faulker042

I am frequently asked for the house paint colors! Although I try to answer questions sent to me by email, I have a backlog lately due to other distractions. Here are a few recent questions with the answers. What is the exterior paint color used on your house?  I still receive this question quite often due to my past participation on the GardenWeb forums. The sage-gray body color with off-white trim is a custom mix and I posted the formula here: House Paint Colors . A reader who saw the story about my deer resistant garden in the July 2010 issue of Southern Living Magazine even wanted to know the house plan ! While the outside looks similar to the plan, I completely redesigned the interior of our house so that it bears little resemblance to the original plan. Do deer eat zinnias?  The deer tend to leave my zinnias alone until August, when food is scarce. Once they have little food, they will eat the zinnias. I grow Benary's Giant variety. The rabbits, on the other hand, will ta...

If this is the weather pattern of the future, then I need to rethink my garden. It was 96°F  yesterday and will be 95 today. 2010 has set a record of ninety days with temperatures over 90°F. There has been virtually no rain in September (0.13 inches of rainfall). Between the heat and drought, it is looking grim. Worse than grim, my garden looks downright bad. I cannot water it enough to keep it going. Rather than expand the garden this year or next, I think I will have to group the survivors together and make it less garden to maintain. The drought has brought out the rabbits and the deer, foraging for food wherever they can find it. The rabbits are doing more damage as they cut down 4-foot high zinnias like little lumberjacks. I see blooms going down, and I find rabbits munching! The rabbits are even after the leaves on some salvias, such as nemorosa and guaranitica varieties. The deer are eating the swamp sunflower, but I knew they would based upon past years. They left the zinni...

Won By Her Wits "Charm" American Greyhound February 3, 1999 - September 22, 2010 Charm and Richard September 2009 ...during the days that we almost lost her. She made it another full year. She didn't give up! Charm made her own racetrack in our meadow Charm and Chris-- it turned out to be a farewell for them. August 2010 Charm will always be my "gardening greyhound" Sadly, we had to say goodbye to our sweet Charm today. She bravely fought four years of kidney disease and we kept her going as long as we could with home-cooked meals, medication and lots of love. However, medication could not provide relief from the unbearable pain of bone cancer that she suffered the last few weeks.  Charm was a retired racing greyhound named  Won By Her Wits . We adopted her from Project Racing Home in Randleman, North Carolina in 2003. Carrboro Plaza Veterinary Clinic , especially Dr. Mary Snyder, provided her with the very best care.  We cannot say enough good things about Cha...

Sedum 'Green Expectations' grown up. This was just a tip off the old plant in 2009. Buy one. Make more. Sedum keeps on giving and giving. In June 2009, I wrote about pinching back the tips of tall sedum to make more plants while keeping the mother plant sturdy and shaped. Those tiny tips are now mature and blooming for early autumn. A tip taken from last year's tip! Of the three sedum varieties that I pinched back, 'Green Expectations' has performed the best in one year. So well, that I have also pinched the tips of the new plants this year! I actually use my pruners to make a clean cut, remove the bottom leaves and just stick the cuttings straight into garden soil. The sedum performs best in drier soil and full sun, though they do well with afternoon shade. Choose companions that also work in the same conditions. I grow sedum with salvia, perennial heliotrope, lavender, four o'clocks, agastache and purple heart. The good news is that the rabbits leave the tall...

Lady Banks rose blooms yellow in spring. April 2010 A vine-covered cottage is such a romantic notion. Cedar shakes. A stone chimney. A garden gate canopy of blooms. I love the look, but is it practical? All went well for four years. In the fifth year, the Lady Banksia Rose bush (a branching, not climbing rose) had shot up over thirty feet to the top of the gable and was trying to take over the upstairs window and chimney. One would think a house safe from a non-climbing bush. Not so. The branches were undermining the cedar shakes on the house! It had to go. The yellow blooms lasted only a few weeks each spring. Not much reward for the flowers, but I like the greenery branching over the top of the gable gate trellis. My husband and I worked for a few hours to remove the bush. He started upstairs, reaching out the window to try to pull and cut branches that were under the eaves and latched onto the stone chimney. Our ladder doesn't reach those towering heights and a few remnants are ...

Variegated obedient plant (physotegia virginiana) Obedient plant is one of those perennials that has a reputation for spreading aggressively in a garden. I wish! For three years, I have waited and waited for variegated obedient plant ( physotegia virginiana ) to create a mass planting. I have three blooms on one clump and one bloom on another clump; no blooms on a third clump. The variegated foliage is much appreciated in the deer resistant garden, though the deer will definitely eat this plant if they are hungry enough.  At least they allowed me the opportunity to see the beautiful blooms this year, which only makes me want more obedient plant! According to my research, obedient plant can be grown in zones 2-9, which makes it sound very hardy. The seeds on this variegated variety are sterile, so it does not self-sow. Last fall, I moved the plants to the part shade of butterfly bushes. That seems to have helped with the blooms, but it probably does well in full sun in cooler z...