Vegetable update

I have a few hours this morning and rather than get some real work done I wanted to give a quick vegetable garden update.  We’ve been picking lettuce from the deck planters and now also out of the fenced garden area.  This “Matina Sweet” butterhead is tasty and if you look closer to the fence you’ll see the first two “Packman” broccoli are ready…. even though I’m not exactly sure how to tell when broccoli is fit for harvesting.spring vegetables

Last year’s broccoli went towards raising a healthy, vitamin rich, wild bunny population, this year the fence has really made a difference.  Too bad it doesn’t keep out my newest pest- slugs.

Here’s a slug chewed kohlrabi.  I hate peeling anything off these super fresh home grown veggies, but this one will need it.spring vegetables

The “Bright Lights” swiss chard looks good enough to eat.  I cheated and prestarted in pots, that way when planting out the colors could be arranged 🙂spring vegetables

I just like the looks of red cabbage.  Better soil would have done this plant good but it’s not bad considering the only fertilizer for this bed was the bag of chopped maple leaves dug in during spring planting.  I did break down yesterday and gave everything a dose of miracle grow, we’ll see what that does.spring vegetables

Onions look good, I just hope they make it in spite of my late planting.  They still have a way to go….. if worst comes to worst I guess we can try passing them off as tiny gourmet pearl onions or something.spring vegetables

“Lancelot” leek.  We’ll see if anyone eats these, they’re new this year, but at least they have all year to get to a good size…. unlike the bulbing onions which will die back and bulb up once the days get short enough.

spring vegetables

The zucchini seeds are up and growing fast now that summer temperatures are here.  If I had more room it wouldn’t be a bad idea to put in a couple new seeds for a late summer crop…. just in case the vine borers kill off this batch.spring vegetables

spring vegetablesPole beans, bush beans, corn, peppers…. all are starting to come along but for some reason the eggplants are a bit sluggish this year.  Just a few inches tall and they’ve got to deal with flea beetles and the little holes they make, plus some random bug (unfriendly I’m sure) leaving a batch of orange eggs….. possibly potato beetles….

spring vegetablesEnough vegetables, it’s about time some flowers got in here and there are plenty coming along for July.  Next post should have a couple blooms, until then all I have are tomato flowers.  Not the most impressive but they make for promising green tomatoes.

Manifest Destiny

The flower beds are expanding again at the expense of turf area and that’s fine with me since I hate mowing the lawn, but the lawn clippings are my number one choice for mulch in the garden.  Less grass growing means less mulch is growing.  An inch or less of lawn clippings tucked in around perennials and vegetables is a great mulch, it doesn’t mat much, kills weed seedlings, and most importantly moves all that free nitrogen fertilizer from the lawn into the more useful garden.  Earthworms love grass clippings and happy earthworms mean happy plants.

So that’s my dilemma.  More room for plants or more mulch growing fields…. obviously plant room wins every time.  I guess my flower beds are like little European settlers ripping up the prairie and spreading across the land and the lawn grubs are tiny tiny bison losing habitat and being pushed to the edge…… ok too much coffee.  I don’t think this has anything to do with history repeating itself.

So.  Easiest way to expand beds: have someone else do it.

Second easiest: lasagna gardening or no dig gardening.  There are books, FAQ’s, youtube videos, but it’s a simple concept.  Basically all you do is lay down paper, newspaper or cardboard to smother whatever is there and then cover this with leaves, compost, topsoil or whatever else can hold the paper down and eventually become a part of the soil.  It takes some time (about a year to rot down) and can be messy, so what I do for larger beds is plant what I want right into the lawn, throw a little compost around them for the worms, cover grass in between with newspaper (leave the paper out in the rain for a couple weeks to wet- it’s much easier to work with) and then hide everything under a nice layer of wood mulch.  Much more suburban-friendly:)

Third easiest: Buy topsoil, dump topsoil 4 or more inches deep (with or without paper underneath, depending on what weeds are there), plant into topsoil, mulch, call it a raised bed.

Fourth: My prefered method, turn under everything and just plant away (more to follow)

Fifth:  (notice I’m leaving out the word ‘easiest’ from now on) Dig up turf…… throw down compost, fertilizer, lime, whatever goodness you want to mix in….. dig or rototill it all together… plant with pride.  You lose all the fertility and organic matter of the top few inches (the best part) but the soil prep makes up for it.

Sixth:  Double dig.  Hardcore stuff here.  Dig a one-shovel depth trench across the bed and put that soil into a wheelbarrow or on the side.  Get down into the trench and use a pitchfork to loosen the next shovel layer down.  Add soil amendments if you’re that crazy and mix them in too.  Get out of the trench and move over a couple feet.  Dig a new trench, shoveling the soil over into the first trench.  Repeat all the way across the bed.  When you’re done, drag the soil you put aside down to the last trench and fill it up.  Then to completely kill your back, redig the top layer across the entire bed adding whatever amendments you want.  It’s a great concept which I tried a couple times back in my teen years, but teenagers are not well-known for good judgement and/or good time management.  Plus I’m much lazier now.

Ok this is going on for way too long.  All I wanted to do was put up a couple pictures of my expanded flower bed and I guess since the kids are sleeping late I feel like I could go on all morning!….. wait here they come….. time to wrap things up.

My choice for new bed prep:  Line out your new bed with a garden hose to get the shape the way you want.  Remember less is more as far as curves go, so avoid a sharper turn than your mower can handle.  A sharp turn means you’ll always be missing that spot or mowing into the bed to get it.

Edge along the hose with a square spade.  Use a round tip shovel to pop out a little of the grass along the outside of the bed and establish your edge.

digging garden beds

Start digging.  Use the round tip shovel to slice off a shovelful of grass and soil.  Flip the dirt back into the hole grass side down and keep going.  It helps if you remove a couple shovelfulls first in order to have a spot to flip the grass over into.digging garden beds

I plant immediately after turning, the section to the left was yesterday’s section.  Over the next couple weeks the grass rots into compost and the plants love it.  As always mulch!

Two last tips.  Beware southerners, your grass isn’t as wimpy as mine and you’ll need extra smothering or even roundup….. also digging it over like this won’t barely phase it if it’s something like Bermuda grass.

Also ALWAYS sharpen your shovels and hoes.  Use a metal file or better yet a grinding wheel to put a nice sharp edge on the blade.  They don’t come from the store sharpened (for obvious reasons) and if you’ve never done this before you will LOVE how a sharp shovel or hoe cuts through the dirt and weeds.

 

 

Spring vegetables

I finally got the early vegetable plantings in, each evening last week I prepped another patch of soil, and by Sunday afternoon was able to plant and fence.  My buddy approves, but I suspect she’d rather the fence wasn’t there between her and the lettuce.veggie garden

I’m guessing it’s a she (I really have no idea) and I’ll go out on a limb and guess there’s a nest of baby bunnies nearby.  She’s never mentioned where during our talks, but she’s around the yard all day so I’m sure it’s not too far.

Soil prep in my case was digging under all the weeds, stray tulips, and whatever leftover dead stuff was lying around from last year.  Once dug over, compost would have been nice, but since I have none I raked/hoed in some chopped leaves from last fall and followed it with a good watering down.

veggie garden

Once I get some grass clippings I’ll give it a thin mulch to keep down the weed seedlings.  I’m glad I finally got the stuff in, it’s already late for cabbages and onions, and a better person would have done all this prep in the fall.  If you look around the edge of the fence you’ll see twigs laying on top of the unfenced plantings.  This seems to be enough to discourage Mrs. Bunny from pushing through and nibbling the new transplants underneath.

leaf mulch vegetable gardenSo now I hope things have enough time to mature before summer really kicks in….. and if they don’t, at least it looks better than the unkempt weed patch it was last weekend.

Mental note for next year is *prep the bed in the fall for spring plantings*.  It sounds easy but it’s advice directed more towards the better people who follow suggestions and learn from mistakes.  I’m not sure if I can include myself in that group.  A better person would not have planted a peony in the middle of the bed, a better person would not have first let last year’s turnips go to seed (just to see what they looked like), and a better person would not have left the daffodils in the middle of the lettuce.

Just another day at the salt mines

I can sorta relate to the people looking for low maintenance plants and landscaping.  I for one love being outside, watching things grow, tending plants, dividing, staking, deadheading…. even weeding.  About the only thing I really don’t care for is watering, so when it’s spring and I have a list of projects to work on and halfway through start to think it’s more trouble than it’s worth….. well it might be time to hit the lawnchair with a drink.  In a sick way I sometimes look around at my fellow suburbanites and think their yards look just as good as mine, but then I remember it’s unlikely they have a couple dozen different iris coming along into bloom, and they probably don’t even have any more than one or two snowdrops.  That helps my mood and I go through and finish the day with a smug grin, quite pleased with myself all over again.

The late tulips are still holding out, these (probably “Dordogne”) mixed in with all the others keep the patch colorful even after the rest are over.  Unless Sunday’s high winds beat them silly, they should last another week.tulip dordogne

I think what beats me down is the lawn maintenance.  If you want to talk high maintenance a lawn is right there on top.  Part of that is my fault, I’m stubborn and insist on using a corded electric mower instead of something bigger, stronger, and faster.  It’s not the most manly mower, but from someone who’s always wandering the yard looking at his flowers….. well, the mower doesn’t help.

fothergillaSomething that’s mostly no-maintenance is fothergilla.  It doesn’t need pruning, blooms with these nice white bottlebrush flowers, is presentable all summer, and come fall puts on a nice show of glowing reds, yellows and oranges.  The blooms don’t last long for me, somewhere around two weeks, but that’s plenty.  You miss it when it’s gone, which in my opinion is better than a plant that wears out its welcome.

Round around July the lawn starts wearing out its welcome.  Mowing in the heat stinks and I look forward to the summer sun and drought sucking the green out of its blades.  As long as I mow on the long side it just goes dormant, and the summer vacation from mowing is much welcomed, since mowing clearly cuts into pool time.  But right now I need the flush of green clippings since they’re my number one mulch for the vegetable garden.   I use them and some leftover chopped maple leaves to smother the grass and weeds that are buried in this new bed.lasagna bedMost of the weeds and grass will die, and hopefully by the time tomato planting weather rolls around (2 more weeks?) I can carefully dig down to soil level, plant the seedlings, top the bed with new clippings, and admire my avoidance of actually digging up this patch of hardpacked gravely “soil”.

Since I don’t have enough better things to do I actually transplanted some of the grass from the new bed into the former bed-turned-new-pathway (lower right of the picture).  I’m a big sod mover.  I hate waiting for grass seed to sprout.  People will disagree, but I like grass paths through the garden.  If you noticed, mine are edged with fancy pink marble sections.  Some people have compared the look to “deep south cemetery”, but it’s the best use I could think of for the stone we pulled off the house front.  Maybe it’s the second best…. we also have a pink marble compost bin.

apple blossom In the orchard our new “Freedom” apple has even put out a few blossom clusters.  I should of course nip them off so the tree has more energy to establish, but I don’t care.  For all I know the tree could die tomorrow, so I’ll enjoy the blooms today.

vegetable transplantsSpeaking of dying tomorrow, we have a frost predicted for tonight.  I brought in a few succulents and four or five early summer plant purchases.  The rest of the stuff is on its own.  Planning for low maintenance gardening means not sweating the small stuff like late frosts.  The cold weather veggie seedlings will tough it out (strong sun would damage them more than cool weather).

So we will see where the weather takes us.  I figure if the tulips and iris don’t mind this afternoon’s snow, they shouldn’t mind a slight frost.tulips in snow

 

 

Snowdrops in the green

Most bulbs are best moved around and transplanted after they’ve yellowed and died back.  The bulbs are dug, dried and stored for a couple of weeks and then replanted again when the proper planting time rolls around.  It’s a convenient way to handle them and most bulbous plants are designed to handle months of dry, hot, dormancy.  Snowdrops are not.  Most snowdrops don’t appreciate drying out, and to get around this quirk the practice of sending snowdrops “in the green” started.  It’s a genteel way of saying you dug them up while growing and transplanted them that way.

My “in the green” snowdrops from The Temple Nursery arrived about a week and a half ago.snowdrops in the green

Snowdrops in the green are dug and sent shortly after bloom or even while still blooming.  I planted them (almost) as soon as I got them and I can’t wait to see them grow and thrive in my garden.  The bulbs look great and are carefully packed in damp sphagnum moss, wrapped in paper towels, hand labeled, bagged in plastic, and shipped priority mail.  Everything about my order said that care was taken and attention was paid to all the details.  Mr Hitch Lyman is the proprietor of The Temple Nursery and is well known for this old-school attention to details.  The catalog is a carefully prepared list out of his own garden, and the list changes from year to year depending on what’s ready for dividing.  There’s no internet presence, and correspondence is hand written.  Based on how fresh my bulbs were I feel his “dug to order” description was entirely accurate.

I didn’t mean for this post to be a gushing waterfall of praise, but I guess I’m excited about my plants.  There are a couple other sources for snowdrops, Brent and Becky sells them dry and is a good source, the three other “in the green” sources I’ve heard about are:  Carolyn’s Shade Garden, Linden Hill Nursery, and Black Hog Farms (couldn’t find a web link… they might only do garden shows etc.).  I also got a batch of dry bulbs from Van Engelen, and they were excellent.

If you want to give the Temple Nursery a try, send a catalog request to: The Temple Nursery, (Mr. Hitch Lyman), Box 591, Trumansburg, NY 14886.  I’ve never heard anything official on this but I sent $4 with the request.  Send it early.  Not only do the snowdrops sell out fast but the catalogs are also limited, so send it out soon!

 

Tulip Time!

There must be some Dutch in me because I’m a little wacky about tulips.  Not real bad, I don’t collect every kind and have them all over the place (my criteria for plant wackiness), but I’m always adding a few new ones…. and then I feel some kind of urge to tend them and multiply them and replant them.  It should end once this relatively new garden starts to fill up, but for now I can indulge that inner Dutch.

The rain and cold kept them shut for a while, but even then they looked nice (these are pictures from early last week).  Four years ago I bought this blend on clearance as a generic “darwin mix”… it was nearly all orange, so I threw in a couple pinks just beacause I had them.darwin tulips

daffodil geranium

The “sweatheart” tulips were new this year, don’t know why I bought a lemon meringue colored tulip when I have so many daffodils in similar colors…..

Also new was the “Princely mix” from Van Engelen.  Not sure what’s in it, but again…. on clearance… can’t beat this color for around$15.  Plus I spread the other half of the box around the rest of the beds :)The random white peeling post is our attractive front light.  The less you see of that the better.

tulip princely blend

tulip pink impression“Pink Impression” (also new) is always a winner.  I’ve bought it before but have gotten other, similar tulips instead.  This looks to be the real thing  and the flowers are huge!

Tulips will last much longer in cool weather, but when a warm sunny day finally hits (like we had last week) the flowers open wide and you know it’s finally full, head-on spring.darwin tulips

I just go around on days like this and get nothing done.  It’s too tempting to just sit around, enjoy the sun and admire the season.  Since the vegetable garden is the easiest place to plant out your excess tulips, that’s where most end up.  I’ll regret this in a couple of weeks as I’m scratching my head looking for a spot to stick a tomato. darwin tulips

I don’t really cut too many for the house, most of the picking is done by the kids.  A couple end up at grandma’s, some get planted in the mulch, many get pulled apart and thrown, and random neighbors often get deliveries in exchange for an ice pop or cookie.darwin tulips

double tulipDaddy sometimes gets a flower, but much of his time is spent protecting the double tulips, since they seem to be particularly attractive to flower collectors.  The doubles have started to grow on me though.  Ever since I bought this mix of early doubles called “magic carpet”, I’m finding an excuse to keep them around (even though the singles are still so much more graceful).  To me the doubles look like huge fluffy wads of tissue paper…. but wow!  that’s some fluff!

temple of beauty tulipsMy favorites might be the ones just coming into bloom now.  The late tulips seem to have the most subtle blends and nicest forms.  If you ignore the color clashes in this planting and just look at the color and almost lily shape of these fruity colored “Temple of Beauty” tulips, I think you might like them a little too, even with the crappy camera focus.

 

Tulip season is a little past peak now with the earliest ones already going by.  The pickers are still keeping busy and I’ll be busy too when I need to dig them all up out of the veggie garden.  That’s a job for June though,  May is for enjoying flowers.spring dress

 

 

Project finale

There was no more delaying, and I finally got the apple tree in the ground.  I had to since Sunday it went into the bucket to re-hydrate, and Monday it needed to be planted.  Plus I had practically all day to get it done since Monday I stayed home for a dr’s appointment.   Still I wasted most of the morning, spent three hours waiting for my appointment, and only got into tree planting somewhere around 5pm.  Good thing the weather stayed nice.

planting apple tree

That’s the tree there with the little bit of yellow tape near the base.  I mulched it with a bucket of compost and then topped that with chopped leaves from the early spring bed cleanups.  I think it will do well here and it’s already made a big impression for this little corner of the yard.  The apple twig has me calling this “the orchard” now instead of “the meadow”.  This is the back part of the yard where I don’t mow until about late July or so in order for all the weedy little flowers to get a chance to bloom.  The kids enjoy it but not everyone here thinks as highly of the meadow as I do.  The annual mowing usually takes place right after some big argument over snakes and ticks and spiders.

The last thing done to finish up the tree planting was to cut down two small aspen trees.  I let weed trees (sumac and aspen) sprout up in the meadow and then “edit” them out when I get tired of them.  They’re a nice screen along the ugly chain link fence while young, but I have no plans to leave any.  A quick zip through the roots with my handy reciprocating saw and they’re gone.  I guess I could have reached for the fancy pruning saw, but (1) this one’s a power tool and (2) for the cost of the $3 blade I shamelessly cut through dirt, rocks, and roots and don’t care what I do to the blade.  Come to think of it, lots of pruning gets done with this saw.  I even use it to cut wedge divisions out of ornamental grass clumps.  Sure beats digging.

The pond is in and getting its leak test.preform pond

It still looks mighty ugly but hopefully I can blend it in somehow.  I think the shape is called natural, but there’s nothing natural about the way it sits all plastic and stiff in the hole.  But the birds don’t care,  I barely walked 15 feet to get a rake and the birds were sneaking in for a bath.  Looks like it’s going to be popular.  It’s already popular with the kids, but all they seem to want to do is throw things in.  Rocks, dirt, and tools are all fair game.

primula vulgarisAlso there’s been a death.  My daughter informed me that “Matthew” is dead at the bottom of the pool.  Don’t ask me how an earthworm  climbed the walls and got in there, but one did.

Do you like the little yellow clump of primroses blooming in the shovel danger zone?  I hope they survive since I have a bad record with these.  This is an older heirloom type given to me by a friend and promises to be a little tougher.

pistachio daffodilMy current favorite daffodil (Pistachio) is open and just about every other daffodil is just waiting for some sun ….. also the kid’s pea plantings are starting to sprout.

pea seedlingsGood thing I finally got the apple tree into the ground.  As I came up to the front door to call it a day I found the second part of my mailorder shipment.  For some reason I thought it would be a good idea to order 7 lilac bushes, a nice assortment of different colors and sizes.  Whatever I was thinking last month, looks like I have a new project this month.  Plus mulch.  Plus did I mention I ordered dahlia roots too?

 

How not to do a project, part deux

Sunday rolls around and I’m not even sure what the weekend project is…. or was.  I think it had something to do with that box of bareroot apple tree that’s been sitting on the porch for two days now.  Bareroot plantings should be taken care of asap, first step is to plump up the roots again by sitting them in a bucket overnight, I think 24 hours is sorta the max for soaking, you don’t want to drown them.  When planting, the only special thing to remember is to spread out the roots and work the soil back in between.  A little dirt, water it in, a little more dirt, water in.  It’s better to keep the root flare high rather than deep, you can always add soil or mulch around the base later if needed.  Don’t bother mixing anything into the planting hole, if your soil is horrible, plant even higher and mulch well with compost and those nutrients will work their way down to the roots, just like they do in every forest on the planet.  You may think it’s cruel not to try and improve the soil for your baby, but look around.  If you can see other trees growing then your tree should be fine too…. unless those other trees are swamp cypress… you might have a drainage issue then.

spring seedlingsSo with a sense of urgency to get my tree (and 3 gooseberries too!) into the ground I got the coffe brewed and sat down at the computer….. breakfast followed and then some Lego villages had to be built.  Then a friend stopped by.  Six hours later, a run to the local nursery (to drop off $40), and this is where I’m at.  It’s pansy season after all and buying pansies, shaking off winter, and supporting my local nursery are tradition in these parts.  The apple tree is still not planted but it’s Sunday after all, and things shouldn’t happen too fast on a day of rest.

spring pansiesIt’s more fun to plant pansies than dig holes for dormant apple trees, and you shouldn’t pick-axe pond holes on a day of rest, so I drug out the planters for my new purchases and got them planted.  Again it’s not that easy.  All the fancy pots already have stuff in them.  It’s stuff like rubber trees and fig bushes that need repotting too, so that all came out to make room for the pansies.  Did I mention I bought lettuce?  I was embarrased to  even think of my own seedlings when I saw the lettuce plants for sale.  My reasoning was if I can get at least 215 servings of salad off these plants, they should pay for themselves.

spring pansiesThe back deck got a little spring too.  I should have powerwashed off last year’s stains first, but that’s another project and right now I’m too busy planting trees.

Tomorrow maybe I can actually get one in the ground.  The rest of Sunday was spent taking the kids (my two plus another three) for a walk in the woods and down to the railroad tracks.  They then insisted on seeing the drug house that burned down on Saturday.  Funny how these things never get mentioned in most tree planting tutorials.

Around 9pm I snuck out and opened the tree box.  Everything is soaking and has to be planted Monday before it drowns.  I should have no problem getting to it since the only other thing going on is repairing the pond hole.

Regarding the pond hole, I made the mistake of leaving the shovels out next to the dirt piles,  and after two hours of worm hunts, “climbing the pile”, and playing with the pick-axe, most of the dirt is back in the hole or thrown into the pond liner.  A little more work for me, but at least most of the local earthworms (and a couple of grubs) have been given names.

Seeds and seedlings

Our usual last frost is somewhere in the area of May 15th but I’ve never seen it happen that late. Usually the first week of May has been ok. Still I go off the 15th anyway and as a result I always feel behind. I did start the onions and leeks about two weeks ago (I think that’s about nine weeks early?) and the little sprouts have been coming up on the fringes of the shop light, but as they start grow it’s time for the change-over.

seedlings growlights

The cyclamen and snowdrops are kicked out from under the light, and the new seedlings take over.  They’ll be fine on the cold windowsills now that its warmed up a bit and the onions and leeks should be happy with the prime lighting locations.  You’re looking at lancelot leek and copra, red wings, and ailsa craig onions.

seedlings growlights

In another two or so weeks I’ll start the main crops of warm weather transplants such as tomatoes, eggplants and peppers.  Also I’ll get some lettuce and cabbage started for early transplanting.  A cold frame would really come in handy about now but I never did more than just collect the windows.

I did start some other stuff (hardy perennials and bulb seeds) when I started the onions, these are all chilling outside.  The finer stuff sits under a plastic tote, the larger seeds get topped off with chicken grit for protection and sit out in the open.  When things warm up outside to their liking hopefully I’ll get some sprouts.

winter sowing

They should have been planted about a month earlier to get a real taste of winter, but I didn’t get the seeds until the end of February, so they get what the get.

I also tried something new this year.  For seeds that need a cold spell, I tried the Deno method.  It’s named after Dr Norman Deno and is a method he used to test germination on thousands of seed types.   Basically you take moist paper towels, spread the seeds out on them and then fold them up.  This goes in a baggie with info on the outside and either gets room temperature treatment (warm) or refrigerator treatment (cold).

winter sowing

They need a little more attention (you need to check on them periodically for germination), and they need immediate planting in soil when they do show signs of sprouting, but they take up so much less room!  The other big plus is you know where your seeds are and you can easily see if they’re dead and rotted.  No more staring at an empty pot waiting.

Here I have a dozen or so started seeds sitting in the fridge, nice and neat and out of the way, and so much more acceptable than pots full of dirt next to the yogurt.

winter sowing

If you’re into seed starting, check out “the science of seed germination” at Hayefield blog.  It’s a great intro to the science behind seeds and it offers a couple great links, I’d try and put the link right here for you but haven’t mastered that bit yet 😉

Good luck on your seeds!

Flower show continued

I always enjoy the individual exhibits of potted flowers, and the range and size of some entries is kinda crazy.  This year there was a newly designed “Hamilton Horticourt” display area, a 1 million dollar construction donated by a Mrs. Hamilton (who’s name appeared on many impressive plant entries).   There were orchids in colors I don’t normally put with orchids.

philadelphia flower show 2013

Daffodils….. featuring the reliable Ice Follies in front (for you Sue)

philadelphia flower show 2013

And hyacinths and amaryllis!  I’ve never saw a pot this full. (the red is Pamela btw)

philadelphia flower show 2013

There were many many more, but I have a bias towards bulbs so sorry if you wanted foliage and cactus and more orchids.

One last display was this pot of yellow clivias.  This plant always screams fancy to me, but only because I grew up reading a White Flower Farm catalog which listed it.  The cost was somewhere in the area of $900 if I remember correctly, and I always thought of it as a houseplant holy grail.  I’m past that (maybe?) but I still think of yellow clivia growers as having some kind of social one up on me.

philadelphia flower show 2013

The shopping area was our last stop.  Lots of houseplant goodies, some excellent hardy plant displays and upscale garden knick knacks and the usual jewelry and art.  I almost bought a hellebore from the Linden Hill display, but thought twice of lugging the pot around.  I guess that will be a field trip for a later date.

philadelphia flower show 2013

So the trip was nice, we ate well at the Reading Terminal across the street, travel went smoothly, and the crowds weren’t too bad (for a Thursday).  That said it will be a few years before I want to return.  I like the springtime dose of gardening, but many of the show displays were silly fluff and there weren’t a ton of wow moments.  Am I being crabby?  Yes maybe, but it looks like the show is being geared up to a larger crowd and a broader interest range.  It’s working too since I believe they’re expecting somewhere over a quarter million visitors, but still I never like change… unless it was my idea.

So I better get back to gardening now that spring is in the air!