Annette.......please listen to what Loretta said.......you will have concrete!!!!!!!!! don't add the sand to the clay. first....the ears love a rich moist soil. those beds by my home were soild clay with shale. it took years to get them into shape........but you can immediately amend the soil for this type annual planting of tropicals.
the easiest way is to turn the soil, add a good "potting" soil and a bag of peat moss. the peat will allow the mix to stay moist. now this is a quick fix for planting them but will work. don't go nuts with the ph levels they just want a place to hold it's moisture.
yes, i pull them out in the late fall and store the bulbs. to start them early then must be in extremely warm temps. you can pot them up and try a heating mat. i have a small portable greenhouse and they were started up this week. they cannot be planted here until the ground stays warm, which in my case is the very last week in may or first week in june. although the greens can take cooler temps. not the blacks.
i'm in sussex county way way way up north new pa and ny borders...coldest part of the state. i'm not sure about whether we past great adven. just give rarefind a call and i'm sure they will tell you. or better yet, put the address i gave you on mapblast and check it out from where your coming from. and no...i didn't make the windows they were already at the show and we were asigned one. each was different measurements so the plants had to fit into the space provided.
hope that helped!!
You have too many plants
tobee.. Someone said you had more pictures..Where they at??I gotta see them..I love your entrance..Do you soak your bulbs before you plant them??
Loretta..
Soak the bulbs? HUH? Ok.. I will add the potting soil, Miracle Gro and some Peat. Ditto the sand. They grew last year.. but I just needed to get that soil softer. What IS with Jersey and this clay? And yet it's the garden state and things do grow well here.
I'll give Rarefinds a call on Monday.
Wow... you are way up there aren't you?
Ok.. have a nice Easter if you observe it!
Thanks a bunch!
Annette
loretta...yes on some other threads i have some pics of some of my gardens but i'm not certain which you'd like to see:) so i attached one leading into the shade gardens.
no annette, i don't soak my bulbs or rhizomes. it's funny when i was at rarefind Isac one of the guys there was saying he LOVES sand because it's easiest to amend. i'm like well......i'd rather deal with the clay because i think it's easier to amend. so it depends on who your s speaking with. the bad think about clay is you need to get the ox in it because it becomes so compacted. not even dealing with the ph at that point. first the air........then the ph is what i do. although i'm not a big ph freak as many are. i know for certain things the ph MUST be perfect and i just try and stay way and get those things called "adaptable" to MOST soils! LOL other than when my hubby wants is hot peppers in which case i do a raised bed and have perfect ph adjustments for them.
i'm way way way!! up there. but i love the mountains...just not the colder springs!
well......i'm going to go plant for a while and then start cooking easter dinner.....thankfully the kids won't be here to 4!!!!!!!!
happy bunny day!
Did Katmos just drop off Dave's Garden? I wanted to see her garden this yr. I hope she'll come back.
hilary
Me too...Kat where are you??We wanna see your results of your plants after being in your basement...
This message was edited Mar 6, 2008 1:31 AM
Here's a look at my balcony boxes in July of 2005. I just planted new boxes this year on 4/24/06. It's so hard to wait for the lushness of late summer blooms and foliage.
Just joined this web site. This is my first post. Keep up the good work everyone.
Hi tiltaman, welcome to DG. And beautiful boxes! I love them!
Everytime I see this thread in my 'watched threads' I think.....Oh goody, my favorite thread! LOL
Welcome tiltaman! Beautiful window boxes!
well I had to post this... there are a few containers in there
Gordon
This message was edited May 5, 2006 9:30 PM
Thats beautiful...is that your house??If so you gotta show us more..!!
tiltaman, welcome to DG. All I can say about your boxes is WOW! They are beautiful.
Gordon, your house and yard are wonderful.
So many beautiful flowers from all of you DG's. I'm so glad that I get to look at all of the beautiful photos. It gives me something to look forward to each day.
Jesse
Gordon took that on a recent trip to Panama, some awesome colors!
yes.. Sue..
It was inded from my Panama trip.. up high in the mountains at about 2000 m. on the slopes of a volcano...
every house/garden... is more magnificent than the last.. and the temps are steady.. winter /summer // at about 60*F -80*F...Gordon
Tiltaman~
Your balcony boxes are gorgeous. What plants, please?
xxxxx, Carrie
What a gracious group. (Plant people usually are, of course.) Thanks for the welcome.
My plants are a mix of: petunias, various sun coleus, magilla perilla, Blackie & Marguerite sweet potato vines, and vinca vines.
By the end of September, my whole balcony, to the roof, was full of plants. It was really stunning. Lots of compliments from my neighbors.
I have enclosed a shot of my Canna bed (not in containers, however) from July of 2005 in this post. They are up and running again this year, too.
Thanks for the encourgement. I love seeing others plants very much.
Gordon,
Could you please edit your post to take out some of the returns? Just click "edit" and then "backspace" to take out some of the empty space. I'll be eternally grateful!
xxxx, Carrie
Tiltaman,
What's the groundcover with the cannas? Striking arrangement, and love the do not enter sign.
sorry Carrie..
I hadn't seen it that way.. it might have been a napping keystroke... or some other operator error... Gordon
Gordon,
I don't think it would be operator error; the operator is a fantastic gardener. Thank you, though.
xxxx, Carrie
too many plants.......never....here is a pic of my daughters pool area....It is past peak of the blooms but you can still see the lushness of a tropical garden in a borderline zone 8b ......you have to be careful what palms you put or they freeze here.......shirleyt
Wow thats beautiful..
Benjamin2... the ground cover under my Cannas is Marguerite sweet potato vine.
Shirleyt... Beautiful pool area.
Enclosed a shot of one of my balcony boxes from last year. Have another started, and will share pixs later in the season.
David
So pretty, what are the white flowers hanging down?
This message was edited May 9, 2006 11:09 AM
Not white flowers, that's the lovely Silver Dichondra that's becoming so popular for pots.
http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/76508/index.html
Just beautiful! This will be my first year to use dichondra and I'm really excited about it.
The last post from Kattamos was in February and it's now May. Could somebody swing by her house to check on her? Just to let her know we MISS her and we do CARE? Leave a plant on her doorstep or a card from all of us at DG, ok?
Would that Silver Dichondra work for me on a dry semi-steep - well, let's say it's too steep too mow - part of the lawn that's the border between our ramshackle yard gone beserk with flowers and my neighbor up the street, with his in-ground irrigation and his $25,000,000 ride-on mower, and his six times a month lawn treatments and his six times a week lawn mower touch ups! His last hobby was a pitbull, which got loose and bit my daughter! This one is a little louder, but at least it's safer for the neighborhood. (Even including the wasted water and the added chemicals to the watershed, it's safer than an ignored neglected underfed pitbull. I'm so glad he didn't eat my daughter - or worse yet, one of the littler kids on the street! The dog, I mean, not the @$$ of an owner.) We talk about how the man has conjugal relations (with his lawnmower) more often than my DH and I do (with each other)!
I seem to have gotten a little off topic somehow. Anyway, I was going to cover the hillside with a tarp and newspapers in the winter, but that never happened, and now the grass is growing beautifully again. No dandelions, no crabgrass - must be the run-off from all those yummy chemicals. IT MUST DIE!
xxxx, Carrie
Benjamin2 I was wondering the samething.
Carrie,
Praise God that dog didn't kill your child! I just saw a report that said they can crush a human skill easily. Pitbulls exert approximately 2,000 pounds of pressure when they clamp down on something (or someone). Bones crush like powder. And because of how they're wired, once they clamp their jaws down and lock, they literally cannot unlock them for awhile. At this point, the only way to get that dog to release whatever it has is to shoot it. I'd truly keep that in mind, living next to anybody's pit bull. Just a word to the wise(r)....
P.S. I have a next door neighbor who insists on blowing his leaves EVERY Saturday morning at 8:00 a.m....He and your neighbor should get together...
Yes, GG, you're right. Thank goodness my daughter had learned to drop and protect her face in some safety class along the way - I didn't know that myself! The jerk soon tired of having a pet pit bull (maybe it was the two weeks house arrest?) and er, got rid of it. Now he has this weird relationship with his lawnmower!
xxxxxxxxx, Carrie
I wish I knew what happened to Kat...I want to see what she did this year with all her plants..!!
Kattamos, I'd love to add your first pic to my garden journal. Do you mind? It "inspires" me :)
Huga
I use it for my desktop background sometimes. She has not been around to ask or I would surely get permission. But since it is only for me and I'm not selling it or anything like that, I don't think she would mind. If she does I will not use it again.
Jesse
I have Dmailed her 2 times and no reply. Do you think harms way might have come to her? She said she was on the road a lot. Does anyone know her well enough to go check on her? She's such a sweet person I can't imagine her not answering Dmails. I hope we hear from her soon.
hilary
I've been wondering too what happened to her..I hope she's OK and just traveling for her job..
I've enjoyed this thread so much, and I've certainly wondered about her also. But if you click on her name, you will see that she's subscribed through April of 2007, so she was probably around in April to renew. So, I would say that she must just be extremely busy either in the garden or on the road.
I hope she comes back soon. I need some more inspiration from her gardens! They are beautiful.
I could still see some table top and some patio. Not nearly enough.
Martha
I really wanted to see how all her plants survived the winter...Plus ask her a few questions...Brinda I also have her on my screen saver...It helps when I get tired to come here to look and get busy planting...
I only saw this thread and i agree, there are never too many flowers !Kattamos, at least youhave room for a table and chairs ! My DH complains that I promissed him a bench on the balconyand now it isn't room anymore !
See what I mean ?
