Just a quick look at what the heavy snow we received last weekend did. If you remember, the bamboos looked particularly distressed, bent all the way to the ground.
I've been thinking that I need to prune a couple of my roses soon -- the ones that the deer haven't already taken care of I mean, and the yews in front of the house need to be trimmed back a bit, but these aren't the pruning tasks that have been weighing on my mind lately.
Last weekend while I was cleaning up the pond, I realized there was something weird about the Petasites japonicus plants I have at the water's edge. No, not that they bloom with (or before) the crocus and daffodils -- that's a bit strange but not unusual for these plants -- that's what they do.
I've already cleaned the pond a couple of times in preparation for the spring warm-up, but there's still much to do. I tackled more of it last weekend before the snowstorm.
What's a gardener to do when their seed-starting plant table is full, there are no suitable windowsills on which to start seeds, yet there are at least a dozen more types of seed that need to get going?
Remember the other day when I received the surprise desert mallow plant from Jenny? Another plant I've been admiring in her garden is what I call Chocolate flower, and what she calls Chocolate daisy.
That's the sound of spring arriving in my St. Louis garden this year, in the form of several inches of heavy snow. Yes, it makes everything so beautiful, but what about the crocus that were blooming?
Yesterday was a lovely spring day and I spent it in the garden digging, cleaning up, building things. Today though winter returns to St. Louis, as the snow has just started falling.
I've posted this tip before, but on this not unbearably cold Saturday I need to get outside and get some projects done before the rain that will turn into snow starts falling. So a short post today.
Have you ever received plants in the mail (or via some other delivery service)? Maybe they were from an order you placed, or due to a trade you had arranged with distant gardening friends? It's great, isn't it?
Now that I've gotten my cold-tolerant seedlings out of the house (for the most part), I've got room under the lights for more seed trays.
Even though spring-like weather is taking its time arriving this year, I still get the itch to go to garden centers to see what's available. I may buy a few plants now, but I really don't want to end up with dozens of plants that I need to keep bringing into the garage every few days because of diving temps.
Yesterday I showed you how I built a simple cold frame over part of one of my veggie beds.
I started all of my cold-tolerant edible seeds several weeks ago: lettuce, tatsoi, cilantro (coriander). Those seedlings have been eager to get into the ground, and they're ready. The problem is the weather. Although we've had a few warm days here and there recently, temperatures in March are quite a bit below normal. The forecast a few days ago indicated that we'd expect nighttime lows of around 20ºF (-6ºC) for a couple of days, and I don't want to expose these tiny seedlings to those conditions.
As I mentioned recently, the cuttings that have been rooting in clay pellets (and water) have been looking a bit yellow, a sure sign that they need to get into some potting mix and soak up some nutrients!
I have some photos left from my greenhouse visit of last weekend, showing off a couple of plant families with which I'm not very familiar.
On my nursery visit last weekend I saw some great stuff: dozens of heucheras, lots of perennials just starting to emerge, color. I also saw some questionable stuff. Things that make me stop and say "that's just wrong".
It's finally time to clean up the garden, removing last year's remnants, making way for the soon-to-be-emerging new growth. This is a task that is relatively big in my yard, with perennials to cut back, grasses to chop, and groundcover bamboos to "mow". It seems like an overwhelming task, but I never start the day thinking "I'm going to clean up everything today" -- that would be daunting. Instead I just focus on one job, and when that's finished I move on to another if I feel like it.
Are you growing any heuchera ("Coral Bells") in your garden? Once upon a time this plant was available in two different leaf colors: green, and purple (with the 'Palace Purple' cultivar). These days, you can get pretty much any leaf color you want (except blue), and there must be hundreds of different cultivars to choose from.
My nursery visit the other day was recharging, but also disappointing. I was hoping to get some ideas for plants to add to my garden, but what I saw instead was this:
I've been really enjoying the crystal-clear water of the pond lately, being able to see the fish and all of the submerged plants. The water wasn't perfect as there were still leaves to remove, but it was nice.
While waiting for the garden to dry out a bit yesterday, I visited a couple of my local garden centers. My main goal was to find some purple fountain grass to replace the ones I killed, but they didn't have any yet.
This past Christmas we received a nice gift of some scented candles. I'm not a candle fanatic like some people, but I really do love some of these "flavors" -- and I have to call them "flavors" because they're usually so strong they fill my entire head.
You already know I overwinter cuttings indoors under lights. You've also recently read about me taking more cuttings for fun and to get more plants.
When overwintering plants, I often try experiments. Take cuttings instead of overwintering the whole plant, keep some plants dormant, others actively growing. The idea is to reduce the amount of work and/or storage space required to get these not cold-hardy plants through the winter.
Actually, "rock" is probably not the most descriptive title for this post.
According to Blogger I made my first blog post on March 5, 2010 which means today is my three-year anniversary! Three years of daily posts? Yep. Since I think about gardening every day, why not post about it every day too? One of the main reasons for creating this blog was so I'd document everything I did in the garden, and I have to admit I've done a pretty good job of that. Did I list every detail of every task I did? No, certainly not. I missed lots of stuff, including some important details such as what exact varieties of veggies I planted, spacings, fertilization schedules, etc. but I also shared a lot of things that I would normally have just observed and enjoyed for myself, and have hopefully given some entertainment and knowledge to my readers.
It's been quite wintery in St. Louis the past few weeks -- as it has been over large parts of this country. Temperatures have been much lower than normal (except for a few days here and there), and we've had a bit of snow.
I've been writing about little problems that I've been fixing lately. Today I have another problem to show you, but I admit I don't have a solution to this one.
The other day I wrote about a little project to level part of my parkway turf, then I wrote about removing vinca from the bed in front of the house. There was another little project I tackled on that same busy weekend.
One of my favorite things about the garden is tree bark. I love its texture, its color.
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