BS: The Late Winter Garden

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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.

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?

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.

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?

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

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

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.

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?

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

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.

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.

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?

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!)

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

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

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.

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!

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

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.

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

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

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

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 [e-mail]

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.

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?

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.

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.

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

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????

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!

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

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.

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

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

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?

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.)

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

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.

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

Subject: RE: BS: The Late Winter Garden
From: Walking Eagle
Date: 13 Feb 04 - 02:15 AM

Rara Avis--S.E. PA.

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!

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

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.

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.