A Garden Chat Loosely Based on the Letter R

Season 7, Episode 32, July 23, 2025

At publication, Dee’s favorite things are her red crapemyrtles.

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Carol is dealing with blossom end rot on her Roma tomatoes. I just wish I had some ripe tomatoes. It’s been a strange vegetable year in my garden. Carol’s is prolific.

Bill and Robert, our son-in-law, installed my garden gates. This garden has so many gates kind of like how my house has many doors and windows.

One of Dee’s new garden gates.

We answered lots of question this week including one about my ‘Salmon Sunset’ four o’clocks. I don’t have trouble with them overdoing my garden. The short answer is I pull out all of the pink flowering ones before they set seed. They do try to invade my ‘Salmon Sunset’ ones, but I don’t let them. You can see a few pink ones in the photo from 2023, below.

‘Salmon Sunset’ four o’clocks are summer favorites.

One of our quotes was from Betsy, Tacy and Tib, by Maud Hart Lovelace. If you ever wanted sweet books for your little ones, check out the Betsy-Tacy Books. They are sweetness itself.

(Hitty, Her First Hundred Years by Rachel Field was the book Carol couldn’t remember.)

Carol’s Rudbeckia in too much shade

Our “R” flowers of the week are:

Rudbeckia hirta and Rudbeckia fulgida ‘Goldsturm,’ both are black-eyed Susans. ‘Goldsturm’ is very easy to grow. In my garden, it is nearly invasive. Here’s an Instagram video I did two years ago.

Of course, we had to include roses. I think Carol rolled her eyes. My new favorite cultivars include ‘Quietness’, and ‘Bolero.’ Eustacia Vye and Olivia Rose Austin are also two rock-solid David Austin roses. I bought most of these because they were suggested by Teresa Byington of RoseChat Podcast.

Rhododendrons. We don’t grow them. In Oklahoma, I wouldn’t even try. They are related to azaleas, but they are also somewhat hard to grow in both of our climates.

Carol is now growing rue (Ruta graveolens), and she found an article from Mother Earth Gardener - Rue: The Forgotten Herb.

Carol’ favorite this week is Lilum longifolium ‘Flore Pleno’

Our “R” vegetables are:

French Breakfast radishes from Carol’s garden. Yum!

‘French Breakfast’ radishes. We did not have a great radish year, but Carol swears by the ‘French Breakfast’ ones. I wonder why other radishes are hard to grow now.

Red Impact F1 pepper. Photo courtesy of All-America Selections.

Red Impact Bell Peppers, which made us also discuss ‘Dragonfly’ peppers.

Rhubarb. We don’t grow it, but Jean Ann Van Krevelen, a garden writer colleague, could grow it well.

On our Bookshelf is Grow 5: Simple seasonal ideas for small outdoor spaces with just five plants, by Lucy Bellamy. (Amazon) which I found at my local library. It’s a cool book.

Carol found our dirt on Substack: Flowerology. She draws cute little pictures and goes in-depth on a flower for each post, like this one for Rest-Harrow. We love a little in-depth work in this age of instant sharing.

Rabbit Holes:

We had so many! You’ll need to listen to get the details and who found what.

Mouse Garden on Instagram.

Peaches & Diesel reel on training the algorithm on Instagram

North & South mini series

Katherine, by Anya Seton

Season 2 of Outrageous on Britbox is not a certainty, per this article.

Fox Hollow Farms via Crime Junkies

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