Potting for Spring

So, we're in a drought.

We also haven't quite finished the front retainer for the major garden work.
Also, my back bothers me if I try to do too much gardening.

Grow, little bulbs! GROW!

BUT I had already ordered a ton of flower bulbs for fall planting! Oh no! What to do? I spotted these planters on sale on Home Depot- because the gardening department is right between the front door and the wood glue (Isn't it?) And setting them on the wall will 'beautify' and give the neighbors a sneak preview of it will be like some day, I hope!

For a couple of months (and very dry months at that) they just sat there on the wall, looking bored. Then suddenly, things started happening.

Congratulations! It's a... stemmy thing. And some leaves. ?

A stem here, a leaf there. It seemed like overnight, all of the baskets were showing greenery. Of course, three months ago, I was certain that I would remember what I planted in each one... HAHAHAHAH! I can't even remember what I ate for dinner yesterday. (Not true- leftover pizza and a bowl of cereal. Hey, it was my no-cook night, don't judge.) That tub obviously has those random ranunculus that I found in the bottom of my garden tool box, and some, um... long green stemmy things?

Ooh! This one I know! This one I was waiting for!

Cloth of Gold 

"Cloth of Gold" Snow Crocus!  And they are AMAZING! Just absolutely beautiful.  Only problem with them is that they just barely peek over the top of the container- you have to 'spy' on them. These came from Breck's Bulbs fall sale online, and I'm impressed. Each bulb has put out 3-4 flowers! And each individual flower blooms in sequence, so they've been going strong for nearly two weeks now!

For some reason known only to the fall-bulb frenzied Liz who existed last autumn, I bought something called "Baby Shower Mix", with pink tulips and baby blue hyacinths.

I think they're supposed to bloom at the same time, but who cares, right? Here's where I've had my only problem with the pots- rainwater gathered in the leaves of one of the tulips and settled in the bud, where it caused the bulb to start to rot out.  Oops. Better attention to spacing and drainage, I guess.

Anyway, most of the pots are still muddles of green stem and sprouts. One is obviously hyacinths, and with luck will be the Miss Saigon from American Meadows. There should be some apricot colored daffodils and some more of my favorite Triumph Tulips. They never last long enough, and they don't rebloom here, so if I killed them by trying to pot them, I'll be heartbroken.

Pink Tulips from the Baby Shower Mix

(What WAS I thinking?) 

Salad Bed Planter

What do you do with a pile of old bricks and a big empty space in the backyard?

Grow salad!
 

At least, that's the plan. Our backyard gets dappled sunlight year round and is currently a disaster mix of the previous tenant's low-maintenance (bark mulch covered and neglected) landscaping and the minimal work we've managed in between 'curb appeal' projects. Anything is better than what's there, so it makes experimenting more appealing.

I started with the pile of old bricks leftover from the walkway renovation project. I knocked the old mortar of some of them with a hammer, but I wanted a 'recycled' look, so I didn't strain myself cleaning them off. Then I cleared a space in the backyard of leaf-litter and debris.

I stacked the bricks two layers high, in a  rough circle that backs up against the sidewalk for easy harvesting and maintenance. Inside, I laid a couple of the rougher nastier looking bricks to help bolster it up. Mine is just loose-stacked because our backyard is in a state of flux. If I don't like it in a month, or a year, I can just take it apart. If you want something permanent, I see no reason not to mortar the brick in place.

My bed took three bags of soil, but since your bed will likely vary in size and shape, just take a rough measurement of depth and diameter and figure out how many cubic feed you'll want. I like the EBS Top Soil Plus blend, and I get it from Everygreen Nursery here in San Leandro. I Love Evergreen! The only problem is that it's too much fun! I generally spend an hour looking at everything (including saying hi to their beautiful koi) before getting down to business and finding what I need, which today was a heap of baby greens and some seeds.

In the very center, I planted a single dill plant, already well established from the nursery. It should grow tall and strong over the warmer months when the salad greens are fading.  Around that, I grouped three varieties of lettuce, including a leaf  lettuce entitled "Pinot Noir", presumably for its tasty purple color and a spiky leaf variety for texture, and some broad leaf spinach.  I planted single variety clusters and then took the 'odd man out' and stucked them in here and there for pop appeal. Around the edges, where they can drape over, I planted a few strawberries.



Sorry the pic is so yellow! My camera
seems to be losing it's white balance.



I seeded around all of that with edible viola, lemon basil and Grand Rapids leaf lettuce, all from Lilly Miller. Hopefully, they'll grow in and become the 'second crop'. I say hopefully because our backyard is rather wildlife friendly, and seeds and seedlings alike are tasty goods to our wild friends. Which brings me to my final step.

SLUGGO! That's right. Sluggo. I don't generally like baiting snails, but I've had it with them, and the gang at Evergreen promised me that this was the right stuff if I want stay organic and slay the slimy little suckers. The active ingredient is iron oxide which is present in most soils. Supposedly, the slugs and snails eat it on their way to the plants and it triggers their system to tell them that they're full, so they stop eating. 

So there you go!

A few spare bricks, a couple bags of soil, and a handful of greens from the local nursery and now all I have to do is water and wait.
And wait. And wait.

Garden Planning Time!

Veggies and Flowers And Fruits, OH MY!

Windsong Glads from
American Meadows

I just placed my American Meadows order (What on earth possessed me to order more gladioli? and hot pink ones, at that!?), and I've got about a dozen things in my Seeds & Things shopping cart waiting to be paid for, including some wacky things like pointy cabbages and purple carrots. So exciting! I can't wait to get started gardening this year. BUT, I'm finding myself with a lot of questions before I get started. Maybe you can help me?

Pointy Cabbage
Seeds & Things

First question: Does anyone know where to get decent quality burlap bags- preferably used for non-icky things, like potatoes, corn, or horse feed? I miss growing my own potatoes and I love the burlap bag trick.

Second question: Do you hate snails? I want all your snail slaying suggestions that don't include laying my garden an inch thick in snail bait. They apparently don't like beer (the little slugs do, though!).  I've been going out at dusk and hunting them, but mostly that feels like an exercise in futility as the numbers seem to be increasing, not decreasing.  If you have suggestions, I want to hear them!

 

Last question: Has anyone tried mounting a window box on a spray-stucco wall before? Any suggestions? I want to be able to reach out the kitchen window for herbs and greens, but the more I look at logistics, the more I get a headache.
 

I think that's all the questions I have for now. Maybe. Here's the front walkway this week! The Tete-a-Tete daffodils are going CRAZY and the Blue Ribbon Dutch Iris are starting to open. At the very end of the walk, right before the driveway, the hyacinths are in full bloom and smell amazing.

 

Crocuses! Or rather... Croci.

... But Croci sounds kind of silly, so we'll just take one crocus at a time.

Last fall, we (meaning mostly Scott) had our old broken concrete sidewalk stripped out. We replaced it with a fun walkway made of  broken chunks of marble composite countertop (We love Urban Ore in Oakland!) and lined with river-rock. We're pretty pleased with how it came out.  The great challenge was not disturbing the bulbs that were growing along the walkway.


Yellow Tiger Crocus

From the foliage that started coming up mid-January, I was guessing that the Dutch iris and the  Tete-a-Tete daffodils survived just fine, but there was no sign of thin grasslike croci coming up.  I'd just started to despair when I walked out the door last week, and there they were! Nestled in amongst the sweet alyssum, tiger crocus were blooming. These delicate beauties have sweet brown stripes and their foliage is variegated, making for interesting texture. Sadly, it seems that only four survived the landscaping project.

Pickwick Crocus

And then there were the Pickwick croci with their white petals and purple stripes. Again, only a few seem to have survived the devastation of the sidewalk so they'll have to be ordered and replanted again next fall.
I just love the way they go with the burgundy sweet allysum. You'd think I planned that, or something. Yeah! That's what I'm going with. All perfectly planned for maximum effect. I did it on PURPOSE. (That's one of the problems with being a wildflower/bulb person. Once you admit it, everyone knows you didn't plan anything, but just kind of put some stuff in the ground and hoped it came out okay.

The last bloomers were, surprisingly, the ones I thought we'd killed off! These little yellow charmers are from the American Meadows Wild / Snow Crocus Mix. The past two years have seen many purple and yellow blooms: I had lots of white the first year, but they never returned.  This year, only three lone yellows bloomed, so I'm seeing a fresh planting of these coming up next fall as well.  

My favorites, the tough little Crocus Minimus that I have planted in the front bed by the sidewalk, didn't do well this year- lots of foliage but only one bloom- and I failed to get a good picture of it. I think next year I'll mulch the front bed late in the summer, and see if they do better. Otherwise, gee... I'll guess I'll have to pick out more crazy little crocus for the yard! (I'm leaning towards Ruby Giants and Lady Killers for a pile of purple!)

Wild Crocus Yellow

Winter is Here? Already?

Okay, as some of you know, I had surgery on my back in May. That resulted in six weeks of lying on my side, followed by six weeks of returning to work part-time, and physical therapy that finally ended at the beginning of November. 

It also happened that during this time, we had our driveway jack-hammered up and only replaced half of it. There's a grand plan for retaining walls, a bio-swale with native plants, topped by a full vegetable garden!

There's only one drawback. I can still only lift about twenty pounds. Bending and twisting are verboten. So, needless to say this is a VERY slow process and somehow, winter came last week, along with torrential rain and dry sharp cold.

What's a girl to do when she can't build a wall, dig a hole, or turn soil?  I've decided there's only one thing to be done! Sheet Mulch! On Wednesday night, I intend to raid the scrap cardboard pile at work giving me ample 'starter' cardboard for the rest of the Holiday weekend.  San Leandro Garden Center has bulk mushroom compost at reasonable rates, and if I ask very nice, they'll bag and load it for me. They are so sweet there.

If anyone has great ideas for making the most of a sheet-mulching on what will next spring be the vegetable garden, please let me know!

An Un-Garden Blog?

As some of you know, I've had ongoing back problems for awhile now. As a result, I haven't been doing any gardening at all. (Or yardwork, or landscaping, or really much of anything except spend a lot of time on the floor with ice packs.) I finally had to swallow my pride and hire someone to help me out.

I didn't want just anyone. I didn't want some guy with a lawn-mower racing all over my yard, or spraying pesticides or chemical fertilizers everywhere. I also didn't want someone who was going to charge me a fortune for work I didn't need. And most importantly, I wanted someone who loves soil, who loves growing things and understands that their cycles are an important part of our lives.

I found Sandra. (https://sites.google.com/site/cagardensbyanativecalifornian/home)  She's exceeded every expectation. And while I feel horribly guilty about limping about the house while she's out working so hard, I'm so excited to see my yard looking once again like something I can be proud of.  She uncovered surprises I'd forgotten I'd planted or that I thought wouldn't regrow.

One of the best things about being a wild-flower/bulb person, however, is that even in terrible states of neglect, something will grow and bloom and shine, and I'll have some pictures up later of those.

Flowers and Fruits and ... Ugly Bugs?

Sweet Summer Cherry

                There is a moment in summer when the gardener spots that first gleam of red hidden beneath the foliage. She stops, maybe squats down to look more closely.  The ground is warm beneath her feet, and the scent, that unique raw smell of growing tomato plants surrounds her. (If you've smelled it, you'll understand. If you never have, the closest I can come is the flavor of a green tomato mixed with sunshine and fresh flowing water.) The fruit slips into her hand at the lightest touch, and there it is, gleaming tantalizingly in the sun: The season's first tomato. 

Needless to say, immediately after photographing it, I consumed it!

Buoton De Rose Begonia

In the flowerbeds, my "Shady Garden" out back is turning up begonias and lilies. I just seeded a whole heap of China Aster around the birdbath, too, so hopefully we'll have some late summer color coming on.

Sadly, out front, the poor gladioli are having a fairly short season and between the afternoon heat and the ravages of the katydids, aren't looking so good.  Where is my mantis! He saved me last year, but I've seen neither hide nor probiscus of him this year!

Gladiolus- Prosperity

My favorite pink/white bi-colors are going now, with the yellow and purples coming into bloom right behind them.
The most stunning gladiolus in my current collection is the white Prosperity from American Meadows. Simply GORGEOUS! White with just a hint of peachy yellow blush. It was supposed to be blooming with the Ravens right now, but the katydids have chompedchompedchomped up the poor Ravens so I don't know if they'll bloom at all.

But the big thing today was this...

These funky leaf-blisters are all over the poor manzanita bush. It looks like something rolled the edge of the leaf up to create a bubble (which I now know is called a 'gall') with sickly reddish color and livid nasty pink veins. Now maybe I watch too many alien horror movies, but these things look like they could start breathing on their own at any second!

Curious, I broke one open and about a gazillion little greenish-black bugs crawled out!  EW! BUGS! (Okay, 'gazillion' is a kind of wide estimate. Maybe not so much with the accuracy there.)

Okay, what are they?  I thought hunting them down would be hard but a quick Google-hunt refined down to "manzanita leaf bug" found them. And sure enough, they are... TA DA!  "Manzanita leaf bugs".  Needless to say, that was somewhat anti-climactic.  They're actually called Manzanita Leaf Gall Aphids, aka Tamalia coweni.

Nothing I'm seeing says that they do real harm, but I'm not feeling overly generous to them at the moment. In fact, I think I see a wonderful career in Green Waste Management in their future.

In the Veggie Garden

Veggie gardening in limited space is always a challenge. I grew up with vegetable gardens that covered half an acre tilled into a perfect rectangle, with neat long rows of plants side by side, so when I first started looking into urban gardening, I was impressed that people were growing food in such small spaces.

My vegetable garden is about ten feet by sixteen feet, sloped at an angle. Before we took it over, it was covered with nasty flowering shrub, which, fortunately for us, had done much to mulch and protect the soil beneath it.  I was pleased to find good loamy soil under those hideious shrubs, but I was still hesitant when I planted those first seeds this spring. In fact, I was feeling downright brave when I purchased tomato plants. They looked so small and fragile, and I was going to just stick them into the dirt?

Fear and hesitation has given way to pride and joy when I look at my little urban garden! It surpasses my wildest dreams. The snap peas and the pole beans are unbelievable in their profilic attempts to take over the rest of the garden. The zucchini has already gotten out of control, and the tomato plants are four feet tall and covered in blooms and burgeoning fruits. Planted in amongst everything else are onion and garlic starts, bush beans and dwarf peas, radishes and carrots; I just tucked the seeds wherever there was an opening.

It seems so silly now to have worried so much!

Gladioli!

I like to pretend that glads are the cavalry vanguard of the garden army.  As soon as the soil warms they gather for the fight, waiting for the sun to hit the earth. And then they shoot straight up, their long and slender leaves arrowing towards the sky like a sword held aloft. When they draw their stems, waving burgeoning green buds like standards, it serves warning to any interlopers in the garden that they are about to charge. The blooms gallup up the stems, first the lowest flower, and then the next, and so on, until as the first blooms die, the last ones burst to life for one last show of courage.

Last year, I purchased a bag of mixed bulbs from American Meadows. It was my first time ever growing gladiolus and it was love at first sight.

This year, I wanted something really bright and intense to 'hide' the vegetable garden from the sidewalk. I jumbled up two sets of bulbs and planted them in batches of five throughout March and April. VOILA! AMAZING!


Orange Flame

So bright and shiny!
These were on sale at Home Depot, so I figured 'why not'? I thought these were supposed to fade more to yellow, but who cares! They're HUGE and they just glow when the sun hits them.  For a special surprise the flower-seed mix I tossed down over the bulbs put up a huge explosion of baby's breath, giving a wonderful white backsplash to accent them.







Black Walnut

Absolutely spectacular!
These are my absolute favorite so far! Keep in mind that I've got four more varieties waiting to open, and I'll probably say the same about them all. The petals are dark red with almost black stripes on the tips of the satin-like petals. The pictures don't show it, but the texture of the petals is like velvet and the sun makes them glow.

First Produce!

Sparkler Radishes

I harvested my first produce from the veggie garden today! Just a few radishes,and a green onion, but  hey! Look! Radishes!  I'm planning to make a cold pasta salad to go with dinner. After all, if I picked it, we should eat it, right?  I sampled and these are juicy and sweet with just a hint of bite to them. YUM!

Food or Triffid?

After weeks of cold wet weather, then a few hot sunburst days followed by hard rains, the garden is suddenly showing some promise!  We should have our first zucchini in a few days, and the first peas planted are all blooming while the second batch are just sticking their heads up out of the ground. 

Snap Peas

The tomatoes aren't doing much, but I expect as soon as we get some really warm weather we'll be dealing with a 'mater explosion, At least that gives me some time to cage the last couple additions, with huge thanks to Xhin & Dhin at Trurealty.Net (yellow pear) and to Spider & Eli, (Mister Stripey)!



Gonna celebrate "Fresh From the Garden" with Radish Pasta Salad tonight!
The Recipe

2 cups penne rigate pasta (or pasta of choice, cooked, drained, cooled)
Dressing-
2 large radishes: chopped
1 green onion: chopped finely
2 celery stems, de-stringed and chopped
1 tsp celery seed
1 tsp poppy seeds for extra crunch
Lemon juice
1/4 cup mayo or sour cream (I use half mayo & half sour cream)

Mix all the dressing ingredients and refrigerate while the pasta cooks.
Fold the dressing into the pasta and tuck into the fridge to chill and let the flavors mingle.
Serve chilled.
For a great main dish you can toss in Dungeoness crab or bay shrimp, too, but I don't have either of those, so I'll be serving it with oven-grilled pork chops instead.

Naked Gardening Day!

So, today is May 14th, Garden Naked Day!  I'd link to the webpage but it has nekkid people on it. Most of the pictures are wonderfully tasteful, but there are a few that are full-monty, so I won't be sharing. You can google it if you're that interested.
The point is, I was rather looking forward to it! I was gonna garden naked! But today has dawned with 56 degrees and a chill breeze, with a severe thunderstorm warning, downpours, possible hail, etc, looming overhead. Since I love being cold about as much as I enjoy bowling with frozen turkeys, I had to revise my plans somewhat.

Hot Tub

They start here in the oh-so-yummy hot tub, where I will get toasty warm.

Rose in need of deadheading

When I feel I'm warm enough,  I shall leap out of the hot tub and assault the rose bush that's about six feet away from the hot tub with clippers.
THEN I shall leap back into the hot tub, where I will get toasty warm again.  This, I think, is a good plan, so let's execute it, shall we?

 Ooh! A bit chilly, but not bad. Let's deadhead the roses! Quick! Una, are you gonna help me? 

        Pasha? What about you?         
                     No? Didn't think so.




Ooh! Gotta hurry! Getting cold! 
                         
                                                           ... Okay! DONE! 

 

Dead Roses

Well, mostly done.  There were a few that were a little too dangerously located for unclothed gardening. (And you can see here I cheated a bit and slipped on my flip-flops to protect my toeses from prickly things.

And then, HOP BACK IN THE HOT TUB! YAY! SUCCESS!

So, what did we learn this Naked Gardening Day?  First, always check the weather. They should hold this in, oh, August. Maybe July.

Also, cats do not care about gardening, whether it be clothed or unclothed. They also don't care about rose bushes or dead flowers, or, well, much of anything really unless it involves food, bugs, food, birds, food, clean laundry, food, and their food.

 The biggest lesson I learned, too late of course, is that when naked gardening, if you intend to, oh, say trim the rose bush? Make an exception for gloves!

Overall, I call it a successful Naked Gardening day. Now, I'm going to rush out (fully clothed!) and cover my delicate plants before it actually storms, and do the other gardening chores that fall into the clothed category. 

Oh, one final note. I actually filmed a little vid in the hot tub after, just me saying all these things I was writing, but I've chickened out of actually editing it up and posting it. What can I say? I'm a coward!  For those expecting the iris farm post, I'll have it up sometime over the next couple days.

Madness, I Tell You

Purple Iris a/Callas

Spring makes me a little crazy.


I've been thinking of ways to grow things in spaces we don't really use for anything. For example, we spent a goodly amount of the winter looking at different growing vines to plant along the front porch, researching clematis and morning glories and kiwi vine and Trumpet vine...
So what happens? We're at the gardening store, looking at vegetable seeds, and realize that Scarlet Runner beans are the far better solution. Non-permanent, non-invasive, and edible! Edible, of course, being the operative word.  I seeded a whole handful of scarlet runners in front of the porch, and hopefully we'll get nice shade over the railing and some tasty snackage!

I've asked Scott to make me a salad table like the one on the University of Maryland, College of Agriculture, website, with the hopes that we can move it from spot to spot as light changes in the backyard through the year.  We have terrible snail and slug problems, and hopefully by putting it on a table, we can use copper tape around the legs to deter the nasty slimies. 

Squash Bed
(Zuchini, Crookneck & Butter)

If he can't get to it in the next few weeks, I might try another method I learned about on DavesGarden.Com where you cap the ends of gutter pieces, drill drainage holes, and then hang them. I figure I can hang four or five lengths from the fence, and then it's easy to tack up bird-netting over the whole thing to keep the squirrels and birds out.  Or if anyone has any spare used gutter laying around they want to get rid of, message me.  Otherwise,  I can maybe find some at Urban Ore.

Caged Tomatoes
BEWARE 'MATO!

Other nutty ideas I'm toying with include growing potatoes on the driveway in burlap bags, building wooden frames to hang upside-down tomatoes in on the sunny side of the house, and building raised beds in the front yard.  I'm kind of hesitant to de-suburbanize the front, but it can't be any worse than our current shaggy lawned, tree-leave covered landscape, can it?

Garden Grumpies!

Grrr. Wet clay soil. Grrr. Stupid overcast cold days. Grrr, need to plant and my back's not letting me get any work done. The roses have rust and something's eating my baby basil plants. The flower seed I planted to take over when the ranunculus finished didn't take. There's not a single spot of green poking up amidst the dying ranunculus.

It's just not a good week for gardening! Okay, grumping over.

Two weeks ago, I started tearing out the mess that was the bedroom window garden. We still don't know what half of what we tore out of there was. The bulbed thing growing in the corner had probably a hundred and sixty bulbs crammed into a two-foot space. Bulbs were growing down under the concrete lip of the raised bed, squashed so tightly they were almost disk shaped! We still don't know what it was. The sweet broom, which I'm allergic to, came out, as did the tangled and overgrown mat of lambs ear. I have a feeling that the lambs ear is going to be akin to the calla lily catatastrophe. It's never really going to go away.

But now the FUN part starts!

I purchased a beautiful rose at  Evergreen Nursery in San Leandro  this weekend. They're having a 25% off sale through the 23rd. I went looking for Hot Cocoa but fell in love with this Double Delight. It's  probably the most amazing smelling rose I've ever caught scent of! If I can just baby it into settling in, it's going to be spectacular. Of course, after I got it home and started researching, I learned it's very susceptible to black spot.  One day I'll learn that impulse is BAD! (But maybe not quite today...)

Hopefully by mid-summer, I'll be looking out the bedroom window into a glowing bed of red and white gladiolus flanking my sweet and stunning rose bush, with double winky columbine and baby snapdragons poking out here and there! Hey, I can dream, right?

The other good news is that the vegetable garden seems to be doing quite well, what's planted in at least. The peas are loving the cool weather, and the onions and garlic are peeking their tops through the soil. The squash are being a bit slower about things, but I think they're just waiting for sunshine.

Getting Daffy!

My Dad loved daffodils, especially the big yellow trumpet daffodils that burst out with color the moment spring starts to descend.  I remember when I was kid driving up to the old family homestead in the hills and digging up bulbs from the descendants of the daffodils of his childhood. Those flowers are still growing on the family farm today. So, last year, in honor of Fathers Day, I wanted to order a bunch of daffodil bulbs for our new house.

Only one HUGE problem. I'm allergic to yellow pollens. Daffodils?! NOOOOO! CHOP 'EM DOWN AND BURN EM! EVIL FLOWER! EEEEEVILLL!  Then I discovered that there are 25,000 registered cultivars of daffodil!  A little research and some good faith advice from American Daffodil Society members taught me that the 'pink' varieties produce less pollen, and that Division 11 (Split cupped, or 'butterfly')  types tend disperse their pollen more readily than the standard trumpet types.  Hmm. Off to American Meadows I went, and ordered a variety intended to keep blooms coming from early spring to early summer! (I LOVE Americanmeadows.com!)

Paperwhites in December

First bloomers were the Paperwhites that I picked up at Home Depot on a whim when Scott suggested something around the tree in front. For a $6.99 end-of-season buy, these proved to be awesome. They started in December and were still blooming in January.

Tete-A-Tete w/Pickwick Crocus

Second comers were the wee yellow Tete-A-Tetes that I put along the front walk to contrast with the crocus. I was worried about pollen but we had nearly daily rainshowers and those kept it down. These are what spring is all about!

Mountain Dragon?

Mountain Dragon Butterfly are a Biltmore Estates hybrid. They came up fast and strong, starting bloom before the Tete-A-Tetes faded. These flowers were HUGENORMOUS!  At least four inches across! I was afraid I'd have to stake them like a vampire on a moonlit night, but they held up on stems that seem to have the tensile strength of rebar.  I only got eight bulbs, so I hope they perennialize like crazy! Only one problem. I begin to suspect that these aren't Mountain Dragon. They are far more white and yellow than yellow and orange. Shame on American Meadows if they subbed on me!

???????!!!

Then, these.. Uh... Weeeeeelll...  I don't know what these are. I think they were supposed to be Ice Follies, but as you can see, they definately AREN'T.  Not sure what they are.  Barrett Brownings, maybe? Knock out gorgeous, though, and low pollen enough that I was able to put some in a vase in the bedroom!




 I ordered one of those "Mixed Pink" bags: a handful of cultivars that aren't labeled beyond having some kind of pink bloom. Stupid move on my part, since now I don't know what I have. Lesson learned, I guess.

 Mostly they seem to be two varieties, both with a very sweet pale peach color and a scent reminiscent of hyacinths. The big cups (I suspect "Cool Flame"? ) opened yellow and swiftly turned apricot in the sunlight. The double cups are so heavy they needed staking but I'll forgive them.


Last along were my long anticipated Misty Glens. Pale lime color on sturdy solid-textured petals, with faintly darker green in the center of the cups. They aren't low pollen, so they have to stay in the garden, but that's just fine by me.    Like your average goober, I've misplaced my camera but I'll have pics up as soon as I find it!

Overall, I think my daffodils are a happy success!  I know Dad's shaking his head at me for spending so much on a few flowers, and wondering why I didn't just plant old yellow bulbs from the farm. And maybe, just for the sake of having them, I will.

Straw Bale Gardening?

Straw bale gardening just caught my attention! Has anyone tried this? Anyone have any tips?  I ran across the concept by accident, (making me wish all the more that I'd made it to the San Francisco Home & Garden Show this year) but now I'm seriously intrigued!

The idea is that you take a bale of straw, wet it down and let it start to compost, then you plant things in it. 

It sounds dead simple, doesn't it? We have heavy clay soil, and I figure I can do some bale gardening and then just turn it into the soil at the end of the season. After a couple years, we might actually have soil soft enough to dig in. At least, I think? Maybe?  So, I'm calling around for straw bales. I just seeded a new batch of tomato seeds and they're starting to poke their heads up. I figure by the time I cure a bale, they'll be ready to plant.

If anyone knows of a good local straw supply close to San Leandro, please let me know!

Minding the Weather

           This week I was going to sing the praises of my gorgeous bed of ranunculus, but the wicked rainstorms this week did a terrible amount of damage to almost all of my flowers. So, when the world gives you broken flower-stems, what do you do? Fill every vase in the house, of course!

  
In the bedroom, yellow and red ranunculus with a Blue Ribbon Dutch iris
 

In the living room, Calla Lilies and Purple Lady Dutch Iris, and the dining room table vase is full of red clover and a crazy assortment of ranunculus.  Oh, sure.  I know it's poisonous, but if you can't live dangerously from time to time, what's the point, right?

I picked up this small oriental-style vase at a garage sale awhile back. Perfect for filling full of  pink rose mallow with some wild onion blossom for contrast, (Yes, that's part of my Star Trek memorabilia collection there.)

And when you run out of vases, invade the drinkware!  I put pink baby rose in a white wine glass in the office. Scott probably won't think it's very manly, if he even notices it at all... ;) (And yes, that's part of his Hubble images collection.)

The world is slowly drying up and the sun has come out again, and a perusal of the gardens revealed some new gems blossoming, including my Black Night tulips and pale white and blue Dutch iris.  The cats are even out rolling on the dry concrete and the birds are singing! I'm halfway hopeful that the ground will be dry enough by next week to start getting the vegetable garden turned and prepped, but I'm slowly learning not to count my seeds before they germinate.