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BS: The Late Winter Garden
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Subject: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Janie Date: 11 Feb 04 - 10:34 AM Just a week ago I finally finished cleaning up, cutting back and pruning. In the next week or so I will be busy spreading compost and mulch. Sweetpeas, snapdragons, lettuce and kale are germinating under grow lights. And for this brief moment, there is nothing to do but wait and watch. This past weekend I was standing out in the garden under the full moon. Very peaceful, and at the same time very exciting. That waiting time that any woman who has been pregnant knows about. Winter rosettes of rudbeckia and daisies glittered with frost. All cleaned up of brush and blackened stems, the "bones" of the garden, spare and structured, were easily observed. Still a good 6 weeks from bloom, the tips of daffodils and wood hyacinths poked up from the bare ground, and where I pulled back last year's mulch, there appeared the tiny seedings of self-sowing larkspur, ammi, and phlox drummondii. Very soon the crested and reticulated irises will be blooming, and here and there in what passes for lawn, the wild veronica, creeping speedwell, is showing off a few early sky-blue blooms. Soon the neighborhood lawns will blanketed in clouds of blue veronica, and we will all let our yards get too high and weedy because we are loathe to interrupt the show. (What wonderful neighbors I have, who let this happen.) I sang to my garden, there under the full moon. Sang as the earth and the plants laid dreaming, under the moonlight. Tell me about your winter garden. Janie |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: AllisonA(Animaterra) Date: 11 Feb 04 - 10:46 AM Janie, where do you live? My garden is under 3 feet of snow! There lie the bulbs of daffodils, crocus, tulips, and some tiny narcissus. The rose bushes I took from my beloved's garden are mulched with Mother Nature's whitest, as are the hollyhocks, coneflower, coral bells and rudbeckia. I just started my flower garden last year so will be eager to see what starts coming up about 3 months from now! This year I plan to start a vegetable garden as well. Just a simple one- lettuce, tomatoes, basil, maybe some squash. But here in northern New England, right now I can only dream! Allison |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Janie Date: 11 Feb 04 - 10:55 AM Allison, I live in "the southern part of heaven" aka Hillsborough, NC in the southern part of zone 7. It can be a difficult gardening climate, but spring comes early, is usually splendid, and we can pretty much garden year round. Oh those winter dreams about our gardens! Do you have a nice big stack of seed catalogs to fall asleep over? Janie |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Tinker Date: 11 Feb 04 - 11:02 AM Janie....those miles south are a world of difference. We've been unseasonably cold this winter and even in New Jersey, my garden has been buried for the last month. The last two days the sun has shone and we've gotten to the mid 40's so I can see the garden again, but it's still patchy ice and shadowed snow. I 've got a slackers garden this winter...those bugs distracted me in the fall, and I never cleaned up the garden... So I've got tansy stalks and coneflower,and rudbeckia still standing tall against the stark winter landscape. Once It warms a bit, I'll slowly begin clipping, that could be done before mud season clears. But it'll be the end of March (or April) before I'm where you are now. Sighing Whistfully... tink |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Stilly River Sage Date: 11 Feb 04 - 11:11 AM My weeds in the turf are blushingly green, the hated Bermuda grass is brown and dormant. We've had a winter of broccoli and cauliflower humming along in the back garden, along with onions and garlic. It's past time already for planting the "root" veggies, carrots and such. Beans should go in now. I've been so busy indoors with a writing assignment that I haven't gotten outside to mulch, and to dig the trench for a waterline that will run from the creek to the new pump in the garage. But that will all happen in the next couple of months. I'm moving my veggie garden to a better location, so it gets full morning sun. The current location gets what counts as full, but it isn't the best, it's mid-morning to late-afternoon. This year I'm not going to dig that bed, I'm going to put down newspaper and heavy mulch, after a good sprinkling of a cocktail of agricultural corn meal (corn gluten meal is even better, but I'll use this stuff up first), dried molasses, lava sand and green sand. I plan to use a variety of organic pest controls as the season progresses to hopefully prevent the cucubit slaughter that happened last year. Neem and garlic pepper spray and orange oil and such. Vinegar is a great tool in the garden once it warms up--kills the foliage it hits, so is a benign way to gradually kill off grass and such. Doesn't kill roots, but is often times enough to discourage encroachment. My iris reemerged last fall. Beautiful palmate fans of leaves. Not much sign of the daffodils planted last fall, patiently waiting until the soil was cool enough. I am crossing my fingers that soon some of the 50 or so bulbs I planted will make their presence known. Columbine and day lily are happy out front, salvia Greggi ready to burst into color when the days are long enough. I am probably going to dig up and transplant the cannas--they're kind of big and sloppy in the place where the former owners placed them. I dug up some yucca in the wild land across the road from me, and I plan to go back later for more, and for an attractive native recumbent small lobed prickly pear. That's for the desert portion of the yard, where I want stuff growing there, but not so dense that drivers can't see through it (we're at a curve in the road). We have a few weeks to go until we pass the last date for heavy frost. SRS |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Bobjack Date: 11 Feb 04 - 11:17 AM I have a concrete yard at the front of my house, and a concrete yard to the rear, heaven! |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Sttaw Legend Date: 11 Feb 04 - 11:26 AM Bobjack, have you tried painting it green (the concrete) there's an offer on paint at B&Q at the moment, it's called grass green, you can't miss it, it's green. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: SueB Date: 11 Feb 04 - 11:28 AM Janie, what beautiful writing. As I read it, I felt little stirrings of longing, like the ones I feel when I hold somebody else's new baby and think for just a moment that I'm not too old to have another one of my own - and then my pragmatic side kicks in and says "Ach. Too much trouble." But how compelling and persuasive your writing is, to make even a confirmed brown-thumb like me think for a few moments of getting out the shovel. I am very happy to enjoy your garden vicariously, and I love the image I now hold in my mind of a woman singing to her garden in the moonlight. I think it might have the makings of a lovely song? |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Allan C. Date: 11 Feb 04 - 11:56 AM I feel the same way as SueB about the image of you as you sing to your garden in the moonlight. How lovely! Certainly the climate here in Texas should lend itself well to a winter garden filled with a broad spectrum of vegetation. Unfortunately, I am now a third floor apartment dweller and will have to make do with whatever I can grow in pots on my perpetually shaded balcony or in the scattering of pots I have in my living room. There is nothing at all on the balcony so far. (I just moved here a short time ago.) So I am in the midst of trying to decide what will work best. I am gathering information on wildflowers that are native to the area with the hope that I might be able to find a source for some domesticated varieties. Despite what you see in films, there are other things here besides cactus. Having said that, I am reminded of the admiration Irma Bombeck had for them. She said she would water her cactus every time the weather map showed rain in Arizona. She also said the beauty of cactus is that a full three years can pass before you know you've killed it. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Bobjack Date: 11 Feb 04 - 12:05 PM Sttaw old boy, why green? why not mauve or beige or vermillion? |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Janie Date: 11 Feb 04 - 12:46 PM SRS, does the vinegar stop the Bermuda grass? Or just send it back underground to reemerge even deeper into your garden beds? I was reading an article in OG last night about needing to go only two inches deep to get up the grass roots when desodding a new bed. "Ha!" sez I. "I'll have to get my Bermuda grass to read this so it will know to stop sending runners down a foot deep." Bermuda grass read the article and then laughed in my face! Humph! I have found your technique of layering newspaper or (even better) cardboard and organic materials, to work really well, but that ol'B grass ALWAYS finds a way up through it as soon as that first layer of paper/cardboard begins to decompose. Any tricks to pass along? Allan--I had visions of romantic bougainvilla twining around your balcony rail---then remembered you said shady. Orchids maybe? Janie |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Stilly River Sage Date: 11 Feb 04 - 01:43 PM No tricks for Bermuda grass, except not to use a tiller on the sod when putting in a new bed, because that just makes the problem worse. Even with the top three inches of sod taken out, it is still a huge problem. My neighbors had new flower beds put in last spring and the gardeners took up sod first and it was just as bad as if they had done nothing. The only thing here that is even worse than bermuda is the nut grass. (Ever see the line in To Kill a Mockingbird about how Miss Maudie won't let a blade of nutgrass grow in her yard?) Vinegar kills the leaf only, when done in combination with warm weather (80+) and sunshine. But on other plants it is beneficial, so the uses are something to study if you're into organic gardening. The people who rented long-term before I bought this house were pleased that they finally got the bermuda established. I could wish that they'd been less successful. SRS |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Rara Avis Date: 11 Feb 04 - 04:31 PM I've been thumbing through the catalogues since they arrived in January and I'm ready to place an order. I haven't gardened in a few years due to time constraints and ill health but this year I'm ready! Last year I did a garden design for a local church; I can't wait to see how the new garden fills out this year. Tinker, where in NJ are you? I'm just outside Philadelphia and our snow has disappeared. The warmer temperature is encouraging. Spring really is on its way. Next month is the Philadelphia Flower Show – just what we gardeners need at this time of year. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: CarolC Date: 11 Feb 04 - 04:32 PM It's already spring here in Alabama. I can hear spring peepers every night now, and some kind of bulb plant (probably daffodils) looks like it will be blooming very soon in our yard. I've got one dandilion that's already bloomed and gone to seed, and the mint that grows in the cracks of the concrete in front of our 'wee hoose' is starting to show signs of reappearing. I'm going to do some container gardening this year, I think. I've never done that before, but it makes the most sense to me right now since I don't know how if we'll be living here long enough to justify the work of putting a garden in the ground, or even a raised bed garden. Anybody got any good advice about container gardening in a southern (US) climate? |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Janie Date: 11 Feb 04 - 05:04 PM CarolC I am green with envy! We used to head from West Virginia to south Florida every January to do the winter craft show circuit. I always watched and listened for the place where we would get far enough south to hear the peepers as we drove along in the still night. That usually was coastal Georgia. Don't you love those soft spring nights? Janie |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Allan C. Date: 11 Feb 04 - 05:26 PM Ah, yes. You don't have to see it, you can hear it is spring when the peepers come out in the evenings to celebrate the rain. CarolC, I'll let you know what I come up with for my container garden if you'll do the same. We aren't terribly different in climates. There's something called Blue Gilia that grows here in clusters. It sure is pretty and I'm hoping I can find some seeds. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: CarolC Date: 11 Feb 04 - 05:31 PM I'm loving them now, Janie. I was sitting outside under the recent full moon myself (but not singing ;-) But I know I'll be feeling differently come summer when it's too hot to sit outside even at night. Hopefully we'll be traveling around Newfoundland then or something. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: CarolC Date: 11 Feb 04 - 05:35 PM Sounds like a plan to me, Allan ;-) Are you going to do fruits and/or vegetables, or just ornamentals? |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Allan C. Date: 11 Feb 04 - 05:43 PM Dallas has one of the best "farmers' markets" that I have ever seen. Also, it has been my experience that growing anything other than herbs in container gardens rarey is worth the bother. Thus, my plan is to concentrate on the native pretties. (Don't be reading any more into that sentence than is actually there!) |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Stilly River Sage Date: 11 Feb 04 - 06:13 PM Allan, do yourself a favor and visit the Dirt Doctor and see what he says about organic gardening, native plants, container gardens, etc. Howard Garrett is in Dallas, and though his web site attracts people from all over, it's heavily used by locals. Carol, there is a compost guy in Alabama you might want to check out at this site. It's an art, and he's done some remarkable stuff. Go into the section headed "compost" and you'll find him. He's one of the moderators on the site. Allan, if you're doing container gardening here in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex, you have to keep in mind how hot it gets and how quickly pots dry out. Use big pots, prepare the planting medium and potting soil well, and see what Garrett says about keeping them wet enough without over or underwatering. There are some really good organic garden centers in the area. You'll find information about them at Garrett's site. Carol, hold that thought about spring being just around the corner. I'm sitting in my office looking out at a day as cold and gray and wet and bleak as any the Pacific Northwest could muster. We have daffodil and quince blooming already--I think they were fooled by a warm spell--but everything else is dormant still. If I have to suffer throught these damned hot summers here, I ought to at least get to enjoy an early and lingering spring! SRS |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Joybell Date: 11 Feb 04 - 06:38 PM Can I come in as an upside-down gardener. Of course if you turn the map up the other way it's you who are upside-down. What lovely images. Here we have a late Summer garden. The parrots are cracking open Wattle seeds, apples are ripening in our orchard. My Spring baby Magpies are making friends with their wild family and soon the Magpie-batchelors will go off on their own. The Willie Wagtails and Restless Flycatchers have just raised second families - it's been a cool Summer - mostly. Our wild Native Lillies are covered with bright blue berries. Silver-eyes know just when the berries will be ripe and find their way here from distant Tasmania. Swallows are back again already - they only make a token migration - don't know why they bother really, they fly a few miles North and then fly back. Something calls them from the past. At night, when the air is cool - not cold, just cool - we walk around under the stars. Joy |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Janie Date: 11 Feb 04 - 07:26 PM Of course you can join in Joybell! As I read through the posts I recognized that while the 1st half of February is late winter for me, up north, they are still in the grips of mid-winter, further south here in the USA it is early spring, and now you remind us that for half of the world it is somewhere in the midst of the active growing season. I can't get this link to work with the linkmaker but I think you can type in the following web address to see pictures of my late summer garden. www.ofoto.com/AlbumMenu.jsp?&. If the link works, click on the album titled Cavanaugh's Garden. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Allan C. Date: 11 Feb 04 - 07:31 PM Nope. It doesn't get you there, Janie. It's a shame, too, folks because I've seen her gardens and they are lovely! |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Stilly River Sage Date: 11 Feb 04 - 07:41 PM Janie, that server page needs a sign in. I have a trick I use to isolate web photos. It might work here. Open the page in Netscape. Go to the "View" drop down menu then drop down to "Page Info." What you'll see is a breakdown of the page you are viewing. Click on the links for each photo and it gives you the unique URL for that photo. The trick with Netscape is that you can't use the mouse to cut and paste. Instead, highlight the URL, then do "control-C" for copy and when you're at the mudcat place where you paste it to make the clickie, do "Control-V" to paste it as text. SRS |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Allan C. Date: 11 Feb 04 - 07:55 PM I forgot to add: Thanks, SRS. I'll keep an eye out for that program. Thanks also for the advice regarding the water situation. I had a feeling that could be a problem. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Janie Date: 11 Feb 04 - 07:56 PM How do I open it in Netscape? If I have to download the netscape browser, the web page says you need windows 98 or higher. My computer here at work has Windows 95. My computer at home ain't at home--it is at the repair shop. I am great at gardens. I am bad at computers. Janie |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Janie Date: 11 Feb 04 - 08:00 PM OK. I think this will work. Don't know if you can navigate the pictures though.Cut and paste this into your post: http://www.ofoto.com/BrowsePhotos.jsp?&collid=36020455505&page=1&sort_order=0 Janie |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Janie Date: 11 Feb 04 - 08:03 PM DON'T cut and paste that into your post! I accidentally copied that instruction from the link maker. Janie |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Walking Eagle Date: 11 Feb 04 - 08:37 PM There is a program on WHYY in Philadelphia every Saturday morning from 10-11 titled 'You Bet Your Garden.' Mike McGrath is an organic gardener and he usually has a pretty good show. Just type in WHYY.org at that time and you can listen on RealAudio or your webstream. They are just finishing up a fund raiser, so the show will be a regular one. You can send him an email note at garden@whyy.org |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Allan C. Date: 11 Feb 04 - 08:45 PM You did good, Janie. The gardens are even prettier than I remember; but I guess it wasn't spring then, come to think of it. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: CarolC Date: 11 Feb 04 - 08:56 PM I can't get into the photo album. This is the message I get: "The page you're looking for is not available." Do I have to join to be able to get in? |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Allan C. Date: 11 Feb 04 - 09:05 PM Carol, I've tried it in both Netscape and Explorer and had no trouble. No, you don't have to have some sort of password or join the site or anything. The link should take you straight to the photos. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Mary in Kentucky Date: 11 Feb 04 - 09:16 PM I get the same error message Carol gets. Carol, I lived in Alabama for several years, and I don't think it gets any hotter in the summer than Kentucky. It just has a longer growing season which is wonderful. I don't know about container gardening, but I suspect the advice about large pots and lots of water is good. I found that in Alabama (and much of Georgia is the same) the soil is so poor that you have to plant a garden about three times the size you would otherwise in oder to get the same yield. Also, use pine mulch as much as possible...hopefully it won't make the soil too acid. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: JennyO Date: 11 Feb 04 - 09:30 PM Lovely gardens, Janie - something to be really proud of. Its summer here in Oz, and although I have a lot of vegies growing, it is still pretty wild in a lot of places. Admittedly I've only been here a few months, but the main thing that is frustrating me lately is that we have had, and look like having for a while, continuous hot days - I mean REALLY hot - in the 30's C every day (90-100 plus F) and high humidity too. It's too hot to be outside doing any meaningful work in the garden, and in the late afternoons I am not home. I know some might say get up early and do gardening before the heat of the day, but there are two drawbacks to this - the nights have been pretty warm to hot as well, sometimes only dropping a couple of degrees, and also I am not a morning person. I have tried changing, but with limited success. I've always been this way, and my desire to change is not all that strong, to be honest. So I can try to make the most of my time on the weekends, and hope that the weather cools down a bit soon. The main concern lately for the garden has been stopping it from drying out in this extreme heat - I know, mulching and all that. Last night we had the mother of all thunderstorms, and it continued raining for much of the night, so no need for watering today, anyway. I'm looking forward to nice mild sunny late autumn days, our best time of the year, IMO. Roll on April - June! Jenny |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Tinker Date: 11 Feb 04 - 09:53 PM Janie those are wonderful...Maybe it'll motivate me to head down there someday. Note the rude self invitation.... Rara Avis, I'm closer to NYC (where the Mister commutes everyday). It's amazing what a difference an hour's drive can make in the weather. Oh, I wonder if anyone can give me some pathway ideas, I was just lettting them stay as grass, but since we got the ride on they need special treatment.. I was concidering planting them in white clover, because stone is out of the budget for a few years. Any other inexpensive ideas???? |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: MAG Date: 11 Feb 04 - 11:56 PM If you think Bermuda grass is a royal pain in the butt, try quack grass. I swear the roots must go down 8 feet. Feels like China sometimes. Out here we have Hetzel Levine, the Doyenne of Dirt, on radio out of Portland -- that's OR. I think her show is on KBOO community radio, too. As per usual the cold snap has zapped my bulbs. I keep telling them, February thaw is a lie! |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: dianavan Date: 12 Feb 04 - 01:32 AM Here I am in British Columbia and last week-end managed to raise the rhubarb and re-plant it. Ended up spraining a joint in my chest. Didn't even know I had that joint! Remember to do a little stretching before you venture out. Hyacinths, tulips, daffodils and daylilies are all poking up out of the ground. The French Sorrel is yummy! Still munching on kale and chard from last summer. The chives are starting to grow. Even found a few scraggly, green onions. The fruit trees have plump buds, ready to burst. The forsythia is ready to do its thing. The road is lined with ornamental cherries. Keep looking at the buds and know I will only have to wait a few more weeks. Last Spring I planted wallflowers from seed directly outdoors. I ended up with about 30 plants. Transplanted them into permanent locations. I have no idea what colour they will be. I'm watching them with anticipation. I think they are a mix. Alan C. - beware containers. They are more work than they seem. They do need lots of watering but I think your idea of herbs and/or native varieties might work well for you. Make sure you find out how much sun they require. I have started many community gardens and am now involved with planting the boulevards in Vancouver (getting ready for the Olympics). Native plants and grasses are a good solution. Easy maintenance, attract birds and insects. Help to contain run-off. Anyway the City of Vancouver and the Parks Board have bought the idea and I'm off and running. My garden has always been my refuge. I plant according to the phases of the moon. I like to plant white flowers along the paths so that I can walk there at night. Oyster shells on the path also guide my footsteps. I love my berries most of all. For nearly six weeks of every year, I go to the garden for breakfast. What a luxury! What blessings these plants are. They have taught me so much. d |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Walking Eagle Date: 12 Feb 04 - 03:08 AM Tinker, MAG, and AllenC see my note about a radio show that is helpful. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: GUEST,MMario Date: 12 Feb 04 - 08:35 AM my plan is to concentrate on the native pretties Allan - no need to read anything into that statement - it's pretty straightforward! ducking and running |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Janie Date: 12 Feb 04 - 08:38 AM Carol & Mary--if you typed in the web address I first gave that wasn't "clickified", it will not get you there. A few posts further down I was able to find the exact URL and turn it into a blue clicky. That link should work. Walking Eagle--thanks for the link to McGrath's show. I always enjoyed his editorials and articles in "Organic Gardening" and have been curious about his radio show. Jenny--I think the slugs and bugs have it right in hot, humid weather--crawl underneath something and rest. If gardening has taught me one thing, it is that nature is in charge and I need to just "go with the flow", so to speak. One terribly hot and dry year my water bills were in the hundreds of dollars each month--and the garden still looked like crap! What flowers did bloom were small and unappealing. I lost my shirt in my small cut flower business. Now I do some minimal irrigation, but figure I can never water enough to make up for real drought and no longer try. One benefit is a natural culling of those plants that just can not handle our hot, dry and humid summers. If we can't garden in a manner that works for us in our lives then much of the benefit of gardening is gone. Allan & Carol, good luck with the container gardens. That Gila is a lovely blue. dianavan--WHERE is that chest joint?! Janie |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: GUEST,Rara Avis Date: 12 Feb 04 - 10:14 AM Tinker, pine needles, straw, or mulch could do for your paths. Moss seems to be the new big thing in gardening. Pathways in moss would be lovely. Walking Eagle, You Bet Your Garden is a great show. You definitely are local. PA or NJ? |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: CarolC Date: 12 Feb 04 - 12:56 PM Thanks Janie. It's the clickable link that gives me this message: "The page you're looking for is not available". I think they're going to make me join in order to see your pictures. I haven't decided what I'm going to do about that yet. In the meantime I'm enjoying this thread a lot. (P.S. Thanks SRS, Allan, and Mary.) |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Janie Date: 12 Feb 04 - 04:09 PM Carol, Sorry the link is not working for you. I wouldn't bother to sign up with Ofoto just to see them, however. I am also really enjoying this thread. Music and my love of gardening seem to feed my soul in the same way. It is clear that is true of many of us. I want to hear more about all of your gardens! I keep thinking of Allison tending her beloved's rose bushes, of Kathy's coneflower stalks in the winter landscape, and the wonderful and exotic sounding flora and fauna down under. Kathy--don't come down some day. Come soon! Janie |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: LadyJean Date: 13 Feb 04 - 12:20 AM My garden is sitting on window sills wondering who turned the sun off. In three short months they'll move back out to my fire escape, and prosper. I've been reading the garden catalogs. I will probably order more plants. In a month or so, I will probably put the dahlia bulbs I saved from last year into the flower box to try again. My mother grew hellebore, they bloom in late February and early March when you really need flowers. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: dianavan Date: 13 Feb 04 - 01:10 AM I really like hearing about your gardens. Gardening is the best therapy I have found. I encourage as many as possible to get out and dig in the dirt. Spring is just around the corner - WoooHooooo.... Jane - Apparently there is joint connecting the bottom, left rib to the chest (sternum?). It is made of a cartilage-like substance. He gave me a name for it but it was long and complicated. I forgot. To tell you the truth, it was soooo painful that when he said it was not a broken rib poking my heart or lungs - I gratefully accepted the diagnosis. I know I shouldn't be so trusting but it was my lunch hour and I was glad to get back to work. Its still painful and I think he said it would be 6-8 weeks before the pain goes away. Yuk! I know how I did it and I also know that from now on I will do my stretches before going into the garden. You know how it is - you think you are just going to....and you end up doing something strenuous that has to be done now! d |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Walking Eagle Date: 13 Feb 04 - 02:15 AM Rara Avis--S.E. PA. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: open mike Date: 13 Feb 04 - 12:11 PM i love crocosmia! MIne is still dormant. Here the first narcissus popped open it's paper white blooms yesterday (out doors) and the Hyacinth on the window sill is in full bloom. I had a succulent type flower, the common name is Gypsy Earrings, bloomed a couple of weeks ago. I have written cactus and succulent experts with photos tring to find more info, scientific name, etc and still no luck. It may be a Tillandsia, brommiliad. Christmas cactus have been puttinig out their hot pink flowers since december, as have the Cyclamen (both indoors) and the Daphnia buds are beginning to swell. They are the most fragrant flower i know of, and bring many a deep inhalation in feb and march! I took out a bed of day lillies which were growinig in a shaded area by my front door and replaced with Azaleqas, which will be full of color very soon! the containers of ornamental kale, calendula and primrose are doing their best to brighten up the winter on my porch, and daffydills are poking up and tulips are ready to do the same. I have been planting daffys and narcissus all around the circumference of the labyrinth which i have constructed in my yard. I planted corn, (an amazing maize maze)an Indian variety (multi colored) which is a sweet corn to be eaten when soft, not one of those you wait til it is hard and dry to use, also there are fava beans in the circular rows of the Labyrinth. The cherries and apples have been pruned as have the grapes, and wreaths made of the vines! ready for next christmas when i will lace bay laurel branches and toyon berries in the vines for holiday fragrant decor! The iris and day lilies are sending up shoots and buds are beginning to swell on quince, forsythia and star magnolia....and rain clouds are beginnig to form so i should get out there and do some stuff before it all gets wet! |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Janie Date: 13 Feb 04 - 01:07 PM Open Mike, Sounds fabulous! I have wished that I had enough room (and time) to design a labyrinth for the garden. They are such powerful, contemplative tools. Last year was the first year I planted crocosmia. The Emily McKenzie and George whashisname did well. The Lucifer did less well, but I am hoping it just needs time to become better established. Also planted common montebretia (montbretia?) which I loved. It is not supposed to be hardy in zone 7, but I mulched it good and am hoping it will come back. I have been in North Carolina 17 years, and still haven't figured out what a "typical" winter is. It seems that the spring bulbs are a little behind schedule this year even though it has not been a hard winter--it has been a wet winter, however, and temps have probably been a little below normal. Enough, I suppose, to slow spring down a tad. Janie |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Joybell Date: 13 Feb 04 - 04:52 PM Everythings baking in 100+ degrees, but we and our birds and other native critters are doing well in the shade. If I move a rock or a log I'll find a frog or two or maybe a coiled snake. When we moved here it was 5 acres of non-native pasture grass. Surrounding us is nothing but bare paddocks where wildflowers and native grasses once grew. It saddens me, when I think of how it used to be and about how it will never, ever be possible to restore the native grasslands. Our little oasis has come part-way back, though, and we have undone some of what is usually called "progress". The local garden club calls our place "an easy-care garden" If only they knew! Joy. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: LadyJean Date: 14 Feb 04 - 12:07 AM I thought I'd put in a plug for my favorite seed and plant catalog, Select Seeds. They have an incredible selection of plants, many of which you won't find anywhere else. I have ordered from them for several years. The plants all arrived alive and healthy. They do ship overseas, or the Canadian border, and THEY ONLY SEND YOU ONE CATALOG A YEAR! If they send you a second one, they ask you to send it back!!!!!! They are on the web at www.selectseeds.com. Their catalog is my favorite light reading this time of year. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Alice Date: 14 Feb 04 - 03:16 PM As I look out at snowdrifts around my house and yard that are several feet deep, I dream about my garden. sigh |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Joybell Date: 14 Feb 04 - 03:54 PM Alice, thank you for the cool image. It's over 100 degrees here and we are burning up. Joy |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Janie Date: 14 Feb 04 - 05:07 PM Joybell, Do you live in the tropics or subtropics, or are you having a terrible but somewhat unusual heat wave? I'm too lazy to figure out on my own just where in Australia you live. Hang in there Alice, spring will come eventually. Just imagine all of your plants resting up now to put on a glorious show for you in the proper season. LadyJean I will definitely check out Select Seeds. Thanks for the lead. New Year's Day I planted 500 tulip bulbs. The tips of many of them broke through this week. Ooooh....the anticipation! Janie |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Joybell Date: 14 Feb 04 - 05:36 PM Janie, I'm way down in Victoria Australia. We do have heat waves during Summer but the last few years they are breaking records. Also the cold fronts that used to bring us rain are passing below our South coast more often than not. We live on the driest continent anyway so it's a worry. If you look at the map of Victoria, and follow the coastline West from Melbourne we are near the South Australian border. Thank you for allowing me to insert a bit of heat into your lovely thread. I'm enjoying the images. Your seasonal changes are much more dramatic than ours. Joy |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Emma B Date: 15 Feb 04 - 07:31 AM one of the pleasures of living in the north of England (there have to be some!) - snowdrops; carpets of snowdrops. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Janie Date: 26 Feb 04 - 09:29 AM Well, we have had some really mixed up weather. After some rain we had a few moderate, partly sunny days. The buds started swelling on the fruit trees and the perennials began to stir just a little. I got the veggie beds covered with black planters paper to warm the soil up for early seeds, and finished pruning shrubs and trees. Then we had 3 or 4 days of dry, windy cold that tended to burn and dessicate new growth. The very tips of the spring bulb leaves turned brown. Now we are waiting for maybe the biggest winter storm of the season. And I thought I was going to plant lettuce, kale, onions and snow peas this weekend, as well as plant out some of my sweetpeas! In truth, after the last several dry, cold, windy days,, I think the garden will welcome another blanket of snow. Janie |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: CarolC Date: 26 Feb 04 - 11:28 AM I saw your garden pictures, Janie. You have a beautiful garden. I saw a tree in bloom in Atlanta on Tuesday. That was the first of those I've seen this spring. Our daffodils are in full bloom now. I've been leaving the potted rosmary plant outside at night most nights lately. JtS built a privacy fence around our patio area and my little squirrel friends love it. They can sit in privacy on the upper cross-piece on the inner side, eating acorns, while peering over the top, watching for danger. I spent a couple of hours with my Burpee's catalogue yesterday. I'm ready to place my order... probably later today. I hope I'm not planting too late. Does anybody know how densely strawberry plants can be planted in a container? (How many per what size area?) |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Stilly River Sage Date: 26 Feb 04 - 12:05 PM I went to Seattle over the Valentines Day weekend, and surprisingly, it was warmer up there than down in Fort Worth. Here are some photos of the snow that fell on Fort Worth on the 14th. My daffodils bulbs that I waited so patiently to plant after the nights cooled to 55 or lower are now sprouting. For the last 10 days they've been emerging through the leafy mulch. Since this is their first year I will be very careful to not disturb any of the leaves, so that when they go dormant again next fall they'll be established. If you trim or disturb the leaves on new plantings the bulbs don't get properly established for perennial blooming. There used to be irises in just a couple of spots in the yard, and when I dug up those overgrown beds I transplated iris all over the place. I have them popping up in several new beds, and I love the look of the fanned out foliage, let alone the flowers. Several of these beds will now have a mix of daffodils and iris. I found one small patch of iris when I first moved in that were almost orchid-like in their appearance. Most of them are a dusky yellow, attractive, but nothing spectacular. These few in one area were a bright custard yellow, but they didn't bloom last year. I moved some too late, and the rest were trod upon by the plumber who was trying to unclog the line from my washer out to the sewer line. Anyway, I've kept an eye on those precious plants and last fall was happy to see leaves emerge from where I had been afraid all of the plants had died. I have them in three distinct areas of the yard now and am eagerly anticipating their blooms. Will they be as beautiful as I remembered? I've spread them out to lessen the possibility that I could lose them all in the face of another plumbing emergency, and I hope to separate and produce more each year. They really are unusual and spectacular. SRS |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: GUEST,MMario Date: 26 Feb 04 - 12:29 PM just went out for a smoke during lunch break - and saw some of that funny green stuff that appears on the ground when it's not winter - though it's brown at the moment... not much - just a couple of square feet in the middle of the yard. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: maire-aine Date: 26 Feb 04 - 01:19 PM I have several clumps of Winter Heath (and some Summer Heathers, too) growing in my front yard. The snow has finally melted enough that they have re-appeared. With sunshine an a few slightly warmer days, they'll be blooming soon-- maybe by the weekend. maryanne |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Stilly River Sage Date: 26 Feb 04 - 01:26 PM My much-hated Bermuda grass is still dormant, but I have some exuberantly healthy weeds taking over the front for now. Creeping charley (a mint) as well as some bed straw and a chick-weed looking thing and something that looks like, but I'm sure isn't, strawberry leaves. I'd love to have a yard full of wild strawberries, so I'm sure this isn't it. Mother Nature rarely does things like that! I don't think it's a wild geranium, either. But it looks familiar, so when it blooms I'll figure it out. SRS |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Janie Date: 26 Feb 04 - 02:44 PM SRS--is it maybe "Indian Strawberry"? They have yellow blooms and get a small red insipid tasting berry. Survival food, but not much else. We lived on a farm not far from here for several years that was covered in wild strawberries in late spring. I would take a bucket, go sit down somewhere in the pasture, and pick (and graze) to my heart's content. Not many actually made it to the bucket. I would make strawberry ice cream with the few that I managed not to munch right off the plant. Yum! Here comes the snow. Janie |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Stilly River Sage Date: 26 Feb 04 - 02:56 PM I'm pretty sure this won't have a berry, but it might be in the same family. Once the flower is out I'll be able to tell. I'll fertilize the hated grass enough (horticultural cornmeal, dry molasses, et al) and the grass will crowd out the weeds. But the grass has to stop being dormant first or I'll only fertilize the weeds! SRS |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Walking Eagle Date: 26 Feb 04 - 03:29 PM SRS--send Mike McGrath a note garden@whyy.org and ask about a product called corn glutten meal. This may help with your bermuda and quack (sorry Geoff)grass problem. Don't forget to listen to his show. Saturday morning 10-11AM EST as well. I'm pushing his show beacause it is quite helpful and he doesn't make you feel like you are an idiot. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Stilly River Sage Date: 26 Feb 04 - 06:37 PM We have easy access to corn gluten meal here--a lot of that research was done nearby in Denton, Texas. I was just shortening my list when I mentioned that stuff. My lawn will get a mix of agricultural corn meal (I have to use it up from last fall), corn gluten meal, dried molasses, Texas green sand, and lava sand. Lots of anti-fungal properties, fertilizer properties, and trace minerals in that cocktail. I'll also be timing the Neem to knock off the moth/caterpiller squash killers that nailed my garden last year. Visit Howard Garrett's site at http://www.dirtdoctor.com for tons of good information. Your guy probably has a link to my guy--and vice versa. SRS |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Bobert Date: 26 Feb 04 - 07:52 PM 6-B Zone, Northern Hemisphere, Blue Ridge Mountain..... Still snow on the ground... Okay, Iz a gardener nut married to a gardener nut. We are members of azalea and camilla socities and have the spring completely planned for new plantings (12 new rhodos, 7 camillas, 20 or so azaleas) to go along with our vast gardens. I love early spring. All the early wild flowers abound. Tooth wort first. Then shooting stars, twin leaf, blood root, trout littly, trilium, Dutchman's britches, larkspur, snowdrops, Jack in the pulpits and the May apple. The wild yams start to climb and the Indian cucumber with its tiers peeking out to see whats happening. The ferns opening and unfolding after a winter's rest.... And then the rhodos, and azaleas and willows and dogwood and red bud come and you get those full moon nights where you can see the colors even at midnight.... And its till up the veggie bed and get things all ready fir another great summer of eating right out of the garden at night... I've got a new bed this season which I carved out last year. It's gonna be a euphorbia bed with just eniff other contrasting plants to make it intersting. I had lots of eiphorbia and dug it up last year and moved it all together so this summer it will fill in and become a real statement.... Anyone interested in odd evergreens? Me too. I've got a real nice evergreen (partial shade) garden.... Anyone got "green spiral" growin'? Er' sky pencil? Umbrella pine? Columnal bayberry? Bobert |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: CarolC Date: 26 Feb 04 - 08:04 PM You get ramps there where you are Bobert? I miss ramps in the spring. (Have I asked you that question before?) |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: GUEST,MMario Date: 27 Feb 04 - 08:47 AM Bobert - I'm jealous! YOu have a MUCH better climate for azealeas and Rhodies then we do here in the finger Lakes - many of the varieties just aren't hardy enough for our winters. Have you ever been to Dexter Estates/Heritage Plantations in Sandwich Mass? Many many varieties - some that were hybridized but never released. I don't remember how many hundreds of varieties there. Peak bloom is usually sometime in May for Heritage Plantations - Here - usually closer to Memorial Day - and sometimes mid JUNE!!!! |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Bobert Date: 27 Feb 04 - 09:51 AM Yeah, CarolC, you did ask me about Ramps and I forgot what they are but if you had 'um over in Sheppardstown, WV, I'm sure I got 'em, too. Remind me what they are again. No, MMario, we haven't been to those gardens in Massacuttes. 'BOut as far north as we've ventured is Longwood Gardens about 100 miles north of us. Actually, if ya' join up with yer local azalea society, you'd be surprised what these hybrediziers have been up to in coming up with hardy plants... Plus it's a great source of plants. These folks will give you the shirt off their back if ya' even jus' pay them a compliment... We are in the Northern Virginia chapter. Don Voss is in our chapter and since we are in 6B rather than 7A like them we are involved in experimenting with various *yet-to-be-named* azaleas to see if they will survive our climate. Now that's purdy cool. Speaking of climate, whe have thses funning looking things that I've built out of fencing wire and microfoam that are cylindrical that we cover out first year camilias with. If they survive the first year under them then they will more than likely survive the next year without 'um, unless, of course, we get -5 degrees but that doesn't happen but about every 30 years. Lowest temp this winter has been +3. Oh, jus' thinking about the gardens get me going... Gonna be 60 degrees on Sunday... Bobert |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: GUEST,MMario Date: 27 Feb 04 - 10:03 AM bobert - with all due respect.... PPPFFFFFLLLLLLLLRRRRRRTTTTTTT!!!!!6 miles from us they are zone 6. Because we are further from the lake AND higher in elevation we can't count on anything not hardy to zone 4. except the stupid aquatic parrot's feather - which isn't suppossed to survive freezing at all - but seems to do fine - even in the bucket that freezes solid. Daylilies are another reason I wished I lived just a wee bit further south...seems all the best varieties aren't hardy in my area. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: CarolC Date: 27 Feb 04 - 10:11 AM I thought I might have, Bobert. They're wild leeks. (Scroll down to see the leaves.) I didn't have any when I was in Shepherdstown, but good ramping grounds are highly guarded secrets, so you have to have some very good friends who are long time locals to know where they are. I was only in Shepherdstown for about five years, and I didn't get to know anyone with that kind of history in the area. I had ramps when I was living in western Maryland (Garrett County). I hope you get to try them some day. They're delicious. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Stilly River Sage Date: 27 Feb 04 - 11:25 AM MMario, there was a nursery in Marysville, Washington that specialized in rhodys and azaleas. I went shopping there when I was taking a gift to a friend who lives in the Nooksack Valley at the Canadian border. Needed to be able to tolerate the shallow water table and the cold winters. They had what I was looking for. I think you should get online and search out nurseries with specialties like that. You could probably mail order something, or have someone pick up a plant for you if they're passing by such a nursery. Bobert, I'm practically drooling on my keyboard over your list of flowers. I miss my northern (Washington state) climate with all of the great spring stuff--wild flowering currant, trillium, skunk cabbage, colt's foot, forsythia, pussy willows (they were out when I was in Seattle a couple of weeks ago!). Okay, fess up, have you ever gotten out of the car after work, intending to head into the house, but decided to step around the corner for a minute just to take a look to see if something or other is out yet in the yard? And 30 minutes later find yourself still in your work clothes, carrying the briefcase or handbag, bending over and strong-arming weeds out of the garden, a trail of roots and weeds on the turf along the path you've followed? Why is it that the soil is just perfect for weeding when you're not really dressed to do it, and you don't really have the time for all of the weeding that there is to do? SRS |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: GUEST,MMario Date: 27 Feb 04 - 11:38 AM Thanks Stilly - the USDA hardiness zone maps don't give me hope though - we have this little pocket climate that puts us right on the edge of 4b,5a hardiness zone - and the USDA puts the Nooksack Valley mostly in 6, with some 5b. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Stilly River Sage Date: 27 Feb 04 - 11:44 AM Looks like you need to buy yourself a yak and plant sphagnum moss and just learn to live with your arctic conditions! |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: GUEST,MMario Date: 27 Feb 04 - 12:25 PM actually - I looked into yaks at one point - our snow cover is too deep for them here. Ditto with musk oxen. It's just a little frustrateting - since our growing season is about a month shorter then people just a few miles away - and the folks in TORONTO can overwinter stuff we can't - and we are quite a bit south of them.... |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Bobert Date: 27 Feb 04 - 05:15 PM CarolC. Nope, ain't got them drittters. The leaf reminds me of a "shooting star" leaf... Heck, why would anyone want 'em? They is poisonous. Now I have found a little ginsing but not nuff to sell... SRS, Yup, sure do. Gardeners is some curious folks and one thing fir sure, if they see somethin' they'z gonna stop and ask 'bout it 'cause gardeners is also very generous folks an' most 'ill tell ya' everything they know. I ain't ven gonna tell you what I have planted in the way of flowering plants since the native woodsy wild flowers done got you droolin'... MMario, Sorry 'bout that but there's still lots of rhodos and azaleas that 'ill survive yer artic climate, ain't there??? Lot of ferns are hardy, too... And evergreens.... Bobert |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Stilly River Sage Date: 27 Feb 04 - 07:59 PM Maybe MMario needs to visit the yard art place and find some nice concrete sculptures to put out instead of plants. Create a sculpture garden! Bobert, I have gardeners on either side and across the street from me, and it isn't uncommon to see one of us toting a bucket of some plant or other over to the neighbor for them to transplant. I've handed out a lot of iris and grape hyacinth, sacred datura, and lantana, and the guy across the street has given me a couple of fine prickly pear cactus starts and every so often brings over his edger to tame my Bermuda. I've planned my yard so it sort of merges between the houses on either side of me while at the same time being distinctively different because of the species of things I've planted, and the pattern (or lack of pattern) I've chosen. My next door neighbor dug up a couple of plants called "Rock Rose" down in Austin and brought them to me--they look like Rose of Sharon (but if you try to search on the "Rock Rose" plant name by itself you get XXX-rated web sites because there must be a stripper by that name or something). (It's a pavionia, and I think it's in the mallow family). I visit a local nursery and search in their plants to find well-adapted plants. And it almost goes without saying, I hand out a lot of produce during the summer. SRS |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Bobert Date: 29 Feb 04 - 01:06 PM SRS, You and I could talk fir hours about gardens and favorite plants!... The idea of sharing plants is so cool. Do you have any plant waps in your area? We have a number of propagators in the two societies we're members of and they propagate and Hyberdize all kinds of stuff. And lots of it. Way too much. Kinda like gardeners who plant 20 tomato plants, don't can and then give goobs of stuff away in late July thru Septemeber... These folks is just like them. I got a basement full of stuff in pots to get palnted next month, plus a "heeling bed" full of stuff. Glad to have 5 acres to mess with! Bobert |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: CarolC Date: 29 Feb 04 - 01:22 PM Hey Bobert. Ramps aren't poisonous. You know if it's ramps or not by the smell. You can't miss it. When I was living in Garrett County, I used to hear stories about how school teachers wanted hazard pay for having to endure the smell of ramps on the students in the spring. But ohhhh.... they are delicious. Especially fried with potatoes, or in scrambled eggs. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Stilly River Sage Date: 29 Feb 04 - 01:34 PM Here are a couple of organic tips for those who will actually experience spring pretty soon. I had this recipe hanging out on my kitchen counter for ages, and today on the organic gardening program heard it given again, so I'll mix some up for the weeds in the lawn right now (the lawn is till dormant). Use this in warm sunny weather. It will burn the folliage on those weeds, but since the grass is dormant, it won't harm it at all. It doesn't kill the roots, but to hit the cool-weather weeds with this now you'll kill them off. I'm planning an application of this over the dormant garden also where some of the creeping charley has gotten established. For those of you who have mosquitoes to repel, mix Mix this and spray it on yourself to keep the mosquitoes off while you're outside. SRS |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Peter Woodruff Date: 29 Feb 04 - 07:08 PM My late winter garden is my early spring garden. I have 100 tomato plants, 100 pepper plants, and 18 basil plants coming up now! I plan to put these seedlings into a greenhouse I am constructing before I transplant them into raised beds outside. For me spring has already sprung. Yay! Peter |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Bobert Date: 29 Feb 04 - 07:56 PM Yeah, Peter, yer either a serious canner or the kinda guy who all yer neighbors love 'cause they won't have to plant nuthun' knowin' that yer gonna givin' away so much stuff come August and Saptember... CarolC: I thought I read that them ramps was poisonous? Heck, so'z some mushroom but we sure ate 'nuff of 'em in the 60's and 70's, didn't we? Okay, maybe not you... But, nope, we ain't got 'um. I even asked the P-Vine who is the master gardener (I'm the under-gardener) and she siad, "Nope, we ain't got 'um." SRS: Ya' got any home remidies fir wild violets. They grow in our grass and in out beds and if we don't bath fir a couple o' days will take up housekeepin' in our hair... All the "Round Up" type stuff only works on 'um afetr the leaves get growing good. By then, we got a couple thousand of them on out 5 acres.... Bobert |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Walking Eagle Date: 29 Feb 04 - 10:48 PM MMario, there is a small nature reserve just west of Albany, NY that looks as if a small bit of VA dropped out of the sky. There are actually wild rhodies growing there. Check the NY State website for parks and nature reserves, or something like that, and I'm sure you will find mention of it. Best time to visit would be around June or early July. Isn't there an old time music festival in Altamont at that time? |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Stilly River Sage Date: 29 Feb 04 - 11:16 PM Peter, what do you do with all of those tomatoes? I plant a dozen or so and I give a lot of them away even with all we eat and cook and freeze. I have great luck with eggplant, chard, peppers, and squash, if I can keep the moths from laying their eggs on them (their larvae will reem out a squash plant in nothing flat). I grow things I eat or can give away--I should try some okra this year. I don't care for it to eat, but the neighbors love it. We enjoy trying to grow new things (gardening is a great form of recreation). Bobert, the "Dirt Doctor" Howard Garrett would no doubt tell you that once your grass starts growing fertilize it with some dry molasses and horticultural corn meal. They will encourage the grass enough that it will crowd out the weeds. But you could try this recipe I gave you above for now--knock off the top of it until the grass can crowd out the roots. SRS |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Walking Eagle Date: 01 Mar 04 - 01:04 AM Bobert, What have you got against wild violets? I think they are beautiful in my yard. I guess it goes to prove that one persons' weed is another persons' beauty. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Janie Date: 01 Mar 04 - 09:02 AM WARNING!!!!MAJOR THREAD CREEP TO FOLLOW!!!! Bobert, Check out some of the Ramp festivals in West Virginia in the early spring. One big one is at Richwood. Ramp story: Jim Comstock, a very talented satirist, was the editor and publisher of a little paper called "The West Virginia Hillbilly" out of Richwood, WV. (I recommend a book called "The Best of the West Virginia Hillbilly" as a great anthology of some really funny stories.) Ramps have a wonderful, mildly garlicy taste, and an extremely pungent smell that won't quit. The only way to defend yourself from someone who has eaten ramps is to eat them yourself. Kids used to be sent home from school because their odor was so offensive. One spring, Jim added ramp juice to the ink used to print the "Hillbilly." The paper had a very large circulation throughout the state. The post office threatened to stop delivering if he did it again. Stunk up every Post Office in the great state of West Virginia! Back to gardens: I would have thought zone 6 too cold for camillas. what varieties do well there? I miss all the spring ephemerals. Most of woods around here are too dry and piney for them to grow in abundance. SRS--would love to see your gardens (and everyone else's) Janie |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Bobert Date: 01 Mar 04 - 09:54 AM Janie, Thanks fir the laugh and I'll see if I can find the book. As fir out zone, it's 6B and we're growing April Snow, Lady Van Sittert and Elenor Haygood, all of which are hardy for 6B... As fir the violets? I don't mind a few but they are invasive and invasive plants and gardening don't mix too well... Think English Ivy here... Or bamboo... I've got some of both of them and fight to keep them from going to unwanted places... The violet, unlike either ivy or bamboo, however, makes thousands of tiny black seeds and all it takes is a little wind and, wah la, thousands of new plants... I've found that euphorboia is a rather invasive plant, also and am trying to get it all into a large bed, let it fill out and then deadhead the plants before they can reseed themselves.... I know that this may make a few of you green (no pun intended) with envy, but we've got hundreds of baby linten rose plants that are coming up from the seed of the parent plants... Talk about some nice plants to take to a plantswap, they're it... The nusereries get like $15 fir one danged linten rose plant... 65 degrees here today.... Iz gettin' excited... Bobert |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Stilly River Sage Date: 01 Mar 04 - 04:31 PM Time to get the mower tuned up. It was new a couple of years ago--but I've hit may share of hard things that probably put chips in the blade. New spark plug, what else? Anyone out there ever do work on lawnmowers? SRS |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Stilly River Sage Date: 01 Mar 04 - 04:35 PM "my" share. Gotta use the preview screen! Nearest lawnmower miss: baby bunnies. I took the top off of a nest, but all of the babies were fine. I caught a couple and stuffed them back in the hole, one got away, one stayed in the hole to begin with. The three calm bunnies left with mom during the night, the fourth renegade turned up, we fed him some baby animal milk from Petsmart and he disappeared during the night, hopefully with mama. I keep the lawn mowed shorter next to the house now, to discourage close-in bunny nests. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Walking Eagle Date: 01 Mar 04 - 05:26 PM Good idea for the first couple of mows. After birthing season, I'd recommend you raise the height of your mower blade to three inches again. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Joybell Date: 01 Mar 04 - 06:10 PM Well it's just gone into Autumn here. We've never called it Fall because the only leaves that change colour and fall are on introduced trees. Lots of my eucalypts are in full flower now and the smell of honey is in the air. I'll collect some soon for our orphaned Brush-tail possum. Eating the flowers gives a golden tinge to her nose from the pollen. She's really cute all grey fluff with white-tipped ears and black-tipped tail. Our baby magpies have been released but they stay close to the house demanding hand-outs and singing to us in exchange for their food. A pair of Wedge-tail eagles are soaring high above us. They seem to have increased their range to include our place. Their nesting tree is on the sleeping volcano 15 kilometers to our North. Not far for an eagle. Bunjil, the God of the Aboriginal tribes who used to be here, could shape-change into a Wedge-tail eagle. When it came down to it Bunjil wasn't able to help with what happened out here. He and his wife are still up there, though - watching. Joy |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Bobert Date: 01 Mar 04 - 06:29 PM Yo SRS, Change the oil. If its a walk behind, just get out a pan, take off the cap at the lower front part of the engine that says "Oil" and turn the mower on its side. It will take about a minute fir the old oil to drain out. Then right the mower and use a funnel to put new oil in the same hole. If there isn't a dip stick then fill until its just below the loest threads in the casting. Now, take thre air filter cover off and clean the filter. You can clean it with water but be sure it dries before putting it back. Lastly, if after you've done all those things, sharpened the blade and it won't start, you may have to turn the mower on its side again and drain the old gas into the pan with the oil in it and fill the tank with fresh gas.... If that don't work then your ignitor is bad and you'll have to PM fir directions on replacing it... Bobert |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: dianavan Date: 01 Mar 04 - 09:16 PM In like a lamb and out like a .....? It was beautiful, sunny day in Vancouver. Noticed the purple heather all along the walk home and then...a gorgeous purple azalea in full bloom. Looked up and noticed that the oriental cherries are filled with plump buds. Soon it will be raining cherry blossoms. d |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Janie Date: 02 Mar 04 - 08:39 AM Got home last night and the first of the reticulated irises were blooming! Woooowoooo!!!!!! Janie |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: GUEST Date: 02 Mar 04 - 09:18 AM well the canada geese are flying west in the mornings and east in the evenings - and the DOMESTIC geese are walking north... a flock of them crossing the highway this am about 5 miles from anyplace I know that has geese - very stately - single file - and headed due north. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Bobert Date: 02 Mar 04 - 09:28 AM We got thousands and thousands of them Canadian Geese who ain't got a clue 'bout Canada. They live round these parts year long. Oh sure, the idiots will do a fly around once 'er twice a day as if they had a clue where they were going and why... but they don't... Speakin' of birds, which really is kinda part of a garden thread, saw my first robin yesterday and the Little Hawk's junko's, who I birdsit and feed all winter, are on their way back to his place in Canada... And, Janie, I lied. The April Snow camilla will live in 6B but the buds won't. I'm gonna try one of my winter cages on it next year to see if that works... Bobert |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Stilly River Sage Date: 02 Mar 04 - 10:42 AM Bobert, it still runs, I didn't take the gas out this year, though I intended to. It stayed warm so long that I kept mowing, and then at intervals this winter there were things that needed knocking down. I use an additive to keep the gas from messing up the mower. But that's a good idea, I'll go through the steps in your list. Thanks! (I've sharpened axes and shovels and adzes and pulaskis, can I use a file and sharpen the mower blade in the same way?) SRS |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Bobert Date: 02 Mar 04 - 03:02 PM Yo, SRS, As cheap as blades are you might just wanta replace it but if have a elctric grainding wheel they make short worl of shapenin' mower blades, but if ya' don't and don't wanta buy a new one then a metal fine and some elbow greese will work. Don't worry about trying to file it down to remove the all the chuncks out of it that you got runnin' over all the stuff you klost in the tall grass 'er it'll probably take days. Best time to take the blade off is while yer draining the oil. Take you a big stick and jam the blade against the body where the grass get blowed out and then its probably about a 17mm (5/8 top 3/4 inch) wrench to loosen the single bolt (Counterclockwise) to remove.... Ahhhh, be careful not to let the gas trickle down the outta the tand when you turn it on itside 'cause the gas may try to do this tru the vent hole in the cap. Good luck and let me know how things turn out... As fir me, things are a tad more complicated since I have two garden tractors. One fir mowing. One fir pulling a cart. Plus two weedeaters, two chainsaws, two other walk behind mowers, two garden tillers and a nasty old Grevely walk behind rotory bush-hog all to keep running properly.... Bobert |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Stilly River Sage Date: 02 Mar 04 - 11:26 PM Bobert, I believe my neighbor across the street has a grinding wheel in his garage/shop. He loves it when he can trot out one of these tools for some neighborly favor (I have set aside a few tasks that I could do easily myself because they are the kind of thing my neighbor enjoys, and when you're retired and puttering around all day it's nice to have someone ask you for some help that you can easily provide.) This is the guy who gave me some cactus in exchange for some lantana. A hawk was cavorting over the creek this weekend, its cry an expression of joy in the sunshine. SRS |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Janie Date: 03 Mar 04 - 10:49 AM Joybell--what a great job you do in conveying a sense of place. I wanna see it! A Gardner's Creed (from the Times-Columnist, Victoria BC, 1997) I want it. I want it all. I want it now. If everyone else has it, I must have it too. If it will not grow in my zone or is prohibitively expensive, I want it most of all. I am perfectly willing to forego any necessities of life in order to have it. I recognize my horticultural dependency. I recognize your horticultural dependency. I will willingly aid and abet your dependency, as you will mine. Any money saved by virtue of comparison shopping equals found money and therefore is not counted as spending. If I planted everything that I have already purchased, I must immediately buy more plants. At this point it is customary to recite your VISA number from memory. Love, Janie |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Stilly River Sage Date: 03 Mar 04 - 09:00 PM Bobert, the neighbor has a grinding wheel, so soon I'll take the blade off the mower and sharpen it over there. I bought several old tools from him in a garage sale last year. He couldn't figure out why I wanted them, but these are some gorgous old iron hand tools that will simply look nice hanging on the garage or a garden room wall. I have an old wheelbarrow I'm going to plant stuff in this year and leave artfully in a corner of the yard. It's so full of holes it will have great drainage! Like you I have a couple of weed-whackers. One gas, one electric. The gas one I bought on sale, and because the yard is so big I figured I could reach the back part most easily with it. It was on a good close-out sale at Sears, but it turns out to be so powerful in the kickback and noise that it's it hard to use. It bounces away a lot when you get near anything. So I bought a nice little electric one that I use most of the time. SRS |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Joybell Date: 04 Mar 04 - 06:27 PM Janie, Thank you so much. You're welcome any time. We'd love to have you visit. (I'm writing this with a Magpie on my shoulder, shrieking in my ear, and a baby Brush-tail possum on my head.) Bobert, our Swallows pretend to migrate too, like your Geese. I know they just hang out, for a few weeks, in the little town 15 kms. to our North, then they make a big show of flying back again. There's a bunch of them singing wildly in the Lilly Pilly tree. I didn't know that Swallows had little songs until we moved out here. Usually they just call "sip sip" to each other, but they also break into spirited songs as well. Joy |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Bobert Date: 04 Mar 04 - 07:32 PM Janie: I reckon that Magpie is some kinda parrot? What kind? No as fir possums? I thought they was jus' fir eatin' until 'bout 5 years ago a couple of em showed up on my back dean at night to eat cat food. I called one of 'um Kibbles and the other one Bits... They was real tame. They was around fir two tears and then we had a bad ice storm and it collapsed a carport and trapped the poor little buggers in there and they went to that big Kibbles and Bits bowl in the sky.... SRS, Good on you, gal... Purdy soon you'll be hangin' out yer shingle "We Fix Dead Mowers"... BTW, me and the P-Vine is considerin' gettin' into landscape designin' to earn a few extra bucks. She is allready been hired at one of the Washington, DC areas most formost nurseries, Merrifield Gardens, to work part time this season... I like that 'cause it means cheap plants... Only thing better than cheap plants is free plants! Bobert |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Peter Woodruff Date: 04 Mar 04 - 10:34 PM In answer to your question Silly River Sage et al. I MAKE SALSA!!! Peter |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Peter Woodruff Date: 04 Mar 04 - 10:39 PM Yes I do jar it, but I don't cook it. I figured it out. All I have to do is boil the jars and covers an put the salsa in it! Peter PS No botulism yet! |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: CarolC Date: 04 Mar 04 - 11:06 PM I was out in my new little patio area that JtS built for me this evening, playing my accordion under the (almost) full moon. The air was soft with a little moisture, the crickets were cirping, and the moon was shining through the leaves of the live oak trees. It was lovely. Then I got bit by two mosquitos ;-) SRS, the plant that you know as 'creeping charley', I know mostly as 'gill over the ground' and 'ground ivy'. I actually kind of like it, but I tend to like weeds better than I like lawn. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: CarolC Date: 04 Mar 04 - 11:08 PM *ahem* The crickets were chirping |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Bobert Date: 04 Mar 04 - 11:12 PM CarolC, Oh, the sound of crickets..... Folks are tellin' us that we got the 17 year locusts comin'.... Oh, joy....... Bobert |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Stilly River Sage Date: 04 Mar 04 - 11:40 PM I like creeping charley also, and it doesn't really go away as much as lie flat below my mower blades. Right now it is blooming, and there are big patches of purple out in the yard. I don't have a mono-culture lawn ever. I do try to take out the thistles before they get so tough and monstrous that it takes a spade fork to dig them out and they leave behind a hole large enough to cause sprained ankles. Crickets down here are not exactly a blessing. Where I grew up, in the Pacific Northwest, you heard but never saw them. Down here, you see them all over, and you hear them all night. Usually when one of the little bastards has made camp in a shoe in the closet and you can't find it because any time you turn on the light the little bugger shuts up again. I rely on the cats to ferret out most of them. I have few crickets now at this house because I have well-established tarantula colonies in the yard. They are marvelous! I also don't have any roaches. I have been checking the porch walls for the first sign of our little Mediterranean house geckos. I have lots of native snakes and lizards, big fat roly-poly toads, some lizard cousins to the horny toads of Texas fame, and a large number of birds that come through the brushy part of the yard. And then there are the water birds that hang out in our part of the creek. Coyotes come through, probably looking for the bunnies that live nearby. We have a red fox that yips up a storm across the road. Ah, spring! I do love watching this parade come through the yard! SRS |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: GUEST,MMario Date: 05 Mar 04 - 08:01 AM it looks like spring may finally be thinking of coming to northern climes - the snowdrops in the garden are not yet blooming - but they are UP and have buds. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Stilly River Sage Date: 05 Mar 04 - 11:25 AM And I found the manual for my rotary lawn mower! |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Janie Date: 05 Mar 04 - 03:53 PM Spring ain't even here yet, and I've got APHIDS on stuff already. Daffs finally starting to bloom. This week have pricked out and tranplanted 3 flats of snapdragons into cell flats, started hardening off a bunch of stuff, direct seeded lettuce and mesclun mixes, put in onion sets, planted out sweetpea seedlings, and will start tomato, peppers, etc. indoors this weekend. Crazy weather. Snow and winter last weekend. All this week in the 60's to upper 70's. Almost time to change the name of this thread to "The Early Spring Garden" (or the late Fall garden--if you are Joybell) No lawn mowing yet for me. Janie |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Tinker Date: 05 Mar 04 - 04:15 PM Ah but Janie, I'm still in late winter, I'm still cleaning up what I skipped in the fall ( 17 bags so far and a new heap to compost... The daffodils are perhaps three inches high and a few small red peony shoots have found their way, but it's still very early. Last week we hovered in the 60's but we're back to normal in the high 40's again. I've got about a month to go to get where you are... |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Joybell Date: 05 Mar 04 - 06:46 PM I love this thread. Visiting with friends all over the world, meeting Stilly River's critters and hearing the Coyotes' songs. I remember them from a trip to my True-love's country. I look up at the (almost)full moon and think about Carol playing her accordion and looking up at it too (when it moves on to the other side of the world). Our heat wave - it's been over 100 degrees for weeks on end - is over at last and it's raining. It will never get as cold as it is for Tinker though. Bobert you have great possums, I've seen pictures of them. They are quite different from ours. Smarter, I think but not as cute looking. Ours have flat faces and big soft eyes. Thank you again Janie, for starting all this. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Spring Peeps Out Garden From: Stilly River Sage Date: 05 Mar 04 - 06:46 PM Tinker, you read my mind. I didn't take up the leaves either, and while they protected stuff over the winter, I have to go rake them up tomorrow. They're smothering some of the stuff that is trying to come through. I found a grape hyacinth in bloom! And two daffodils are bulging, ready to bloom this week! Lots of little blue hyacinth buds around the yard. I'll carefully move the red oak leaves away from them. SRS |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Janie Date: 05 Mar 04 - 07:21 PM Tink--nothin' to do but move down here (and help me in my garden:)! I need a garden grunt desparately. The trouble is, free labor is hard to find these days. This is the time of year when I start saying to myself "What in the world was I thinking of when I put in all these beds?" For the next 6 weeks I will be constantly frantic "Ohmygosh gotta get that chickweed and those cranesbills outathere before they go to seedwhenwillIever have a weekend to haul mulch and compostcan't believe I have to go to work todaywhenitisperfect to divide those phloxifIdon'tgetthelettucewatereditwilldie--------deep breath---------OK, I know I have responsibilities to house, home, and familybutcan'ttheyjustleavemetogardenallweekendandforgetlacrossepracticeandbillpaying and Hey Dear, don't worry about all the doghair on the carpet, I'll vacuum in 6 weeks or so (If he wants it done he can do it himself muttermutter) and then suddenly----The old garden roses are in full glory with the peonies going to town in front of them and friends who are just as frantic come by to stroll through my gardens and renew themselves, and every night something from the garden is on the dinner plates. Beautiflly happy accidents of self-sown combinations manifest and the big flowers manage to cover-up where bermuda grass has invaded so I can pretend it isn't there. THEN I remember what it was I was thinking when I put in all of those beds. I smell the good dirt and move aside the worms so they don't get sliced. The hummers show up and the baby rabbits hide under the echinacea. A three year old on a walk with her Dad stops and plucks a viola to her Dad's chagrin and my delight. I just flashed on the thread on faith, to which I haven't posted because I just can't put it into words. But in essence, that is what gardening is. An act of faith and hope and the fulfillment of promise. Even in the bad years, I always know another good year will come along. Janie |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Janie Date: 05 Mar 04 - 08:43 PM Raising our voices in song is also such an act of faith. Janie |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Allan C. Date: 06 Mar 04 - 12:57 AM One of the best sermons I ever heard discussed the wonder of gardening. To the best of my recollection the preacher said something like: God has tucked millions of beautiful miracles right down there into the ground – more miracles than we could ever imagine! Those miracles of beauty are justa settin' there, waitin' to burst out into the world. And in His wisdom He has given unto us the keys to use to unlock these miracles from where they're a-settin'. Oh, yeah! He gave 'em to us. Those keys are ours to use. They are gifts from our glorious God! Now, here's the best part. Alls you gotta do is to push those keys into the ground and wait. Just wait and have faith. And after you've waited just 'bout as long as you can stand it, POP! Out comes a watermelon. Or maybe you used at different kind of seed. In that case, POP! Out comes a geranium or a rose bush or some pole beans. They are miracles! Ever' one of them is a miracle! |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: CarolC Date: 17 Mar 04 - 01:39 AM We finally have everything we need for growing some fresh veggies using containers. We bought some fairly deep rectangular storage bins to use as planters. They were a lot less expensive than pots, and they'll hold a lot more soil. We made some holes in the bottoms for drainage. The seeds and plants are all here. We got some organic humus and manure, some organic mushroom compost soil amendment stuff (the store guy recommended it), and a whole lot of good clean potting soil. We have some gravel for the bottoms of the bins, and some tomato cages for things to climb on (along with the lattice that makes the privacy fence for our little patio area). We're going to try to grow strawberries, roma tomatoes, grape tomatoes, onions, two kinds of peppers, Italian runner beans, green beans, sugar snap peas, some herbs, several kinds of salad greens (we got window box shaped planters for the salad greens), spinach, kale, and cabbage. I think we're going to give the term, "intensive gardening" a new meaning. The live oak trees are still shedding their old leaves from last year (and they're also blossoming at the same time). They've been shedding since last fall, and they still have quite a few old leaves that I know are going to fall in the next few weeks. SRS, you live in live oak country don't you? Do you know when they finally lose the last of their old leaves? I don't want to try to rake until most of them are down. Those little leaves are a lot of work to rake. This is the best time of year in this part of the world, I think. The daytime temperatures are in the upper sixties to the low eighties, F, and the nighttime temps are ranging from the forties to the upper fifties, with low humidity. I've been wearing shorts and t-shirts all week. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Metchosin Date: 17 Mar 04 - 05:51 AM No shorts and t-shirts here yet, but my flowering cherry is in full bloom and the frogs!...not just the occasional peeper that's been around in the trees since the end of January, but great choruses of frogs have started booming from the ponds at night. Its not late winter on the Pacific west coast, it is definitely Spring. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Joybell Date: 17 Mar 04 - 08:04 PM Getting out the Winter woolies. It's still quite warm though. Magpies are gathering into Autumn bachelor flocks and larikinizing around the place. Our Spring babies hardly speak to us now. Soon they'll pretend not to know us when they're with their wild friends. We know that two of them are an item - Mrs Peepers and Archie. She is a bossy hen-pecking type and he is aloof with everyone except her. He fell in love with her when they were very small and he was an awkward, shy youngster with no tail. We rather suspect that she had something to do with his tail-less condition but were never actually able to pin anything on her. Our other Magpies - Godzilla and Flattop were born late in the season and are smaller. We won't know their gender for a while yet but I think they are little girls. Archie may have himself a little harem. Joy |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Stilly River Sage Date: 17 Mar 04 - 08:42 PM Carol, I'm still battling the drifts of leaves in my yard. Everything from live oak (so small they are impossible to rake or pick up) to large tangled red oak (they cling to everything you're trying to pick them out of). BTW: my daffodils are popping up all over, as are the grape hyachinths and some glads are preparing to launch blooms. My approach to the leaves is to leave well enough alone (pun intended!) and let them act like mulch in the beds where I am going to add more anyway. I do have to pull some of the leaf litter out of the way so I can see the little stuff that is blooming or emerging. Those leaves have been carted to my compost. For the lawn, a couple of trips across with the mulching mower does a pretty good job on the rest of them. I expect leaves to keep drifting through here until early April, probably ending about when all of the oak tassles land in the street and yard and form pollen-laden drifts. We had a couple of little fires at the curb last year, where a thrown cigarette ignited them. Makes my eyes itch just to think about all of that pollen. SRS |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Bobert Date: 17 Mar 04 - 10:50 PM Cold here in the panhandle of Wes Ginny.... Snow drops up. A few crokuses without bloom and that's it..... Fast forward two weeks and things will be much different. Got down the pre-emergent... Soon as it warms up and dries up, I'll till the veggie garden an' get early stuff in....... Maybe we need a spring garden thread? Bobert |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Tinker Date: 18 Mar 04 - 08:03 AM We've had some snow everyday this week, mostly gentle flurries with little accumulation, but it's added up to six inches with a few more forcast over the next couple of days. the garden is once again sleeping under it's white blanket, and the promise of sprouting daffodils, wood hyacynth, tulips and squill is once again postponed at mother natures whim....I guess I don't get to move to the spring promises thread quite yet... |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Roger the Skiffler Date: 18 Mar 04 - 10:08 AM Spring is sprung here. The bulbs & camellias & even early rhodos are out, I've cut the lawn (on high setting) twice already and the frogs in the pond...(well, you don't want to know what they are doing... but no goldfish, human finger or other frog is safe from what the people who write f**k would call g*ng b*nging). RtS |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: open mike Date: 04 Mar 05 - 06:59 PM re-freshing this thread....thought there was another but could not find it under blooming, or yard...so here goes.. The daffodills are just about nodding out here...the quince contiues, having been in color for weeks now. The Daphne is still odoriffic, but is waning, and the Star magnolia is popping like pop corn, and some white petals are fluttering down to the ground like snow flakes. the Nectarine is a splash of magenta, and the narcissus are smelling great--inside and out. same with hyacinth (inside) and Cyclamen (in) outsinde the primrose are showing cheery colors as are the calendula and Million Bells and Osteopermum which are in protected containers near the house. A few white blossoms are on the fever few..tiny daisies.. but they stink! Some dainty pink blossoms are on the peaches and I see clouds of white blooms on the fruit trees actross the way . The new growth on the Fotinia is blushing red and last but not least the yellow ones: Forsythia, and Carolina Jessamine (i think that is what it is called) i have planted some snow peasa, and fava beans, and there is garlic, and rhubarb popping up as well as weeds, weeds, weeds. Oh yes and indoors ther is another wonderful plant blooming... Clerodendrum, glory bower vine . White paery flowers like Bouganvilla, with red centers. what's blooming where you are?? |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Stilly River Sage Date: 05 Mar 05 - 11:00 AM Down here in Fort Worth I've seen the forsythia blooming in the garden center (I haven't seen it in any yards) and there are a few magnolias popping out. The buds are getting fat on my Redbud, but nothing yet. My poor confused Japanese quince has had a very long lovely run. Usually they bloom for a week or two and then are finished. This little dear has bloomed since right after the new year (we had some very early very warm weather). Every time it cools off then warms the thing puts out a few more blossoms. Lots of daffodils now in the front yard, and a few little bits of salvia greggi color. The cannas are popping up, but I'm going to dig and transplant one batch of them before they get going too much. Lovely greenery on a columbine out front, and it should bloom pretty soon. Lots of bloomin' weeds in the lawn (and I mowed them out front. A neighbor pointed out that because of the weeds my house looked like no one was home--may be the reason for our burglary two weeks ago). Gotta go get a full can of gas for the mowing season ahead. SRS |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Big Al Whittle Date: 05 Mar 05 - 08:57 PM I was hoping this was about the theatre in Blackpool. Life is full of little disappointments as you get older. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Stilly River Sage Date: 05 Mar 05 - 09:39 PM The first little blue grape hyacynth is blooming beside the back door this afternoon. No, no Winter Garden Theatre discussion here, sorry. But gardening is theater of sorts. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Bobert Date: 05 Mar 05 - 10:13 PM Still 5 inches of snow here in Wes Ginny.... But, it's supposed ti get up around 50 degrees by Tuesday 'er Wendsday.... Over 100 azalea cuttings are doing very nicely in the garage with a grow light over 'um... Ohter than that, it's gardening magizines and ordering a few spring bulbs... Bobert |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Liz the Squeak Date: 06 Mar 05 - 03:48 AM I had an amble round my little patch last weekend... 10 different flowers in bloom still, although the periwinkle is looking a little worse for a bad frost we had. Judging by the state of my primroses, the slugs have woken up early. Our blackbird seems to be scouting the garden again, her nest got 'removed' by a neighbour when she cut her pyrocantha down, so she's probably looking for another site nearby. The tits are bouncing around the trees like little clockwork toys, it seems I have both blue and coal varieties and they regularly beat up the pigeons who land on next door's privet bush to eat the berries. I've left them a fat ball and some seed balls to eat and they seem to be enjoying them. I've got two nests, one in a pitisporum tree, the other in the butterfly bush. The second is going to be a problem because I need to trim the bush down! Anyone know if it's safe to move the nest to another tree nearby? LTS |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Stilly River Sage Date: 06 Mar 05 - 11:46 PM I mowed the whole yard this afternoon, front and back. It isn't mowing in the typical summertime sense. This is the first shot at lush water-filled tall weeds. I had to twice turn over the mower and scrape out all of the plastered on grass and weed paste before continuing. I'm now going to take my allergy stuff and go to bed. It was a good workout and also a good shot of pollen and I'm tired. SRS |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Boab Date: 07 Mar 05 - 12:48 AM The season of deer and cute little bunnies. Somebody tried to tell me that deer don't eat leeks; so I must have a malevolent gnome who takes evil glee in trimming leeks off at soil level. Tulips and day-lilies cropped to the roots. Now planning the annual chicken-wire fence corrals for green-planting, something bunny-rabbit-proof that will make one transplanting necessary instead of the inevitable three. Every rose shrub growing inside a wire cage. Let nobody criticise wolves and cougars in my hearing------ [No slugs! Thanks be for those wonderful snakes!] |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Liz the Squeak Date: 07 Mar 05 - 03:13 AM Boab, we could do you a deal with some foxes... I send you a couple of Reynards for your rabbits and you send me some Hissing Sids for my slugs?! LTS |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden From: Janie Date: 06 Feb 06 - 09:08 AM The earliest of my daffodils are starting bloom, and the tiny purple reticulated iris. They are both 2 or 3 weeks early. On the other hand, something weird is going on with the camilia. It is usually starting to bloom by now, but the buds are just coloring up. Janie |
