Box o' Flowers

Hello to all. some of you know that a few months ago I was about ready to give up gardening. My first one was a big disappointment. You also know that I recently changed my mind when my camellia shrubs bloomed for the first time.

Well, I should have know I couldn't give it up. I went to home depot, and found some gorgeous primrose, which I plan to put in my window boxes. I also found snapdragons for 99 cents. I don't know what I'm going to do with them yet. I want to wait unil I'm sure the cool weather is over before I plant anything. I just wanted to buy them now while they still look healthy.

So here is my box o' flowers....

Miss Sable Kitty seems to approve...

I was thinking that maybe I'd clean out this half barrel planter, and put the snapdragons in there, but my cats got into the habit of sleeping in it. I don't want to plant them there just to have them smished by my feline babies. Since they're annuals, I might find somewhere to plant them in the ground. Maybe I can put them in a movable container that fits in that barrels. Any suggestions?

Here's my barrel. Please ignore the kitty litter bucket. I keep my extra potting soil in there.

jdee, Glad you want to keep trying. We all have failiers, You cannot call yourself a real gardener until you have killed at least 1000 plants. I am a real gardener + LOL Go ahead and plant your snaps. They love cool weather and can take a light frost if it does not last too long. Maybe you can put some kind of prickly mulch in the barrel to keep the kitty out. Cut up your rose prunings into smaller pieces and put them in there. I read that hint somewhere. Good luck and happy planting. Margie aka Queen of Dirtland

I put small rocks in my planters, spaced around so that it is uncomfortable for the cats to lie down on and in the way (too much to move) if they want to dig. A friend of mine has planters on her front porch and she painted the rocks to look like ladybugs. Yuska

Thanks Margie. I'll plant them tomorrow if its not still raining. And Yuska, I love the painted rock idea. Thanks a bunch.

Absolutely nothing wrong with failures, jdee. Its an opportunity to learn.

jdee, those primroses will keep their blooms for quite awhile if the weather stays rather cool. Once your summer heat comes on, they'll die back, and they may not come back. This variety may not be perennial in your area. You might check over on the Texas forum. I'm just telling you this so you won't be bummed out if they don't come back.

We have an indigenous primrose that will come back in the fall but, not sure about store bought ones. :-)

AW man. and I bought six of them. Well, at least they'll be pretty for a while.

Yes they will. I might get some, too, tomorrow!

Unless I'm mistaken, these are those lovely little fellows you see at the garden centers of big chains stores in early spring. They come in every color you can imagine. They are a lovely spring flower, and if planted out here, they are perennial. Our soil is cool and our summers mild with lots of moisture, so they come back pretty reliably every spring. In hotter climes, people buy them as annuals or house plants. I believe they are a form of Primula polyantha. I've grown them from seed, as well. They're lovely plants, but whether they winter over for you or not, they probably will give you a month or less of color, then slumber or croak. You might get some good summer bloomers to plant around them when they die back. It would be nice if these primula would bloom again in the fall for you.

I think so too Weez but, I'm gonna give 'um a whirl. Snaps, too. Tried a few snaps some years ago. They keeled over as soon as it got hot only to back in the fall. Flowered again until the cold finally did them in. Kind of like double-cropping with the same plant or maybe, deja vu all over again. ;-)

I still love them, but I wish I hadn't bought so many if they're just an annual here. I'm glad you told me though. I was planning to put three in each window box, but now that I know this, I can put one in each window box, and other flowers that will last longer in there with them. Then I can used the rest in various places. Thanks for the information. without it, I'd have had some pretty boring looking window boxes after a month. lol

jdee, as everyone has said, gardening is a learning experience. For every plant that dies on us, or fades quicker than we expected, or turns out to be an annual when we expected a perrenial, we now know more what to expect next time around. (One gardening workshop went to, the woman tols us not to give up on a plant until we had killed it at least three times!) I did the same thing you did, thinking snapdragons would last as long as the tags said (the tags are NOT written for warmer climates!) But now I know that we simply enjoy these flowers earlier than most other places, when our other plants just aren't quite blooming yet.

Go ahead and plant those babies, and enjoy them for however long they bloom (personally, I would group them all together, to enjoy a mass of color.) Then, next year plan ahead, and buy them earlier. As much as I'm a believer in perennials, there is definitely room for annuals in my garden! (Hey, I don't discriminate just because they live their whole life in one year.) Enjoy!!

Thanks Maggie, that makes me feel better. I'll just plant them and see what happens.

ACOUPLE OF FABRIC SOFTENER SHEETS WORK WONDERS FOR KEEPING CATS OFF OF FURNITURE. I DON'T KNOW IF IT WOULD WORK OUTSIDE,BUT IT IS SUPER FOR INSIDE AND I SHOULD KNOW. -BETH

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind. In fact, I've heard that rubbing a bounce sheet on you legs will keep mosquitos away. I haven't tried it. Have you ever heard this, or is someone just messing with me?

Jdee,

You should never give up hope, although I understand how it can make ya feel that way!

We have all been plant assassins, but it is part of the learning experience!

Snapdragons and many other plants sold right now are cold-lovin (or to northerners it would be "cool-lovin" weather, and they fade away when it gets hot. That is just the way nature is! But we are fortunate to live in a climate where we have the best of both worlds (not quite ALL worlds...).

Just garden with a grain of salt, and view it as being an experiement when you try new plants. If you succeed, that is wonderful! and if the plant fails, mark it up as a learning experience, and figger out why it failed, it could be that something went wrong which could be remedied next time, or menne it just happened "just because", and may never happen again. On the other hand, you may discover somehtng works that everyone said "could never work", but YOU made it happen!

Keep the faith, study, observe, ask others, share your experiences, and LEARN ... that is what life, hujmans, plant, and animal, is all about!

And it is fun and fulfilling too!

It is kind of fun to have flowers before spring is officially here.

I got the labels out today, and the actual name says Primula acaulis danova mix. Whatever that means...lol


edited to say that I just looked them up in the plantfiles. If they stay pretty until summer heat hits, then I'll be able to enjoy them for a while. I think may plant as many as I can fit in the barrel planter instead of the snap dragons. That should be a nice colorful way to display them. Or maybe DH will get me an even bigger pot that all of them will fit in. Maybe one of those pretty round sort of flat ones. I'll have to start planning my strategy. lol Actually, he's pretty good about supporting me in my new hobby.

This message was edited Feb 24, 2005 12:26 PM

jdee, also check with your County Extension Service, they can give you valuable information about what plants do best in your particular region.

I was fortunate enough to find a great local nursery that really believes in educating gardeners, not just selling and getting them out the door. The Arbor Gate in Tomball carries a lot of plants that you won't find @ Lowe's or Home Depot, because they are plants that do well for OUR area, not the whole country (therefore you get to experience the joy of sucess!) If it wasn't for the kind folks at Arbor Gate, I truly think I wouldn't be gardening any more.

By the way, one of their speakers at a workshop told us that she has marks all the way around her belt for the plants she has killed. Take heart!

Hey you girls in zone 8. Be happy and feel fortunate. This is such a great zone to garden in. Sure there are some things we can not grow but come on, there is way more stuff we can grow than can't. Here is my zone 8b, it is just about a 10-11 month growing season. Never worry about what you kill. I myself have probably murdered $200 or so in lavendar that is just not happy here but I just keep buying and planting. I am sure this is the definition of insanity but hey who cares. It is worth it to have it for a shot time. My gardening is my whole mental health and I just love it. So happy gardening to yall.

Hi gardener! What kind of lavender have you tried? Do you have much humidity there? There are a couple types of lavender that do well here, in spite of the heat & humidity. One of them is Spanish lavender, I'll find the name of the other. I'm trying both, planted them in containers in Dec.

Yes, I very much enjoy the long growing season here!

I used to get upset about every little plant that didn't live. I found that when I was less upset, the plants did better. I think I might have loved some of them to death! Now I just think "win some, lose some" and plant more plants!

About a week after I planted my first rose bush (got it from the Antique Rose Emporium), I callled them for some advice. Some of the leaves were turning yellow and dropping, and I was sure it had some rare disease, or I'd somehow killed the poor thing! The man I was talking to had to hear the fear in my voice. He told me first to calm down, this was only a plant. He carefully had me check for several things, and asked me about how/where I had planted it, did I fertilize, etc. Then he explained that sometimes plants will drop leaves after transplanting, and that I hadn't killed anyone or anything. He finally said that these antique roses are tough, and I didn't need to litteraly kill them with kindness (I had been sure to fertilize that baby well - too well!) He finished by reminding me that if for some reason it died, I could always plant another one. What a concept! :-)

Yup, we can always try again. A little care should be taken in planting though. When we moved into our house there was a dead shrub in the front. I pulled it out and found that it had been planted by the former owners STILL in the PLASTIC BAG from the nursery! The only thing that grew well for them was yucca. Wonder why, as I've been trying to dig that out for three years now.

Ha, ha, ha. "What a concept," I like that! Ha, ha, ha.

"STILL in the PLASTIC BAG " !!!

There are people who have black thumbs, and then there are people who... plant things still in the plastic bag!

Don't count on those snaps being annuals, this is the third year that mine have reseeded themselves, along with the alyssum, which is also an annual. I am delighted to see them come up without any help from us. Even the ones that grew by chance along the concrete driveway, in the gravel, have come back! They must be pretty hardy to survive subzero winter weather!

That's just beautiful, meezers! Aren't snaps perennials in warmer climes?

How gorgeous. I hope that someday my yard will be alive with color like that. I know it will take several years, but I can dream. :)

Biennials, I think, Weez.

Thanks, Imway. This annual, biennial, perennial thing drives me crazy! There are many 'perennials grown as annuals' here... the ones that bloom the first year if started early. If I lived in a warmer climate, I'd have to learn how to garden all over again!

Weez, we have a lot of "perennials grown as annuals" here, too, because of the intense summer heat. My guess is they may be the same plants.

I did, Weez!

Well, John, you give me hope, should we get run out of Alaska and have to hole up in New Mexico! LOL! Maggie, I'll bet that our perennials grown as annuals are more likely exactly the oppositie... such as columbine, which are a long lived perennial here. I have some McKana's Giant that are at least 8-10 years old. They stay green all summer and often bloom again in the fall.

Can you believe we have two native columbines here in Texas? Thanks for the reminder! I must find some this year. ;-)

It seems I read somewhere that Texas has a form of the northern red columbine... A. candensis http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/464/index.html, as well as A. chrysantha var hinkleyana. 'Texas Gold' http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/60182/

Thanks Weez! I must have those two. A. canadensis will remind me of the Greatland. I have seen them along the highway just south of Anchorage all the way to your neck of the woods.

John

Yes, the Hinkley Columbine is native to TX, as are some others. Last year I planted my first one, this past fall I added a number of others. The foliage has been going strong all along, hope to see plenty of flowers this spring.

My first columbine: