First Daffodils 2010

Steve,

So wonderful to see the great job you have done on your garden. It's really beautiful and elegant. Please show us more.

And Bea, are things blooming there?

We have had pretty mild weather this winter so all the spring bulbs and blossoming trees are out early.Now if it would only stop raining..I could get out and take more pictures!

Oh, thank you for the gorgeous picture!

All of the daffodils are really lovely. Mine are only afew inches tall for the ones I had here and not even showing growth yet for the new ones I put in this fall.

I never know what any of them are as I am always buying mixes. Even when I buy a bag that is all one kind, I never bother to label them. I just want color in the spring.

Oh, just had to stop in here and soak up some pictures of sunshine and flowers, at least! Love all the daffodils and hyacinths! All I have blooming is a few crocus, and you wouldn't believe the lift those little purple blossoms gave me! Keep it up with the pictures! Spring is on the way!

Angie

Thanks Donna for the nice words - of course I see all the flaws and improvements I need to make! YOU on the other hand keep an immaculate garden! LOL

Here is another view I took this AM before work.

Super nice photos. Especially like the wide shot showing everything in the very last photo. Good to see your "Grand Soleil D'or" made it through the freeze just fine. Here's a photo of my "Grand Soleil D'or" yesterday down here in South Florida.

Jon

Very nice, Jon - I must say that your Grand Soleils look much better than do mine. We have had a rough winter and those as well as my Erlicheers suffered severe freeze burn. They are are still flowering though I am not so sure what bloom will be like next year with the leaves' condition.

I saw these in my side yard blooming all by themselves - I never planted these and not sure how they go here. In an odd spot with less than stellar soil at that.

This message was edited Mar 13, 2010 1:45 PM

I also saw these Muscari all by themselves in that same side yard, under a tree - they bloomed there last year as ell and I did not plant - must have been seeds. I do have some clumps of Muscari in pots near the house on the same side of the house; not sure if they're related.

One even bigger surprise, that I didn't see last year - am I crazy or are these some sort of Anemone? The leaves look a lot like Anemone or Ranunculus leaves. I did not plant and found them out here by themselves, same area as the two pics above.

Some blue and white hyacinths

Nice photos Steve. So many of those things won't grow here since there's no winter dormancy. Have to look for varieties that list Zone 10 as a possibility, so it limits things very much. Not sure about the last photo. I would lean toward Anemone as a guess, based on the bloom. Tried Anemones for the first time this winter and just jammed them into a pot. Here's what the "Monarch de Caen" Anemones are looking like today.

Jon

Steve, do you have any resident moles/voles/squirrels that may have carried the bulbs around? Maybe they were saving them for a mid-afternoon snack later, but forgot where they left them. ^_^ I know mine tend to disappear or migrate a lot in years where the voles are particularly bad. They never seem to eat the daffs, but they sure do move them around!

Jon, gorgeous anemones! I've never seen that variety before. Years ago, in college, I took a trip to France, and visited the old castle at Caen. I remember how impressed I was at the formal gardens that they planted in the sunken area that used to be the moat. I'll have to look for those, just to bring back all the good memories!

Angie

edited to say: Darn, doesn't look like they are hardy in my zone. You ought to submit your picture to PlantFiles, though, Jon. It's a beauty!

This message was edited Mar 13, 2010 8:20 PM

That's true. "Monarch de Caen" is only hardy zones 7-10. I wanted to give flower bulbs a try this past winter. All the things I learned to love up North (crocus, daffodils, hyacinths, tulips...and the list goes on) won't work here. I figured there must be something we can try down here. Found five warmer climate bulbs that I liked. Right now the Anemones, Ranunculus, Sparaxis and Narcissus bulbs are blooming and the Watsonia bulbs are still growing. Very glad I tried all of them.

Jon

Steve, I'm pretty sure that white bloom is Anemone blanda (Grecian Windflower). Sweet surprise!

Jon, have you tried Freesia? With the success you're having with those other bulbs, I'd think Freesia would perform well there too. They're so lovely, and so fragrant too!

I grow anemone blanda White Splendor, and that' definitely it. (It looks particularly smashing surrounding pink and blue hyacinths).

Steve, thank you for the sweet compliment but, oh! if you could see the yard. I'm in the pick up dead leaves/what did the voles damage (almost nothing!)/spray thiram for rabbits/cover dislodged bulbs phase.

Jon, Steve, and Bea, thank goodness for your pics.

I've tried Freesia twice and all I've had is foliage. I think it had more to do with not planting the bulbs at the right time of the year. Planted them in late spring and the foliage rotted at the best when the hot humid weather set in. Perhaps I'll try them again next winter. A planting in late fall would probably increase the chances for success. Took me a good year to learn that spring is not the time start things here unless its something that loves heat and humidity.

You are soooo correct Donna. A white/pink/blue combination of just about anything looks very nice together. Took this photo on Friday of Tecolote Rananculus with "Summer Midnight Blue" Delphiniums in the background.

Jon

I LOVE those Ranunculus! I think you're right about the time of year for planting Freesia, fall would be best for planting- they would probably be in bloom about the time spring bulbs are being sold and planted.

Yes, mid to late fall is the best time to plant most things down here. South Florida gardening is a different bird. I didn't realize, until this winter, that there are a some varieties of perennial Ranunculus you can start from seeds. Stumbled across the "Bloomingdale Series" and the "Mache Series". Planted just a few (10) "Bloomindale Mix" seeds in early January. Didn't want to plant too many in case they didn't make it because they were stated a bit late. Can always try again this coming fall at an earlier date. Here's what they're looking like today. I'm not very skilled at seed starting, but these were relatively simple.

Jon

Those look very nice and healthy! I'd never heard of either of those seed series, just googled them and read up a bit- they both sound awesome. I read that the Bloomingdale series tolerates temps in the mid 20s, sounds like they'll make a gorgeous winter flower there.

wow on the bulb pictures.

I just took a look at my garden today with my garden companion Sarah.... she will be 13 in April and we found some daffodils had grown but since I'm new to them, I rescued them last year from a hotel that was getting bulldozed down and came home put in some bulb food and planted them.

Now I'm thrilled they are coming up.

When or do I feed them again? thanks for any help yall can give me. This is the first thing coming up in the garden which tell me we will for sure go into spring.....LOL some years ya really wonder....

this is a picture of my garden buddie Sarah is the blue merle on the left and her Mother Acacia the tri on the right. My sweet Acacia pasted away last Feb 09.

Janet

Hope so. I'll try many more of both series in the fall in late October when the weather begins to cool. That way they'll have plenty of time to grow in cooler weather. Was never that attracted to them until these "Tecolote" ones bloomed. The blooms look like peonies or roses and the petals are like silk.

Here's the "Tecolote Red" with "Candyman Yellow" Calendulas in the background.

Thanks for the confirmation, Donna, Jon and Neal - I was hoping that is what it was. And I am with Angie in that I love the "deCaen" Anemones - your photo is wonderful. I have not had great luck with windflowers returning (so I thought) as I had tried ones like "Mr Fokker" and "Lord Lieutenant" at my last place which is a double - but maybe the "Blanda" varieties would be better.

Angie, you may be right. I know we have lots of squirrels and my area is woodsy and semi-rural so I am sure there are lots of critters running around.

Donna, I hear you - winter clean-up sucks, but at least the grass up there is usually green pretty much after the snow melts. Here it stays dormant usually until well into April and isn't REALLY green until May! I have St Augustine in most areas though Bermuda (which I hate) has a similar pattern of dormancy. Bermuda gets these tough stringy roots that are next to impossible to completely eradicate from your flower bed and I had that at my prior house - thankfully not here.

Made my side yard look nasty when I got some mulch from the nursery yesterday - took it over to fence gate farthest away from the house in the car as I needed it for my back yard flower bed. Dumped the mulch and figured I'd drive through the yard back to the driveway instead of going back up to the street first - and I got stuck in my own yard and the car sank in mud and my neighbor had to tow me out - and now I have big tire tracks in nmy side yard and also had to wash the car and myself - was not pretty LOL. The soil here is really patchy - dry in some areas and as I found out, wet in others. How embarrassing LOL ^_^

Neal is right - the seed-started Ranunculus look very healthy. Jon, have you found anything that perennializes well down there? You didn't mention how long you've lived in S. Florida.

Those are beautiful dogs, Janet - I am sorry for your loss of Acacia.

Luckliy squirrels are the only pest, on four legs, to deal with down here. They have a knack at digging up seeds the very next day after planting. Very frustrating at times. Sometimes have to start things in pots and then transplant which means more work.

Sorry to hear you got stuck in the yard Steve. Nothing like taking a step backward when trying to accomplish something. I'm sure you have/or will have it all back to normal very quickly. We have the same type of grass here also. Not much choice though.

When it comes to things acting like perennials down here, its hard to generalize. Some perennials do behave as perennials here and some can't make it through the intensity of our summer sun and act as annuals. My best performing true perennials are echinacea, stokesia, daylilies, alstroemeria, rudbeckia. My gaillardia acts more like an annual. On the reverse side there are annuals that act like perennials/short lived perennials here. Gerbera daisies, gazanias, Profusion zinnias, vinca are a few that come to mind. Some of the gerbera daisies have been in the ground for 3 years.

I've lived in South Florida since 1990, but just started gardening in May 2007. Still a relatively new hobby. I would think living in Zone 7b also has its advantages Steve. You can still grow most of the Northern type things and also get involved with many other plants that cannot tolerate long periods of extreme cold?

Yes, those are beautiful dogs Janet. Nice to hear that Sarah likes to hang out and be your friend while you are gardening.

thanks yall.

I'm blown away by all of yall's bulbs.

so do I feed the daffs now? if not when? I've just gave them last year when I planted them bulb food general bulb food.

or is there a good bulb food to give the daffs and most importantly when to feed.

thanks

Janet

Janet, I am sorry about your puppy. I am a great believer that they are always puppies. My german shepard was certainly one when he passed away happily surrounded by his five friends the cats. I was 19 and I still miss him, so it must be difficult with the loss being so fresh.

Blue Merle - unknown to me - what a lovely pair.

Donna

Janet,

I read that you can give them something like Holland Bulb Booster or something comparable in the spring (9-9-6). I sometimes give them a liquid 10-15-10, especially if they have been in the ground a while. Your general bulb food will be just fine.

thanks yall

Janet

Interesting, Jon. Yes, gardening is addictive once you get into it, isn't it? I am from Illinois originally though didn't start getting "serious" about gardening till I bought my first house here in TX in 2001 (I have lived in TX since 1999). I bought a place with a much bigger lot about 15 miles NW of Ft Worth in 2006, and the soil is actually different/much better here than it was at the last place which was this nasty black clay that was hard as a rock during the summer and a sticky gooey mess any other time. I figured out how to make raised beds and amend soil. Fortunately where I live now I do not need to build raised beds but I still bring in premiumj soil to mix with the native stuff and it seems to have been a great solution. Many Texans complain the can't grow things and they usually blame it on the heat but I have discovered it is not the heat at all that is the problem, it's the soil - so if you follow the old addage about a "hundred dollar hole for a ten dollar plant" your results can be dramatically improved.

You are right - we are fortunate here in that we get a sufficient cold period for MOST things that grow in the Midwest to also do well here (tulips are about the only thing I get mixed results on; I do get some return but nothing like what Donna probably gets), but other things and even peonies seem to do really well here.We also usually have it mild enough that many things that are more tender, such as tuberoses, amaryllis, dahlias, cannas, etc will overwinter outside though this year may be an exception for some as we had a really cold (for us) winter. We even have received 16" of snow this winter so it *almost* feels like home, LOL. To be honest there is not a lot of difference between the landscape of, say, Central IL where I am from or IA and that of northern TX, at least not that I ever noticed. When I first came down here I expected "more" of a surprise. ^_^

The heat is bad here in the summer - not so much in terms of temperature itself, as it is almost always in the mid-high 90's for highs in July and August, but in the duration. The Midwest can be just as "hot" but they get regular cold fronts which cool things off and so the heat doesn't stick around as much. Here, a cold front to cool things off is a seldom-happening thing. But, we don't get heat anything like what you see in Phoenix or Las Vegas (thankfully). It can be humid here but I don't think it is as bad as Illinois was. Funny thing is that Houston climactically seems much different than the Dallas area - not as cold in the winter and much muggier in the summer. Even the plants/landscapes are significantly different as Vossner can attest to.

I bet moving from NY state to S. Florida was an even bigger shock/adaptation!!

Steve

when you talk about the changes between dallas and houston you have to remember the ocean plays into houston......

I lived in eastern TX for a while and had family in houston.....

snow at your location I bet the locals were shocked...LOL

Janet

Janet, true, just commenting how a distance of two or three hundres miles seems to make an even more dramatic difference than the 900 miles from here to my hometown! LOL. The people were really nice/friendly in Houston but I have to say the summers are nasty and I could not handle that humidity and heat too well.

We usually get a snow or two each year in the Dallas area. Not unusual to get snow at all - how much we got IS unusual though! I looked it up and we average about 3" annually.

wow guess I didn't remember dallas really ever getting the snow, except once in a blue moon.

Yes for that short of a distance compared like ya say NY-FL it is amazing....

so how did you get started with bulbs? Are bulbs your favorite or do you like perennials and annuals as well. Your yard is beautiful.

Up in northern Ohio a lot of my garden friends in the club are into bulbs but a lot of their they have to dig back up in the fall..... that is too labor intense for me...LOL Give me my perennials and grasses....

Janet

I was in Mobile, Alabama with my husband in February for the Mobile Marathon and it was COLD. We arrived in Pensacola, Florida and it was 40 degrees. I met people from Kansas City who said they felt right at home.

Yes, Steve, tulips rock here. I tend to dig them up but they are still huge, and the ones I miss generally come back very well, especially the species, near species like Greigiis and single lates.

Janet,

Well, to be honest, when I was a kid we lived in Europe for a couple years - due to being transferred with my father's job. We lived in northern Belgium right on the Dutch border and went to school in the Netherlands. As I am sure you can probably guess that was my first exposure to serious bulb-growing and on such a huge scale. I remember seeing crocuses and hyacinths in our yard's garden and loving the look and that hyacinth SMELL - my parents were never really gardeners so I hadn't had much exposure till then, but I became fascinated and decided that whenever I owned my own home I'd grow bulbs. I poked around in the garden we had in Belgium and even dug some of them up to see what they looked like underground.

I saw some on sale at a Home Depot soon after I bought my first house here in TX and those were my first bulbs. The guy there told me everything had to be refrigerated and would not come back (my own experiments found that to be incorrect) and when I found I could get some prerennial return among the daffs and hyacinths I really got enthused and broke out into lilies, gladioli, etc and kept experimenting. The expanded out into other things such as non-bulbous perennials as well as the years went by and here I am, still learning every day and exchanging ideas/learning from other fantastic gardeners such as you all here. I am 46 now and only wish I had started a lot earlier.

Thanks for the nice words BTW. Here is a shot I took yesterday....

And my "work in progress" flower beds in back...

Yes, soil is important. I amended so much garden soil, compost, peat moss, and even potting mix into the first 6 inches of soil when I first started. I'm 12 miles inland and border on the Florida Everglades. The top 6-9 inches of the actual soil is loose and very workable. When you get deeper than 9 inches it's all white sand. Luckily there is good sand mixed into the natural soil for those summer days when it rains like crazy. We average 12" of rain just in June, but it doesn't flood. Most place would be underwater with that kind of rain.

Both oceans (Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic) play a role in our temperatures. It moderates the temps in the summer. The temperature getting over 95 is a rare thing. It has only reached 100 here on two occasions...ever. It is also rare to get below 75 at night during June-Sept. The summer temps are very very consistent and very very humid.

Yes, it takes a couple of years to get used to the summer heat/humidity here. I still don't like it because it lasts for so long. Personally I scale back on things in the summer and let loose from Oct-May. The weather from Oct-Apr is awesome. It's pleasant, humidity is down and its our drier season. What's not to like when you have many months with highs in the 70's and lows in the mid/upper 50s...for the most part. It makes up for the summers.

Here's another flower bulb just beginning to bloom this weekend. They're still pretty short right now. It's Babiana "Fragrant Fusion Mix".

Jon

Nice Steve. LOL Guess we both have some things in common. Lived in The Netherlands, briefly, for part of the year from 1999-2003 until it became too expensive with the declining dollar. Am also 46 years old.