What's happening in your spring garden #2

I might be wrong, but I think I saw some at Barrels and Branches, a very nice little nursery in Encinitas. That's where I got my lime green variegated ceanothus. They have interesting plants and really nice pots and fountains.

http://www.barrelsandbranches.com/site/

This message was edited Mar 20, 2009 5:58 PM

A different view of the Wisteria, looking straight up.
WIB,
SW

A beautiful first day of spring here in the Sacramento Valley. My apricot tree is in full bloom.

as well as freesias - one of the best smelling flowers in the world!

Imapigeon - I have some thalias too. The catalogs say that they are fragrant, but I really don't like the smell of them. Not as bad as paperwhites, but not really pleasant. How does yours smell?

Ecrane3 - what a variety of plants you have! lovely.

soils, I totally agree with you about the Thalias; they seem to be more "smelly" in the evening, so not as bad as paperwhites which reek 24 hours a day. If they weren't so gorgeous, I'd rip them up. I have a clump of beautiful Earlicheer daffs that smell equally nasty to me.

And I can't smell freesias at all....sigh.....

oh those freesias are gorgeous.

I thought only some freesias were fragrant?... and the others just have a slight smell kinda like black pepper? I'm probably totally wrong : (

I love those freesias! I keep meaning to plant some every year because I love the smell but I'm terrible about remembering to buy bulbs and get them in the ground. As far as I know they all do smell, although supposedly some of the old fashioned varieties smell better than the newer kinds, and I also think the single ones are supposed to smell better than the doubles. But all the ones I've ever smelled have smelled pretty much the same.

Thanks Redtootsiepop and ecrane3. I don't know for sure, but like Ecrane3 says, all the freesias that I have come across does have some fragrance - some more than others. I have planted just the singles, so don't have any experience with the doubles. There are some variations to the scent (but none of the strong floral scent that I don't care for) , but I have not come across a freesia that I did not like. LoL. Redtootsiepop - there are indeed some freesias that have a spicy smell.

Imapigeon - maybe you'll come across some of the stronger scented freesias soon.

And because they have such a great scent, they are one of my favorites for bringing indoors for an arrangement. This way, I get freesia scent indoors and out.

My fresias aren't showing a hint of blooming yet. Think they might be getting crowded in their pot? How often to they need dividing? I don't know a thing about them, just got hit with that scent at a sale one day and couldn't go home without them. One of the few scented flowers that does NOT make me sneeze my head off or hold my breath.

Here are some Snapdragons blooming right now.

KC, only the freesia DH bought me and the ones in the gh are blooming. One of the ones in the gh is still in the pot and blooming, so they should come back.
How about a weird poinsettia?

My first portulaca.

My first mum.

I believe this is a salvia. That green carnation still hasn't bloomed.

Okay, this is a weird flower. It just keeps growing!
(All of these photos were taken in the green house today.)
WIB,
SW

That is a really weird flower SW. What can it be? No wonder the hummer liked your greenhouse! It's hummer heaven at this time of year.

This is new growth and flowers on a seedling Japanese Maple.

Ooooh, SW---your banana's blooming! And do I see baby fruit in the background?

ooh cool pics !

Yes those are bananas, and it is still growing. I'd have to climb up on a ladder to get a better photo, so will wait until the weight of the bananas brings the stalk lower.
Doss, always nice to see the new growth on your plants isn't it? I look forward every year to my trees budding out.
WIB,
SW

KaperC - in answer to your question about freesias in a pot, I am afraid that I have only grown freesias in the ground, so don't really have an answer for you. I do know that not all freesias are created equal - I have had some that blooms really strongly year after year, and others that peter out after one year. I hope that yours does not fall in the latter category. But, once you get the right ones, they are very carefree, no-maintenance plants. When the bulbs multiply, they tend to be pushed up towards the surface, and that is when I know it is time to thin. I just pick out the loose ones and leave the deeper bulbs in.

SW - it is so neat that you can grow your own bananas. Your greenhouse must be really tall to accommodate a banana plant!

Dianne

Guys, I am totally drooling at those nursery websites!

OK, you guys, I'm passing along a pic of my pink jasmine. I've got pink jasmine on both sides of my driveway and planted it to create a year-round soft cloud-like effect. It was an enormously successful plan and I love it. It intrudes into my white Lady Banks rose like magic.

The buds have been dark rose for a week and I come home from work every day in great anticipation, awaiting their explosion and the sight and scent it will bring as I pull into the drive.

The hardest lesson I've had to learn as a new gardener is patience. As I planted little plants each year and awaited their maturing all this talk about Spring and the loveliness of the season was quite seductive. And I'd get so discouraged because I couldn't make my garden space look pretty like all the talk lead me to believe it should look. But I must tell you that after several years of getting out in the patio, for instance, weeding, sweeping, pruning always left me delighted when I finished. The next day it seemed as if it was right back where it was before all that loving work. That experience finally resulted in a sense of patience with the change of each season. I now leave much of the seasonal mess alone until late in the early season (huh?) before I get out there and obsess about making it look perfect.

Is that what some of the rest of you do?

My Jasmine looks like yours - lol - in a suspended time warp! I check it every day, several times a day, waiting for those buds to open. Patience is not one of the virtues I possess, either!!!

I am obsessive-compulsive, too - I start to work on weeding around a flower, then a whole bed, then all the beds, then the fence line - and it's never ending. I obsessed about planting things in threes - did that in a lot of beds, until I ran out of room - now, I plant whatever I can fit into a bed. IMHO, my back yard looks great - not perfect, but close enough to perfect for me!

LOL, Linda----I've been patting myself on the back for the past 2 days for not jumping the gun to clean up my front courtyard (which has been driving me crazy) because the wind's been blowing those 2 days and is knocking all the liquidambar stickery balls off the tree. If I'd cleaned it up earlier, I'd just have to do it all over again. I sort of did the same thing in the back yard-----I let ALL the leaves fall off onto the new (light-colored) gravel paths before I cleaned them up.

If I don't do it the way you describe, gardening becomes what I call "circular work"---like washing dishes or doing laundry or painting the Golden Gate Bridge: you do it and the minute you're done you have to start over. And that takes all the fun out of it for me!

LOL, KayJones! Yes, me, too! Several times a day. I'm home today after oral surgery, little black stitches all around inside my mount EEEEeeeee! Nasty! Painful! As I was taking that pic I could feel the pain meds leaving me shakey all over, so came back in to sit down at the PC. I'm going to be home for the next 5 days; tomorrow for recovery, Monday a vacation day, Tuesday a state holiday. SIX days, woohoo!

Surely that jasmine will strut her stuff during that time. Expected to be 79 degrees Sat! 10 degrees above normal. That's gotta cause her to "burst forth," don't you think?

Linda

Walked through Costco today, they had pots of jasmine so it smelled yummy in there!

I took a few pictures in the backyard this AM, tomorrow I really should get dressed early and take pictures in the front!

I have my favorite diascia in a pot with my lime tree, I sheared it back in the fall and it's all plump and starting to bloom. Love it when a supposed annual is a perennial! I have two pansies that did the same thing.

This is one of the returning ones, my favorite for it's fantastic & strong sweet fragrance

And the primroses are really going to town despite little critter chew marks.

And I am so pleased with all the returning daffodils I planted last year, sure gives a cheerful spring look to the garden.

Lovely photos. My jasmine in the green house has started to bloom but the flowers are small. The gardenias are still blooming as are the freesias. It does smell so nice in there.

SW, what is this purple little guy?

Twincol, are you talking about her image above of the freesias?

Sue - beautiful pics, looks like springtime at your house!

my freesias are starting to bloom - and they actually have a nice scent.

I'm just going to have to plant some more freesias. I did notice a bud on my little pot of them, so they should come up fast now.

toots, is yours really as blue as it shows in that photo? I bought some that were supposed to be blue, and they're lavender. Pretty, but not what I had in mind. I have purple, yellow, red and now lavender......and ONE bright magenta double that's pretty spectacular. And of course, I can't smell any of them :-{

They are quite blue, and our house is gray, so that helps them pop out. I have another pot on the other side planted with dark blue pansies and an emerging hosta - which is why the freesias are stuffed toward the back - my timing with the hosta didn't work out as I had planned, oh well. They are not quite as deep blue as the pansies - here is another shot. Also, when they open they look more purpley.

So they DO come in actual BLUE! I'll have to look further.