Yard Envy!

Sometimes you see yards and you can't help but be envious. We Took a trip to fielding Utah yesterday to visit Danny's Dad for fathers day.  His Wife Denise has lived in this house for many years and has perfected every corner of her yard.  I'm sure Danny had fun watching me run around touching and smelling plants for two hours. 

 

Starting from seed

Around march I started to get yard antsy.  I wanted something to do that involved gardening. I decided to start some seeds indoors that I could later transplant outside.  I had heard people saying it wasn’t worth it because once you transplant the plants to your yard, that they shock and die.  I can happily say that is not always the case. 

I went to home depot and bought 1.) Zinnia seeds 2.) Kale seeds 3.) Poppy seeds  4.) Peat pellets (Totaling $6). I set my aero garden up without the water basin and planted my zinnia and kale seeds and waited.  In a few days they started to sprout. I didn’t get my hopes up at this point because of all the negative feedback I had gotten.  Even when I was checking out at home depot the guy said something about seeds being a "waste of money".

The seeds did really well inside.  The key is keeping them pretty wet.  When the weather warmed up I started putting the tray outside for a few hours at a time.  This is called “hardening off” the plants.  I looked at the weather and when the night temps were warmish, I left them out overnight. I did this for probably a week and a half. I’d heard this was crucial because it keeps the plants from shocking once they are planted outside.

I transplanted the kale mid April ( I probably could have done this earlier since kale is a cold crop and does best in the cold).  I actually planted a few lines of leftover kale seeds when I transplanted  my seedlings as a test. Guess what?  It’s now early June and the seeds are now just as big as my transplants.  DOH!  So moral of the story is Kale doesn’t need to be started indoors.  Good to know for next year. 

I transplanted the zinnias around mother’s day. So far so good.  Since they are so tall, I stuck a sishkabob skewer next to them and use twisty ties to hold them to the skewer.  This has kept them standing straight and tall.  They are now starting to show their lovely colors.  I cannot wait for this to be in full bloom later on. I also planted a row outside when I transplanted the seedlings.  They are growing but they are still very small.  They will not be blooming for a long while so I would say that starting Zinnias indoors was a good idea. You will have a much longer blooming period if you get an early start with these.

Recap, for $6 I have 20 kale plants and 15 Zinnias.  Great deal!

And finally, POPPIES! One of my all time favorite flowers.  I seeded these directly outside april 1st. Poppies are a spring flower and like I said, they like a few frosts to germinate. Don't bury these very deep or they will get lost forever.  For a long time I thought I had failed with these but they were growing among my wild flowers.  

This is the best $1.35 I have ever spent. So many beautiful shades and leaf patterns.  The white edges! Oh my.  So lovely.  I especially love the multi layered one below. 

 

 

 

 

I have one other seed success story. I bought a huge bag of wildflowers and spread them all over my yard.  With seeds it's important not to bury them too deep.  Seeds need light to spout! They have actually done really well.  I kept them pretty wet and never missed a watering. When they were about 3 inches tall I started fertilizing them.  In the mix are California and ornamental poppies (so I didn’t fail completely on sprouting poppies), lots of cosmos and several other unidentified flowers ( a lot of them haven't bloomed yet. The anticipation is killing me). 

This is a cosmo.  I cannot believe how well these have done. 

These are California poppies. 

  This is a dwarf blue cornflower. Such an amazing color!

Moral of the story: Seeds are a good way to save some money as long as you are committed to giving them lots of love.  If you don’t have time, then buying already grown plants is a better option

A few tips:

1.) When planting, do not bury your seeds too deep. Make sure they are under soil, but not smothered by it.

3.) No not forget to water your seeds. Especially during the germination period.  This is Critical!

4.) if you are not using peat pellets, make sure you have a high quality potting soil.

5.) If you plant multiple seeds in the same peat pellet,  after they are about 4 inches high, cut the lower ones off.  This is really painful and I experimented with this on my zinnias.  The ones that I did not cut the smaller stalks off did not get as tall and are still much smaller.  Also with zinnias, once they are taller, you can cut right above the leaves and this will promote more stems.  More stems equals more blooms!

6.) With summer plants, don't put outside too early.  Do your homework and find out what temperature your seed likes.  Remember to harden off your seedlings as long as your can.  It's tempting to plant them before they are ready.  But don't!

hen and chicks – the perfect dessert plant

Walk one foot into my house and it is apparent that I have a never ending love for succulents.  So Hen and Chicks are a no brainer for my yard. These are hardy and rewarding because they multiple and create little hen and chick colonies. They are also fun because you can easily share them with friends. 

This “hen” was given to me by a coworker last summer. Yes, this is the same plant.   Look how many babies she’s had!  As you can see, they change color quite a bit depending on the season.

 

I’m always dividing and transplanting them.   This is an example of a tiny chick that I separated in the fall. Low a behold, this chick is now a hen, producing little tiny offshoots. When transplanting I try to include as much as the stem as possible. Then just bury the stem and water when you remember.

Just a few more.

alliums – practical and lovely

I have been a big fan of alliums for quite some time. I remember stealing some dried up alliums from an abandoned house and spray painting them gold when I was 14. They look like an overgrown dandelion flower after it’s gone to seed. 

 These babies are so fantastic because they don’t need anything special to thrive.  EXAMPLE:  My neighbors across the street are not yard people.  They don’t have a sprinkler system and never weed.  Their yard right now has about 100 alliums blooming and looking wonderful.  Alliums actually prefer to be on the dry / neglected side.  They come up every spring and will make your heart happy every year.  

I have two types of allium in my yard. My “Purple Sensations” were planted my first autumn that I lived in my house (p.s. always plant alliums in the fall). They are purple and they are sensational. Need I say more?  I always get comments on these because they are so noticeably different then any other plant.

The second is called a “stars of Persia” allium.   This was a rouge bulb that came up one spring and I had no idea what it was until about 2 weeks ago (I feel like an idiot for not classifying this sooner..Duh amy). It has light purple, almost metallic petals and the flowers are larger and more spread out. So beautiful and low maintenance.

There are so many varieties of this plant.  While I’ve been studying up, I think I want to add some more to my collection.  One being the gladiator allium.  It’s the same idea as the purple sensation, just humongous!  I recommend adding these to your life.



mushrooms a plenty

Does anyone else think mushrooms are so weird / awesome?  This last week my yard has absolutely exploded with this alien creatures.  I left them alone for a few days because I wanted to watch their growing patterns. Apparently the cold rainy climate of the last week is exactly what they like. They've tripled in size since I saw them pop up about 5 days ago.  

The feeling I get from people when I ask about mushrooms in your yard is that it's a negative thing.  Sorry but I think they add something fun to my yard.

 When I first bought my house, there were two enormous cottonwood trees that were dead up the center.  We had to remove them because I was scared a wind storm would send them tumbling down on my little house.  We had the stumps ground and we were left with a whole "buttload" of mulch. We used this mulch to raise some of our flower beds and I also spread it around as an "organic substance" that I figured would help with soil conditioning.  After doing some research, it sounds like decomposing wood can cause mushrooms to sprout which is why my yard is a little mushroom forest right now.   As soon as it heats up, sadly they will disapear.  If you don't appreciate their presence,  you can always just pull them out, but they still will grow back unless you use some sort of chemical mushroom killer. I would never.