Pandemic Garden Club
Oct. 10th, 2020 05:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
scrubjayspeaksWelcome to the October edition of Pandemic Garden Club! Growing good things in strange times!
Anyone is welcome to comment with what they're growing right now, things they would like to try, problems they're encountering, and questions they have. Share resources, answer questions, shout encouragement.
As for myself...
It's been a slow month for gardening for me. Between the heat and the fire-based air quality issues, it just hasn't been a good time to be outside doing vigorous activity. People always think of winter as the slow time for gardeners but in some ways, summer is as well. Yes, things need to be kept watered and/or shaded and there are at least some weeds to pull. But it's too hot to do extensive planting. Cuttings are going to be too stressed to survive. Nothing is meant to be setting seed at this time of year. It's just a holding pattern. Just try to make it through the heat and come out the other side into autumn.
Speaking of which: it is finally time to plant fall bulbs here. Today I went out and redrew a new, more even boundary line for the flower garden (which is going to need a more unique name once the wildflower patch gets going). Along that line, I dug--with help, because I am feeble and easily exhausted right now--a half dozen holes for alliums. I picked up some bags of bulbs at one of the big DIY stores, mostly because I never quite managed to pluck up the courage or the budget to order from a bulb catalog. They're a big, purple allium, pretty standard. My hope is to create a barrier of inedible bulbs with which to torment the local gopher and ground squirrel populations. I'm so goddamn tired of my plants getting eaten. To the same end, I crammed a few elderly and only debatably living daffodil bulbs in amongst the plants as well.
Finally, I planted a dozen hyacinth bulbs in there as well. (Those, sadly, are not inedible, but I put them in the area that has wire underlying it, so here's hoping.) It's just a mixed batch, again purchased at a local store. I've never grown hyacinths before, and I'll admit much of the appeal comes from growing them in Animal Crossing. They're supposed to smell lovely, though, which is reason enough.
Having gotten them, it occurred to me that it...might be an interesting project to try growing an Animal Crossing-inspired garden IRL. (The flowers, anyway. I'm not prepared for the cost and distress of trying to grow all those fruit varieties, even though I already *do* grow a bunch of them.) Hyacinths are go. I've seen windflowers for sale, though they look so much like cosmos themselves in reality that I'm less enthused about growing both. I don't care that much about tulips, but yeah, sure, can grow. Roses don't cope all that well here, though. And I don't actually like real pansies or chrysanthemums that much. I can't decide if the delight of growing the full set in one themed garden would be enough to overcome my substantial indifference to half these flowers.
And finally, the (increasingly weed-choked) pumpkin patch remnants have begun their transformation into a completely delightful Halloween display. We have spinny bat cutouts! A rubber rat on a post!
Anyone is welcome to comment with what they're growing right now, things they would like to try, problems they're encountering, and questions they have. Share resources, answer questions, shout encouragement.
As for myself...
It's been a slow month for gardening for me. Between the heat and the fire-based air quality issues, it just hasn't been a good time to be outside doing vigorous activity. People always think of winter as the slow time for gardeners but in some ways, summer is as well. Yes, things need to be kept watered and/or shaded and there are at least some weeds to pull. But it's too hot to do extensive planting. Cuttings are going to be too stressed to survive. Nothing is meant to be setting seed at this time of year. It's just a holding pattern. Just try to make it through the heat and come out the other side into autumn.
Speaking of which: it is finally time to plant fall bulbs here. Today I went out and redrew a new, more even boundary line for the flower garden (which is going to need a more unique name once the wildflower patch gets going). Along that line, I dug--with help, because I am feeble and easily exhausted right now--a half dozen holes for alliums. I picked up some bags of bulbs at one of the big DIY stores, mostly because I never quite managed to pluck up the courage or the budget to order from a bulb catalog. They're a big, purple allium, pretty standard. My hope is to create a barrier of inedible bulbs with which to torment the local gopher and ground squirrel populations. I'm so goddamn tired of my plants getting eaten. To the same end, I crammed a few elderly and only debatably living daffodil bulbs in amongst the plants as well.
Finally, I planted a dozen hyacinth bulbs in there as well. (Those, sadly, are not inedible, but I put them in the area that has wire underlying it, so here's hoping.) It's just a mixed batch, again purchased at a local store. I've never grown hyacinths before, and I'll admit much of the appeal comes from growing them in Animal Crossing. They're supposed to smell lovely, though, which is reason enough.
Having gotten them, it occurred to me that it...might be an interesting project to try growing an Animal Crossing-inspired garden IRL. (The flowers, anyway. I'm not prepared for the cost and distress of trying to grow all those fruit varieties, even though I already *do* grow a bunch of them.) Hyacinths are go. I've seen windflowers for sale, though they look so much like cosmos themselves in reality that I'm less enthused about growing both. I don't care that much about tulips, but yeah, sure, can grow. Roses don't cope all that well here, though. And I don't actually like real pansies or chrysanthemums that much. I can't decide if the delight of growing the full set in one themed garden would be enough to overcome my substantial indifference to half these flowers.
And finally, the (increasingly weed-choked) pumpkin patch remnants have begun their transformation into a completely delightful Halloween display. We have spinny bat cutouts! A rubber rat on a post!
(no subject)
Date: 2020-10-11 01:02 am (UTC)My rosebush is outgrowing it's pot as well. Not all around, just on one side. So that needs repotting as well.
I like your bats in your garden.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-10-11 11:05 pm (UTC)I mostly have things in plastic pots, because they're cheap and I'm not really concerned with presentation for the most part. I've sprung for some slightly nice terracotta ones that my particularly favored children go in, provided they're relatively small. But I did buy my first specifically decorative pot this summer as well.
We've got a few potters in my club--apparently, when you run out of space or energy for growing more succulents, you shift focus to buying or making wildly artistic fancy pots for them. It is very obviously a "That Way Leads Madness" life transition, and I fear its onset in me.
>>but they've moved onto Christmas<<
Yiiiiiikes...
I'm very chatty today for some reason.
Date: 2020-10-11 11:21 pm (UTC)My only plants in nice pots are 2 of my amaryllis and those pots were an impulse purchase. Oh! And the bromiliad in the elephant pot I got for a steal at the bulk club warehouse.
That particular home goods store moves through seasons quickly. Usually they've got two or three aisles worth of Christmas this time of year instead of the full Christmas spread. (Roughly the quarter of the store that's seasonal merchandise.) As someone who keeps the same unbreakable ornaments from one year to the next I have to admit I don't understand people who buy a whole themed tree's worth of decorations every year. When I got married I started collecting ornaments on trips. I have several nice ones from our honeymoon and picked up loads when we went to Ireland last year.
Re: I'm very chatty today for some reason.
Date: 2020-10-18 09:31 pm (UTC)Oh, I hear you on the durable decorations versus yearly themed purchases. One of my coworkers was talking about going shopping to create a cowboy theme Christmas tree last year, and I think she could hear the sound of my brain breaking. Adding to the collection is one thing, but that? Madness.