2006 Gardening Thread

I have put in Wisteria and a lilac, like I was threatening to do, but there's been no sign of life yet. (Well, the lilac was sprouting in the bag when I bought it, but it's kind of wilted - I hope not permanently.)

I managed to erradicate the aphids from my rose bushes with Ecover, hurrah! However, I discovered too late that the little rose did not have aphids, but spider mites! Oh no! I think it has died.

I desperately need to repot my ficus. Though do houseplants fall under the remit of this thread?

I want to plant a couple of things: succulents in the front flower beds - what are their needs as far as light? ; tomato plants, I know this is horribly easy but I've never done it - should these go in now?

Miss Missery, succulents usually need a lot of sun, but I've grown sedums in partial shade. Where are you?

As for houseplants, they are the indoor garden! I have terrible sticky scale on my ficus, but it goes away when I put it outside in the warm months. I guess big bad outdoor bugs eat it. I got rid of white bugs on my geranium (white fly?) with a pretty strong dilution of Dr. Bronner's Sal Suds in a spray bottle. Maybe I should douse the ficus.

Kate, maybe you need to threaten the wisteria with replacement! After all, you'll be going to the nursery for a new mini rose anyway. Can't put up with slackers.

Obviously I haven't gone to work yet. I'm going, I'm going!!!!

(Isn't it a good thing I'm not a parent, eh?)

Kit, be careful with those kinds of gardens. The 5-0 aren't usually too pleased with them

I also need to redo the whole row of plants outside the front door. Basically, the whole lot need to be raplced as basically they all died. Any recommendations for a north-facing balcony shrub or two?

It's also time to move the worm bin out of the basement and back up to the garage. The little guys were busy all winter, chewing up garbage, so I have a 55-gallon container 1/3rd full of nice rich dirt which is incredibly HEAVY.

my boy wants to put a lime tree in the back.

http://static.flickr.com/40/95745194_8f9a87fbcf.jpg

into a vegetable garden.We have vague ideas about what we want to grow, but we need to sort it all into crop rotation and sowing and harvesting times. I imagine we're going to have an ongoing battle with couch grass, too. Watering's going to be interesting, seeing as Thames Water have imposed a hose pipe ban on allotments, I'm hoping that it doesn't mean they cut off the water supply completely.....

g-kit, google "indoor vegetable growing." Tons of info. I've never done it.
Don't the weed-growers end up completely rotting their rented houses? I think the reason they use so many grow-lights is because they have to keep the shades drawn. Honest veggies will be able to bask in some natural window-light, too.

But even when I was gardening at the last house, in the ground, freaking slugs ate everything! Except the rocket, which I imagine is still going strong and has probably taken over half the lawn by now. Good, I am glad to leave a terrible weed problem for that cuntybitch who evicted me.

It is odd for me writing here because you are all at the other end of the seasons. Last weekend I put in bluebells and crocuses and this weekend I will prune the fruit trees. The vege garden is fallow for the winter except for brocolli and caulis. Where are the southern hemisphere gardeners?

My plant-love list would be ridiculous.

Actually, I don't have any hates either. I even have a fondness for carnations precisely because they're so loathed for their "common-ness."

Lost some Obsidian heucheras at today's job to root maggots. Bummer. My partner was raking over them and they pulled right up. Hate those little buggers. That dark burgundy foliage was key in that bed. Grr.

My new Azalea really doesn't look happy and I can't figure out why.

I'm jealous of your sunflower.

I'm going to try spraying vinegar on the weeds coming up in the sidewalk and concrete patio and along the driveway tonight.

It contains only raw vegetable & fruit waste, cardboard, grass trimmings, teabags/coffee filters & a few eggshells.

In none of the wildly pro-composting literature I have read has it anywhere said, 'Oh, & by the way, your garden might also be overrun with huge great fuckoff London rats'.

On another subject, does anybody have recommendations on what to do about whiteflies on a big gardenia?

It would freak me right out if a rat jumped out of our worm bin. I'm sure they're attracted to any food waste though. Is your's an open pile bham? Probably the only way to keep them out is to use a sealed tumbler.

I think we would have fewer new dandelions with frequent cutting, but they seem to live forever, so probably the only non-chemical way to be rid of them is to dig up the roots. Since we rent and don't plan on being here past the end of the lease (though our plans always have a way of changing), I'm not sure how many hours I want to spend doing that.

I poured vinegar on the weeds sprouting up through the concrete cracks last night. Other than making the place reek, it didn't seem to have much effect yet.

Jaq, I have huge bumper crops of dandelions at some of my jobs. Luckily I've weeded out all my fussier clients, so I'm more bothered by the dandelions than my clients are! I just dig out the ones near the beds, so there's a clean bed/lawn interface. The rest of them, I throw up my hands, except for one tiny lawn at a job that I dig them out of. I have a friend who takes a shop-vac to the seedheads! I don't know why there are so many all of a sudden. Maybe something's out of whack. Maybe they're refugees from some neighbor's yard where the gardener uses weed 'n' feed on the lawn.

Ex-post to Ex-Leon, maybe your hosta isn't dead. Some of mine aren't showing yet.

I had rats in my compost, too. I poisoned them. I put the poison right on top of the heap and put a milk crate over it, weighed down with a cinderblock so the dog couldn't get it.

Rock Hardy, your yard rocks! I got rid of whiteflies on a geranium by spraying with a solution of Dr. Bronner's Sal Suds and water.

btw, the dandelions are back in force. I'm not really fussed about them, but there are just soooo many! Maybe because our winter was incredibly mild. I think I will take the Beth approach and uproot the ones in the flower beds and the giant ones by the walkway.

I repotted my azalia, and for a week or so, it looked like that was going to do the trick, as it got much perkier.

But now it's gone and wilted again. Way too high maintainance a plant. I'm going back to my African Violets. The indoor housepet of plants.

Bristol. It's got very green, almost rhodedenron shaped leaves, and the creepers have small pink buds about every couple of inches at the moment (this is the only time of the year they have any features). Until I managed to get a look at the back I had assumed it was coming from the disused yard behind us and was a weed, but now I realise the mad old cow had deliberately put it there.

(See also the four trees and the jaggy bush type thing, no idea why anybody would deliberately do that to a garden)

Yes I'm in Austin and it's not very miserable now. After a couple of weeks of temps in the high 90s it cooled down some and we are in plesant low 80s. Gorgeous weather.

ILGB, the gardening book thread

Ornithogalum Umbellatum, or Star-Of-Bethlehem. I googled "invasive bulb white flower."

my tomato plants are SHIT though, i think they're doomed. next time, more peppers, no tomatoes. the pepper plant is really healthy and looks nice, with a dark stalk and big green leaves. makes the tomatoes look boring.

looking forward to cooking with my own fresh peppers though! huzzah!

Beth you are a gardening powerhouse. you must post pictures.

Our yard had several bare patches but the grass we planted has not taken. Or rather the baby blades have been scorched to death by the hot sun.

I planted some caldeums(sp?) that my mother gave us and the're doing wonderful. I need to take some pictures of them, shiny dark green and red leaves.

I'm not cutting the grass this summer; it's a couple of feet high now and looking fantastic. The cats like to disappear into it and come back covered in bits of stuff.

Laurel, that stuff is moisture-retaining polymer, marketed most often as Soil Moist. This spring we are not needing it! Things are rotting just fine on their own, thank you!
I bought some plants that had a layer of it on top of the potting soil—somebody's bright idea. When I picked up the pots I thought I was sticking my finger into a slug that had gotten into the pot. Ewww.

Behold, the cult of potted-pepper enthusiasts! A lot of it has to do with the variety, apparently.

Me with peonies in my mother's garden

My older son with a peony in my mother's garden

My younger son with a peony in my mother's garden.

(they are 21 and almost 24 now)
My mom's garden looks a lot better since I took it over, but that damn tree peony still gets just one or two (huge, granted) blooms a season. The bush never gets bigger, because every year one major branch dies, and it puts out one new one. I massage manure and Plant-Tone into the soil around it every year, water it deeply at least once a week, and try to keep the witchgrass out of it. I'm wondering if there's a grafted herbaceous peony root that's causing trouble. You're supposed to dig down and cut them off once the plant has developed roots from above the graft, but the person who gave my mom the plant said it was about twenty years old at that point and the surgery had surely been done already. And there's no herbaceous peony foliage sprouting from the base. So it's just a runt.

Heuchera Villosa "Caramel!!!!"
Supposedly bigger an tougher than all the rest. I love the new amber heucheras, especially Creme Brulee, but this one might be even better! I put in three, in front of Lady in Red hydrangeas and cimicifuga ramosa "Hillside Black Beauty. All of this replaced a couple of huge huge peonies that I dug out and gave to a friend. I'm so busy with work when they bloom, I don't get to enjoy them. Plus I was in denial about how much shade there was. The peonies will have a tidier habit in my friend's sunny yard.
I've got a dominant motif of hydrangeas, hostas, astilbe and impatiens around the entrance to the house. I'm not going to stop until my house looks like a fucking THOMAS KINKADE, PAINTER OF LIGHT™ PAINTING!!!!!!!

http://www.provenwinners.com/plants/default.cfm?doSearch=1&searchGenus=Heuchera

Not a one I would kick out of bed.

peppers are still storming! i'm gonna do loads next year.

A neighbour gave me a dozen huge courgette plants yesterday, so I've put those out in the vegetable garden and spent ages going back and forth from the house with watering cans to water them in .... this hosepipe ban is a real pain.

I'm bordered by hedges on two sides, i'd like to dig out borders on the sides without hedges for flowers and shrubs and make a raised bed in the middle for a small vegetable patch. What's let over i was planning on covering with gravel or slate so there's somewhere nice to sit and put one of these rotary clothes dryers.

CJ, I FINALLY got basil to grow from seed, too -- but the damn stuff keeps trying to flower before the individual plants are big enough to cut from! I've been popping off the buds, of course, but I've read that basil never tastes the same once it starts budding...OH WELL, MAYBE NEXT TIME.

My rosemary got over-wet and gave up the freakin' ghost. So HEY, it turns out the symptoms of OVER-watering are exactly the same as UNDER-watering -- it turns brown and shrivels up. Stupid Mediterranean plant life.

I want to grow veg so i want to avoid using weedkiller but there's an enormous dockweed (about 8ft high) growing through the fence together with thistles and sticky willies. Do you think i could get away with spraying weedkiller onto the neighbour's weeds and would it contaminate my plot? The patch in question is behind an outbuilding so it seems to be a case of out of sight, out of mind for them as far as their weeds go.