Coffee break 99

Congrats, Celeste! That's great news!

We moved from our sweet house in FL today after a few tears and then a couple hours of driving both cars in heavy rain. We reached our hotel and crashed for 2 hours. We are heading for the N C shore for two months. The happy news is that we found a good rental house for January to April next winter ten minutes from the beaches and twelve minutes from our neighbors. Just tired right now. Tomorrow is a new day!

Hope all will be well in NC

Wow....very tiring, moving & driving! Glad you found the rental for next winter......We are waiting for the lawyers to give us a closing date for Mom's house....should be soon.....

Safe trip to NC. Glad you didn't get caught up in the snow snafu while heading north. I realize that you will once again get to enjoy a spring bulb show in NC. But assume you will miss the Red Sox spring training. Pstti

Safe journey, dear!!! Glad to hear about finding a rental for next winter. Enjoy your time in NC doing your research. Looking forward to hearing about it.

RD, praying the closing is sooner than imagined.

Babysitting down in Annapolis tonight. Pizza and movie night. Woohoo!

Two cute little baby cheeks to squoosh, Celeste!! Priceless

Have fun, Jan! Yes, I'm praying, too!

Thanks, Lucy! We are already enjoying being happy renters and not owners of this nice little home. We can hear the waves of the ocean in the distance, and we can see the Inland Waterway from the kitchen and sunroom. We are less than a mile from the beach, but in a lovely neighborhood with great areas for walking.

That sounds like fun, Jan!

Marilyn, I'm hoping our closing and your Mom's go smoothly! I know you share looking forward to fewer things to worry about once the home sells. As much as we loved our 19 years in Florida, I am really happy to have one less house with all the arrangements and responsibilities it brought.

Soooooo, are you all still madly ordering thousands of new babies from all the catalogs? I just love thinking about feeling up to gardening again.

Yes, Patti, spring will be gorgeous with all the bulbs and azaleas, but we will miss our red Sox outings for this year. Next year though......😊.

Happy Groundhog Day!

Glad you have settled in to your new digs and are enjoying life.

Had a great time with the girlies. Wil have them again in a few weeks, but this time at my house and for the whole weekend. Planning to go to a teahouse for a tea party. Need to check out the place and make sure it is a viable choice before I make any promises.

Sounds like a lovely area, Louise.......I love being near the water......I've picked out a few lilies to order, but the gardens are pretty full......Terrible Superbowl game, not any kind of a contest....loved a lot of the commercials, especially the ones with the animals......A trip to a teahouse sounds like fun, Jan.....

This message was edited Feb 2, 2014 10:26 PM

I am not sure of spaces for the irises. I can't believe that I was able to cut back on SDBs last year. I have to count spaces--not able to as yet with more snow coming.

I really won't know what I need until the plants start growing......I feel I've lost a bunch to the nights that were minus 10........

The snow might have kept plants safe. Not sure about shrubs.

Hope you're enjoying your trip Louise!
I have not even picked up a gardening catalog yet, but I also ran out of room for anything new.
I'm a little late with baby pictures, here is Leah from Christmas and yesterday. Not sure I can call her a baby anymore.

Leah is quite a charmer!

Deb gorgeous doesn't do her justice...what a face!!

Cutie pie! Isn't it amazing how fast they grow up?!!!

Certainly she is not a baby & would probably hate being called one. A busy little person.

Leah is such a pretty girl, Deb! I remember when she was born, so tiny & fighting for her life......

I know, hard to remember these

That's just like my kids looked when they were in the intensive care unit. While they were growing up I had to keep reminding myself that their physical and mental abilities would catch up with the other kids eventually, and they did.

Lovely photos.

My oldest granddaughter was 4-5 weeks premature......she had a tough first year with pneumonia as well......she will turn 9 in a few weeks, & is at the top of her class, loves sports.......you never know! Glad we have some happy stories.......

close to a foot of snow here so worked from home - ordered a bunch on JM's and more dwarf conifers - expensive day

Where did you get your conifers? I am getting a conifer bug after seeing yours, but can only plant a few that the deer won't eat.

Snow, we got lots up in Vt and it is still snowing. Haven't measured but more than a foot for sure. Stayed home and spent the day on house projects. I didn't have time to look at any plant information, but maybe tomorrow I will if the roads are still bad as I don't drive well in the stuff. But DH is going skiing no matter as the conditions should be divine.

I'd like to hear where Bill got his conifers too. My order is already in at Kigi's Nursery mail order because they had everything I wanted on my conifer list and they were the least expensive--small plants available there although they do sell larger ones. Never ordered from them before.

Ordering helped to handle the weather here also--finished perennials from Bluestone--10% code is F4HEPA645 but it expires today. From Rarefind I ordered a male ilex opaca and i.o. 'Stewards Silver Crown' figuring there must be space for a few more American hollies. In a few years there ought to be holly branches for decorating, and having some variegated ones would be nice.

Rarefind hasn't replied as to whether their Red Dragon Corylus is grafted or not, and life is too short to spend it chopping off suckers. Klehm's mail order plants are great but maybe a bit smaller. I do feel some loyalty to their nursery since I used to visit to gawk at their plants when I was college aged and had only coffee mugs for pots to grow in the dorm window.

How close do plants need to be for pollination? Actually blueberries.
I wanted to get hollies before but the nursery only had female plants. They asked if there were any in the neighborhood.

Seems I've heard a hundred yards could work for ilex opaca, but preferably something more like 30 feet would be better. The ratio I read was one male per five females to insure pollination and a decent amount of berries. I try to keep most of my pollinators in one area so I'll never forget them and pull them out because they're not so pretty.

Have not ordered anything, but marked up one of my 2 iris catalogs so I can do so later. Only the 'historic' irises have to be ordered early, because they will sell out.

Sigh....I didn't order anything...I baked. I should of ordered!

Not ordering anything here, either. Living vicariously through all of you. Still have a few things toplant from the swap last spring. Waiting to see how things fill in before adding any more. hehehe

Got home from the colonoscopy a little while ago. Made some scrambled eggs and had a little yogurt. Now to sleep for a bit. One of the instructions was not to go shopping online. Hehehe

Ok I'll tell mine if Rosemary tells me her's - Patti I worked with Diana on some of these as she had orders into wholesalers that she added mine picks too, we spent about an hour on the phone looking at websites together. Conifer Kingdom
Picea Abies Soft Mountain
Abies Koreana Kristallkugel
Abies Koreana Kohouts Ice Breaker
Abies Veitchii Rumburk

From Klehms
Juniperous Hor. Gold Strike
sciadopitys vert. Mitsch Select (Japanese umbrella pine)
Cham obtuse Ellie B.

Also ordered another 10 Japanese maples with a couple more to add - most are dwarfs. Had a list of 40ish that I would have liked - more lawn will be removed this spring...........

This message was edited Feb 6, 2014 7:59 PM

Of course it will, wha!!!! Heehee You are truly an inspiration!!!

Bill is going to have to sell tickets to his Japanese gardens! It is and will be a showcase.

From Kigis I bought about a dozen babies: Abies alba Pectinana Compacta (Dwarf Silver Fir); Abies concolor Glauca Compacta (Dwarf White Fir); Abies koreana 'silver Show' (Dwarf Korean Fir); Cedrus deodara 'Snow Sprite' (White Tipped Himalayan Cedar); Cedrus libani 'Beacon Hill' (Dwarf Cedar of Lebanon); Chamaecyparis nootkatensis 'Van Den Aker' (Narrow Alaskan Cedar);Picea abies 'Little Gem' (Dwarf Norway Spruce); Picea englmannii 'Bushs Lace' (Weeping Englemann Spruce); Picea pungens 'Glauca Baby Blue Eyes' (Dwarf blue Spruce); Pinus cembra 'Tip top' (Dwarf Columnar Swiss Stone Pine) Pinus densiflora 'Burke's Red Variegated' (Japanese Red Pine); Pinus parviflora 'Gimborn's Ideal' (Narrow Dwarf Japanese White Pine). These are little tiny 1 year old plants, for various locations from full sun to shade and most of them are going to mature as pretty small dwarves. A few will probably winter over in pots.

Several on Bill's list appeal to me alot too. I have concluded I am unable to grow any umbrella pines because my soil can't be amended well enough, and I even tried Mitches Select one year. I also hope none of the ones I got will support cedar apple rust, so no red cedars or arborvitae either for good measure.




This message was edited Feb 7, 2014 8:07 AM

Awesome lists......wish I had the room, the money, & the inspiration to plant more of the lawn, but I'm 20 years too late! I will live through all of your wonderful photos......

nice list there Rosemary - I have a couple of them - little gem was a casualty here, will have to look into the soil requirements for mitches to make sure it lives.

There are enough trees here so we don't plant more. This was old conservation land & trees & shrubs had planted themselves. We did put in a cornelian cherry (member of the dogwood family) & a Tulip poplar years ago. the last one is probably too near the house. It has lost its top at one point, they are a brittle tree, but grew a new one.

When I was growing up, there was a Cornelian cherry outside my bedroom window...brings back memories.....

I would be thrilled to have healthy, long lived trees, but many of mine are doomed for one reason or another. I planted evergreens in the front yard twenty five years ago, so it is nice to enjoy them and know I want more varieties.

Trees don't have to cost much. The hemlocks were bought in little five dollar tubs and I bought the blue spruces as seedlings in a quantity of two hundred and tied bags of Jordan almonds on them as wedding favors. They were pretty within ten years. Every neighbor has at least one blue spruce that's 25 years old also. I wish there had been the option to buy abies concolor seedlings, a more tolerant tree, because many of the blue spruces aren't going to live long.

Should I replace my Sargent cherry? The top was snapped off the sapling i've had for two years when the tree guys were working. I wonder it it would look ugly even if it lives. A large tub is $69 at Forest Farm, plus shipping.

I would hold off and see how it responds - had the top of a arbor society dogwood have it's top knocked off and it sprouted to branches and looks good now and it has a little character

Why spruce not living long? The one at my childhood home in Wisconsin was planted when I was 4 (& about my size) & going strong when we sold the house 20 + years later.