June 2024

Yes, I still garden.

I have no space. I will admit my garden is over-planted. I have a serious issue with having to have "all the plants". My veg garden is off-site (not at my house), which is fraught with things I can not control. And, it's clay. My home garden is sand. There is an adjustment there! But it does get me strawberries. And in time, peppers, tomatoes, and potatoes.

This view of my garden seems so sedate. (I think this was pre-injury.)

Not so the picture I titled, "Welcome to the Jungle" recently.

Handsome son has married. Beautiful Daughter-in-law is fast becoming a good gardener. She says she wants to be a Dahlia Farmer when she grows up. Last Christmas we built a grow room and light rack set-up for her so she can prestart Dahias and seeds. Her front porch pots:

I have adjusted my gardening style to my infirmaties and work schedule. Although, I technically retired, and may be you could consider I have been retired since moving here in 2003. I do quite a bit of social media for things I am involved with or work at. WHen I pulled up my blog, I realized I have 3 unfinished posts I should probably upload covering the last 2 years! I have gone crazy starting annuals and perennials from seed. I am not sure where I am going with that. I do know the weather seems to be just crazy and the way I hunt for plants has also changed.It has given me some unusual plants.

The Gardening Twins and Baby Gardener have been joined by the Protector of the Frogs. But they have grown!

I have started growing more roses again.

I often look back to this blog to find the right picture of a plant for reference. I am amazed at the change in my garden. I grow a lot of Clematis.

My hedge still looks good as does the scree garden off my deck. ANd the peonies and lilacs are magical in their own special way.

The rain has stopped. It is out to weed. That hasn't changed.

Ah, Peonies...

Do I need words?

Japanese Tree Peonies and Your Grandmother's Peonies

So I am working in the yard today. I am spreading wood chips and cutting nice clean bed lines. As I cut the bed line past the apple tree a see a small plant. It's a single leaf, really, growing right where I need to cut the bed line. A seed from my Japanese peony 'Hanakisoi' has germinated, right where I need to cut the bed line.

Amazingly, it has a single leaf and a nice 4" taproot coming out of the large seed and it comes free of the dirt very easily. I transplant it into my potager and mark it with sticks. I have collected seeds the last two years, and tried a couple different ways to germinated them without success.

Nature will find a way.

Japanese Tree Peonies are typically not grown from seed, except by hybridizers. I wasn't sure they were even self-fertile. There some intersectional peonies arising from crosses between the typical old-fashioned herbaceous peonies and the Japanese tree peonies. I do have two Japanese tree peonies, a white one which I thought had died this past mild winter possibly because I had moved it a half dozen times the last two years, and the beauty 'Hanakisoi'. Most likely, it is a cross with the Duchess du Nemours herbaceous peonies growing just across the path.

Japanese tree peonies are typically propagated by grafting buds onto the roots of herbaceous peonies. They need to be planted below their graft so the grafts eventually grow their own roots. Planting too shallowly tempts the herbaceous peony to try to grow foliage and flowers of its own, too.

The seedling has nice purpley-red edges to its lone leaf. I'm not sure how long it will take to bloom on its own, possibly up to five years. I'll have to find it a spot of its own eventually, unless I attempt to graft it and jump it ahead in its flowering cycle. I'll have a while to wait otherwise!