The persistence of seed

Feb7

I’ve been growing things from seed for decades. Odd things such as tuberous begonias and eucalyptus, which aren’t odd in themselves but which might be for the average teenager. A Saturday trip to the movies for ‘The Return of the Jedi’ and then a Sunday spent wondering if all his begonias will die from damping off disease can get complicated #teenproblems1983. As usual I digress, but one thing so often repeated is how much patience I must have and how complicated it must be. I just want to take a moment to say I don’t and it’s not. To prove that point lets take a look at the seeds I started over a year ago which have been sitting in the refrigerator ever since. A few days ago I finally made the effort to go through them and to be honest it speaks more of laziness and absentmindedness than anything else.

A single Rosa moyesii seedling sprouting on damp paper towels. Nearly perfect after a full year in a plastic baggie in the fridge.

The scene was not pretty. Many of the seeds had molded up (or even sadder) sprouted and then died from my neglect, but one ziplock bag contained an amazing surprise. A single pale yet perfect Rosa moyesii seedling had edged its way out of the folded paper towels and was just waiting to be freed from its cold, dark prison. Better gardeners check their baggies every few days and not every few years, but luck was on my side this time and I now have a seedling of something I’d been hoping to sprout for several years. Of course luck would also have it that my fat clumsy fingers snapped the delicate little stem during planting (so we will never speak of this seedling again) but fortunately I also found a few hellebore seedlings, one of which still had enough flicker of life in it to plant.

A single hellebore niger seedling. Given another three years it may amount to something, but for now I’m just happy to see it alive. Note the other healthier hellebore seedlings in the pot behind it. These were sown last summer and then sat neglected for three months on the driveway, a method which I’ll have to recommend from now on.

Some seeds wait for other triggers to start the germination process, and for a few baggies the warmth of the dining room table was just what they were waiting for. Within a week of taking the seeds out of the fridge I had three seedling of the hard to find, yet hopefully amazing, Chinese red birch (Betula albosinensis var. septentrionalis). I may be overstepping my optimism with these size of a pencil point sprouts, but given a decade I may be enjoying a brilliant grove of pink and red peeling bark backlit with the low glow of a late winter sunset. Or not. Patience will be required for this one, but in a few weeks I’ll be distracted by snowdrops, then tulips, then iris, then roses, and then before you know it I’ll be wondering why there are birch trees in the spot where I was planning a dahlia bed.

Betula albosinensis var. septentrionalis seedlings.

Not all my seed adventures are purely theoretical. Two years ago I started a packet of Cyclamen coum seed which would hopefully produce the intricately lined, pale pink flowers of Green Ice’s Porcelain strain of this plant. Fast forward two years and they did. What a delicate flower, you wouldn’t suspect this one could survive the driveway germination method but fortunately it has.

Cyclamen coum ‘Porcelain’.

In general the Cyclamen growing in the back of the garage are filling the space with some very welcome winter color. At this time of year I leave the house before dawn and return after dark and it’s nice to be able to go back there and visit with a few of my plants before going to bed. It’s a lot safer too. I can only creep through the garden with a flashlight so many times before having to explain to one of the neighbors that the warm weather is bringing up the snowdrops way too early.

Cyclamen coum flowers filling the winter garden. They’ve been better in years past but still put on a great show.

One final seedling. Last year I wanted to try a few new primula so I ordered seeds through the American Primrose Society’s seed exchange. They open their exchange to everyone once members have had their chance, so the sight of dozens of premium varieties still available for ridiculously low prices was irresistible. Who would think that even these could survive the driveway treatment, and although my seedlings are nothing to bring to a flower show I really can’t believe that one of my ultra cool Primula auricula seedlings is planning to bloom. I guarantee if it makes it you will see plenty of photos show up here…. and if it doesn’t make it, please don’t ask what happened since it will likely I did something stupid again and it will be several months before I’ll want to talk about it.

A Victorian favorite, Primula auricula lays claim to thousands of cultivars and several societies devoted to its growing and showing. At this moment I think it’s my most amazing plant, your opinion may vary 🙂

My newly found primrose enthusiasm had me rushing back to the Primrose Society’s Seed exchange. I thought I was ok last year but for a dollar a packet who could resist? Actually if I became a member it was less than $0.50 a packet so might as well join while I’m at it and be in a great position next year when the seed exchange first opens. So I did join and we’ll see what trouble I get into.

Have a great week!

The Winter Garden 2016

Jan11

An actual greenhouse would be awesome. To spend the winter nights out in the humid warmth… or even sweater-cool, as long as you can smell that healthy dampness of growing plants, would be a fantastic break from the dry static of central heating. Since that’s not going to happen anytime soon I’ve got to make do somehow and to that end I have my little winter garden. It’s two shop lights hung over a table in the small workshop behind the garage. That’s the reality, but the magic is much more, and of course as with everything else I try to do there’s a story involved.

The first of the Cyclamen coum (a nice seedling flowering for the first time), a snowdrop dug from the garden (Galanthus elwesii), and the frilled leaves of a scented geranium are filling the space beneath the lights this year.

Santa brought the kids electric scooters this year, and that has nothing to do with winter gardens but they needed a spot cleared in the garage near an outlet for charging. Space is tight in the garage so obviously I needed to clean the attached furnace room first. A day later the furnace room was cleaned and I had room in there for a few bikes, but the cannas and dahlia roots in the furnace room needed a cooler spot. They had to go into the workshop which had now become remarkably full and as a result also needed tidying up. A day later with the workshop cleaned and the bulbs stashed away I made the observation that the workbench was really unacceptable as far as winter gardens go. A few years before we bought this house a pipe burst in the workshop, all was soaked, and the pressboard workbench soaked, sagged, and warped. It was time to replace the top so off to the DIY store for lumber and hardware. A day later and the old top was off and a new one had been crafted, more than doubling the tabletop and practically calling for another light to be added, so of course another light was added.

Merry Christmas to me. A ridiculous clearance sale on amaryllis bulbs left me with eight new ones and the repaired workbench is the perfect place to pot them up. Don’t even ask me how hard it is to find terracotta pots during the holiday season….

So one more day for the stain and polyurethane to dry and then finally I was able to bring in a few things for under the lights. Just in time since the Cyclamen coum were beginning to flower and I was tired of dragging them in and out of the garage with every frigid weather forecast.

Twice the growing space of years past and already nearly full. Overwintering cuttings share space with cyclamen and various too-special-to-be-outside seedlings under the growlights.

I should have tackled this job on a pleasant summer weekend, but at that time the lawnchair was so much more inviting. Had I been ready to go at the start of the season (or had I built that coldframe I wanted) then maybe these seedling pots of tulips and allium wouldn’t have started to sprout in the garage, and maybe I wouldn’t be the only person in NE Pennsylvania growing species tulips indoors under growlights in January….

Hellebore and cyclamen seedlings growing in the winter garden. The small wisps in the other pots are tulips, allium, and a single fritillaria seedling. The economics of spending years nursing along seedlings which are available cheaply (100 blooming sized bulbs for $14 last time I checked) is something else we shouldn’t look at too closely.

To wrap up my ‘How I spent my Christmas vacation’ essay I’ll just add that on the last day I moved an air compressor and rabbit hutch onto a shelf and was able to plug in the scooters. Don’t ask me how I didn’t see that a week earlier.

After two rainy days of 55F (13C) weather the soil has thawed and the first winter aconites have broken the surface. I think they’re perfect and they should be fine even if winter does decide to come this year.

Now I’m all set. Even though I spotted the first winter aconite (Eranthis hyemalis) breaking out of the earth this weekend I think winter will still make an attempt at cold before the robins can come home. Today in between rain showers I put up the bird feeder, braced the pole against tipping out of the mucky quagmire of lawn it sits in, and drug a flat of primula seedlings into the workshop. Now when the cold hits, repotting a flat of young primrose should be just the diversion for a dark winter evening.

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 🙂

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!

The Winter Garden 2014/15

Jan25

My winter garden is having a good season so far. Usually I don’t bother setting things up until around New Year’s but this season the shop lights went on in October for some special cuttings, and things have been humming along since. The hardy cyclamen coum which I keep potted up are just starting to put on a show, and now that I’ve dispatched Mr. Mouse the blooms can open in peace.

The “Winter Garden” with cyclamen coum in bloom. I love the flowers alongside the bright variegated leaves of the plectranthus (probably ‘Troy’s Gold’).

For those of you who might not be as up to date with my garden as you’d like 🙂 here are a few statistics on the tiny little patch of plants which serves as my winter garden. Basically it’s a four tube fluorescent shop light set up in an unheated workshop just off the back of the cool (never freezing) garage. The bulbs are a generic T-8 type, usually in the ‘daylight’ or ‘natural light’ category but it really just depends on what I grab the day I’m shopping for lights. That’s it. Not quite a citrus filled orangerie or a warm, sunny conservatory, but it does the trick on a dark January evening. I’m considering buying a few more and lining the side of the room with them in order to grow something bigger and fragrant. A little goldfish pool back there wouldn’t bother me much either, might as well put a fountain in while I’m at it.

hardy cyclamen growing indoors under lights

Another two or so weeks and the cyclamen should really put on a nice show.

Last year I had a bunch of snowdrops and some early spring blooming perennial purchases from Far Reaches Farm. They were awesome but this year I spent my winter treat money a few months too early and had to improvise, so on a warm December afternoon I went out and dug up a clump of almost completely frozen primula vulgaris for forcing.

They needed dividing anyway, which eventually I did…. after letting them thaw out and sit in the dark for a week or so (not a recommended of course, but you know how things can get away from you during the holidays!)

A month later and they’re starting to wake up. They probably won’t have as long a bloom season as some of the newer hybrid types, but I love their soft yellow color and big clumps of blooms.

One of the primula divisions coming along. Fingers crossed for a good show! (please ignore the dying coleus next to it. Cold weather, overwatering and coleus are not a good mix)

I have a new favorite celebration. As any Northern hemisphere gardener will know, the winter solstice marks the shortest day of the year and the point beyond which days lengthen and the march into spring begins. But gardeners also know we don’t rush out in January and start planting. It takes a while for the sun to catch up, shake off winter, and get things going again. According to the ever interesting blog at MacGardens, the turning point for this is the January 21st celebration of ‘post-solstice’. One month after winter solstice and the sun is starting to turn the tide of winter, bringing soil temperatures back from their lowest point (happening somewhere around Jan 21st) back up into the civilized range. Speaking of civilized, check out MacGardens for a special treat of cool plants, exotic alpines, and just plain old interesting gardening.

I’m always trying to get out of the ‘average’ category of photography. Here’s one of my favorite cyclamen coum which I attempted to set up for a nice portrait.

Until post-solstice kicks in and we can again search for signs of life outdoors I’ll stick to the indoor garden. With more snow on the way tonight I think that’s the best plan. Here’s another plant making me happy sheltering from the storm under lights, it’s a variegated ice plant (dorotheanthus bellidiformis, probably ‘mezoo trailing red’). Not to ‘out’ my slacker gardening, but the cuttings might have been hastily thrown on a workbench back in November when the first hard frost hit. They sat there unplanted for at least a month until I got around to potting them up and don’t seem to have minded at all. Surviving rootless on a table for over a month ranks well on my plant-o-meter.

dorotheanthus bellidiformis 'mezoo trailing red'

Variegated ice plant finally living the good life with soil and water (and plenty of roots- I checked)

A few snowdrops weren’t stolen out of their pots or had their heads nibbled off by the late Mr. Mouse, so February should be off to a good, post-solstice, start. In either case I’m just happy that there’s already a bit of light on the horizon when I pull into work, and a rosy glow to the sky when I walk out!

What is this!?

Nov1

This could be a problem. I’m obsessing about my little cuttings rooting under the shoplight in the garage. They’re the goodies I snipped from Michael Bowell’s garden in early October, and as the outside garden dies back and bores me the indoor garden takes over. This is supposed to be my “winter garden”, not my “overwintering cuttings garden”.

I fired up the indoor garden early this year to give the cuttings a good chance at surviving. Don’t they look promising?

Maybe Santa will bring me another shoplight.

The cuttings went into a tiny bit of rooting powder, a loose sandy potting soil, and then sat on the cozy warm heating mat which I got last winter. They seem to like it, I just have to figure out when I can remove the mat. The spotted begonia leaf and the yellow elephant ear are favorites. The elephant ear was just a tiny root nub which had a little bud on it, I hope by next year it’s a couple feet tall!

Oh the optimism of a new season 🙂

Still hiding indoors

Feb22

We’re into another warm spell, with temperatures predicted to peak at a balmy 50F (10C) this afternoon. I would pull out the shorts and T shirts, but the weather forecast also has a low of 5F (-15C) listed for Wednesday, so maybe I’ll wait another week. For now the indoor garden will have to do while we wait for the snow to melt. Cyclamen coum are at their peak. hardy cyclamen coum indoors under lights Sure they would be hardy outdoors under the snow, but to see them blooming now is twice as nice, even though they have suffered more than ever this winter under my neglectful care. Most are unnamed mixed seed, but the darker, smaller bloom is from the Meaden’s Crimson seed strain.I have some whites outdoors, but only this one under lights. It’s got nice foliage, a decent sized flower, and a nice blackberry smudge on the nose. Also, according to the original listing this seed comes from a wild collected plant of cyclamen coum ssp. causasium, which to me means its mom comes straight from the wilds at the edge of the Black Sea near Turkey and Western Russia (and may also be slightly less hardy than other c. coum). A cool pedigree as far as I’m concerned, but based on the mixed variety of colors and forms that came from this seed batch I’m guessing dad was a local.This one is still my favorite. No fancy reason, just like the color.The snowdrops (galanthus elwesii) which I potted up in December from a late Van Engelen order are doing fine, but just not as well as last years order. There’s just not as much variety in bloom shapes and markings this year, and to me this says it might be time to move on from my bulk snowdrop purchasing days. I’m sure I’ll still pick a couple up here and there, but no more bags of hundreds. Just the other day a friend suggested I try Brent and Becky’s since they usually supply a higher quality and larger bulb…. (so maybe I’ll still have to try one more year of bulk orders) Eventually I hope to bring in a pot or two of my own garden’s clumps and force them indoors, but for now my clumps of just one bulb aren’t ready for that. So until then I’ll have to take what I can get.You might recognize the pinkish primula vulgaris ssp. sibthorpii from my Far Reaches Farm order in January. It’s lookin’ good! I can’t really take any credit for this since all I did was keep it warm and under lights, but it’s a nice treat here amongst the permafrost. Rumor has it that sibthorpii should have a white ring around the yellow center star or else it’s a mixed hybrid, but since mine has been grown under artificial lighting, it may not yet be showing it’s true colors. To save on indoor light space I placed another dormant primrose in a cold spot near the door to keep it asleep…. then the polar vortex and little vortices came through and before I knew it the poor thing was a block of ice. After a slow thaw I have it under the light too, and other than a few freezer burned rosettes of new growth, I believe it will be fine.Another objet d’hope is this group of overwintered geraniums I potted up last week. I had a free afternoon and the strangely bright sunshine made me antsy to get something growing, so after another 25 pots of seeds were sown and placed outside to get a taste of winter, I took pity on the stray geranium cuttings sitting in the dark garage, repotted them and set up the second shoplight.I had been of the opinion that my tropicals under a shoplight experiment was a waste of lighting, but last year’s hanging pots of geraniums look much better for having been under the light. I suspect this will be the year of the geranium (pelargonium) since I now have room for nothing else (other than this sad looking cane begonia- which believe it or not will recover very quickly from this wintertime abuse).The succulents are much less bother. Dim lighting, a cup of water in January, and they look as good today as when I brought them in. As long as they only get enough water to hold off death, they’ll be fine until May. overwintered aloe

May sounds good right now, but I’ll be happy enough when March gets here. It’s scheduled to come in like a lion, but hopefully by the end we’ll see some signs of life outside. Onion seeds were planted last week so even if the ice outside says winter, the calendar will soon start to argue that…. I hope.

Goodies from Far Reaches Farm

Jan27

Gardeners often find their passion when the kids fly the nest, the first house is purchased, or maybe at retirement. I was an odd child. I planted tree seedlings in the sandbox and collected seedheads while on the family vacation. I remember one Christmas when in addition to playdoh and matchbox cars I added bulbs to the list. Somehow Santa found a few wood hyacinth in December, and I was a happy kid when the presents were opened.

My parents were the sensible type though, and although a lot of the lawn was turned over for flowers, they insisted I take it easy so that the yard wasn’t a complete burden when I moved on. They were right of course. The college years, first apartments, moving around to different states, all those other things in life that interfere with gardening happened, and it’s only now twenty something years later that I’m settled down enough to really have some fun. I can’t afford a fancy car-midlife crisis, but I can still swing a few overpriced snowdrops while also keeping the kid’s college funds intact. Here’s a treasure from Far Reaches Farm in Washington state. A friend tipped me off to a few snowdrops at this nursery (very reasonably priced for named snowdrops), and although shipping cross country during a polar vortex isn’t exactly normal plant buying procedure, I’m sitting fat and happy here, all hunkered down on the Pennsylvania tundra with my brand new galanthus “John Gray”. galanthus john gray I also picked up ‘Blewbury Tart’. Maybe she’ll grow on me as the little tart clumps up but for now I’m still lukewarm to her small sideward facing congested bloom. Both of my new snowdrops show up on ‘best growing’ or ‘favorite snowdrop’ lists, so I’m pretty sure that even when they’re out in the garden among all the other snowdrops they should someday make me proud.

Of course when shipping cross country it’s foolish to buy just two plants. Far better to fill the box, so I added two primrose plants. This one is primula vulgaris ssp. sibthorpii, an English type primrose that has a reputation for doing better through the dry, hot spells that other primrose generally don’t like here. The second (and third bonus!) primrose are in a cold garage corner (still dormant), but this one with it’s blooms already coming up goes right in to add to the winter garden! primula vulgaris ssp sibthorpii

I loved my Far Reaches Farm order. Premium plants packed to perfection, communication was great, and the primula are so well grown they could even be divided now if I were so inclined. Just looking at their website today I could have easily filled another even larger order with cool arisameas and species roses…. but I should really do a one month cool off period for any more new plant orders (the budget being blown as it is!) For now I’ll have to be satisfied with the winter garden…. for as long as it lasts…. the cold is creeping into the garage and the last polar plunge has pots in the corners of the garage frozen solid.

All these exciting new treats make me wonder why I ever bothered to overwinter those tired old tender plants from last year! They only look marginally better this winter after having spent most of their time under the grow lights, and I think the trouble’s not worth it, so next year it’s back into the near dark of the garage. I know come May it will have been worth taking them in. Maybe if I’m bored during next week’s not-going-over-freezing weather I’ll repot the geraniums and start giving them a little water. It will be nice to have some summer flowers growing again, and they shouldn’t mind the cool garage temperatures at all.

Daylight savings time

Jan19

During daylight savings time I’m not entirely sure where all the saved light goes, but after getting to work in the dark and leaving in the dark, I’d like to pretend a little shows up in my winter garden. Ok, winter garden is a pretty fancy label for my shoplight in the back of the garage but in a family that calls the vegetable garden “the farm” and one apple tree “the orchard”, it makes sense. I cleaned things up a little with a plastic liner and gravel base and I’m more pleased than ever. My only complaint is I should have used a sand base to place the pots on, a sort of ‘sand plunge’ that would distribute the watering better. Looks like that’s the plan for next year.

Things seem late, maybe because of the cold spells or my late setup and start-of-watering, but from the looks of things it should pick up soon. More of the cyclamen coum are sending up blooms including the darker ‘Meaden’s Crimson”This is my current favorite though. It’s got a nice pink shade that darkens around the petal edges giving almost a bicolor effect. The seedlings from last winter are also recovering well from my neglect. For about the first year of their lives these cyclamen hederifolium will grow quickly sending up new and larger leaves if kept cool and watered with a little fertilizer. Once they get past a certain point, around their first birthday, they either get too big or get too old (I’m not sure) and no amount of light, water, cool or warm will keep them actively growing through the winter. They just sit there until warmer weather and drought bring on dormancy. In this batch of seedlings I like the silver leaf in the center with it’s slight pink tinge. Maybe it will hold onto this as it grows, but I’ve seen other babies play this trick and it never lasts.

More snowdrops are coming into bloom. I don’t think any of these are galanthus woronowii (like the label said) since they just don’t have the glossy green leaves that they should, but the blooms are welcome anyway. forced snowdrops

The first of many Van Engelen clearance sale bulbs are blooming. I can’t hold them back any more! It’s difficult to tell from the picture but these are barely half the size of the others. Still nice though as more snow falls outside.I have a birthday coming up. I’m considering gifting myself two more shoplights rather than endlessly wishing for a greenhouse. It’s not quite the same but it’s a start!

disclaimer: I guess daylight savings time is technically the summer time change, but just like I’m desperate for sun I was also desperate for a title 🙂

Opening day for the winter garden

Jan5

There’s only so much I want to do outdoors while the snow is blowing and the temperatures drop. It looks beautiful and we have plenty of cozy winter gear but unless I have a snow shoveling job to do I’d rather just admire the whiteness from inside the house. So instead of bundling up, I dusted off the shop light and set up my little winter garden. These cyclamen coum and cyclamen hederifolium are hardy enough to overwinter outdoors easily but I’m sure I’d miss them too much under the snow, so it’s nice to have them under lights and in the garage. Plus with blooms starting, it’s time to give them a nicer spot than the dim, dusty windowsill.The snowdrops also need more light, I try to keep them back by holding them in the coolest corner of the garage but they have their own growing timetable. The first of this bunch bloomed in November and now I’m happy to see the rest starting. My apologies for the mess and dirt and less than attractive cardboard backdrop…. no Martha Stewart gardening here.Last winter’s cyclamen seedlings also appreciate the lighting. They didn’t sprout until temperatures cooled in the fall but will now grow and reach a decent size for planting out next spring.

With the lights on, these cyclamen will get more regular watering and we’re going to pretend it’s spring 🙂 There are new blooms just under the gravel waiting to come up, and if it’s between looking outside and looking at this, I’ll take the flowers.Not a bad way to start off the new year. It sure beats the -9F (-23C) I saw on my drive to work the other day. Stay warm!

sorta like suburbia

more than you ever wanted to know about my garden

Tag Archives: growing under lights