| Smooth Aster |
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Symphyotrichum laeve (Aster laevis)
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| Smooth Aster has wonderful bright blue flowers that attract many native bees, butterflies and other insects. The blue flowers with yellow centers rise above beautiful grey green foliage. The foliage stays full right to the ground, unlike some other Asters that have bare legs in the summer. Smooth Aster flowers very freely and is excellent in bouquets. The leaves are smooth like leather; this explains the common name.
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| Events |  |
15th Annual Gathering of Gardeners Event Eisenhart Auditorium, Rochester Museum & Science Center. September 10th, 2011 8:00 to 4:00 Parking lot sale.
Amanda's Garden will be there with plants. Many early spring bloomers should be planted in the fall. Cornell Cooperative Extension of Monroe County
Greentopia Festival
High Falls, Rochester, NY Saturday, September 17 - Sunday, September 18, 2011 10 AM - 6 PM A two-day "World's Fair" of inspiration through art, music, ideas and activism. Attendees will hear visionary speakers and meet well-known authors. Through how-to workshops and cutting-edge films, you'll learn about big green ideas and how to apply them creatively in everyday life. There will be unusual family activities, community recycled art installations, mouth watering organic and local food and beverages, and all kinds of live music.
Genesee Country Village and Museum Agricultural Society Fair & 19th c. Magic and Mystery Weekend 1410 Flint Hill Road, Mumford, New York 14511 Saturday & Sunday, Oct. 1-2 10am to 5PM
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Greetings!
A very wet spring has turned into a hot dry summer. Many plants have gone dormant. Don't worry, most native plants that have gone dormant early will be back next year. Going dormant is a way to cope with drought stress.
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 | My Garden is Wilting. |
 | | Summer Garden |
If you planted a new garden this year, please be sure to water it. Plants that were just planted this spring do not have a mature root system. In fact they may still be mostly in the shape of the pot. Watering encourages root development. A good healthy root system will help a plant survive a drought.
My gardens are all wilting. I am not too worried yet as most of these plants will quickly recover as soon as we get rain. But I do water every couple days plants that I have planted this year.
A friend mentioned today that her yellow wood poppy didn't look too good. I looked at it and told her not to worry. Some plants will just go dormant early to survive the lack of water. Trilliums have gone dormant, Bloodroot is dormant now and even May apple has gone dormant. They have all produced their seed and now will go dormant to conserve energy. They normally go dormant but it is usually a little bit later in August. The dryness has initiated dormancy earlier than normal.
Water your new planting, your old ones if you can, but remember native plants can survive a little drought.
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| Seed Collecting |
 | | Trillium seed heads |
How difficult is seed collection? Where do we get our seed? Most of the seed from spring blooming woodland plants at Amanda's Garden has already been collected and sown. Plants such as Dutchman's Breeches form their seed in May. They were ready on May 19 in 2010 and May 25 in 2011. So you can see you need to check for seed regularly. If we miss it, we miss a year's crop. This week we collected Trillium seeds. Looking back to past years, the dates they have been ready is anywhere from July 18 to August 8. I sometimes forget to check and then I have to scramble to find enough seed. As you can imagine, it is no fun to search for seed when it is hot and dry. Biting insects, stinging needle and hot days make collection sometimes unpleasant. We collect our seed on our property and from our stock beds. We also collect from friend's property with special permission. We never take all the seed from one plant and certainly never from one stand of plants. We leave plenty of seed to rejuvenate the natural seed bank. In our stock beds, which are also our display beds, we sometimes remove the seed from the plant and plant it near the mother plants.  | | Allium seeds |
Some seed has special requirements for germination and I will talk about that next month. I am going to try to put together a calendar of when to look for ripe seed in western NY. Please email me feed back and your thoughts. |
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I hope you are enjoying the summer, the flowers, butterflies, humming birds, and warm summer nights with lots of fire flies. Please give us a call (585)750-6288 or email us at amandasgarden@frontiernet.net . Check out our website at www.amandagarden.com
P.S. It rained today. Things are looking up.
Sincerely, 
Ellen Folts, Owner
Amanda's Garden
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