Not Quite Seed Starting Time

As we're in the depths of winter here in Massachusetts, my yearning for gardening seems to be inversely proportional to the mercury level. I troll my favorite seed and plant sellers (Bluestone, Antique Rose Emporium, and Pinetree Gardens), compulsively loading up my cart, then leaving the site, swearing I'm only going to buy plants from Kane's Flower World on May 1st.

I did, of course, order some seeds from Pinetree. I'm obsessed with Nasturtiums, several neighbors mentioned that they missed the giant sunflowers I had planted the year before, but opted against last year, and I've decided that I can't have enough basil.



Thinking about the rest of the seeds I'm going to start , I stumbled across this story on MSN, "Five Foods it's Cheaper to Grow." And usually, I'm a bit dubious about gardening advice from the major media, but I actually agreed with what they said. With limited time, space (heat and light too), and money, I had to think hard about what I really enjoying growing and eating, and if any newbie gardeners are thinking about making a stab at it, it's a good article for some general advice.

After my own first attempts with the veggie patch last summer, I've whittled down my list of plants significantly. This year, I'm going to focus mainly on tomatoes, basil, lettuce, and try to get by with just one cucumber and zucchini plant each (way too many cukes last year from just two plants), and then maybe buy a couple pepper plants (the Massachusetts growing season is really too short to start them from seed).

Now I have to try and hold myself back from starting up my seed operation, and count the days until March. I'm sort of satisfying myself with indoor plants and forced bulbs, but man, winters are tough on a gardener in New England.



A cutting from the oft-cloned family Pothos.

My Garden in August

Despite all the rain, or perhaps because of it, the garden is looking particularly floriferous (is that a word?) and abundant these days. I'm sure it won't last too much longer, so I captured a few moments of the garden at its summer peak.

Here's the front-left:


Front-right:


My son made me buy this Dahlia plant when I was browsing the seed aisle -- his instructions were, "I want the big one." He rarely shows an interest in what I plant, so I went along with him. I dubiously planted the tuber in the Spring and pretty much forgot about it, until I noticed this lovely flower this week. What a surprise! Now I'm totally in love with Dahlia's and can't wait to try some more.


Another happy surprise was the Nigella damascena (Love-in-a-Mist). I sprinkled some seeds this Spring, and hoped for the best. It's now growing around my Belinda's Dream Rose, and I just love it. You can't tell from the pictures, but the Nigella petals actually turn a lovely periwinkle blue as they ripen.


Here's the Nigella in close-up. Isn't the common name perfect?


-Steph

A Quick Shout Out to Cleome

Cleome (Klee-o-mee) hassleriana, common name Spiderflower has finally started to bloom in my garden! I grew these beauties from seed this Winter, started under grow lights in my drafty basement. Out of the 12/16 pots, only 4 plants germinated. I babied them along and kept all four alive. Weirdly, I got all three colors, pink, purple, and white (pink is my favorite, hands down). I've tucked the four here and there in the sunny front garden, and they seem to be doing well.



They were definitely a bit of a pain to get going, but well, worth the effort (and if I had bought these, I probably be out 20 bucks, instead of the $3 or $4 for water/soil/pots). Seed-grown annuals are the best! I think Cleome will now be in the same category as Nasturium, Cosmos, Alyssum, and Sunflower -- required in my garden.

-Steph

Foxgloves and Romance Novels

I wrestled for a while with the thought of letting the world outside my family know that next to gardening, my next great passion/addiction/timesuck is Romance Novels. Rarely do the two worlds connect. Occasionally, I might read a novel in my garden, which is truly enjoyable. Sometimes the destined lovers share an embrace in a garden, but that's generally the extent of the synergy. However, a recent Eloisa James novel featured one of my new favorite plants! As the plant is just now coming into full bloom, I had to share why I think this plant is so amazing, though I won't give away how it was used in the novel.



Last year, I tried my hand at sowing plants from seed (mostly driven by economy), and one of my successes was Foxglove (Digitalis purpurea). Foxglove is a biennial, meaning it only grows foliage in its first year, flowers in its second, then dies. Most people are like, "Why bother?" and according to some garden book I read a while back, biennials are disappearing from our gardens.

This year, I had several healthy clumps and had been waiting impatiently as they started to develop flower stalks and finally blooms. Some of the plants are real monsters, at almost four feet. They seem to like a little dappled shade, but that's about it. I sowed more this Winter, and plan on keeping it up for a while.



If most biennials are as beautiful and easy to grow as Foxgloves, then their disappearance is a tragedy. Okay, maybe not a tragedy like the ones that occur in my novels, but it's a travesty at least. These plants germinate easily, and are almost impossible to kill. I would forget to water the seedlings, I moved them repeatedly from pot to pot, I stomped on their little leaves once I planted them outside, but they took took it all, and turned out just lovely. Here's a closeup:



-Steph

P.S. One thing to note, these plants are very poisonous. Hmm, could that be a plot point in the novel? I won't give that away, but I did want to warn anyone thinking of growing them. Keep them away from animals and children, especially the vase water if you opt to cut them and bring them in. One last piece of synergy, I believe Foxgloves might be featured in Amy Stewart's new book, "Wicked Plants." I love Stewart's writing, so I have no doubt it will be a great read too. I mean, she's no Eloisa James, or anything, but she holds her own.

The Longest Two Weeks

One thing I used to be confused about was why none of my stuff was blooming in Spring, when my sister and Mom had lots of color in their respective gardens. I had the answer when I stumbled on a blog or an article about seaside gardening and found out that Spring comes one to two weeks later to the coast than it does inland. Happily, Fall also comes later as well.

So while my sis in Pepperrell has already been enjoying her Columbine and Bearded Iris, I've been on bloom watch. Today I was finally gifted with my first bloom of both!

Maria (above-mentioned sister) gave me these bearded Iris, graciously digging and splitting hers for me. What an amazing plant! It's almost four feet tall, with multiple blooms. The silver sword-like foliage is an added benefit.









I grew this Columbine from seed. I think I have a special affinity for the plant because of it. I found the Columbine was very easy to grow, so if you have the patience, they are worth it. I got these McKana's Giant Hybrids at Home Depot -- so they're fairly ubiquitous. I think next Winter, I'm going to experiment with some different colors.

-Steph

One note: I loathe the color of my house (as displayed in the Columbine picture above). I call it "Road Color" or "Old Asphalt Gray." My husband threatens to paint it two or three times a year, but its not peeling enough to justify the expense/undertaking. Grrr!

Becoming a Seed Addict

This weekend I received my order of seed packs from Swallowtail Garden Seeds. My husband just rolled his eyes when I tried to explain to him that by buying seeds I was really saving him money. Though he wasn't convinced, and in reality, saving money isn't the main reason I bought the seeds. The fact is, I'm finding this whole seed-starting stuff quite fun.

Last year, I thought it would be a good way to grow a few Impatiens (I just can't stomach paying so much money for annuals), and while shopping for the annuals (Sunflower, Impatiens, Pelargonium, Cosmos), I grabbed packets of Echinacea, Columbine, and Foxglove. The Impatiens I grew were a bit of a let down (they are Impatiens, afterall), the Pelargoniums were quite lovely and overwintering in my basement, the Cosmos took over, and the Sunflowers were show stoppers. But the real surprise was the Echinacea; almost every seed germinated, and I got three large plants, two of which bloomed from August, well into November.

This year, I'm trying to branch out a bit (ha, ha), and bought more perennials and some veggie and herb seeds. I'm discovering, no doubt, as countless thousands have before me, a wonderful satisfaction in watching life develop from the tiniest speck.

Sowing

Last week I started seeds in the basement. I know it's a little early, since the safe frost free date is around May 1st here. The thing is, last year I started the seeds later and was really unhappy with the performance of some of my annuals. I mean, they bloomed like crazy, but in like, September. Not to mention the fact, that the frost free date last year was more like April 15th. So I was hoping to get a bit more size/blooms by starting my seeds a little earlier this year.
I think the seedlings in the picture above are white Sweet Alyssum, and are ridiculously easy to grow (probably could have waited on these). They were a great filler and bloomed all summer, well into late October/November.

In other sowing activing, I'm experimenting with Wintersowing (great Web site). I tried a few kinds of seeds, Cleome, Delphinium, Alyssum, Chives, Sweet Pea. Apparently, you can start just about anything that's native to temperate zones this way. I've read that Delphinium in particular are suited to this type of sowing because they need a period of cold to germinate. For fun, google "pot ghetto," which is what you call your winter sown flats (a rare instance in which gardeners are not PC). Some people sow hundreds of pots of seeds this way with great success.

My pot ghetto is pretty tiny. More of a pot tenement.

-SG

P.S. Here's a pic of the last days of some forced blooms I splurged on. It was really nice to have the blooms, so no doubt, I will be experimenting with forcing bulbs next Winter.

Should I Even Bother?

Why am I posting a picture of some scraggly-looking Pelargoniums? Well, this is my first attempt at overwintering and I wanted to share my progress. I seem to have overcome the worm infestation (you can still see a little of the Dipel powder I hit the plants and worms with). I fed the plants about a month ago and they put out quite a bit of growth. This is the sunniest spot in my basement and the plants, though a bit spindly, seem reasonably happy. Every so often, I do check if they need water and I rotate the plants 90 degrees.

In other basement news, I've started to think about my little seedling nursery. I put together this comically delicate worktable, made out of an old door and some scrap wood. I bought two different kinds of 4 foot flourescents (cool and warm spectrum), as suggested by some helpful Home Depot guy. I also bought a timer this year (instead of mostly forgetting to turn off the lights at night like I did last year) and another shop light fixture (I'm doubling my seedling capacity!). Combined with an old fan, I hope to have the makings of a seedling factory. I've already ordered and received some seeds from Pinetree Gardens, so despite the winter gloom, the gardening will begin again pretty soon!

-SG

I Heart Annuals

Above is a shot of my Cosmos, grown from Seed Mat (courtesy of BloomingBulb.com) that has wound itself through Boltonia, with Perovskia (Russian Sage) and Pardancanda (Candy Lily) in the background. With the sunflowers in bloom (see below), the Impatiens, Pelargonium and Alyssum chugging away, and the biennials growing well (Hollyhock, Columbine, Digitalis), I'm pretty happy with my attempts at growing seeds, my annuals in particular. There's something to be said for a plant that can grow to over 9 feet, bloom for weeks and weeks, and cost next to nothing to grow.

Seed Love

I won't go into it here, but I created the very first draft of a new page on my website about my experiences starting plants from seed. It's called, "Starting from Seed." I know,I know I'm very creative. I pretty much just wrote about my experiences, which I probably should have done here, but oh well... I think when I have more time, I'll really put some time into making it more useful, maybe with some pictures of my grow light set up and flats, but until then, dear reader, you're stuck with what's there. And just so this blog post isn't completely boring, the picture below is of the Pelargonium (Geranium) that I grew from seed. I don't usually like red, which didn't render very well in the photo, but the color really is making me rethink that whole anti-red flower thing.



-SG

Holy Sunflowers, Batman!

This Christmas I received some sunflower seeds from my little sis, planted them with little thought around the stump of my old yew bush and pretty much forgot about them. How could I have known they would totally steal the show in my garden this summer? This whopper is about 9 feet tall, and about 16 inches in diameter, and they just light up my yard. Neighbors
stop and stare. Grandma's point them out to their delighted grandkids. They've been a real joy and a fitting Christmas gift.

Other things that have been a surprising delight are the blooms on this Hyndrangea macrophylla (cultivar unknown). I got this sucker last year. It didn't bloom, then got some kind of gray fungus. After much research, I moved it to a sunnier spot and stopped watering it, the leaves started to get scorched and wither. I was not pleased. I pretty much gave up and left it to the dog's yard (see below), which is on the North side of the house, getting morning light only. I also can't reach it well with my hose, so gets watered only a little. And then whatever is back there gets trampled by the pups, but 'lo and behold, the loveliest little pink blossoms emerged just a few days ago. I'm in love again!

Just as I was going around the yard, snapping pics, my husband pointed out my dogs sitting under the Forsythia in the backyard. They looked really sweet. It's rare to get them near each other, relaxing outside. I, of course, missed the moment because, Shadow, the black dog, stood up, but I was glad to see them enjoying the garden too.

-SG