Visions of Spring '08!

Hummmmm... that means you ARE trainable. Does your wife know you have learned your lesson???

Our first summer in the house, my wife helped me weed. She was so sore the next day that she has never stepped foot in the garden since!

You didn't break her in right.

I'm not complaining. It's 100% my garden!

True. Still, if you had given her back a good massage with oil, run a nice hot bath and lit a few candles she might not mind trying it again. Of course, I'd assume you'd prepare her favorite dinner as well.

I did light a few candles - and my prayers were answered.

Miracles do happen.

I believe.

Whenever she's feeling bad Victor - you're always there.

Aspirin anyone?

Yes - she often hides my car keys.

Victor - do you think my Mr. Prickly could live outdoors all year here? He just survived a plan trip from California in my luggage.

Is it a true eastern pp? If so, you should be able to plant it.

I bought it ouside of Phoenix, AZ - so it is a western pp. Guess it will have to dock in the kitchen for the winter every year then.

Welcome Peter!
Isn't this just the BEST forum?
Nice to get to meet a 'neighbor', too. How long have you been gardening in New Boston?

Welcome Peter! I think you'll like it here if we don't scare you off first!

Visions of Spring 08 you say. I have visions alright, like where in the he*^ am I going to put all the plants and bulbs I ordered?

Geranium Jolly Bee
Daphne Carol Mackie
Poppy Falling in Love
2 Japanese Iris 'Ruffled Dimity"

Lilies: (Some really are my daughters)
O.T. Hybrid Purple Prince
2 Strawberry & Cream Tango Lily
2 Penthouse Oriental Lily
Sorbonne
Casa Blanca
Laurita
Matrix 2 pks.
Pixie Pink 2 pks.
Orange Art 2pk
Elodie 1pk
Cancun 2pk
Cappuccino 1pk
Monte Negro 1pk
Reinesse 3 pks.
Dwarf Farolito 1pk
Acapulco 1pk
Casa Blanca 1pk
Conca d'Or 1pk
Montezuma 1pk
Sorbonne 1pk
Starfighter 1pk
Stargazer 1pk
Tom Pouce 1pk
Double Sphinx 3
Matrix 3
Novita 3
Sorpresa 5
Rosanda- 3
Garden Party 5
Sumatra 5
Time Out 3
African Queen 3
Black Spider 2
Cecil 2
Ebony 3
Eye Liner 2
Madame Butterfly 1
Nymph 2
Robert Swanson 1
Socrates 2
Tigermove 2

Glads:
Flevo Eyes
Jubilee
Zoe Glamini
And there is more but im not typing it all. I do have the the good sense to stop, but it got buried in the snowbanks. I have the consolation that Patti ordered way more!! Hee hee hee

PS. Notice I didn't list any DL's?

This message was edited Jan 5, 2008 8:53 AM

Oh my goodness!! I'm with you. When WILL you have the time? Ain't gardening marvelous?????

I'm sure the Easter bunny will bring you daylilies, Polly, so you can keep busy.

Patti is such a grand role model! No matter what we order we can always feel we didn't order as much as Patti. That keeps us planting.

Or dreaming about planting

Oh I have DL's coming, but ive been good in that dept. LOL I only ordered 5, maybe 7.

Pixie - have you been disappointed with flowers not looking in the garden as they do on the websites? I've stopped ordering them.

Anna was just looking at a flower catalogue. Says that when you don't order DLs or Dahlias, your choices are limited. (LOL) I think I'll have to glance at the catalogue and find something exciting to order.

Check out caladiums and hostas for shade.

Pirl, Yes!! I have been buying from a lady from Ohio who shows me what the flower looks like in her garden. It certainly changes my idea of what I thought the cultivator would look like! I did buy 'Carolina Bound', 'Juene Tom', 'Strawberry Fields Forever', 'Insider Trading', 'Party Pinafore' and 'Little Josh'.
Little Josh is for my family bed. Joshua is the youngest and his favorite color is red so this DL was perfect!

She found the clematis and the sweet pea pages!

Good work, Pixie.

Candyce - the clematis is also addictive. Sweet peas sound nice and some smell nice but everyone has a different view of them. For some people they self-seed too much.

pixie, surely not. . or did I? I have Jolly bee, it is pure delight. And I once had a Carol Mackie, which I somehow killed so it is on my want list again, but I just haven't bumped into one at a reasonable price when I have had the truck off island. I can still smell it, delightful.

I am avoiding DL's this year as I need to move some that I thought the deer would not mess with as they are so close to the house in a precarious spot with a 4' drop to a stone terrace, but no, they waited until they bloomed and ate every flower one night. They didn't bother the foliage.

So now I need to replace those with something. Do deer eat snapdragons as I love them and they do so well here so late in the season. I need something simple in mass to plant along the edge of the wooden retaining wall. I could do a mess of New Guinea impatience in red for some color. North side, but lots of east and west sun. Here is the spot. I started out years ago with heath and heather which never did much and got woody and sparse eventually I took them out. The scrub oak is my baby. I dug it as a 2' shrub in 1982 and have trained it into a nice little tree. Ideas as the DL's have to be moved. What can cascade over that wall as a second need?

Pirl, I think I am afraid of sweet pea's too, though I did plant one last year? And I have one seed on my to order list for a place way away from most of the garden. Is that far enough. It is a chocolate color, how could I resist?

I do have a lot of bulbs planted in there, surprise, surprise. Patti

No surprise, Patti! Do you also do container gardening?

The chocolate color is so often overlooked in the garden but it's so beautiful. It does sound like if it's far enough away from the main gardens it should be fine. I don't think the seeds are as wind driven as seeds from some other plants. I'm often tempted by Sweet Peas but I manage to resist.

I am jealous. Got the ok from DH to start landscaping with flowers and bushes and trees and vines and everything but Posion Ivy :-{ I don't even have a notion as to where to start with planting.

I guess looking ahead I will take one small area and put it to the test. Like a 5 foot area. Since DH works at a lumber mill now, he can get all the free bark chippings he wants. Start over the banks where you will not be growing nothing to keep weeds down. Bring the bark in baby.

You have to have some kind of a plan or vision before you can start. I am blind to a beautiful yard yet. You kind of have to be in Kindergarten before you take the leap to 1st grade. I guess start with a watering system and work from there.

Celeste, where did you order all those lilies from? And how many are in a pack?

Most pks. are 2-3 bulbs. I ordered some from places such as B&D Lilies, Faraway Flowers, Parks, Buggy Crazy, and from 2 co-ops here at DG. Now about 1/3 - 1/2 of those bulbs are being planted at DD's new house. She has been biten by the lily bug too. Being bitten by the lily bug means your always doing battle with the red lily bug.

Battle of the bugs?

Natural predator of those bugs are bills.

schickenlady, Post a picture of your virgin yard. I think most of us started small. My first garden was on a balcony. I made a raised bed out of wood from the dump and black plastic. Sort of worked. I grew some annuals and tomatoes, peppers, herbs for a few years, before I got some real ground of my own.

And my property came with lots of poison ivy, which I battle yearly and usually have to go get a cortisone shot when it gets me bad at least once a year.

My advice, start with things that don't fail in your area and that are easy to propagate more from by division. If you see lots of something in your location it will be good for you. Don't get sucked in by even what you see at a local nursery or especially at a box store in perennial plants and trees as so many are trucked in from the south, Alabama, Ga, etc and they will die real quick if not hardened off for a few years. Buying trees and shrubs is an investment, so be weary in your zone of what is at especially the box stores unless it comes from New England, Upper Midwest or Canada. Most trees and shrubs are tagged and will tell the location of the grower. I would rather pay a bit more to a local nursery that buys regionally than plant something that has a good chance of dieing. Annuals won't matter. Perennial are a toss up.

Buying Bulbs on line and from coops on DG are great budget savers. Plants less so, with exceptions like DL's, Iris, Hosta, Roses, which travel well as many are tricky to get to live through the shipping. I rely on the Garden Watchdog for customer reviews, but I read them with an eye as to who the poster is. Some people expect way to much or are just cranky. I once posted a nasty review, which was partially their fault, but I was also way too cranky. But welcome to the world of dirty hands, great joys and utter failures, but all done with good the intentions of making our spaces pretty. After we planted some landscape trees and shrubs my first garden plants here where Lavendars and daylilies which were totally forgiving and still going great after 25 years.

Mulch is imperative , but on Nantucket, it is soooooo expensive. I am going to buy a whole truck load of it off island this year and bring it straight to my yard avoiding the middle guy. I need a ten wheeler as 20 yards would be perfect. I have been doing 16 yards ( two smaller trucks) from the local source and it is 3 times more than what I think I can get it for if I just rent the truck/driver and pay for the ferry cost. What type is best, Pine (dark) or Hemlock or what? Who uses what? Anyone using that recycled slug stuff in their gardens? Whats the poop on it (couldn't resist) If I have it brought early enough I can do a lot more of the spreading my self which will also save hiring the mowing guys to help.

Pirl, I started a chocolate bed a couple of years ago. Not very successful yet. But I do love those dark sultry colors in foliage and bloom. http://www.parkseed.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/StoreCatalogDisplay?storeId=10101&catalogId=10101&langId=-1&mainPage=prod2working&ItemId=2582&cid=pext000001 And of course I do containers and I am always on a beach prowling for something as grand as the drift wood you found to use as a gorgeous container. No luck so far. But I am going back to Maine in March and will be seriously looking as we don't often find good drift wood here.

Pixie, I have been spared so far of that beetle, but I remember seeing a picture posted of it by, I think, Wallaby from England. It was so beautiful, but I saw what it was doing in Boojum's amazing garden on one of my pilgrimages there. That is the promised land for sure. I did a serious bug check before I came back to make sure I wasn't carrying one to Nantucket. Patti

This message was edited Jan 5, 2008 12:09 PM

pixie:

Before we go any further with plans for new stuff (well, except for clematis), we want to see what will survive from last year. There's so much snow covering everything, and, although I know it's a good insulator, I still worry.

Amy, I bought some from my daughter so she will stop digging mine up. She'll come over and see one and say "I want that one!" Turns the cornor and see's another...."I want that one!"
So for her 30th birthday (Jan. 15th) I had asked her what she wanted and she said some of your lilies! NOPE.....I'll buy you your own and plant them for you. So her birthday is coming right up and I let her pick what she wanted....she wanted one of each! It will be a busy spring thats for sure!

I guess you will be VERY busy, Celeste!!

My daughter is like that, too, Pixie. But she doesn't say I want that one, she's out there with a shovel, and has it in her car before I even know what she's done. Luckily she's a gardener too, so she doesn't make a huge mess.

One year I had planted a new lilac, and she asked me which one it was, and I said Lucie Baltet, and next thing I know it's potted up and sitting next to her car.

It's all friendly gardening though. I love for her to have them, and she knows that. She's always telling me her irises are bigger than mine, or bragging how her delphs did. I just love it.