Week 21, Year 3: Container Party

This week I had the pleasure of attending a container party. A fabulous concept discovered and put together by two wonderful gardening co-workers. The idea is that each person is assigned a thriller (i.e., flower), trailer or filler and brings enough of that one item for each party go-er. It can be helpful to specify color themes - e.g., purple or pink thrillers, etc.  At the party, everyone brings a container and plants each item.  In our case, we had eight lovely ladies and seven great ingredients:

 

Everyone brought gloves and their own pots 3/4 filled with dirt.

 With ingredients in hand, we got down to planting. 

The result? Seven beautiful conatiners all using the same seven ingredients. Despite the identical ingredients, each container turned out differently, proving that every garden and gardener is unique.

 

 
 

 p.s., homemade mojitos (with fresh mint from our host's garden) make a great addition to any container party!

Week 20, Year 3: Combinations and Color

 The 2012 garden is all about color and combination. In my first years, I focused on learning how to grow and mostly stuck to mono-pots with just one or two flowers sharing a home. My favorite color is purple and my garden also reflected that preference. This year, things are different and I'm ready to take the next step -- design.  As containers have grown in popularity, container design has also become a trendy topic.  Typically, combination containers are all about varying height, color and length to draw the eye to something spectacular, and of course, finding the perfect pot to set it all off.  The challenge is having a good eye and of course planting things that play well together in the same pot and have the same general preferences (e.g., sun, shade, lots of water, little water, etc.). 

A semi "succulent" combo at my Mom's

This year, I experimented with seven combo-pots for my garden and a bunch more for my Mom's. For my garden, I replaced some of my crummier large plastic pots with fun new plastic pots that both shape and style.

 In each pot, I tried to pick one focal point and then plant complementary pieces around that point, using various items from the Mother's Day weekend gardening spree. Height is important and I tried to either put the taller items in the back or middle (depending on the focal point) to make sure the shorter plants had room to shine.  Color is also key and I tried to use complementary colors in both flowers in foilage.

Some fiery combo's at Mom's --

My biggest concern is whether these comboinations will be good together. Truth be told, I probably focused too much on design and not enough on basic plant demographics. So, I'm fairly sure I have shades with full suns, pieces that are short now but could grow to overshadow the rest, and succulents and water lovers. So far, I'm happy with the first draft, but the fun will be in figuring it all out and learning along the way.

Week 20, Year 3: It (Frantically) Begins

My third season of gardening has officially begun. To keep things interesting, this season's opener had a few curve balls. I had only one weekend to plant my garden because my husband and I will be on vacation the last two weeks of May and with the beautiful weather we've been having, everything will surely be picked over by the time we get back. This created a few challenges.

Problem? That weekend was Mother's Day. Solution? Plant two gardens in one day at a remote location (Parent's house approx 80 mins away). Result? Hilarity.


My Mom's Containers




My Containers

So, this weekend, I planted containers for my mom and myself at my parent's place in Lake Geneva. I brought all of my containers from home, but purchased everything else locally. My dad and husband spent a hectic Saturday morning driving me around as I interviewed my mom on her preferences (white, pink and red), picked up the basics at Lowe's (i.e., dirt, pots, feed) and loaded up on flowers from the local greenhouse, Pesche's (getting lost in the aisles while frantically googling flowers I didn't recognize on my phone and picking up a bit of everything in self-defeat when my time ran out).  Then, we took a quick break to have a Mother's Day lunch with my grandparents, leaving me approximately six hours to plant everything before our dinner reservations at 9pm. (Are you still following this?)

By 7pm, I was done, for better or worse. 

Better?

• I learned about a lot of plants I had never seen or considered before
• I got to spend some quality time with my family
• I got to use a hose, which is far more efficient than 8 trips to the sink with a watering can.
• I ended up with two beautiful gardens (if I do say so myself)
• I found some bright new pots to replace my mucky old ones
 

Worse?

• I have no clue what I planted. I just started sticking flower tags in pots so that I could look at it later. I have no idea if I've mixed full sun and partial shades or succulents with water lovers.
• Lower back pain.
• I got a nasty gash on my finger from impatiently ripping open a hose fertilizer attachment.
• Hungry deer (requiring all of my containers to be loaded in the garage before a much needed shower)

... Oh, and we had to fit all of this (and two hyper cats) into one small SUV (or "trucklet" as my husband likes to say) ...

Believe it or not - we actually fit everything and made it back to Madison safe and sound. We even managed to bring everything up and organized it on to our deck. All in all, a fun and frenzied start to another wonderful gardening season.

 

I promise more detailed posts on my starting line up, and even a post on my mom's garden, once I recover.

Whiskers of Mass Destruction

A quick post on the amaryllis before we dive into the season's planting. We went away for a long weekend only to discover the white flower amaryllis had been mysteriously knocked off the fireplace mantle ...

.... after much investigation, we've narrowed the suspect list to two potential culprits, who may or may not have been in collusion ....

Suspect #1: Maizy

Suspect #2: Penny

Week 17, Year 3: Amaryllis Update

My first foray into spring bulbs is going pretty well, though there have been a couple surprises along the way.  The colder weather returned shortly after planting, and I was not seeing any growth, so I brought the amaryllis inside -- which proved to be the right decision.I was a little worried they wouldn't get enough sun on our mantle, but it turns out the indirect sunlight must be the perfect complement to amaryllis. By the third week, 5 inch tall stalks had shot out of both pots, and a bud had already formed in one of them.

Just 15 days later, the plants had soared to 18 inches tall and we had bright red blossoms from the first bloomer.

Plus, a surprise -- I was a bit flummoxed when I woke up one morning and saw this bud emerging from the second pot - a white and pink hybrid.

When I purchased the bulbs, they were in a bin and I assumed both would be red. So, when these white and pink variegated buds emerged, I was happily surprised.

The two bulbs looked identical in their early days, but I've learned that no two amaryllis are the same.  The red amaryllis' first bud featured four kitty corner trumpet-shaped flowers sharing a single stalk. Plus, another bud is just about to open. The white amaryllis came second, but only has one bud so far with just two opposing flowers sharing the stalk.  Neither seems to be done growing, but now that they have bloomed  it's best to keep them out of direct sunlight to keep the blooms fresh. So, it seems like the fireplace is still the right spot.

I've also learned how tall amaryllis really are. I knew from pictures they would be tall, but it's hard to imagine how tall 18-24" really is until you've seen them. My plants shot up to 24" in less than a month. Both are now listing to the right (toward the sunlight) and I'm wondering if I need to stake them. Their stalks seem pretty hardy but I would hate for them to tip or break. 

In terms of care, I would recommend these to anyone. Growing amaryllis could not be easier. They require little water when indoors and the only maintenance I've done to date was to cut the little pollen buds off the flowers just to prevent them from falling on the carpet and becoming (potentially poisonous) prey for our cats.  

Now that preseason training is done, I feel warmed up and ready to dive into the gardening season this May ...

Week 11, Year 3: An Early Taste of Spring

Wisconsin has been blessed with temperatures of 70 degree this week. Although I had not even intended to start my garden until late May, I could not resist the early opportunity to plant. I've been busy this winter and attended my first garden show. It was pure heaven for the avid gardener and I picked up a couple of great experiments for this year's garden. I tend to stay away from bulbs and perennials because my containers do not lend themselves to winter maintenance. However, I decided to venture into unchartered territory and picked up two bulbs. I had intended to plant them in April, but I was too eager to make use of the early sunshine that I planted them this weekend.

One of my favorite flowers is the Amaryllis. It is typically an early spring indoor bloomer, which is why I've stayed away from it. However, a fellow gardener told me that you can plant amaryllis anytime of year and that her mother enjoyed the blooms and foliage in her garden into late summer. So, I figured I would give it a shot. The second bulb variety was a ballerina begonia in apricot. These should be beautiful trailers in early summer.

Having never planted bulbs before, I did a little research ahead of time to settle on a game plan. I decided to plant the begonia in one pot and the amaryllis separately.

Begonias

I planted the begonia first and encountered the first problem - I wasn't sure which side was up and which side was down. The instructions stated the "pointy end" should face up, but my bulbs were more of a lima bean shape.

After a close inspection, I decided the side with little tubers coming up was "up" and it seemed like the other side had enough roots to justify making it "down".

The instructions suggested the roots needed room to grow. So, I filled about two thirds of my pot with soil and nestled the bulbs on top. I covered the bulbs and filled the rest of the pot. I finished with a good soaking.

Amaryllis

The amaryllis did not come with instructions, so I had to rely on Google. The good news was that it was clear which side was up and which was down.

However, Google suggested I needed to soak the bulbs for two hours first. Frankly, I was too eager to wait and I decided to skip the step - hopefully, I don't pay for it later. Since these bulbs were a bit further along, I nestled them a bit deeper in the soil than the begonias. I used the same organic potting mix and filled the pots to the top, following with a good soak.

Regardless of whether these bulbs succeed or fail, it was wonderful to be gardening in early March in Wisconsin. I'm sure we'll be back to blizzards in a week, but this early release from cabin fever will certainly get me through it.