WOW Weezingreens, that is a lot of seedlings!! :))
Do you use them all yourself in your landscape or do you have a small nursery business?
Canadian gardens
RA49: Yes, I run a small (and I mean small!) nursery business. We live in a small town, and the nearest nursery is 30 miles away, so I fill a need for some of the locals, and it pays for my gardening habit! By the time I am ready to set plants out, this little greenhouse will have three layers of plant shelves, plus hanging baskets. It gets pretty green in there!
It's safe to set things out about June 1st around here, so we have to get inventive when the greenhouse is absolutely full. Here's a small coldframe made with hooped PVC. It's holding over 100 tomato plants in mid-April.
it always amazes me the creativity we come up with to a) extend our Zones and b) pay for our hobbies LOL.
We here in Southern Ontario aren't all that far ahead of you with our 'planting out date'. We usually wait until the long weekend here for the 24th of May Holiday.
your set up looks wonderful !
We do a lot of raised bed and container gardening here. It keeps the soil warmer, and it's better drainage..not to mention the fact that we really don't have much 'soil' here. We buy our top soil. I'm referring to our situation here in Seward and surrounding areas, of course. You don't have to dig very far down to reach gravel here.
Liz's gardens are gorgeous. I can see that many of you can grow things that are beyond me here. My summers are very mild, so I don't get the summer heat that jump starts plants. Most hot summer plants are a green house item here. However, all the cool weather crops love us!
Thought I'd jump in with a little color too. I love this thread. Great pictures and very entertaining. I also like the idea of renaming this forum Canada House. Hope Dave will do that for you. Sounds nice.
This picture is Pink Wings hibiscus. Heavy bloomer. I just hope it will come out of dormancy this spring.
Hi Shirley, it is a bit of a freeforall, isn't it?
Now that's a gorgeous one. Do you grow a lot of tropical Hibiscus?
Weez - that is such an orderly looking, healthy veggie bed. Can almost taste it.
Brugie..that is a beauty! Is that a tropical, or a hardy hibiscus?
It's pouring rain here right now, and I mean pouring, have a new river running down the side of my house. Has the cold let up for you back there yet?
(Mme le Coultre clematis)
This message was edited Thursday, Jan 30th 9:42 PM
Oh no! and they're calling for more rain tonight. I didn't see a river when I was up to see you - where is it from you?
Cold temperatures have moderated here Liz.[0C currently]
Sorry you folks are having so much rain out there. I hope you don't get to the point of having damage from it all.
I can sympathize with rain problems. Here in Seward, AK, our fall was really a wet one, and I had water seepage in my basement for over 40 days with our sump pump going most of the time. Finally we got a nice little blanket of snow, then some cold weather, but now it is back to raining and most of the snow cover is gone. In town the yards are turning green! We could still get several feet of snow before spring, but it's very strange weather.
By the way, our flooding problems are directly related to the tides. When the tide is up, so are the rivers!
We're not about to give up on showing off our gardens now!!!!!We've come all this way....here's a photo of Madame Alfred Carriere, my favourite rose of all in my back garden! Elaine I totally forgot about this photo! This is one of five Mdme A. C"s! Can't get enough of her!
This message was edited Saturday, Mar 1st 1:59 AM
She's very beautiful Elaine.
Charles Grimaldi in the summer. A trusty old standby, he has a wonderful aroma.
Here's a picture of my sprinkler in the evening light. Ah, soon, soon!
I've got one of those - I just haven't figured out how to hide the hose part. How did you do yours?
We just let it all hang out, Liz! LOL! When summer hits around here, I've got hoses all over the place. Someday, I hope to have buried PVC pipe the certain areas in my yard. We can just blow the water out in the fall and disconnect the faucet. But, for now, I have hose strung out all over.
Same way here Weez!Have the same type Hoser too!Gotta get the water there quick,with a little flare,LOL
Great pictures everyone, but what happened to the month of February? I don't see a single post in there.
Starzz, it is a tropical hibiscus. Sorry, I forgot to come back here after I posted.
I don't know about you brugie, February just flew by for me.
We are under a flash freeze warning here in Southern Ontario today. Its 2C and going to -14C in the period of 1 hour and stay there in that range for a few days.
I am ready for Spring!! The plants in the GH are ready for Spring!!
When it decides to arrive, so will these plants that I have on order:
Brugmansia Golden Lady
And:
Brugmansia 'Exotica' Orange.
Oh, I wish I could grow those lovely brugs! Our weather has been so strange this winter that I hardely know what to do next. Our usual spring begins in May, but this year, I have crocus that have popped out of their straw mulch and are budded and ready to bloom already. We are truly seeing unseasonably warm weather here. Tomorrow I plan to pull some of the mulch off my south bed, though it could drop into the 20's (F) anytime.
I walked the yard today, and there is the thinnest layer of snow in some spots, and no snow in others. Ordinarily it would be two or three feet deep out there. The potted plants I wintered over are beginning to awaken already. The pine siskins are already here and looking for their bird feeder. It's hard to fathom that the southern states in the U.S. are experiencing such wintery weather while Alaska is getting spring 2 months early!
Weez - I saw a thing on the news about the Iditarod - no snow. What is your feeling? El Nino or global warming?
Well, we're going to pay for the early warmth........come this summer...BUGS!!!!!!!
RA49, great pictures. Your golden lady is more yellow than mine. Probably a climate thing.
Wheezingreens, why don't you try growing a sang. I believe they like cooler weather and can be wintered inside. Liz is the expert on them.
OK, what's a sang?
This is a sanguinea - a brugmansia. Mine have been outside all winter.
Wow! How cold are your winters?
I'm an 8B with pockets of a low 9. But these are all in pots. They are the most cold hardy with the arboreas. They can take light frost. This year has been very mild though.
Liz, we're a zone 3 here, with some zone 4 & 5 plants doing well here. I think we would freeze too hard here for most of these beauties, don't you?
Weez - you can always bring them in for the winter. Want to try? Email me - brugs in Alaska- who'd a thought? LOL
Well, it's a thought, Liz. Do they have a dormant period or do I need to keep them in the sun in the house. I have a friend with a boiler shed where I winter over my pelargoniums.
Roselaine, I think you are right about the bugs this year, I have seen petunias and many geraniums that survived this winter, which means so did the pests!!!!!!!!AAGGHH!!!!
Liz, I mentioned my sangs were hit by the frosts, I looked today and all that were left out are mush! The only special one was Aurora, the rest were extras.
I am concerned about the slugs, as well. Our moist cool climate is very much to their liking, and I'm afraid the winter wasn't cold enough to kill off exposed eggs. A mild winter is not necessarily a blessing. More plants winter over, but more critters live over to eat them!
Don't compost them yet Dennis, maybe they will come back from the roots. If not, you know where to get more.
Weez - they can come in to go dormant anywhere it doesn't get below freezing. Basement, crawlspace?
Well, I might be able to manage that, Liz. What kind of summer weather do they need?
Weezingreens, take the risk... try a Brugmansia.
If it makes it, you will become the talk of the neighborhood!!!!!
I am in Zone 5 so I have to bring mine in for the winter here.
I have 3 choices of what I can do with them.
#1 keep them growing indoors, [they limp along this way and tend to get spindly and bugs, especially white fly can be a problem..
#2 pop them into my cool greenhouse (55F) and water very sparingly (i.e. one cup once a month).. they loose most of their leaves and go semi dormant with this method...
#3 put them in my cool basement (60-65F) that has really no direct sunlight and is dull ( on occasion I have placed covers over them to keep them in the dark) and water twice only from Nov. to March. They are usually totally dormant in this situation).
Brugie that pic is from the catalogue, not mine :)