Garden Chatroom Board

hi chris, the only thing more handsome than your garden is toby!! i am envious of your apricot foxgloves.......i had a patch of them going for about 3 years and can't seem to get them started again. 🙁 it that a huge white climbing rose? do you know the variety?

rhonda, beautiful!!

irene, i sent two of the tomato plants home with my brother and sil today......after dragging 8 of them into the house last night because it was supposed to get down in the 30s i was happy to see two of them go home with someone else, lol. the plants are getting tall and needing to be staked higher than the 4ft stakes i am using now......but what if we have another cold day/night and they have to come inside for awhile.....?

does anyone know anything about growing tree peonies from seed? i bought alot of seeds for tree peonies in different colors.....that ebay shopping in the middle of the night when i can't sleep results in some interesting purchases!
also, i want to buy some plumaria starts again this year and try to get them to grow......does anyone know if the bottoms of the pots have to be kept at exactly 90 degrees and really for 3 months? i love plumaria....but they all rotted last year and i am thinking i am just throwing my money away if i order again......anyone had good results with them?

hi amber......maybe 'stargazer'? beautiful whitish with recurved petals and reddish markings.....and bright yellow on the ends of the anthers?

zone 5b
hi chris, yes, lilies grow very well here. the tiger lilies.....the common ones......are usually called 'day lilies' here or even 'ditch lilies' (because it is common to find big patches of them growing in the ditches by farm houses.) they are difficult to control.....the more you try to dig them out, the more they spread. when i moved here they were 2ft. deep all around the foundation of my house. i worked on them until i have them down to two areas now so i could have other plants there also.

i envy you being in zone 8......so many more plants you can grow than here. what about lilacs and bearded iris there? and narcissis? i'm trying to think of plants that might need a freeze for them to bloom in the spring.......

we had rain all last week.......at least it makes it easier to pull the weeds. henbit is rampant right now!!

zone 5b
hi chris, is the red maple a japanese maple? the red flowers.....dianthus? but is early for dianthus here.....what zone are you in? your trees.....and in particular that red shrub.....are gorgeous! can you believe how early they are blooming this year?? do you have a large yard?

amber, i admire you for getting daylilies to grow in containers and with very little sun!!! no matter the quality of the stock, talent had to be involved, LOL!
it is rainy here again today.........we have needed moisture badly but almost a week of rain and the ground is saturated. wish it had been only one or two days a week for awhile instead of all at once. but.......i can hardly believe my eyes.......the tomato plants on the porch are growing 1/2"-1" a day in these 50 degree days and nights! i know this only because i have to go out and tie them to the stakes every few days.

zone 5b. i am going to try to remember to start my posts with my zone. (why did i put that i was in zone 7 below??? in my dreams, LOL!)

hi everyone. i have started back work in the greenhouse so i have been so worn out i haven't made it in here for awhile. it gets harder every year for my old body to adjust to the work......but i enjoy it so much.
i am in kansas......west of kansas city......and got wild and reckless and tossed out some mesclun mix seed about a week ago, i have 1/2" high sprouts now.....but if we go back into winter i will lose them. this has been such a warm winter here......as it has almost all over the US.......that it is way too tempting to get seeds planted too early. i do have some in trays in the greenhouse that i planted for myself, some asparagus i want to try growing here and foxglove, delphinium, lupine.....all those plants that don't survive the kansas heat and droughts but that i love and just can't stop trying to grow.
at the greenhouse i work at, we grow hydroponic tomatoes.......i was shocked when i first tasted one because it tasted as good as any i pick in august from my garden! so we had some left over that we didn't have room for and i brought some home a couple of weeks ago......they are in their pots on my front porch and i thought i would post some pics here as every time i look at them i am just amazed!
http://imageevent.com/glitzytreasures/tomatoplants2012

very interesting to hear about the plants from QVC! i will look into those.

my dwarf peach and nectarine trees are in bloom......their 3rd year and i am hoping to get some fruit from them this year. the two cherry trees are struggling along, they just have had very disappointing growth.
miniature narcissis have bloomed and almost gone, the full size ones are blooming now as are hyacinths.
i have my potatoes ready to plant but it has rained every day so i have not ventured out to set up the 'cage' to put them in. this year i am going to use a big wire dog enclosure in the garden and try to grow the potatoes in straw in it. i really only grow them for the new potatoes anyway so might be able to reuse the area for a fall crop of something else.

i enjoyed catching up and readign all the posts today.....is there a way to tell what gardening area everyone is from? perhaps i will try to change my name to 'glitz7' so it can be seen right away what zone i am gardening in........anyone else think putting our zones in our posting names would be a good idea?

hi amber, i wouldn't eat the asparagus from the grocery store raw.....heck, i won't eat it cooked, LOL> but if you can find it fresh picked from a real farm, it is wonderful to eat raw. the purple is a little sweeter than the green and most people seem to prefer the purple once they have tried it. yum.......making me wish asparagus season would hurry and get here!

hoping everyone is having a happy and stress free holiday season! does anyone decorate their yards/houses???

my favorite plants this past summer were the almost florescent colored ones........the geraniums in the brilliant corals, reds, and fuchsias. and there was a plant new to me that i absolutely loved......and annual with spikes of brilliant orange.....'crossandra' in 'orange marmalade'..........it was so easy to take care of, just throw a little water on it occasionally and did so well in a pot on the porch. i am definitely going to get some next year.

good afternoon everyone! that 'pink parade' spirea in the roberta's site is beautiful!

i am fortunate enough to work part time at a farm and country market so i have bought most of my plants the last couple of years there. it is a small family owned and run business and i volunteer in the spring in the greenhouses, starting seeds, transplanting, etc. i can use their facilities to start any of my own seed, or take home plants from their seeds......or even take home a couple of plants now and then for free.
once i start working in 'the barn', checking people out and doing customer service i am no longer a volunteer and only get a small discount applied to the price of plants. i looooove working in the greenhouse, i like the little bit of money i earn working in the barn. we are also an asparagus farm and for about 6 weeks in the spring we cannot take a break because we have lines of customers buying fresh asparagus, and we are encouraged to eat all the fresh asparagus we want while selling it. i prefer uncooked asparagus so that is fun to get customers to try it raw also.

here are a few pics of my garden and my little plastic greenhouse that i absolutely love.....well, i would love it more if it was bigger and real glass and steel but i am just grateful to have this one. 🙂 most of these were taken early in the season.....later (if i am lucky) the areas look less distinct.....the effect i am going for is 'controlled chaos' but usually by august, it is just plain old chaos. love seeing the pics of everyone's gardens......all the different styles.
so......we all get seed and plant catalogues in the winter don't we? which is your favorite one to look through? to order from?

http://photos.imageevent.com/glitzytreasures/garden/websize/MVC-010S_13.JPG
http://photos.imageevent.com/glitzytreasures/garden/websize/MVC-009S.JPG
http://photos.imageevent.com/glitzytreasures/garden2010/may28/icons/MVC-317F3.JPG
http://photos.imageevent.com/glitzytreasures/garden2010/may28/icons/MVC-190F.JPG
http://photos.imageevent.com/glitzytreasures/garden/websize/MVC-001S_13.JPG

helen, thank you for the advice about planting the hostas under the maple......i did not know that about maples.
nancyjean, sounds like our methods are very similar........except i would not remove the newspaper, just keep adding on top of it. the older i get, the less i dig. maybe i'll have that printed on a t-shirt, LOL! "The older I get, the less i dig"

i have a question......do possums take shiney things like racoons do? i had a set of housekeys hidden outside in a fake rock.....this morning the 'rock' was moved a couple of feet and the keys are missing. i have a possum who lives in the greenhouse and i am wondering if he/she might have taken them..........?

still on slooooow computer......black friday is almost here, and hopefully, i will have my new computer purchased and hooked up that afternoon.

helen, i have a similar problem as i had no trees or shade in my small yard/garden, i wanted a tree to shade my car in the summer and i have always loved the dark red maples and catalpa trees. i planted one of each and of course, now i have too much shade in some areas to grow food plants. next year i am hoping to be able to fill one flower bed with mostly hostas. under the maple i planted iris as the bed had become so shady that not much would work there. i'm hoping the iris will like it......easy to move if they don't.

nancyjean, i love the spring flowers.......narcissis, hyacinth, lilac, iris, peonies......as well as the first flush of roses. we usually have hot humid summers here in kansas.....and about a 6 week long drought.....so mid and late summer flowers often struggle.

one question i would like to pose is what you do to make a new bed for plants? do you till the soil or do you use the 'lasagna' method? i am 63 so i am not able to do digging like i used to do.......so i first put a layer of landscape fabric down and leave it there for at least a few months. i toss grass clippings, leaves, trimmings on it, and anything else.....except for food scraps which go in the compost bin. then when spring comes i top it off with manure, top soil, etc, and plant (usually annuals)......is the layer of stuff is still thin, i plant by cutting holes in the fabric. i keep adding stuff and by the second year i can reach in and pull the fabric out and plant permanent plants in the bed. it doesn't make a great bed for several years but it the least work i have found. what do the rest of you do?

my computer crashed so i haven't been inclined to post much as the vintage computer i am using right now is sooooo slow that it just isn't fun to use.
hoping to buy a new computer after thanksgiving so when i have one that is not frustrating to use i would be able to maybe organize or help organize some kind of seed or plant exchange........
post your ideas on here and we can all decide if we want to do it and if so, what we want to do.
an idea i had was maybe each of us snail mailing a card with seeds and plainting instructions enclosed for birthdays.
or maybe 'secret santas' for the holidays and/or b'days with gifts garden related or seeds.
think about it. LOL!
hope everyone has a lovely day!

yahoo! a gardening board! any other gardeners here yet? i'm in zone 5 in kansas and have a small yard but raise both vegetables and flowers, as well as work part time at a farm and country market. i would love to chat with other gardeners, maybe we could get a seed/plant exchange going for birthdays or something.