Cottage Garden Seed Swap & Chat #34

Meredith, you girls will love those :) Very pretty roses, are you going to let them pick a spot out and plant them? When it comes to holidays deny, deny, deny LOL

Yeah, I wasgoing to let thempick a spot. I hope they willsurvive here. Roses are always border line here. :)

Meredith, those little roses are growing on their own roots, so they'll be more likely to survive there. A good thing about the minis is they can die back to the roots in winter and come back like a regular perennial every year. If you're looking for roses hardy for you zone, let me know. I've been studying up on hardy varieties and can direct you to some good threads by northern gardeners who've tested lots of them.

My roses do very well here. I do not cover mine at all, rarely fertilize ... i trim them back in the spring when the new growth starts, and they all seem to do just fine.

I do - however have them against my foundation, so - you may call it a zone 6
OH and im sure my soil is crap too. I do feed them banana peels ... started that last year.

Thanks guys! Good to know... Gemini I would love to know if you found any good hardies that are pinkish coral - more on the pink side, not too orangey. Any come to mind?

The first one that comes to mind is a Hybrid musk, Cornelia:

http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/52476/

She's really nice, and I don't spray or use chemicals, so they have to be tough to do well for me. Unfortunately I no long have Cornelia, the dreaded rose rosette virus got her and I tearfully shovel pruned :-( That's one I definitely want to replace. I'll be thinking on it and let ya know as others come to mind.

Terese, I didn't know you were into roses! Do tell, what varieties do you grow?

Perhaps a bit off topic, but Roses are such a Cottage Garden staple, good to have ideas which ones to combine with all the fabulous seeds we're starting!

Neal -- I Only have 7 plants i think ... most Hybrid Teas. I have 2 Floribundas though. [Honey Perfume, and something else]
I think i know the names of 5 of them. Peace was always my favorite, but it got this "growth" thing where i may lose it.

Think evrybody busy plantign and sowign and workign right now while weather is nice.

I soed some of them minata vine seeds from summer hill. They growing. They bloomign but they look so weak and small. Do they need pinched anybody know or will they branch out even further on their own?

I have aslew of walkign Iris. Anybody got any ideas what would look good with them? They have to go into pots, flood thing, but tire d of lookign at them just by themelves, they beautiful when they bloomtheir tiny flowers and make the walkign babies, but othe r than that they just Iris leaves .

Wow I guess everybody IS busy. Well hello to the next guy who pops on.

I'm putting my seed bags away (for real this time.) I am FULLLLLL up! Hopefully I'll be able to start hardening off some of the tougher plants in a couple of weeks and reclaim my house. My poor dog is fed up with it too prefering to stay outside or upstairs as opposed to goose stepping through the chaos.

Happy planting all!

Hi Lala
I too am thinking about taking some out and starting the hardening process soon. It is so cold here now and none are quite ready but hopefully that will all change in a week or two.
Kind of lonely here today, isn't it. LOL

BTW how many true leaves do we need to see to begin to harden off?

Poppin in to say hi. Busy cleaning away for tomorrows company. Indy, I'd check out the root system and if it looks like a good amount of roots or practically pot bound they are ready. : )

I put quite a few of my bigger plants outside yesterday up against the house. We had rain all day long, but fairly warm. They loved it! I'm afraid I'm not great about bringing them back in again, so at least they had a moderate day to enjoy without too much stress. Going to get them in the ground asap. This is when I always lose them, due to having a hard time keeping them watered in their 2 1/2" pots outdoors!

In considering what to plant in what combinations for pots, I've been thankful again and again that those 'purple' ruffled petunias are white! Didn't realize how much I needed white until now!

Happy Easter everyone, don't eat too much candy :))

I'm planting a few of those white (purple ruffled petunias he he he) in my moon garden, I was glad they were white too and have more spots for those than the ones they were suppose to be lol I have lots of the lavender petunias going from Tunik's petunias last year and some of those go in my moon garden too :) I like the lavender in the evenings. I planted some nice darker coral bells out front and some white petunias are going in between those too lol

La, I thought my red verbena was reseeding in my tub that I had them in last year and it was just those darn purple blooming ground cover weeds! They started taking over my middle bed too and a small ground cover weed that is light green, I think they over took some of my tall red phlox back there I know I planted more than what is coming up that I have been able to find in the weeds anyway, usually I get out in the winter to pull weeds in that bed but weather/life just didn't permit this year and now I'm paying for it, last year it took me all summer to get the violets out now I have those darn ground cover weeds! lol Did I mention the violets are coming back this year with a vengeance too! lol

I haven't started my tomatoes and peppers yet :( Need to get those started today for sure! At least they won't be fighting the lights this year lol Someone soaked the seeds who was that and how long did you soak them just a couple of hours? I really need those to come up faster :)

Sorry Star don't even know what a walking iris is. I do have a question though :)) I planted what you sent as dusty miller and now I have all kinds of coral bells coming up lol I want to know what kind of coral bell seeds that you collected, now I have my caramel and yours :) I was wishing I had grown more coral bells to plant out front and now I have them thank you lol :) Kind of looks like palace purple ones maybe they are already getting some darker leaves.

I'm still trying to find time (and energy) to plant a few more things. I never should have brought home plants from the round up! LOL!
Hope everyone had a great Easter. I've missed the chats. Spring is a busy time everywhere.
Until I have something to show from my seeds!
Walk In Beauty!
SingingWolf

just got back from toronto spent five days there over easter visit family and friends it did remind me lol of why I moved to this neck of the woods, the traffic and polution and the noise is just awfull I am so glad to be home in the boonies hahahahah

Mona -- i think that is our dream one day too. Boonie. Though i do like some of the comforts of suburbia.... 5-10 or less in some cases - to anything i need.

I'd have to say out of all of it, and i have highway, trains and air traffic ... the worse is car traffic [sitting in it] and the trains. I can deal with the air planes [as they are certainly not as loud as they used to be] and the hum of the highway behind me [with exception to the compression braking at 2am] ... BUT -- DH would love to have a shooting range on our property, and can't have that in suburbia, much less the state of Illinois. yet i digress.

back to gardening.... looks like it's gonna be a cool day, i was hoping to get out and get in the dirt a bit... we shall see. Had a day of rain yesterday -- sure that made all my seedlings happy.

It looks like I've had an unexpected casualty of cold in my wintersown jugs- Helenium. I never dreamed they'd freeze out, but no sprouts visible now, and there were loads of them :-(

Anyone else have that issue with them?

I have the best of both worlds since everything is 15 minutes away including all big box stores and supermarkets etc..... and a market about 5 minutes away for the forgotten stuff it is amazing how we found an area that was perfect

when ottawa started to get larger it went east and west for some reason it went only south for a few miles and stopped because of the farm land so we are actually less than 30 minutes from capital hill so DH gets to work very quickly and we are living in the countryside, all lots in my area are about 5 or more acres with lots of forested areas and the rest is farms some even with cows and chickens etc... the kids love it and the air is clean which is amazing in the summer what I dont grow I get locally

maybe they dried out check your other containers to see if they are drying out

Everything else looks good, there's about 60 containers that have germinated and Helenium has been the only loss. I used a free draining mix in most of my WS containers, so I've been keeping a close eye on them for moisture. Its possible they're extra sensitive to drying, but I get the feeling something else was the issue.

common name sneezeweed hahahahah I dont plant anything that has weed in the name maybe it not making it is a godsent since it may spread like crazy

No chance of anything drying out here! I think the clouds are trying to make up for the past 2 years of drought in a few weeks! It's good though, I need an excuse to focus on some other things for a couple days during this time.

Lee.Bug.......... Ya sure ya got corals bells. Hummmmmmmmmmm I am at a loss here. Let me look around. May have some more dusty milelr seed around, if not have soem plugs of it cna send ya.

gemini- don't giv eup on them Helenium. They have to have dry and heat lot sof it. I had abotu 40 pots of it I thought had done croake d compeltely. I move d them to area where they would stay dry and get lots of heat and they slowly coming back up and they take their good ole tiem abotu comign back up too.

I have had abotu half so afr come up and the others I just leavign sit and check evry few days and wilfind another one tryign to start back up.

SingignWolf!.. God to see ya gal. LOL glad ya got to a roudn up and had ya a little bit of fun. We always need mroe plants heheheheh

Hey, does anyone know if Rudbeckia 'Prairie Sun' will come true from seed? I've gotten some plants, and hope to collect seed this fall, it's so pretty, in pictures anyway!

Ella, you think there are more seeds that haven't germinated? I hope you're right. There were a lot of babies in there, but I don't remember how heavily I sowed.

Kelley, a member on the WS forum has saved seed from her Prairie Sun for a few years and they've come true for her. If you have other Ruds nearby they may cross pollinate some. She even had some turn out doubled (but otherwise the same as the parent). Yes, do save seed from them- I want some ,LOL.

Cool! I'll keep them separate just to be safe.

scicciarella, my helenium has never seeded itself and has an amazing amount of lovely blooms for quite a while and into the fall. Definitely not a weed in my book.

Mine came back up from where the little sprout s were before. Mien got froz e big time. They very fussy it seems and gues sicne they a full sun and drought tolerant plant they not gonan do there thing unle s they hot and thirsty.

I really have to hold back on watering min. I se th epots dry but know oif i water them before they had a chanc e to dry out good and to th epoint of bone dry they wil croak on me and then i gott a wait on them to come back up again.

Remind me in the fall! I'm so excited to have a full season of seed collecting this year. I didn't get into it until mid-season last year. This year I've purchased things with collecting in mind, so it should be a good one! Bought 3 of the prairie sun plants with a bday gift certificate, and some sempervivum that I can trade chicks of :)

Neal, all the irises are coming up so strong looking, I can't wait to see what blooms!

Great to hear Kelley! The ones you sent look really good here too! Bearded Iris seem to really like it here, I'm gonna be snatching up every kind and color I can.

I think I'll be expanding on what I collect seed from this year. I've been kinda getting into starting bulb plants from seed, so I'm going to try to harvest seed from my pink Chionodoxa, and some other small bulbs. Also have a cute little mauve Corydalis producing little pods that I'm hoping to catch at the right time.

I have to spend the afternoon trying to catch up since I lost the weekend since I was away to now it seems that I will have to work harder the next couple of weeks to catch up

I've actually been thankful for the nasty weather we've been getting. Its the only reason spring cleaning has happened! I'm the cook around here, so spring usually involves frozen pizzas, LOL. Although I've gotten to the point, having made everything from scratch for so long, that I can't stomach processed foods very well any more. Need to come up with some simple, quickie, and prepare ahead of time dishes.

I make lazy mans lasagna, ground beef browned with onions cook full bag of elbows or penne, put two can of crushed tomatoes, pasta and ground beef mixture into lasagna pan mix, flatten out and put mozza and cheddar cheese bake at 350 preheated oven for 40 minutes it make enough for three meals for four people so use very large pan, I make it on friday and its good for the whole weekend hahahah reheats in the micro great serve with nice salade that take a few minutes
you can make it in the late evening and it works great

or try a huge pot of vegi soup lol many servings and quick to heat up

When I'm thinking ahead of time, I'll take a weekend to prepare lots (enough to separate for 2 or 3 meals) of full scale lasagna and freeze it. I like the idea of simplifying like your recipe, thanks! Come to think of it, I have done something similar with penne before. Beans, soups, stews, BBQ, Chili, and spaghetti sauce are good ones to freeze too. At this time of year I like to have cold sides that last several days prepared, like pasta salad and potato salad. Then I can usually get someone else to grill up some steaks, chops, or chicken and we're good to go.

tonight is bbq burgers and zucchinis with salade all done in 15 minutes that works for me

Star, no dusty miller seeds needed here but thanks, I'm happy with the coral bells really just thought you might have some idea which coral bell seeds they are from :) They are quite healty and getting transplanted today :)) I found a few seeds from last years swap from the dusy miller and just planted those :)

Y'all remember last year discussing whether or not those of us in hot, humid summer regions could successfully grow English Wallflower? Well, we sure can! These were extras from last years swap, wintersown last year.