When the going gets tough….

The tough get sowing 🙂

Young ‘masquerade’ hot pepper seedlings, some onions, and other stuff.

I guess for as cold as February was spring is almost on schedule. Maybe a week late. I should be cleaning the yard and getting things ready, but nothing’s ever perfect, and as long as there’s not a couple bikes laying on top of the hellebores I think there’s no rush and it will all work out just fine. In case you’re wondering I started a few more seeds to sooth my anxiety.

Money plant (lunaria annua) ‘Rosemary Verey’ was one of my oops plantings. They surprised me by sprouting in the fridge, so out of the wet paper towels they came and under the growlights they went. They’re a purple foliage version of the regular moneyplant, and I think their dark purple stems look extremely promising!

I’ve never been this bad with seed starting. My thinking is that as long as I have the seeds I might as well plant them, so besides the ones sprouting under the lights I have a bunch outside in pots exposed to the cold as well. Also I suppose I should fess up to the dozens of baggies of seeds folded up in damp paper towels in the fridge which are also getting a nice cold treatment.

Why do I need dozens of hot pepper seedling? Not important. Why do I need non-hardy South African velthemia bracteata seedling? Because I can. (that’s a nearly direct quote from Chloris btw). So I’ll just continue sowing and growing more seedlings than I’ll ever need until finally I can get outside without a facemask and gloves.

The first of possibly five veltheimia bracteata seedlings just sprouting. I’ll report back in a couple years to let you know how this turns out…

I’m ready for warmer weather. There’s still snow sitting in every shaded nook of the yard and far too many not-up-yet bulb plantings, but I want to see them now! Plus I need warmer weather in order to think over where the approximately 30-40 Magnolia Grandiflora trees will go. I potted those seeds up today.

A snowdrop or two.

Mar20

Tomorrow promises a few inches of fresh snow, so what better act of defiance is there than to enjoy a few spring flowers today?

galanthus Gerard Parker and Wendy's Gold

‘Gerard Parker’ and ‘Wendy’s Gold’, two of the earliest favorites.

I probably shouldn’t refer to them as spring flowers, it’s still clearly winter when you look at tomorrow’s snowy forecast and last night’s low of 18F (-8C), but I just feel funny calling them winter bloomers. Winter is definitely not a time for flowers around here.

A nice little bunch of the giant snowdrop (galanthus elwesii) with the first winter aconite opening up behind them.

Even so, the hold winter has on the calendar is starting to loosen and I for one am fine with that. After snapping these pictures I trimmed a few hellebores and cleaned out the front porch bed so that these new little sprouts could show off to their fullest. I didn’t get much further than that though. The whole time I was haunted by little people asking about a baseball game and whether or not I was done yet. The other snowdrops will have to wait.

Some of last year’s forced snowdrops. They spent last winter flowering under lights in the garage, now they’re settling in outside. By next year they should make for a nice show in this spot.

Something else which I hope is waiting are the cyclamen coum. They don’t seem as winter-weary as last year but the foliage still looks a little worse for wear. Last year nearly all the flower buds were lost to the cold and ice, but this year looks a little more promising. A few have already taken advantage of the four warm days without snow cover and have opened up their first blooms 🙂

Last year every last leaf on this hardy cyclamen coum was a soggy frozen mess. This year looks a little better and I’m hoping for a nice bright springtime show!

Another first for the year is the snowdrop “John Gray” from Far Reaches Farm out in Washington state. Last winter I enjoyed this one under lights in the winter garden and it doesn’t seem to have minded the time indoors at all. This year it’s on Pennsylvania time and is blooming much later of course.

Look, another white snowdrop. FYI for all those snowdrop snobs out there, it’s galanthus “John Gray”.

The rest of the snowdrops are still laying low. I’ll try to show restraint in the coming days as they open up but I’m not making any promises. It’s been a long winter and it’s not just the birds who are singing a springtime song!

cool weather vegetable seedlings under lights

Cool weather vegetables are on their way in the winter garden. The last cyclamen are shoved to the side and the few sad little snowdrops have been kicked to a windowsill to make room. Even my treasured yellow primroses had to step to the side.

In all honesty the weather is rarely warm enough for the real spring bulbs such as crocus and hyacinths until the last week of March, so even with our February snowpocolypse we really aren’t much off from a normal year. Still I would have been fine with an early spring, and I’m sure you’ll join me in wishing for even more sun and warmth!

Boom. Spring.

Mar11

Last week we dipped down to some of the lowest temperatures of the winter, but this week it’s spring. I’m not complaining. We’ve been losing close to six inches of snow a day and this afternoon I came home to an almost cleared snowdrop bed along the East facing side of the house. I’m sure those of you in warmer climes are rolling your eyes at yet another snowdrop post, but I’m thrilled 🙂

Snowdrops opening even before the snow has a chance to melt. They’re as anxious for spring as I am!

I think it was sometime in January when I last saw bare earth here, and back then only one or two snowdrop noses were barely poking through the surface. Somehow they must have their own clocks and somehow must work their way up through the frozen soil. Hard to think of plants as something more than just cold-blooded victims of winter, but there was some kind of growth going on here in the frozen soil under the icy snow and I’m very grateful for it!

Idle hands and the devil

Mar6

Two more snow days for the kids, another below zero (-18C) forecast, and one sunny day. I was fine with the first two but the sunny day set off my spring fever. Of course with snow everywhere and no other gardening options to be had I ordered more seeds. I had to. There’s nothing else to do and even the winter garden has me bored.

Under lights the cyclamen coum are still going strong. I love the large flowers on the white with their blackberry noses, I wish a few of the others had blooms as large.

Who knows what I’ll do with all the new seeds. They’re surplus from the N. American Rock Garden Society’s seed exchange so at 20 packets for $5 they’re what I consider practically free. Even better when you consider the non-profit nature of NARGS, in that case 40 packets at $10 makes more sense, and when you add on the 20 packets from the American Primula Society which just arrived last week well then you might get a sense of the trouble I’m in. I already have enough seeds stratifying in the cold to fill my beds once over, so I’m not sure where these will go.

The second growlight in a warmer part of the garage is in business now. A few cane begonias have been watered and potted up and two pots of plain old onion seedlings are on their way.

I still have to deal with the Annie’s Annuals catalog sitting in the kitchen. I have it in my head that I need an eucalyptus tree for the deck this summer plus a few non-hardy yucca and some succulents. I’m afraid that if I don’t get some snowdrops blooming soon I may yet stumble into that mess. -I would add some delphiniums too even though each year they’re crushed by winds just as they reach their majestic peak….. but some plants are worth a little heartbreak.

Happy birthday to me. A returned gift and $40 credit at Lowes meant a new shoplight for a new spot. This one went in a warm corner of the basement and is perfect for giving new life to the sad little overwintered cuttings which have been sitting in a water filled coffee cup since October.

I should be responsible. I already spent way too much money on snowdrops and ordered way too many irresponsible tropical bulbs from Brent and Becky’s. Odd choice considering how much I complained about digging them up last fall.

Overwintering succulents and tropicals fill the far corner of the barely-heated workshop/winter garden area. Dry and cool keeps them mostly dormant until warmer weather returns.

I hope an end is in sight. Next week shows five days straight with daytime highs above the freezing point and one day when there’s even the possibility nighttime lows stay just above 32F. Come to think of it I better start some lettuce and broccoli seedlings, in a few weeks they’ll be perfect to go out into that cold frame I never built.

A sign of promise, a flower cluster forming on the overwintering oleander. I think it formed last fall and hopefully will grow and develop as soon as the pot gets some water and goes outside.

So I’ll keep my fingers crossed…. if only to keep them from clicking on an ‘order now’ tab since I was looking at geraniums (pelargoniums) this afternoon and thinking a few scented and heirloom ones would be a good idea. I need a first crocus or snowdrop bloom to get me out of this and back to my senses! (we all know how reliable snowdrop blooms are for bringing a person back to their senses). I’ll let you know how it goes 🙂

It wasn’t me.

Feb26

Those crazy Europeans, they’re at it again with their crazy galanthomania. I guess here in America we revel in our questionable pop culture and right to bear (and use) arms, but “they” go nuts over those little white flowers of the genus galanthus. I think Japan is the only other place where plant nuts are so free to express themselves. In the UK, snowdrops on Ebay are a springtime phenomena and just this week a new record was broken with the sale of “Golden Fleece”.

The winning bid for “Golden Fleece”, a yellow inverse poculiform (inPoc) which up until its appearance on Ebay was just a dream for some dropaholic.

1,390 pounds converts to about $2,150, and the 4 pounds shipping works out to a little over six dollars. I did a little (very little) investigating and found that an ounce of gold closed at about $1,260 today, and according to my inexact estimates this snowdrop is worth approximately twice its weight in gold…. all at six dollars shipping.

I guess people are into snowdrops. Fortunately I’ve missed that addiction, but if you haven’t and you’re somewhat interested, here’s a link to a Money magazine article on the “snowdrop bubble”. It features an interview with our very own Carolyn of Carolyn’s Shade Garden, and if you happen to be interested she still has a few more reasonably priced snowdrops left for sale at her nursery…. just in case you’d like to see what some of the fuss is about.

Me on the other hand, I’m waiting for someone to cry out that the emperor has no clothes, or at least that all his clothes look the same… they’re all little bits of white and green and sometimes yellow which you can’t tell apart until you’re six inches away. I of course would never fall for that.

That wasn’t smart 4.0

Feb23

Seed starting isn’t the worst thing to do in the winter, but having your May seedlings sprouting in February is definitely not a good idea. It all started with last year’s massive seed starting failure. As usual I filled a few dozen pots and set them out in the cold to wait for spring, but the results were far from good, and only a few things sprouted. I thought it might be the weather, but now I’m leaning more towards a bad batch of soil. So this year for a bunch of seeds I figured I’d skip the soil and go back to the Deno method (click here to see how that works) of sprouting seeds in plastic bags. I set up a bunch of seeds which I thought would benefit from a nice bit of cold before sprouting, but also thought it might be a good idea to give them a week or so of warmth first. You can guess what happened.

Just five days later and I have a mess of sprouting seeds to deal with. After having failed twice already with these Californian thistle seeds it looks like they didn’t need a cold treatment after all!

So now I’m faced with a bunch of seedlings which will somehow have to survive my care under lights for at least 2 more months. Even with the cool temperatures out in the winter garden slowing down their growth it will still be a long haul. Another not so smart thing was finding a baggie of needle palm seeds which I must have given up on two years ago. Apparently there was a (now brittle and cracked) outer shell which I didn’t know about and which probably should have been removed prior to sowing. It will be a true testament to the lives of seeds if these go ahead and sprout now.

Seeds of the hardy needle palm. Stored moist for a year, bone dry for another, cracked out of their shells, rubbed along the file and replanted this month. Not likely to lead to success but you never know 🙂

I’m much more optimistic about seeds I received from this year’s HPS seed exchange. I potted up this happily sprouting red buckeye (aesculus pavia) seed yesterday and will try and find a cool spot for it until things warm up outside. Also arriving pre-sprouted are two packets filled with Southern Magnolia (m. grandiflora) seeds…. don’t ask about that, I don’t need one borderline hardy southern magnolia let alone two dozen, but I should have plenty of time to think that one over since I’m hoping they’ll be slow growing.

Some seed need to be planted immediately, so it helps that the donor of this seed ‘moist packed’ the seeds in damp peat when collected and then sent them in to the exchange. Sure beats receiving a dried out seed that will never sprout (such as my palm seeds became)

The rest of my seed exploits should also be in better shape. I did go traditional and put out two trays of little pots to suffer through the rest of winter under the deck, and they will hopefully not run into problems this year, but the rest of my perennial seeds went into baggies and are sitting in a box in the fridge. It all feels pretty promising to me. Even the ones that had already sprouted in their baggies are coming along nicely after a few days under the growlights.

Carefully planted into soil the little seedlings greened up and sprouted normally. I’m pretty sure I’m the only person in my end of Pennsylvania who has half-hardy Californian cobweb thistles (cirsium occidentale) growing along indoors under lights. That must mean something, I’m not sure what.

My little primrose continues to make me happy, and I’m sure you’ll also welcome seeing yet another picture! 😉

The first yellow primula polyanthus in full bloom. A little sparse, but still perfect….. and the cyclamen aren’t too shabby either!

Never fear, I also have a few onions sprouting so not everything is odd and nearly useless flowers…. but I also have to warn you there are two more primrose divisions on the cool windowsill which are only now starting to put up buds. If the weather keeps going as cold as it is you might be stuck looking at them all through March!

Primrose and cyclamen in February

Feb14

Now that winter’s here and there’s no signs of a thaw I’m kind of happy with things. I like the combination of fresh snow and bright sunshine that comes with the longer days and even though it’s cold enough to freeze your fingers off I know spring will come. The winter garden knows this too, and the cyclamen coum are now in full bloom. Also blooming is the first of my forced primula divisions.

Yellow primula opening under the growlights of my winter garden. The cyclamen coum are also blooming full force, and I’m sure I need more!

I love the cyclamen, but since the primula are new this winter I suppose I’ll say a few things about them. They were given to me a few years ago by a friend who referred to them as heirloom primroses, and they’ve been tough enough to take on the poor soil and drought of my less-than-perfect primula bed. I think they’re primula polyantha and back in December I chopped through the frost and dug a clump up to force under the growlights. Forcing is probably a too fancy term for what I did since it amounted to little more than potting the divisions up and putting them on a cold windowsill, but since they’re blooming way ahead of their outside sisters I’ll stick with the term.

I don’t think they’ll bloom as much or as long as the showier hybrids (they don’t produce any secondary blooms) but I like the delicate little flowers they do have. They remind me of the yellow primroses my mother grew way back which died off after a string of hot dry summers, so I’m glad to have something similar back again. Some red ones and pink would be nice, and primroses could easily become an area to “dabble in” but I’m going to look the other way for now. If you feel otherwise check out Amy’s blog at Primrose Hill Woodlanders and enjoy some great shade garden and primula pictures, and also you might want to visit the American Primrose Society’s website. Great info and a fantastic seed exchange full of some of the best and newest varieties, and as of February 1st anyone can order!!…. I’ll be avoiding that one 😉

Introducing the snowdrop page.

Feb13

I have a weakness for late season clearance sales on bulbs, so it’s no surprise that I again ordered (among other things) a few more snowdrops for forcing indoors. The snowdrops I chose are galanthus elwesii and for me they seem to be the best snowdrop sort to buy as a dry bulb (as opposed to other sorts which tend to arrive dried out too much and can be difficult to revive). They were potted up in early December, kept in a cool (40s-50s) location for a few weeks, and are now sprouting and blooming…. in spite of the January mouse attacks which reduced their numbers by half.

An odd mix of cyclamen, snowdrops, houseplants, and overwintering tropicals.

I think the blooming of the first forced snowdrop is as good an opportunity as any to introduce you to the snowdrop page which I put together this winter. It’s mostly just a listing of cool snowdrop sites and links which I’ve stumbled across on the web while dreaming away winter and praying for spring, but I’m hoping it will be of interest to others. That’s the positive side to it. The negative is that it might be a sign my snowdrop-curiosity is drifting into obsession. Please don’t judge me 🙂

To get to the snowdrop page, click the tab on top, or find it under the menu… or just click <here> . Hope you enjoy it!

A bucket list for the depths of winter

Feb8

Does anyone else have a bucket list for mailorder nurseries?

I do, and each year I’m trying to check one or two off. Nurseries make the list for random reasons often more because of specialized and quirky offerings rather than for being part of some magic top ten for mailorder, so while the snow flies let me offer up my February to-do list 🙂

Everything is cold and frozen here. I used my phone and didn’t even have the motivation to open the back door for this.

In no particular order (well actually it has to start off with snowdrops since that’s all that’s on my mind 🙂

Temple Nursery. Just snowdrops. No online presence so if that’s what you need visit the equally obsessed Carolyn’s Shade Garden.
Edgewood Gardens. For the cyclamen obsessed. John hasn’t quit his day job but his night job is coming along quite well so check the list, send an email, and soon you’ll be in trouble.
The Lily Garden. Long ago I read an article in Horticulture magazine about Judith Freeman and her decades long commitment to lily breeding and I’ve wanted her lilies ever since. She’s the force behind Columbia-Platte Lilies and one of the pioneers of the cross-division hybrids which are the newest and best on the lily scene. She breeds for garden plants, not the florist trade so many of her introductions are growing worldwide and are bulletproof.
Odyssey Bulbs. Your first step into growing odd, obscure, rare little bulbs which you didn’t even know you needed until all of a sudden you NEEDED.
Augis Bulbs. Ordering bulbs from Lithuania makes absolutely no sense.
Klehm’s Song Sparrow Farm and Nursery. A beautiful catalog, beautiful website, the prices might be higher, but the quality and service match.
Ashwood Nurseries. A leader in hellebores out of the UK. Seeds would be my only option and at over 1$ a seed even before international postage costs….
Plant delights Nursery. What can I say? When the run of the mill perennials get old and you have money to burn.
Annies Annuals. Postage from the west coast may kill me, but I think this is the year I just have to order.
White Flower Farm. I can’t recommend them but back in the day their catalog was everything great about gardening with a good dose of snobbery on top. Still expensive but that might be all they have to offer.
Mums of Minnesota. Mums are disposable fall annuals, right? For some reason I need reliably perennial garden mums with odd and oversized flowers. Don’t judge me for not being satisfied with the anonymous lumps of color they sell around here….
Swan Island Dahlias. Don’t judge me for this either, I was young and experimenting and thought I needed many big, overblown dahlias.
Superstition Iris. There are many great iris sources, but this one deals in many of the historical varieties which I love and can’t get elsewhere. Find their photobucket listing, pick what you’d like and then email the owner for availability and pricing. Sometimes getting what you want takes a little more than a point and click.
Green Ice Nursery. Doesn’t everyone order fancy cyclamen seed from the Netherlands? I couldn’t be happier with the ones I received, and my bucket list check off has turned into a semi-annual splurge.
Fedco Seeds. I checked this one off just recently, it’s a co-op seed seller from Maine, reasonably priced with great varieties. What’s not to love?

I could go on of course. I’ve been dabbling in grafted conifers recently, plus have some strange need to add lady slipper orchids to my garden, so there will always be a to-do list, but for now I’ll keep this one. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still faithful to Santa Rosa Gardens for perennials, Brent and Becky for bulbs, and Pinetree garden seeds, but a boy’s got to dream and I need something to get through what’s been the coldest weather since last winter.

-7F (-22C) on a recent drive to work. Please congratulate me for actually stopping before taking a picture.

More snow is on its way tonight so winter is still in full swing, but yesterday temperatures edged above freezing for a few hours and I swear I heard a little bit of joy in the birdsong. Maybe it’s just me. In any case I think I’ll start a pot or two of onion seeds today and see if a few of the overwintering geraniums are worth saving. That and maybe I’ll look at some more mums that might need ordering 🙂

Let me know if I missed any great nurseries, I’m always more than happy to add a few new or forgotten ones!

In a vase on Monday. Winter

Feb2

I’m beginning to get a little insecure about my lack of winter flowers and garden structure. All I see is white and more white, and although I suppose a nice steady winter of cold and snow cover is far better than ice and repeated freeze-thaw, the strengthening sun is starting to make me antsy for growing things.

Icicles harvested from the garden.

A good crop of icicles is all I could find in the garden for Cathy’s vase on Monday meme. They’re from the garden, they’re in a vase, but I don’t think they’ll be gracing the dining room table.

Give Cathy’s blog a visit for some real garden inspiration. Each Monday she encourages us to get out there and see what the garden has to offer for a nice vase, and each Monday people rise to the occasion. Hopefully in another few weeks there will be something worthy from this end 🙂

sorta like suburbia

more than you ever wanted to know about my garden