We just bought 5 flats of pansies. True blue, snow white, deep violet with faces, bicolor violet and lavender, and one flat of blue with slotches.
We are having a limited garden this year because I am due to have a baby May 1. I think we will plant forget-me-nots and mornign glories from seed, and only do a few more annuals from bedding flats, like dusty miller and a few petunial.
So far the crocus is in full bloom, the daffodils are nearly ready to burst, and the tulips and bleeding hearts are coming up. The columbine and pinks are also showing signs of life.
Haven’t actually decided yet; I suspect we’ll have the usual tomatoes, raspberries and assorted herbs in the veggie garden. What flowers we plant may depend on what we find when we go out shoping, and when we go shopping depends on how my wife recovers from her recent hospitalization.
Last fall we planted some bulbs which I noticed the other day are sending up shoots. I’m hoping the snow we had the beginning of the week hasn’t affected them too much.
I keep threatening to dig up the small plot of grass directly in front of our porch and replace it with mulch and a flower bed, as it’s a PITA to mow. This will be done in what my wife and I jokingly refer to as “my copious free time.” Since this plan was first devised shortly after we bought the house over fifteen years ago…
I just cleaned out the perennial bed poolside, whilst the WryGuy goes about getting the pool itself ready for opening. Doesn’t look like we lost too much over the winter - although I’m not feeling optimistic about the Jupiter’s Beard. We seem to already be making progress toward our annual bumper crop of thistles. There is plenty of room for the sweet peas and nasturtiums I grow from seed, and I’ve ordered my fill-in perennials: scented geranium, some more liatris and daisies. Once everything’s well on its way up, I’ll further fill in with basil, lobelia and other bedding annuals.
The spaghetti garden gets cleaned out this week - that’s the bed by the kitchen door where I plant tomatoes, more basil, peppers, parsley and oregano. I think I’m going to see if there’s any room there for something colorful - probably more nasturtiums, since they’re edible, although they’re not a good addition to spaghetti.
If and when we EVER get a fence, I’ll have space for a real veggie garden.
My tulips just started coming up, but I’m worried about them since we just had 3 inches of snow.
I’ve got some mamouth sunflower seeds that I need to plant, but first I have to clean all of the leaves from last fall out of there. I just love those sunflowers, last year they grew to over 12 feet tall !
The tulips are probably fine, unless it stays below freezing for days.
My balcony is doing well. My tiger lilies that I got from my mother’s garden in Saskatchewan are nearly a foot high already, my crocosmia is sprouting like crazy, and my miniature roses have lots of new leaves showing.
Gee, when I accidentally put the garden thread here last year, I was told cafe society is where such threads belong, kinda like recipe threads. Gardening is an art after all, but I guess this was a big mistake. Mods, please close or move the thread.
No, it wouldn’t, at least not in my opinion. According to the forum description, Cafe Society is for “all the artistic disciplines”. Gardening, at least when done for esthetic enhancement of landscape, is definitely an artistic discipline and belongs in Cafe Society.
Or at least so sayeth Ukelele Ike, in this thread.
I’m moving in May, so I just planted a bunch of pansies in windowboxes, and was enjoying the blues, purples and yellows. However, my catsitter failed to water them when I was gone over spring break, so they all perished.
By next spring, I’m hoping to have a little patch of actual soil, so I can kiss this joke called balcony container gardening goodbye. THEN I’ll plant lots of heritage 'maters, chile peppers if I’m far enough south, tomatillos, zooks, green beans, salad greens, eggplant, crooknecks, carrots, Swiss chard, herbs, and garlic. Ahh, is 50 square feet of garden too much to ask?
If there’s room, I also like to put in peach daffodils, alyssum, snap dragons and whatever other flowers catch my interest. They always take a backseat to veggies, though.
Nothing like spring in the Pacific Northwest. My daffodils are up, the flowering crab apple trees are all pink and the azaleas are just starting to bloom. Soon there will be lilacs and rhododendrons too.
For the porch I bought 4 flats of trailing blue lobelia which look great with the salmon pink geraniums that miraculously stayed alive inside all winter.
Besides that I have jasmine, pansies, baby’s breath, lavender, chamomile, mint and hummingbirds at the feeder. I love this time of year.
Foolishly, I am attempting to grow tomatoes on my balcony again. This time, I’m making it even more difficult by starting them from seed. Usually what happens is my tomatoes get burned by the full sun and I end up getting maybe 5 or 6 tomatoes. Even though I watered twice a day, it wasn’t enough. However this year, I purchased an earthbox planter and the paperwork swore that this time, I would be successful. We shall see.
I just had my first opportunity to get dirty today and am totally excited. I have some more cleaning of the beds from the bumper crop of Canadian Thistle and the fall/winter guck but soon, very soon, I’ll be a planting fool.
I always have delusions of grandeur this time of year after studying the seed catalogs for 5 months. About July I’ll be asking myself “Why Oh Why”, but for now, I’m psyched!
Lessee - the tulips, daffodils and crocus all came up very nicely, but I still have to put some pine bark around them to define the area. The scotch broom is in full bloom, as are the azaleas and dogwood tree. I noticed today that the jasmine and the crepe myrtles are sprouting, and the deep purple pansies are over running their container.
Now for the back yard. Right now, it is nothing but dirt. I had a truckload of topsoil put down, very heavily seeded and have watered everyday for the past 1.5 weeks, but it is still a backyard of dirt. There are signs of life from the cannas, Spanish Lavendar and dianthus in the 2 big flower beds, and the eucalyptus, butterfly bush and corkscrew willows nice and green.
I need to clean out a couple of containers on the decks, and plan to put in tomatoes and various herbs. The strawberries wintered well also.
I am also eagerly awaiting the appearance of my curcuma. I planted these last year in a container, they multiplied like crazy, and are absolutely beautiful.
It would probably help if the weather would co-operate. It was quite warm for a few days, everything started to bloom, then it turned cold, then warm, then cold again.
Over here it’s coming on to Autumn (although the weather is pretty mild) so I’ve got a big crop of herbs in pots on my balcony, also many cacti. Alas, the thai chilli plant didn’t survive the summer drought.
Next place I live (ie next spring) I’m going to have a proper vegie patch, and hopefully a few fruit trees.
Springtime in the Rockies is always an iffy season.
Denver still has branches and trees all over the place from the March blizzard, but the daffodils and hyacinths are in full bloom.
Lavendar, chives, tarragon, sage, It. parsley all doing well. Soon I will be able to bring my pot of rosemary outside.
My bleeding heart, baby’s breath, and corydalis (it has a true blue flower) is peeking up, the columbine too.
I have potted pansies in pale yellow and dusty rose, and I just successfully moved my clematis from a spot which had been too hot to a kinder, gentler part of the garden.
Someone else mentioned they are moving, this may be a possiblity for me, as well, and I have mixed feelings, because I have put my heart and soul into this garden. I am sure I will do the usual potted tomatoes with basil thing, but if we move out of state, I suppose I will not be freezing any pesto this year.
It’s one of those borderline things that could fit in well several places.
