Houseplant Friday/Saturday–March Chores- Part I

It’s coming…you can tell, it stays lighter a little longer each day.  I’m getting about 10 hours of daylight now.   In just two weeks we’ll “spring forward” and if you live somewhere south of New England you’re already seeing bare bare earth and green starting to sprout everywhere.
So let’s wake up and get going.  Even though there’s snow on the ground here in northern New England, there’s still lots of chores to do.

Pruning

If you have fruit tress or ornamental trees, like crabapple, dogwood or cherry, now is the time to prune them (before budding).  If you are growing pears, peaches and apples, you can also apply a first application of eco friendly “dormant” oil spray. If you find egg clusters of tent caterpillars scrape them off now too before they hatch.

With 2 feet of snow that’s packed hard, it’s a little easier for me to reach some branches I normally would need a ladder for. 

Look for branches that crowd the center of the tree and thin them out.  Use loppers and pruning shears for smaller branches and cut as close to the junction as possible.  ALWAYS cut at an angle so that water runs off of the cut surface.

Also remove any branches that cross or rub against each other. Remove “suckers” that sprout from the roots or trunk.   You want light and air to be able to circulate.  I also remove any branches that hang low and restrict my mowing.  I leave lateral branches for maximum blossom production and cut verticals.

When cutting larger branches, always start with an undercut (start underneath the branch about a quarter to a half inch from where it joins the trunk of the tree.  This will keep the bark from tearing.  Cut about halfway through and then start the downward cut.  Get your blade as close to the trunk as possible aiming away from the trunk and towards the undercut you just made.  Undercutting and close trimming will protect the bark and allow it to heal (form a collar) over the missing limb.

Use a good  hand pruning saw (such as Felco) and wipe the blade with rubbing alcohol to prevent spreading disease.  After you wipe the blade down with alcohol, spray it with a light coating of  WD-40 to prevent rust. 

If your azaleas, holly and acid loving plants are starting to show new growth you can apply some “Hollytone” organic fertilizer for acid loving plants. This will help them recover from any desiccation (drying out) they suffered this winter.  Apply according to the directions. 

Make Appointments

Call NOW before the busy season starts to schedule mower service, pool opening, irrigation system start ups and rototilling.  These service people will get very busy in another month!   You can also start to call around for prices on mulch, top soil and gravel, if you know you’re going to need it.  

Now is also a good time to line up contractors and landscapers if you have a new project in mind.  It’s still the slow season for most of them and you can get a jump on your project and possibly save some money too.

Start “some” seeds indoors

It’s too early for me to start seeds because I only have one room with enough light and an unheated porch but if you are itch’in to do it, now is a good time to start bell peppers, kale, broccoli and lettuce, leek and onion seeds indoors.  All of these have long germination times. Kale, broccoli and lettuce are also cold tolerant.  If leek and onion seeds get too tall before it’s time to plant them in the garden you can give them a haircut with scissors.

If I had a larger garden, I’d start tomatoes from seed now too, but I buy my tomato plants from my LGC and the farmers market in Exeter.  I only need about eight plants for my small garden and I like to grow  several different varieties.  It doesn't pay for me to grow lots of tomato seedlings that I can't use.  Tomatoes are another plant with a long maturity time so they need to be started early but they also need warmer temps to germinate and lots of light to keep them compact.  A heated mat underneath your seed trays helps. 

If you have bare ground that you prepared last fall, or live farther south, you can scatter some seeds outdoors now such as johnny jump ups, corn poppies,  Flanders field poppies and mixed wildflowers.  All of them need a period of cold before they can germinate and will begin to sprout as the temps warm up.

Start a few pots of basil indoors for a jump on your herb garden.  You can grow them on your kitchen windowsil once they have their second leaves, you can  pinch the tips to keep them compact. Use the pinched leaves on sandwiches.

Don’t start annuals indoors yet, unless you have lots of  light and room.  Otherwise they’ll be too lanky and crowded  when it’s time to set them outdoors.  I don’t start my annuals till late April or early May, that way, I can put them outside for most of the day and bring them in at night till temps warm up.  Even starting this late, l get lots of cut flowers.

Start a Garden Journal

I’ve been keeping a garden journal for a couple of years now. You can buy a journal designed especially  for gardeners with grid pages where you draw garden diagrams and pages that have garden info in the sidebars and zone maps, etc. or can use a plain old ruled notebook, which is what most hard-core gardeners use. 

Mine is a little ring-bound notebook that has a hard cover.  I use it to draw a rough sketches  of my vegetable & flower gardens each spring because I rotate my crops and sometimes have a bigger or smaller garden.  I make a list of what I planted and when.  I like to add notes on weather and soil conditions, rain accumulation, last frost date and pests and whatever products I used.   I also like to add notes next to any new perennials that I buy indicating what did well and what didn’t.  If I plant seeds and like them, I’ll save the packets and tape those in there as well.

Only in NH

While I was out for a training walk yesterday I saw a man walking a pig!  Doesn't this sound like the opening line to a pig joke?  I'm glad I had my phone with me so I could catch a picture. 

Isn't she cute and she was much better behaved than some dogs I've seen out walking with their owners. No pulling on the lead, barking or trying to chase cars.

I'm sewing  the backing together for the Hope's Garden today.  Would you bellieve I didn't buy enough fabric?  I was so confident of my calculations. I still don't know where I went amuck.  I'm about twelve inches short in the width.  I considered piecing some other fabrics together to make up the difference, but this is a raffle quilt so my standards are a little higher than if I was making it for myself.

While I was out rummaging around in the sale fabric and holding my breath that there'd be enough yardage that matched my backing fabric, I picked up some prepackaged batting but I'm not sure I'm going to use the low loft poly or look for something else.

For most of my small projects like runners or pillows, I've used Warm and Natural which works great for those things but the last quilt that I sent out, was done with warm and natural and it does not drape well.   W&N seems to add a lot of weight too. This is OK for smaller projects but Hope's Garden is a flimsy and already it's pretty hefty.  I also would like a bit more loft than you get with W&N. 


Tomorrow night is the garden club meeting.  We have a guest speaker lined up and we're hoping to get a good turn out and maybe recruit a few new members.  Garden clubs all over are having a difficult time recruiting members.  The Massachusetts Horticultural Society has put an urgent call out to all of the garden clubs in New England asking for volunteers to help run the New England Flower Show this month.  I don't ever recall them doing this in the past.

Next up is Houseplant Friday and my first ever long-arm quilting experience.  I'll be posting pictures of that over the weekend.  I hope I don't break the machine.

Gail :)

And the winner is….

Before I announce the winner of my first giveaway, I want to thank all of you who visited my blog and left a comment.  Thanks for sharing your gardening and sewing projects for spring, even those of you who claim that you have brown or black thumbs.  Don’t expect me to believe that!  In my book, those are the best color thumbs to have because it means you've at least been trying to dig in the dirt.  

I hope you’ll always remember that no one is born a gardener but we are all born with the desire to "nurture" life and that's really what gardening is all about, isn't it?

I'm flattered that so many of you decided to follow my blog.  It raises the bar for me to write interesting and useful articles in the future and your comments have given me some insight into what your interests are.

SO ONTO THE GIVEAWAY….TA DA DA DA!

Remember I told you I was awarding an extra half-yard of fabric if the winner answered the bonus question? 

Well, shame on me, I lied!  It's actually a full yard and here's a picture.   It's also from StudioE's "Road to Marrakesh" line but in the pink color way.

The winner selected by the random number generator  is:

”Pam Pike”

Here’s Pam’s Post

“I made my way to your blog today from Sew Many Ways blog. I can't wait to read your gardening tips that she spoke of. For spring I most look forward to all of the trees opening with new leaves. It seems every year that it all happens so suddenly. I walk out on my deck and green, everything is beautiful green. I have a lot of perennials that I also love to see poke out of the ground bloom. If I were to win the fabric, I would most likely use it for making quilted wall hangings, quilted tote bags, and quilted organizing baskets. I'm just starting to experiment with quilting so I'm practicing on smaller projects before going for the big all out quilt. I look forward to reading your blog”.

Pam please confirm that you received my email and send me your snail mail address so that I can send this package out to you this week.  Congratulations Pam, I’m so happy to be able to send it to you.  Enjoy!

Gail

Last day for the Giveaway & What I did during the Oscars.

Today is the last day for the fabric giveaway--hope you signed up.  Wait till you see the surprise fabric.  I'm excited about picking a winner tonight and making someone's spring a little "springier"!

What did you do this weekend?
In this neck of the woods, we had two days of snow.  The upside of bad weather is that it's an opportunity to put off errands and other chores and an excuse to stay home to read, watch TV, sew or cook without feeling the least bit guilty. 

I spent most of my weekend getting the pieced borders on my RRCB mystery quilt which I've renamed "Hope's Garden" because I'm raffling it off as a fundraiser for my Avon 2-Day Walk for breast cancer in May.  

I stayed in my pj's yesterday, made a big pot of homemade veggie soup, heated up some left over garlic bread and spent the day, sewing at the dining room table with an occasional break for tea and crumpets (I love crumpets).  I finished up while I watched the Oscars.  

Who were you rooting for last night?  I was rooting for "The Fighter".  I'll admit to a little local bias here because it was filmed in nearby Lowell, Massachusetts and made by Mark Wahlberg, who grew up in Boston.  Lowell has been hit pretty hard during this recession. In case you didn't read my post from last summer, Lowell is the home of the New England Quilt Museum and the American Textile History Museum and a national park!

I was also rooting for Jeremy Renner for his role in "The Town" another film made in Boston and John Hawkes for his role in "Winters Bone". 

I am glad that Christian Bale won best supporting actor for "The Fighter".  It will bring some much needed recognition to the City of Lowell.  It doesn't hurt that he has a cute Australian accent and that he's easy to look at too. 

Happy Monday!

Gail :)

Coming Soon To a Garden Near You….

 

Or so I’ve heard.

The reality is a bit different today in New Hampshire. 

Happy February 27th!   Tomorrow is the last day to sign up for the giveaway.

House Plant Friday– Plants for Beginners

This week’s House Plant Friday is a actually a project—Today we’re going to be building a terrarium!

Don’t panic—remain calm.   I know this doesn’t sound like a BEGINNER’s project but I promise, it really  IS and you’ll understand why by the time you get to the bottom of this post.  

I went to  a terrarium workshop at my favorite garden center last week. It was fun and a  nice diversion  from wistfully staring at the snow.  This is a great project to do with kids and there were a number of them at the workshop.  Best of all, It just felt  nice to be in a heated greenhouse for a few hours and smell damp earth.

Trivia:  Terrariums were popular in 19th century Victorian England.  At that time they were called “Wardian Cases” named after a 19th century biologist, Dr. Nathaniel Bagshaw Ward,   One day he noticed a tiny fern growing in a glass jar while studying  a moth.  Dr. Ward was so fascinated with the plant which had managed to grow in a closed environment that he almost gave up his study of moths completely in favor of growing ferns under glass.   He had a carpenter build a glazed case to grow ferns and later published a book which popularized the cases and allowed explorers and plant collectors of the time to bring back exotic species which would have otherwise died during long sea journeys.   

If you’re a baby boomer or a hippie, you probably remember terrariums or glass gardens being popular during the late 60’s and early 70’s.  Back then the container of choice was a large glass demijohn which was used to ferment homemade wine.  They were pretty easy to come by then (I think you get the picture).

To make a terrarium, you’d use a funnel to pour some soil inside the bottle and then sprinkle seeds on top and cork the jar.  

Well everything makes a comeback even in the plant world and the latest craze is again terrariums some are even being considered art forms, like the terrariums created by Paula Hayes. .  Have you seen the terrariums she  created for MOMA (The Museum of Modern Art in NY)?   Here is a link to her website and a few pictures to inspire you.   The containers she uses are custom blown glass and the finished terrariums sell  in the thousands of dollars.

My terrarium is on the top left and some others from last week’s  workshop

Don’t these look like little woodland gardens?  I can picture miniature bunnies hopping around and little birds pecking for worms..  Isn’t this a great idea for an Easter centerpiece? 

Are you inspired?   Well let’s get started.  Here’s a list of supplies that you need.  Some of the decorative doodads are optional but fun to dress your terrarium up a bit.

We can do this in about an hour.

Tip:  Remember that the larger the container, the more plants and material you need to fill it.  Likewise a small terrarium looks better with just one or two plants than it does crowded with lots of plants.

Supplies:

• Work surface and newspaper to protect it.
• Clean glass container.   Almost any glass container will work. goldfish bowls, apothecary jars with lids, mason jars, empty candle jars, even a cleaned out peanut butter jar works.  Tinted glass containers must be able to have light pass through them.   If you’re a beginner or if you’re doing this with kids I would stick with a container that’s wide enough to get my hands into and all the way inside.
• Wide mouth funnel - If you’re  using a very narrow jar that you can’t reach inside,  this can help.
• Chopstick and/or paint stirrer– for spreading soil and tamping plants.
• Regular potting soil mix –  If your potting soil is very dry and powdery, It’s a good idea to add a small amount of water a day or two ahead of using it so that It’s easy to handle. I wouldn’t use soil that has fertilizer added to it.  The nitrogen may cause algae to grow on the inside of the glass.   About two  to two and a half cups for an average container.  If you have a larger container of course you’ll need more. 
• Spray bottle or mister
• Paper towels, q-tips and a clean paint stirrer  for swabbing the inside of the container, when you’re finished. 
• Small pebbles or gravel (for drainage) make sure you rinse them off well if they come from outdoors. The  amount depends on  your container size but generally about a one inch layer.
• Medium size smooth stones, small twigs, aquarium gravel and /or small figurines for decoration.
• Very small amount of sphagnum moss.   You need about a half inch layer to  form a barrier between the potting soil and the gravel so your soil  doesn’t wash down into the gravel. 
• One or two tablespoons of activated charcoal to help prevent acid build up in the soil.  You can find this in Wal-Mart in the Pet Dept. with aquarium supplies or in a Pet Store.  It comes in a plastic jar that’s easy to store and it can be used for other planting projects.
• Plants – My garden center had a large variety that were growing in 2 inch pots (see pics).  Supermarkets and stores like Target sometimes have small houseplants that will work too.  Pick plants that are different heights, have different leaf colors and textures for interest.  They should also have similar light and moisture requirements.  You can use flowering plants like mini African violets but they will need more light to bloom.  Some good choices are mosses, ground covers, begonias, pepperomia, aluminum plant, African violets, dracaena, small spider plantlets, peace lily, miniature ivy, trailing ficus, baby’s tears, small palms, lipstick plant, fittonia, and ferns.

I didn’t use the tall spathylophylum (peace lily)  in the picture on the left because it was too tall for my container. 

Let’s Get Started!

1. Place about an inch of your drainage gravel on the bottom of your glass container and spread it in an even layer
2. On top of that take some of your sphagnum moss and crumble it a bit. Now spread that on top of the gravel.  You need about a half inch of so spread evenly.
3. Add a tablespoon of the charcoal and sprinkle it randomly on top of the sphagnum moss.  NOTE: At this point,  I lightly tamped everything down a bit before the next step.
4. Add about a cup of soil and spread it around with your hands or the paint stirrer.  If your container is large enough, you can create small slopes or hills that mimic a miniature landscape.  When you’ve finished, visually check your glass container.  The fill level should be no more than one-third of the container height. 
5. Now take your plants out of their containers and decide on placementnt.  I put my tallest plant, the aluminum plant (pilea cadierei), in the center because my container was so small and because I only used three plants, but in a larger  container I probably would’ve put it at the back.  The baby tears (Soleirolia soleirolii) which is a small ground cover, roots very easily if it even contacts soil, so I broke it in half and placed one on either side of my container.  The last plant that I used was a trailing lipstick plant (Aeschynanthus lobbianus.  It will bloom and add some color to my tiny landscape.  There were two rooted cutting in the pot so I was able to place one at the back of my terrarium and one at the front. 
6. Before planting, give the root balls a tender squeeze to compact them, Add a little more soil to your terrarium and press each plant into the soil where you’ve decided to place them.  Use your paint stirrer or chopstick to backfill soil around each plant’s roots and tamp them in gently.  If you still need more soil add it a little at a time.  The planting depth should be the same for each plant as it was in their pots.
7. After you’ve got your plants in place and like how it looks, use your spray bottle to wet everything down well.  You should NEVER pour water from a watering can directly on your glass garden.   If you got some dirt on the inside of the glass (hard not to) you can wipe it with a moistened paper towel or wrap a piece of towel around your chopstick or paint stirrer, spray it with a bit of water and swab the glass.  Q-tips work pretty good for this too.
8. At this time you can start some decorative landscaping by adding things like a little gravel path or  miniature clay pot with a small bit of moss tucked inside, larger rocks or crystals to represent a stream, even figurines.  I used a tiny Wade bunny that came in a box of Red Rose tea bags and a few large smooth rocks.  A tiny bird’s nest or tiny colored eggs would look cute for spring too. 

Once you put the lid on your container you are creating a closed environment that will, for the most part, take care of itself without much help from you.  See, this is why I said this is a great beginner’s project.

Where you place your terrarium is very important though.   NEVER place it in direct sunlight or you’ll end up with a hot wilted salad bowl.  Terrariums should be placed on a table or shelf  where they receive a couple of hours a day of  indirect light from a window or a fluorescent fixture.  A north facing room is fine if there are enough windows to make it bright for several hours a day, but east or west light is better.

Trivia:  In Victorian England terrariums were the equivalent of our big screen televisions today.  Entertainment  sometimes revolved around making visits to view a friend’s plant collection housed in a  Wardian Case that might be room sized!

If your terrarium doesn’t have a lid, you’ll have to watch the moisture a little more carefully than you will if your container is covered.  Just be careful not to overwater and use a spray bottle to add moisture.  You can also make a cover out of plastic wrap. 

To do this simply cut a square of cling-type plastic wrap and fit it over the top of your container.  Now with a utility knife light trace just under the lip of the container and peel off the excess plastic.  This won’t be as smooth as you may like, but it works and will mean less checking and watering.

After a couple of days you’ll notice some condensation forming on the inside.  Don’t be concerned.  This is supposed to happen.  The condensation will run down the sides of the container and water the soil, providing humidity and moisture for a perfect little plant world!

Giveaway Update & Hope’s Garden Status Report

First off I want to say “thank you” for all of your  comments about what you’re looking forward to when spring comes.  I’ve read each and every one of them and my consensus is that we all just want to GET OUT THERE!

I’m entering all of your wonderful comments on an Excel spreadsheet in the order that you commented and assigning a number to each person who comments.  On Monday evening, I’ll use the random number generator and pick a winner.  Then I’ll check to see if the winner answered the bonus question and if they did, they’ll receive an additional  surprise fabric from Studio E. 

So hint, hint, make sure you answer the bonus question!

Hope’s Garden Raffle Quilt Status.

Wanted to share a progress report with you. 

Some of you may already know that I’m going to raffle off my Bonnie Hunter RRCB mystery quilt to raise funds for the  Avon 2-day walk in May which I’m doing with two of my daughter’s college friends.

After two days I now have the inner borders on the quilt.  I ended up taking off the side borders and re-sewing them because they went wavy on me. (I now  think it was more me hallucinating they were wavy than the borders actually being wavy).  

You other perfectionists out there know how this is, don’t you?

I also didn’t plan on buying fabric for the inner borders because I have a ton of dark greens left over from my Baltimore Album days in the ‘90’s, but none of them auditioned well with this quilt so I caved and bought  a tonal green that’s in between fern and cooked spinach (I love spinach)

As I sat on the floor pinning the borders It occurred to me that  “Hope’s Garden’ is the perfect name for this quilt.  So many of the small prints are representative of all the things that cancer patients hope for—a future filled with family holidays; watching children and grandchildren grow up; spending time and travelling with  loved ones; looking forward to the seasons and enjoying the beauty of nature. 

I like this quilt more now that I’ve decided to give it away.

I have a time slot at Bits and Pieces on March 4th to quilt it on one of their long arms.  I’ve already had a consultation and been told that it will take up to six hours to learn the machine and finish the quilting—basically a whole day.

I’m a little nervous because this is my first experience using a long-arm machine and  I know I’ll have a dream or two about it before next Friday comes. lol. 

Tomorrow is House Plant Friday and I have a fun project and some plant trivia for you!