In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.
In the midst of my interminable winter, I have summoned some invincible summer by ordering a bunch of potted irises from Schreiners’ Iris sale. (I think it was Satby who introduced me to their catalog, which is amazing, and their plants are every bit as wonderful.)
If y’all want garden pics every Sunday, you need to step up & send me photos!
I would like to have a garden like the apartment patio the NYTimes describes here:
… Mr. de Mornay, a horticulturist at Flora Grubb Gardens nursery, has assembled a diverse plant collection and as distinctive a range of containers to showcase them in. He put several large potted palms to work to create a kind of canopy for bromeliads and orchids that appreciate relief from the sun, which the cacti and succulents arranged in the patio’s more open areas relish.
His garden may all be staged on level hardscape, but the sense of terrain Mr. de Mornay has conjured with 300 tightly packed vessels seems anything but flat, thanks to their varied heights, and clever positioning.
“The way he has some staggered at different heights kind of creates a stadium-like look,” said Ms. Woodard, who also noted details like a collection of tiny pots raised on a table for closer inspection, and others hanging on a wall…
… but IRL, I’m what one reviewer gleefully described as a cramscaper.
On the other hand, I think I can avoid the lure of the Washington Post‘s “perennial vegetable garden”…
… “The general reason so many of these varieties have kind of been forgotten is that our food system transitioned towards industrialized agriculture,” Hunter says. Most edible perennials are harvested a little at a time, leaving roots or parts of the plant behind to continue growing. That’s difficult or impossible to do with machines, “so a lot of these perennials can’t be grown industrially,” she says. “But they’re great for backyard gardeners.”
One reason to embrace perennials: They are eco-friendly. Plants that grow over many years increase soil health and biodiversity and sequester carbon. “Just not basically nuking your garden every year is a way to get a little closer to a natural ecosystem,” says Ashley Adamant, founder of the gardening and DIY site Practical Self Reliance…
Skirret. One of Hunter’s best-selling seeds is this root vegetable that was popular in medieval Europe “before potatoes came over from the Americas,” she says. “I tell people it’s like a stand-in for carrots or parsnips, but it could also be a substitute for potatoes because it’s a starchy root vegetable.” Once the seeds are established, “they’re really easy to grow,” she adds. “They make masses of white roots that are long and skinnier than a carrot. You can eat them raw or cooked. My favorite way to eat them is just to roast them in the oven with olive oil and salt. The leaves can be eaten, too. They kind of taste a little bit like celery leaf or parsley leaf.”
Potato onion. “Regular onions are biennial; the plants live for two years,” Hunter says. Potato onion varieties, on the other hand, reproduce indefinitely if some of the crop is left in the ground to seed the next year’s growth. The name comes from the onion’s long period of freshness once it’s harvested. “They have amazing storage,” she says. “They’ll keep in the fridge for, like, a year.”…
Dandelions. “People pay a lot of money for dandelion greens in the grocery store,” Adamant says. “They grow these huge, carrot-like tap roots that get even bigger if they’re in a garden bed rather than a lawn.”
Jay
We have had a winter with out a hard frost, the chives are pushing up, the hyacinth is blooming and the lilies are pushing up shoots.
California poppies were green all winter.
Just some pot’s on a balcony 22 stories up.
Jeffg166
Nineteen days until spring. It’s coming fast. My garden is still a mess. I might get to it.
MagdaInBlack
It was 63 on Friday, so naturally I’m planning Ruby the Giant Geranium’s summer quarters on the balcony. I am minus a squirrel chewed chair, so there is more room for…plants !
Liminal Owl
Have mercy, please, on apartment-dwellers and folks with no green thumbs! (Both of which groups include me…) I have no pictures to send but delight in those provided by others here.
MagdaInBlack
When Ruby reaches her full summer glory, I can send that. She is 11 years old and her record is 21 big red blossoms and I think she is damned impressive for an old dame.
p.s: maybe a balcony garden post ?
Professor Bigfoot
@Jay: And here I am, deeply grateful that the snow that was forecast for last night didn’t show up!
(I can hear the wind howling, though… uggghhhh. Welcome to meteorological spring!)
satby
@Professor Bigfoot: In my area too, the predicted snow didn’t appear. Still cold, but warming into the 40s later this week, may even go into the 50s. The oldest, earliest daffodils planted before I bought this house were a few inches high, but the rest have barely started to show. Hoping it isn’t all in glorious bloom when I’m out of town in three weeks, because that’s usually what happens.
J.
I love irises. Still have what looks like a foot of snow and a bunny slope in our yard here in CT, so my relandscaping/planting project will have to wait.
Scout211
I was able to get one raised bed planted with salad green seeds during our warm temps lately. All the other beds are weeded and ready for planting later this month.
It looks like all of the mimosa trees that my husband planted over the years have died, one last year and now the remaining three look dead this year. When I looked it up to see if there was anything I could do for them, most of the experts say some version of, “Mimosas are trash trees, invasive, prone to weakness, prone to fusarium fungus.” And also: “If your tree has died, good riddance!”
Okay then. I guess I need to call the tree service. Sigh. I will miss those beautiful trash trees.
Gvg
It has warmed up. No sweaters needed except in evenings. We had rain yesterday. I need to spread the mulch. The oaks are shedding their leaves for spring and people will be raking and bagging so tonight I will go collect leaves for compost. Live oaks are “evergreen” which means they shed one third of their leaves in spring when new leaves push the old ones off. This means we have some trees like sycamores shedding in fall, and then other trees like oaks and pines shedding in spring. Each type at a different time. Possibly frustrating to people who throw away leaves. Florida soils always need improvement with more organic material and I live in a shady neighborhood.
Other than that it is seed and plant ordering time and trying to figure out when plants can be shipped. It’s warm here but not usually where the nurseries are nor the places in between. Some places aren’t shipping till may and that can be too hot here! Presently I am trying to find a bunch of old fashioned perennial mums like Sheffield and Wills Wonderful.
kalakal
We finally got some desperately needed rain. Time to start the Spring trim & tidy. Knee deep in Live Oak leaves here
WaterGirl
@kalakal: Starting on Tuesday there are what I call mountains of rain in the forecast here – every day for 8 days, and that’s as far out as they weather is reported. So maybe more.
Probably too late to start building an arc.
MazeDancer
Why, yes, it snowed, again, overnight, in Upstate NY. About an inch. Not much. But still.
The seeds sound interesting. Provided the snow melts.
Gloria DryGarden
@Liminal Owl: you could keep a sanseverria alive. Mother in laws tongue. Shade, not much water, not a Princess. TAKES way longer to kill than most house plants. Someone you know can give you a plant from one of theirs. No balcony? I could give ideas for balconies. But pots have to be watered, PITA.
People post lovely things I crave that won’t grow where I live, so I am fed by the pix here too.
Gloria DryGarden
I need this skirret. I have Jerusalem artichokes, another perennial, and I can share with locals (Denver, or if there’s ever another meet up for the area).
I like this word, cramscaper. I know folks who plant two things in one hole. Or close together for shading each other. I pendulum test where to plant things, using a long handled trowel that hangs on a leather thong strap thing. Gets me out of my head, if all the logical thinking about sun and shade and drainage and water needs and exposure and blooming time and height and spacing has driven me to distraction. Especially if I plant three of something, using the strategy a master taught me, which is to plant a thing in 3 micro environments. ( full full sun, partial full sun, and next to a rock for shade/ mulch/ cooler roots.
I checked ytd precipitation for here, on global warming, and it looks like the last 5+ months have given us an inch of water. Last checked a few weeks ago, perhaps we’ve had a few more millimeters.
worried about emerald ash borer, pine beetles, general death of beloved beleaguered dry scaping planties. You know it’s dry when your prickly pear cactus start to look like waffles. This might take a lot of hand watering, a PITA. Or a ton of fancy mulching, at a tough distracting time.
Gloria DryGarden
@WaterGirl: a French drain? A retaining pond? A wide shallow depression to hold more, and plant thirsty things around? Berms? For next time, I guess.
Too much of a good thing…
laura
I worked a consulting gig from July to mid-December, and I spent a bit of it on a lovely greenhouse from Costco that was delivered Friday morning after our recent heavy rains storms. It’s being assembled, and hopefully finished this afternoon. If there is any interest, I’d be happy to send photos. We had the Urban Harvesters come pick our orange tree yesterday too, and they may be back today for another go at it. We have a breakfast party at the end of January, and we give a lot away to friends and family, and we’re grateful the rest goes to the river city food bank and not to waste.
Trivia Man
@Gloria DryGarden: I saw a method from dry areas, cant recall the name. Clay pot with holes, buried. If you soak it, the clay holds the moisture and releases it slowly over time.
laura
@Trivia Man: tthat’s an olla, an unglazed clay pot that slowly perspires it’s water to the surrounding soil- a swell method! Cole should look into this.
Scout211
@laura: our orange trees have been harvested and our neighbors, friends and family are enjoying the bounty. I’m looking forward to the aroma of the orange blossoms coming soon.
laura
@Scout211: OMG Yes! The scent peaks at dusk, the bees wear themselves out the blossoms raining down and encircling the tree canopy. It’s so fleeting and lovely- we try and get friends to come over for a backyard hang on the fly during that brief, beautiful handful of days.
StringOnAStick
I experimented with making a hoop house over part of the wooden raised beds I built last year, but failed to account for the house shading part of it over the winter, so next year the hoop goes over the bed that will stay in the sun all winter. Gardening: it’s a learning process.
We’ve had a dry and extremely mild winter, so the nectarine and peach are looking like they will bloom very soon, and that’s way too early. The peach is 3 years old this year and has been pruned in the “grow a tiny fruit tree” method and I have a heavy frost fabric “jacket” I made for it that goes to the ground, so I think I can save the fruit this year. The nectarine has been a multi year height reduction project and I can get it all covered with a 14′ by 14′ heavy frost fabric, on top of the mini incandescent lights I wrapped it in and the old climbing rope I throw over the top several times to hold the cover on in the wind. That worked great last year and we had a decent crop, but this tree is likely to bloom this week because we have 5 days where it doesn’t get below 32. The lower elevation small ski area closed last week due to flooding from the melting that is happening abnormally early.
Gloria DryGarden
@Trivia Man: I wonder about it, I read it recently. Compost in the pot, was it?
can’t dig much past 6” here. Clay. That also complicates things. Perhaps I’ll experiment. I’m curious about Terra preta, also holds water. Just expensive, and I haven’t found instructions how to make it myself.
cool stuff, though, if one can implement
Gloria DryGarden
Dandelion micro greens. It’s a thing. Less bitter, cuz you get them early.
Trivia Man
@Gloria DryGarden: lovelygreens.com has instructions for diy olla pots. Maybe you can find broken pots for free as a start.