(Via Gardening Question of the Day (from the Old Farmer's Almanac))

Posted by admin to Uncategorized on 2007-12-17, 20:00:00

How should I store caladium bulbs? (answer).

From The Old Farmer's Almanac.

(Via Home and Family: Gardening Articles from EzineArticles.com)

Posted by admin to Uncategorized on 2007-12-17, 14:32:24

Despite the many benefits associated with mulching garden beds, it is not always desirable. To get the most from a mulch, it's necessary to choose the right type and to use it correctly.

(Via Home and Family: Gardening Articles from EzineArticles.com)

Posted by admin to Uncategorized on 2007-12-17, 11:14:35

Holly and it's berries, bring joy of the season into our lives. The bright berries of the beautiful holly are now glittering among the polished leaves, and make some of our woodland walks still scenic. The holly plant has represented Christmas throughout the years.

(Via grow this)

Posted by admin to http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif on 2007-12-17, 11:00:00

“Long ago you kissed the names of the nine Muses goodbye
and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,
something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,
the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.”
Billy Collins, Forgetfulness

My Mom once joked about how she couldn’t remember the names of her kids because she was trying to remember the Nicene Creed. Seemed a bit of mixed priorities to me, but her sense of humor was as strong as her faith.

Much is made of how gardens are great places to learn important life lessons: birth, death, renewal, reincarnation: all the garden metaphors that mean so much to gardeners. But gardens are also good places to go to forget. Sometimes, forgetting is a good thing. Short term memory loss not only makes it possible for me to keep meeting exciting new people, it allows me to wrap my own Xmas presents. And let’s face it, who needs to remember the capital of Paraguay when there’s Google?

Looking at old pictures of my back yard, like this spring ’04 shot with Dopey, I am confronted with a number of horticultural experiments that failed. I have pictures of many plants, lavished with high expectations, who perished from one of the four horsemen of garden failure: neglect, pestilence, flood or drought. Sure, I’ve learned from each failure, but I’ve forgotten more than I recall. I once tried grow a plumeria in a flower pot, but didn’t know it was deciduous, so when it lost its leaves in the winter, I tossed it out. Surely, you’re thinking, I could have bothered to open the Western Garden Book and given a glance at the entry for plumeria. To which I reply: don’t call me Shirley.

I have since learned a great deal about gardening from reading books. But I still seem to learn more by trial and error. My former fire-pit now filled with succulents is thriving on the big rock bordering the back vegetable garden. Perhaps you’re thinking I would learn better if the price of failure was starvation. Or if I had a better short term memory, or perhaps, a better system of making detailed entries in a garden journal. To which I say, don’t call me Perhaps. I enjoy forgetting failures as much as I enjoy celebrating horticultural successes.

Besides, there’s a long tradition of forgetting some important mistakes made by gardeners. After their parents were evicted from the original garden, according to our creation myth, Adam’s sons Cain and Able got to work at, respectively, cultivating gardens, and raising sheep. But when they each offered God some of their work products, God rejected Cain’s gift of a harvest in favor of Able’s baby lamb, or so the story goes.

Long story short: Cain killed Able. Which means, as Germaine Greer reminds us, that the whole human race is descended from a murdering gardener. Which makes my almost-forgotten plumeria murder not seem so bad after all.

(Via Snappy's Gardens Blog)

Posted by admin to Lilac tree, buds, winter projects on 2007-12-17, 10:17:00

The buds on the Lilac Tree hold promise for the springtime. They are primed, just waiting for the winter to end.
As the cold and frozen soil have driven me inside as there is not a lot to do with the winter garden. I have lots of projects inside, though, and the kitchen has been turned into a mini greenhouse.
Chilli plants sit on the window with the moth orchid, the baby snakeplants, and baby spider plants.
Two African violet leaves are sitting on top of a glass with the stem inside water waiting for the clear roots to grow out so i can pot them up. I took some leafs from my Nans xmas cactus to try and propogate it.
Their are seven lots of seeds growing in pots or a seed tray.The Iris Chrysographes, the Hellebore Black beauty, sweet peas (52 seeds), and the seeds in coffee filter papers (Basil, Coriander, and Parsley). The old Lisbon White onion seeds have been put in a seed tray and a few are starting to germinate now!
I finished xmas shopping today, and came back with a few more plants.After Britt Arnhild showed hers I bought an Amaryllis (called Apple Blossom) for the kitchen windowsill. In the supermarket I found an air plant with bird figurine, that jumped into the basket somehow....
My Hyacinths from the flat are sat on the draining board growing on nicely.The ones I bought from Hampsons have wilted and keeled over.They will finish their growth in the cold frame ready to lift and dry the bulbs once they are done.
An Amaryllis Belladonna is growing in a pot too, but this has strappy green leaves.Its flowers give it its charming name of Bare Naked Ladies.Whether its growing green leaves to build up its energy before the purple stems I dont know.It wont flower untill Autumn I think.
Thats a few of the things I have been doing, but not the complete list! The other pastime is dreaming and visualising plants on the frozen soil...

(Via gardenauthor)

Posted by admin to garden ornamentation, garden statuary on 2007-12-17, 08:20:00

During these last days before Christmas, I'll share a few more gift ideas... maybe they'll inspire you to dream up that "perfect gift" for your favorite gardener. Again, A special thanks to the staff of Corliss Bros. Garden Center & Nursery for the great photos ©2007.

©Deb Lambert 2007

(Via An Iowa Garden)

Posted by admin to Uncategorized on 2007-12-17, 07:52:00

Chionodoxa (Greek chiona=snow, doxa=glory) is called glory of the snow because it blooms early enough in its mountainous, rocky haunts in western Turkey down into Crete and Cyprus, that it often blooms through the snow. Here in topographically deprived Iowa it more often blooms through the dead brown leaves, so incites no raptures of glory, but makes pretty little drifts, with its tiny flowers of pastel blue showing up everywhere. This is another interloper actually; hiding in the rootballs of other plants that I brought here from my first garden. The white and pink forms came along for good measure, and they all spread around in mixed patches. My bulbs specifically are Chionodoxa forbesii; however the species was named Chionodoxa luciliae when I bought them, and the pink form (now called Chionodoxa 'Pink Giant') was called Chionodoxa gigantea then. You probably don't need to remember any of this, as there is talk of putting the half dozen species of chionodoxa into the genus scilla, the squills, which these little plants greatly resemble (and can interbreed with).
Chionodoxa forbesii would be considered invasive if it wasn't so darn small... and so cute. They usually bloom here about late March, with the crocuses, at the tail-end of the early snowdrops (Galanthus elwesii) and just as the blue Siberian squills are starting to open, when the sun is beginning to warm the soil and the chickadees are whistling their plaintive spring call from the wooded hills.

(Via Girl Gone Gardening)

Posted by admin to Sasha, To-Do, houseplants, neighborhood, pets, snow, trees on 2007-12-17, 05:19:00

18*, feels like 5*, 86% humidity, SW 12 mph wind, cloudy Things to do when snowbound: 1) Throw snowballs at the dog. 2) Throw snowballs at the neighbor kids. 3) Make snow angels. 4) Twiddle your thumbs. 5)Watch the neighbor get his truck stuck in the snowy street. 6) Love your houseplants just a little too much. 7)RED RUM 8)Try to rescue the little conifer from the snow plow. 9) Visit with