Becky's MGs and Other Plants Part 11

And ... this creature. (I have lots of big, fat snakes in my yard.) No surprise considering the supply of food with the rat population. LOL!

And oh yeah ... this bird of prey comes visit my yard as well (as seen of it on the bird feeder).

This message was edited Dec 15, 2009 10:37 PM

I just love your three tier garden I am going to make one this spring I have a perfect spot for it and all kinds of 4by4 sitting there not doing anything maybe I will make two and make an arbor between the two wow I love this site

Mona - Thanks! I'm a budget gardener. My dh and I build everything in the yard and have saved a lot of money. Unfortunately, my budget is zero in 2010. I had plans to build a small pergola at the very back of my house using the cattle panels and 4' x 4's as well as other pieces of lumber to do the roof of the pergola. That project is on hold until the economy improves and money isn't so tight.

The 3-tiered bed is 8' x 8' on the bottom, 4' x 4' in the middle and 2' x 2' on the top. I just used 2" x 6" lumber and screwed it together at the corners. :-) The hardest part was filling it with soil, compost, and mulch. Plants were the fun part! :-) I've grow seeds into gorgeous plants in that garden bed, too!

Dear Becky, I have seed packets of Nasturtium Jewel mix and Sweet Pea royal mix. Is now a good time to poke-em in the ground, because they will be OK in the frosty weather? Did the Nasturtium in your garden set seed?

John - My Nasturiums set seed and the seeds are currently growing out. I will often have Nasturiums year-round here unless we get a hard frost. My White Sweet Pea is setting seeds now. I believe that the seeds are cold hardy and could be planted at this time. (You can winter sow a LOT of plants right now, but the warm weather might cause them to sprout. If so you may have to cover them if you get a freezing temps!) This warm weather has most of plants so confused. Even one of my water lotus is trying to send up leaves again. Usually they go dormant at this time of year and don't send up new growth until Spring and longer daylight hours. I hate to think how many plants I might lose if we have too many freezing days in a row.

I did hear that it is supposed to be cool Christmas weekend! Yay!

Hey I will send some cold your way if u send me some warm my way.. brr!

this morning its about minus 15F and I am frozen I hate the cold I will put up with the snow and have to clean it up but when it goes below minus 5 I am done in I cant seem to warm up I hate this I want to be anywhere where it is warm please ship me air mail south somewhere hahahahahahah

well dont worry about the lotus it will sprout again in spring it is almost impossible to kill it
as for seedling coming up yes if they are tender annuals they will be done for but tender perennials can take it and so can the regular perennials, I would not complain about heat right now since it is so cold here I would trade in an instant

Mona.... you and me both!

as soon as the girls are old enough I will be doing like the canada geese and heading south for the winter or at least the smart ones hahahahahha

Debra and Mona - I wish I could send some of this heat your way! LOL! I might be getting some of your colder weather starting tonight. It has been raining all day and the temps have dropped. I think it is supposed to be much cooler this weekend.

Tomorrow is the last day of school for 2 weeks! Yippee!! We are doing the Polar Express activities tomorrow for Pajama Day. Yep! I will be wearing my PJs to work tomorrow. Should be lots of fun! :-) Making cookies and peanut butter fudge tonight. :-)

I am sooooo looking forward to having some time off from work. The holidays are so busy and stressful.

Oh! I keep meaning to tell y'all my good news ... I am going to be a grandma! :-) My oldest son and his wife gave us the news a week ago. (We weren't totally surprised as we had a sneaky suspicion at Thanksgiving and were wondering if they were waiting to tell us the good news at Christmas, but they told us sooner.) You mention the word "baby on the way" at my school and all the wonderful mothers start offering baby stuff for either cheap or free. I have gotten my grandbaby a brand new swing for cheap and was given a beautiful baby bassinet by a co-worker. And I purchased a glider rocker for my son and DIL as a gift from my Mother. She would have been so thrilled and delighted to be a great-grandmother. I so wish she was here to know and enjoy a great-grandchild! She loved children so much and was the best mother! :-) My DIL had a dream about my Mother, too. So ya never know ... My mother probably already knows up there in Heaven. :-) It's gonna take me a little time to get used to being called grandma! LOL! But I am looking forward to it! Baby is due in June right before daddy's birthday. My son said it will be the best birthday present he's ever gotten. :-) They hope to find out the gender in another 2 months. :-)

This message was edited Dec 17, 2009 7:21 PM

congrats, a new baby to spoil that is amazing, I was just telling my daughter that she is getting way to big and she should go back to being my little baby she just smiled and gave me a huge hug, maybe someday I will be a grandma to, my son is already 22 so maybe sooner rather than later

Oh Becky ! I am so thrilled for you, Congratulations to you and your family! Grandma Becky... hehe..


This message was edited Dec 18, 2009 4:49 PM

Congratulation Becky! That is exciting news and that grandbaby is going to be spoiled rotten, as he/she should be by her grandmother. Bless your mom, I am sure she is watching over and smiling.

Becky, You will love being a grandmother. Congrats.

http://www.swallowtailgardenseeds.com/perennials/poppy_assortedper.html

check out this link it has a poppy that grows 4 to 5 feet tall with 8 inch blooms wow I want one right now but will have to wait till summer 2011 to see it since I am starting the seeds this year

Thanks, everyone!! I am excited! I visited them today and my DIL is looking pregnant. She's got a little belly now! :-)

I mentioned to a few co-workers about becoming a grandmother and word got around. I got offers of all kinds of baby stuff. I got a beautiful $100 bassinet for FREE!!! :-) :-) :-) As well as paid $30 for a brand new baby/toddler swing that was also originally $100. And I bought my DIL/son a rocking glider with ottoman from my Mother. I know she would have wanted to purchase something for them, so that is what I got. I know they will get plenty of use from it. I can't go to any store now without stopping to look at baby stuff. Hee, hee ... They loved the items I brought over today. I think they are starting to get excited now. She still has a long time to go before the baby is due.

Mona - WOW! Those poppies are amazing on that website. I wanna grow some ..... :-) Do they take a year from germination to bloom?

all the perennial ones only bloom the second year, but well worth it

Thanks, Mona! That's what I figured.

It's supposed to get down to 39 tonight and a high of 64 tomorrow. I wonder if I need to bring all my potted plants into the garage. Sheesh! That is the ONE thing I dislike about cold weather is protecting my potted plants. Looks like I need to go outside and start moving stuff in. (sigh)

If you can leave on an overhead sprinkler or mist it will prevent frost damage, but then you can end up with soggy cold soil. We were in the 40s last week tat nipped a few pots. Some bahia grass in the open field now has brown tips. Its hard to understand how the air can be 40 degrees, yet ice can form on the surface of roofs and plants.

I did move some of my rarer plants inside to protect them. Everything appears to have survived fine. It didn't get down to freezing, but was certainly bitter cold overnight. It's may be an interesting winter here in my zone. Time will tell ...

May be you need to try that FreezePruf stuff and tell us how well it works. I'm going to buy it next year. It sounds like something for the zone pusher like me. HA!

FreezePruf? What is that?

it's some kind of spray that helps plant tolerance for cold weather. Kind of like antifreeze for plants for us zone pusher in 8a. I haven't tried it but I heard about it last year.

I really push the zone I grow figs in zone 5 and hybiscus, bougainvillia, monrovia, passion vines, babywoodrose, and all kinds of succulents just love the tropicals maybe I should just move far south it would be easier to keep them healthy

me too, mona

I bought a hellaborus and it is in full bloom so pretty will plant it outside in the spring now it is a zone 6 and I am in zone 5 but I have no worries it will be fine on the south east side and with mulch it will do fine

Mona, please post a pic of your Hellaborus when it blooms. I
love the new pink ones with speckles, dots, doubles etc.

I googled FreezePruf: http://www.liquidfence.com/FreezePruf.html

What will they come up with next! LOL! I wonder if that stuff actually works? Anyone tried it?

Well, y'all are gonna laugh ... I am growing veggies. My newest adventure! LOL! I received some seeds several years ago from a DG swap. I lost track of the seeds and just recently found them when I was cleaning out my desk. They are about 2 years old. The tomato seeds are really small, so I figured they probably weren't viable anymore. But someone told to plant them anyway. So I did! And guess what ? You should see all my baby tomato seedlings! LOL! I am germinating them in styrofoam cups on my south bedroom window shelves. And they are actually germinating! Whoo hoo! I also have bush beans, carrots, and even one single scallion plant that has popped up! Still no germination on the watermelon or the eggplant seeds. Maybe they take longer? I have never grown veggies or fruit before. I am kinda excited to try them! The veggies and fruit at Walmart here are awful! Hard and nasty stuff. You'd think living in FL where they grow so much of it, that we'd get some of the good stuff. Apparently not.

Mona and Debra - What is a Hellaborus plant?

Hmmmmmmmm .... yummy!

My dh is baking his butter chocolate chip cookies and I just got a whiff of them. He is taking them in to work tomorrow for all the employees! LOL! He does the peanut butter fudge and the cookies every holiday season. I go shopping for the ingredients! LOL! A good trade-off if you ask me! I shop, he makes and bakes! LOL!

This message was edited Dec 24, 2009 10:14 AM

Yes, I want to know if it does work. Guess I might have to test it myself....

I will take a pic soon today is a little hectic with everyone coming to dinner at my house tonight but it is the one that they sell for xmas so large flowers in white but it is just beautifull

Mona - I just googled that plant name: http://www.flower-gardening-made-easy.com/2005-perennial-plant-of-the-year.html

Is it a vine or a bush or what? Very, very pretty! I like the white and also the speckled bloom cultivars. Striking blooms!

Becky, also called the Christmas Rose that the little girl gave to baby Jesus in the manger. Based on the Legend of the Christmas Rose.
Not a vine. I would consider it a plant more than a bush just because it doesn't get very tall.

a bush grows back from the existing woods this is a perennial plant that will stay ever green like heuchera just a little cleaning up in the spring of the dead leaves and off it goes the one I have is the single white the flowers are much bigger than the double white or the colored ones but the prettiest is the one that open light green then go white then pink and darker till it looks black so when it is in full bloom it has all the colors on the one plant amazing to see

So pretty.

Mona - Those Christmas roses are just stunning! Do they grow from seed or cuttings or runners or roots or what? I have never seen or heard of them before...

Burpee's catalog came the other day. Love looking through that catalog. They have some beautiful photos of their plants! Anyway, I saw their Hellebore which is called the Lenten Rose in their catalog. Beautiful blooms! They were only offering plants, not seeds of Ivory Prince and Kingston Cardinal. :-) Bummer!

I like the Thompson & Morgan catalog too.

they multiply by seed I hand polinated mine and it is making what looks like seeds kinda like a columbine would make, they are for sale now at most supermartkets and home depot they like to stay moist

I like all plant catalogues I get all of them and when one comes in I am so excited hahaha
I just wish I had the money to get everthing I want that is in them

this is what mine looks like