Hot and Dry

he spring rains are past, and the later rains have failed to come. I haven’t watered the front yard border as I should have, leaving the floral show a bit puny here lately. I decided to focus in on a couple of drought-hearty troopers this week.

Garden phlox, or tall phlox has been in home flower borders since before there were picket fences around them. I wonder why they are such an old standard, since they are quite prone to powdery mildew. Since they are two-foot-ish in stature, they fit nicely toward the back of a flower border. If that happens to be just in front of a fence, wall, or shrubbery, then you can bet they won’t be happy. We have only one little clump in the corner of our yard, up against a wire fence with nothing else around, and they seem to do just fine. I believe the trick to preventing powdery mildew on any plant material is to provide plenty of ventilation all around it. Garden phlox thrive in full sun, but ours is positioned just under a Chittamwood tree where it gets light shade most of the day. There are some varieties bred specifically for powdery mildew resistance, but I don’t think this is one. I do not even recall where I got this start, but I bet it was given to me by a friend or relative.

Liatris is commonly called Blazing Star, or Gayfeather. There are about fourty species in this genus, so nailing this one down is going to be guess work. We grew ours from seed quite a few years ago, and I guess I could dig into my books and records and find the species name. You probably don’t care anyway, so it doesn’t matter, and isn’t worth the bother. I think it is L. spicata, but don’t hold me to that. This isn’t a real good specimen shot, but there it is.

The interesting feature concerning all in this genus is that, contrary to the nature of most other spiked flowers, the individual blossoms of a Liatris spike open from top to bottom.

Have a safe 4th-of-July weekend. If you don’t hand crank it this week end, it isn’t real ice cream. Remember to be thankful for your freedom, and I hope to see you in the house of the Lord on Sunday.