It sucks, especially because in the past 2-3 years, my experimental gardening has turned into... real gardening. Yes, that's right - I plant things in the ground and they DON'T DIE. Stop the presses. As a result I have developed a huge addiction to gardening, and pore over seed catalogs and salivate in garden centers.
My lovely husband Scruffy has tolerated this new passion with a remarkable amount of patience. Now is the time when he's most patient - we are THIS CLOSE to finally being able to get outside and get dirty, and I've got our mini greenhouse going in our bedroom (we have big screen doors as well as a picture window in our room, so it gets loads of sunlight.) I have started out a whole bunch of seeds:
And I even got Boy Wonder in on the action with an herb garden (in the coco lined box in the back of the photo.)
For anyone wondering, my gardening details are as follows:
Zone 3a/3b (technically - I do have a real microclimate thing going on with my front flower beds beside the house, which face southeast and are up against tan colored siding that retains a lot of warmth - so I'd say those boxes are nearer to a 4a.)
Virtually everything is a sun garden - the house faces southeast, and all 3 flowerbeds are full sun for the bulk of the day.
I have a mix of perennials and annuals - my first year I babied the perennials and let them sleep in our room with us before I was absolutely certain the frost was done for the year, and I think that helped them, since now they are fat and happy (as much as a plant can be, anyhow.)
Perennials:
Feather Reed Grass, 'Karl Foerster'. I love my Karls. I'm going to get a couple more this year. They're up to 2-3' tall now.
Blue Fescue
Catmint - this stuff grows like a WEED. It's being moved this year to a bigger area. It also smells great.
Yarrow - I do NOT like yarrow and don't know why I bought it. However, yarrow loves me and my yarrow is now showing up 3.5' tall. It's getting moved as well, just because I paid good money for them, and I hate to waste them.
Mugo pine - it's having a hard time. I've had it for at least 5 years, and it might have grown 2" in that period. However I'm not a big mugo lover, so I'm just going to let it chill out where it is, and see what happens. If it lives, great. If it dies, oh well - it was cheap.
Tulips. Painless and easy (and the tips are up. Thank heavens, something is growing in this winter wasteland!)
Lilies - I have an Easter lily as well as a few stargazers. These are also painless and easy and won't complain if they're moved, which is nice. :)
Hosta - I have a hosta that's been living in my one shady spot in a whiskey barrel. It doubled in size in the past year. I'm moving the barrel to a new shady spot and REALLY hope it comes back. I love hostas.
Ground covers like sedum and creeping charlie. I have never even touched these once they were put in and they're enormous. I'm going to have to hack them back a bit this year. They are in full sun and well drained soil.
Annuals that I've had success with:
Mimulus, or Monkey Flower. I'd never done these before but had them in containers in part shade (on the deck) - they did great but overpowered the other stuff in the box. Lesson learned is that they like moist soil and lots of sun and seemed to spread quickly.
Wave petunias. Boring but pretty. Moist soil, lots of sun.
Basket stuffers like ivy - painless, so easy to grow.
I fertilize once every 2 weeks with bigger blooms fertilizer (the pink lid) mixed into a watering can. Yes it takes ages, but that way the kids can play outside and get lots of fresh air (and me too!) :)
Whenever I planted something big, like my Karls, I put a handful of bone meal into the hole dug for the plant. This year's plans include a weeping Caragana in a whiskey barrel, so I will definitely be doing the same for it.
Wow, just listing it all out makes it sound like I have an enormous garden. That is sort of true... but it could be bigger. :) Hopefully in a few more weeks I'll have pics of my changes for 2011 to share.
No comments:
Post a Comment