Favorite Annuals?

Willow, I'm guessing Pixie is lusting after a super-duper tradescantia rather than the more common (and hardy) one. She's always a bit over the top *grin*.

^_^

Oh, very funny! I think the purple one is tropical. It's sold under the questionable name of 'Wandering Jew'. But speaking of things sold as annuals that are actually perennials, I grew some wallflowers from seed several years ago and they bloom twice a year for me. I treat them as a woody subshrub, although when they need to be cut back they do take a long time to recover. They are blooming now and their scent is just lovely.

I've got to admit to an "eyes bigger than my stomach" problem with plants the last three or four years.--or maybe it's that my mental ambition has been larger than my property and current energy level can handle. Anyway, add to that last year I was pretty much tied up with family things and the death toll here has been abnormally high and unacceptable. :( The combination had me going to the Green Elephant last year to hand off a whole bunch of otherwise really nice plants just to give them a chance at a life.

I'm on a self-inflicted plant-buying moratorium until I get things squared away here (and my fav plant sale is this weekend-The HPSO sale-waaaaahhh!). It does feel good to lighten the load, actually. As much as I like unusual and interesting plants, I have to accept that my true nature is NOT as a collector. I do not want to be obsessed and worrying about delicate or tender plants at the expense of everything else I want to do. Feeling anxious and overwhelmed takes away one of the things that gives me pleasure-working in it, and enjoying being in my garden and NOT working in it.

Farmington Gardens is a nice nursery-I've gotten some good things there.

I've always liked putting together different containers, too-from wherever I get the starts. It's usually a combination of FM who does have a good selection, bargain shopping and a few special things from "real nurseries". I'm attempting to start all my annuals from seed this year but it may be a dismal failure as a lot of the seeds are a year or two old. Still, I am making the effort.

edited to add:
I forgot to say Kosk, thanks for the compliment! That was a very carefully composed photo though-that back corner doesn't get a lot of careful tending, lol. And, yes, it was huge-some of the leaves were as big as large salad plates.

And as far as your squashes, I was wondering if one of them was Long Is. Cheese-that nice oval shape is kind of distinctive. It's smaller than I thought it would be, though. I'm sure our cool summer contributed to how few you got. Which one was your favorite flavor-wise? For no good reason I'm wanting to grow pumpkin this year-I've got seed for the Long Is and Musquee de Provence and am looking forward to trying them.

This message was edited Apr 10, 2011 12:04 AM

Yeah, those Long Island cheeses should have gotten bigger, but the short growing season last summer just didn't allow it to happen. We still ate them, but had to cut further from the rind b/c it was still green under there. Flavor-wise, I don't find a big difference among the big squashes---the larger the squash the more drainage the flesh will need before or after cooking I've found (more watery). Hence, my favorite eating squash are actually the delicatas. But I don't grow them b/c they are so readily available in the store, and I tend to only grow the more unusual things. Musquee de Provence is GORGEOUS. I just love looking at squashes. So pretty. Every bare spot in my yard will be having a squash or pumpkin growing in it this summer. Kind of excited for my 'Polar Bear' pumpkins.

No answer on my coleus question yet---it probably got lost in all of my banter----do you have to pinch of the flowers/seeds on coleus before you bring it inside (or prevent it from getting there in the first place) to keep it going as a houseplant? Possibly not, I suppose, since it's a perennial plant I believe in it's native land (somewhere in South America, Peru I think?) Kymmco---you have the huge ones in your office, so you may know the answer.

THANKS!!!

I didn't have to pinch mine - but then they didn't actually flower outside. I had them in quite a bit of shade. One at my office is flowering right now though - I'm letting it go. From what I've read letting them flower will retard their growth a bit for a while, but they are perennials so they'll keep on.

I had to move my office up one floor last week, and ended up chopping a good 2 feet off one of the coleus just to get it moved. When I moved it away from the window it was using as a support it could no longer support its own weight.

I've got two cuttings from it already rooted, so I just threw the branches away. It was hard to do though!

Coming into the conversation belatedly: I don't manage to grow very many annual flowers because I'm too preoccupied with annual veggies (broccoli, lettuce, spinach and cukes were all successful last year while squash and tomatoes fared badly). Out of character, I did buy a few annual pretties to put in a planter on my deck, one called 'little bat flower' or something like that. It was orange with little black spots, like eyes on a tiny bat haning upside down. I think I bought it because of the unusual name, and besides it was cute and on a half price sale table. Once I'd bought that I had to get a blue Lobelia and a purple Alyssum to go into the pot with it. They all pumped out the flowers for a long while and it was quite satisfying.

I think your bat flower was a cuphea? They are a favorite annual of mine. I overwintered mine one year, but generally i just buy them. Last year I had a fabulous one that looked like a bright red bat with a purple face. It was very fancy.

Yes, cuphea, that's it. I just found the tag in my plant tags box. It was fun. I put a brown and white flowered Sisyrinchium in that palnter also, which might possibly have made it through the Winter. I tossed a towel over the pot every time we had a freeze in the hope the roots wouldn't freeze solid.

Sisyrinchium is very hardy so you might get lucky.
I have canary vine growing madly in the greenhouse, and also yellow morning glory (which is from Baja, so I'm surprised it's made it so far). I hope these last until the warm weather begins.

Been out with a touch of a bug, had a headache for a couple of days that made screens painful, but better now-and just in time-no rain for TWO DAYS STRAIGHT!!!!!!!

(I'm afraid to officially notice anything else bright and glowing to go along with no rain, just in case, lol)

Kosk, yes, I took one look at the Musquee de Provence and HAD to try to grow it, silly me---I'm the only one here who will even consider eating one...

I really like cuphea, too. I love those mouse/bat ears

Cuphea seems like it needs a lot of water.....it's the one plant I'm starting from seed this year that gets very wilty with even a touch of dryness...? So they look a little horrendous, but I'm hoping they will perk up once planted outside.

For finicky squash eaters----I use most of my squash in The Joy of Cooking's Pumpkin Bread recipe, substituting squash for pumpkin. That is a divinely good recipe---the kids and husband gobble it up. So I freeze the squash after it has been roasted in 1 or 2 cup increments for quick use.

I did cuphea last year! Loved it. Yes, it does look better after it goes in the ground.

ooh, good tip about the cuphea seedlings. I'm starting some also, so I'll be sure to keep an eye on them. I thought I was done with starting stuff but decided to do one more tray anyhow.

That 'Joy" pumpkin bread recipe does look yummy-and I looove pumpkin bread, so that will work well. :) I like the premeasured frozen pumpkin tip, too. We do that with lots of things, it's good to know I can do that with the pumpkin as well.

I've succumbed to starting some grasses from seed again. Susybell, I did get one of those Amethystinas to survive the winter after all. We will see how it does this year.

Pix, sounds good. Um, this is a bit embarrassing. Going through a batch of seeds I found the grass seeds you gave me last spring right before I got pulled away from the garden last year, and discovered you'd given me some of the Amethystiana. . So, I'm trying to start them now, we'll see how it goes. A belated thank you, just in case I forgot last year. :)

Well excellent surprise for you then! I love when that happens!

I did finally get around to roasting the big hubbard squash in the photo last week---it's in my fridge now. Another squash trick for the finicky squash eater I discovered this morning: sneak it into a smoothie. I added about 3/4 of a cup of my roasted squash to the berry, orange, banana, apple smoothies I made this morning for the kids. No complaints. I couldn't taste it actually, and the smoothies were still the desired purple. You could throw frozen squash into a smoothie, too.

Yum! I've been addicted to smoothies lately.. My favorite: kale (lots of it), lime juice, pear, mango, and pineapple. It's beautiful and delicious!

I went to buy annuals for pots this year and they had this petunia:

http://www.theplantpalette.com/Petunia-Supertunia-Pretty-Much-Picasso.aspx

which is fabulous! I bought two. Now I must google to see if I can overwinter petunias. I've never tried it, but these are so special I might try.

I had one of those last year. Gorgeous, but it didn't seem to have the vigor of my other "ordinary" petunias. It got spindly and weak. Maybe it needs more fertilizer than the old cheap ones or possibly the nursery pushed it too fast before I bought it. Have you seen the black/yellow stripey one? That's a stunner too.

Pixy,
I had a basket of those last year. They were very vigorous growers. One thing I thought was that the flower kind of got lost in the foliage and looks small because of the green edge. It was fun to grow because of the new though. Put something with it that will make the green pop. I can't remember what I did.

I also grew the Black velvet,pinstripe and phantom last year. One of each. Picked them up late in the season so they never really got to there full glory. In love the pinstipe and phantom so will be working them into my pots this year. I'm a sucker for new plants.

Yummy sounding smoothie recipe.....good way to use kale!

Here is a pic of my cuphea 'Purple Passion' (started from seed purchased from Baker Creek catalog) that started to bloom for me yesterday. Pretty cute.

Thats so cute. Looks really healthy too! Wish I would have started some cuphea but just ran out of room in the greenhouse.

That's the same cuphea that I started, also from Baker Creek. I bought the seeds last year and I've still gotten very good germination-but mine are substantially behind yours because I planted them really late.

Good to know someone else had better success with the Picasso. I must've just gotten a poor specimen as all my other petunias did substantially better. I'm loving the dark black ones. I've been trying to restrict myself to what I start from seed this year but I think I'm going to have to make an exception.

Well NOW I have to be looking for the other petunias you are mentioning. I don't even generally grow them because the slugs love them and they need a lot of dead heading. I just couldn't resist the color. The tag does say to keep the fertilizer coming.

Nice little cuphea. They are so cute.

Here's pictures, Pix. I saw at least one of them at Freddie's today, 2 for $6. http://www.parksbrothers.com/what-do-you-think-of-the-new-black-petunias/

I agree, I don't like the deadheading, but I do like the scent. It just seems like summer somehow. And, that old fashioned dark purple blue is a wonderful color as well. I like callibrachoa/million bells better as far as deadheading, occasional wintering over, and the size of the flowers.

Got to admit, I wasn't the most diligent with the fertilizer last summer. Last year wasn't a great year overall, really.

So now I have to come up with a combination that goes with black petunias, light purple cuphea, heliotrope.......hmmm

Also, I saw an extremely dramatic dahlia today- Dark Angel 'Dracula'. Really dark foliage, very bright fuchsia blooms...The only picture I've found that's close to the actual colors is this one. http://www.containerdahlias.com/plants_2010.html Maybe some of the other older dahlias are as dark, but this one really stood out in the nursery today.

This message was edited Apr 25, 2011 10:52 PM

This is a start on my pots. Hope the geranium and Millionbells can hang on for warmer weather!!

My first year of wintersowing, I had such great luck with Dwarf Fairy candytuft, Mixed colors. It probably only gets about 9-12 in. tall and it's blooms last a long time and it does reseed itself and it's an annual. The mixed colors were white, light purple/lighter shade of lavender. They are great. I like to buy my seeds from Crosmanseeds.com in Rochester, NY. They offer all the old standby flower seeds at 1950 prices. Last year I ordered 3 times from them. They fill and ship the order the day it is rec'd. I usually get my order within a week or less. No catalogue available. You print off the order form from their website. The shipping cost is kept to a minimum. I highly recommend them. I've got blooms now that I planted last year that reseeded themselves. Will order many pkt. in 2012.

Hi Pippi, I have never heard of dwarf fairy candytuft out here. Do you have a picture?
Glad you dropped in. Welcome!

>> Lobelia seeds ARE tiny. Smallest I've ever used. They make poppy seeds look huge. How do they start as annuals---pretty good??? I love lobelia. I'm only starting 2 types of perennial lobelia---have never tried starting the annuals. I have 20 cardinal lobelia 'Queen Victoria' started---growing really well in 3 and 1/2 pots---pretty maroon foliage! And giant blue lobelia are still in the seedling tray.

This is the first year I've tried starting them, and I think that more seeds germinated than I sowed! I used one heat pad, shared and moved among 4 trays.

I found that Lobelia seed will pass thorugh a 60-mesh screen! Before that, I thought only WATER could pass through holes that small.

I scattered the smallest amount of seed I could manage over a whole 6-pack of 72-cells-per-tray, with very coarse pine bark mix mounded over the plastic dividers. At first, the seedlings looked like moss!

I'm glad they tolerated my coarse, fast-draining seed mix, because my Petunias seemed to hate it. I used to have good germination with 'Tunies in soggy peat mix ... this year, 128 cells with 14 petunia varieties had about 15% germination, and only 1-2% grew past seedling leaves, and those are still pathetic. The algae crusted on that tray after I put it outside looks better than the surviving Petunias!

When I potted them up (the Lobelia, not the petunias or algae) , I broke the 6-pack cells apart and some Lobelia that straddled two cells got lost. I think I still had a few dozen seedlings per hunk.

Since then they've been growing SLOWLY. I'm glad I'm not the only one who found them slow-growing. This was my first year with them.

They look healthy, though some foliage has turned many colors, like dark green or reddish/purple. Several of my Salvias did the same thing at the same time, and I wondered whether I was killing them somehow, or if some varieties just have dark & multi-colored foliage.

I was guessing that the cold spring was what is slowing them down.

I'm using ceasless vigilance (and profanity) to fend off slugs. One slug got into one 1/2 gallon pot one night, and the next morning, all those Lobellia were gone. GRRR! That morning, that SLUG was gone!

Corey

LOL! Corey, let me know what profanity works with slugs. So far, I just put slug bait in every single pot.
I threw handful of mixed annual seeds into the seed bed to see what would come up. so far I have one poppy, and a zillion Nemophila maculata. I like those, so I'll move them somewhere. I guess it's time to plant the sunflowers?

I do a lot of experimentation. The most effective profanity seems to be whatever causes me to THUMP those suckers with my cane. Usually they curl up and die as a result.

I am curious about their abiltiy to mow down any number of Delphinium seedlings, and yet I have very few holes in the BIG Delph that survived to adulthood. Do you think it might have something on on in the leaves, as an adult, that deters them?

My beer-and-bait-and-curse-and-THUMP policy may have reduced the number of slugs by 100X compared to last year, but the number of holes in the adult is at least 1,000X fewer than the number of holes in the less-than-one-year-old plant.

Corey

I believe they love the tender leaves of youth. If I can get my plants past the 'first growth' stage, generally they go for the smaller plants. The best means of control I've found is to bait every week, starting in February. I take December and January off.

>> The best means of control I've found is to bait every week

I think you're right. The bait seems the most effective, followed by beer saucers. But I have to keep doing it, replacing both.

Corey

I'm pretty much in love with these 'Kiss me over the Garden Gate' plants I started from seed this year. This is how they look today.......supposed to eventually get 6 feet tall. I LOVE that they produce flowers already, and will do so all summer. What a cool little self sowing annual.

Willowwind..look on www.crosmanseeds.com website. Click on seed rack category and you'll find a picture of them. Crosman seeds sells their seed pkt. at 1950 prices and their seeds are always fresh..and always germinate for me. I ordered 3 times last year from them, very prompt delivery. They mostly carry what I call "Old standbys or traditional flower seeds." I just direct sowed some more dwarf fairy candytuft this morning. They reseed, plants I had last summer reseeded.Use in front of your border. Probably could use in a patio container too. I should try that sometime.

Are you familiar with Hume Seeds Co? I just found same flower seed on their website..Evidently they are a family owned business that started in 1977 in the PNW area. They have a picture of the seed pkt.
www.humeseeds.com

I wondering if these two companies could be affiliated with each other? One is in Rochester, NY and the other in the PNW area. Hume seeds seemed to be priced a bit higher than Crosman but still in the 1950 price range to me! A lot of these large seed companies have such high prices on their seeds. T&M seeds even when they have a sale is still overpriced to me. And they sock you with high shipping costs. Of course, they offer all the latest introductions,etc.

This message was edited Jun 20, 2011 12:27 PM

This message was edited Jun 20, 2011 12:57 PM

Ed Hume used to be a weatherman on TV years ago on a local station. And he developed the seed company and is still giving talks at nurseries and such. I like old fashsioned flowers best too. I will look-up that website. Thanks.

Tropaeolum minus 'Princess of India' nice and compact with a blue leaf, this one is a volunteer