Don’t Forget…Tomorrow Night is Give-away night!

I work tomorrow so when I get home I’ll do the BIG REVEAL and show evveryone the SURPRISE PART OF THE GIVE-AWAY! AND THEN I’LL DRAW A NAME AT 7PM!

THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE TO GET IN ON IT.  POST A COMMENT NOW!!

Summer Replacement

I swear every spring that I won’t buy pansies that will end up being a “throw-away” item when the weather heats up and yet I still buy them. It’s hard to resist the new colors that seem to pop up every year in the garden centers as soon as the snow melts off the  plant tables and once I smell the fragrance of pansies…I cave.

This year I bought a flat of “coordinated” colors ranging from a soft burgundy to a pale apricot.  They were lovely in the hanging basket between the garage doors and in the terra cotta pot at the foot of the walkway but once the  hot weather hit…they went south, lol.  I cut off all of the blooms and arranged them in a clear glass rose bowl and enjoyed their loveliness indoors for a few days along with their scent.

 

 Instead of sending the spent pansies to the recycle bin (compost pile), like I would normally do.  I gave them a severe haircut (think flat top), a couple of shots of organic fertilizer and moved them to the shady side of the house for their “summer vacation”. 

 

 

 

 

 

As you can see from the picture above, they look pretty sad but over the summer, I’ve been making sure they get watered and fertilized regularly, and occasionally pinching back some of the taller growth to get them nice and bushy again.  I’ve even been pulling off the flower buds that have started to reappear so that the plants will put their energy into growing thicker, lusher stems and leaves.  When cooler temps return and their summer replacements are done, the cold-loving pansies will take center stage again blooming well into late fall and early winter.

So what is the summer replacement…

I love the look of coconut fiber baskets and have several different sizes.   I have a large 12-inch  basket for between the garage doors and  I planted it with “Blueberry Ice” petunias mixed with “Royal Purple” verbena, white verbena, white allysum and white petunias.  All of them with the exception of the blueberry ice petunias are “Proven Winner” varieties. 

It’s not difficult to make your own hanging container but it takes a couple of weeks before it will fill out and look as good as the ones that you can buy right off the rack so to speak, of course you’ll pay a pretty penny for having the work done for you and you won’t have as many color/combo options either.   

In my area you can spend a small fortune buying a beautiful hanging basket and I’ve seen some go for as much as $75.00 depending on the size of the pot and what plants used.  Mine cost me a grand total of $13.98 and the best part is, I can reuse the wire basket and compost the coconut fiber lining and not add another plastic pot to the landfill.  Here’s the cost breakdown:

• wire plant basket $6.99 at Big Lots several years ago
• coconut fiber liner $1.00 at Dollar Tree
• potting soil – had on hand (I buy this in bulk) $2.00 worth
• 4” pot “Blueberry Ice” petunia – FREE give-away from a garden club guest speaker
• 4” pot “Royal Purple” verbena – $2.99 – local garden center
• 6” pot Mixed White Annual Assortment (Proven Winners) from Big Box Garden Center- $7.99

I water hangers EVERYDAY unless it rains and I fertilize my outside planters weekly during the summer with liquid organic fertilizer “tea” (Neptune’s Harvest).  This is a lot of fertilizing but with five or six plants in one container you have to feed often.  The roots will fill the pot first before the top growth kicks in and takes off and that accelerated growth depletes all of the nutrients in the potting soil in a matter of a couple of weeks.   If you use a granulated fertilizer like “Osmacote” you only need to add it once when you plant your container and it will continue to release fertilizer over the course of the summer.

Both petunias and verbena love the hot weather but do need to be deadheaded every couple of days and pinched back when they start to get spindly looking.   Don’t be afraid to prune annuals back hard when they get floppy and stringy.  If they really look awful after a bad haircut, move them into a protected spot and continue to water and fertilize till they bounce back which is usually in a week or two.  

Don’t forget about the give-away this week!   There’s an extra surprise in store for the winner!

Cooling off!

This past week has been brutal….I rushed home from work every night so that I could make sure and soak the garden good but even so, there was a lot of wilting going on and not just outside either.

My daughter came up Friday night to visit for the weekend both of us were really beat from a long work week and the sweltering temps and we both wanted to go someplace cold and wet. 

Sitting in the sun all day at Hampton Beach, just didn’t have the same appeal it usually does so we decided Saturday morning to drive up to Zealand Falls and hike to the waterfalls that we’ve visited before but Carolyn read the wrong directions in my hiking guide and we found ourselves in Lincoln, NH at the trailhead for Franconia Falls.  We had gotten a late start and it was already nearly 4PM—too late to turnaround and head for Zealand Falls which is at the end of the White Mountain National Forest so after talking briefly to the park ranger who told us it was a flat hour and a half hike to the Franconia falls, we decided to give it a try since neither of us had been on this trail before.

We walked along an old logging railroad bed that followed the Pemigawasset for most of the way.  I wouldn’t categorize this as a hike because most of the distance was flat with a slight climb at the end to the falls, unlike the  Zealand Falls trail which is vertical for the entire hike.  It took us about a little over an  hour to walk the 4 miles to the falls and even though the trail is heavily wooded, we were still hot and sweaty when we reached the end.  Which made the cold mountain water at the falls feel all the more refreshing!  

		Cooling off New Hampshire Style! VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Help Me Celebrate with A Give-Away!

This give-away is now closed.  Thank you for for stopping by.

TODAY is my one-year “BLOGIVERSARY”!   My first post was made on July 21st, 2010.   I can hardly believe it’s been a whole year since that first nervous post.  I worried that no one would be interested in reading what I had to say about gardening and quilting or whether I would be able to come up with new things to write about.   Back then my goal was to write at least once a month and while sometimes I’ve exceeded that goal, there have been some dry spells too but what I feared most—running out of topics—hasn’t happened and  I still have lots of  ideas and information that I hope to share with you in the future.

Up until last July I had only ever followed ONE blog myself, knew very  little about blogging and struggled with the mechanics of adding pictures and “gadgets”—what were those? I’ve learned so much from my fellow bloggers  and  I have  been lead to some wonderful blogs that I follow and even have followers of my own.

My last give-away was several months ago  when I celebrated my 50th post by giving away a stack of fat quarters.  This time, I’ve decided to give away something garden-related.  So I’m offering a wonderful book called “Month By Month Gardening in New England” written by Jacqueline Heriteau and Holly Hunter Stonehill.

This 383 page paperback book is packed full of suggestions for each month as well as sections called “Did You Know” which feature hints and projects. It includes eleven plant categories from annuals to water and bog plants, charts and lists for trees, shrubs, companion plants, summer bulbs, fall bulbs, tips for drying herbs and flowers, thinning vegetables, how to deal with bugs, prune roses, lawn care and maintenanc, organic alternatives, how to stake perennials properly, the language of flowers and what they mean…..and on and on.  

Don’t be deterred from entering just  because this wonderful  book targets New England---the information inside is relative to any area of the country, because it’s written in almanac style.  For instance, when I’m reading the planning ideas for March, you may be reading the planning ideas for April or May if you happen to live in the mid-Atlantic or southern half of the US.

Oh, and did I mention there will also be a surprise included with the give-away?   The “surprise” will be disclosed once the winner has been chosen by random number drawing.  Here’s a hint….think hot, hot, hot just like the temps around the country this week!

So to enter the drawing, leave a comment about what is in bloom in your garden right now.  If you don’t have a garden you can still leave a comment telling me what summer sewing or craft project you’re working on.

This give-away will last till Thursday, July 28th at 7PM.  Winner will be announced then.   Good luck! 

Flutterbys!

I know it’s been awhile since my last post, but I’m finding it very hard to write, take care of the house, garden, and work full-time this year.  Don’t know why when  for fifteen years, I managed just fine with a longer commute and teenagers but somehow I just don’t have the mental or physical energy or maybe the enthusiasm to come home, change and do anything outside except water until the bugs drive me inside.  Then it’s make something for dinner, clean up and get ready for the next day. 

I’m not complaining ---I’m very grateful to be working in this economy and by all indications—this will turn into a permanent job with benefits in a few weeks--but these beautiful summer mornings when I’m driving to the office make me long for all I’m missing outdoors. I love having coffee on my tiny porch in the morning, then loading up the wheel barrow with my tools and supplies and spending the morning outside in my gardens coming in for the hot part of the day and then back outside till dusk.

This weekend was the first since April  where the weather and my family commitments fully cooperated and left me with a free weekend.  I have been trying to catch up with my weeding and planting the stuff I got at the plant sale.  I vowed that I would not buy any more plants this year until everything that was living in a pot was planted but this morning on my errand run for gas and composted cow manure, I caved at Home Depot and brought home  two new pale yellow daylilies named “Joan Senior”!  They are not in bloom yet, but I promise a picture when the buds open.   

This post, I also wanted to write about Butterfly Weed (Asclepia tuberosa) also called “pleurosy root”.  It’s a member of the milkweed family and really too beautiful to be called a weed.  If you have a really dry sunny area, it’s a a great choice.  Having a deep taproot it’s drought resistant and will spread freely if you don’t dead head it and let the seeds fall, but otherwise I find it easy to control.   I don’t mind it spreading because friends always want a plant, once they see mine.  There aren’t too many pure orange flowers other than annuals.  It comes in other colors too but the orange is a stunner and seems to attract the most butterflies.  Mine is planted with a clump of English lavender and blooms the same time—the combination is stunning.  It’s also excellent for cut flowers and lasts quite a while. 

Here are some butterfly pictures I took yesterday and today—I think after seeing them, you’ll understand how Asclepia tuberosa, got its common name.  One summer before I started blogging I counted fifteen Viceroy butterflies feeding on it at one time.  The butterflies in these pictures are Great Spangled Fritillary and Yellow Swallowtails.   They’re the real deal in garden art! 

		Butterflies VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Blooming Now!

Around here, it seems like everything is “hurrrying”.  It’s only mid-June but I’ve seen some latter summer perennials coming into bloom.   Perhaps they’re making up for lost time because of the very long winter we just had or maybe they know something we don’t—yet.

One perennial that’s blooming now and you should take note of, if you haven’t before is Lysimachia punctata or Yellow Loosestrife.  It’s an old-fashioned heirloom perennial that’s been around for a long time but you don’t see much of anymore.  This is probably because it can be a bit of a thug and overrun the garden if not kept in check.  But thugs aren’t all bad, in my book.  When you have a lot of space to fill and not a lot a money, a few “thugs” can give you a good show quick, you just make sure you pick the right “thugs”.

Last year was the first time that I planted Yellow Loosestrife in my garden and so far I’m very happy with it.   Yellow Loosestrife isn’t a plant you’ll find at the big box store garden centers.  I got mine at the plant sale and it came from another gardener who probably got it from someone else’s garden, etc. etc.

The nice thing about this perennial is that it tolerates a broad range of growing conditions.  Mine is growing on a very sunny hill that drains fast and dries out quickly but I have a friend who grows hers under a tree in partially shaded garden that only gets morning sun for a few hours a day. 

There are a few fancy varieties with variegated leaves and even dark red leaves (I have another one called “Firecracker”) but all of them make a wonderful statement when grown in a decent sized patch and that  won’t take long since they spread reasonably fast.

Garden Club Plant Sales

Yesterday was our garden club’s fourth annual plant sale.  Looking back at the first plant sale, I still can’t believe how far we’ve come since then in knowledge and organization. 

Back then our membership was larger but it was made up of mostly novice gardeners who had little experience identifying, digging and dividing, and to save money we used too little dirt to repot the plants and lost a lot of them before the sale.  I think we all wince a little when we think how many of them were probably mislabeled.

We’re a much more organized and experienced bunch now.  This year we had over 1,200 plants that were in top condition.  All of the plants came from local gardens and were dug by members, who then repotted and cared for them at their homes till the sale.  We start the whole process in early April by advertising on the local access cable channel and in the two small newspapers that service our area, offering to visit gardens and divide or remove perennials that have outgrown their current location or are no longer wanted.   The weekend following the plant sale is “Pot Collecting & Recycling Day”  We will collect the used pots, wash them and store them for next year’s digs.

Plant sales are a great way to buy quality plants and support your community organization at the same time.  Because the plants have been growing in a local  garden and not a commercial field in another part of the US, you know that they will do well in yours. 

Most of the perennials at a plant sale sell for 50 to 75 percent less than what they would cost if you bought them from a garden center or big box store.  Since a lot of the plants come from the members own gardens, there’s usually helpful information available on the spot.  The trade off is that you may not always be able to get as many plants of one type or variety as you need and they may be past bloom for this year.   But where else can you buy a magnificent giant-leaved blue hosta or a Japanese painted fern for less than $5.00!