What's happening in your early spring garden?

Salvia involucrata x Kathy still blooming:

Salvia africana lutea blooming now:

One flower on the salvia 'Tequila'

oh look at all your beautiful salvias!... just gorgeous and makes me anxious for spring - beautiful today. I put out the corn gluten, but unfortunately did not get enough to cover -so back to the store for me. Ima, they did have the pellets at Lowe's in a shaker bag.

wc,
Your salvia's are gorgeous. I especially liked the micro Dancing Dolls.
Red, the corn gluten from Lowes, what is the brand name on it? I am in need of some myself. They just built a new Lowes a couple of miles from me, and I'm not going to wait for DH anymore.
I've been working on weeding this flower bed a little each day. Looks like a plain green swath right now.
WIB,
SW

This photo shows I made some progress. But there is so much left to go!
WIB!
SW

Great salivia collection gypsy! I also love the dancing doll.

tootsie, glad you got the corn gluten---it works so well for me, and no worries about kids, fish, animals, birds, etc. Thanks for the source at Lowe's. Hope it works for you, too. As I said, this pelleted kind is not what I've used, so I'll be anxious to hear! I'm thrilled to know it's readily available now. I have always ordered it from Peaceful Valley in 50-lb bags, which last me a long time but I have to pay shipping & store it. Mice love it....sigh.

SW, your weeding progress looks wonderful! There's always more to do...I'm trying very hard to look at my garden and enjoy what's DONE rather than focusing so much on what's left to DO! It's not easy for me, but I'm working on it.

SW, the brand of corn gluten I get is Amaze. They have it at our local Home Depot.

Thanks you guys. I can't keep up with the weeds and everything else too. Time savers in the garden are appreciated!
WIB!
SW

ecrane, I love the idea of a jacaranda in a container! how big is the container? What about a magnolia?

Right now it's in about a 10 gallon container but it definitely needs to be repotted (hopefully I'll get to that this year!) I have no idea if it'll be happy in the container in the long run, but so far it's OK. I was afraid it wouldn't like my winters, so I had left it in a container so I'd have the option to drag it inside on a cold night. Of course I have yet to actually do that and now I know it doesn't need it, but it doesn't hold up well to wind either and since I live in a wind tunnel I don't want to plant it in the ground so it's going to stay in the container for as long as possible. I have a magnolia ('Leonard something???') in a container too until I figure out a place for it--I got it from Bluestone though so it's only about a foot tall now.

Got some more done in the garden. YS is my hero today. He helped me move those big rocks at the base of the dry soon to be succulent planter fountain.
WIB,
SW

More progress made today. Still more weeding to go, and I have more rocks to move. It's going to get there.
WIB,
SW

ecrane, I always call thatperiod between when I buy something I can't resist and when I actually get it planted "acclimating"

Acclimating to my climate/garden can last anywhere between 1 day to the rest of its life (sometimes, unfortunately, those 2 milestones aren't far apart!)

I had a crape myrtle in its nursery container for about 6 years before I finally knew had the perfect place for it. I needed to know its growth habits before I was sure where I wanted it, which was in my "mailbox" planter. It's very happy there.

Great progress, SW!

I was thrilled to find spinach seedlings sprouting in my veggie patch tonight!

I have VERY tall trees that sat in one spot 'acclimating' so long that they rooted...they're doing fine and I just kinda assume it was a choice they made. DH thinks there will be trouble...I just tell him to leave them alone, they're happy. It is not where I would have thought of putting a pepper tree, or a Chinese pistache, or some of the ash trees, but now that they're there I like them just fine. Did you know that very determined trees will put down roots through asphalt?

Yep, I have a giant sequoia that we bought one summer as a 1-gal with a plan to turn it into a reasonably-sized living Christmas tree every year. HA! It COMPLETELY rooted into the ground in about 3 months. Ate the pot--had to cut it off. It's now about 25 feet tall where it self-planted. A little out of control, but gorgeous, and a great bird-magnet! See? It acclimated...LOL!

I'm trying so hard to break the cycle now...really trying to not bring anything home if I don't know where I'm going to plant it, but.......

Me, too, sigh....but I have a flat of stuff that's been "acclimating" in a nursery flat in the front courtyard for the past month. Still alive, though!

Hehe, This cracks me up as I just uncovered a flat of plants I started from seed last spring acclimating in my grandmothers shade garden almost completely covered up by ground cover and nasturtium (sp?) but still alive. I know where im going to plant them now. I just have to move some coneflower, verbena, and a perenial pea vine

I am the queen of acclimating! LOL I think my neighbors probably think I'm running a garden center off of my front deck. I was really lazy this fall--I did get some stuff in the ground, but I was waiting for the rain to kick in before I finished up and it didn't kick in until this month. So I guess I need to get moving!

One of my problems is that I've got plenty of room in the garden for some low growing perennials, but I love shrubs so every time I go to a nursery or a botanical garden sale I always come home with new shrubs. And usually they're ones that want to be 10 ft tall so there's no way I have room for them anywhere, but I love them and must have them, so they continue to acclimate on my front deck until such time as the gophers or a cold snap kills something else and I have room for them. The other problem is that sometimes I find a plant that I love but I think it will be hard to find again, so I plant one in my garden but then I buy a backup plant for just in case the gophers get the first one, then the backup plant has to acclimate on the deck because there's nowhere else to put it unless the first one dies.

My worst example of acclimating is a flat of Myoporum that I bought from Lowes in fall of 2006 (yes, 2006!) and have not got around to planting yet. I haven't even put them in proper pots or anything, they are still in the flat I bought them in. I'm completely shocked that they haven't died. The sad thing is I actually have room for them so I don't know why I'm procrastinating on planting them!

I figure if it survives outside for a year then I can plant it. It has acclimatized. Then again I procrastinate sometimes too! LOL!
WIB,
SW

ROCKS!!!!

Acclimation...I love it! I have a tiny "yard" and so, so, so many plants I want to grow. I have already started a lot of "acclimating projects," and since a bunch of the seeds I just started have already popped up, I foresee a whole lot more plant acclimating in my future. ;-)

I'm acclimating in my mind.

I'm still trying to figure out what you mean by ROCKS, KC. You've got rocks on the mind? Use those rocks and incorporate them into raised planters! Speaking of which, here is a photo for you! LOL! I had to move this rock, and was surprised at what I found.
DH is going to HD, and promised to find me some corn gluten. Hope he can, especially since I gave him the name and everything.
It's drizzling here today, so I can probably put it right down, and let it soak in. I hope! At least on what I was able to get weeded yesterday. It looks like I'll have to go back and weed by hand the first area. I don't believe I planted anything in the first part, but I'll check.
My daffies are blooming and I have a lot of seeds to work on getting into containers for transplanting later, but first, my weekly tune-up at the chiropractor.
Then rest for the afternoon. That's the plan, and I'm going to try to stick to it.
WIB,
SW

What a great photo! I just get excited about rocks. We have to buy and drag all ours home!

Sometimes I buy rocks. They often have to acclimate too.....

Rocks are my favorite plants.

ha ha ha - I'm sorry I missed all the acclimating today !!!

SW you are taking care of bizness! I volunteer in my sons kindergarten class on Wed so I am continuing to let things acclimate until tomorrow.

I hope your DH finds the gluten, I don't remember the name of the first brand I bought ? But will get some more tomorrow and let you know.

I got an email that Armstrong's is having an anniversary sale starting tomorrow. ... just what I need -go buy more plants instead of planting what I have... maybe I can do both?

Oh, yeah? The last time we bought plants at a sale there two of them died right after planting. It was Fall, though, and I think they'd been there quite a while.

terrible! ... I bought some hebes at 50% off there that have done well.

you were totally right, unless you're looking for a sale on candytuft ... nada, and their prices seem really high for plants that you can find around easily.

So I went to Alden Lane and did find some things tee hee hee, my pile grows.

This bloomed today.
WIB,
SW

Several of my daffs have opened up, and both spinach and lettuce seedlings are sprouting!

way to go - my raised bed is waiting for me, I'll see how much I get done today.

This followed me home this a.m....I'm afraid I'm begining to succumb to the siren song of hydrangeas. This is a lacecap macro named 'Nizza' and the photo can't begin to do justice to the flower colors. It is immediately, today, going into a 5 gallon pot so it can take a little while to decide where it wants to reside.....



This message was edited Feb 27, 2009 4:05 PM

Ohhh pretty! Is it acclimating now? ;-)

I have this weird thing happening here today..maybe someone can shed some light on this for me. This little finch-sized bird with a black head and neck flies to the dining room window, perches on the tiny ledge, and repeatedly taps on the glass with its beak. It hops back and forth along this skinny ledge, just looking in at me and tap tap tapping. This has happened 4 times already today. What the heck? LOL

I have a robin that has done the same thing for a few weeks in spring for about the past 5 years. I tried hanging something in the window because some of the bird people told me it was tapping at its reflection. This just made the robin crane its neck around the thing I hung. I thought maybe he was getting bugs off the glass. He never flew at the glass, just tapped his beak on it. Then I thought maybe he was just trying to get my attention for some reason. I never did figure it out, and he never hurt himself, so I just clean up robin spit off the window every year after he's stopped for the year.....LOL!

It's that time of the year where the birds are claiming their territory. They see their reflection in the window and think it's another bird. We had a cardinal that would sit on the car and look at himself in the mirror. He worried himself for quite a few days about this 'other' bird that was just as determined as he was. Eventually he got over it.