Christmas Past…Spring Forward

January 19th, 2012

Well another Christmas and New Year’s is in the books. I hope each of you had a wonderful holiday and got to spend time with family and friends. We went down to visit my dad a couple weeks before Christmas and my daughter/husband bought me a poinsettia from the kids at church (it was a fundraiser).

I love poinsettias; they are just so colorful and have those big, bold leaves.  The big fun for me comes after Christmas when I do my best to try and keep them

Houseplants can help keep the air in your house cleaner!

growing as long as possible. (One year, I kept a poinsettia growing for about a year and it had lots of pretty green leaves. It was great.) I hope I can keep this one going for a while – it will supplement my current shortage of houseplants. Well, my Christmas cacti are doing fine and I think my orchid is OK although it hasn’t shown any signs of flowering. My other three – not so much. They were fine then they all went “kerplunk-kerplooy.” I’m not sure exactly why but if I were to

guess (based on what I’ve learned at Flowerland over the last year) it might have something to do with not re-potting or changing the soil since I got them 5+ years ago. Either that or I over-watered them last winter. The poinsettia is my chance at redemption.  If that doesn’t work, I’m open to suggestions.

Let me know if you have a favorite houseplant that I should try.

Until next…

Mary Gold

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Babes and Bulbs

December 15th, 2011

I'm ready to garden, Mom!

It’s hard to believe that we are just over one week out from Christmas. Where has the year gone? It seems like just yesterday I was working out in the yard with my daughter and her little gardening tools.

I had the most fun planting some new bulbs. I picked up some tulips and some hyacinths and let my daughter help decide where to plant what. We decided the hyacinths should go in the front yard. They will actually add some dimension and color to the tulips and crocus that are currently planted there.  She told me where to dig and (for the most part) that’s where they went.

Tulips are even more beautiful when you plant them together!

The tulips went in the back yard in the perennial flowerbed. They will add some nice color in the spring while the perennials get going. We decided to go with four clusters and she sorted the bulbs accordingly. She even helped plant them. While I was digging my holes, she got out her little shovel, dug a hole for one of the clumps, put in the bulbs and covered them with dirt. Mind you, when she went in the house for a few minutes I had to dig a deeper, bigger hole and re-plant them before she came back but so what? The point was to do something with her that we both enjoyed. Plus when the tulips come up in the spring, I can point to them and remind her that she planted those bulbs with her own hands (more or less). I hope it makes her smile to see the fruits – or flowers – of her labor.

One other quick update. As you may remember, I planted some of the Sub-Zero pansies in my front yard this fall. I guess I’ve never planted pansies

before because these babies rock. After the frost, all my other annuals were pretty much toast and had to be pulled out. These beauties still have colorful flowers, which is a wonderful site in an otherwise dormant front landscape. The grower claims they’ll even come back in the spring. If you are looking for a great annual next year that will take you all the way to winter, I highly recommend Sub-Zero pansies.

These are my Sub-Zero pansies on Dec. 2. They still look great!

Until next time!

Mary Gold

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Transcendental Transplanting Part 2

November 10th, 2011

OK, so last time I blogged I had dug up the iris bulbs. Once that was done, the real work began. It was time to dig up, split and/or move the perennials.  I was armed with my shovel, some Miracle Gro Plant Starter, some buckets to put the plants in while I dug the new holes and an actual plan.

A word to the wise. Divide your Shasta Daisy before it gets this big!

The biggest thing to divide and transplant was the Shasta Daisy. For the record, a Shasta Daisy that is a couple feet wide is really heavy and not all that easy to move by yourself.  And splitting it is no easy task either; the root ball was pretty dense.

I guess I tend to be more symmetric by nature when I envision things. The plan was to have five spring/summer blooming perennials across the back of the flower bed (2 day lilies on the outside, 2 shastas inside that and the peony in the middle), with a couple fall bloomers (my asters) in the front next to the spring flowering bulbs.  The best laid plans….With the daisy being as big as it was, I ended up going with Doug’s suggestion and dividing it in thirds. When I dug up my asters, one of them decided it should be two. A little Myke’s, a little Miracle Gro Plant starter, some really big holes, some crushed leaves for mulch and the garden is good to go. (A side note: When transplanting Shasta Daisies or Asters, think wide more than deep. They have a lot of fine roots that need to be spread out.)

It may not have been exactly like the vision but I achieved my goal. I will be able to see all my beautiful flowers as they bloom with none being blocked from view by another over-sized plant. I can’t wait to see the results next spring.

Until next time…

Mary Gold

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