Rush to Spring?

The seedlings are coming!

The germination rate of these seeds has me surprised. This packet of perennial flower mix has been laying around for 2-3 years. It was one of those freebies you get with purchase so I really don't expect anything too exciting, but the germination rate has me a bit excited. So far, most of the 50-60 seedlings have not grown true leaves so identification is still a bit problematic.

To germinate I sprinkled the seed on a wet coffee filter, wrapped it up and sealed it in a Ziplock bag and put it into the fridge for two weeks. After that, I sprinkled the seed across a couple dozen soil-filled cells on a plastic seed tray. Germination was nearly instantaneous.



Out in my garden is a forsythia. If I would walk out and clip out a few branches and place them in a heavy lead vase with warm water, in a week or so I will have forsythia blooming in my dining room.

Reading a blog that posited the question, "Do you force any bulbs?" I remembered the dozen or so pots with yellow tulips and handfuls of muscari layered on top. The yellow and blue would be so cheery. Theoretically, I could dig one out and bring it in and it should bloom in my south window. Theoretically, because that is if I can knock it loose from the ground, the same ground to which my plastics recycle bin is firmly frozen.

Instead, I will garden indoors, perhaps making more cuttings from my colorful coleus.



I am starting seeds nearly every day, mirablis, cilantro, verbena. My delphiniums have their third leaves.



The silver sage salvia are starting to develop their furry, silvery scalloped true leaves which are so unique to them.


And finally, these fuschia cuttings have grown tiny leaves telling me that root development has also taken place. Plants are cool like that!

Oh, I Need Spring!

I need Spring.

The picture above was taken last year, just ten days from now. The ice was gone from the Mill Pond, The maples already in bloom. The ground was workable. With 80 degree temperatures the maple syrup harvest was over before it began. The we had a very cold April and cherries, apricots, and apples froze. No crop at all. The first picking of strawberries, too was a loss. Last summer was not a particularly sweet one.

Still, I would like some warm days. With rainy weather versus snow, especially as 56% of the United States is still in drought. Feed lots across the country have a cow shortage. There is horse in the beef products and up to a 1/3 of the fish are not what is labeled.

Dear sister-in-law (SIL), mother of Baby Boo, or Baby Gardener as I typically call him in Summer, says. "Buy local! Horse meat and mislabeled fish is what you get when you don't know your supplier."

We plot and plan in passing moments as we prepare food from the garden for the Family Game Night. The menu is fajitas with seasonings straight from the freezer and pantry shelf lined with the salsa canned in September. Made with the tomatoes that so fascinated Boo when he realized they float as we washed them, bobbing red balls in the sink full of warm water.

The call is for more fruit. We will add more blueberries, rejuvenate a bed of strawberries. SIL wants cranberries. Cranberries will freeze well and she has a rhubarb cranberry relish she likes. I think I have found a source. She also wants cilantro added. One of the Twins wants peaches. We are still discussing that one.

Also, one of the Twins wants tiny white pumpkins. I have found a variety called "Boo". How perfect!

The Twins and I have been germinating seed using the baggy method. It is spinach and it has sprouted. Their Poppa and they are also growing mold on some strawberries, blueberries, and other miscellaneous food stuffs. All tossed in a clear glass container on the kitchen counter. It is a trap for anyone unaware of its contents, but the Twins are fascinated with this no longer microscopic organism growing in their "Petri" dish.

I'll stick to seeds.

This is the garden division of labor; we decide together, and I produce the seed, typically from saving, and germinate and grow our transplants and source anything else that goes into the garden. We are trying to develop a local provenance to the seed as well. We wish we could grow oranges and bananas, too. I can well understand the English and their glass houses. The garden is on my brother and SIL's property. It is herbicide and pesticide-free.

We all plant and harvest. My brother does the majority of the watering. I do most of the weeding.

These are varieties that grow well in central Wisconsin.

This is what we grow:

Victoria rhubarb
Purple Passion asparagus
Autumn Bittern raspberries
Blackberries
Reliance seedless grapes
Concord grapes
Honeoye strawberries
Lapin cherries
Patten pears
Northland and Blueray blueberries
Mount Royal plums
Blue, Red Norland, Pontiac, and Yukon Gold potatoes
Kidney, contender,and Flambeau beans
Danvers, Yaya, carrots
Spaghetti squash
Crookneck summer squash
Straight Eight cucumbers
Aunt Molly cape gooseberries
Verde tomatilos
Yum, California Wonder, Planet Hybrid, sheepnose Pimento, and Margaret peppers
Olpaka, Celebrity, and Amana Orange tomatoes
Early Sunglow sweetcorn
some looseleaf salad blends

We grow just a few turnips, cabbage, and rutabagas. Last year, we did not grow parsnips, a mistake.



In about a week I will start peppers, followed by tomatoes. Right now, parsley and basil seeds are in baggies swelling and moving toward germination. I have had my lights set up and working rooting flowering bedding plant cuttings. Now I will move into my vegetables...

...with more snow in the forecast and Spring an illusive dream.

A Conversation with Dr. Darrel Apps

Single-handedly, Dr. Darrel Apps is trying to drag the county's gardeners to the fountain of knowledge. He is hosting a series of six classes on perennials. I messed up. I left it to the next to the last day before attempting to sign up. Now this is the updated version of the classes he previously taught at Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania. This series was well publicized (for our county!).

I thought there would be about 9 people sign up for the course. I hesitated because I couldn't make it to every class and finally decided I would attend the ones I could and go from there.

When I stopped in to sign up, I found enrollment to be closed, but that Dr. Apps was actually getting the room set up and I could speak directly to him. He greeted me warmly and said he felt 20 participants would have exceeded his expectations. I expressed my reticence to sign up early because I couldn't make every one of the classes. He was a bit down that I hadn't managed to sign up, and then told me the class would have 50 participants! Fifty!

Wow.

I'll say it again. Wow.

His and my gardens are both on this summer's Master Gardeners' Garden Walk. This fact he no doubt is sharing with his class, which I am sure will spur more interest in the walk. (Will this double or triple the attendance of the walk? Eek!)


My view of Dr. Darrel Apps' home. I live across the street.


These are some of Darrel's favorite dayliles growing in his home garden.


A borrowed view of the neighborhood from the garden of Dr. Apps.

Since he last taught this course the hybridizers and plant hunters of the gardening world have exponentially added to the plant selection available to the home gardeners. The list reads like a who's who (or a what's what?) of the plant world: the Knock Out Rose series, Endless Summer Series of hydrangeas, a colorful palette of heucheras thanks to Terra Nova Nurseries, probably a thousand more daylilies and hosta, some incredible astilbes, and this is just the perennials. We won't even talk annuals like Wave petunias, coleus, and Diamond Frost euphorbia, Dragonwing Begonias and the like.

He has confided to me in the past that when he first taught the course there were about 50 perennials used in most home gardens, a mere fifty.

The biggest difficulty he has had in updating his class lies in the use of DNA and protein sampling to re-sort whole genus, species, and even families of the plant world. The nomenclature of plants that we all know as one thing is changing.

Now my Latin is hesitant at best, but typically I can follow the conversation using the exacting Latin nomenclature for the small group of zone 4 plants on which Dr. Apps and I might converse. In the course of updating his perennial classes he shared that many perennials have been moved into entirely foreign-to-my-ear-sounding horticultural families.

I have started seeing this trend,making it harder to search for seed or plants on the internet. I am also seeing a real lag on the adoption of the new nomenclature of plants.

Darrel also expressed concern over whether these molecular scientists busy resorting the plant world can actually know the plants they are reclassifying. If these horticulturalists are so into the chemistry, can they really know the plants?

I again lament missing what will be, no doubt, an interesting foray into herbaceous perennials and the plant world at a master's level.

But to quote Shakespeare and paraphrase Dr. Darrel Apps, "Is a rose by any other name still a rose?"

Birch Crimson Frost

Fall color of the 'Crimson Frost' birch.

I am always one looking for something with more than just green leaves and grey bark. In a small yard, everything has to do double duty. A lot of my small trees provide fruit for either me or the birds. Others provide screening or habitat for birds, for example the spruce holding down the corner of my yard as the alleyway wraps my property. It should not be a surprise that I would want a birch. A native river birch might be an obvious choice. There is a lot of yellow in my yard and as borrowed views to my yard.

Crimson Frost is a hybrid birch with some bronze birch borer resistance in its genetics crossed and crossed again with such specimens as Betula platyphylla var. szechuanica and Betula pendula ‘Purpurea’. It is suitable for zone 4 through zone 7. It should be noted it needs reliable snow cover and dislikes extreme heat, although mine grew the most in this last year of unusually high temperatures than it ever has. Like all birch, pruning should be done in its dormant phase. I do water it even as an established young tree. I expect it to only attain a height of 20' to 25' and haven't seen any over around 20' tall. I staked mine as a young tree, as its pendula bloodlines make for a very droopy specimen until well-established.

Its beautiful tan bark and deep burgundy summer foliage makes for a beautiful specimen tree. Its graceful form during winter is also beautiful.



This birch also looks great against my pink house!

My Conifer Collection

Small, ornamental evergreens are fascinating to most home gardeners I know. Once you get beyond the foundation plants you might inherit or the yew, pine or spruce planted as landscape trees, finding small, affordable conifers can be challenging. My sister gave me the birds nest juniper shown above when I had surgery over a decade ago. Often as the birds nest juniper matures it suffers die off in the center. Careful pruning has so far kept my birds nest from this fate.

At over ten years old it is about a foot tall and maybe 2 1/2 feet wide. Here it looks its best after spring bud break, showing its new growth.

This next is a boulevard cypress. I like its soft blue foliage. This plant has a bad tendency of suffering a lot of browning in early spring from dessication from winds in March and April before it is actively growing. It spendsMay looking like a poodle after grooming. This unnatural appearance just about buys it a ticket to the compost bin, but by the time I get around to it, it has regained its high summer beauty. It is about 2 feet tall and 2 feet wide at ten years, in which it has suffered a lot of necessary pruning, particularly as it was also not well placed.


I have managed to collect quite a few. Here in central WI it is nice to have some shade of green in the garden in winter, when the snow recedes to apoint when they can actually be seen. Conifers are enot the only evergreens in my winter garden. Ice Dance carex, iberis, phlox subulata, cotoneasters, Korean boxwood, and azaleas round out my collection.

This next is the Japanese cypress, cryptomeria Sekkan Sugi. This has suffered dieback on any tips above the snowline. I keep hoping it develops beyond this fault. Last year, a short and mild winter lead to a long growing season in which it grown twice as big as it has any other year. Typically this japanese cypress grows upright with a central leader. Previously, that central leader has always died back resulting in a rangey, mounding, multi-stemmed appearance.




This is juniper horizontalis 'Gold Strike'. It is new to my garden this last year. Its gold tips will hopefully brighten a spot near my apple tree and near the Japanese peony bringing out the blue sheen of the peony's foliage.

I also have juniper Blue Star, the upright Witchita, and a weeping larix rounding out my conifer collection.

Unusual Perennial Salvia: Purple Rain

This is the florescence of Purple Rain salvia. At first glance, most gardeners would not readily identify it as a salvia. Salvia bring us many nice shades of blue and purple and Purple Rain is aptly named. Unlike many salvias it is not bothered by insects chomping on its leaves. This may be because of the hairy velvety substance of the leaves of this salvia. Like many salvias, its leaves form a basal rosette. The leaves continue up the flowering stalks. The flowering stalks respond very well to dead-heading and it will send up axial branching flowers stalks as well as additional terminal flowering stalks.

It blooms late June through early September. With the flower stalks it can reach up to two feet tall when planted in full sun with adequate moisture. The flower is a series of 1 1/2" pom pom groupings stacked on a stalk held above its grey blue leaves. It can be propagated from tip cuttings, but most easily from division. Hardiness is zone 3 to zone 8.

This unusual salvia is not regularly seen in garden centers, but worth the hunt!

Much Maligned: Gooseneck Loosestrife

I'm sure the above plant, gooseneck loosestrife, is the bane of some gardeners somewhere.

It's runner roots, once established are probably the reason for its bad reputation. It does well, though, confined to a pot as it likes to be root-bound to send up its blooms. It does not cross with the invasive purple loosestrife, which is a different genus altogether. Loosestrife takes a couple years to establish itself, and here does not seem to set viable seed. I find its long blooming, nodding flower heads very attractive and like it planted in drifts. Every thug has its best space and this lysimachia can be used to advantage in sandy soil for erosion control of an unmowable bank. Bees and hummingbirds both find it attractive as a food source. I had a large patch of it around my much-frequented "bee bath" last summer.

It flowers are long-blooming and cutting back terminal buds encourages axial buds to form and bloom. The blooming season starts late June and early July and lasts 4 to 6 weeks. It will tolerate wet feet, although once established, it can be drought resistant. It grows to about 12" to 18" in height. Not often found anymore in the retail market, it can be propagated from root cuttings. Digging up roots and replanting them within 1/2" of the surface of the soil in an area where you would like to establish this plant is probably the easiest way to propagate this perennial. If the roots you are moving have any top growth, cut it back severely as it will only wilt and slow the rooting process. Established plants can be difficult to transplant for this reason.

Personally, this is a plant I like to grow, its reputation undeserved.

Beautiful Botanical Creatures

This is a collection of pieces of coleus (and geraniums and begonias) saved last fall with the intention of using them as the mother for my bedding coleus. I have found that not every coleus does well over winter in low light. I'm sure it is a function of over-hybridizing. I am starting to have a substantial group of them with incredible foliage that do quite well. Tucked into corners, combined in pots, underplanting my alley border, and bedded out among my hosta, these coleus will add splash of rich color where need most this coming growing season.

Yesterday all these beauties and a dragonwings begonia fell to my propagating shears.

The next three pictures show how the cutting is prepared.

In addition to some beautiful coleus, my seeds are starting to germinate. I used the baggy method, so I spent time today pressing them into individual cells in a 288-count tray.

Baggy methos germinated seed, I think this is algrostemma.

The seed to surely surpass my expectations was the 'Pacific Giants' delphinium.

This delphinium seed was packaged by Livingston Seed Company. I usually have good luck, but this was package was filled with 130 seeds and at Day 10 60 of them have germinated. I think more will, at least half of the remainder, if not more. That would make it the best luck I have had with any delphinium seed. (I have no connection with this company!)

Emotional Depths of Winter

I am cheered by the fact the sunlit portion of the day is growing by nearly three minutes each day. Here with daily temperatures hovering below zero many days without a wind chill, I am not quite so happy.

This winter, I have avoided all the noroviruses, and flus only to run a fever and develop some sort of sort throat-brochial-coughing thing. The fever broke yesterday, but I still feel achy. I have a toothache and my lower back is killing me; it has been for a week. The more active I am, the better it feels, but in a small house there is simply nowhere to travel. I spend time standing. I'd like to work on my taxes, but how? Prolonged sitting brings excruciating pain. A sciatic nerve thing I am almost sure, and the more activity, the better. In summer when I am gardening, I seldom suffer any aches and pains. Winter is just too long here.

My boxer loves to dog pile on me these types of days, but she makes it difficult to change positions. I quickly get stiff, or find her laying across a leg, I really need to extend....NOW.

And 2"-5" of snow in the forecast. I push more than lift the snow.

I called my mother as I paced in my dining room, hoping to bring an easing to my back pain, but more than anything just to whine. I warned her up front.

Just as surely as these seeds have sprouted (using a coffee filter and the baggy method) (although I keep the filter whole.)and been tucked into potting soil, spring will come.

It can't be too soon.

What Raptor?

This time of year, I tend to see a lot of eagles. Typically, I see them feeding on deer carcasses exposed by melting snows. I have seen eagles very close up and have nearly hit them with my car. As the snows go, I start to see red-tailed hawks scoping out the voles and field mouse populations as they emerge. I can recognize owls and most of the birds here, thanks in part to a friend who was an avid birder. A bird I have heard my friend speak of, but have never seen is the Cooper's Hawk.

Yesterday, was a beautiful blue sky day. Walking my boxer, I heard a bird cry. Looking around, I saw this very large (maybe 18" long) bird high in the neighbor's boxelder. The cry was distinctive, single syllable with lots of space around each call, repeated about 3-4 times waiting for a reply. It was sort of a "Pau....pau....pau..." Nothing like a typical raptor cry. Also the breast is very white, as can be seen.

The thing is this bird is not anywhere near where a Cooper's Hawk should be this time of the year.

Anyone have a idea what it could be?

Cane Begonias and What I Use for Potting Soil

This is a particularly pretty begonia I grow for its foliage. The gloss, scalloped leaves with the silver markings and cranberry reverse are particularly showy. Problem it can grow 6 feet tall and drop its leaves as it goes with any restriction in proper soil moisture levels make it complicated to grow properly. However, this takes time to transpire. I like to grow it in baskets, keeping a close eye on its growth and pinch, pinch, pinch.

I took some of the stems and made cuttings, too, more hopeful than realistic. Seeing those knobs at each joint telling me there is latent growth potential was too much to resist. So, I cut each end diagonally, dipped it in Rootone and planted in horizontally, covering it with about 1/4" of soil, rather than sticking it in vertically.

Ideally, you make a diagonal cut below a joint that did not have a bloom scar (small) and which would be in addition to a leave scar (large). This is particularly important with rooting begonias.

And finally, a shot of the soil I use. Pretty, huh?

I typically make my own. This is about a 1:1:1 mix of my native sandy loam, peat moss (like you see in the plastic bales), and purchased perlite. Maybe a bit lighter on the perlite, but pretty close. Sometimes the peat is locally dug, other times I purchase the bales. With this mixture I don't think I have had any need of fungicidal drenches, ever. The organic material is a bunch of roots from some airplant plants I let freeze and then brought in the dirt and roots to use in my mix. And all that marketing about your potting mixes wearing out... really? You believe that marketing ploy?