Wrong Side of the Bed

I have a very small lawn area in the front of the house. Half of the front yard is lawn, the other is my cottage garden with its tastefully arranged mix of annuals, perennials, and vegetables. The annuals are those that reseed themselves such as basils, dill, Mexican zinnias, rudbeckia, snapdragons, nicotiana, cosmos, and cleome. It's heaven for a cheap gardener like me.

I provide a little pre emergent herbicide on the grass (excuse me - for us Master Gardeners that's turf) to keep the crabgrass from finding a home. This year, a few lemon basil plants thought the grass area with its pre emergent looked like greener pastures and moved out into the lawn. No crabgrass from the pre emergent, but basil found a home.

Now to be fair, this is not the first time plants have jumped out of the garden and ventured out into the lawn. But it is the first time edibles have done so. Every year, some rudbeckia and cleome need to be scolded, bad boys as they are, sowing their wild oats in my grass. Nicotiana and poppies seem to delight in popping up across pavement or in the brick sidewalk cracks. But now the basil? And not just one plant, but four decided to run away from home? They are all grounded.

You have to admit, the basil looks happy and healthy there. Yes, most of their friends remained growing in the garden bed, although most had gone to seed at this time of the year.

Please ignore the wild looking grass and clover in the lawn. I let these basils grow and purposely did not mow the grass, and the hot summer slowed the grass growth down. And, the grass just looks more wild than it really does in person. Enough excuses?

What's Your Name?

I picked up some of these plants at the Master Gardener spring plant swap last spring. Seems like eons ago. I don't recall any name on them, but they ended up being planted in the way-back -- mostly sunny, some shady area without much good soil. I am slowly building up the soil in this plot with more organic material in hopes of growing additional perennials.

During the fall (last year) they reached a height of about 3 feet (1 m) and bloomed near the end of summer. They dutifully popped back up this past spring, then towered to 6-feet tall (2 m), much higher than I was expecting.

The leaves are partially lobed, lacy, thin, somewhat palmate, a little like oversized cosmos, and nothing like sunflowers or any other helianthus I know. The blossoms are pure yellow, similar in size and appearance to double-flowered coreposis, around 1-2 inches (3-5 cm). But coreopsis does not grow this tall. Nor do coreopsis leaves look like this. Japanese kerria is similar, but this is not a shrub, nor do the leaves match. No fragrance. Dry conditions do not bother it much, and there are no signs of disease or insects. However, powdery mildew is beginning to show up.

They die back to the ground in winter. They have continued to bloom over the past month but are beginning to slow down. I previously thought the stalks were strong and sturdy, but a recent rainstorm knocked most over. They were strong and straight while growing, but once the blooming started, they could not stand up to wind and rain.

Are they in the coreopsis family? Are they a form of helianthus? They seem happy where they, so they will remain there.

For The Record:   • Clay soil with a little organic mulch   • Mostly sun but some shade   • Small amount of fertilizer   • No serious pests/disease   • Tend to fall over when fully grown