Seedling update

It looks like I'm having better success this year with starting plants from seed. Here are two shots of the first few plants popping their heads above the soil line.

And here's what they look like now (sorry for the vertical image -- iPhone issues).



What a difference! The only ones yet to sprout are the white datura and green nicotiana. I owe my hubby a big thanks for setting up the microirrigation system. Without that, I'm not sure the plant babies would've stood a chance.

Looks like I'll either have up-pot these or transplant them pretty soon here, before they get too big for those little cell packs.

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Lovely spring

We have had one of the loveliest springs that I've ever seen. I guess it's because we had a consistent stretch of consistent cold and then a gradual warming up, rather than the cold/hot/cold that we've had in other years.

The fragrance coming from the orange blossoms has been off the charts. I wish that this picture could be scratch and sniff so that you could smell the flowers firsthand!

All of the flowering trees and shrubs are blooming their hearts out. I just adore this Chionanthus virginicus outside my husband's office.




And now the herbaceous plants are revving up to bloom. Here's one of the soap aloes that we planted last spring along the street.





For those of you living farther north, hang in there -- hopefully spring won't be too far off!

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So far so good

I decided to start some seeds this year. I figured I had little to lose since I already had a bunch of seeds hanging around from my last attempt.

So far they're looking good! I planted them last week and already the zinnias and roselle are popping up.

I think a big help is that my wonderful husband set up a timed microirrigation system to help keep them moist. That's really what I had problems with the last time. The seeds came up on their own, but I think they dried out before I got them planted in the ground.

Who knows--maybe this year I'll break the seed-starting curse!

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Spring!

It's official! Spring has sprung in our yard. So far, the camellias are in bloom...

...and the Japanese magnolia has also mustered a few blossoms, despite the fact that the squirrels have been treating it as an all-you-can-eat buffet.




Best of all, our lawn is still a lush green since my sweet hubby overseeded with rye. It's funny--for once we have a green lawn with brown plants instead of the other way round!




I know most of you are still trapped under a blanket of snow and that spring is still weeks (or months) away. Just think of it this way--you still have oodles of time to look at seed catalogs and plan your garden.

I'm realizing that if I want to start any seeds, I'd better not wait much longer. Maybe I'll try starting some cardoon again since I still have some of those seeds, and definitely some tomatoes. We'll see!

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So much for what I said earlier

New plants and mulch
Originally uploaded by sassycrafter

I know I said I was probably hanging up my garden blogging gloves, but what can I say? Spring sprang and I got the itch that all gardeners do. I figured as long as I had made some solid progress in the yard, I might as well blog about it!

As always, you can click on the photo to make it bigger and see the plants in all of their glory.

Jason and I purchased a bunch of new plants this week. The amazing part is that we got them all in the ground the very night they came home. If you know me, you know that rarely happens. Heck, I still have plants that I paid good money for a year ago sitting in pots in the front yards! And no, they aren't container gardens.

Here's what we bought and planted:
+ soap aloe (Aloe saponaria)
+ fireworks grass (Pennisetum setaceum 'Fireworks')
+ Abyssinian banana (Ensete ventricosum 'Maurelii').

Can I just tell you how excited I am to finally have an ensete in the front yard? I've been lusting after this plant since I first saw it at a Garden Writers Association conference three years ago. I splurged and bought the biggest size I could find so that the plant could get itself nice and big before the freezing temperatures return in December. They're root hardy here, which is good, but the leaves tend to burn back.

If you haven't ever seen the 'Fireworks' fountain grass, you should check it out. It's incredibly colorful. I'm not sure yet if it will survive our winters -- it's supposed to be Zones 9-11 and we're 8b -- but I'm going to give it a try. If it dies, I'll just put in something hardier.

Speaking of ornamental grasses, the bamboo muhly grass that I brought back from GWA is still going strong. Jason and I debated about cutting it back but decided to leave it for now. And the river oats that I bought last year at Plant Delights Nursery are starting to come back, so that's good.

We also a dwarf Cavendish banana in the front yard, courtesy of Tom. Apparently the squirrels in his yard wouldn't stop chowing down on it, so he decided that the only humane thing to do was to give away the plant. Lucky me! I guess his other option would be to shoot the squirrels, but that's probably less humane.

And I can't get over how nice it all looked once we added a "mulch veneer," as our friend Erin calls it. We spent $30 and got eight bales of pine straw. They just barely covered all of the crappy looking mulch that we got for free from the power company. Not a bad use of resources, if you ask me.

In the backyard, we planted the grow box with two 'Sweet Million' cherry tomato plants and also planted two jalapeno peppers in containers. And I finally got the fig tree in the ground after a year and a half. Yes, it's true. I'm hard on plants. Jason says I'm just "trialing" them to make sure they're hardy before I spend the time to put them in the ground.

We still have a lot to do, though. We need to remove the azaleas under the front windows completely -- we cut them back last year, but that's as far as we got. We need to remove the stumps along the south edge of the property where we cut out the overgrown holly bushes and viburnum (yuck). That's where I'm planning to finally plant those yuccas, but I don't want to put them in until the stumps are gone.

At any rate, it's been a busy gardening season so far. Who knows -- maybe it will be a good season for blogging too.

Oodles of camellias

Camellia
Originally uploaded by sassycrafter

My friend Dave knows that I dig gardening and sent me a text message to let me know that his camellia bushes were in bloom and suggested that I stop by to see them.

I stopped in after work today and was blown away. Dave must have close to 150 different camellia bushes tucked into his yard!

They were all there when he bought the house in the early 1990s. Apparently the house used to belong to Bill and Birdie Carroll (sp?). Dave says that Bill was a horticulture professor at UF, which explains all of the camellias.

At any rate, the place was just amazing. Dave let me take several blooms home, and I took a few photos of other ones around the yard.

Here are some close-up shots of the ones I took home, moving clockwise around the photo above. I don't know the cultivar names for any of them (sorry). You can click on each photo to see it bigger.

This one was cool because the variegation was so smooth--like when you work wet-on-wet with watercolors.



This one was jam-packed full of petals. At first I thought it was a cluster of several flowers, but it really is just one flower.



I think this one was my absolute favorite. It reminded me of a candy cane.



Here's another beautiful variegated variety.



And here's a deeper pink variegated variety.



I also took some photos while we were walking around his yard, though they're not that great. I took them with my phone and the light was fading, neither of which makes for great photos.

Here's another candy cane one.



And look at this one! It had red stamens! I've never seen anything like this before on a camellia.



I couldn't get over how uniformly the petals aligned on this one.



And here's one last vignette. Dave floats the blooms that fall to the ground in his birdbath, changing out the colors and styles of blooms as he sees fit.

Getting ready for mulch

Getting ready for mulch, step 2
Originally uploaded by sassycrafter

I finally got all of my major plants in the ground in my back landscape bed and my spring bulbs have also popped up, so it's time for mulch.

Mulch is important in the Florida garden because it helps conserve moisture and keep weeds to a minimum.

I decided to lay a thick layer of newspaper underneath the mulch for extra help supressing weeds. The brown stuff you see on the newspaper is composted cow manure, as suggested by The Wicked Gardener -- it helps make the newspaper less noticeable if it peeks through the mulch, and it adds nutrients for the plants to use.

I'll post a photo once I get the rest of the bed mulched (I ran out of time and supplies).

Crispy lemon

Crispy flowers
Originally uploaded by sassycrafter

Bummer. My variegated lemon got fried in this week's cold snap.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I was out of town in Washington, D.C. When I watched the national weather on Tuesday morning I found out that the temperature in Tallhassee was 29 while it was 34 where I was in D.C. Gulp. I figured this was probably not good news for all the tender tropicals poking their heads up in my yard.

I spoke with a friend later in the afternoon who said that everything in his yard was fine. "Whew!" I thought to myself. I dodged that bullet.

But this morning proved me wrong. I was walking around the yard checking for damage. All the tender tropicals made it through, even though they're just tiny little plants trying to get established right now. Heck, even the Thailand Giant Colocasia that I planted just before I left town made it!

I discovered my little variegated lemon tree, which was a gift from a co-worker, all shrivelled up and crispy looking on my patio. Even the flowers were crunchy, which was double dissapointing since I had been looking forward to smelling them bloom and then to eating the fruit.

The interesting thing is that the lemon was right next to a pot of young banana plants, which made it through just fine. Maybe the orange was drier and thus more susceptible to frost/freeze damage? Maybe it got hit with the morning sun before the banana did and that's why it got crispy?

Oh well. The trunk seems to be okay, so I'm guessing the plant will drop its leaves and put out a new flush. In the long run, all will probably be fine.

And for those of you hankering for photos of traditional spring flowers (cherry blossoms, hyacinth, tulips, etc), stay tuned. I'll be posting some photos from my D.C. trip soon.
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Update: So upon further inspection, I think the lemon might have succumbed to drought, not freeze. I forgot to water it before I left for D.C. and my best guess is that it dried out. I'm watering it now to see if it might come back. We'll see.

Nature vs. nature

crocus
Originally uploaded by sassycrafter

The squirrels are doing their best to curtail the bulb display in my sister's yard in the Washington, D.C., area.

I've been visiting with my sister and her husband over the holiday weekend. We did some yard work since the weather was so nice and noticed that several of the bulbs, like this crocus, seemed to have exploded. The leaves are still there but the flowers have been scattered about.

We also saw a number of small holes in the ground, but didn't know what was causing them. Until later.

Then we saw the ultimate taunt. Not only have the squirrels been eating the flowers, they're also uprooting the bulbs entirely and leaving them on the railing of the deck, as if to say, "You can plant all the pretty bulbs you want but we're just going to rip them out of the ground and treat them as edible delicacies." Damn squirrels.

And poor crocuses! I'll bet they were initially happy to be planted so lovingly in my sister's yard, thinking that they'd be destined for a life of suburban bliss. But no, not if the squirrels have anything to say about it. I guess this is a case of nature versus nature, with the squirrels ahead 1-0.

Bees and Bidens

bees and bidens
Originally uploaded by sassycrafter

Of all the things growing in my yard, Bidens alba is probably my least favorite.

The flowers aren't bad, but once the plant is done blooming it produces these sticky little seed pods, hence the name "common beggar's tick." I typically try to pull these out before they go to flower and set seed, but sometimes the plants get ahead of me.

Today I was lounging on my back patio working on a story I'm writing when I noticed that my pesky Bidens were attracting a number of honey bees.

As you may know, honey bees have been facing a number of challenges as of late, including colony collapse disorder.

Needless to say, I was encouraged to see so many of them flitting from flower to flower in my yard. It made me think that maybe I should leave the Bidens be, so as to provide a good food source for the bees. (Not to mention that this idea appeals to the lazy gardener in me.)

Apparently, one creature's weed is another creature's breakfast!

pollen

pollen
Originally uploaded by sassycrafter

Ugh. We have even more pollen floating around in the air. This time I think it's the oak trees that are the culprits. Many of us at the office have been experiencing symptoms -- post-nasal drip, sore throats, and congested sinuses.

I snapped this picture as we were heading to lunch today. We had experienced a light rain, and apparently it swept all the pollen from the parking lot into the gutter. Can you believe how thick it is? Sheesh.

Beach sunflower

Beach sunflower
Originally uploaded by sassycrafter

So we're not at the beach, but the garden in front of our office does boast a nice patch of beach sunflower, aka Helianthus debilis. This is the first one to show its cheery face this spring, so I thought I'd capture it for all of you who are still suffering under a blanket of snow.

A few weeks back, I transplanted a few seedlings from this patch to my own garden. They weren't looking so hot at first. Of course, this might be because I just yanked them out of the ground like a common weed and then threw them into my sandy, unenriched soil. But hey, anyone who knows my gardening style knows it's all about tough love. At any rate, the transplants finally stopped wilting and look like they're going to make it. I'll blog about them once they start blooming.

Canna!

Canna peeking through the soil
Originally uploaded by sassycrafter

My first canna of the season is popping its little head above the surface of the soil. I planted this 'Wyoming' canna on February 17, if memory serves me correctly. We've had two cold snaps since then, but they don't seem to have hindered this little guy's debut into the world.

The 'Wyoming' cannas have striking bronze/burgundy foliage and produce bright orange flowers -- a perfect look for a bold garden!

I also planted some 'Bengal Tiger' canna rhizomes (variegated yellow-green leaves and red flowers, also called 'Pretoria'), three Scadoxus multiflora corms (fabulous red globular flowers), three crinum bulbs (classic pale pink flowers), and some white/green caladiums.

All are in the ground, and so far the cannas and the scadoxus are the only ones popping up. I bought them all at my local Home Depot, but you can also get them through online retailers like Brent and Becky's Bulbs.

By the way, the purple rod you see to the right of the canna is a knitting needle. Since I'm planning to add more plants to the bed, I wanted to make sure that I'd know where I had planted the rhizomes so that I could avoid disturbing them if they were slow to pop up. I have a bunch of old knitting needles on hand, so I figured they'd work great. I was even able to color-code them -- the 'Wyoming' got a purplish-colored needle since it has somewhat purple foliage. If you don't have extra knitting needles at your house, you could also use skewers used for making shish kebabs. They're cheap and readily available at the supermarket.

Drive-by shooting

tabebuia in my neighborhood
Originally uploaded by sassycrafter

I was on my way to work this morning, zoning out while driving down the same road I always take to work and then, BAM! Where did that come from?

All of a sudden there was a tree I'd never noticed before in bloom with these striking yellow flowers. Being the plant geek that I am, I had to turn around and take a picture.

I'm pretty sure this tree is in the genus Tabebuia, though I'm not sure of the species (maybe T. aurea, which used to be T. caraiba). These trees are native to areas further south, and it's somewhat unusual to see them this far north (though we do have several other specimens here in Gainesville).

At any rate, I just wanted to share this ray of sunshine with everyone, even if the sky in the back of the photo looks a bit gray.

Camellias from my garden

camellias from my garden
Originally uploaded by sassycrafter

We were expecting another freeze tonight so I thought I'd clip some camellias, lest they get zapped in the freeze. Thankfully, the freeze didn't end up damaging any plants in my yard.

My camellias aren't show quality -- some are a little raggedy on the edges -- but I still enjoy them. I figure they look pretty good considering that I really don't do anything to take care of the bushes, just a little pruning every now and then.

I've never been big on fertilizing, even though from a biology standpoint I know that plants need certain nutrients to thrive. Part of me was worried about not knowing how much to apply and contributing to groundwater pollution, i.e. how to fertilize appropriately. I'm thinking about using some controlled-release fertilizer that's good for acid-loving plants. The plants would probably appreciate it. As long as I choose a controlled-release formula and apply the right amount, I shouldn't be causing any excess leaching of the fertilizer into the groundwater.

A co-worker saw the camellias on my desk and suggested I try air layering to produce more plants. It would be cool to have new camellia plants to share with my gardening friends, but I'm not sure I've got the stamina for the air-layering process.

Spring has sprung

Magnolia soulangiana in my yard
Originally uploaded by sassycrafter

The Magnolia soulangiana in my yard started blooming last week. It's typically the first thing in my yard to flower, followed by the camellias and azaleas. I'll see if I can't get some shots of them soon. I've also seen a few redbuds beginning to open around town. Apparently, spring is here.

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Okay, I captured a few more shots before work this morning. The first four were taken in my yard. Well, the white camellias were in the kitchen, but they were growing in the yard before I snipped them and made the into a bouquet. The picture of the redbud tree is from a yard I drive by on my way to work.