Well, now....I gots me some seedlings showing in the garden. Very nice to see.

 

Since I re-potted my aloe plant and potted my miniature English Ivy cuttings, I have 22 plants to give away. And that's AFTER already giving away 5. Hopefully I'll be able to find some good homes for them at work on Monday.

 

I hear ya - myself, I set out the rest of the Colorado Blue Spruce seedlings I got online in pots today.

It will be a year or two before they reach a height that makes them valuable to the point where I can expect the return on my investment that I predicted. I haven't looked recently - but landscapers generally get over $75 ea. for 8 to 10 foot Blue Spruces. They are currently only a foot above ground, and came from a nursery in Pennsylvania. The price? $10.99 per dozen, I got 24 of them and several are going in to form a windbreak and privacy line on the west side of my place which will account for ten of them.

14 @ $75 to $100 apiece ought to be a nice windfall for the not so far future - and I think I want a bunch more. Quite possibly two or three dozen every year from now on. It makes for a nice hobby/investment and they require little or no special care.

They can also be "BALLED IN BURLAP" with twine, so the initial outlay is very minor. I suggest for anyone who has the space if you want to cast a few gold pieces into the wind and see what comes back that this is an excellent way to pick up a few duckets on the side...

There are lots of online sources for seedlings like this, I got the ones I have from excitinggardens.com.

* I would avoid getting plain seeds though - these are only just at the jumping off point and should grow fast from here on out - but they were advertised as 3-year olds, so time is a considerable factor

IMO they are just about the most beautiful of all pine trees, reaching dimensions of 20' wide by 50' tall


http://www.excitinggardens.com/

~Specific page link in online catalog:
http://www.excitinggardens.com/detai...d=6208&nav=tre



*above image is from that catalog

 

MY CANTERBURY BELLS finally began to bloom today!

~I have been trying to successfully grow these since sometime back in the seventies, and never really had the chance or the place to keep them long enough to see this...

I want to wait until they have more buds open, and then I'll have a pic to post. They are a notably difficult one. It's a biennial, in the sence that they have to go through at least one winter frost before they will flower at all - so going in the door it will be two years easily before the results come


I can tell you right now though, they are an amazing display indeed, and it was well worth the effort!

I have only five surviving plants, but hopefully now they will take over that entire area of the garden

 

I'd love to see some pics of those flowers. My Hawthorn Tree and Citronella plant are blooming for the first time this year. Patience is hard sometimes...

 

Thirty years - just to see these. Imagine it...



Funny, I recall different colours of them too, the original seed packet from way back then had them shown as light blue, I've seen them pictured as light pink or rose as well

At the base of the ornamental black thing on the left I have some Coltsfoot growing at the bottom (new project)

Can you figure now why I was fascinated by them?
They form almost shooting stalks of brightly colored "BELLS" of papery thin flower substance, too delicate almost - but so BIG!

The bell of the flower is at least an inch diameter, with petals at the bottoms that go two inches wider

~I see that the bees have been at them too, so hopefully they will be far from the last...

The ornamental black things are about belly-button tall, for reference and I see that the one next to the left one is that high, but not bloomed quite so far. They haven't really yet begun to decorate themselves.

It speaks a lot, I think, about what it may sometimes take to transplant things from completely elsewhere...

They were hatched indoors, taken out so they could go find their first "HARD FROST", and then placed in a sheltered area safe from the wind and driving rains we often have here.



These are now one and a half years old

BIENNIALS are difficult, you must set yourself towards what is called "De-fered Gratification"

- not that it will stop me from growing Asparagus


CHEERFUL, AREN'T THEY?

 

Those are BEAUTIFUL! Good job!

I've just picked some more cucumbers and noticed I have little peppers on most of the plants.

 

Lucky you - I have not done anything about food plants yet this year - thinking instead that I want to do a lot of digging and cutting to for once set up the raised beds I always wanted to have.

I've got two tomato plants of the kind I did last year, and that's about all at this point

*One of the ways I go about a thing like the above if it is brand new around the place, is to bury a two-quart pot with good soil in the ground with the seed or sprout in it so that it can easily be taken up if it has to move or come indoors for any reason. It helps keep them watered at the same level as all the other plants around them, so no special treatment or watering is necessary. At the same time, they are easy to identify later on

Most people will put a potted plant above ground - and I think that is a mistake, creating more work or need for attention than there should be... I just grab the nearest shovel and set them down at the same level so that ground water will help (POT AND ALL). If you have ever forgotten to water a special plant, or gone away for a few days - this helps more than I can say

Stick 'em in holes!!!


* I think of that end of the garden as the U.K. area. Both Canterbury Bells and Coltsfoot are from Great Britain

*I must spread some more reputation around before giving same to macgiobuin again, else you'd have gotten some

 

I tried to grow some Tennesse Blue Bells a few years back...they are supposed to e endangered and a lady was giving them FREE to anyone who wanted to help propagate some. ABYSMAL failure on my end. Could have been the seeds, but not ONE seed sprouted.
After seeing yours, I wish I had been successful.

On the plus side, my lilies are doing quite well this year.

 

Is there a web address for them?

I'd take up a cause like that anywhere I have space!

A point of advice on anything that has very small seeds - they are best broadcast in an area where they can be found later and forgotten until results are obvious. Otherwise - I have noticed that I dither and fuss with them until they are ruined by my own messing with them

 

I have very little ability in growing things, but Sissy has great successes, so when we arrive in TN, she will be planting things happily.

 

Wolf....I'll see if I can find the address. It was several years back, and I generally destroy all traces of my failures

Theo.....glad to hear that there are some more gardeners coming to TN. Maybe Wolf will send you some of his excellent pepper seeds.

Wolf (again)...did those fennel seeds sprout for you? And did I send you some of the Columbine seeds?

 

If you recall the truck tires I grow lettuce in; I have cut out the sidewalls this year to open up the tops a lot more. Three quarters of one of them is now fennel, averaging about a foot tall

Columbines? Sounds familiar...

 

I don't know if there are pictures of the Celosia that I grew last year - there must be I'm sure!

Anyway - as I had hoped, it dropped a huge number of seeds when I scattered the cuttings at the end of last season far and wide... AND LET THEM ALL DRY WHERE THEY FELL.

They dropped thousands (maybe millions) of tiny little seeds a long way down along the roadside! Now all I need do is encourage them a little bit.Here we go - multi-colored Celosia


It was not supposed to get near that tall. They were five or six foot average, and were only 24 inch tall plants according to the seed packs

 

That looks like a nice garden! Wolf, I can't find the address for the blue bell seeds. I'll still look, but I'm not hopeful.

My feverfew and sweet marjoram are blooming. But more importantly, my peaches and apricots are nearly ripe....gotta keep a watch on 'em or the squirrels will ****** every last one of them. Probably will harvest the peaches (only 20 or so off of a small tree----enough for a couple pies, I'll wager) this week. Next week, the apricots should be ready. I'll can about half and make apricot butter out of the other half. Probably going to be a busy weekend a couple weeks from now.