(I found this lovely photo at a website for a landscaping design firm in Washington. The pictures on the company's website are lush and beautiful, and they make me long for spring. Especially the ones in the English garden section. Just beautiful.)
'Tis the season. My house is covered in seed catalogs and gardening magazines and all of those landscaping books that I've bought through the years, filled with sunny flower photos to thaw my frozen fingers and toes. I'm longing for that wet earth smell as things thaw out in the spring. That first shovel of damp ground, as I fill up my flower beds with new annuals to fill in around the flowering spring bulbs and sprouting perennials that will be pushing up from the cold gray of winter to fill our yard with points of color.
Can't have my flower beds looking barren in my dreams anyway, can I? At the moment, though, everything is covered with a layer of ice and snow — not a lot, but enough to keep me inside with a blanket and a cup of tea, and my dream landscaping plans.
I go through this every year. The seed catalogs come in the mail and I start flipping through them, devouring the beautiful, glossy color photos and turning down corners of pages over and over until, I swear, the whole catalog gets dog-eared. And then I do my research – will the plant or won't it survive our humid, blistering summer heat? And, if so, will it make it through the freezing ass cold we're having now? Ahhh, the perils of zone 5/6 and late frosts.
Every year I dream of hiring someone to come and redo the bones of our entire yard. Beef up the flower beds adjacent to the house, install a new retaining wall and lift up the front of the yard all the way around to give me a more level planting space. You know, all the really difficult, but really necessary stuff to get the yard into the perfect shape for planting my dream garden — the English cottage-style, lushly flowered garden of my dreams, snaking around he edge of our yard, the roses spilling out a bit toward the sidewalk.
But I haven't gotten to that point yet. Maybe this will be the year — sure would be nice. But, if not, I'm planning for some improvements anyway.
Thus far, here's what I'm planning:
– I am planting a kitchen garden, come hell or high water. Last year, I didn't get one planted because I was having severe joint issues in that window of planting time, and I spent the whole summer missing my homegrown tomatoes and cucumbers. Not this year. I don't care if I have to plant one at a time with a plastic picnic knife, they are going in the ground. Two or three varieties of tomatoes (any favorites, please do share some names), two mounds of cucumbers, some pepper plants and maybe a zucchini mound as well. Definitely some fresh herbs in and among my butterfly garden. And some lettuce. I just love freshly picked lettuce, don't you?
– This year, I'll tackle the flower bed around the maple tree in the front yard. I'm thinking a mixed perennial bed of black-eyed susans and blue salvia, along with some annuals to keep the blooming fresh for the summer.
– I'm thinking about experimenting a little with a pot or two of cannas. Anyone grow those and, if so, do they do well in pots? I thought that might be easier to bring them in for the winter that way, since I can't leave the tubers in the ground as cold as it gets here.
– I've also been thinking about planting a few dwarf blueberry bushes as landscaping shrubs — but with a bonus, because I love blueberries.
I've started looking into some butterfly and hummingbird garden ideas as well — the usual suspects, lantana, red annual salvia, bee balm, dianthus, pentas, alyssum and such — but I'm always looking for hints on some new plants, especially ones that work well for the pots on the side porch so I can watch the butterflies and hummingbirds while I blog. Any favorites in your yard?
Anyway, enough about my plans. What are your plans for that point when the warmth of spring calls you outside, whether or not the threat of the last frost has passed? What are you doing to plan for the warmth of summer? Do you do much planting — or are you thinking about maybe just a geranium in a window pot for the fire escape? What are your favorite gardening and seed and all things lovely flowers and plants and garden statues and such? (Do give URLs if you have them.) Please share…because I am in dire need of some Spring, through your eyes as much as through my own. And if you aren't much of a gardener, but enjoy doing something with the fresh produce you find at the summer farmer's market, share your favorites — I could use a little glimpse of summer this morning. Pull up a chair…
More gardening ideas:
– BH&G
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Summer is all too short here in Michigan, but anyway I’m hoping for a long hot summer. Kinda like the long hot summer back in 1967.
I want it to be especially long and hot for Cheney and his war profiteering cronies. The house of cards is starting to fall.
Riesz at 0 — Your fingers to God’s ears. That house of cards starts to fall, it’s going to be a very, very busy summer.
Morning, btw — hope it’s warmer there than it is here, but I’m doubting it. *g*
Oh My…this sounds just like ME (and me)…but I’m deferring this yard landscaping owing to some building going on behind me – don’t want to plant those trees in the wrong places to separate our views!
But one of these days….*sigh*
:-)
we try to find the kind of tomatoe vines that keep growing. I forget the name–and zucchini, abit, and cucumbers. But not lettuce as space is limited, but your inspiration might lead to a few heads; go out an pick the outside leaves.
we are in socal–so it is close to yearround to garden and vegies for 9 months. we are still getting tomatoes from the vines planted last spring. gotto pull them up. they are glorious and twisted–brown in some spots, dried up–but still flowering elsewhere.
in our postage stamp houselot here in LA, we had to pave over some garden as the rains were threatening stability of the garage. but we still have good places to plant veg and flowers.
oh yes, the reason I started writing was to answer your question–yes canas grow in pots. My wife plants them and moves the pots around and they do really well.
My partner refers to the catalogues as “seed porn,” and suggests that I seek the assistance of a twelve step group.
My I respectfully suggest the following Maine gardening addict sites?
allen, sterling kand lothrop
fedco
johnny’s seeds
and to experience true garden envy:
damrosh/coleman four seasons farm
I’m hoping to put in grapes and blueberries this summer as well. I’ve never grown corn in the veg garden and I’m thinking of adding a couple of boxes (I do square foot gardening) to experiment with it.
This is the hardest time of the year for me, 18 inches of snow and running low and the root cellar supplies. On the other hand, it is also the only time of the year that real world constraints like time, budget and aching back don’t fetter my gardening imagination.
– I’m thinking about experimenting a little with a pot or two of cannas. …
They grow like weeds, and require a lot of water. You could probably start with just one plant and have a whole bed full of them in two seasons. I’ve been able to cut the tubor in half to get two plants and have had to dig the tubors up in spring in order to spread the plants out or they cluster. The red flowering ones have attracted a lot of hummingbirds, and the cats like to escape the heat hiding under the big leaves.
I loved them, but the arrid weather I have I had to ditch my tropicals for drought tolerant plants.
Good luck.
you might like to check out piet oudolf’s books. any one, especially ‘dream plants’
For butterflies and hummingbirds, plant “bat face” plants. Sorry I don’t know the genus name but the flowers have red “ears” and little purple”faces” that look like bats! Birds and butterflies love them. They return year after year. Also trumpet flowers and passion flowers are vines that attract the flying things you are seeking. Texas blue bells and mexican hat flowers also attract the hummers . All of these flowers return the next year too….. an added bonus.
The Blueberry mini’s are ok but Christy, go for the trees. They do not get very tall or bushy and you get so many more berries. A little pruning year to year accomodates them without enlarging the entire landscape……
Tomatoes….. there are not any bad ones are there??????????
Almost spring……. hooray!
Christy, cannas do marvelously well in pots. I fill my front porch, which runs the length of the house, with big pots crammed pack with cannas, in every color possible.
It is magnificent.
Morning Christy et al. I love that picture. I actually felt warmer just looking at it. The Gardening anticipation of Jan. and Feb. really helps all of us who enjoy the catalogs escape to a kinder gentler world.
Here in Maine it’s a balmy 19 this am. And, compared to the last few weeks, that is truly balmy. My plants are covered in a nice 3 foot blanket of snow, so I’m not quite ready to think about summer, yet.
During the blizzard on Valentine’s day, we ran out of propane for our hot water heater. We have plenty of wood and oil heat, but no hot water really makes life just too too. Seems there’s a RR strike in Canada and, in addition, one of the ships was kept out of harbor due to the storm, so we won’t get any more propane until next monday. I am truly pissed with my incompetant supplier. So I’ll be changing companies. But, in the meantime, hubby and I will go to a nice hotel tonight and take good hot showers. Funny how the little things mean so much.
My favorite subject…gardening and its sooo cold here.
Im planning some new trees and maybe a peach tree too. My raised bed garden is waiting. I reccommend this kind of a garden for everyone. Its so easy and you get more out of it.
I am buying FedCo seeds this year(fedco.com) They are not buying Monsanto engineered products and are dedicated to biodiversity. Their catalogue will tell you why a certain kind of veggie isnt available and why.
The Plants Delight catalog is a lot of fun. The nursery owner, Tony Avent, is a very clever writer and offers a terrific selection of plants. His true fame comes from his amazing hosta selection. The nursery website is:
http://www.plantdelights.com.
Thanks for all the terrific Libby trial blogging!
I love flowers, gardens, trees, springtime, and all that, but I don’t do any gardening. I hire a landscape maintenance guy to do all of it for me.
Instead, come springtime, I build. This springtime it’s a going to be converting an unused portion of deck space into a tool shop.
But happy gardening, Christy. Your post made me long for springtime. I live in northern California and it’s just been cold and rainy. Thanks for the glimpse of sunshine to come.
Lovely picture. Outside here, it’s totally white. And I have to go to work, yay.
But I’ve got a new post up here, pointing to a proposed partnership between two major Ohio blogs and Daily Kos/BlogPac.
Christy -
South Carolina’s educational television network broadcasts Making It Grow!, a weekly gardening show, for which I am providing a link to its picture page: http://www.myetv.org/televisio…..rePage.cfm
You Bet Your Garden
We live in an apartment, but escape to our sailboat on weekends when the weather goes nice. So spring is filled with getting the boat ready. Depends on how many projects I undertake how long it all takes… but when it’s all done, I pick a glorious Spring weekend, provision the boat and we sail 100 miles stopping along the way, to our summer mooring.
Arriving there we can smell all the sweet blossums from the gardens of the houses surrounding the harbor. It’s quite lovely and memorable to make such an arrival and hopefully it will be a warm and sunny weekend. With all this slush and cold Spring prep can’t come soon enough.
Christy… thanks once again for all the great work you do and the positive energy you put forth. It’s so life affirming and refreshing.
Oh wow — so many great links already. Thanks all! (Woo hoo! More gardening porn!)
G’morning Christy and all…. the sun is just peaking out on a crisp clear sunny Arizona morning. No spectacular colors, just that line of pink/purple on the horizon that is so unique to this state.
Last weekend, I cleaned the front yard, cutting the roses and the frost damaged plants. This weekend will be the back yard. It is still too nippy to put my garden in but soon. We have two seasons for veggies & flowers, fall and late winter.
Between the front and back yards, I am well over 20 rose bushes. Have three lovely climbers who bloom through three seasons (yes we do have them) and my little tea lavender was blooming in January. Sometimes they are going so well that it hurts to have to do their annual cut back.
I have membership with Native Seeds/SEARCH out of Tucson. They have preserved traditional Native American seeds from both sides of the US/Mexico border. They have an on-line catalog that is worth checking into. Looking for chilis and such they got them.
http://www.nativeseeds.org/v2/default.php
CALADIUM BULBS:
If you want to get a lot of color in your garden, why not try caladium bulbs? They have beautiful reds and greens and all sorts of varigated mixes. And they bloom year after year!
I live in the Caladium Capital of the World (I swear, that is what they call it) and there is nothing nicer or easier and hardy than these bulbs. I buy them fresh at the Caladium Festival every year (last year, I met Tim Mahoney walking around dressed like a cowboy–what a hoot!).
Planting: You simply dig a little hole and toss one in and within a week, they start to bloom. I plant them around all of my oak trees every year.
Caladiums thrive outdoors during the warmer months and add a lush, exotic touch to your yard or garden. Most Caladiums are at home in the shade or partial shade, but some varieties are more sun tolerant and can be planted in areas with little shade. They are a great way to add color to shady areas. They are often used as border plants, alongside homes, or in beds. They may also be used in window boxes and make stunning patio container plants.
There is a “when to plant” map here: http://www.caladiumbulbs.com/information.htm
Heres a pic I took of one of the fields by my house last year.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/9…..190037765/
Here are the different varieties:
http://www.caladiumbulbs.com/cat/1/
The folks at the Happiness Farms in Lake Placid Florida are the best in town–and they are now accepting orders for the 2007 shipping season.
http://www.happinessfarms.com/
PS: Christy: If you want me to send you a batch, send me directions in an email.
I will be picking up some planting mix this weekend to get ready for planting tomato and chili seeds to have my starts ready for spring. At 6,000 ft in northern Arizona we have a short growing season. I plan to get Hopi yellow watermelon from Native Seed/SEARCH cuz they are very tasty. The melons don’t get very big and tend to be round with great flavored yellow flesh.
A few of my roses in the desert!
Roses
More Roses
Forrest Prince @ 13, please send it south!
Nichols Garden Nursery has lots of veggie seeds, and flowers too. The variety they have just in leaf lettuce and tomatoes is impressive.
Try dwarf cannas in pots. They shouldn’t get as big as the usual
suspectsvarieties, but should look as pretty.In our zone here, buddleia does well and comes in a variety of colors.
cc – why, those caladiums are as big as an elephant’s ear!
:-)
Living in SoCal, you don’t really think about seasons the way most of the rest of the U.S. does. That said, I’m looking forward to a few things as this year unfolds.
It’s going to be good to see the Duke lacrosse team get back to playing lacrosse.
It’s going to be fascinating to watch the Wilkes/Foggo and ex-KPMG partners cases unfold.
Hopefully, my work schedule will put me in New York a few times during baseball season, so that I can see my beloved Mets play at Shea a few more times before the new stadium opens in 2009.
And maybe I’ll get some tomatoes in the ground this year. Having grown up in Tomato Heaven (i.e., New Jersey), and knowing what a proper tomato tastes like, it’s painful to eat the garbage that is sold in supermarkets here in SoCal.
We are big on perennials here in Middle Earth.
We often buy from Bluestone.
They send out the flowers at the right time based upon your zone. All guaranteed to live and grow.
And they sell these cool predetermined mixes based upon a lawn shape.
Highly recommended.
Ah, the garden. I’ve had one for 30 years now, a quarter acre in size. At the start of each season I always wonder whether I should plant the whole thing, since the physical effort of doing it is, at times, beyond what my body can bear, it seems. But by the end of the summer season there’s never a square inch of space left unplanted.
How could I possibly live without my own homemade spagetti sauce, or all the other wonderful, tasty things that little patch of ground produces? Vegetable garden is not for everyone, but it works fine for me.
Here are some of Bluestone’s pre-planned gardens.
Christy, walking past the snowy front yard to get the paper this morning had me thinking gardens too (and the Philadephia flower show ads I saw on the train yesterday didn’t help).
For a butterfly and hummingbird garden butterfly bush is great – I’ve had them since I was young, and our house here in Philadelphia had one already planted in a front garden near the street. They grow like weeds (see http://landscaping.about.com/c…..y_bush.htm). There’s nothing like coming home in the middle of the city in the summer and seeing butterflies floating around the street. Have had them at every house I’ve lived. Reminded me I needed to check on when to prune the one we have, hence the link.
Second on You Bet Your Garden (twolf1 at 16), Mike is a crazy wild guy who is a great resource. WHYY streams over the Web, he’s on Saturdays at 11 am ET. (Full disclosure, I worked at WHYY and my workspace was near the open meeting area where Mike McGrath has meetings with folks, he’s even wilder off the air).
Thanks for all you and and everyone at FDL do.
As someone who loves heirloom tomatoes but doesn’t have the sun or space to grow a lot of them, I would suggest Cherokee Purples. I have had success with them, and they are a deep red with some green in them, not a real purple. Also, Organge Oxhearts are worth the fussy nature of the plant. You won’t get a lot of tomatoes, however the few that get are all meat and very little seeds. Talk a taste of sunshine. I look at heirloom tomatoes as my anti-republician planst since they come in a diverse selection of skin tones.
Also, something you might want to consider is creating your own heirloom garden. By saving the seeds from the flowers or vegetables that you grow, you can plant them the following year. And so on, thus creating a lineage of your favorite plants.
Here’s one of my favorite seed places
http://www.rareseeds.com
As a nonflower topic for discussion, I’d be interested in the legal minds here weighing in on the events being revealed in Florida. It seems that a controversial neo-nazi march/demonstration that took place in a black neighborhood was actually organized by a paid FBI informant.
A paid FBI informant was the man behind a neo-Nazi march through the streets of Parramore that stirred up anxiety in Orlando’s black community and fears of racial unrest that triggered a major police mobilization.
rumi: Those buddleia remind me of liatris. Really like them a lot.
I also have a lot of orchids–some are wild and some are from Home Depot. The wild ones are the best. Last night, I had to take them all in the house. I’m so afraid they are going to die.
Some other sites for consideration
http://www.mulberrycreek.com/
http://www.chileplants.com/ (I’ve been to this nursery, what a treat to see the variety in person)
For day lillys, this place is AMAZING. They have a Day Lilly Dazzle where the 10 acres of Day Lillies are open to the public. Darrel Apps, the owner is well noted for his breeding. He’s also retiering this year
http://woodsidenursery.com/sup…..hp?id=s004
Here are some photos I took from last years Dazzle
http://www.qologies.com//DAzzle/dazzle.htm
The fuschias we have around the back porch in hanging pots are a real draw for hummingbirds. One roommate here is Canadian & swears by the website below for ideas. She planted small kitchen & healing gardens for us last year:
http://www.canadiangardening.com/home.shtml
You’ve got me looking at my summer garden photos. It’s hard to believe as dead and brown as everything is out there now in the 20 degrees, that it will be like a jungle next summer. Thanks for reminding me. Of course I’m also reminded of the work involved. Anyway to send you images?
ccmask at 21 — Wow — those are gorgeous!
Ooooh, thanks for the beautiful spring picture, Christy! Just the thing after our cut-short daytrip that was supposed to be a weekend at the cabin. Frozen septic line, almost no snow cover and the sub-subzero weather sent the frost line plummeting into the ground…and the plumbing lines of most of Hubbard County it seems. Spring may arrive before the waitlist progresses.
Around here, spring means a hedgerow of lilacs lush and fragrant…color tones from white to deepest purple. And bearded irises and peonies. Specimen plants all around. Not our doing…the legacy of this old house’s original owner. Salut, doc! We learned there were roses, but those are fickle in Fargo and evidently removed by a later owner. We’ve added a couple rose bushes and hostas that have grown huge and lush and ready for dividing. In keeping with the spirit of the original owner, we do one-of’s in wide variety instead of rows and rows.
There’s nothing better than the musty smell of soil freeing itself from winter. And the first tips of tulips pushing through to unfurl in the warming sun.
This year I want to try hellebores at the cabin. Deer resistant, they say, and a pretty face for early spring. Wouldn’t have considered them before, but global warming’s moved us into a warmer zone.
But I still miss the evening grossbeaks.
oooooh! gardening! i have a rather interesting problem – my garden space backs up to a small river and wetlands – just as i’m setting out plants, the local snapping turtle drags herself out of the river and flippers all over my garden space homing in on her annual egg-laying spot – amazing how she finds it every year. So i wait until she has left. Then come waves of groundhogs. i tried putting up a fence but they burrowed under it. Does anyone have a good groundhog deterrant? Also, another problem i could use some advice – the river bank faces west and the previous owner pulled out all vegetation in order to plant something – but the afternoon sun bakes the soil dry and spring floods carry the soil away every year. the river is within 15 feet of my deck! what can i plant that holds soil, and is rather low-growing, so i can still see the river and the ducks. Thanks!
Balrog at 27 — Ooooh, now THAT is a tempting site. Thanks!
morning! i have my brother’s peanuts this weekend, so i only have a minute to pop in this morning (but i knew christy was going to be talking about gardening…. couldn’t miss that one!)
for new england…. The New England Wildflower Society (for plants, seeds and a wonderful woodland garden that the kids love).
for texas… my favs were yuccado and the heard museum’s annual plant sale.
last year the monarch butterflies returned after being almost missing for several years. here’s a pic of a visitor to my small yard.
peanuts c & z say hi!
brel1 — Feel free to send any photos you like to ReddHedd AT firedoglake DOT com.
We also have some grape growers in the area. A friend of mine has a place called “Grapes of Kath”. Recently, one of the growers decided to hold a flea market on Sundays. The place is so cool. In the center of all the vendors is a little store with fresh canned products grown and jarred locally. And everyone is just so nice. Under all the large oaks are vendors set up selling their wares.
I also have another good friend that has about 30 acres of blueberries. Every year, when the price plummets, all of us go over there and fill up our baskets with as many as we want.
Many years ago, a girlfriend and I decided to give it a go and we planted 500 berry bushes. We figured it would be easy. In season, the berries were bringing up to $70 bucks a flat and her brother was a major produce wholesailer. Uhm, do not try this at home….the blackbirds are the biggest pain in the a**es. We had to cover the grove with netting and it was very expensive. The sprinklers kept leaking. Then we had a freeze and we were up all night with smudge pots and it was a bit*h keeping things going. She ended up selling the property….but there is nothing like eating hot blueberry cobbler with vanilla ice cream on top.
The best way to eat the blueberries: put them in little baggies in the freezer and eat them frozen.
Christy Hardin Smith @
40
I find that ordering their free catalog can help to get us through March. :)
Christy Hardin Smith @ 37
I’d be delighted to get you a really nice mix of them if you want. I have friends in all the right caladium places….
Prairiesunshine: I love lilacs. We had them all along our backyard when I was growing up. There was one bush that was actually a white lilac. Is that normal?
ccmask at 44 — “Grapes of Kath.” Mwahahahaha — excellent!
The garden link below illustrates a new website called Emily Dickinson’s Nature Mysticism : A Photo Poetic Labyrinth. The photo section currently contains eight 15-photo garden slideshows which will gradually expand to about double that — the photos are big (720 x 720) and use about 100 k each, so helps to have a cable/DSL to view this — please see:
A GARDEN TIS!
The title derives from a children’s garden in Hudson River Park, which has no name at the entrance, except for a plastic-covered handwritten placard that says, emphatically — “This is a garden!” See a photo of the sign — it is delightful — and illustrates a Dickinson poem, which I’ve added below.
I am a photographer and feminist art historian, and use New York City with its wealth of parks and gardens as my photographic subject matter, including the most magical, 5-mile Hudson River Park and Bicycle Path (still under construction in various places), which you’ll see illustrated many times over in the albums.
—
These are the signs to Nature’s inns,
Her invitation broad
To whomsoever famishing
To taste her mystic bread.
These are the rites of Nature’s house,
The hospitality
That opens with an equal width
To beggar and to bee
For sureties of her staunch estate,
Her undecaying cheer,
The purple in the East is set
And in the North, the star.
~ Emily Dickinson
—
SWhitworth
Good morning, all.
Love the picture, Christy. It’s so nice to see a little bit of spring! The picture made me laugh, as I’m looking out toward the perennial garden I planted last year – it’s covered with about a foot of snow.
I’d never done any outdoor gardening before, and I have to say I got myself into research paralysis. I did pretty well, but realized that my front garden is a lot more shaded than I would have anticipated. So, some plants really flourished, while others didn’t do much. I moved a few things to the sunny backyard in the fall. I’m curious to see which perennials did well enough to survive the first winter.
I planted some new bulbs in October – Monsella Tulips, a mixture of snow crocuses (purple, yellow, white), yellow daffodils, and I can’t remember what else. Squirrels got at some of the crocus bulbs, so I put down a little bit of chicken wire over the ground where they were planted. I’m hoping they’ll do okay after being chewed on :)
Most of my garden I planted last year are purple & yellow flowers (no particular reason – it’s not that I’m a Lakers fan, it’s just that it looks good against the colors of the house). Balloon flowers, conneflowers, coreopsis, lavender and daylilies did really well in particular.
The Monsella tulips just looked too cool, so I put them in as an interesting contrast.
I’m curious to see what comes out this year. I’m hoping most of the plants did well. My goal this year is to clean it up nicely and put in a good border. I still have bags of mulch sitting by the side of the house – never got around to putting it down LOL.
Morning everyone.
Ah. Perfect timing! Frigid February brings daydreams of summer.
In ne OH, it’s cold and snow-covered right now.
Just noticed one of our Carolina Wrens at the feeder. Sign of global warming? We never had them even in the summer, all the 30 years we’ve lived here; but now they stay year-round. House Wrens still have sense enough to bug out by late fall. But then, they don’t use our feeders, and the Carolinas not only eat some of the seeds, but seem to like a chaser of suet. Hopefully they’ll make it through yet another winter. We leave our nestboxes up year-round for roosting, just cleaning them out well after the nesting season, so maybe they’re snuggling in one of those for warmth.
In recent years, we’ve turned more and more of our “yard” over into wildlife-friendly plantings that we leave semi-natural and don’t mow. The birds LOVE the little fruits on our new patches of Red Osier Dogwood. And our Cedar Waxwings, Cardinals, and sundry others enjoy winter snacks from leftover dried-up crabapples still on the trees, as well as the berries on our Cotoneaster shrubs.
An older variety of bush bean we used to love, but can no longer find, is Burpee’s Tenderpod. WONDERFUL flavor. I’d be most appreciative if anyone knows where they could be found. I used to save my own seed every year, just by letting a few plants mature instead of picking for the table. No more. We’re trying to cut back on the endless chores & clutter around here. So… replace that frustration with the annoyance of not always having the varieties we like.
I hope you get your kitchen garden this year, Christy. Nothing more fun than a last-minute snip or 2 to add fresh herbs, or that sun-warmed ripe tomato (if you can wait that long, & aren’t addicted to the fried-green delicacy, heh).
We love Big Boy tomatoes, and Sweet 100 “cherry” tomatoes (or derivitive varieties), for wonderful flavor. Careful, tho – Sweet 100 grows to 9′ or so even around here – there’s nothing miniature about the vine, so it needs strong support. Good thing it produces like mad, because it’s perfect for a quick snack right in the garden, and many fruits never make it to the kitchen, much less the table. It’d be a fun plant to have around when you’re gardening with Peanut.
Flowers: if you haven’t already, you might enjoy trying Cardinal Climber. Small brilliant-red flowers (like a miniature morning glory), HUGE vine often growing to 15-20′ around here. NOT frost-hardy at all, so you must wait to sow or put out plants in the spring, but once it’s gotten its roots settled in well, it shoots up rapidly. The hummingbirds adore the flowers.
One catalog I have enjoyed greatly for years is from Nichols Garden Nursery, in Oregon. No colorful pictures, but a endless stream of little tips and lots of recipes, as well as good quality seeds of many varieties that are hard to find elsewhere.
http://www.nicholsgardennursery.com/
Thanks for encouraging the daydream. I’m warmer already ;->
Could I add something about trees? Please plant. Although we have no right to ask them, we need their help and beauty.
cc- The berry story was tragic, yet I couldn’t help but laugh at the way you shared it. hmm…orchids are truly a gift. White lilacs are fairly common in my experience/opinion and beautiful.
kathryn – I think you should declare your backyard a wildlife/wetlands preservation project and apply for federal grants.
:-)
I’m starting to watch for the 400 early bulbs I put in last November. I’m north of Chicago and put a 2,000 sq ft native prairie in my front yard. The butterflies love prairie plants, and most especially Joe Pye Weed (aka Trumpetweed Eupatorium fistulosum)or Butterfly Weed (Asclepias tuberosa). A wonderful source for prairie plants is Prairie Nursery at http://www.prairienursery.com/. Prairie plants are drought resistant and require very little care. Great with the coming climate change!
Good morning, Christy,
I’m in the Texas Hill Country on ten acres of mostly caliche and sprawling live oaks.
I haven’t brought in the kind of top soil you need for English gardening but have filled whiskey tubs and old wash tubs with a mixture of roses and native Texas plants.
I’m always looking for deer and drought resistant perennials, so I tend to plant a lot of daisies.
My favorite is the blackfoot daisy, which has small cream colored blossoms and does really well in my rock garden along the terrace. I love this particular flower because it has the fragrance of wild honey and looks and smells wonderful intermixed with lavender.
Blackfoot daisy also does well in containers and I mix it with miniature roses because the blossoms are small.
Other good daisies for this area are chocolate, four-nerve and Copper Canyon, which grows to three feet, branches like a shrub and covers itself with golden daisies.
We had a three-day ice storm last month so I’m going to be replacing a lot of plants. Any ideas from fdl-ers with scorching summers and rocky soil?
Christy Hardin Smith @ 47
This made me think of ramming phrases together
Grapes Of Wrath Of Khan
I have a black thumb, where Bastard goes, nuthin grows. Uncle Sugar just sent me a tax bill and I was forced to sell my biggest amp (A clone of a 1959 Fender Bassman for you amp buffs) so growing in my spare room will be a replica of a 1959 Fender Super. I started using shellac on the tweed cabinet yesterday (first day the temp was more than 70 degrees).
Better amp for a guy playing the venues I do anyway. My partner will be planting somethign but she never lets me get near it.
Guitar at 56 — I got that Vince Gill compilation. It is as awesome as you said. Thanks much for the rec.
OMG: So off topic and so not beautiful…
Newsweek asked a bunch of fashion designers to give Kim Jong Il a makeover for his birthday. The sketches and commentary are freaking hilarious. Click the link below, then use the buttons to go forward to each design. Make sure your sound is turned up!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17…../1107/s/2/
If TRex is around, he’ll be excited to realize that people like us can create our own designs for Kim Jong Il and submit them for consideration. Something tells me TRex might come up with a great design.
Sleepy Canadian roommate w/coffee mug in hand just reminded me of her other favorite site, both for info & lovely pics. Anyone in L.A. area or visiting, the Huntington Library & Botanical Gardens in San Marino is amazing in so many ways, particularly for all things floral:
http://www.huntington.org/Bota…..lHome.html
OT
almp@54. You near Boerne?
Kathryn – you may want to inquire with whom ever has authority over the wetlands for recommendations. I would think the way to go (stating the obvious?) is for native planting. You may also consider checking with master gardeners in your area or local college programs.
Good Morning Firegardeners,
always love to see the community’s passions on display in the threads
unusually high number of cold snaps in our area this year – so I am jonesin’ for Spring even more than usual
- so I indulged myself with 2 large bouqets of these
always cuts the grumpiness in half
Another thing that is really funny in our town. We are called the Caladium Capital of the World and also the Town of Murals.
On the sides of the grocery stores, post office, doctors offices, shops, etc. are hand-painted murals. For those really bored, here is a link to the mural page. Just click on any one of them for pics.
The funniest one is the Cattle Drive. It is huge and painted along the whole side of the Winn Dixie. It actually has sound. Whenever I park over there, it still scares the heck out of me. It’s really loud and you hear a guy yell, and then you hear thunder and then cattle running…They have tours where they take you all around to see the murals. Small towns are just great.
Christy and All!!!
Was so glad to see the pictures and read your comments. I sat with my catalogs last night and dreamed about summer.
It was below zero and we had a blizzard on Wed. with 16 inches of snow.
I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again!
One of the best places to get gardening information for your particular state/area is connecting with your local/state Cooperative extension. These people do research on agricultural issues and provide a wealth of information for gardeners from beginners to commercial growers.
In our state, NY, we have gardener’s feedback site, where people can report how they liked certain vegetables they grew. This is not scientific, but it might give you a clue before you try a new type of vegetable.
Here is the website where you can find your state Cooperative Extension Website.
And if you are interested and have the time, I would encourage you to check out their Master Gardener Program. It provides extensive training with the expectation that you will volunteer your knowledge and love of gardening within your community. I am very glad I did the training and love working with other gardeners!!!
http://extension.unh.edu/cesites.htm
I will share our mantra. Right plant, Right place!
In other words, read everything about the plant, know your zone, light requirement, how tall it will get and what kind of soil it needs and watering requirement.
ENJOY!!!
One of my favorite gardening things to do is to go to the Markets in Montreal, Canada in the middle of winter and look at all the fresh flowers. This is the nearest big city and they have awonderful bakery with chocolate “things” that you can munch on while walking around.
In the summer they become an open air market with thousands of plants for sale and fresh vegetablein bulk!!!
LandOfTheFree @ 58
This reminds me of something I saw recently. If you google the word Jesus, the 2nd hit is this http://www.jesusdressup.com/ You get to dress Jesus up in different outfits.
No doubt about to be EPU’d on this.
I grow lots of vegetables – in a 2,500 sq. ft. garden, and in two greenhouses. This year we’re adding one more Asian green, bai cha ploo, a bitter leaf used in Thai and other south Asian cuisine as a wrap. I’m only going to grow two pepper plants this year, as the last three years they’ve been destroyed by aphids.
The main garden will see more artichokes than ever, and four kinds of hard-necked garlic. And, as always, lots of potatoes, carrots, green beans, broccoli, cabbage and greens. We also grow six kinds of basil and bushels of tomatoes in the green houses. Oh, yeah – greens – both traditional and asian.
The seeds have mostly arrived, but I haven’t started anything yet. I wait until March, when it isn’t too expensive too keep the greenhouse from freezing at night.
I used to get the J.L. Husdon, Seedsman catalog.
It started me down the path I’m on. Be careful. (Caveat — I just discovered the online version.)
Good morning! Gardens. I’ve been looking at the seed catalogs, and casting significant looks at the nursery as I drive past it.
And quietly watching all my desert perennials, and the citrus trees, hoping hoping hoping that our unusually cold winter has not killed them all. They certainly froze.
I particularly hope that the Sonoran solana survived. It has such a lovely blue flower, is a slow-grower, and is not supposed to be freeze hardy.
Oops, here’s the link to the murals..
http://www.htn.net/lplacid/murals/murals.htm
Christy, I just sent you a pic of one of my canas. All of mine are in pots and the ones left survived the flooding of New Orleans. They’re very hardy, though, as you say, the roots don’t like to be cold.
Christy Hardin Smith @
57
I knew you’d love it. On the R&R set, there’s a gal named Bekka Bramlett (Daughter of Delaney and Bonnie) singing back who’s incredible in her own right.
Vinnie is just so incredibly tasteful. I love that “Take This Country Back” song he does with John Anderson, about the old days when playing a gig was only the beginning of the evening.
. I also am really into “Nothin For A Broken Heart” with Rodney Crowell.
Vinnie and Rodney did an album a few years ago as “The Notorious Cherry Bombs.” If you love Vinnie, that’s another “must-have.”
So glad you liked the Vinnie records. Great stuff.
Well it has warmed up to a toasty 42 degrees so will get my longies on and get to work on that back yard. It looks like my ficus tree bit the dust and the tips of my lemon tree from the frost.
EdwardTeller: I absolutely love artichokes. For my birthday, my chef brother make me broiled dolphin and artichokes. Do you have any pics?
ccmask @ 65
Ha – I saw the original one, but never saw the Hollywood star dressup one. That’s just soooo bad! I feel guilty just playing with it. ;)
truer words were never spoken.
Thanks for the link! I’ll bet some kids end up intherapy for nightmares of being caught in a supermarket cattle drive
:-)
It has been about 30 years since I had a vegetable garden. It was a 50 ft by 125 ft delightful mix of vegetables, flowers, and herbs. One of the more memorable items – and one you may not be familiar with is a Japanese Winter Squash named Kikuza. I just did a web search and found Kikuza seeds are available from:
http://www.rachelssupply.com/dsquash.htm
Christy, check out this garden source, Renee’s Garden seeds: http://www.reneesgarden.com/
She has the best sweet pea selection anywhere, and they are a joy. For tomatoes, Early Girl and Orange Sungolds (an orange cherry tomato, amazingly sweet) are my favorites. The Early Girls live up to their names (great when you’re dying for a tomato a little too early in the season); the Sungolds will go for months. They are so popular here that they sell out fast at the local farmers’ markets. She also sells a fantastic Roma-type bean, the Spanish Meralda. It is the best green bean I’ve ever grown.
I had to give up on tomatoes a few years ago when the deer discovered our garden. Now we’re limited to flowers and herbs, plus some greens. Maybe the deer will let me grow green beans this year. It’s worth a try.
Ed*ard Teller @ 66
Oooh… I’m so jealous! What is the Thai bitter leaf you’re growing – not bitternut, I assume? Whenever I think of bitternut, I think of an elderly lady from a hilltribe I met in northern Thailand – her teeth and mouth completely rotting from chewing bitternut. I know it’s tradition, but it sure looked unpleasant and terrible for dental health! I don’t know if bitternut leaves are used for anything other than chewing.
I would love to grow kaffir limes (just for the leaves, really), and I may get a tree and grow them in the basement with ultraviolet lights. I have such a hard time finding them fresh, and I don’t like using frozen ones.
From a fellow Zone 5′er: Yes, cannas are great in pots. Don’t be afraid to spend $20 from Plant Delights or similar catalog for a great variety. In a few years, you’ll mulitply that investment and be giving away tubers.
Here are some canna flowes from my garden, and flowers aren’t canna’s strong suit:
http://www.remarc.com/craig/?p=11
re: Annuals around the maple. I don’t know how big your maple is. But most cast a lot of shade and their roots are tough competitors underground. Most annuals and the perennials you mentioned love son and probably won’t do well with the competition for water and nutrients. You might be able to build up the soil some and grow some impatiens. But you might want to focus on shade-loving perennials — hostas, heuchera, epimedium, etc. They aren’t as spectacular. But they’re beautiful in their own way.
Mornin’ Christy! May I make a suggestion or two re: herbs? Although I now live in Zone 9B and have a tropical, year-round garden, I gardened in WV for many, many years. Borage is a lovely large herb with small, delicate periwinkle-blue flowers and fuzzy leaves that seems to love the humid, hot WV summers and it is visited regularly by the butterflies and hummingbirds as well. Sweet Woodruff is a small little thing with beautiful leaves and a sweet, clean-cut hay smell (it was once used to stuff mattresses and pillows, I understand) and it is sturdy and well suited to the harsh Appalachian climate. Dill basil, and cilantro always did a super-duper job for me there also.
The “Kitchen Garden” http://www.kitchengardenseeds.com/ catalog has so many delighful ideas that I am always overwhelmed. Good customer service here too and excellent seeds.
George W. Park seed company http://www.parkseed.com/ has been one of my favorite suppliers for over 30 years. Excellent customer service and outstanding variety of plants and seeds, including many old-fashioned English cottage garden varieties, organic seeds, and dwarf blueberry and canna varieties for your porch pots.
If you have a chance, try some old-fashionded Heliotrope plants on your patio. Their cheerful purple flowers and strong vanilla scent attract butterflies, birds, and bees by the hundreds.
Have a lovely Spring and garden dreaming day!
I grow cannas in pots and in the ground. Here in zone 4b I have to either drag the pots into my studio, (where they will bloom through the winter next to a sunny window), or dig the tubers up gently, and put them in a five-gallon bucket with peat packed around them. We have a basement room that stays cold but doesn’t freeze. If they freeze they turn to mush.
The abyssinian gladiolus (acidanthera) get the same treatment. These are incredibly fragrant white blooms with a maroon star in the throat, about 18″ high and sword-shaped leaves. Gladiolus and dahlias can be overwintered this way, too. Really, any tuber or corm that can’t survive freezing will not mind a cool dark winter in the garage.
LandOfTheFree @ 74
I feel guilty too…but he does look great as a super hero.
Diane @
64
Brilliant! thanks for link
PS: It just amazes me that a dress up kit would come in 2nd for Jesus on google.
lina @ 75
Indeed. We adore tomatoes, and scarf ‘em down like popcorn in the summer. But it never occurs to us to buy them fresh in the store. Totally different, totally unsatisfactory veggie. We’d rather wait for the garden.
ccmask @ 83
Suddenly, the Stephen Lynch song “(If I could be a) Superhero” popped into my head.
See you guys later.
Here in Zone 8 (Seattle), I’ve got my next door neighbor who has been for a few years feeding one hummingbird who over-winters, thanks to her feeding schedule, but now we have two whole families who over-winter. Much thanks to her, I’ve got butterfly bushes in the front of my yard which we’ve standardized (turned from a bush to tree by choosing one main stalk and cutting the rest away). This has been beautiful with the different colors which attract different types of butterflies, too. Salvia, and anything purple and red (I’m going with the purple in my yard) keep the little birds happy, not to mention the butterflies.
I’m also going organic – organic seed that is, and to protect the veggies, I’m using raised beds – whiskey barrels! My young lab is still very interested in digging, so this is practical, and it keeps the slugs and snails out. After transplanting my smaller dogwoods and service berries, I use the barrels for tomatoes and other veggies in need of the raised beds. The service berry I have is called Amelanchier x grandiflora ‘Autumn Brilliance’ – and a wonderful small tree. It has spring flowers, summer blue berries and gorgeous fall colors, about 10-20′ tops. Its a great street tree, as that is what is planted in our parkways. I already had an apple, crabapple, and double pear tree in the parkway, so my serviceberry has a home in my back yard among my dogwoods. Ah Spring…
LandoftheFree @ #79:
It is called Bai cha ploo, bitter leaf and betel leaf. You can order it here.
Perfect post today, Christy. Yesterday I masked off a (1′ square) grid in my double driveway. I then painted half the squares in a deep, blackish green. Today I will paint the other checkered half white. Like a ballroom floor!
Then I can pull the rusty oil barrels back into position. I have six barrells creating a “fence” between my parking spot (parallel at the edge) and the rest of my driveway – for container planting.
This was my plan last year and, like you, I couldn’t get it done. I also will be planting the raised bed I made last year out of the former pergola roof over the original 5’square patio.
Upcoming weekends will be for hauling dirt to plant the oil drums, containers and raised bed. Love these ideas and resources for planting.
ccmask -
loosely related topic -
this recipe will cost a small fortune, but any homesick Californian who has tasted it, would sell a kidney for a bowl – recommend you have the freshest loaf of sourdough/artisan bread to go along with it
not for the nutritionally timid
Duartes Artichoke Soup
Christy: Have you ever been to the US Botanic Garden in DC? My mom and I had a great time going through there on 1/4. Not a lot of ideas for the home gardener, but a good ooh-and-ahh factor.
Mmm…gardens! I’m looking out at two feet of snow – definitely time to pull out the catalogs, except they’re packed too. We’re moving in two weeks, so I get to start from scratch this year.
The only definites are the herbs – spearmint, peppermint, wintergreen, dill, rosemary, tarragon, thyme, cilantro, basil, garlic – and the kitchen garden – tomatoes (cherry and slicing kinds) lettuce, onions, and cukes. I’ll get those done even if I have to carry soil a teacup at a time to beds made with giant tires.
Snow!! More GD snow! 4 more inches in the night. How can I think about spring when I haven’t seen my lawn since before christmas? !! Since the christmas blizzard there’s been 75 (!!) inches in my backyard, altho not all at once like you poor suckers in New York. Here in the Denver suburbs we generally get 10 or 12 inches in the same space of time. And the snow generally doesn’t melt, it evaporates! Semi-arid, you know. 300 days of sunshine a year, and 55 to 65 degree days are common in winter. ‘Course I’ve been bitchin’ about the drought for the last 5 years, so I shouldn’t complain. Still, the blizzard caught me unprepared bulb-wise. I still have some daffs waiting to be put in-they might have to go into pots this year. And I still need to spread around some bulb fertilizer- heck I can’t think about this spring’s garden until I’ve finished thinking about last years!
Great Hummer attractors? Try pineapple sage, it has these incredible scarlet flowers that the hummers love. I like to pair them with gentian sage (blue) because they’re almost florescent together, put ‘em in a pot with some white petunias and you’re ready for 4th of july!
Ok, NOW I feel better, thanks Chrisy!
Adie @ 86
Tomatoes are due in here in the next 3 or 4 weeks, that is those that survived our near-to-freezing dip in temperature last night. I can’t wait to eat a fresh sliced tomato and onion sandwich on crusty oatmeal bread! Mmmmmm
Hey gang!
Another one for the weird-weather category.
We spent a year in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan a long time ago. Perhaps you can imagine the temps. Suffice to say the locals were so elated when it got back UP to 0 F. in the spring, some celebrated by driving around with convertible tops down. (for comparison, -40 was not uncommon in winter)
My honey just looked up their weather this past week. They’re warmer by far in Saskatchewan right now than we are in ne Ohio!
Global warming brings weird weather patterns? Yup!
LandOfTheFree @
79
Your spike in electric rates might get you busted! Just sayin’
When there’s yard work to be done- my advice is “make a tee time”.
The only hummingbirds we get are ruby-throats. I have a dozen little 6″ tube feeders (easy to keep clean), and at the beginning of May I start putting out a few. When I see the first little blur of wings I put out the rest. (One part sugar, boiled in four parts water. No food coloring. Change at least every three days. Keep the feeders clean.)
The migrators who stopped on the way south seem to find their way back, and I get more every year. I leave a few out through the summer, and usually have a bird or two who decides to end the journey here.
Then in mid-September they come through again, in hordes. When frost is predicted I bring the feeders in so they have to leave. Right before the first cold snap, they seem to know, and get frantic. I can stand outside with feeders in my hands, and they will come up and drink.
They love red cannas and gladiolas, hanging fuchias, and pineapple sage.
cbl @ 92
If you grow your own artichokes, soups like Duarte’s recipe are a good way to use up the ‘chokes that don’t reach maturity by the time it gets cold.
Here in Taylor County WV it seems like a long time until spring and I’ve been dreaming over the seed catalogs as well. Our driveway is 220′ long and I envision an 8′ wide bed of herbs (medicinal & culinary) and other perennials running the length of it. Horizon Herbs and Richter’s are a couple of good sources. Locally, Freed’s Greenhouses have a huge selection of herbs, perennials and heirloom tomatoes.
We grow a few canna varieties every year. They will do ok in large pots, but they are spectacular when planted in the ground.
We also grow hops for brewing, but they make a beautiful, fast-growing dark green vine for screens and trellises.
For butterflies, lots of great suggestions above. One more, Sedum “Autumn Joy” attracts hordes of them in September, painted ladies and admirals.
Redd: You must try Brugmansia, AKA Angel Trumpet. Google has all the details, and I bought my starts on ebay. They flower profusely and produce large, beautiful blooms in my Seattle area garden. Thanks for the garden diversion. I am loving your trial coverage and intelligent comments. Thanks to all the Lakers.
kathryn in MA @ 97
Where I live in Alaska, a famous variety of mj is grown. When it gets VERY cold in the winter, the National Guard flies a UH-60 helicopter with thermal detection gear low over houses which have had big electrical use spikes. The gear can detect thermal patterns associated by a computer model with grow operations.
Priscilla Queen of the Beach @ 95
There oughtta be a law!
Seriously, enjoy.
Oh, & when’s dinner? We’ll try not to be late. ;->
Ed*ard Teller @ 90
Bai cha ploo – I couldn’t remember the name. I didn’t realize it was used for cooking, too. Thanks.
Kathryn in MA: I didn’t think about the energy usage (though growing the tree isn’t illegal). Sometimes I can get fresk kaffir lime leaves (which I use in making curries, soups and other Thai dishes) locally, but availability is intermittent and they go bad very quickly. Someone mentioned that I could likely order the leaves from California, but it seems kind of silly since I only use at most a dozen of them in a week’s time.
Ray Evans, R.I.P.
“I also am really into “Nothin For A Broken Heart” with Rodney Crowell.
Vinnie and Rodney did an album a few years ago as “The Notorious Cherry Bombs.” If you love Vinnie, that’s another “must-have.””
While you’re on that run, check out relatively recent Crowell albums ‘Fate’s Right Hand’ and ‘Houston Kid’. HK is an amazing achievement, managing to turn a Houston low end suburban redneck upbringing into a loss and redemption story worthy of the classics.
On the other topic, home-grown potatoes are as much better than standard storebought as are tomatoes. Try this … http://www.milkranch.com/
Ed*ard Teller @ 104
What seed catalog sells those?
LandOfTheFree @ 106
Sorry, we don’t cook it. We wrap little pieces of roasted coconut, lime, pepper, cashew, bermuda onion and other stuff in the leaves.
We have had more “moisture” than usual this year. I am checking the garden beds now for little signs of the daffodils, tulips and other bulbs. I noticed the little stubs of day lilys yesterday.
Soon some of the volunteer seeds will sprout. Sunflowers are amazingly hardy and will make it through the late frost, usually.
Besides cooking and the studio, gardening is one of my top pleasures, when I have time.
Nice post, Christy. Can’t wait to go back and filter through some of the great catalogs and such that others have suggested as well.
Ed*ard Teller @ 110
Ah – I see that from the site you linked to.
Thanks so much for this – I could get seeds for several Thai herbs from this company. Too bad I don’t have a greenhouse. I’m afraid that if I started growing all of the Thai herbs & veggies indoors with the proper plant lighting, I might just get a visit from one of those helicopters you mentioned. I could fill a good chunk of my basement with that.
Susan in Iowa @ 99
Wonderful about your hummers. We love ours too. One male who sets up his harem in our yard every year always announces his arrival by hovering directly in front of the kitchen window and glaring at us till we set up his welcome meal.
Just by way of update, experts are now urging folks to leave those feeders up a little longer in the fall, because the availability of food apparently doesn’t affect the time of leaving on migration. And when those hordes are flying through your yard on their way south, they could really use any extra nourishment you’re offering. You needn’t worry about tempting them to stay by offering the travel-snack, & it just might save a few. ;->
Living in southern-central California coastal zone, we’ve added more mulch/compost to the adobe soil in our raised beds and planted some nitro-fixing legumes for a “winter” crop. And sugar-snap peas. And strawberries in one bed. Trimmed the stone fruit trees. plans to upgrade the drip system, since at the rate we’re going we’re going to spend this year in drought conditions.
My bewildered So-Cal raised daughter in Indiana has snow again this morning. No gardening at the Earlham College “farm” this week.
We’ve got our hawk family screaming up in soaring circles from the trees in creek bed every morning with the joy of being alive. Lots of little brown birds in the yard. Doves singing away. It’s lovely.
In central Jersey, where Rutgers has bred many good tomatoes, mine never do well. I plant super sweet 100s, a very reliable cherry tomato, and have had reasonably good luck with Brandywines, one of the best heirlooms [only a few had blossom-end rot last year].
I’ll echo the many praises of caladiums as ornamentals. I love mine in pots on the shady front steps to our house. I have
fourthree beautiful peonies on the south side of the house, and my one peony underperformer [still only one stalk with one bloom each year, after 10 years–harrumpf]. I also love my hostas, and will be planting some new ones this year on the shady side of our detached garage.The kitchen garden has arugula, several varieties of lettuces, cucumbers [Marketmore], the above-mentioned tomatoes, and basil, lots of basil, for the pesto harvest every September.
On the deck, potted herbs: chives, rosemary [Tuscan blue], English thyme, French tarragon, Greek oregano, flat-leaf Italian parsley, chervil, and cilantro [both the chervil and cilantro bolt quickly in our hot, humid summers], plus several pots of nasturtiums [we garnish our salads with nasturium blossoms–kids get a kick out eating flowers]. In the fall, the rosemary, chives, oregano, tarragon, and thyme pots come indoors to our unheated south-facing porch, to be out wintergarden. What’s left of the other herbs and plants go onto the compost heap.
I missed my chance again this past fall to order bulbs–but when I finally do it this year, I’ll be ordering from Brent and Becky’s and from John Scheepers. Lots of white daffodils, crocuses, galanthus, grape hyacinth. I’ve always wanted to see the white garden at Sissinghurst.
The other thing that needs to happen this year is to take down a couple of trees that we’ve been keeping for the privacy they give us, but now shade the kitchen garden. And I’m continuing the fight against June beetles, which have were feasting on by basil plants each summer from 2002 to 2005. Last year we put several basils in between each of the peonies, and only about four in the kitchen garden where they were devastated by the insects. They did fine with the peonies, and we’ll be putting them there again.
Oh, and check out Gilbert Wild for daylilies, and Klehm’s for peonies.
Such pleasant thoughts on such a cold day. Do read Katherine White’s Onward and Upward in the Garden about reading garden catalogs.
Denise at 101 — I adore Freed’s Greenhouse. :) And now I’m wondering if you and I have been shopping there at the same time. lol
Cannibas and potato(e)s for me.
-GSD
I have basically two hobbies. Orchids in the greenhouse and HO trains. I like being able to take the lap top into the green house in the dead of winter. Suddenly I’m in the tropics. As to this spring? It will be okra, tomatoes, Silver Queen corn, Kentucky Wonders, and just about everything else vegetable.
One flower (from seed) I will plant again. The Moon flower is a relative of the morning glory but it is a huge wonderful white flower, blooms all night, and fills the yard with a wonderful fragrance.
I noticed my Japonica is just waiting for the first possible day to bloom so the Forsythia must be as well.
I always have to remind myself just how tall cannas get. They are wonderful and the variety of foliage is as much of a delight as the flower.
I must have hundreds of Hummers that live in my valley. Not that I try but I cannot keep the hummers away. My cat is brutal on them so I don’t put out feeders but remove at least one (live one) a day from the screened in porch. I keep one glove out there just to gently handle them. Before I moved in this house I never noticed hummers enjoy roses as much as anything else. Isn’t that unusual?
“Oh, thats the reason a bird can sing. On his darkest day, he believes in spring.”
Hang in there.
With Love, from So. California
85% today
In your Seeds of Change catalogue you will find a tomato called the “Garden Peach”
A yellow tomato, nice balance of acid and sugars, meaty and bursting with flavor.
Very nice addition to a garden of heirloom tomatoes.
Good friend of mine, Howard Shapiro, founded Seeds of Change, and the peach is one of his personal faves.
If, like me, you have a black thumb…you might enjoy Litigatormom’s next installment of How to Speak Bushit.
We’re moving in three weeks to a new home with a much smaller yard; we currently have 1 1/2 acres but I’m never able to plant because of critters – you name ‘em, we got em. Deer, gophers (ever watch a plant be pulled underground before your very eyes?)voracious ground squirrels, deer, goats… nothing i’ve planted has made it to harvest so far.
So I’m looking forward to ripping out the ugly, low maintenance border shrubs in my new back yard and putting in lavender and salvias – they do so well in SoCal – roses, a Meyer lemon or two. There is space for tomatoes and peppers (watch your tomato and pepper intake, Christy, if you have arthuritis)and herbs and I hope to turn the yard, over time, into an oasis of flowers and fruit trees.
Gonna go catch up on Scootie. Moving is too damn time-intensive.
rumi @ 25
Buddleia is considered a noxious weed in Oregon. It’s very hard to get rid of (I’ve been working on it for 2 years).
Check with your state agricultural department.
Christy Hardin Smith @ 116
I wouldn’t doubt it. I spend a lot of time looking through the herbs & perennials and my husband is a horticulturist who works there part-time.
We have plants in the yard- I don’t know what they are- but the puppy is eating most of em. She likes to DIVE into the little low bushy ones as if she’s diving into a swimming pool. I don’t know if she’s killing the little bushy things- but they don’t look the same as they used to.
Ah, late winter, when the garden is at its best. The imagined garden, that is. There is a wonderful book COLOR GARDEN by Malcolm Hillier that I highly recommend – a visual feast.
My problem with gardening is that I’m too tender hearted to thin and weed. I know this sounds a little odd, but on a fresh spring morning when everyone has their faces turned joyfully to the sun, I can hardly stand to yank things up by the roots and call them undesireable. I feel like the grim reaper. So, time permitting, I pull weeds gently out, and then, yes, I go replant them by the edge of the woods. Not the most careful replanting job, just tender with the roots and some dirt over that, so they have a fighting chance.
But this morning, with three feet of fresh powder outside, finally shoveled, and the roof nearly cleared off so we can take all the pots off the floors (and bed) I’m snagging my son and we are off to ski!
Mommybrain at 123 — I try to can some homemade spaghetti sauce every summer, and it is so much better with homegrown peppers and tomatoes. It’s like opening a jar of summer. Unfortunately, I didn’t get any canned last year because I didn’t have the homegrown to work with and, frankly, I was a little busy with the blog and didn’t have time either way.
This year, though, my plants are going in and I’m making my veggie-laden spaghetti sauce. *g* Because this winter is the lesser for not having it in the pantry.
http://store.tomatofest.com/
Tomato Fest has lots of great varieties of heirloom tomatoes. I grew only those two years ago, but had mixed luck. I like to can, so most of the heirlooms weren’t suitable. Brandywine was nice, though and tasted really good.
http://www.johnnyseeds.com/
Last year, I grew Red Sun and San Marzano plus numerous other varieties, from Johnny’s Selected Seeds in Maine. I got fantastic tomatoes and ended up being able to can 40 quarts and drying many more. Plus having plenty to eat. I was thrilled with the results. I have lots of seeds sprouting right now including the Red Sun’s, so if you’re out Maryland way, stop in.
We have six blueberry bushes that produce at least 30 quarts of berries each year. They are very easy to maintain but are well-loved by the Japanese beetles. I used the organic spores two years ago and had many fewer JB’s last year. You can get bushes from Miller Nurseries (catalog and online).
My new plantings this year are: new pecan tree to go with the one that took off and is doing so well. You need two to get pecans. (I’m from NC originally and have been planting southern stuff here for twelve years. Global warming is my friend!!) Redoing strawberry beds (those are on order). Taking out and adding back better varieties of raspberry; we have a gold variety that is absolute heaven to eat. Not one has ever made it to the house. Nothing better on a broiling hot summer day than to quench your thirst from the raspberry vines!!
Okay, this is obviously the topic that makes me delurk and run on. I have much more to share. You have my email.
Denise at 125 — Just to be sure we’re talking the same Freed’s, the one just outside Shinnston, right? I’ll make a point to go some day when you are going to be there so I can say hi. :)
Christy, did you get the photo I sent of one of my canas?
Lindy at 131 — I did and it is GORGEOUS! I may have to use that next week for PUAC if the weather is still so cold and crappy. That canna of yours just says “sunshine” to me. :)
conniptionfit , in what part of the Denver area do you live? Our kids are in Parker. They are stir-crazy this year.
Last year I gave up on trapping gophers, hired a couple of guys I know to help, and dug out all our raised beds, installed wire fencing about 1 1/2 shovel lengths down, then put the soil back. Those are some frustrated gophers now, and I didn’t lose one plant last year. Lot of work, but worth it.
Mark
What do you recommend for diving puppies?
Christy Hardin Smith @ 130
One and the same! More predictably I’m at work in Morgantown M-F (work at US Forest Service) or occasional lunch at Zen Clay.
President Bush intervenes in a synagogue spy scandal?
Bush has two moles removed from temple.
-GSD
Good! That particular variety blooms and blooms…and as the season draws to a close, the petals start turning colors…you’ll have the orange and yellow…and a large streak of red…or one completely red petal. It’s beautiful.
new thread
“Bush has two moles removed from temple.”
He better install some of that wire mesh- or they’ll come back.
And Kathryn in MA re the groundhogs. Last summer I installed 24 inch wide rolls of chicken wire all the way around the garden fence. 12″ up the fence side, bend at center, 12″ flat on the ground. On the fence, installed with staples and on the ground, used ground staples to anchor. It worked very well. This spring, I am going to do the same at the top except that the twelve inches that would be on the ground are going to be unattached. Supposedly when the groundhog tries to climb over, he reaches the unattached fence and it bends down, thwarting his attempts to scale. We live trapped six of them in rapid succession two summers ago. What we learned is that there are always more groundhogs happy to replace the ones you trap. The definition of futile.
thanks – now to design a fenced-in raised garden – o joy!
that is, after closing arguments
Christy — I hate to break the news to you–the Global Climate Crisis has hit West Virginia. See Wild Warming West Virginia for new Hardiness Zones–WV is now almost completely zones 6/7.
WVBlue
from the Eel River watershed in Northern Cali (zone 7 Digger Pine Zone) — good day everyone!
it is gorgeous today — and just wanted to thank Christy for the post about working the dirt. it is where hope always lies.
patting myself on the back: put in 13 bare root fruit trees replete w/ wire baskets and starting to transplant potted plants (mint, yarrow) to the ground finally getting them off the deck.
in fact, going crazy w/ the gardening bug. really into the delayed gratification of it all. and, finally fencing (serious fencing to keep out bear, wild pig, etc) my Garden Zone, i can now go for permanence.
it makes me humble and thankful when i think of all the want and need out there, and i get to frisk in the wild open air digging holes.
BTW: to the FDL crew, thanks so much for your work. it matters.
peace.
Ah the Eel River. Brings back boyhood memories. As does the Feather River, the American River and the Sacramento River.
Oklahoma kiddo @
146
cool, kiddo!
Eel was given sanctuary by Pres Carter on his last day of office when he put the river under protection w/ the Wild River Act. whew.
however, slows to a trickle come late spring when the water is siphoned off to feed the growing maw of civilization to the south — Sonoma County, etc.
long gone are the Salmon and Steelhead.
alittlemusicalityplease @ 54:
http://www.southernbulbs.com/servlet/StoreFront
Yay for Yarrow — my most useful first-aid plant. It stops bleeding from open wounds and heals from the inside out. In tincture form it beats all. If it stings, you needed it.
Wild variety only. Colorful garden versions aren’t medicinal.
Organic Mechanic @ 147
Do they still have the high water marker near the bridge? I was at the Eel in the ‘55 floods. A lad of eight.
Word on cannas being thirsty plants! And if you have a choice try rectangular planters instead of round ones. The tuber grows more or less in a line and after a while it pushes up against the side of the pot and stops.
rwcole @
140
oh. i thot you meant spies at 1st, or…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5NVaUeMAA4
Late to the party, but White Flower Farm is a favorite located in Litchfield, CT.
Here’s a link to a virtual catalogue.
Great photo. My youngest son is in garden design and landscaping business. It is hard work, but a noble calling. I will show him the website.
Late to this thread, sorry. Don’t have any growing suggestions because I live in a very different climate than you do, Christy. But I wanted to share something funny – Mr. Lefty is a professional organic gardener at a local resort famed for its edible gardens. So what does he do when we moved to a new house last year? He ripped up the sod in the back yard and built 12 raised beds, 6 of which had heirloom tomatoes in them last summer. But funniest of all, he just came home last week and let me know he had secured an allotment garden in the nearby town! Which goes to prove, I think, that the urge to grow things, especially at this time of year, can be overpowering!
Wow, not only do I get in trouble on FDL for being a contrary but I get in trouble with my wife for spending so much time here. This thread may say my bacon with Sweet Annie the gardening fanatic. You’ll be glad to know that there is a Boulevard Garden Club right in Trex’s neighborhood in Athens and my bride is one of the founders! Thanks
Blvd Garden Club
Thanks to ewmnet at 48 for the referrals. I’ve already bookmarked those magnificent sites and sent them on to friends. They are food and medicine for the soul.
We have tilled in the cover crop, and the spring plants will go in sometime in the next week or two. We also took out the herb bed to start over (invasion of grass was too hard to defeat). Across the 300 ft^2 of our beds, my wife puts in a range of tomato plants. Big slicers for her, and Super Sweet 100s for the kids (they eat them off the plant). She used to really work on heirloom stuff, but they were all pretty weak come mid-summer. The last two years she has mostly done plants from the local farm supply. They are newer versions, but are hearty in the very humid heat of July and August.
She does the plants and I do the dirt, so I can’t add much more than that. However, after years of watering by hand, this last year we put in a low pressure watering system (drip lines to each plant). Did the same thing with the flowers and herbs on the back porch. Oh my, what a difference it made! Beautiful carrots, wonderful potato plants, tomato plants that set fruit into August (usually they bake in July), lettuce that lasted well into summer, and on and on. Total cost for two systems (two timers, two regulators, two backflow units, plus all the appropriate lines and drip heads) ran a bit more than $100. Clearly worth it. It allows you to spend more time chasing tomato worms, grubs, and kids who pull the pea plant down while they giggle and try to eat all the peas.
Have fun!
Christy,
I hate to be a pain in the ass but you post a lot of photos on this site and I never see an attribution to the copyright holder. If you don’t have permission from the copyright owner to post the image you are violating copyright law. If the image is in the public domain it is OK to use it.
Just a heads up.
Jim
Hello everyone,
I’m EPU’d, but I love “Pull Up A Chair” so much that I still want to participate!
We live in a rural area 30 miles east of Seattle, WA, and as GPB mentioned earlier, I have a black thumb, too. The highlight of my spring, though, is visiting the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival; I can wander around in fields of the most gorgeous tulips and daffodils you’ve ever seen to my heart’s content. http://www.tulipfestival.org/
I still long to grow things. We tried planting a garden the first year we lived in this house. It ended up being a snack for the deer. We’ll try the tomatoes again. We’re also going to consult the folks at http://www.molbaks.com to see if they have any suggestions; I looked at the Renee’s Garden link, and I have to have some sweet peas. They’re my favorite.
Happy gardening, everyone, and Happy Spring.
-S
Jim at 159 — Actually, we post a lot of attribution on our photos — if you go back through and look, I try to be very careful to source back any photos we use to the place where they are found and, where it is noted, also the name of whomever took the shot in the first place. There is an ongoing discussion across the blogs about fair use versus sourcing and copyright, and it’s a fairly wide-ranging debate. Whenever we can track down an attribution, which we try to always do when possible, we put the name and link on the photograph. There was a big discussion abotu this on Kos not too long ago about public domain versus copyright and it is something that Jane and I have taked about as well — but we’ve had to put that discussion on hold between the Libby trial and Jane’s surgery. We’ll definitely be getting back to that at some point once the trial and some other issues have slowed down enough to give us space to talk.
With regard to the photo above, there was no copyright notice nor name of photographer on the website that I linked above but, as it did come from a specific landscape design website, I linked it so that the company in question could, hopefully, pick up some business for their beautiful work. HTH!
For Hummingbirds, a mock orange bush is a necessity. Not only does it smell and look wonderful its a mecca for hummers looking to build a nest. Any Lily is good for feeding and they are cheap to get, even if you have to buy them.
As for butterflies, that depends on the variety that fly past you. I am on a flight path for monarchs so I leave a good section of milk weed growing (yes it is a weed!) I’m told the coneflower is also good but I can’t attest to that.
Shady area must haves are astilbes. I love those plants. So showing an impossible to kill once they are established.
Good luck with yours. I too have a seed fetish.
You want tomatoes?
Tomato Growers Supply Company located in Ft. Myers, FL and hundreds and hundreds to chose from.
I agree with the poster who asked there’s such a thing as a bad (home-grown) tomato?
Bone weary and very happy.
Yes it was 85F in So Cal today, so I spent the past 6 hours working to clean up all the dead plants in my yard from the freezes we had a few weeks ago. I had held out some hope that some of my bushes and shrubs would make it, but only a few did.
18F is tough on semi-tropical plants.
So all the dead pants are gone and now I’ve got to decide if I replant with hearty varities or hope that global warming does bring more weird weather.
Ficus- We have an entry foyer in the front of the house big enough to have 2 large potted plants, one of which is a ficus, and the other I no not what. For the last two years we have had a family of hummingbirds build a nest in the ficus tree. Because the foyer has a wrought iron gate allowing entry to the main doors and a picture window looking into the foyer, we are able to lock the iron gates and watch the entire miraculous cycle of where we get hummingbirds from 2 feet away. I installed a remote doorbell button outside the locked gate and now if anyone wants to see us they have to come through the garage. Well worth the trouble. We cannot wait for the next occurrence. So a ficus tree it should be.
For tomato growers in SoCal, the Fullerton College Arboretum is having a tomato plant sale March 9-11. Supposedly, 125 varieties will be available.
Christy:
You should check out this site and you’ll find some ways to save wear and tear on the body. The books are no longer new, so you may have to order them.
Christie at 161. I am glad that you are cognizant of the copyright issue. As a wildlife photographer I am concerned about the unauthorized use of images. Even if an image does not have a copyright mark it is still protected by US and International copyright laws and it is the obligation of anyone wishing to copy or use the image to do due diligence to obtain permission before use. There are a number of sites on the internet that list public domain and fair use images. This minimizes the potential for legal actions for use of images.
This is a great blog and I appreciate the fantastic work that you, Jane and the rest of these fine folks are doing.
Cheers,
Jim
I live in Southern Maine, on the coast, and about a half mile from my house (and I have some beautiful gardens, mind you), is the most perfect little cottage garden I have even laid eyes on. These are hard-core gardeners – everything is perennial and there is always something blooming. We got a foot of snow this week and I guarantee they have interesting grasses and seed heads poking artfully through the snow. I drive by there all the time, just to see it during the different seasons. Appropriately, the house is a perfect little stone cottage! I stopped once to speak to the people who own it – to let them know that I am not actually stalking them, but rather their yard, and they told me they have been working on it since 1956!
I am in a hotel in Portland surfing with wireless access–visiting a sick relative at MMC–saw that you are a Mainiac. I used to live here. Do your neighbors care if you photograph their yard? That would be a nice seasonal photo album. It would make a nice gift–You could order it from Iphoto.
I saw this quote in a thread that is now closed.
“The philosophy of conservatism is inevitably doomed by its adherents’ willingness to accept bluster as a sign of character and thick-headed devotion to meaningless symbols as sign of moral fiber.” (Albert Einstein)
Does anyone know if this is an accurate quote? If so it bears repeating. Sounds like a lot of people I run across in the course of the work-week.
Punkster @
169
Stupice tomatoes. They are smaller than some, but taste the way tomatoes are supposed to taste. Will set and fruit in colder weather than most tomatoes. Developed in Chezchoslovakia (sp??), if I recall correctly. Really a fabulous tomato.
For hummingbirds try Agastaches–esp. A. mexicana (red tubular flowers,lemon or licorice scented) cana (sweet minty scent & pink flowers), and rupestris, orange flowers and a nice anise scent–not called Hummingbird Mints for nothing! All are excellent tea plants and deer and elk proof. (A big deal here in Idaho).
Each summer I plant a ‘buffet’ in the lavender rows to see what will survive deer and elk for my nursery and Agastaches are great troupers and very beautiful. All summer long the hummers wave me off the agastaches when I’m watering, buzzing me if I get too close while they’re feeding.
And many sages make them happy–last summer the hands down favorite was a hot pink Salvia lemmonii in a huge tub on the porch which was full of hummers morning & evening. And not wasp attracting like nectar feeders, which I don’t need now that I always have sage & agas and runner beans by the house for the hummers.
Two faves I’d add to the veggie garden are miners’ lettuce (Claytonia)–very succulent and tasty–and filet beans, really prolific and great taste. They freeze well too.
Adie @
113
I know I’m way out of the bubble, but if you’re reading, thanks. What’s the rationale? Do they leave with the cold no matter what?
Millineryman @ 31
I second the suggestion on Cherokee Purples! I’ve been growing heirloom tomatoes for a few years now–our local Tilth society has an edible plant sale every year, with organic heirloom tomato plants in a starring role. The Cherokee Purples have a wonderful sweet, rich flavor and they’re absolutely gorgeous, inside and out.
At risk of gloating, we spent most of the day outside in t-shirts, weeding and pruning. It did, alas, tend to disturb our favorite birds – they could be heard a few yards away complaining bitterly about our proximity to feeders.
But She did a fantastic job clearing a goodly stretch of foundation bed while I pruned two large climber roses, five standard roses, and got a good start on the magnolia. I think the end result was something like six large bags of debris, to be composted courtesy of Seattle’s yard waste program.
Frankly, it was balmy. I felt a tad guilty, knowing there are many still under snow, with depths up to many feet, not to mention temps, even w/o windchill barely in double digits I guess.
But Spring has made it to Puget Sound, perhaps something you can take heart in. I’m regretting that those catalogs that have been piling up have not triggered any actual seed orders. We have six roughly 6X8′ semi-raised beds that used to be intensively in veggies but are now less aggressively used – dahlias and iris have been allowed to cohabit, e.g. But there is a good bit of weeding needed there before we think about early Spring starts like potatoes, brassicas, lettuce, peas.
And we do enjoy our porch-potted cannas too.