Cottage Garden Seed Swap & Chat #34

Lea, if the area stays wet, Astilbe would love it there. They tolerate sun well if they're constantly moist. Did you start some Astilbe seed? A lot of varieties are short. Primulas would work nicely for spring color. You're right, Lobelias would love it there, both the blue and Cardinal types.

blue flax is nice planted some last summer but I like the lilly that is coming up next to it looks like an oriental

Mona, I have a group of (1each) 5 different Oriental-trumpet hybrid Lilies in yellow and white planted there. They're special varieties from Faraway Flowers, and this will be their 2nd season in the garden- I'm so excited to see them reach a mature stature this year! It's been my plan to see those gorgeous Lilies emerging from a cloud of blue blooms, so we'll see how that works out, LOL.

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa :- ( . Why is one plant ya really want decides it gonan be the one ya can't grow. I have sproute d growe d abit and now lost batche s of tithonia. Haven't the foggeist at what the problem is. Do they not like to be grown in a pot and transplanted.

I got a few seed s left for one more try. I start them out same as all seed s in small seed trays and then move up to 6pack and they start croakign on me.

What ya all doing to grow yours. My butterflies want thes e really bad too. snif..sniff

Star -- mine have not even germinated yet.

i know Karen [in OH] grows them ... maybe she'll know. She's usually in the WS forum.

I planted trumpet last summer to, four of them they are suppose to grow to five feet or more with up to 15 blooms I will wait and see lol but it said up to three years for full height and only under the right conditions hahahah so wont hold my breath on that one
did give them everything it said, full sun, well drained soil lots of food so I will have to wait and see how tall for this year got them to grow to about three feet last year

How odd Ella! I just did a late wintersowing on them last year (started them about this time in jugs). They got kinda tall and skinny before I planted them, but bulked up quickly as soon as they were in the ground.

**OH -- disregard.... Trumpet Lily, not Trumpet Vine

This message was edited Apr 16, 2009 7:15 AM

Mona, I bet you'll see a big difference in your trumpet Lilies this year. I've had them reach 7'. I wanna see pics when they bloom!

Star.... I have alot of Tithonia I can send you. I direct sowed them last year and they did great. I can pop some in the mail if you'd like.

Andrea

I can't direct sow them ebcaus e I don't have groudn that will sustain them. we havign wors e floodign problems than every before this year. We havign to try and get the county enginers out to do something.

So for now I have to grow in pots. Do ya think maybe if I put seed in big pot that would help.

Thanks Andrea. I stil got abotu abotu 12 seeds here. If I lose thes e then maybe I might ask ya for some.

I would put them in a big pot then. They get to be bigger seedlings pretty quick. Maybe thats why you are losing them. I had forgotten what I planted in my bed and they were the plants that I was happily watching because of the growth of them. :-) They were a nice surprise! LMK if you need anymore.

I will post pics I got four different colors one is white and yellow, another is pink and white and one is pink with some purple and the other is yellow with some orange if I remember right but only got like three blooms on each hoping for more blooms this year and hoping they made it with the cold we had I am not sure what is coming back yet

Trumpets are very cold hardy, I don't think you'll have any problems.

Neal, I don't think Astilbe would survive in that wet spot in the summer it's dry then, I have Astilbe in my mini shade garden a little ways from it, I have Astilbe in a few places really and a friend of mine on here grows it in the sun but the spot that stays wet in the winter cracks in the summer no matter how much I water it. Maybe I'll split some of my Bridal Veil and put a small piece there and see what happens I have enough of that to waste :)

I'm just going to take my computer to my computer guy to see if he can find my word document but thanks tcs, a little late to try that Ctrl thing but I will make note of it for the future it could come in handy for me, I'm always doing something wrong on here or hitting the wrong button lol

Star, sorry don't know much about Tithonia, last year was my first year growing it but I just started mine in pots in late spring they grew so quick it wasn't a problem so that 's what I'm doing this year, that might be your answer to just plant them in a big pot and put a plastic bag over it until they germinate.

No, Astilbe wouldn't be happy there, they'd want moisture all summer.

Such a hard spot to plant :)

Let's take a little poll here. What is the most disagreeable part of seed sowing for you? Let me begin, may I? LOL.

Hardening off is the BIGGEST pain in the rear for me. I know we'll have a lot more cold days ahead, but since I'm so short on space I thought I'd go ahead and get them started. Then when the weather quits playing wicked games with us I can just kick them out. Ugh. I've spent the last 5 hours taking everything out of the GH in small batches for little 20 minute sun baths each. And I have HOW many more weeks of this?

La, I always just stick mine out in the morning sun this early in the year and they sit there for a while longer than 20 mins. I'd say for a couple of hours because the sun isn't that hot yet. A little later I'll just put row covers over my little greenhouses in the morning sun and I let them stay in the sun like that for a week or so, every once in a while I may put them in the sun to see if they get shinny or if the sun is effecting them in any way. Get you some row covers, big lots has them a lot of times for like 99cents. sometimes I may have to double them up because they are so thin but so cheap and I couldn't harden off my plants without them :)

I don't think I like anything about sowing seeds but I love to transpant after they come up lol And I hate sowing jugs and dealing with that darn duck tape! But oh SUCH REWARDS LOL

my alliums are about a foot tall now cant wait to see those big flower balls in purple and pink also the checkered lilles are up

Lea, the first time I wintersowed I used duct tape on the first few jugs, but now I just leave them as is. Have never had any issues, and I can flip them up and look with one hand.

I am going to do it that way next winter will be saving all my jugs hahahahah can you still return them after they have been cut hahahah

Neal, really we had a dry winter here they didn't dry out this year? My pots were getting pretty dry by the time we had that snow/ice storm. I'll try that next year, well maybe the next jugs I do I'm not done yet :)

I usually always have a couple of flats germinating one thing or another all summer on the deck usually perennials to bloom for the next year they get planted in the fall its kinda cool doing it outside

99 cent row covers Lea? Are they actual row covers? I mean if I go looking for them is that what they're called?

I just put them all out on the north west side for the day so they get a breeze and shade after five days I move them directly west so more sun and so on till they are out in direct sun unless they are shade plants I just keep them on the north west so part sun

and most perennials I do it pretty quick a few days and then plant them I take more time with the annuals since they are more tender

La, I still have one in the package from last year and it has 'Plant Cover' on it at the top and the cardboard is green at the top and then the row cover showing in the package at the bottom, it's about a foot long and about 8" wide. Usually they have them just hanging on the sides of the isles where the plant stuff is. They may be more this year but for the last few years I've gotten them for 99 cents. You can get better ones but they are way more expensive but thicker I just buy a few every year, using one just one year the sun takes a toll on them and they get holes in them pretty easy, I use pinch clothes pins to hold them down. You have to double them if you use them for frost it can get thru them but they are large the size on them is 59"x196". I need to remember to go look for some I've been looking for more greenhouses but they don't have any and never even thought about the row covers.

I get the painters plastic drop sheets at the dollar store 1 dollar and they are like 10 by 10 feet I just put all the flats in a square and put it on top

That would be most excellent, I hope I can find some....especially for 99 cents! I've already burnt a flat of gerberas in the GH from the door being open and the sun shining in on them. I think they'll recover but they've lost most of their leaves and are going to have to start from scratch again. I have to run into town tomorrow anyway so I'll stop at Big Lots and see if they have them.

Lea I always see you talking about your Big Lots greenhouses. I wonder if mine has any of those too. I'm assuming they're unassembled? But hopefully easy to put together?

Yep La, they are easy to put together but ours quit selling them about two years ago but I keep going and checking mine are about worn out, I did find a couple at one of the dollar stores not sure which one we have so many of them here, but it only had two shelves the other ones have three shelves but these will do in a pinch. The ones at big lots were $19.99 and the ones at the dollar store were $15. If you look for them at BL they are in a white box and it's about two foot wide and about 30" long, but pretty flat, it was probably about 2" thick. A lot of times they put them on the top shelf, I just hope they aren't a thing of the past...sigh...

I don't think I would use those plastic drop sheets, if something would happen and they were left in the sun they would bake and if it does frost one night plastic isn't good to put on plants for that is it?

I'd have to agree about the hardening off. I despise it so much that I just chucked them outside this year after our last frost date. I've got them on the deck with the umbrella up to give some shade. The shade plants I have under the table. So far only 1 shade begonia and 1 asarina scandens (afraid they got a bit too much sun) have shown any resentment at all. Most of them are loving it. We've been fortunate to have a lot of rain, and fairly steady temps in the 60's day and 40's night. Now, if I could just get them ALL in the ground by next weekend.. what are the chances of that?

Sciccarella, how did you do your checkered lilies? I'm having no luck with mine :(

Lea, I keep all my jugs butted up against each other, and that sort of holds the hinged lids down, so I haven't really noticed that making much difference with moisture. I did notice the earlier part of winter being dryer than usual, but nothing had sprouted so I didn't do any additional watering then. I did try a potting mix this year that has better drainage than most, and have had to watch those a little closer.

astilbe being a woodland plant does well even in dry areas I have never watered mine and it does great as long as you have one wet season out of the year they are good

My astilbes have all dwindled since I've lived here. I figured it was because of dry conditions. Well...its not just been dry, its been drought the last couple of years.

they like compost every year and mulch and they do fine

They do like compost every year that helps when we have the dry spells I think, I always think I've lost my Astilbes in the middle of the summer when we hit the dry spells esp. in my shade garden out back because I always forget to water that one for some reason and it used to be my favorite garden when it had all of the shade but not so much shade anymore. Most of my compost that I make thru the winter always goes on those. My compost is my mulch on my Astilbes.

Neal if I remember right I did try the jugs by just putting one piece of tape on a couple of sides of the jugs last year but it was wetter in the winter than it was this year, next year I'll do the same. That duck tape really bites and it's not cheap.

Lea, I left one side of my milk jugs connected (for hinge) and the side opposite made 2 holes with a metal skewer and used a twist-em to keep them closed. It worked very well with no tape.

what a great idea will have to try that next planting season

I wore my hole punch out putting holes in jugs one year, got the bright idea to do that in late spring when it warmed up after I took the tape off :) Of course I had around 200 jugs that year or more. Sounds so funny to me now to only have 24 jugs done this year lol