Lovely LUCKY Lavatera !!!

Well .. the story goes like this ..

Back in the beginning of June .. we went out and bought our annuals.
Came home and started to pot them ..
I had bought 2 Lavatera .. when I went to plant them .. I found them to be excessively WET .. so much so as to make putting them into the soil almost a NON issue !! BUT .. I did .. some 4 days later .. the Lavatera looked DEAD .. so .. I pulled it .. of course CURSING the greenhouse !!

Well .. lo and behold .. a week ago .. a 'bloom' started coming up through my potted petunias .. I watched and watched .. and .. TODAY .. it made its appearance .. a GORGEOUS .. Lavatera :-)

I HAD to share the beauty ..

Enjoy

~*M*~

The first pic was taken at approx 8am this morning .. this next pic is at about 9:45am ..

Gorgeous ....

~*M*~

This 3rd pic (and last) was taken at 1135am ..

What an awesome day :-)

~*M*~

OOPS .. forgot the pic !!!!

M

Good Lavatera. They are quite easy to start from seed. If you have warm enough weather for it to set seed, collect them and start them early next year. You'll have blooms much earlier. If you don't get seed from yours, let me know and I'll send you some from mine.

Ann

Thanks Ann ..

I am just wondering .. I Googled Images for Lavatera .. WOW .. some awesome ones were pictured .. some almost looked like a bush ??
Am wondering how you can get that effect .. I would imagine a sort of 'mass planting ' would work?

The seed suggestion will be a FER SURE .. my Nasturtiums have grown from seeds produced for the last 5 years and they just keep on getting better :-)

~*M*~

Mine in my back yard garden are quite tall and bushy. I looked for a pic but I don't seem to have one - will have to remedy that. But I have to stake them as they droop and break with summer storms. I have both pink and white and I never know which is which until they bloom. However, I also planted some in a dry area between my driveway and the neighbours - about 6 feet of garden between the driveways with a large tree planted in it and they are dry and stunted. One of them looks as though it may bloom now that I've been concentrating on watering it, but it's only about a foot high. So, I guess it depends a lot on the growing conditions. I think I'll grow succulents between the driveways in the future.

I wintersowed Lavatera 'Silvercup' and was really pleased with the results. I'll definitely do it again next year. Mine didn't get as tall as they probably could because I didn't get the seedlings into the ground until July. A gardener I know here in Calgary has planted Lavatera as an annual shrub using seed tape - bet that would look spectacular at the back of a border.

Joanne

I find it interesting that you successfully winter sowed it. How long was it outside? My plants always drop lots of seeds, but very few ever germinate in most winters because of the harshness of the winter.

Ann, I put it outside on March 6th (in a milkjug) and it germinated around April 8th. I didn't start opening up the milkjugs until late May, early June because we had really late snow this year - May 21st, 24th.

I wintersowed an entire packet of seeds in the milk jug and got 12 seedlings, so that's pretty good, I thought.

Joanne

OOOOOOoooooooo .. is it SPRING yet :-)

Am definitely going to give it a go ..

I can see where the Lavatera would be fragile in the wind though ..

Took a pic with my digital instead of my cellphone .. looks way nicer :-)

~*M*~

Joanne, I should try that. I guess by March the temps are moderate enough that it might work. And do save your seeds. You won't need to buy any again.

I'm heading outside with the camera. thanks for reminding me.

OK Here we go. Lavatera in the centre with my jungle all around it. Cannas on the right, zucchini behind it. Tall Veronica behind the Cannas and Balsam in front.

One of the Lavatera is white. The seeds don't necessarily come true. I had some white ones awhile ago and now I get either, but not necessarily white from white or pink from pink.

There are cherry tomatoes behind it and to the left a Malva which is perennial and a cousin to the Lavatera.

A close-up of the white one.

Marilynne, nice shot of your Lavatera - looks great with those pink petunias!

Ann, love the white Lavatera, I'll have to give that one a try too.
By the way - in wintersowing, the milkjug acts like a little mini-greenhouse to protect the seed, so we should be able to put it out even earlier, January or February, with no problem.

My Lavatera is growing with Malva too. 'Braveheart' & 'Zebrina', both wintersown as well.

Joanne

Your 'lucky' Lavatera seems to fit right in with your colour scheme - like it was meant to be.

Sandy

Gosh .. such awesome pics :-) Beautiful ...

I am most assuredly going to gather the seeds from the Lavatera and at leats 'try' the milkjug sowing.
The temps here in Northern ON hasve moderated significantly over the past 5 years, and if I put the milkjug close to the house and facing east .. well .. I may just get some germination.

This year was the first year for 'seed tapes' in the vegetable garden, and, it was well worth the extra expense .. we tried carrots and beets and they did very well, albeit the deer ate the beet tops :-(


~*M*~

Jo - we don't get milk jugs in Ottawa.I'm assuming that you cut the jug, planted in the bottom half and replaced the top half with the top open? Do you think a 2 litre pop bottle might work as well? Any other suggestions?

Ann

A 2 litre pop bottle works just fine Ann - at least that's what I always use.

Marilynne, Lavatera usually works very well in winter sowing. I hope you end up with lots of lovely plants next spring :-)

--Ginny

:-)

Doing my 'SPRING DANCE' :-)

Doubt it'll work quite yet ..

~*M*~

Ann, I get the the milk jugs for wintersowing from Mac's or Beckers around here. I've also used the clear 2 litre pop bottles, as Ginny mentioned.

Sandy

But you've also got the teen-aged boys to down all that milk. LOL I think that pop bottles are a safer bet. I can easily beg them if needed.

Some members of our local Horticultural Society are already starting to save milk jugs for people who want to try wintersowing next year; it's great for those of us who barely get through one 4 litre jug a week. I'm teaching a Wintersowing Course to the society in September - isn't that a hoot? To think it was only six months ago that I was lurking on the Wintersowing Forum and asking "Wintersowing, what's that? Can we really do it in Zone 3". LOL.

Joanne

Ann put out a call to all the orchestra members to save their 4 litre milk jugs for you!
I'd send you some of mine (LOL) but Jo gets them all - dont know where I am going to put them - maybe I will just pass them all along to her to store!

No prob Carol!! I can jam them into our shed. I have a feeling there's going to be a lot of demand for them.... Ü

I'll have to see who buys milk by the jug from convenience stores. Most people I know buy it in bags and I think that and paper cartons are all that's available in my local grocery stores.

Am thinking I am going to be buying my milk in JUGS !!
Right now we go through 2 .. 2 litre cardboard milk deals in 3 days .. 3 adults in the house .. I figger we can handle some jugs :-)
Too bad the kids have left the nest ..

~*M*~

Round 4 litre juice bottles would probably work too although not quite as well.

As long as they're clear...light has to get in.

www.wintersown.org has examples of all sorts of things you can use for wintersowing containers.

I found the main thing is to make sure they've got lot of soil (3 - 4") and lots of head room, because I left most of my seedlings in their containers until late May/early June and some of them were getting TALL!

Lavatera babies on the far right....

Edited to correct the website...

This message was edited Aug 28, 2007 7:13 PM

Ooops, wrong photo.

Lavatera on the right in this one...

YIKES .. I'm like Viola .. we don't have milk JUGS here in Ont. just carboard and bags .. BUT .. I can buy juice in those kinds of containers .. will have to have a boo when out for groceries today ..

Great pics of the seedlings :-)


~*M*~

PS .. I have 3 MORE blooms on that Lucky Lavatera :-)

Great news about more blooms.

Jo ~ I did a workshop this past January for our garden club and it was very well received. Everyone went home with a jug. I needed so many that I had to buy them at our local Macs convenience stores for 25 cents each. I still have my notes and handouts,etc. Dmail me if you think you could make use of them.

Sandy

Do you think Cranberry juice containers would work? I go through them rather quickly.

Hiya ..

Got me a large plastic jug of ornage juice today :-) Hopefully it'll get drank quickly .. should have bought vodka as well .. LoL ..

At any rate .. I left home at 10am .. was home at 1220pm .. and guess what happened while I was gone ??
Pic attached ..

~*M*~

The above was with the digital .. the following is with the cellphone .. AND .. there are more blooms forming !!!

~*M*~

Stuff like bloomin Flowers just makes life worth livin :-)

~*M*~

You've got a pretty good pic with the cell phone. I'm impressed. And the lavatera is doing really well.

The lavatera looks perfect with those petunias, Marilynne. Nice!

Sandy - I remember you mentioning in a thread somewhere that you had taught a WS course. I'll be in touch... Ü

Joanne