What a difference

The flowers in the dry stream bed garden are coming along.  It is amazing to me what a difference a few months have made.  Initially, it seemed like an impossible task, now flowers and plants are growing!  And I'm hopeful that we will soon be able to add a pond:

February dry stream bed

April dry stream bed.  Foreground:  Peacock Orchid (Acidanthera bicolor muielae), Catmint,  Little Bluestem, Liatris, Speedwell "Christy."  Background:  "Blue" Love Grass, Agastache "Heather Queen" 

My husband bought the Speedwell at Wally World -- not my favorite place in the world.  His plan was to fill our window boxes with them, but that DID NOT work out;  they are much happier in the ground.  The Catmint was purchased in February at a local nursery.  It looked quite good considering everything else was still in a dismal state, so I bought it, and nursed it in my greenhouse.  Everything else is from bulbs or seeds that we started this year.  I anticipate the growth of all of our flowers over the course of the next year.  Gardening is a hopeful hobby.  :)

Lupines and Asclepias Incarnata

I have six milkweed (Asclepias incarnata) plants in the greenhouse.  I am greedy.  I want more, more, more.  So I was more methodical, and it is paying off.  I first put the Asclepias seeds in the freezer for about a week.  Then, I placed them in the refrigerator for another week.   Finally, I started them in jiffy trays.  Within three days they started germinating.  This is definitely the way to go in the future! 

The Chandelier Lupines gave me a fit at first too.  I chipped them and started them indoors under lights, and I had terrible results.  Only two seeds germinated and when I moved them to the greenhouse they turned to mush.   So I listened to fellow blogger, Alison http://bonneylassie.blogspot.com/, and I direct sowed them outside in the garden.  Sometimes less is more.  The less I did with these the more they grew.  Thanks, Alison!  I never would have tried that without your helpful tip!

Milkweed (Ascelpia incarnata)

Chandelier Lupines

For great tips from some wonderful gardeners head to Dave's for seed sowing Saturday

http://www.growingthehomegarden.com/

Wordless Wednesday

Color has finally arrived

I am so pleased to finally have tulips.  In the epic woman versus voles battle I have finally scored a point.  I have planted tulips every fall, anxiously awaited their spring arrival, and found nothing!  But this year a bargain-basement, big box, very end of the season impulse buy paid off.  I have tulips for the first time in seven -- that's right -- SEVEN years.  Proof that my gardens come more from perseverance than talent.  The photo will also illustrate this fact, in that they are haphazardly placed as if the gardener thought, these things will never make it to spring, but I'll just chuck 'em in here and give it a try, again, anyway:

On the move

This has been a super busy week.  Last Sunday was spent frantically making up for the lost time that was spent indoors through our spring break.  We moved all of the plants that I started in January and February to the dry stream bed.

It doesn't look like much, but it sure was a lot of work!

We also put up a Purple Martin house.  I read that Purple Martins help eliminate mosquitoes, and that is high on the priority list for me.  My son and I had a picnic on a nice day in early March, and were bitten by several mosquitoes.  It's going to be a bad year for them, I'm afraid. * I just read, and so am edited this post, that the Purple Martin's diet has been studied, and it has been suggested through several studies that only 2 to 3 percent of the Martin's diet consists of mosquitoes.  There are many reasons why this is the scientific view.  There is only one study, which has no real support, that suggests that they consume more than a few mosquitoes a day.*   I read that adult Martins come through our area around March 15, but they will not nest in a new home -- they always return to their former homes.  However, the adolescent Martins do not have a strong connection to a nesting ground and are more likely to take up residence in a new house.  They don't come through until about 4 weeks after the adults.    So we're keeping our fingers crossed.

Labels

I have to admit I thought more of my memory than it deserved!  It did not serve me.  I was just thankful that I had blogged last weekend about what I started because I did not label my tray, thinking, Oh, I'll remember these, and then, Oops!  I totally forgot what I put in the first tray!

Learning my lesson, I used labels this week.  I bought several Jiffy seed starting trays because out of everything I've tried this year these have worked the best.  I took Post-it tags and wrote on them in permanent marker then stuck them to the plastic holding tray.  Worked well, and now two days later it doesn't matter if I remember or not.  I know that I have one ten pack Verbascum phoeniceum, one ten pack of Iris missouriensis, one ten pack of Agapanthus Headbourne, one ten pack of Ajuga reptans, and one ten pack of Heuchera sanguinea "Firefly".  Now, if I could just remember how to capitalize and italicize all of these, I'd really be doing something!

Head to Dave's Seed Sowing Saturdays to share what you learned this week:
http://www.growingthehomegarden.com/