The Gardener Christine

Correction - final plant sales this coming Fri and Sat, May 17&18.

Mexican Petunias are one of the many plants available at the next plant sale! They are tender and need to be brought in as cuttings in the fall but are a great summer container plant. 2 1/2 ft tall, upright red stems and purple petunia-like flowers in late summer. All that has been done by me and all you need to do is purchase and plant! Almost all my plants are $2, shrubs and special things are $4. Stop by Friday May 10th from 5-7:30pm or Saturday May 11th from 7am - 2pm.

Gardening is always experimenting and this spring I am experimenting with burlap grow bags. I purchased the bags from a small company (2 sisters) in Missouri called Natural Air Planters. I got three and then bought two kinds of white potatoes and sweet potato starts which sprouted immediately and we will see how the one bag of white potatoes does with the weather.....it was just snowing a few minutes ago. Anyway it will not be the bags fault if the shoots get nipped! I might get some potatoes yet.....experimenting is so exciting! You just never know if the successes and failures are your fault or the laws of Nature. Which lead to more experiments. Anyway check out their products at naturalairplanters.com Now I will quit procrastinating and work on the plant list for the rapidly upcoming sales.

There will be some annual and perennial seeds available at the upcoming plant sales. Amounts vary on these - some I have a lot and some not. All will be $2 a ...packet. The list includes: White Ageratium Common Milkweed Early Blooming Tall Phlox Perilla Globe Thistle Blue Baptisia Perennial Sweet Pea and The Orange Cosmos in the photo There is also the possibility of Winter Aconite but they are not harvested yet so can't promise. AND I forgot my favorite annual.....Nigella so edited it in! See more

The aconites are blooming..... "Behold, my friends, the spring is come; the earth has gladly received the embraces of the sun, and we shall soon see the results of their love!" Sitting Bull This quote was in the newly received Forest Farm catalog...a real "dream big for spring" offering....so hard to control, so many desires, so little space! Their plants are diverse, healthy and packaged beautifully when they arrive.

Usually by this time in the spring I have been working outside for several weeks....not this spring! The weather has not been warm or dry enough so I have nothing prepared yet for the spring plant sales. The weather will warm and the sun will dry things out soon but the sale dates will be later than usual.....details to follow but I plan on scheduling the sales for weekends in May and even possibly early June.

Some thoughts on spring bulbs I was just discussing bulbs with a friends and she said her tulips never came up. I asked where she bought them and she said at... the hardware store and usually when they went on sale. That is an easy problem to diagnose..the bulbs she was buying were already too dried out to make a new show in the spring. The poor things had been dug months ago, stored over the summer, and then shipped to distribution points for a while before finally landing on a shelf in a warm, dry, bright store to sit some more. I make the same mistake in false economy every now and then myself and usually regret it. Those silly impulse purchases! But gardening is like life - always the lessons coming at you. So here is one I have learned: buy your spring bulbs from a catalog or on-line from a respected company that specializes in bulbs. You will avoid your bulbs arriving by the slow route and will get them arriving in prime shape at the right time to plant. Not guaranteed success (this is gardening, you know) but a much better chance at success. Now is the time to decide what to order! Don't delay! Walk around and image them in your garden. Where would they fit in among the plants you already have? Which ones do you want? What color combinations? You can put your order in now and then come next fall, a box will arrive and you will be so happy! To get started try companies John Scheepers, Inc. and McClure & Zimmerman. M&Z's catalog arrived recently and included a lovely quote from the Complete Book Of Bulbs by F.F. Rockwell and Esther C. Grayson which expresses my feelings exactly and better than I could. "Why have bulbs in your garden? First of all because a garden without bulbs is only half a garden. Bulbs provide whole groups of flowers for which there are no substitutes, not even poor ones, among annuals or perennials. The garden pictures, which you can readily create with them can be achieved in no other way. But the one clinching argument for having bulbs, and having them in abundance, is that they provide a month or more of heart-lifting color before perennials, annuals, and all but the earliest shrubs are giving more than a promise that eventually they will break the shackles of their prison-keeper Winter and again be set free to beautify the earth." See more

One of the MOST looked for flowers in my garden is this growing patch of winter aconite. From a doz bulbs, that have seeded new plants over the years, has come this happy spread that opens when all around is brown. It is still winter here but spring is around the corner!