Northeast Gardening: Garden Projects #12, 0 by bbrookrd

bbrookrd wrote:
Robindog, good idea, I may need to buy a couple of cyclamen for us for the xmas table too as I love them. I love giving plants, so making pots for them is fun for me to do. Hope they like them.

This year I bought for my gifts one called Hippeastrum Princess from A.D.R. Box of 10, size 28/30, DRY SALE $32.50 and most of the bulbs had double noses already showing, so I was very pleased. I normally buy white ones as they go with everything, but I thought this was such a yummy looking color. This one is one of the new Israel grown ones from a Kibbutz Saad-Assaf in southern Israel. http://www.saad-assaf.co.il/index.php

Back in the sixties I spent a few month on an Israel Kibbutz and while there one of my jobs was working in their hot house that grew roses for export to Europe. I was taught to be a rose picker and grader & packer which was an easy and pleasant job, except during a heat wave it could be wicked hot in the green house where you could only work for short periods of time without going outside for a break. I lost 8 lbs one day from sweating. However working in the sorting room was cool with a big walk in to put each batch of roses into as you finished grading them, so the best grades would be fresh when flown to Switzerland in the afternoon. We went to work at 4 in the morning so the sorting would be done by flight time. The Kibbutz only grew 3 colors, a long stemmed red and a yellow and a shorter red sweetheart. They had no scent so it was not overly exciting, but it was a feast for the eyes when you first walked into these huge greenhouses with a mass of color. It was near blinding. So I have a soft spot for Israel grown plants. Last year I gave my friends one from the same Kibbutz called Hippeastrum Athena which was a stunning double white with a green throat. Hope this one is a winner too.

Out to cage our Japanese Maples and anything else that I think the deer will devour this year. I did move a mess of them into the fenced part of the property this fall which I won't have to cage. I am hoping that once the kids planted still on the outside get bigger that the deer will ignore them and I can stop caging them, but that will take a few more years yet. Last spring I took the cages of on May 1 and the deer ate them that night. They killed a couple, and ruined a few very badly. I was not so very happy. So this year I will leave the cages on them well into May. I need to also protect them from of the evil bunnies who tend to like to nibble on their bark too. gggggggggggggggggggg. Beautiful day here. Patti