Those are very nice Blossom. I'm thinking I want to try some of the super duper fancy mums next year. I'm not all that confident they will grow/do well down here, but you don't know if you never give it your best shot. Beautiful evening/late night here. Clear and calm with temps now in the upper 60's. Lovin it.
THE GPS 11 - The Glorified Potting Shed
Thanks!
Mums are heavy feeders.. dont like having their roots wet in the winter.
The ones I had in the old garden were done in rows and we let them get tall and for cutting flowers. They were awesome. And they did well there in the ground because the area was just perfect for it
Here, I have tried them on raised beds, but the soil is too poor to raise them and if I get lazy in fertilizing.. well there goes the mums. They love chicken poo! Then the swamp gets them when the tide is in.. so potting them is about all I can do. Although I am comtemplating now taking them to another location here.. but it wil be a pain to keep them in fertilizer.
I have only one of my babies left from my big collection. Its a bronzy peachy colored mum that gets about 4 foot tall or so and a very late bloomer. I need to take new pix of it and also the Belgeain Yellow ones I got from Leo last year. I had three survivors on those in a raised box of around 40 plants or so whatever I got from him last year. Tjose are just opening so I need new pix and they got really tall. One of the plants I noticed had a stem as thick as my finger.. amazing!
Here is a new rust I got in this year.
Nice. My issue would be trying to get them to grow and survive in our summer for blooming in the fall. May be next to impossible in this climate. Only reason I may try it is because my other FL brother was able to keep one of his mums from last fall alive. He moved it to mostly shade for the summer and it made it through the heat. Thinking about perhaps buying some rooted cuttings from King's Mums (www.kingsmums.com) next spring and giving it a try.
Starting mum cuttings is fun. Kings is a great supplier. There are several out there. You snip, dip and poke in pots or cell flats and whalah!
Myy biggest issue with doing mums too is taking cuttnigs to make those lovely full bushel basket looking plants... seems mine get weird shaped on the pinching.
The ones we had in the garden at the old farm, I would just shear them and they would bloom like mad, but we were not growign them for rounded potted flowers since tose were in rows. But shearing them did benefit them in blooming.
Im with you, you might be too hot, but hey, if you do not try, you have nothing to lose.
I tried bringing some of the mums indoors to the house last year, but the ones I had in pots from last year still have not bloomed either last year or this season.. why I do not know....its been over a year and no blooms on them, but like I said.. no fertilier on them either.. I got lazy. I probably ought to poke them in the ground some where just for grins.
Heres my new buddy.. Sally!
Scary Sally huh!!! I've been reading and it DOES sound like mums can be a bit tricky to grow and get nice blooms on nice plants. Just going to "start small" next year and only try a couple. No major money investment on the project. Getting some fairly good success with Dinnerplate Dahlias this summer/fall has given me a little bit of confidence. They had to be planted in no more than 1/2 day sun here or they would croak.
Now mums do like ful sun though Jon, but perhaps some filtered shading might be your best. Some people use shade nets.
Now that's a good idea. Could grow them inside the pool gate in pots. That screening filters approximately 30% of the sun. Here's a mum I bought on Thursday in a 12" pot. Not sure what variety it is though.
Jon
Just make sure to water water water! And fertilize!
Thats a lovely mum there!
Then you need to pinch... let us know how the pinching goes! Im not to good at shaping mums. But when you pinch you could start newbs! Snip, dip and poke!
I did some straw flwoers, but only had one bloom so far. The gomphrenas I planted also did not do too well, I had expected a bigger show of them. Maybe next year some of the lazy seed I plopped inthat cutting bed will germ.
Will do. I saw some mums with extra large blooms and noticed the grower had pinched two of the three buds on each stem so that the blooms would be larger sized.
I tried planting Strawflower seeds this summer and they didn't do well. They grew and are now producing some buds that will not open. Have a feeling they may not be day length neutral. That would mean I should have started the seeds several months earlier so that initial blooms would be forming during the longest days of the year. Maybe I'll try again next March...or so.
Some of my straws did not even send up a staulk yet.. I doubt if they will bloom either.
Had a great crop of watermelons... these were so huge...had to weigh a ton!
sedum autumn Joys and a proliferation of a daylily...
Nice. My first year Sedum "Autumn Joy" was a scary sight. Even more scary than Halloween. The blooms were a burnt brown.
I remember you saying that. Mine did ok.. just got some in some weedi beds that have some "issues"!
Sometimes ya just cant have your cake and eat it too if yano what I mean.
M m good. Halloween is cool. Saw a big pumpkin patch set up at one of the nurseries down here last week. Not all that common to see in Florida.
Its a Pagan Holiday, but yes, some of the decor is cute and I like the stuff geared more to Thanksgiving. Jacko-lanterns are sweet though!
I had a bunch of lil punkins from our punkin patch from the seed from that monster plant I had last year.. it was a down grade in size from the parents. I will be feedign those "kins" to the chickens and will not save any seed.
We had a nice lil bonfire-cookout a few days back. Hot dogs, beans, ham, smores, watermelon. The fire was toasty!
lil punkins...be about the size of a baseball on up to maybe a softball...the parent was 3 times. I think the chickens will like these!
opened strawflower...this is one of those plants that I would love to see open up on slow video petal by petal! That would be cool!
Nice. The white strawflower buds always appear to be so gray/almost deadlike before they open, don't they? Then they open open and are very very white. A couple of years ago the deer were stealing my parents pumpkins. They would grab them, by the stem, off the top of their wooden fence. Then they would kick them around like a soccer ball or continue to drop them until they smashed open. They haven't done that again in the past year or two....so I've heard.
I usually have to smash the punkins open for the chickens toeat. They love it and the yolks are so orange!
We got deer. Have not seen too many yet. Sqwarrels onthe other hand.. they are here with a vengence. The oaks have been spitting acorns out like you would not beleive. First year in a decade we have had to duck while hiking as they soar through the trees! LOL!
Got a few allysums going.. one was huge,the rest were puny.. go figure.
it is finished.....
Nice. Just a few squirrels here. My neighbor feeds them peanuts and I'm always digging up peanut shells in my flower beds. Lovely.
Got a hard frost today.. dont know if it harmed the loofa or the maters. I hosed them off again.. so far so good. Just wished it warm up again.
LOL It will warm up next spring Blossom. Ouch
50's is still shortsleeve weather, but pants
40's is getting there.. pants and maybe a long sleeve.. depends how hard Im werking!
That remings me, I better go to the GPS and get my lowly snap and bring her in the house.
If I'm working outside its shorts unless its under 60 degrees. Weather is all relative to what you're used to where you live. If we get windchills in the 30's during the winter the national weather service puts out wind chill warnings. Everyone up North would find that very assuming. On the reverse, if we have heat feels like temps of 100-105 in the summer there won't be any heat type of warnings since that's typical weather here.
Better get that snapdragon if shes the only one left. Must be a tough one.
got one more to dig... just not enough time. I come in to take a break.
I hear ya Blossom. The last few days I've been doing "stuff" right up until darkness.
Ha! I been going overboard into the darkness.. days are so dang short already.
As yuno, I moved a lot of pots indoors. With moving indoors I have had some problems..
Right now, its a mouse in the house that decided to hole up in my pots on one of my trishelf plant stands. ITS WAR>
I broke out the sticky pads.. the critter prooceeded to bury the pad with dirt form the pot. ARRRRGH! Stinking Mickey!
So far.. its three down, I think.. two more to go. How they are getting in is beyond me, but thats life on the sand pit. I know whats causing it.. you think peanuts are bad, try a yoyo doing corn.. no less near buildings.. Jeez the mentality, but I will not go there. this keeps up we are gonna have a plague of rats. STUPID PEOPLE. Then the dang critters gotta find refuge indoors....it dint come in in my pots, the beast slithered under a door or someplace as such.
Its the most mice I have ever had. just irks me.
Heres that belgian mum in yellow.. I love this mum. It goes from orange to gold.
M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E. I wouldn't like that in the house. I can deal with the occasional gecko in the house.
Well, gurantee u, its not DISNEY LAND HERE. Oh how I could go off on a rant right now. But I am trying to be a better person and not let evil people get to me.
I will take your geicko in trade.
Disneyland!!!! We don't know nuthin bout Disneyland in FL. We don't use that four letter word after "Disney". Disney World. Ahhh.....much better.
I don't think them rodent feeders are evil. They just don't "get it" Blossom.
I think the geckos bent/broke the tops off of a couple of my "Snowman" Marigolds. They always sit on the tops of the blooms and use them as a launching pad to pounce on insects below.
Oh, them thar rodent feeders here are pure eviel. I would splain y, but, like I said, im trying not to let EVEAL people get on my nerves. 1-2-3-4-5-6....count count...dont want to blow my BPS. Thinking hAPPPPEEE thoughts. Devil, GET THEE BEHIND ME.
Oh yea thats right you is WORLD not LAND... got my states mixed. I was in LAND once.
Loved that haunted house.. whoooo, that was awesome technowlogee! NEVER EVER doingthe coaster again though.. NOPE NOPE! Not my idea of fun.
I want to swim with porpusees one day. Now that to mee is COOL!
That would be fun. My favorite water experience was snorkeling in the coral reefs off of Singer Island by West Palm Beach. It was like snorkeling in a tropical fish tank.
You better step inside the GPS if you're gonna blow your BPS!!!! LOL
You have to take out a second mortgage to go to the theme parks at Disney World these days. A daily pass is $74 for Florida residents and $82 for everyone else.
HOLY C! That much??.. make that a third and fourth mortgage if ya gots kids, jeez, just how does anyone stay alive these days.
Ok, jon, we better get back to gardening.. we dont want the Admins to bounce us again!
(Dang, that BP reading was over the top and usually I am low low and Im talking blood pressure not yuno whoos~!)
Pitter pat. pitter pat.
Speakingof PATTY, whar is she?
Don't go there Blossom. No looking in the rear view mirror. Patty's probably been outside lots lately although I do feel here lurking in the background. I can sense it.
Onward.. forward....no turning back no turning back....over the river and through the woods.. to Patties hollow we go.. HEY PATTY.. crawl out of that punkin and show yerself!
JON, shes not coming out of there, I think shes stuck.
Maybe she's getting a jump start on trick or treating, hunting down Reese's dark chocolate. What are you gonna dress up as for Halloween??? LOL