What does “overgrown” even mean when discussing a purposely cultivated outdoor space? I understand when things are aggressive, but that’s different. My friend Kathy calls this “plants that like to romp.”
I like romping. I may also like overgrown.
Gardeners in my local Facebook group are now voicing concerns that their gardens are “overgrown.” Are the plants too tall? Too many leaves or flowers? Are they attacking the house?
It all sounds like too much success to me.
But I’m not always a thorough and purposeful gardener. I water and weed along to get along, doing just enough to keep everything green and free of too many illicit incursions by the rompers. That could change, but for now I am simply too busy to spend an inordinate amount of time grooming the garden.
And I weed with a selective eye. “What the eye doesn’t see, the heart doesn’t grieve over,” or, if you prefer, “Out of sight, out of mind.”
Earlier in the season, I pulled only the intruders I could see near the front of the beds. I thought I got a lot, but I now see Boltonia asteroides (top) coming up and blooming where it had been hidden by other big perennials or roses. I planted this at one time – years ago – and it seemingly disappeared, but now it seems to have resurrected and strategically spread itself. It couldn’t be more welcome. I’ve deadheaded most of what used to be flowering around it, but now these bright clusters are perking up the whole space, especially combined with white hardy hibiscus, goldenrod and dark purple buddleia, a few of the things still blooming.
And then the Vernonia. Most would call this overgrown and I have to admit it is bursting out of the smallish spot it’s in. In fact, it brushes my car – though not harmfully – every time I pull in and out of the garage. But I wouldn’t cut one strand of it.
My neighbors are unknowingly lending a hand. Determined vegetable growers, they love the cucurbit family and a runaway bitter melon has made its way through the trellis that separates two corners of our adjacent properties. At first I wondered if I had somehow planted a yellow clematis there, but no.
I’m not telling them and hope I get a fruit. Though I think frost will get to it first, Buffalo not being in Southeast Asia. Still, the flowers are pretty.
Zinnias and salvia are essential for September.
Some of these late season bounty is due to inattentive gardening, some of it to purposeful gardening. None of will ever be called overgrown.
Inattentive gardening is my kind of gardening and, as you imply, it has its own rewards.
This has been the most “let the garden do its thing” summer I have ever had. Due to pain in May, surgery in June and surgery in August, tending to the garden has been shoved pretty far down my to-do list. It is messy to me, but the neighbors still stop and say they love it, so I guess its not too bad.
Worse drought in my years of gardening. Nothing romping. Not even weeds.
Same here, in southeast Pennsylvania. I wonder how widespread the problem is.
One person’s overgrown is another’s “soften the edges.” Most of the time, I vote for softening up and letting plants do what they pretty much want to do. However, as we are about to sell the house we’ve been in since 2007, I’ve started reining in the rambunctious ones and thinning out some of the perniciously intermingled. Your fall garden seems a treat-keep it exactly as you like it!
I let them run wild this late in the season. Asters spring up from nowhere, the grasses spill over the walkways, and seedheads are left up for the birds. The abundance is pleasing.
My sentiments exactly! We share the same gardening philosophy.
Nancy, I love seeing you here! I live in West Hartford CT and I hope I can get my husband to take a ride to Natureworks tomorrow to look for a perennial mum or two (or whatever that blasted new name is now, ugh.)
I actually delight in the overgrown look. As of last year, my front cottage garden is finally packed with enough plants to cut down on the need to weed. (Who would have thought the answer to my problem was MORE PLANTS, and not less?) If there is one gardening task I need to really master, it’s staking properly. I find tall rebar is needed for many of my plants. The shorter dark green coated metal stakes are an absolute joke. Note to self: go to Home Depot and have more rebar cut. I am really loving the goldenrod, tiny, tall asters (I didn’t plant it, so have no idea what it is), the perennial ageratum/blue mist flower, and the Japanese Anemone. Yes, it’s all a bit much, but I am loving a bit much an awful lot right now.