmos ‘Little Ladybirds’ lighten any spot they occupy.
As much as I like this variety, I feel obliged to warn you that the flowers are prone to petal shatter — a condition characterized by the rapid dropping of petals not long after the flowers fully open. I haven’t seen quite such a severe case before. The petals of Little Ladybirds start falling less than 6-8 hours after the flowers open. I have ensured a constant parade of color by meticulously dead-heading the spent flowers every single day. Because they are growing in my vegetable garden, I’m there anyway to harvest veggies, and my patch of these flowers is not large. But if you are unwilling to do this, your plants will likely not be as persistently floriferous as mine have been. Even though the plants are much shorter than ‘Dancing Petticoats,’ the rain beat them down severely too, as you can see here:
Their shorter stature helped ‘Little Ladybirds’ recover from the heavy rain within 24 hours.
The Renee’s Garden catalog describes Little Ladybirds flowers as excellent butterfly attractors. This has not been the case for me. However, the bumblebees and solitary bees work these flowers from dawn to dusk.
The last annual I tried from Renee’s Garden was also marketed as a butterfly magnet, and because I’ve grown this variety before, I knew that Monarch butterflies and swallowtails would be frequent visitors. Torch Tithonia, also called Mexican Sunflower, produces large, bushy plants with velvety leaves and large, bright orange flowers that persist for most of a week in my garden, despite the heat and drought. I love them as cut flowers for that reason, although I hate to deprive the butterflies of one of their favorite flowers.
Torch Tithonia
Finally, a quick word about the one perennial variety I tried: Rudbeckia ‘Cappuccino.’ I love Rudbeckias. They persist well in my landscape despite total neglect, they multiply without any help from me, they flourish in hot, dry sunny spots after they are established, pollinators from butterflies to every species of local bee visit them constantly, and goldfinches consider their seeds haute cuisine.
So when I read the description in the Renee’s Garden catalog for Cappuccino, I knew I had to try it. I sowed the seeds early in my greenhouse, where germination was a tad low — maybe 60%. I ended up with about a dozen plants to trial in my garden. I transplanted these later than I would have liked. It took me a while to make room for them, and veggies are always top priority during spring planting season. After that, they were barely watered, never mulched, and subjected to record heat and moderate drought.
Despite all that abuse, one plant managed to produce two flowers. Although these flowers were not perfect (they were chewed on by something), I’ve seen enough to persuade me that these will be lovely additions in future growing seasons. I expect them to be as persistent as other Rudbeckias I grow, so I’m looking forward to the rich, warm shades of their flowers contrasting with the standard solid golds of my current forms. Here are the two flowers that showed me the potential of this variety:
Rudbeckia ‘Cappuccino’: Next year, I expect great things from what should then be well-established plants.
As you can see from the photo, the bees have already approved this new addition to my garden.
Of the varieties I’ve described in this entry, I will definitely grow the nasturtiums, tithonia, and rudbeckia in future gardens. I will always grow a cosmos variety or two, because I love the forms and colors of these flowers. But I may try different varieties in the hopes of finding one with stronger stems and shatter-resistant petals.
I also acquired Moonflower seeds from Renee’s Garden. When this annual vine begins blooming, I’ll show you why I always enjoy this old-timey flower in my garden.
Renee’s Garden Flowers in a Southeastern Piedmont Garden: Part 1
Posted by piedmontgardener in piedmont gardening on July 22, 2012
Nasturtium ‘Cup of Sun’
As a member of the Garden Writers Association, various purveyors of garden-related products sometimes offer me samples of their products in the hopes that I will write about them. Last winter when the folks at Renee’s Garden offered me a number of free seed packets, I couldn’t resist.
I had already ordered my vegetable seeds, and my few experiences with an occasional veggie packet from this firm had not been ideal. I assumed that because Renee’s Garden is based out of California, their veggie seeds were probably not ideally adapted to the heat and humidity of Piedmont summers.
I don’t usually buy many annual flower seeds for budgetary reasons, but since these were free, I settled on 10 flower varieties from Renee’s Garden to trial in my garden. This company offers many heirloom seeds, so I thought I’d try some of those, and some that the catalog promised would attract butterflies. I’ll write a second blog entry soon to document the flowers I don’t describe here.
I planted nine annual flower varieties:
- Fragrant Moonflower — a vine that produces fragrant white morning-glory-type flowers that bloom at night.
- ‘Chocolate Cherry’ — an ornamental sunflower with “rich chocolate-burgundy ray petals that surround dark chocolate center disks”.
- ‘Sun Samba’ — a colorful mix of sunflowers ideal for creating beautiful bouquets.
- ‘Cup of Sun’ — a mounding nasturtium producing sunshine-colored flowers.
- ‘Spitfire’ — a climbing nasturtium with orange-red flowers attractive to hummingbirds.
- ‘Persian Carpet’ — a border zinnia mix of warm colors purported to attract butterflies.
- ‘Torch’ — a tithonia variety purported to draw butterflies, especially Monarchs.
- ‘Dancing Petticoats’ — a speciality mix of cosmos in shades of white, pink, and magenta.
- ‘Little Ladybirds’ — a smaller cosmos mix of sunshine colors purported to attract butterflies.
I also couldn’t resist one perennial offering: ‘Capuccino’ Rudbeckia — a Fleuroselect award winner in Europe that produces bicolor flowers in rich shades of red and yellow that is heat- and drought-tolerant and attractive to butterflies.
I direct-sowed the sunflowers and the moonflowers in my garden. The moonflowers got a late start, because it took me some time to prepare a place for them near a fence. They germinated well and are growing vigorously. I’ll update you on them with pictures when they bloom.
The sunflowers germinated with great enthusiasm. Despite record heat and prolonged moderate drought, they continue to produce abundant flowers that the local bees can’t get enough of. The seed packets for these flowers suggest they make great bouquets, but I think I’d have a bee riot on my hands if I tried to cut them to bring inside.
Here’s a shot of a Chocolate Cherry Sunflower when they first started blooming:
Sunflower ‘Chocolate Cherry’
Note the lovely dark leaf veins that contrast beautifully with the green leaves. As the season has progressed, the petals are looking more cherry than chocolate. Here’s a shot of one I took this morning:
Pollinators adore them.
The ‘Sun Samba’ mix has been blooming for almost two months now. Some are just blooming for the first time this week, mostly because they decided to pretend they were trees, devoting much time to shooting skyward. The seed packet for this variety says they’ll reach 5-7 feet, and that has mostly been true, but at least two of them are approaching ten feet. As proof, I offer you this photo taken today. Wonder Spouse is standing right next to the base of this sunflower.
Wonder Spouse is 5’11”. This Sun Samba? You decide.
The Sun Sambas display quite a lovely range of colors. Here’s a sample:
A pure yellow Sun Samba
Note the bumblebee coming in for a landing on the right side of this photo.
They’re just so gosh-darned bright and sunny, aren’t they?
Flower color combinations vary even on the same plant.
And to give you a bit of context, here’s a shot of most of the double row of Sun Sambas. Note the giants towering among the mix.
The seed packet for zinnia ‘Persian Carpet’ says this mix attracts butterflies. Butterflies visit my garden often, but I’ve never seen one on these zinnias. The bees, on the other hand, seem to like these bright flowers very much. The packet claims these flowers mature to a height of 1-1.5 feet; however, my zinnias are leggy and about three feet tall. I had to stake them to prevent them from flopping over.
The flowers of Persian Carpet zinnias remind me of marigolds; they are in the same range of colors. However, the zinnias don’t have the marigolds’ spicy fragrance. The big win with this variety is how long individual flowers last — weeks! Seriously, they stay lovely for weeks. I’ve never seen a flower last so long. And they are very pretty. See what I mean:
Zinnia ‘Persian Carpet’
My flowers don’t vary as much in color or pattern as the image on the seed packet. I’m not sure I’d grow these again, given their awkward growth pattern and unpopularity with my butterflies. But they have laughed at the heat and drought, and that’s no small feat in my garden.
This concludes Part 1 of my review. I’ll tell you all about the nasturtiums, cosmos varieties, tithonia, and rudbeckia soon.
Piedmont Gardener 