Thanks, Katye! I just found some in the Johnny's Seeds catalog. They are in Maine, so I'm thinking I'd be ok with theirs in NH....you might be too! Their site is www.johnnyseeds.com. I do think I'll give them a try! Their catalog says theirs are ready in 90 days. That will work ok for me if I get them in as soon as the ground temps are warm.
Al's Thread - Part 2 - Come back, Al!
Anyone growing artichokes? I'm going to try them this year. Whether they will winter over will be a crap shoot but seed is cheap ^_^
d-nut i grew them from seed last year. plants grew huge - no fruit - learned it came in year two - i transplanted them out of the veggy garden - i let you know if they make through the winter - very easy to grow.
This message was edited Jan 31, 2009 5:36 PM
Good to know wha. Thanks
Dahlia and Bill - I had no idea how to grow artichokes, but it sounds like I could do that. Bill, please keep us up on how yours look in the spring.
I have grown them too for the last few years. I have gotten a couple to cook, but never at the same time! We share one. Not great, but pretty. They have never survived the winter here, but perhaps if I mulched them. I am starting them soon as I think they just never have enough time to set fruit. After they germinate, I am going to plant them in black grow bags and keep them in the Gh until mid June, so they have more heat, before moving them out. I may just leave them in the growbags. Years ago I did have one that I bought as a bigger plant and it did survive one winter and we let it go to flower. It was very pretty. Fun to try. Patti
Artichokes have done well here, but ONLY in hot summers: our hot being consistently at or above 80°. I am zone 7, and was told to mulch them well; this worked.
I think they would be fine grown in large pots, and placed in a GH for the winter. Mine were in-ground.
They are incredibly sweet when harvested & immediately cooked - as is most garden grown produce. I would encourage you to try growing them - they take more vertical space, so I interplanted with lettuces & flowers. Oh - stake them if you get any measurable wind.
I love artichokes, but DH doesn't, so I usually buy what I need at the store--do fresh-picked ones taste differently?
I'm posting this not to make anyone jealous, just to let you all know that I may have some items up for sale on the market place/classified ads here, or possibly available for trades. I don't want to count my chickens before they hatch, knowing that there are another 2-3 months of this winter duldrum left before putting anything outside in a portable green house. I might have to invest in another set up for my veggie seeds/seedlings.
These are some of the coleus cuttings. I used cut up toilet paper holders/paper towel holders to use as pots. I'm going to have to repot them all soon, the roots are crazy on these things.
Here's a better pic of the coleus cuttings. I'm hoping after I repot them that they will put on some new growth and I will be able to make more cuttings!
Victor Garden....your link at the top doesn't go anywhere but the list.
These are from the variegated Brug. that I had flower like crazy this past summer. It was sold under the name "Peach Parfait." Trying to find out anything about this is pretty much a mystery. I looked on the 2 different Brug association web sites and it's not a registered Brug. It's a different flower than 'Snowbank' and 'Miner's Claim,' so I know it's not either of those. The "mother" plant I thought went dormant, but that's about 2' tall, and has about 7-8 growths on it, and the leaves are HUGE. These are the cuttings I took last summer.
Here are some of the DL crosses/seedlings I have growing out. I'm not sure if they are due for their "hair cuts" or not. I just repotted all of them...so anything else would probably be traumatic.
Here is a pic of "everything else."
There are 'Tea Cup' EE babies, 'Nancy's Revenge' EE babies, two plants I'm hoping will overwinter from Well Sweep (one is the Root Beer plant, the other is the silver sage), there is a desert rose that someone (patti? polly? pixie?) sent me in a trade that is leafing out fine. There are 4 seedlings from Mimosa pundica (Sensitive Plant), 4 baby brugs, and another EE. Then to the far right are Plecanthrus 'Mona Lavender' that I'm trying to keep alive until the Spring/Summer.
And lastly, this is the double windows (directly behind the light garden) that I have stuff pulling through on the window sill.
First (L -- R) Siam Red banana, the mother plant croaked but sent up 5 pups!!!
Coffee plant, a bulb that croaked, Iresine cuttings I need to pot up, a variegated Desert rose that I got from the Logee's RU, 'Milky Way' EE, and a variegated fern that I thought was a goner that is coming back.
I now have baby delphinium and baby lisianthus only about half an inch tall but better than nothing lol
still waiting for the columbines to come up this week have to start other perennials
I have a lot to learn about artichokes, but this info helped, Patty and Katye. Thanks!
Thom - Are the Iresine cuttings coleus? I have some coleus that look just like that and I haven't been able to find out which cultivar they are. The hot pink stems look very similar. I love those.
I'll be all over your coleus babies and your variegated brug cuttings if you put some on the marketplace. Any chance for advance notice so I don't miss them? One more question - is the banana on the Siam Red banana really red? It looks like you've got your hands full there with all those babies! I love your idea of using the toilet paper/paper towel rolls for pots. That's very clever!
Mona - aren't you smart!! I love the lisianthus! It sounds like I'm not the only one getting my hands dirty, you guys!! LOL
my hands are dirty for 10 months just love it, this week its heuchera an astilbe they will spend the summer in pots and go into garden in the late fall when they are big enough
Mona, are you able to take cuttings from your astilbe or do you grown them from collecting the seeds? I've tried to do both and had luck with neither. I'd love to be able to do some from seed, but the only way I've been successful is by dividing them, and that's a pain!
Donnie--The banana is "redding" up, but not quite there, during the summer the mother was really read...it was really neat on a semi windy day when the red leaves were whipping about and their undersides were showing. I'm going to wait until the summer to separate the pups out into their own pots. At this rate, I might have double the amount I started out with...I think the original was about $30 or so...lol. As far as I know Iresine is it's own genus. They may be related to a Coleus, but I'm not sure. They were really easy to grow from cuttings. The plants tend to have a hollow stem/stalk, and they don't flower like coleus tend to...atleast mine didn't. They get quite tall, before I hacked mine back for the fall, they were almost 3' tall and formed a nice clump that was about 1-2' around. They get a little statuesque so I would recommend planting something in front of them. I think this year I'm going to pot them up and sourround them with the black sweet potato vines (I have a whole shoe box of tubers overwintering). I will definitely keep you in mind for an "advanced" sale...lol. I just hope everything stays healthy over the next few months!
I'll be starting up some perennial seeds/annual seeds in the next few weeks!
I actually purchased the seeds since these are the very tall ones 40 to 50 inches the ones I have are shorter 30 to 36 inches
these will be for a bed I found last fall mesures about 12 by 90 along the full lenght of the front of the house tucked in at the start of the woods it is empty all we found in it was service berries and we took them all out so now it is empty and ready for color I ordered 10 hostas at 24.99 time two from veseys
I hope will 20 hostas 4 times 5 different one and lot of astilbe and columbines it will look nice I will probably plant impatients this year to fill in since the perennials will be small
I will post pics as I get it done
Thanks very much, Thom! You know, I'll bet that what I have been thinking are coleus, are actually Iresine. Your description of them fits mine to a T. No wonder I can't find a match on the coleus sites! LOL Your red banana sounds very pretty. We have a Cavendish dwarf that was a pup to our neighbor's Mama. It has pretty leaves that have reddish "stripes" (sort of) on them. We planted Ms. Cavendish right before we left here last spring and she now has a pup growing beside her.
banana trees are famous for turning into a banana groves lol
started with one now have five in three years but it is in a large pot so it is ok
Your babies look great, Thom---would love to try one of your DL seedlings---let me know when you post them for sale!
with astilbes I found that if you dig about 6 to 12 inches away from the plant depending on size closer if smaller and you cut a section of root and plant it sideways about two inches down it will make a new plant so if you have a good size plant you can get lots of cuting and it will not damage the plant
Mona, that's very interesting. I'm not big on digging up plants to separate them in order to get "new" plants from them, because my back gets whacked when I go digging up stuff. I did move some astilbe to a new area last fall, and there did seem to be a lot of little "sidekicks".
you said you moved it well you may have babies at the old site from the roots that got left behind so check in the spring you maybe surprised by some off spring they would come up at the same time as the moved plants or maybe a week or two later since you know what the foliage looks like you will know when they come up
… now where was I?? Hee hee. I decided, after sowing my oats on every cheap gardening site I could find, to return. Actually, the house is spotless, the floor no longer squeaks, the drips are gone (thought the MIL would never leave), the garage is arranged alphabetically and the weather bites. So what was left for me to do?? Bouncing my gardening ideas off the cats just didn’t cut it.
Seriously, I did read the threads for the first time the other day and missed being involved in them. (Also noticed a number of great potential lines dying by the wayside!)
I want to thank all of you who contacted me. Your kind words and encouragement were more appreciated than you could realize. It was so nice to hear from some people whom I did not even know. I also want to thank everyone who posted about me in the threads.
Now… I notice this thread is getting long. ANYONE ELSE wish to…^_^
Welcome back, Victor!!!!! So good to see you haven't lost your sense of humor :)
WOOHOOO!!!!! So glad to see you again. When I saw the poster name, I had to look twice. So, are you going to be able to visit Fairweather on 4/4? No pressure. LOL
Oh, please, allow me.....
Welcome back Victor, my friend. I'm so glad we could put any differences between us by the wayside. You have been missed!
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/948955/