Falling In Love (a.k.a. Peep's gardening journal)

[PunkinPeep]

Thanks for reading, Ron!

I missed the opportunity to catch the gerber seeds this year, but i will keep that in mind for next year. Our incredibly wet spring, followed by our record hot and dry summer killed off a couple of them, but 3 have survived and are enjoying the autumn weather with me. If i can get them flowering the way my mind imagines them, i will be a very happy girl. :happy_flower

As to the bursting hearts, i'm in love with them. I was just reading that they're supposed to be really easy to propagate with cuttings, so if i can decide where to put them, i may have to get on that. They're really boring in the spring and early summer, but they're so beautiful in the late summer and fall, that i'd like to have a field of them! Though i think they need something to lean on if they get very tall.

I am trying to wrap my head around all the ways to trade seeds around here. Problem is i don't think i know what i want. I know i need ornamentals that love the shade - 'cause shade is what i have lots of, but other than that.......i'll take any vegetable that will grow in the south, and i really haven't narrowed it down. So i guess i have to do some thinking and experimenting. And possibly build on a room so i have some place to experiment with cuttings and seedlings. :watering

 

[obsessed]

Awesome story! Congrats on your land. I dont do much ornamental (mostly because I really suck at starting seeds) but I sure there are shade plants like coleus, ferns and such that would love your place. How about hydrengea. It is my love of the moment and I bet it would do realy nice where you are.

 

[injunjoe]

Nice place you have there.
Looks like lots of great garden spots in the making.

Joe

 

[PunkinPeep]

Thanks, obsessed!

The coleus you mentioned looks SO beautiful, but a little intimidating to my newbiness.

You're right about the ferns. There are so many big old fiddle ferns growing in the woods, that i would feel silly planting them near the house.

My mother-in-law has some white spider lillies she'll share with me, and they're in the shade at her house and doing quite well, so i think i'm going to try them.

I also have to work on trying to kill whatever is growing and re-growing in front of my house.

The hydrangea is a plant my husband has mentioned quite a bit for use as part of a border around our property. Really amazing blossoms!

Thanks for reading!

 

[PunkinPeep]

Nice place you have there.
Looks like lots of great garden spots in the making.

Joe

Thanks Joe! I'm going to need lots of advice!

 

[desertcat]

Welcome from someone else who totally undertands the joys of discovery! I know what you mean about thinning trees. When we bought our place, it really needed work, but in the Panhandle, trees are like gold. Finally got the nerve to call the arborists (not tree trimmers) and when they cleaned up the carnage, my mini forest was beautiful.

Don't let coleus scare you. They are a very forgiving plant, as long as they don't get frozen. Yup, forgot to bring mine in this year.

 

[PunkinPeep]

Welcome from someone else who totally undertands the joys of discovery! I know what you mean about thinning trees. When we bought our place, it really needed work, but in the Panhandle, trees are like gold. Finally got the nerve to call the arborists (not tree trimmers) and when they cleaned up the carnage, my mini forest was beautiful.

Don't let coleus scare you. They are a very forgiving plant, as long as they don't get frozen. Yup, forgot to bring mine in this year.

Oh no! Does that mean you have to start all over with them? So sorry!

I wonder if i can plant them in the ground and then just cover them with a sheet on the rare occasion that our temperatures dip below freezing. It really is a rare occasion here.

Question: did you call the arborists to take trees out? If yes, how do you go about 'calling the arborists?'

I lived in Perryton for a while, and i know how valuable a tree is in those parts. I couldn't wait to get back to the woods and out of all that cold winter wind! Yes, i know the northerners are scoffing at me right now, but the panhandle is rightfully called the north pole of Texas. brr!

Thanks for the welcome!

 

[journey11]

I always forget how BIG Texas is! Such diversity in ecology. I lived in Killeen for a couple years. Yuck. It is hard for me to picture deciduous trees in TX when I think of Killeen. It was hard enough to grow grass, much less a garden there! It thrilled my heart flying back to WV to watch out the window and see the landscape growing greener and greener...

PumpkinPeep, you have a perfect setting for a fabulous shade garden. The cool thing about that too is that it would be relatively low maintenence perennials. And perennials can be pretty easy to get free...just wait for your friends and family to divide theirs!

 

[PunkinPeep]

I always forget how BIG Texas is! Such diversity in ecology. I lived in Killeen for a couple years. Yuck. It is hard for me to picture deciduous trees in TX when I think of Killeen. It was hard enough to grow grass, much less a garden there! It thrilled my heart flying back to WV to watch out the window and see the landscape growing greener and greener...

PumpkinPeep, you have a perfect setting for a fabulous shade garden. The cool thing about that too is that it would be relatively low maintenence perennials. And perennials can be pretty easy to get free...just wait for your friends and family to divide theirs!

Ew, i don't like that part of Texas either. Always seemed hot, flat, and barren to me. I live in the lushness of the pineywoods but somehow managed a deciduous forest area. It's great! The humidity is always 90%, and the mosquitoes are the size of lawn tractors, but i call it home!

You're right about waiting for relatives to share. I need to get a good area prepared so i can rob from my mil in the spring.....or whenever. I'm never sure when is good to transplant things.

 

[journey11]

Now's a good time for most of your bulbs and tuberous perennials. I just scored a bag of heirloom iris from my MIL last week.
:tools