ABC Wednesday
Variegated Garden Phlox
Phlox paniculata 'Nora Leigh'
(floks) (pan-ick-yoo-LAY-tuh)
If you are here for Wordless Wednesday scroll down to the next post.
Wednesday again, I can hardly believe it! Of course I feel my timing is off since I have been waiting for it to get cold and instead we have been enjoying record temperatures and summer like warmth. I am not complaining, it is just weird. Wednesday is one of my favorite days now with ABC and Wordless, it is fun to have a lot of visitiors. I collected a few ‘L’ photographs yesterday after an initial panic of not thinking I had anything but luckily the Variegated Garden Phlox ‘Nora Leigh’ was blooming. I just planted it last week in the borders I have been renovating at the Estate. Now gardeners will recognize this plant as the one with the classic and beautiful flowers but some of the most disease prone foliage of any perennial. I swear if there is even a few molecules of Powdery Mildew in the neighborhood it will descend on the Garden Phlox and multiply at a rate that defies belief. I have added this Phlox and the white Phlox ‘David’ because they are the most disease resistant cultivars I know. ‘Nora Leigh’ usually blooms in the early summer but since these were cut back at the nursery at the right time they are giving a second wave of blooms. I would recommend this plant to brighten up the border with its green and creamy yellow foliage. The flowers are beautiful but the foliage is the real show with this plant. It seems to remain smaller than the other Garden Phlox and very slowly forms clumps. The seed does not come true, so division is the best way to propagate it.
This foliage is from the Nyssa tree at the Estate. It goes by the common names Sour Gum, Black Gum, Pepperidge Tree and Tupelo Tree and is a clear case for referring to plants by their scientific names. In this case that is Nyssa sylvatica (NY-suh sil-VAT-ee-kuh). It is a very underused landscape tree in my opinion. It has a beautiful pyramidal shape when young and great fall color. It is hard to transplant because it has a taproot so it can be difficult to buy. I bought this one in Pennsylvania and the nursery owner told me they can grow it there because of the hard pan soil. The taproot can’t penetrate the hard soil and that makes it possible to dig.
I remember that I wanted a fairly large specimen and he assured me this Nyssa was the best he had ever seen (therefore worth several hundred more dollars). I didn’t really believe him but bought it over the phone and sure enough he was right. I planted along the shore of one of the ponds and it has been beautiful ever since. It can grow in most soils but does love moist almost boggy ones the best. A bit of a garden oddball it leafs out late in the spring and sometimes gets its fall color in late August. It held on to some leaves a lot later this year and I was able to get this picture. Only about one-third of leaves remained or I would have taken a picture of the whole tree.
Here is a link that pretty much covers all the information about this tree:
hort.net/nyssa
Finally ‘N’ is for night and New Haven. This is a Metro-North Commuter Railroad diesel locomotive from the Danbury branch of the New Haven Line. The trains on the mainline are electric but some of the spurs still use diesels. I took this picture last winter when it was about 10 degrees F. outside. This engine is still in service and makes the trip to New York City’s Grand Central Terminal everyday.
Here is a scrollable box of some of the other blogs that are participating in ABC Wednesday. If you want to join let me know and I will add your link.
