YORKTON - Okay, gardeners, pop quiz! What plant is sometimes called cobbler’s pegs or blackjack? If you guessed the bidens plant, you’re right!
Bidens was one of those plants that got saladized in our yard this spring after the hail, and not having the heart to pull out the poor struggling plant, we left it in its container, and hoped for the best. Thankfully, like so many plants this year, it proceeded to amaze us, revived, and is now blooming happily again!
Bidens belongs to the aster family, and it has over 200 cousins in the Asteraceae family. The cheery little blooms are bright yellow (although I read that they can also be orange, pink or white), and once it gets going, there are plenty of blooms. It is an annual that grows about twelve inches tall, and likes a spot in the sun, with well-drained soil. It is even a plant that can be considered drought-tolerant. We have our bidens in a container and it seems very happy there; it seems that it would make a beautiful filler plant in a larger container.
Here’s a plus: bidens doesn’t need deadheading, and if it gets too prolific, we can even trim it back and it won’t mind a bit!
This is one plant that is making it into our garden notebook for next year; it’s a tough and easy-care plant that looks great!
Another plant that showed its durability after the hail, was the angelonia. This was a first-time plant for us; we knew nothing about it except that we loved the deep purple-blue flowers that grow on tall spikes. So, time for homework!
Angelonia is another sun-lover; we can plant it in well-drained soil and a sunny location, and it will reward us with lovely flowers that look sort of like snapdragons. It’s tough, disease-resistant, and attracts bees not only because of the beautiful blue flowers, but because of the shape of the flowers. It can stand drought, heat, and…hit the “bonus” button…it doesn’t need to be dead-headed!
Plants like the angelonia and salvia are great in containers because they give a strong upright look to the collection of plants. There are many cascading plants that we love to use in containers plantings, but an interesting container always has height, and to make it even more interesting, height that comes from strong stems, or plants that provide movement, like grasses.
This is the time to take a look at your garden and containers and see what is really doing well and make a note of it for next year. We always think that we’ll remember but it is easy to forget about some plants, and then we think, oh, yeah, why didn’t we plant that? It is also easy to forget about certain combinations of plants that we might have put together by accident, but ended up looking really amazing; so, we should take note of them, too.
The Yorkton and District Horticultural Society is having in-person meetings again. Our first meeting of the season will be on Wednesday, September 21, 6:30 PM, and will be a field trip! We will be learning, on site, about the City of Yorkton composting project at the Yorkton Landfill, north of the city. Following the presentation there, we will have a recap and a short meeting at the Godfrey Dean. Visit us at www.yorktonhort.ca and keep us with the latest gardening news from the Society.
Thank you to our friends at Yorkton This Week for their great work.
Have a nice week out in your garden!
