Hosta 'Liberty' and more

A few years ago a the man who used to run the flower farm near my house gave me a little piece of Hosta. He told me that he'd paid quite a bit of money for a dozen tissue culture pieces and slowly each piece had died. The piece he gave me was tiny and in poor condition but he told me I should try to grow it on in my garden because it would be beautiful.

The Hosta is named 'Liberty' and I think it might be the most stunning Hosta in my garden. I don't have a serious Hosta collection, maybe 150 different cultivars are here. Yesterday I googled Hosta 'Liberty' and found out it was a sport of Hosta 'Sagae' which is another favorite of mine.

How do you like the colors on that beauty?

As my fascination of woodland plants grew, I bought myself a plant named Disporopsis. It's similar to Polygonatum (solomon's seal). Last year another neighbor was away and asked me to watch her house. She's an elderly woman who doesn't care for the yard at all and has let it "go natural". While walking through her yard I could swear I found a clump of Disporopsis but it wasn't in bloom at the time.

I just took the above photo in my own little wooded lot. The previous owner had sprayed chemicals like crazy here but in the past 12 years we've let nature have her way. Does anybody know anything about this plant? I'll be watching it to see if it blooms soon. It would be pretty funny if this plant popped up here naturally.

Last but not least, here's another little beauty I found in the woods today. Look how nice and shiny those leaves are. For those of you who have not been formally introduced to this baby, I warn you, don't touch! This is poison ivy and from now until a hard frost I will only be able to look at our woods and not enter it as I get the most horrific rash from this plant.

I wish I had some photos to share with you from yesterday's trip to the Bronx Zoo. It was amazingly beautiful, filled with trees and shrubs (Viburnum galore) all bursting in bloom. Unfortunately it was also drizzling or raining all day and I never took my camera out of it's protective bag. The zoo is only separated from the New York Botanical Gardens with a massive highway and is such a wonderful place to spend the day.

Today's post is a bit disjointed but it will have to do, I'm off to bundle up and work in the garden. We woke up to a frost warning and I'm a bit worried about my babies out there.

Plant Sale - the story

Many of you have written comments here asking about the details behind our plant sale. We are finally getting a wonderfully wet, rainy day so I thought I'd sit and write a bit about the sale.

This first photo shows Tradescantia 'Little White Doll' which is the best Tradescantia in my garden. It stays in a clump and increases at a nice (but not alarming) rate. It's on my "to dig" list for this Wednesday. Back to the sale...

Five years ago my oldest daughter was in 9th grade and a new member of our high school marching band. They were having a multiple family garage sale (rummage sale/yard sale) to raise funds. We had no junk that we were willing to part with but I had many plants so I dug them up and brought them to the sale. It was mostly Echinacea (purple cone flowers), Rudbeckia (black eyed susans) and lots of daylilies. The daylilies were in buckets of water and when somebody purchased them I pulled them out and wrapped them in newspaper like a slab of meat at the butcher shop. I know for sure I took in at least $500 at that spot and told the parents that since I still had more plants, they should come to my house two weeks later and I'd have a plant sale from here. Most plants were not pre-potted and I dug as people ordered. I think I limped for two weeks after that but we took in another $1200 or $1400. Woohoo!

Since then the plant sale has gone through some changes. I try hard to pre-dig and pot up as much as possible. Each year the list of plants changes depending on what I have excess of in the garden. This year we'll have lots of Geranium cantabrigiense 'Karmina' that you see in this photo.

One hundred percent of our profit is split up and deposited in accounts for students in the marching band. They can't touch the money, it goes to help pay for the week of summer band camp. Many families in our area are having a hard time making ends meet. Some of them have two or three kids in the band and this sale really makes a difference. Students that work the whole sale have earned as much as $100 in their account.

I try hard to offer plants that look as good as what you would get at any top notch nursery. The botanical names are written on 8 inch long pieces of plastic mini-blinds. If I know the cultivar name, that too is written on the tag. Since I pot up roughly 600 plants, that's a lot of writing!

While I realize that many people aren't familiar with the botanical names, I find nick names very misleading. I do have plenty of lists available at the sale for people to look up names and planting information. Each year I also print out 6 - 8 color photos and laminate them for the sale. So slowly but surely my photos are increasing. Hopefully I will have photos of everything in a few more years. The photos always help sell the plants. People are used to buying things in bloom and don't realize they've been forced to bloom much earlier than their natural cycle. Our plants are not forced so if you buy Rudbeckia now, they don't look like much in their pots but come August...WOW!

The profits of three of the last four plants sales went to the marching band. In 2006 though I did not donate any money to them, and made that clear to every customer who came here. Still, I sold out of plants in a few hours. I had been very annoyed by some parents in the band at the previous sale and wasn't sure I wanted to continue to work with them. The band director at that time never once even looked me in the eye and said "Thank you". Maybe I was being petty but I felt it was a simple thing to say. Luckily we have a new director who is amazing. He even came and participated in the sale, something that had never happened before.

All the advance work, digging, dividing, moving soil, watering pots and so on is done by me. In past years my mom helped quite a bit and my daughter Lauren wrote many tags. This year my mom isn't here to help and Lauren is away at school. My husband Don is not a gardener but without him, this wouldn't be possible at all. He does much of the garden clean up including my potting area plus he picks up the slack in the household with laundry, food shopping, cooking and cleaning. Don takes care of all the things like making sure we have a money box with lots of change plus he runs the cashier table during the sale so that I can answer questions.

I wish I knew how to divide the Iberis in the above photo. There are four massive clumps of it just bursting into bloom and I would have liked to have some potted up.

This year we will offer Centaurea montana for the first time. As the sale was always here on our property, people were drawn to plants that were in bloom at the time of the sale (the sale is ALWAYS the Saturday before Mother's Day). Customers would walk my gardens and ask for things that were not potted up. Sometimes I would dig them and other times I just couldn't. This year they will be happy to get this plant but the pieces left in my garden probably won't bloom for me :-(

A big change this year is that the sale will be held at the school, Walt Whitman High School in South Huntington. Last year we had 40 students here and so many cars with customers that our road was almost impassable. One older woman insisted on trying to pet my doodle-dog even though she was asked not to and Calie jumped on her. The woman received a cut on her chin and we were all very nervous. I decided that I couldn't take a chance that my family would be sued for an accident on our property and the school immediately agreed to allow us to hold the sale there. Calie will be staying home.

Any of you who read my blog know I love Sedums and Sempervivums. There will be plenty of varieties available this year. In fact, I could dig many more but nothing is worse than digging a beautiful plant and then not having it sell.

People occasionally try to bargain or offer half price on a plant that is smaller than it's counterparts. My feeling is that this is a fund raiser, not a "let's clear Melanie's garden of all plants" so I don't allow any bargaining. I do allow people to come during the week before the sale though. During the sale itself I am the only person who can answer questions about perennials and there just isn't enough time for me to help every customer. By fielding a few customers in advance, it eases the crush that Saturday morning. Plus I can usually dig more plants to replace what was sold.

This is Heliopsis 'Summer Nights'. I have a large clump but will not be dividing it. By leaving the deadheads on the flowers it seeded around. The seedlings are not all the same, they have different degrees of purple coloration so I realize they can't be called 'Summer Nights' but they are Heliopsis. I weed out any that don't have strong purple colors and will have a few pots of the darkest seedlings for sale (all are bloom size).

If I don't know a cultivar name, I label it by color. After experience I realize that most customers don't care about the name. This Astilbe has been in my garden for many years but was given to me without a name. I've got 16 pots of this beauty and the labels say Astilbe - White.

Unfortunately, this year I've been getting that feeling again. There are a few parents that just spoil the mood and I think this will be the last sale for the marching band. The other night we had a meeting and one parent said she wanted to make some suggestions about the sale (uh oh). She suggested that I add names on the tags that people could recognize instead of those impossible names. I explained that I only have time to write one name, either the botanical name or the nick name and I choose to write the botanical name so people can google the information about the plant and get the right information. This parent continued to say that I should also include the growing information on the tag and maybe draw a sun or a cloud so customers would know where to plant it. I bit my tongue because I wanted to ask if I should also go to each individual customers house and dig the hole. Right now it takes at least 10 hours to write those labels. Imagine if I had to put more information on them!

I'll close this post out with a shot of Anemone's in my garden. They are quite late emerging from the soil so I hope I find them in time to dig up a few.

Some years we've had donations of plants. Last year a friend donated huge clumps of Geranium nudosum and it was very popular. Variegated Hosta are something that I could always use but I haven't had any donations this year. One thing I can't do is go dig those donations (some parents have offered plants in the past and mentioned that I never came and dug them out). I will gladly divide and pot up any clumps that are dropped off here but I can barely find time to sit down to eat a meal and really just can't go to other gardens too.

(Oops, a quick edit added here. I forgot that I do have a wonderful donation of Monarda coming. Last year the red Monarda was very popular as it is such a butterfly magnet so I'm happy to be getting more. Thanks Kim!)

Finally, to answer Dave's question about whether the kids help at the sale, yes they help. The kids come an hour before the sale to help set up the tables and benches. They bring any wagons they might own. We ask everybody to bring recycled plastic supermarket bags. The kids are supposed to bag each plant and help bring them to the customers cars. We always make sure they work in teams, no student should be going alone to any car. Since I don't limit the amount of students who can participate we end up with half the band here so there is plenty of down time for them to sit and eat donuts, or play frisbee or if the weather permits, just lay on the lawn and learn to enjoy being outdoors for a change.

This year I'll ask two or three strong students to come here Friday evening to help load the truck. We'll be renting a truck to get the plants to the school. It eats into our profits a bit but we saved quite a bit of money thanks to the potting soil donation from Zaino's Nursery.

I know some of you have mentioned that you will be coming to the sale. Don't forget to say hello to me! I might only have time for a quick handshake or a hug but I really would love to say "hi".

Tomorrow I'm chaperoning a trip to the Bronx Zoo (amazingly cool place). Wednesday I'll be digging again and over the next week and a half I will continue to post photos of plants that we will feature at the sale. The list of daylilies alone is something to see.

Sorry this was so long, there's still so much to tell about the sale.
Melanie

Epimediums

Every spring I'm surprised by my lovely Epimediums. I really don't know much about them, just enough to make up one post. When you look at them you think of delicate, fussy plants but in truth they are the exact opposite.

The flowers are not long lasting and if you forget to trim out some of last years foliage you might miss half the show. The show though doesn't stop there, Epimediums have wonderful foliage and they continue to add beauty to the garden all year long.

Most of my Epimediums don't have names posted under them although this one might be named 'Orion'. A gardening friend shared a number of her Epimediums with me one fall. I really wasn't interested in them but she insisted I take some pieces and so I dug them up and popped them into plastic bags. I should know better because everything she's shared with me has been wonderful.

It's embarrassing to admit it but those bags sat on top of the ground in my shade area for a few months. One day I noticed the foliage was peeking out so I quickly heeled them into the ground. They didn't get extra compost, a handful of fertilizer, nothing special at all. Yet, the next spring there they were in all their glory with the most wonderful fairy-like blooms.

This one has a name, Epimedium sulphureum. Last year the day of the plant sale came and my mom asked me why I had never dug any of these for the sale. To be truthful I didn't know how to divide them and I also thought they'd never sell. Well I was wrong, we had this variety and rubrum for sale and they sold like hotcakes.

This is a sweet variety out front. It's in a dry, root bound, shade bed with the worst soil ever but every year it cheerfully puts out this amazing bloom. According to the descriptions I've got here it might be 'Rose Queen'.

This is the first Epimedium I ever grew. It needs to be divided desperately and I will do so in another week or two. You can see how lovely the foliage is on this variety. I won a piece of it as a door prize at a daylily meeting many years ago. Wait, actually my friend Mare won it and I immediately forced a trade on her (I had won a daylily) because the foliage was so entrancing.

This year I only potted up 5 Epimediums, you can see them here soaking up some moisture. They are quite woody and you need a sharp knife to divide them. Also, they have a pungent odor when you cut them, it surprised me. Since our season is more on time this year (last year was late) they probably won't be in bloom on May 10th. I wonder if they'll sell and have no idea what to price them. I'm thinking they'll be $5 per pot, these are full gallon pots and they wholesale here in 5 pint pots for $7.35.

Finally, here's what they look like in a pot on their own. It's hard to tell that they will be something special in the garden. As you can see by Calie the wonder-doodle's face, she's trying to figure out why I'm out there in the rain taking pictures. Calie, you need a bath and a haircut!

Today's The Day

This morning I drove my daughter to a friends house. It was early, and although we had anticipated bad weather, it is delightful outside. I drove the back roads even though it takes a bit longer. You see, today's the day. The day that all the Norway Maples popped into chartreuse glory, the Bloodgood Maples are masses of maroon, the Forsythia are still blooming and every other blooming tree is trying to out do the other ones.

In my own garden I was digging out my white Siberian Iris when I realized I had totally forgotten to blog this morning. Here's some photos I shot quickly.

Over night the Lunaria opened, they are perfect next to the Helleborus foetidus blooms.

The first blooms on the Viburnum 'Mohawk' have begun to open and already their amazing perfume is filling the air.

The un-named, $5 Azaleas I rescued from a flower show a few years ago are doing their magic.

My absolute favorite tree, the Acer shirasawanum 'Aureum' (Moon maple) is beginning to unfurl.

The new growth on the rescued Pieris japonicas is like fire with the sunlight filtering through the Pin Oak branches.

Oh yes, today's the day when spring has truly busted out all over.

Happy Spring!

P.S. My box store adventure was a bust. I can only tell you that Walmart is not the place to go for plants. I don't think I was there for more than 2 minutes. They did have nice Columbines but the potting soil was bone dry and I was afraid they had been too stressed out. I'll try out Lowes later this week.

The Big Box Dilemma

Today I'm facing a huge dilemma. I'm headed off to Easton Pennsylvania to pick up my daughter at college. On the return trip we drive through Phillipsburg New Jersey, along a busy route 22 with lots of stores. I have one chance to stop at a store to look at plant material.

Try as I might, I couldn't find a listing for a top-notch nursery along this route so my choice is to stop at one of the big box stores. In alphabetical order I can choose between Home Depot, Lowes or Walmart.


With two teens in the car it will only be a stop long enough so they can grab some lunch as I run through the garden center.

Which one shall it be?

By the way, the Epimediums here are in full bloom. I wish I knew how to use this simple camera to capture their beauty. I'll try again over the weekend as I have more varieties. I'll also let you know what store I ended up at.

Road trip!

Exciting new plant discovery!

Ok, I'm trying really hard not to get too excited here. Today I was dividing my clumps of Sedum 'Frosty Morn'. I had noticed one or two little pieces that had reverted to a solid pale green and one or two teeny pieces that were all white. They were so small though, like the cotton on a q-tip.

Then I suddenly came across full sized stems with roots attached. Check this out!

Now I know that albino plants don't usually work out. I'm not a scientist but it has something to do with the ability to take up sunlight. Still, I'm going to cross my fingers and toes on this one.

Not only is the foliage creamy but the stems are pink.

I'm going to sit here now waiting for one of you amazing Dutch tissue culture people to call me. Just remember, if it grows it's got to be named Sedum 'Miss Melanie'.

Tomorrow morning's post might be delayed, I potted up 75 one gallon pots today plus a few dozen little pots of Sempervivum. Tomorrow I need to do more so I can drive to Pennsylvania on Friday to pick up my daughter and bring home a load of "dorm stuff".

Do you think this Sedum will live?

Splish Splash I'm a takin' a Bath

This is what my potting area looked like yesterday morning. Not nearly enough pots for our plant sale but I was scrounging around for pots and potting soil costs a fortune (along with multiple trips to the garden center to buy 3 or 4 bags at a time).

I've made two trips so far to Home Depot, both times I bought 3 50 lb. bags of potting soil plus some other amendments. That's about all I can handle in one trip.

Thanks to Rich Fulfarr and Zaino's Nursery in Westbury, NY I am now set up for some serious potting. These huge bales of potting soil weighed between 100 and 150 lbs. Most of them had small holes torn in the plastic so water had gotten in and soaked the potting soil. The soil is fantastic, it was just almost impossible to lift these bales.

It's a good thing nobody filmed a youtube video of the contortions I went through trying to get these suckers out of the truck. One bale was so heavy that I seriously considered leaving it in the truck and getting a bucket and shovel and lifting it out by the bucket load.

There were lots of pots for me too and of course I was totally energized when I saw the bounty of working materials.

The weather here has been delightful, perfect spring temperatures flirting around 70 degrees (21 Celsius) but the ground is oh so dry. After potting things up, they go in the kiddie pool for a nice hydrating bath. Once I know they've soaked up lots of moisture I put them in a mostly shady location for at least a week so they can get past their shock of being chopped up.

I'm off to pot up Rudbeckias (Black eyed Susans) now. They look like scraggly nothings at this time of year and we have a hard time selling them but I consider them a "must have" in the garden. Maybe I'll find some Echinacea to pot up too.

Yesterday I took inventory and had 265 pots ready. That's way behind what I think I should have. In past years I've had my mom's help to pot these babies up. She's coming in this Saturday but will be staying in the city for the two weeks she's up here. I only get her for one day and hate to have to tell her that we have to pot plants all day. Hopefully I'll feel caught up by then and we can spend the day doing something else. Today's goal is 60 pots. Wonder if I can make it?

Here's a list of plants that are potted so far (in no particular order):
Polygonatum (solomon's seal - need more!)
Hosta - medium green
Oenothera (Evening Primrose)
Sedum 'Matrona'
Centaurea dealbata (Bachelor's buttons)
Geranium cantabrigiense 'Karmina'
Heuchera (lost name, green marbled variety)
Phlox paniculata (several varieties)
Lychnis 'Jenny'
Nepeta mussinii
Stokesia (big fat blue seedlings)
Euphorbia polychroma
Corydalis lutea (yellow)
Violas (black and lavender)
Campanula punctata
Adenophora
Ferns (don't know the variety)
Salvia lyrata purple knockout seedlings
Digitalis (fox gloves)
Helenium
Heliopsis - summer nights seedlings
Iris Germanica (sky blue)
Iris Siberica (deep blue)
Daylilies (81 pots so far, lots more to do)
Echinacea

On my "to dig" list are at least as many plants as are listed above. Hope I can get to all of them. Next week they are forecasting showers, I can work in the rain and the garden needs rain so I do hope we get some moisture.

Happy digging!

Melanie

Try, Try, Try Again

Gardeners are eternal optimists. No matter what the weather throws at us, oil delivery trucks that drive through our flower beds or telephone pole installation crews stomping through our gardens, we persevere.

If a plant doesn't grow for me I take it as a personal challenge. Many times it's because I didn't research the plant well and put it in the wrong kind of conditions.

At my last house I tried Bergenia, I don't remember it doing anything special there. About 10 years ago I bought Bergenia again and planted it out front in one of my shade beds. It languished, still throwing up one or two leaves a year but never blooming. I've read about this plant thriving in other gardens but still walked past it every time I saw it for sale.

So what changed my mind this year? I've started to read the tags on the pots, not just scan them but really read them. By looking at all the information I saw that this plant was grown right here on Long Island out on the north fork. If it can grow there it should certainly be able to grow in my garden. So try, try again, this time with more sun, less tree roots and lots of nice rotted compost. By the way, the nick name of this plant is "Pig Squeek" and if you rub the leaves together they really do sound like a pig.

Podophyllum hexandrum are easier to remember as "May Apples". About 5 years ago I planted a pot of these in the wooded lot along the side of my house. It was a lousy spot, no water during dry spells, maple tree root competition and no sun what so ever when those Maples leafed out.

I decided to take out the small struggling pieces and move them to the back to my larger shade bed. Grow baby, grow!

Last year I did the same with a small piece of my Sanguinaria canadensis (double bloodroot). In one year it has increased more than the entire "clump" grew out front. I can't wait to see what's there next year now!

I'm off to rent a truck so I can go pick up pots and potting soil being donated for our plant sale. Since I've never driven a truck before I'd appreciate it if everybody decided not to drive on Long Island today. Thank you.

An odd way to Propagate

It's my belief that some plants are not readily available at garden centers for one major reason...they look awful in pots. If a plant does not pot up "pretty", it's very hard to sell it.

Many years ago I was touring a local garden when I asked about a beautiful perennial that I was unfamiliar with. It was a hardy Geranium, to be exact it was Geranium cantabrigiense 'Biokova'. Luckily the gardener was really into botanical names and she made sure I had the name on a tag plus a nice healthy chunk she insisted I plant in my own garden.

I remember thinking it looked awfully scraggly when I got it home but I put it in the garden without much thought. The next year I was so enamored with this hardy Geranium that I began to search out more varieties. Local nurseries didn't carry more than one or two varieties at a time except for Roslyn Nurseries which used to be in the next town. I bought a pot of Geranium cantabrigiense 'Karmina' (shown in the opening photo) because it was supposed to be the same as 'Biokova' except for the color which was a deeper pink.



This type of hardy Geranium is evergreen, it does not die back in the winter and the foliage turns a nice reddish color. I loved how it cascaded out onto my gravel driveway so it was a natural to add to my raised perennial beds.

This photo was taken on March 24th, four weeks ago. You can see how a large piece of it just hangs down over the rock wall. Since I wanted to pot up some of this for our plant sale I had to address this cascading portion.


None of these photos will win a beauty contest but hopefully they convey my message. Here you can see that I just cut the Geranium along the lip of the rock. Now I could see the part that was rooted into the ground.

Here you can see my hand holding the "cascade portion" up before cutting it.


I dug out a huge chunk of the rooted portion to pot up and at the same time brought the cascade portion to the potting table with me. I hated the thought of throwing it away.

When I looked closely it seemed to me like there were little roots on this portion too but I know they weren't rooted to the rock wall as this piece was very loose, not stuck to the rocks.


The rooted part was a gigantic tangle of stems. It was impossible to tell what was supposed to go in the pot and what was supposed to stick out of the pot. I kept telling myself "green side up" as I tried to make some sense with the stems.

This is what they looked like potted up. I don't have a photo of them today because my husband is in Washington DC and has my camera with him. You'll have to take my word that they don't look much nicer than this, a bit more foliage but more stems than anything.

The odd thing? I put some mud into a plastic wagon and stuck the "cascade portion" on top of it. Every few days I go out and water it. Four weeks later and it still looks like this! Obviously it's not dead but now what do I do?

I'm thinking of filling some pots with soil all the way up, close to the rim. Then taking scissors and cutting this foliage into squares and sticking them on top of the pots. Kind of like sticking a toupee on top of a bald head.

What do you think? I think it's worth a try!

From the curb

The other day I posted about plants growing out by my curb. This Verbascum bombyciferum isn't at the curb now but at one time it was. You see, I wanted to grow this plant so badly but the only place I ever saw it was growing as a weed along other people's curbs.

Finally, one afternoon when nobody was around I snuck across the street and rescued a plant from my neighbor's curb.


It only took one plant, once I got it here in my garden it happily seeded itself about, always surprising me in the locations it would choose to grow. It obviously likes cracks and crevices because it seeks out those locations and grow with merry abandonment in the most lean of soils.


Verbascum bombyciferum is a biennial so you have to let it sow about or you won't have any next year. One thing to remember is that if you want to move it into your gardens, do so early in the spring. The first one I grew here reminded me of the story of "Jack & the beanstalk" as it seemed to grow over night. I can't imagine moving this plant once it hits it's growing stride.

As a closing shot I just wanted to share one of the great photos my husband took yesterday. We spent the most glorious day in Allentown Pennsylvania along the Lehigh River. While Lafayette did not gain control of the river from Lehigh, we were still incredibly proud of our amazing crew team. That's our daughter Lauren in the front seat (on the right) in the black unitard.

Go Pards!

In praise of propagators

    There is something magical about stepping into  a greenhouse on a cold day. That warm fug with its earthy whiff of healthy growth. A place apart, where the seasons are tricked, and we can grow what nature denies us.   
    This year is the first time I have an enclosed growing space (apart from the conservatory) for a long time. Not since I had polytunnels on my nursery, which was years ago now. As a teenager I shared a greenhouse with my father, of which I have very clear memories, especially of a Humex Big Top propagator, which I ended up taking with me to the nursery.
    Propagators have certainly come on – an interesting illustration of how technological advance lets us get away with using far fewer resources. The Big Top was a great deep tray of fibre-glass which had to be filled with sand in which soil warming cables were buried; its top was aluminium and sheets of (all too easily broken) glass. The one I have just bought is simply some aluminium hoops covered in a PVC sheet with zips. Seed trays sit on a foil sheet, in which heating cables are enmeshed. The whole thing struck me at first as rather flimsy, but actually it is well designed, and quite robust, and provides a very good heat. Everything the Big Top would have done at a fraction of the weight.And you can pack it all up at the end of the spring and put it away in a drawer. The Big Top just sat there taking up an awful lot of space.
    There is something deeply fascinating about a propagator. A bit like one of those perspex boxes they put premature babies in, a plastic bubble which generates new life. I love the sensation of opening it up in the morning, the thrill of seeing what has germinated, the excitement of watching the almost hourly advances in the growth of tomato and pepper seedlings. The draught of humid green-smelling air of the greenhouse within the greenhouse.
    It isn’t even a proper greenhouse, but a Belgian Filclair Serren PVC polytunnel, superior to polyethylene, but designed with some rather irritating draught gaps at the bottom – so some additional work needed. The growth rate on salad crops sown in January has been very impressive – but soon to be replaced by tomatoes, aubergines and peppers.
    Glasshouses in some ways are dinosaurs – all that heavy, fragile and energy-hungry material. Polytunnels have replaced them to all intents and purposes for unheated or minimally-heated work. Its common to hear people say that they don’t look so nice. True. But then isn’t that just nostalgia to some extent?

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Hens & Chicks - The Family Unit

Just a quick post to say, now I'm here, but in a minute I'll be gone.

We're off to watch our oldest daughter try to take control of the Lehigh River in the Lafayette/Lehigh Regatta. Go Lauren and go Lafayette!

Can't wait to see what's blooming in Pennsylvania! As for the above photo? It's an unknown variety of Sempervivum and it was actually pretty hard for me to get them to take to growing in the rock wall.

Wishing all of you a spectacular weekend,

Melanie

What's growing at the curb?

This is my property out by the street. I have nicer photos of this area all planted but that would be cheating. Today I'll be working out there all day because our nice town of Huntington is sending a crew here.

I'm beginning with this photo because there's a hidden secret here. It seems that some of you live in my town and with the help of this photo and the fact that I live on Beverly Road, maybe you can find me.

This is my curb in the other direction, actually, there is no curb. The rock retaining wall was put in when the house was built, the story is that these rocks all came from when the dug the foundation of our house. That's hard to believe because there's a lot of rocks and my house is not huge. Anyway, for some reason our land is slightly higher than our driveway and the street.

All new homes being built in this area require cement curbs but the old homes don't have any. Today the town is coming to install a curb on this side of our property because our soil keeps washing away and filling the storm drains further down the street.

As I walked around out there this morning I found a few new babies growing out of the crevices in our retaining walls. Here you can see Corydalis, it's seeded itself all along the wall and I'm just crazy about the way it blooms out there.

How cool is this! The Asarum europaeum (European Ginger) at the top of the wall also seeded down into the cracks. Hooray!

Hello little baby, this is the first time I've seen a Geranium maculatum seedling in the wall. I'll try to remember to feed you a bit from time to time.

The west side of the driveway is bathed in the rising sunlight. I found a little Sedum sexangular seedling basking away. Better move that acorn before it tries to root!


Along the east bank are scattered hundreds of Adenorphora confusa. I've never noticed it seed like this in the past years. It's such a pretty perennial, related to Campanula (I believe) but it hates being transplanted so it's rarely available for sale. This year I'm going to try to pot up some of the babies and see if they're easier to move around.


Oops, looks like a poly-nose seeded here. Sorry baby but I don't think I want you here.

Here's the last shot, even though there's nothing blooming out here yet, I love how this area looks as the sun is rising.

Time to get out there, I'm going to load up some compost and bring it out front to top dress these gardens. It's quite a job since the compost pile is in the opposite corner of our property. Must remember the sun screen today too!

So, what's growing out by your curb?