Inspired by the What's Your Favorite Flower thread in IMHO

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

In September we moved, and I have a deck upon which I have put all of my garden tubs and pots. We didn’t move far, only the equivalent of a city block, give or take a bit. We did move up off the ocean and it’s wind, and my deck gets sunlight from sunup to sundown. (How is this possible? It’s Alaska, and the sun moves differently here than in the Continental U.S.) All summer long I fought a losing battle with the slugs and the cold sea breezes and my posies poked along all summer, never really doing anything spectacular. (Aside from the new beds which had a thick layer of freezer burned salmon covered with an equally thick layer of kelp under about 6-8 inches of prime topsoil, peat, and steer manure. Can you say Frankenrhubarb? Mutant nasturtiums? Cosmos the size of trees?) My plants were the first items to be moved, and during the scant few weeks before the snow fell my posies easily quadrupled in size, and showed vigorus growth. I am excited about the coming Spring.

As of today we are down to exactly 7 hours of daylight, and my first garden catalogue arrived yesterday. Blissfully browsing the pages I was making a mental list of growables. I must have pansies and violas of every variety I am able to lay my hands on. Calendulas fill in for the marigolds I simply cannot grow here. Cosmos, dahlias, poppies, Livingston Daisies, mimulus, linaria, nasturtiums, lobelia, petunias, and whatever other annuals the garden nursery happens to be trying out will be going on the deck. In hanging baskets on the deck will be purple wave petunias with sapphire lobelia, on an overcast day they positively glow! Also fuchsias, por supesto!

On the other side of the house I have my perennial beds settled in for the winter. Foxglove, delphiniums, English Daisies, wild iris my husband dug up from a meadow in Uganik Bay when fishing a couple of years ago, forget-me-nots, trollius, and columbine, including a wild one which I didn’t plant and need to offer thanks to the bird/critter who “left” the seed in my garden a few years ago! There are a few other things which I can’t recall right now. I need to totally redo my bulb bed, and a pox upon the Garden Club woman who told me that only Asiatic Lilies grow here, I have some Orientals, and I expect them, especially Stargazer, to do quite well on my deck.

I need to put in some Oriental Poppies, not just the gorgeous orange, but in red, pink and purple as well. (They also glow on overcast days.) I would like to try my hand at growing a hop vine and a clematis also. My husband killed my Goldenchain tree during the move (I waited five years for the stupid thing to bloom, threatened it with a new flowering crabapple last Spring, and it finally gave me some flowers, but now I have to begin again, :frowning: In addition to the crabapple I have two lilacs and a “honeysuckle” which is not like any honeysuckle I remember from Down South, it grows into a huge shrub/small tree, and is covered in tiny pink, scentless blooms. I also have a rustic (read delapidated) wheelbarrow in which I have lily-of-the-valley (white of course, but I scored some pink last Spring!) which I combine with nemophila and pansies for a very pretty display.

I am also looking at my yard and see where I want to put vegetable beds. Oh, and I have a new-last-Spring peony which is in a tub on the deck, and I am putting impatiens in deck railing boxes on the North side of the house.

This is just my outdoor gardening!

So, my questioning mind is curious as to what you green thumbed folks are thinking about for the next growing season? In particular items which can handle maritime climate, very long days combined with a very short growing season! Am I jumping the gun, or is it time to begin planning and plotting for next season’s flowers?

2

As a former member of the Marigold Society, I have a bias. That’s my disclaimer.

Marigolds are extremely sturdy and vigorous. How sturdy? They prefer poor soil. One method for seedlings is to take the plant out of its tiny pot and throw it down on the potting bench to knock most of the dirt off; then, replant the abused plant. It will grow back, stronger.

If you don’t care for deadheading (pinching off the spent flowers,) go for “mule” varieties that don’t make seeds. They’ll continue to make flowers without deadheading.

3

Okay, my disclaimer! I am a huge marigold fan, when I lived in the Puget Sound area (the first 29 years of my life) I grew marigolds with a passion. Here in the Gulf of Alaska the best they do is sit with one or two blooms and sulk all Summer. I may give them another try in the Spring, as my regular petunias, which are generally a waste of time and effort, were growing by leaps and bounds during September and into October. I do believe that I have a sweet micro climate on my deck, with the white siding reflecting the sun’s heat, and the lack of cold breezes.

I am very absent minded, are you the one with the garden gnome in the midst of the marigolds? Love the stories! Now that I have an unaccessable area I am going to begin adding garden art as well, (small town, people with sticky fingers) and plan to spend a great deal of time on my deck this summer, I already have a gazing globe and a green glass/wrought iron sun on stakes to stick in tubs, and I am looking to add wind chimes, a fountain, and a small firepit. Photos will be forthcoming in the seasons to follow!

4

Oh, and I am the Queen of Deadheading! It’s one form my OCD takes which isn’t detrimental! :smiley: I adore pinching back every day, sometimes twice a day! Not only does it keep the show going, but I get a heads up on any pest/disease problems before they get a firm grip!

5

By the way, on average I am a Zone 3-4, but with my micro climate I may be able to push it up to a Zone 5!

6

I’m in a maritime zone 7-8, with microclimes pushing 10. (Seattle.) I rent, but my balcony is pretty bushy. I macramed a privacy screen and I grew humming-friendlies up it last year: scarlet runner beans, nasturtiums, sweet peas. I have pots that contain a miniature vine maple, a golden metasequoia, a burgundy monarda, a few grasses, a few ferns–I spent WAY too much money at the world’s greatest nursery, Heronswood, last spring.

I’m landscaping a friend’s new house. So far we have a robbinia, gold-foliage cutleaf sumac, golden bamboo, blackstem bamboo, a gold metasequoia, himalayan honeysuckle–green and gold foliage–a fruiting fig, a chocolate mimosa, a gold smoke bush, a clump of bananas, a bunch of my favorite grass, Hakanochloa, a very lacy willowy eucalyptus, a cluster of red foliaged pineapple lilies, TWO gunneras–one if front, one in back–gold jasmine, paulownia. . . and a bunch more. We’re getting a Marchioness tree peony from Klehm, and a gold foliaged oak tree.

We’re doing her house in all gold and red and blue foliage, with an emphasis on exotic, tropicalish; we’re accumulating quite a hosta zoo too. It’s already breathtaking, if I do say so. Can’t wait to hit it again in the spring.

Also doing some HUGE pots with trees and hostas and junk. And lots of vine; every tree has at least one flowering vine growing up it.

7

Well, my garden is NOTHING like yours, my being in an East Coast zone 8, but I’m delightedly compulsively planning for spring anyway. (Never mind that I haven’t even been able to plant my bulbs yet, because it keeps going up to 70 every so often!) I’m putting in a lot more flower beds this winter to plant in the spring. I just bought this house (my first) in August, and I’ve never gardened before but I’m learning! (I’m so lame and boring I even have a blog about it, at www.bulblet.com.)

I put in a little 9x11 protected corner bed this fall and planted a butterfly garden in it, with butterfly bush, asters, sedum, echinacea, rudbeckia, chives, coreopsis, and, um, other stuff I don’t remember, and it’s done remarkably well. The sedum even bloomed! It’s given me a lot of confidence to do some more beds - I’m doing big perennial beds in front, I think. I’d like to have more native plants - when I find out if I’m building a garage or keeping my fence as it is I’ll know if I can plant some yellow jessamine (our state flower), coral honeysuckle, or maybe some passionflower to grow on my fences. Right now I’m planning more and more beds, hopefully full of good pretty natives and attractive to native birds and butterflies! And also a good spring show of bulbs - I’ve got lots of daffodils, crocuses, and such to plant, and also two classic Southern crinums. I just don’t know where to put them - I’m scared to put big expensive bulbs next to the sidewalk, for fear they might get snipped and stolen! I’ve just put in a sweetshrub, a native plant my dad’s been looking for for ages, and I’m a little worried about it because it looks so sad and sorry. I extended the foundation bed with cardboard and mulch to include it so I won’t accidentally step on it, and I’m hoping for the best. That’s pretty much the status of my garden at the moment - going to bed, but expectant and excited.