LTE – Pat Eggert – 10-20-2021
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Who knew that parsley was such a nice flowerbed plant? Not me, and not my gardening partners in the Colfax Women’s Club. We actually decided on the parsley, and the sage, rosemary and thyme – when Mary Packer and I wandered down the aisle of herb plants at Klinger’s nursery last April. We chose that old Simon and Garfunkel album title, which featured the song Scarborough Fair, as our Colfax flower bed theme for the year.
After a day of digging up some of the heavy soil in the beds and replacing it with organic material, we settled down to wait for Memorial Day and the certainty that we would not have another frost. When we planted, the herbs in the North Bed were joined by zinnias, marigolds, pansies, snapdragons and a couple of Thai hot pepper plants just for fun. The orange Fireball Marigolds and the Double Zinnias Dreamland Mix were a pleasant surprise, as they grew to be such big colorful and healthy blossoms. Most of the compliments we got were prompted by those bigheaded zinnias.
But for me, the intensity of the green of the parsley plants – and the appearance of many giant swallowtail caterpillars on those plants – was an unexpected bonus. In fact, as I made bean soup last week, with a recipe that called for parsley, I was quite tempted to cut a few stems from the flowerbeds, but I resisted. The caterpillars probably needed them more than I did.
The south bed was dominated by Tropical White Sunpatiens, and the three plants grew like gangbusters. Another plant, Pericallis Senatti, was supposed to grow big and bushy, but the three plants we bought just sat there and slowly died. You never can tell just which plants will be showy and vigorous, and which will disappear. Actually, we got at least three volunteer flowering tobacco plants seeded from previous years that filled in that bed nicely with maroon, yellow and white flowers.
Now that frost seems pretty close, and the flowering season is almost over, we will clean up the flowerbeds and thank all the volunteer watering and planting crews, and the workers who built the new flower beds, and the village workers who helped when we needed them. It’s time for planning the next season’s theme. Any ideas?
Pat Eggert