Northeast Gardening: Daily Musings * Page 10, 1 by gardenmart

gardenmart wrote:
Well, flower show season is officially over. I helped close down the Boston show tonight. It's a great night to be there since a lot of good plant material gets tossed. I picked up 7 pots of sweet alyssum and 8 pots of
Bellis perennis or English Daisy from an exhibit that was busily tossing them in a dumpster. They are forced annuals that formed a carpet for their display and they couldn't keep them. I also got a giant snapdragon from them. Now my challenge is to keep as much of it alive as I can for the next 4 weeks or so until they can go out in the garden. We get all kinds of stuff like cuttings from the flower designers. This year I got a spray of phaleonopsis orchids. check out my pictures. Here's the spray of orchids my friend gave me as a gift.

As the owner of 12 oak trees, I can speak to composting the leaves. I use the whole leaves as mulch in certain places and compost others. Use a vac and mulch to break them down or your lawn mower. They will compost more readily the smaller pieces that you have. I have used them for compost for over 20 years and have never put a bag of leaves out for the trash. I also probably have some under my deck that are more than 10 years old! {lol}

My little terrarium is in one of the pictures to follow.
Martha