Seed Starting Revisited

I went to my garden group workshop today, great lunch, much conversation about holidays, snow, warm up, etc.  Seed starting was not on anyone's lips today! 

Our instructor arrived from the University of Illinois Extension group with dirt, seeds, starting containers and brochures in hand.  She proceeded to beguile us with her stories of how easy it is to grow the most fabulous plants in your basement under lights.  Rattling off a comple list of requirements, sterile germination soil, seed trays with styrofoam planting pockets with trays, plastic greenhouse covers, moisture blankets, heating cables, labeling sticks, flourescent light fixtures with chains, seeds, our eyes and ears were totally engaged.  Someone came out of their hypnotic state to ask the instructor, "why would you do this?"  She answered understandbly that you would do this to grow unusual plants that are not readily available on the open market, but her real answer was that, "you do it for fun!"

I grew plants under lights for many years and ,WOW, I never realized all of the work it was until I heard this presentation.  Although, I do remember having to get a babysitter to water my plants went we went on spring vacation. 

I am into the natural approach to seed starting now, every seed I purchase will go right into the soil at the appropriate planting time.  I think I'm over the fun of seed starting, but my lights are still in the basement!

A Tiny Cottage Garden

When you have a small garden, it is difficult to develop diverse, interesting areas throughout the property.  Sometimes, an area just speaks to you and you just know how it should look.  I have an area with a cedar shed where we store the snowblower, garden supplies and some garden containers.  It is on the side of my raised bed vegetable garden.  This is very small area, but it definitely is visible and not suited to formal plantings.

It is a house-like little shed, with a shake roof, window and hayracks on two sides.  Clematis Rouge Cardinal is a backdrop on one side with Rainbow Knockout Rose (this is my favorite Knockout, it is a free spirit, changing colors and very long blooming).  Art's Pride and Mango Echinacea look so appropriate in this setting.  They are much more whispy than White Swan or Magnus type varities.  The baskets are planted with Profusion zinnia, verbena (not the hybrid type -  think it is called Great Expectations).  Everything in this area looks a little looser than the other garden areas.

Beginnings

I remember exactly when I became a gardener!  Finally, we had a yard after living in an apartment for the first seven years of my life.  At about the age of eight I began to ask my mother if I could have a part of the yard and could I have money to buy some seeds.  This was not a large piece of property, just thirty feet wide, a typical city lot.  I dug out a small area towards the back and planted corn and carrots in an area around the catch basin (this was an old house which had this type of sewer to catch all of the grease from the kitchen sink).  My aunt and uncle lived upstairs (two flat) and she was my mentor gardener.  We crawled around the yard together on our knees, digging, planting and pruning.

My first harvest yeilded only about three ears of corn, but the carrots were a bumper crop, and my dad said they were the best he had ever tasted!

Are My Rhododendrons Here To Stay?

The snow has finally melted off the rhododendrons that are to the side of my front door under my dining room windows.  I have replaced each one of them once and one of them twice.  They are sheltered by a stone wall with a limestone ledge in front of them, so they are protected.  My husband wants to put a concrete porch there and pull out the rhododendrons and the ferns and hostas which grow beneath.  Each time he would mention this I would protest that a porch would be too small and the beautiful flowers in the spring were worth another try.

I turned off the sprinkler system beneath this area, fed them religiously with an acid fertilizer and kept the watering to a minimum.  They have a shallow root system, and do not like to be wet.  They look better than any other winter, of course it is January!  Their little leaves are not shriveled from the cold, and I am certainly going to keep hoping they survive or I am afraid the "cement boot" will win!

Favorite Gardening Magazine

We took a longer car trip today, so I needed some reading material to endure riding in the car two hours to destination and two back.  I reached into my magazine rack on the way out and came up with two of my favorite gardening magazines.  They were both issues of fine Gardening, http://www.finegardening.com/.  I have never thought too much about them except that they are a little pricey for a magazine.  But, when I really started to think about it, they are one of least expensive things that I buy for a great deal of enjoyment.

The pictures are beautiful of real people's plantings, executed on high quality glossy paper.  They are filled with so much information, designs, plants by region and tips from gardeners throughout the country.  I use them like a reference or a cookbook never discarding an issue but referring to them over and over throughout the years.