I tried Pulsatilla Zimmermanii seed from the NARGS seed exchange.
One finally germinated but I can't find anything about this species. Anyone
have this plant, able to share some info or perhaps even a photo?
Pulsatilla Zimmermanii
I found some pics on google image, but you'll have to spell it with two n's to call up the images (Pulsatilla zimmermannii). It's pretty.
Thanks Zuzu. I should have tried the alternate spelling! I planted it
yesterday, along with a bunch of other beauties from the NARGS seeds.
A cute draba species, primula sikkimensis & eliator and more.
I love starting from seed.
Tam
That's admirable. I'm not much for deferred gratification. Too spoiled.
well - when everything goes dormant in winter here, its nice to work in
the greenhouse potting up seeds and checking their progress. :-)
Well, that is so smart of you. When things go dormant here, I get on the Internet and start ordering plants. This year I went totally nuts. I'm still getting plants I ordered back in December and January. There's no more room for them in the ground, so on top of paying for the plants, I've paid out a fortune for containers, potting soil, etc. Pretty soon there'll be no room for the pots either. I had a screened porch added to my house at the beginning of the year, envisioning myself eating my dinner out there, free from wasps and mosquitos. Wrong!!! The porch is completely taken up by baby hibiscus, orchids, sprekelia, plumeria, vireya, hoya, vallota, and a million other things. Next year I'm going to stay off the Web and plant seeds instead.
Zuzu - gotta watch what happens when you start seeds too. Its cheaper for sure but those itty bitty seed packs
turn into oodles and oodles of plants! This year I got 25 seed packs from NARGS, 35 from HPS (Hardy Plant Society)
bought anther 30 from various commercial sources and got quite a few in trade. It took lots of glorious days reading
up on how to start them and then the weeks and months going through their various rituals of cold/warm or whatever
to get them to germinate. When the little babies finally get big enough, you start potting them up into larger and larger
pots. Its so exciting to see the plants growing bigger and bigger! By Mar and Apr. I'm organizing and reorganizing the
pots to fit 'em all in. Luckily I have a large amount of land so I don't need to buy pots & potting soil but its not ready for
planting out until the grass is all dug out and amendments dug in. So Apr, May & June are back-breaking months of
digging in new beds & planting out. I've been donating the leftovers to the NARGS plant sale as well as bringing them
to various plant swaps.
I love it all. But seeds are not the way to reduce the amount of plants you end up with ... I think you get more since they
seem so small when you start :-)
Oh, you're absolutely right, and it's a lot more work than sitting at the computer and clicking the "add to shopping cart" button. Oh, well--one way or another, madness prevails for us plantaholics. The silliest thing about my online shopping is the zone-pushing frenzy it engenders. Here I am in Northern California, trying to grow Hawaiian tropicals and alpines in the same garden.
I hadn't thought about zone pushing from zone 9! I figured you'd just bask in all
the cool stuff you can have outdoors and be happy at that. Hah! I guess we
all are alike! I was just tickled pick when I had a cana overwinter here - I had
it in a very very very wet area by the spring. I guess that kept it warm enough
to survive.
I basked for a while, but there's always something irresistible to try out, especially now that I'm shopping on the Web as well as locally. Next week I'm getting some more tropicals. I'm especially excited about a Dichorisandra thyrsiflora. It's an 8-foot tall ginger with gorgeous blue flowers. It dies when the temp drops to 38 degrees. Can you imagine that? I usually start bringing some of the outdoor plants into the solarium on Thanksgiving, but this one will probably have to come inside in October.
Gorgeous! I just looked up Sebastopol too - you're north of San Fransciso! At
least you don't have to watch the heat issue. The site I checked said it barely
survives the heat of Phoenix. Fussy guy!
Sebastopol is a neat place, Tammy, where everybody gardens, because there's nothing else to do in Sebastopol. There are at least 20 good nurseries within 5 or 10 miles of my house, and some of them are practically next door. There's also a weekend flea market, where people sell plants at rock-bottom prices, within walking distance of my house.
The Dichorisandra and I should get along very well, because I also would barely survive the heat of Phoenix. We have a few 100+-degree days here, but I have a lot of shade on my property.
hmmmmm.... is it as expensive as the bay-area? We're thinking about
retirement in another 10-15yrs. Sounds perfect for plant-a-holics like me. :-)
Actually - I'm north of Phila by ~1hr. There are tons of societies to
join, lots of gorgeous gardens & arboreta to visit and wonderful nurseries
to visit. (Though I live in the boonies and the only nursery less than
5 mi is a low-end garbage selling place.) Its a great place to live. I just
can't imagine handling all the work when I'm an old lady. I had to agree
to do all the mowing when we bought the place. Its about 4hrs with the
push mower plus 2-4hrs on the tractor every week - and it looks like a park.
It used to be a lot cheaper than the Bay Area, but then it was discovered by the people in Silicon Valley, who have way too much money. Their current status symbol is a house and vineyard in Sebastopol. It's too bad for a lot of reasons, mainly the fact that they've chopped down all of the Gravenstein apple orchards to make room for the vineyards. They've also driven up the cost of living because most of our grocery stores and restaurants have been replaced by high-end organic establishments. On the other hand, the house I bought for $90,000 just 20 years ago is now worth at least $850,000 and climbing every day. One of my neighbors just sold her house for $625,000 and she had a tiny house: two bedrooms, one bath, 1100 square feet total. We all have half an acre of land, however, so the person that bought her house probably will just knock it down and build something bigger. The house next door to me has three bedrooms and is listed at $750,000. They might get even more. Bidding wars are not uncommon here.
Whew! I kept thinking the prices in Silicon Valley would
eventually drop but they've gone no where but up up up too.
We've got folks from NJ coming into our area and pushing
up prices. ( Not as dramatic changes as you're seeing
though!)