Gardening

[greenthumb59]

Our mailbox is mounted on a post.  I have not planted any flowers around it.  If I did plant something, I think it would be those yellow daylilies.  I love those!  There are some varieties that don't get too tall, which would work for me.  I love daylilies and of course I don't have enough of them around my yard.  I only have a couple right now.

Pink, 8x6 is a big area to take care of.  Are the crape myrtles gone?

Last year I planted nasturtiums in my garden.  We would pick the flowers for our salads.  They were spicy!  Unfortunately when it got hot they faded away.  I may try them again this year.

[ken a.k.a OMK]

Have you seen Border Lilies? They only get 12" - 24" tall and come in many colors. They are in the Asiatic family.

[Pink Cashmere]

Jan 7, 2024 18:18:21 GMT -5 greenthumb59 said:

Our mailbox is mounted on a post.  I have not planted any flowers around it.  If I did plant something, I think it would be those yellow daylilies.  I love those!  There are some varieties that don't get too tall, which would work for me.  I love daylilies and of course I don't have enough of them around my yard.  I only have a couple right now.

Pink, 8x6 is a big area to take care of.  Are the crape myrtles gone?

Last year I planted nasturtiums in my garden.  We would pick the flowers for our salads.  They were spicy!  Unfortunately when it got hot they faded away.  I may try them again this year.

Our mailbox is encased in bricks. Whoever built this house, loved bricks lol.

The daylilies I had were yellow. Except for some I bought from Home Depot that were supposed to be yellow but ended up being either orange or a maroon color.

That flowerbed is a nice size to create something beautiful, for someone that knows what they are doing (I don’t). There is still one crape Myrtle in it. Our house is “wide” and there are brick flowerbeds along the entire front of it. There is a row of bushes in them, all uniform. Ugly. But they are still there because I don’t know what to replace them with. Again, somebody could make it really pretty if they knew what they were doing. There’s another one on the back of the house that is empty. I don’t know what to plant there because it doesn’t get sun until the afternoon, it’s on the west side of the house, so blazing hot in summer, and against the brick wall of the house, so even hotter. I have literally felt the heat coming off the brick wall during summer when I’ve been sitting on the deck, so I know whatever I plant in that bed would get that extra heat.

So there are a lot of spaces to grow flowers, but it’s overwhelming for me to try to figure out what to do with all of it.

I’ve read that nasturtiums are good to plant near vegetables. I just did marigolds last year though.

[Pink Cashmere]

Jan 7, 2024 18:25:25 GMT -5 ken a.k.a OMK said:

Have you seen Border Lilies? They only get 12" - 24" tall and come in many colors. They are in the Asiatic family.

No, I hadn’t seen them. I Googled them though. They are pretty. I’m not sure about bulbs though, the squirrels dug up the tiger lily bulbs I planted when Tenn gave me some. The 2 or 3 that they missed, they (or some other critter) finished off right when they started blooming.

[greenthumb59]

How big are the bushes in the beds now?  You live in Memphis, right?  Maybe you could replace a few of those bushes with camellias?  They bloom in fall and winter. I've never grown camellias, but I think they are lovely. 

You could also consider Rose of Sharon.  They come in all kinds of colors and heights these days.  Look for varieties that don't want to re-seed themselves.  I inherited a couple of Rose of Sharons here at my home, and I'm constantly pulling the babies out of my flower beds.

I'm currently trying to create a privacy hedge on the three sides of my backyard.  The acreage behind us sold for development.  Huge houses are being built there, only 15 feet from our back yard.  I have planted different varieties of arborvitae trees, crab apples, fringe trees, serviceberry, winterberry, and Rose of Sharon.  I'm going to find a couple of crape myrtles this spring and plant them.

DH wants us to move to get away from it.  I'm not quite there yet. It was a 4 acre lovely old homestead. It had a giraffe stone style house, a cool old root cellar and huge trees.  The last renter there kept goats and chickens.  It's all been totally cleared.  Four huge houses have been built and sold.  They started on two more within the past few weeks.  There will be 12 of them by the time it's all said and done.  

[Pink Cashmere]

Jan 8, 2024 13:05:18 GMT -5 greenthumb59 said:

How big are the bushes in the beds now?  You live in Memphis, right?  Maybe you could replace a few of those bushes with camellias?  They bloom in fall and winter. I've never grown camellias, but I think they are lovely. 

You could also consider Rose of Sharon.  They come in all kinds of colors and heights these days.  Look for varieties that don't want to re-seed themselves.  I inherited a couple of Rose of Sharons here at my home, and I'm constantly pulling the babies out of my flower beds.

I'm currently trying to create a privacy hedge on the three sides of my backyard.  The acreage behind us sold for development.  Huge houses are being built there, only 15 feet from our back yard.  I have planted different varieties of arborvitae trees, crab apples, fringe trees, serviceberry, winterberry, and Rose of Sharon.  I'm going to find a couple of crape myrtles this spring and plant them.

DH wants us to move to get away from it.  I'm not quite there yet. It was a 4 acre lovely old homestead. It had a giraffe stone style house, a cool old root cellar and huge trees.  The last renter there kept goats and chickens.  It's all been totally cleared.  Four huge houses have been built and sold.  They started on two more within the past few weeks.  There will be 12 of them by the time it's all said and done.  

The bushes are about 4’ tall. Even though I mentioned them, those flowerbeds aren’t even on my radar. The ugly bushes can stay for now lol. I’ll be doing good if I even do anything with the mailbox bed this year. I prefer to just focus on vegetables this year. 

I have a rosemary in a big pot on the deck, that I’m amazed is still alive and looks fine. My 2 lemon trees are inside for the winter, under grow lights. They had temper tantrums as usual, and almost immediately started dropping their leaves and flowers, and making a mess. Out of all the flowers and plants I’ve bought for the deck and to plant somewhere, that’s all that’s left. Terrible!

I Googled camellias and Rose of Sharon. I like the Rose of Sharon.

I’ve wanted to plant something for privacy along one side of our backyard too, but never figured that out either.

That sucks about the land behind your house being sold and how they are building the houses. We assumed when we bought this house that we wouldn’t ever have to worry about the land behind us and on one side of our backyard, because it was government owned. We were wrong, somebody bought it, and have let parts of it become overgrown. The parts bordering our property.

[CCL]

IME, Rose of Sharon are easy to grow. They will grow fast and tall. Mine shot up to 10-12 ft in 2 summers. They were skinny little sticks when I planted them. When it got hot in summer, I had to water them daily. There were very pretty when they all bloomed at once.

[happyhoix]

Jan 8, 2024 12:39:31 GMT -5 Pink Cashmere said:

Jan 7, 2024 18:18:21 GMT -5 greenthumb59 said:

Our mailbox is mounted on a post.  I have not planted any flowers around it.  If I did plant something, I think it would be those yellow daylilies.  I love those!  There are some varieties that don't get too tall, which would work for me.  I love daylilies and of course I don't have enough of them around my yard.  I only have a couple right now.

Pink, 8x6 is a big area to take care of.  Are the crape myrtles gone?

Last year I planted nasturtiums in my garden.  We would pick the flowers for our salads.  They were spicy!  Unfortunately when it got hot they faded away.  I may try them again this year.

Our mailbox is encased in bricks. Whoever built this house, loved bricks lol.

The daylilies I had were yellow. Except for some I bought from Home Depot that were supposed to be yellow but ended up being either orange or a maroon color.

That flowerbed is a nice size to create something beautiful, for someone that knows what they are doing (I don’t). There is still one crape Myrtle in it. Our house is “wide” and there are brick flowerbeds along the entire front of it. There is a row of bushes in them, all uniform. Ugly. But they are still there because I don’t know what to replace them with. Again, somebody could make it really pretty if they knew what they were doing. There’s another one on the back of the house that is empty. I don’t know what to plant there because it doesn’t get sun until the afternoon, it’s on the west side of the house, so blazing hot in summer, and against the brick wall of the house, so even hotter. I have literally felt the heat coming off the brick wall during summer when I’ve been sitting on the deck, so I know whatever I plant in that bed would get that extra heat.

So there are a lot of spaces to grow flowers, but it’s overwhelming for me to try to figure out what to do with all of it.

I’ve read that nasturtiums are good to plant near vegetables. I just did marigolds last year though.

Hmmm, heat and shade tolerant. What about astilbes or semi tropical ferns? My go to shade plant is an impatiens but don’t know how good they are with heat. Fun piece of useless trivia - Australians call impatiens Busy Lizzie. No idea why.

[ken a.k.a OMK]

My go to shade plant is an impatiens but don’t know how good they are with heat.

In my experience New Guinea Impatiens are more tolerant to heat and are much prettier, but more expensive.

"New Guineas grow in full or part shade. They thrive in a spot that receives morning sunlight and afternoon shade. In warmest zones where summers are hot and humid, New Guinea impatiens definitely benefit from light shade."

[greenthumb59]

More seed catalogs arrived in the mail! I love to look through these and daydream about this and that.   

It's cold today and we got a little snow this morning.  It's supposed to be bitterly cold this weekend.  Below zero temps, which is not the norm for my neck of the woods.  I've filled the birdfeeders, or should I call them the squirrel feeders? lol  

I hope the cold doesn't zap my spider lilies again this year.  The lily foliage comes up in late fall, stays all winter, and fades off in the spring.  In the fall - right around my birthday - the lily flowers just pop out of the ground like magic! But no blooms this past fall, because we had bitter cold last January. 

[Happy prose]

I'm in South Jersey. In September, for the first time, I planted daffodil bulbs. I noticed a few days ago, some started to grow already. Today those little green leaves got covered with snow. Are they going to die? I was really looking forward to seeing them this Spring. 

[Opti]

Jan 16, 2024 17:49:58 GMT -5 Happy prose said:

I'm in South Jersey. In September, for the first time, I planted daffodil bulbs. I noticed a few days ago, some started to grow already. Today those little green leaves got covered with snow. Are they going to die? I was really looking forward to seeing them this Spring. 

They should be fine. I have daffodils in the two beds in front of my apartment. The one side has them come up sooner and bloom better because of location and the small tree is considerably smaller than the one on my side of the entry. So I have leaves sticking up about an inch or two and the hyacinths are even further along. 

I'm in central new jersey. I did move some daffodil bulbs in hopes they would have better conditions and start to look better. I did not finish the thinning and moving last fall but I already see one of the ones that was moved. 

[Opti]

Bought a $1 rosemary plant this past Saturday when I did a quick shop waiting for the bus. My place is not the best for indoor plants, and I am not a good indoor gardener yet either. Any suggestions? I'm upgrading it from its store pot tonight. 

At worst the plant will be like buying fresh herbs with a 2 month or so expiration date

[MarionTh230]

Tomato plant is dead.  Pepper plants may survive.  All foliage is done for.  But, some pruning and they may make a comeback in spring.  Too early to tell yet.

Lettuce and herbs did fine.  Broccoli and Brussel sprouts are still to be determined.  Foliage is droopy, but no obvious freeze damage.  We will see how the next few days go.  No idea about the beets.  They were pitiful to begin with due to transplanting (not recommended for root crops) and squirrel attacks.  Foliage looks fine but they looked not great before the freeze so knows.  

I live so far south that we are almost in the year-round gardening category.  I typically always have one tomato going in the winter.  If winter is mild, I win.  If we get a hard freeze, well, then, that's that.  It's always worth the gamble even though it didn't go in my favor this year.  We got half a dozen or so tomatoes before this hard freeze hit.

In seed germinating news, my marigolds are looking real nice.  Peas are coming along as well.  I have a couple more lettuce and spinach that will transplant soon.  Once that is done, I'll start peppers.  They seem to take longer to germinate than tomatoes so they are usually first on my list.

Despite the cold, just remember, spring will come!

[happyhoix]

Ordered seeds yesterday - I checked the UGA website for when to plant English Peas and it says January 15th through Feb 15th which seems awfully cruel. It barely got over 32 today. Could I really stand to tuck those little peas into the cold cold ground?

Being in the far northern tip of Georgia, however, I’ll stick with Feb 15th. Should not be quite as cold, and english peas don’t like the heat, so if I can’t get them producing by April/early May, they’ll give up by the end of May, so I guess need to be hard hearted.

I’m going to plant two of my raised beds full of peas, and when they do wilt in the summer heat, pull them and replant with cukes and cantaloupe. we’ll see what happens. I do love fresh peas.

[finnime]

Snow peas are planted on and in the snow.

[greenthumb59]

It was mostly sunny yesterday and temps were above freezing!  Lots of the snow melted.  I walked the dog and took her on a drive.  It was nice.  Now this morning it's 10 and we have below zero wind chills again.  UGH!

So I did just give the dog a little short walk because she gets so restless when we don't walk her.  I filled my bird feeders.  I hope I don't find many dead birds lying about, like I did in February of 2021.  Back then we had several days of below zero temps and deeper snow.  The poor things just dropped dead from the cold.

I took a good look around the backyard too.  Lots of cleanup this spring.  Limbs have fallen with all this wind and rough weather.  We have moles too and they have made a good mess in the yard with all their burrowing.  I hired an arborist to come and trim our trees.  We last talked in October, and I thought he would come this month to do the trimming.  I'm sure this weather has put him behind schedule.

For the garden, I need to get my potato starts ordered.  I'm not planning to order any seeds because I still have a lot from last year.  My garden will not be as diverse as it was this past year.  Since my DH and DS2 just don't eat what I grow - well I don't see the point in it. I will have squash, cucs, tomatoes, etc.  But I'm not going to grow as much.

I've brought in some potting soil from the porch.  I'm going to try - again - to get more milkweed started.  Last spring when the monarchs were coming through none of my milkweed was up yet.  I want to have some plants ready for them this year. 

[finnime]

Jan 19, 2024 12:22:27 GMT -5 greenthumb59 said:

It was mostly sunny yesterday and temps were above freezing!  Lots of the snow melted.  I walked the dog and took her on a drive.  It was nice.  Now this morning it's 10 and we have below zero wind chills again.  UGH!

[. . .]

I've brought in some potting soil from the porch.  I'm going to try - again - to get more milkweed started.  Last spring when the monarchs were coming through none of my milkweed was up yet.  I want to have some plants ready for them this year.

I'm impressed with your growing milkweed from seed! The butterflies will thank you.

[ken a.k.a OMK]

I have 3 types of milkweed I've started from seed. I have some that seeded from birds around the yard. Same is true of my Butterfly bushes. Only saw a few Monarchs last year and no caterpillars. 

[Opti]

Jan 21, 2024 11:02:18 GMT -5 ken a.k.a OMK said:

I have 3 types of milkweed I've started from seed. I have some that seeded from birds around the yard. Same is true of my Butterfly bushes. Only saw a few Monarchs last year and no caterpillars. 

Bummer. I love Monarch butterflies and I did not see any last year either. Although they could have been blown off course or picked a safer route. 

[greenthumb59]

I saw lots of Monarchs last season.  They love Mexican sunflowers!  I had several of these plants all over the yard.  Every time I went outside there was at least a couple of  Monarchs flying around. 

So far I haven't tried to bring their eggs in to raise them.  I may try it this year.

[Opti]

Jan 19, 2024 12:22:27 GMT -5 greenthumb59 said:

It was mostly sunny yesterday and temps were above freezing!  Lots of the snow melted.  I walked the dog and took her on a drive.  It was nice.  Now this morning it's 10 and we have below zero wind chills again.  UGH!

So I did just give the dog a little short walk because she gets so restless when we don't walk her.  I filled my bird feeders.  I hope I don't find many dead birds lying about, like I did in February of 2021.  Back then we had several days of below zero temps and deeper snow.  The poor things just dropped dead from the cold.

I took a good look around the backyard too.  Lots of cleanup this spring.  Limbs have fallen with all this wind and rough weather.  We have moles too and they have made a good mess in the yard with all their burrowing.  I hired an arborist to come and trim our trees.  We last talked in October, and I thought he would come this month to do the trimming.  I'm sure this weather has put him behind schedule.

For the garden, I need to get my potato starts ordered.  I'm not planning to order any seeds because I still have a lot from last year.  My garden will not be as diverse as it was this past year.  Since my DH and DS2 just don't eat what I grow - well I don't see the point in it. I will have squash, cucs, tomatoes, etc.  But I'm not going to grow as much.

I've brought in some potting soil from the porch.  I'm going to try - again - to get more milkweed started.  Last spring when the monarchs were coming through none of my milkweed was up yet.  I want to have some plants ready for them this year. 

I wasn't planning to plant any potatoes, but one of the last small Yukon gold potatoes has sprouted enough I might plant it. Its not that healthy to eat per my Internet reading if the sprouting is at a certain point. 

Weather will be better later this week. Have no idea what will happen this winter. Less wussy so far compared to last year which was so very pleasant and easy to navigate.

[Knee Deep in Water Chloe]

I just tried to convince DH is was time to plant the flower seeds in trays for "six weeks before last frost". 
He made me open up the online Farmers Almanac because I didn't believe him when he said I was delusional that there was only six weeks remaining before the end of winter here. 

[greenthumb59]

Today I ordered my potato starts, and some shallots.  I love shallots - I might as well try to grow some!  I also ordered some sunflower seeds!  

[Pink Cashmere]

I have been peering at my little Meyer lemon trees every day since I first saw some baby lemons on the smaller one. Those fell off like all the other baby lemons have always done.

But then I noticed one on the bigger lemon tree, that was growing and about as big as my thumbnail now. Even though that’s still very small, it’s bigger than any have ever gotten before, so I’m thinking it might be here to stay.

Today I looked closely at the whole plant, and there are 4 more that are growing and past the stage where they usually fall off. Yayyyy!

Now I’m confused, do I fertilize it, even though I think I read that you don’t fertilize them during winter. But it’s in the house, so maybe I should? Maybe it needs food to keep growing the lemons that are hanging on?

And that is usually where I tend to mess up, trying to “help” my plants, which often results in their death lol.

They are both still making a big mess, dropping leaves and debris in my yoga room. The bigger one is dying and growing new leaves and blossoms, plus apparently a few lemons, all at the same time. I’m not sure how that makes sense, but that’s what’s happening. 

I keep telling myself to just leave it alone and see what happens. My self doesn’t want to listen, and wants to try to help it with some fertilizer. I guess I need to see what Google says.

[Pink Cashmere]

Because I’m so proud of my little lemons, here’s a picture of 4 of them. The other one is bigger than all of these.

[jerseygirl]

Lemon tress must smell delicious!!

[Pink Cashmere]

Jan 26, 2024 20:06:14 GMT -5 jerseygirl said:

Lemon tress must smell delicious!!

They do! When they both had lots of flowers on them, one day Mister was sniffing around in the kitchen. I asked what he was doing. He asked “what is that I smell”. It was the lemon trees. The scent wasn’t over
owering in the yoga room, but you could also smell it in the kitchen.

[greenthumb59]

I bet they do smell wonderful!  I love scented plants.  I wish everything smelled as lovely as it looks!

I have a "Maid of Orleans" potted jasmine. I've had it for several years.  It goes through several blooming cycles throughout the summer and smells heavenly when it's in bloom.  It lives on our deck in warm weather, and then I drag the poor thing in fall.  It always looks so ratty by this time of the year.  We have an enclosed back porch. It's cooler out there but the air is dry.  Not good for jasmine and the other plants I keep there.  The leaves dry out quickly so I water it every other day.  I am thinking of just keeping my old crock pot out there, on low setting, uncovered with water in the pot.  Maybe that would help?

The milkweed seeds I planted are beginning to sprout.  I'm keeping an eye on them.

[happyhoix]

Got my pea seeds! Lincolns. Supposedly heat tolerant.

I’ll plant them Saturday. Exciting.