I used to really enjoy the challenge of staking top-heavy plants in such a way that their crutches were as invisible as possible but this year, maybe because the ground is dry enough to make shoving bamboo poles in nearly impossible, I’m kind of over it. I’ve discovered (or maybe rediscovered) an appreciation for plants that still look good when they slouch like lazy teenagers. Some of them, like yarrow have a way of leaning on their neighbors that, from some angles (perhaps not this one – below), doesn’t look like they’re a great crushing weight. I’m also kind of in love with plants that don’t have what I think it was Anna Pavord called “weak ankles.” Agastache ‘Black Adder’ and Stachys officinalis ‘Hummelo’ might be my favorite regimental soldiers ever. And if I can get away with not staking — by cutting something back instead, I will. Any Gaura lindheimeri or nicotiana that flops in the way of the mower is getting offed. No more propping.

We missed our chance to put peony hoops around the Veronica longifolia in the North Garden so each clump splayed open and leaned like drunks all over the back and middle row. Usually we carefully deadhead that one to prolong its lovely blue spikiness but I’ve taken to whacking most of the stems back to a foot or two in hopes that it will shape up for a sturdier show later. Perhaps next year we’ll add it to the list of plants that need to be lopped in late-spring early summer. I’m all for a slightly later bloom especially if the Coreopsis x ‘Full Moon’ never looked like this again. We did remember to cut back Rudbeckia ‘Henry Eilers’ and Boltonia ‘Nally’s Lime Dot’ and although they’re both already about 5′ tall, at least it doesn’t look like they’re about to fall over. Last year I constructed a web of stakes for the great burnet (Sanguisorba tenuifolia) and this year we smartly moved it back to lean against a fence again, this time in the Cutting Garden.

So that just leaves the biggies that can’t be encouraged to branch in early summer or cut back now without tremendous sacrifice. I don’t mind if the cardoon lean a little bit but they could fall like trees in a gale. Dahlias too are so brittle that if they flop, they’re down for good, like it or lump it. Sometimes I don’t mind if they fall over because their flowers always manage to face forward but when we’ve planned for their bright shiny faces to show up in the back of a border, they’ve got to stand up straight and that means tying them up to a stake long before the wind blows. And we’re still using concrete reinforcing mesh in the Cutting Garden to hold up zinnias and amaranth and anything else that might topple under its own weight. We lay the grids down on the beds before planting, using the openings as planting guides, and then raise the grids up to provide support as the plants grow. (We really should raise them up early to let the plants grow through them but — call me crazy — I don’t like it when the garden looks like it’s wearing its foundation garments on the outside.)

How and what do you stake – and what do you do to avoid staking?

I’ve gotten a couple of questions in the last week or two about what we do in the gardens to manage pests and diseases. Although a lot of you already know the answer, I don’t seem to mind repeating it for anyone who doesn’t. The short answer is: Nothing! We do not use any kind of chemical pesticides or fungicides for the sake of our own health as well as that of our volunteers, visitors, members, camp kids, pollinators, beneficial insects, birds and other wildlife. (That said, I believe Dan has sprayed some sort of bunny deterring pepper concoction in the Vegetable Garden. Not that it has worked. Also, the trees, shrubs, and lawns are managed differently.)

The long answer is: In the gardens, we try to keep plants healthy and stress-free by providing them with fertile soil (easy because the soil here is lovely) and adequate water. We amend the soil with compost, both our own and the biosolid and yardwaste mix (top grade and certified pathogen-free) made by Bristol’s composting facility, and we mulch with shredded leaves and buckwheat hulls, both of which add organic matter and aerate the soil as they break down.

We welcome insects, and the birds that eat them. We do minimal clean-up of seedheads and stalks in the fall to leave some habitat and cover for birds and insects over the winter. We have even started construction on an insect apartment house. (They’re all the rage in Europe.) It’s made of white oak, faces south for winter warmth, and we will continue to fill it with bits and bobs that that will provide nesting sites for solitary bees, lacewings, spiders, and any other critters that might find it cozy. The section with the slots is intended as a butterfly shelter but I read recently that they don’t really use those. Looks cool though.

It’s the visitors to our Rose Garden who have the hardest time believing that we don’t spray fungicides, etc. Honestly, we don’t need to. I know I’ve said this a million times already but here it is again: along with choosing disease-resistant roses, and giving them great soil and adequate water (about an inch per week), we also fertilize them 3 times over the season (in April as they break, in May/June just before peak, and in August for their last flush) using a slow release organic granular fertilizer (Espoma Bulb-Tone); we rake out the spotty leaves twice weekly; and we hand-pick Japanese beetles. But the real reason the roses look healthy is because there are other beautifully blooming plants in that garden that draw everyone’s attention away from a few yellow or lacy leaves.

In the gardens, we live and let live. Don’t you?

When the cicadas start buzzing early in the morning we know we’re in for a scorcher. With temps in the 90′s, high humidity and ground level ozone levels that were predicted to “approach or exceed unhealthy standards”, all we can do – without falling over – is the bare minimum. It’s a good thing we’ve finished planting because all we really need to do now is water, maintain, and harvest the bounty. As for watering, Nature helped a bit yesterday with a freakish afternoon downpour that gave us at least half an inch and by the looks of the refreshed gardens, some of it actually soaked in rather than running right off. As for maintaining, I feel inclined to leave a few extra seedheads for the goldfinch and have concentrated on staking slouchers instead. (I have never noticed our pink peony poppy seedheads looking eaten before – peeled like bananas. But today I caught a glimpse of the goldfinch at work on them and also snacking on the Verbena bonariensis.)

And as for harvesting, there were lots of flowers to pick bright and early for house arrangements, and the vegetables are coming in gangbusters. It was wonderful to be joined by a skeleton crew of very local and very willing-to-be-sweaty volunteers who spent an hour picking a cart-full for the East Bay Food Pantry and then hopefully went straight home to recuperate in front of the A/C. The rest of us on staff who aren’t relaxing on vacation (I’ll follow Gail’s excellent example in a couple of weeks) will have to find inside work for the rest of the day. Check out the fruits of some of my indoor labor here - I finally published plant list pdfs! (For future reference, they are located in a clickable page on the right-hand sidebar, underneath BECOME A MEMBER.)

What are you doing to keep cool?

It’s been another hot, dry week but the gardens are as beautiful as ever. Proof is in the pictures and I just couldn’t resist doing a tiny Garden Bloggers Bloom Day preview since I always miss it when it falls on a weekend. Click on for a larger view or hover over for identification. And don’t forget to check out our Pinterest pages for a different sort of look at (almost) all of the plants in the different gardens.

Have a fabulous weekend – I look forward to seeing everyone else’s blooms on the actual day. (Thanks to Carol of May Dreams Gardens for always hosting bloom day.)

The other day friend of mine and Blithewold’s left a bag full of these delicious looking things on my desk with a note suggesting they might make a good blog post. Indeed. I’ve never seen them before and I never can resist finding out more about weird things whether they show up on my desk or not.

They are azalea leaf and flower galls caused by a fungus amongus named Exobasidium vaccinii. It’s a weather-related blight probably brought on by our warm winter and wet late-spring into summer, that turns infected leaf and flower tissue into fleshy aliens. It affects azaleas, rhododendrons and camellias but isn’t usually life-threatening. Just ugly. Treatment involves nothing more than cutting them off the shrubs as my friend did and burying them or burning them. (Leaving them on someone’s desk as a novelty is an optional middle step.) And it’s best to catch the galls before they turn dusty white with spores or into gray knobs that indicate they’ve done their business.

They are called Pinkster apples because the Pinkster (or Pinxter or Pink) azalea (Rhodendron periclymenoides) is particularly susceptible and galls on its flowers turn pinkish. And in case you thought I was kidding about them looking delicious, I was and wasn’t. Some sources (including my own pinkster apple source) say that they’re a delicacy. But I can’t find any recipes to try, only warnings about how rhodies, especially the leaves, are poisonous.

I took a quick walk around to check out Blithewold’s rhododendrons and azaleas and didn’t spot any signs but judging by the contents of the bag, it may be a problem this year for other gardeners. Have you ever spotted anything like this on your azaleas? (Do you have a recipe for them?)