Oh, Tab, of course you are welcome to come by anytime you like, but poor Dryad, the dementia has hit her really bad. There is no Botanic garden here, there is no design here. I choked on my coffee when I read Fairy imagining it like MoBot in StL. Peeps! I grow seedlings and make compost; I never said I can arrange things so they look good, or even passable. I might have ordered some bulbs like Glads, and some cool bulb that vines. I might have bought a few measly plants that can't be started from seed. Maybe a few coops, you know...stuff like Caladiums and Fairy's TNN plugs.
I haven't said a word about daffs because there are none. Astonishing, really, because I have a large collection of antipodal bulbs and they always bloom super-early. (In this case, antipodal means from Australia and New Zealand where the earliest daffodils are bred.)
Yes, we can all go in on buying Specialty Perennials, but I gotta tell you, we need a third partner to type the webpage/catalog!!!
I have to remember that about the Rue. I know it, but remembering at the precise time I need to cut it back will be a challenge! What do you suppose would happen if I put the foliage in the compost pile, and then harvest the compost a month later with them lawnmower...all those cut pieces of dried rue?
Fairy, I'm not sure the Surprise lilies would make a good pot plant, although they would definitely make a good present! There is a botanical name for this quality, but I can't think of the word, but on the Surprise lilies, only 1/3 will bloom next year, well, only 1/3 bloom in any given year. That's why when you dig and divide a clump there are a LOT more bulbs than you'd expect. They have stages, but basically, the ones that bloom are the middle sized ones, not the biggest ones. Cardiocrinum is the same way. Only the medium sized ones bloom, the next year they get big and spend time making a big bulb, then the third year the bulb splits into 2, but each one is too little to bloom. They cannot take water after they bloom, so keep them away from your irrigation if you plant them in the ground.
Tuink, Your scientists need to come up with a cure for those Lily Leaf Beetles before they get too far into the US! Are they researching it at all?
Meredith, I just read something to the effect that the leaves stay on the Heucheras to protect the new growth in winter, late winter & spring, and then they turn brown, so those leaves were on their way out no matter what. King Alfred was so famous in its time, but WWI (or WWII) came along and all the Dutch stock was wrecked. Totally wrecked. There were many reports of it growing here and there in gardens, especially country cottage gardens in England, but what they found was the flowers and bulbs were not as good as what were at the time commercially available after the war. The bulbs don't get as big, don't store as well, and aren't as uniform; and the flower stem wasn't as tall, and the flower wasn't as pretty or long-lasting. What did the Dutch do? You know they are marketing masters, so they just took a really good yellow field trumpet with good bulb properties (storage, mostly) and named it King Alfred because of the strong name recognition. I do not know the earliest yellow trumpet commercially available (meaning for less than $5.00 a bulb), but you could ask the webmaster at http://www.daffodilusa.org, and he will put it up on the mailing list and people will email you their answers. Be sure you ask for the earliest blooming yellow commercially available TRUMPET, or you will get a lot of weird answers. Or as at John Scheepers - that might be easiest. Brent and Becky's do not have it, I already checked.
Dryad, how soon will I know how cold it got this morning? Is it posted anywhere? I had a pot of Scabiosa 'Ace of Spades', annual Scabiosa, out as a Sacrificial Lamb to see if it was cold hardy. It came through, but my guess is it didn't get below freezing after all.
Suzy
This message was edited Apr 2, 2008 12:44 PM
