Pandemic Garden Club
Apr. 9th, 2021 05:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
scrubjayspeaksWelcome to the April 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...
While the daffodils have bloomed and wilted, only to be replaced by more blooms, the alliums are...missing? I have yet to see one. It's April, right? Like, I know my sense of time is out of whack, mostly because I'm working a month ahead of the outside world on Lewisia projects, but I am almost certain it's April. What is the goddamn hold-up on these bulbs? Also, next year, I'm going to spring for some of the fancy mail-order bulbs. The yellow and white, standard daffodils are nice and all, but I really want some of the peach ones and the crazy-shaped ones.
Out in the wildflower garden, I've laid down the second round of seeds. That's the bulk of them down, but I've got a little bit more in reserve. I have a bare patch that needs to be filled. Other than that, I might save some for next year. (Not that I won't buy even more next year also.) Lots of stuff is sprouting. Hell, it's beyond sprouting--it's just grown at this point. Only a couple of things are blooming. There's a kind of fiddlehead-looking stem with yellow flowers. Some tiny blue flowers that I might recognize. I saw one solitary tiny sweet alyssum. Still no idea if most of it is weeds or wildflowers or if the stuff I think of as weeds around here might, in some cases, BE wildflowers.
I figure, if I keep planting native seeds long enough, one day they'll just overpower any weeds anyway, and that's good enough for me.
But among the stuff that is just starting to grow, I can recognize at least one kind of clarkia I grew last year and some lupin leaves, which I haven't had growing since we lived at the old place. Also, the hollyhocks have managed to infiltrate the field, because of course they have. It's a wonder the hollyhock doesn't manage to get into the house and start growing in our hair while we sleep.
And at last, the trees are starting to bud. The new ash tree put out what I thought were leaf buds but turned out to be sprays of flowers. I found this short article on the subject of ash flowers, because I was curious if the tree is male or female. The answer is possibly "yes," though I need to examine the flowers more closely again to be sure it's got both going on.
And even more excitingly, the two zelkovas have started to put out leaf buds. I say this is exciting on the grounds that they look really, very dead up to this point. I even scratched the trunk of one to check for green, because I was so convinced that we had gone to the effort of planting them in the ground at last only for them to have died over the winter before we did. But no! Leaves all over! So things are pretty good out here, really.
Oh, and I've got half a dozen succulents blooming or nearly so, including one of the big aloes that puts up a two- to three-foot stalk of them. Delightful.
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...
While the daffodils have bloomed and wilted, only to be replaced by more blooms, the alliums are...missing? I have yet to see one. It's April, right? Like, I know my sense of time is out of whack, mostly because I'm working a month ahead of the outside world on Lewisia projects, but I am almost certain it's April. What is the goddamn hold-up on these bulbs? Also, next year, I'm going to spring for some of the fancy mail-order bulbs. The yellow and white, standard daffodils are nice and all, but I really want some of the peach ones and the crazy-shaped ones.
Out in the wildflower garden, I've laid down the second round of seeds. That's the bulk of them down, but I've got a little bit more in reserve. I have a bare patch that needs to be filled. Other than that, I might save some for next year. (Not that I won't buy even more next year also.) Lots of stuff is sprouting. Hell, it's beyond sprouting--it's just grown at this point. Only a couple of things are blooming. There's a kind of fiddlehead-looking stem with yellow flowers. Some tiny blue flowers that I might recognize. I saw one solitary tiny sweet alyssum. Still no idea if most of it is weeds or wildflowers or if the stuff I think of as weeds around here might, in some cases, BE wildflowers.
I figure, if I keep planting native seeds long enough, one day they'll just overpower any weeds anyway, and that's good enough for me.
But among the stuff that is just starting to grow, I can recognize at least one kind of clarkia I grew last year and some lupin leaves, which I haven't had growing since we lived at the old place. Also, the hollyhocks have managed to infiltrate the field, because of course they have. It's a wonder the hollyhock doesn't manage to get into the house and start growing in our hair while we sleep.
And at last, the trees are starting to bud. The new ash tree put out what I thought were leaf buds but turned out to be sprays of flowers. I found this short article on the subject of ash flowers, because I was curious if the tree is male or female. The answer is possibly "yes," though I need to examine the flowers more closely again to be sure it's got both going on.
And even more excitingly, the two zelkovas have started to put out leaf buds. I say this is exciting on the grounds that they look really, very dead up to this point. I even scratched the trunk of one to check for green, because I was so convinced that we had gone to the effort of planting them in the ground at last only for them to have died over the winter before we did. But no! Leaves all over! So things are pretty good out here, really.
Oh, and I've got half a dozen succulents blooming or nearly so, including one of the big aloes that puts up a two- to three-foot stalk of them. Delightful.
