sounds like many of you tried the black prince snaps :) The only snaps I tried were the small red ones from Illoquin. They are still small and didn't bloom yet, not even looking close to blooming yet.
not the prettiest picture, but this is the Indian Shot cannas so far
wind, nice job on the canna! And you're right, the white globe thistle came from me (Eryngium yuccifolium), and I'm happy to report the seed were still viable! They were harvested year before last, and those I wintersowed germinated well. The seedlings are in the ground and still somewhat small, but have grown well and look healthy. They're getting their yucca-like leaves now.
Lea, that sunset daylily sounds lovely. I think 'Black Prince' snaps are a dark, velvety burgundy.
Wind.. Yoru cana is the species. That the best one for feeding the hummers and it sets sed really good too and does increase well.
Good morning all! I broke down and actually purchased some plants yesterday. We finally got the ladder fountain set up and running for the year (I've posted a pic of that a couple times), but I was a doofus and didn't start the right seeds for plants for that so I figured what the heck. Swung by a couple places and picked up some things, but it was too darn hot and nasty to put them in the ground yesterday, so they're going in this morning (and then this afternoon I get to weed a veggie garden). After that's all set I'll take some pics and post them in a different thread.
Neal, I started a thread months ago in the CG forum asking for opinions on pathway materials in a CG, and promised there I would post pics. I got a lot of very good ideas from that - but ended up doing something completely different, so I owe that thread a wrap-up shot. I'll get y'all a shot of the front yard as it is today - I haven't had a chance to get more grass out for a few days, but it will give you an idea of where I'm headed.
Lea - what would we do without weed-whackers???? They give you such control, and such a sense of immediate accomplishment - LOL!
Indynanny - I thought you WERE a part of this group - LOL! Anyway, ya are now! And in all honesty I would volunteer to host the next Piggie Swap, but I do not have the room nor the experience for it - even after helping Suzy with it last year. She is far more experienced than I am, and her memory is intimidating when it comes to her knowing which seeds someone may like for their garden and where those seeds are and how many packs there are. We'll have to see if she's up to hosting it again this year.
OK, off to a late start to the day - pics will follow, I promise!
Suzy was hinting around a while back about doing another piggie swap wasn't she, since we won't have Carol's and Weez's extra seeds this time it shouldn't be so bad LOL They had a lot of seeds! I'm hoping she will do it again :) She's a great host! Where is that girl anyway LOL
Robin I've gotten a few plants and just trying to stay away from the nurseries lol I need blinders on when I go to get dirt from the nursery that I like :) Last time I bought red petunias but was really for the seeds so I could have some for next year, then I got Tizzy at another nursery and some steppables lol I'm going to check your thread out maybe there are some ideas there I might use on paths :)
If you all are talking about the red rocket 'small snaps' that Suzy had they aren't that small and they are beautiful!! She brought me a few of those and they are gorgeous! The blooms are big, I planted them in an old veggie basket with a victoria blue in the middle and that basket is starting to fill out and looking pretty good I must say the snaps are about a foot tall and the flowers are huge! Beautiful!
good morning
heres the abutilon bella in red that i grew from seed
meredith..the bellas .. they can be houseplants in colder zones and put back outside in the summer..they are quick to bloom ..something like 90 days and stay small. they will bloom year around if kept fertilized.. the other abutilon hybridum i have grown these and they get tall and lanky and not as compact and sometimes their coloring can get muddy.
i have an orange bella that ive had for ten years so they do live for some time.
pam sue
Thank you Pamsue, I need to remember that, I'll need to look for the Bellas. : )
Lea-I have the same problem-went to visit MIL last weekend and a nursery that we LOVE bu her was having a buy 1 get 1 sale on gallon perennials already @ $6.99 for a set of 2-how could I not get a butt load of em!!LOL I did get things that are newer, haven't seen before or have not found form seed that I have been wanting-I got a beautiful Goldfinch Swallowtail columbine:)
Oh heck Fairy, I couldn't have passed that one up either lol I wonder if that 'Goldfinch Swalowtail Columbine' was a name that the nursery gave that columbine, I tried to google it and nothing came up, I want to see it LOL Does it have long spurs? You know I'm sending you some 'Yellow Star' this fall :)
OMG it is so humid outside today! We have a new neighbor that just bought a house across the field from me and she is getting new carpet today so I'm getting her old carpet for new beds 8) It was all we could do to drag her livingroom carpet over here and she went back and I strugled with it to get it in place and have a few more pieces that I brought over with the wheelbarrow I need to lay out, then sow some grass seed under the cedar tree before it rains tonite and some straw on top of that, it's way too humid to be doing all this outside, I have to rake all of the dirt under the cedar tree before I do the grass seed too! But first that carpet gets laid down lol
pam sue, I love that red flower from the abutilon, I don't think I've ever grown those before, I doubt if I would have enough light in the house to keep one over winter. I have four low light house plants and that's it, this house is as dark as a dungeon!
You already sent me yellow star!!LOL It does have very long spurs-2-3" long and a light yellow outside flower and a light buttercream yellow interior flower-really pretty, but I didn't get any pics:( Sorry:(
fairy
3.50 for a gallon size perennial is a good buy. I buy mine at 3.99 on sale if i ever see anything i like
lea..you could grow abutilon bella as an annual for a container start indoors early and set out in spring. or they can overwinter in a garage or greenhouse. i set mine against a south facing building along the foundation for protection...they go dormant. Im in zone 8a or 7b. ive found that the seeds do not have a high germination rate but if you get one out of five seeds..its worth it.
I will have seeds later i hope
dang im getting tired of this heat...reminds me of the heat in the midwest where i grew up..couldnt stand it and now im just sweating here with the fans going...wish i had ac
pam sue
I got a new astrantia too- Star of BEauty:) And I got 2 japanese blood grass, another centaurea gold bullion, Gaillardia O&L, a bi color monkshood, another euphorbia bonfie and Emily McKenzie Crocosmia:) Not bad-8 gallon perennials for $28. I got the astrantia at another one that carries more unusual stuff-they have a coreopsis I want that has chartruese foliage w/ deep red flowers-that nusery usually has their sales end of this month, so I am going to have to go back up there for that-like $3 off each:)
OMG pam sue you don't have air! I lived like that once before all of this really bad heat came along and it was awful then I can only imagine what it's like now and don't want to find out, I really feel for you girl!
I may ask for seeds for those pam sue but I'm really trying to cut down on seeds this year, I really need to paint the house on the inside this year, I say this every year and I hope to make it happen this year lol If I get so many seeds to going downstairs I'll never get the painting done, I need to be a good girl and do my chores this winter and I really want to get my beds in shape next year instead of planting all summer and work on some garden art but I am collecting seeds to send in :) Someone has to smack my hands though if I start asking like I did last year LOL AND I MEAN THAT!!!
Fairy all of those plants sound wonderful! You hit the jack pot it sounds like, I never see a lot of those around here :( I saw a new coreopsis at the grocery around here that I wanted but I did good and didn't get it, I forgot what it was called but it was like a pinkish light red? It was pretty! I love coreopsis but it takes it so long to get some good size on them, I just did plant the ones I got in your perennial coop :) Still need to find a good spot for that campanula, that one is going to be nice too!
Lea-well, look at it this way-the shipping for my next one won't be til next April, so you will not have to worry about them anytime soon!!LOL
I did hit the jackpot-I wanted at least a donzen more!!LOL I am already collecting my seeds for this years swap:)
Fairy, that's not smacking my hands, that's with coop plants too! U bad bad bad enabeler!!! I can see I'm not going to get any help from you! LOL
Nope-just more plants!!LOL
Do like I do, Lea, just cover your eyes when they talk seeds. lol : )
~Lucy
oh gosh, I really need to have a long spurred yellow columbines :0
I think I have one or at least one similar from the second-chance swap seeds, thanks to Suzy. It was: aquilegia tall yellow McKana Columbine (Weez). I just planted the ws clump today, I sure hope it grows. I went with a group from DG (from the MidAtlantic forum) to Longwood Gardens in PA and we saw some there too, they are really pretty. Here is a picture from Longwood :)
PamSue....maybe a little window ac would do the trick if possible just to have a room for some relief? We usually keep the ac off but when it gets so humid and hot we weaken and turn it on. I remember the days before I was married and I didn't have it, I actually went to sleep in the somewhat cooler unfinished basement one time, I was so hot... the dog thought I was crazy and went back upstairs into the heat...then I got to thinking about spiders and other basement creatures and followed the dog back upstairs! lol
Back before we had AC, just to fall asleep, my DH and I would take a spray bottle of water, and would mist each other down, with the ceiling fan blowing on us. I don't know how we stood it, all those years.
well i notice when i am older i cannot stand the heat.. a little window ac would do the trick for sure. i did notice a little one in town for 25 percent off..kicking myself for not getting it..but you know it cools off during the nights here..the other night it was like 38 imagine that in mid july ! .unlike in the midwest where it doesnt really cool off at night.. usually it is in 50s at night normally here until the hottest part of august for about two weeks it doesnt cool off much, so between 12 noon until about 7 or so it gets pretty warm..right now i see it is 97.5 thank goodness next week will cool off in the 80s
btw none of our cars have ac :(
lea..well i do know what you mean :) ..i got enough seeds to last me awhile..since the weather was weird last spring i put off on alot of seed planting so ill have plenty for next spring. ill contribute at the next swap what i have of seeds that i will collect this summer. I got plenty of other things to do as well around the house.
what do you do with the carpeting may i ask?
pam sue
I cannot imagine pam sue lol I won't even drive the truck right now because I must have a leak somewhere with my freeon (sp), no air, I have way too many hot flashes not to have air lol I would spontaneously combust into flames with no air and hot flashes!
I'm laying the carpet down on the ground to kill the grass then this fall I will plant it, it's a good thing for making new beds like the leaf beds, if I had some leaves left from fall I would put leaves under it, I have a few left but will probably use them for mulch in my herb garden, once I get my limelight wormwood out of there.
Well, I had a girl to try and help me figure my camera out yesterday and I don't feel bad now she couldn't either, we're going to tackle it this afternoon, I would love to be able to show some pictures this week! This is one of those easyshare cameras so I don't understand why it's so difficult! Easy my @%XX!
Lea-it is all about playing with it-it took me a bit to figure it out:)
looking forward to seeing your photos LeBug :) good luck with your new 'easy-to-use' camera!!!
I'm having issues with wasps this morning...I moved an active nest this am after my husband got stung (yesterday) and now they are soooooo mad and swarming all over where it used to be. They nested inside one of my wicker baskets I keep on the porch. I figured if I moved the basket closer to the porch railing the wasp "traffic" would not cross the porch and we could walk by ok, but they seem to be so confused and are swarming where I had the basket. It is only a few feet in front of where it was. I was going to take a photo but was afraid to get stung. I'm sure they will figure it out eventually. I'm not going to kill them because I rarely kill anything unless I really have to. I tried reading about if wasps have any benefit ~ it seems the parasitic wasps do, but I don't think these are that type.
This is Salvia splendens compacta 'blaze of fire' from seed
Here is my new astrantia-isn't is purdy;)
Hey all - just swung by to do a quick catch-up. Sent Suzy a dmail - she's fine, just busy.
Diana - with wasps an exterminator told me to always have a CAN of hairspray handy - spray it on their wings and it gums them up so they can't fly. Doesn't kill them, you'll still have to do battle with a grounded and angry enemy, but at least it's limited to fewer dimensions of attack. (Works much better than the shovel I saw my neighbor swinging a few weeks ago....)
I remember living in FL without A/C - we would take cool packs from the freezer, wrap them in handkerchiefs and put them around our necks - in about 20 minutes it had us nice and cooled and we would fall asleep. I think a ceiling fan is mandatory in situations like that, or the nearest you can get to one.
I think one of our biggest problems with a Piggie Swap next year would be to not send in the things we just got from this one - I assure you the Illustrious Illoquin would recognize them!
OK, off to work on that front yard. Big storms rolled through yesterday so it's cooler today, and things should have dried out enough that I won't get soaked pulling that grass out.
LOL-they could be seeds from the same plants though that we planted...you know, plant and get fresh seeds from:) I know there were some things that I wanted, but was NOT quick enough, so am hoping those will be fresh offered this year;)
Robin-I was laughing so hard picturing someone swinging a shovel at wasps!! I bet that was quite a site!!
Smoke works to make them go away too....
Wind if you move a wasp nest you're suppose to do it just before dark or after that way they are all in the nest and don't come out :) I don't swing anything at those wasp that's what ticks them off lol The hair spray sounds like a great idea! I don't really mess with the wasp very much they leave me alone and I leave them alone but I do have a mudd dobber nest in my window at the top glued to the top of the window on the outside between the outside window and the inside window, a hard place to get too haven't figured out how I'm going to do that yet, when I open the window it will be open to the inside of the house! I think they just lay eggs in it but I never know when one is going to be flying in or out and too chicken to do it even at night lol
Thanks for the good luck wish on my camera lol We're going to work on it today :)
How do you save salvia seeds? Some of them are so difficult! I've been trying to get seeds from my bicolor red and white, I just love them and can't and have a garden of salvias that I want to collect seeds from and a saphire blue, in my nectar garden that is beautiful that needs to be shared! I tried on that one all summer and only got five seeds! Then they didn't germinate but I got lucky and one reseeded :) So I can try again this year, I so wish I had enough light to take cuttings of these!
Fairy, is that astrantia Ruby Cloud? It sure IS purdy! Did you buy that one or grow it from seed? I want one lol I have seeds to the vulgaris Red Cloak but they are wine, violet and pink mixed for this year :)
Lea-I want to know about how to save salvia seeds too-anyone?? I am trying to get dinathus seeds right now and they are a PAIN IN THE BEHIND!! I have decided I am just going to save whole flower/seed heads and that is what peeps are getting!!LOL
It is Star of Beauty-a brand new cultivar-PPAF!! I found it and decided that even if I had to ramen noodles I HAD to have it!!LOL
On the dianthusyou just wait until they turn brown don't you? Are they like the pink dianthus or the deltoides? On the deltoids I just wait for them to turn brown and the seed heads open, cut you a big handful then shake them in a sack, I got all kinds of a baby dark pink ones and brillance maiden pinks this year I lost all of my artic fire from the wet winter I guess but I have some light pink just regular dianthus, I don't collect those cause I figure everyone has at least one in their garden lol I have some double red dianthus too but it's not a pretty red so I don't bother collecting them either. I wouldn't mind having some of the newer ones this year IF I was going to plant a bunch of seeds this year LOL
Hey ramen noodles are good LOL
Pineapple sage seeds are hard to collect too, I do the same with those, shake them in a bag and just hope I get enough to share lol I did have some reseed this year which was quite a surprise but they are only a couple of inches tall so far, at least I think that's what these seedlings are.
I took off the brown heads, but then I have to open them up and open up the middles to get the tiny black seeds....nothing is openend so I have to hunt for them....should I wait longer?? With all the rain we have had, collecting seeds is a little harder-nothing seems to dry out real good...
My brillance gets little long, not quite an half inch seed pods then they open you can see a hole at the top of the seed pod then I just cut a handful off and shake into a sack, it takes mine a little while to dry too, I wanted to collect seeds today but it rained last night so I'll wait until tomorrow :)
huh, mine are a little differnent-maybe I need to wait a little longer then-I will try that & see if it works..
Fairy are they like the regular dianthus? like these:
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/106137/
Or are the petals more like these?
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/56668/
I'll be back a little later planting some more coral beans that just sprouted, grape 4 0'Clocks and castor beans lol
They are differnt ones-some have the real green leafy foliage and some have the spikey blue kinda foliage...
I never collected reg. dianthus seeds before so I went out to check mine out and they have seed pods just like the rest of the ones I have except they are bigger, so if you wait long enough that seed pod will open and it will look almost like a star with a black center lol That's where the seeds pour out and they do pour out :) You are in z5 so maybe yours just aren't quite done making seeds if nothing falls out of them :)
OK-I will wait longer:)
hi :) I'm wondering about seeds too...does anyone know if I can pick mizuna lettuce seeds while the pods are still green? I have alot of pods but it seems if I wait for them to ripen they disappear? beetles maybe? who knows
...and much to my disbelief, I still have 175+ or so 4" containers with seedlings in them :0 My mom planted more out in the veggie garden border today. She planted some salsa white salvia, summer poinsettia, and some 18-24" nicotiana.
I thought I really had my seedling pile under control and for some reason I counted what was left and couldn't believe it, well over 100! and this is really a small amt left compared to what I had. You should have heard my mom muttering..."it's getting too late to plant"..."I don't want to plant anymore" lol
our garden is getting attacked by J.beetles now and we don't have time to hand pick them off the plants so I had to hang a lure out, which I hate to do because other insects end up in the bag too like small moths etc., but they seem to work.
oh, as for the wasps...most of them seemed to have found the basket with their nest, but there are about a half dozen still looking for it on the top of an overturned Jack Daniel's whiskey barrel where it was.
someone told me neem oil helps to deter jap. beetles-there was a great article on here about them last week I think and it said that they release a hormone that attracts other ones to them-kinda like a "dinner's ready bell"-they do this within 24 hrs of coming out of the ground...
