Gardening, anyone?
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This is one of my favorite websites and they have fantastic ideas for hanging baskets and other containers. I'll be daydreaming here for a couple of months! I also have had good luck with their plants although they are more pricey.
https://www.provenwinners.com/learn/planting/2016-fun-and-flirty-bi-colors
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Spring is our best season.
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Love the photos friends. Tomorrow March begins, the official month of spring! Daylight savings in a couple weeks. We all cannot wait for spring! I too am anxious to see what returns and to put my indoor plants outside, etc. It has been warm here, but still too early for many things to happen.
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Ladies, beautiful pictures and links!
Reminded me I want to try to grow petunias fro seed this summer. Always seems so ridiculously expensive to purchase in large volume, or the arranged baskets. Then again the bunnies will likely enjoy then either way. I think we have personally given the darn rabbits a delightful designer salad over the years, with black eyed susans being their favorite. Any advice on the petunias? I have winter pansies which are just starting to liven up - but by the time I am ready to pull them/ replace then in late June, the nurseries only have bedraggled petunias left for the planting.
Wren your pictures look several weeks ahead of me here outside Philadelphia PA, but you are further north. Is that typical for you this time of year? I may just have to reconsider the west coast in my future!
I am heading down to New Orleans this weekend for the first time. Hoping to see some spring - hoping the latest snowfall prediction for Friday is correct (i.e. "non-plowable and only in the morning")
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Our Spring is a little early. The winter was warmer than usual and it rained endlessly. Supposed to start again tonight. I love New Orleans. If the azaleas are blooming, be sure to tour a garden. The food is wonderful. Go to Cafe du Monde in the French Quarter for beignet. And try pecan pralines. I think the N.O. mindset is to enjoy life and work a little if you have to. Preservation Hall has some really old jazz musicians.
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Never been to NO but wren, you are making it tempting to check it out.
There are crocuses up throughout my yard now with more to bloom. Today mild temps in the upper 50s, tomorrow chance of snow and low in the 20s. Next week warmer temps again. I was at my sister's on Sunday and got a couple hunks of Lamb's ear from a large patch she has growing along her driveway, came home and planted them before I even went in the house. We had a bit of rain and they are all happy now. I am trying to nudge the spring along. Somehow, now that it's March it seems so much closer than yesterday when it was Feb
Here are open crocuses:
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Divine- divine crocuses! And hooray for free handfuls of lambs ears!
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beautiful crocuses, great color capture!
Hoping to tour the gardens in New Orleans. DD may wind up going to Tulane, Waiting to hear on other schools, and deciding by May 1st. She liked the description of enjoying life and work a little if you have to. Growing up in the NE corridor has taught her she wants to live differently.
I am just thrilled for the current weather prediction of 70-75 and sunny. As a week later I will be having my surgery, it is just what I need to recharge before taking the plunge.
Asante
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Does anyone grow milkweed? Apparently, it is one of the few host plants that monarch butterflies lay eggs on. I guess there is a growIng resurgence (okay, that sounds like a pun tho not intentional) in getting homeowners to plant them so that we have more monarch butterflies. I'm going to try growing some this year. Planting from seed is not my strong suit. I have mixed results. That's why I like perennials, bulbs and store bought annuals. I don't think milkweed starter plants are to be found in garden centers around here, so I will get a packet of seeds. I've been trying to plant more of the perennials that attract butterflies anyway, so I'll see if I can get some milkweed to grow.
Another thing we will be contending with this year are cicadas. We refer to them as locusts around here. Not looking forward to that but whattaya gonna do?
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Good for you, Mrs. M. for wanting to provide habitat for monarchs and other pollinators by planting milkweed. We have a field that we don't mow, because it is full of milkweed. It easily comes back from seed every year, so hopefully, if you give it the right conditions, the seed will be easy to grow. The sad thing is that despite having habitat, in recent years we hardly have any monarchs any more. I remember 30 years ago in September I'd ride my bike and the road would be littered with ones that had been hit by cars. I'd say in the last 5 years I've seen maybe 3 monarchs:-(
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Went out for lunch yesterday and found many fruit trees in bloom!
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just adore the dogwood! Thanks!
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HI Ladies..
I've been lurking here for a while, and wondered if you would mind if I joined you. I love looking at your beautiful plants / flowers :-)
I have a new love.. Coleus plants.. I love their beautiful colours, how they can live beautifully in complete shade, but lots do well in the sun too.. I'm the part of Australia I live there really is no winter so they don't ever die back.. Yep.. I'm obsessed. 😱
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A pot I've stated a couple of weeks ago, all coleus plants, in my front yard
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Another bed of coleus, combined with some other plants,..It's also just a new garden.
in our front yard
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welcome Lucy! It sure is different gardening in Oz. I love coleus too. The really big leaved lime green one is my fave!
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I remember my parents growing coleus in the house when I was growing up. Last year, I filled a large pot with a number of different ones of different colors and kept it on the back porch. Yours are lovely Lucy and how pretty your new garden is
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Welcome Lucy! Of course you can join us! We tend to be quieter here in the US winter months, but spring is springing up all over here in the great American southwest and other areas so you should start seeing more posts here.
I love your coleus and gardens. I remember those plants were some of the first I ever had in pots when I was young. Brings back some great early memories of my plant interests from my youth!
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Welcome Lucy. Coleus are so beautiful and easy to grow. I've started sprigs in the kitchen when an old plant got leggy. That's a good size for a garden. Easy to take care of. Ours is out of hand, unfortunately. What part of Aus are you in?
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Thank you ladies for your warm welcome.. :-) Im from Queensland.. an hour north of Brisbane.. It is sub -tropical.. A nice climate because you can grow virtually anything, any time of the year.. I love it.. but I also love how you have the definate seasons, and the excitement of what each season brings to your gardens.. :-)
I grew up further south, where we did have some winter frost, and the spring gardens were just magnificent, with everything coming to life.. People there seem go to so much more bother to plant annuals to make a beautiful spring display !
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Here's a pic of my new Bangkok Rose that I potted over the weekend.
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Some wonderful bco ladies who live some hours from me but in the same state came and helped my clean up my spring border- I have not returned to vigorous health and I was panicking. They stayed over, did a lot of work, and we had lots of nice chats, a tea party, some champagne and a nice dinner. Here are a few shots of my "helping hand"
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a lot of work! And a little play. Sorry for being a space hog. I'm just so happy and grateful!
Helping hands
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Jackiebird- I love, Love, LOVE that some of the bco sisters came to help you with your gardens. Isn't it amazing the connections we make here and lovely things that happen that are so unexpected? Your gardens look so nice and those ladies did a nice job. I would be grateful too, and thanks for sharing the lovely photos.
My weeping cherry is really coming out now and thinking I will have something good to share with you by this weekend. We are getting another blast of cooler weather/rain, probably snow in the mountains tonight and through tomorrow.
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Lucy, such a pretty rose.
Jackie, your flower beds are shaping up nicely. What will you plant in that wooden planter? That is sooo lovely that you had help from bco friends!
The weather will be in the 60s here most of the week. Really lifts my spirits. I did a tiny bit of trimming on a few of my knockout roses today. I was very excited to see some leaf buds on a grandiflora I planted last year. It makes me so happy that it survived the winter. I never grew a grandiflora rose before. I had a hard time finding one for sale around here, and the one I bought didn't cost much and it didn't do much last summer. I'm hoping after a year of getting established it will take off this yea. We'll see!
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Devine.. Thank you.!! so glad that your grandiflora made it through the winter!
Jazzy.. Can't wait to see pics of your Weeping Cherry :-)
Katy.. How lovely you met up with some of the BCO girls. :-)
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Jazzy- Yes! Bring on the weeping cherry! Looking forward to seeing that!
MrsD- that vegetable plot needs some amendments and compost first. I moved into this house on August 1 last year. Already planted were cucumbers and yellow squash, and a few tomatoes. In the greenhouse was all tomatoes. It was nice to have it all already going, but I felt the cucumbers (which make me burp) and the squash take up way too much space. And in the greenhouse there were more tomatoes than I could keep up with. When my wonderful friends cleaned up those areas, they noted the soil didn't seem very well amended or cultivated.
So my plan is fewer tomatoes in the greenhouse, but add lots of basil, which I read last night is a natural pest deterrent, and other favorite culinary herbs, like tarragon, flat leaf parsley, cilantro, thyme, and others. And I'll try to keep the herbs growing all year in the greenhouse.
In the square raised planter box I will keep continuous leaf lettuces and arugula going. I seem to never have enough arugula. Great for salads and instead of lettuce on a sandwich for an interesting taste twist.
In the big bed I am thinking green beans (so easy and I love them!) maybe one yellow squash, and I might try some carrots. I need to try to go through a seed catalog and make a few sensible choices. I'm sure everyone understands here that shopping a seed catalog in early March is like strolling through Whole Foods when I'm hungry.
And my Farmers Market, which opens May 1, will have starts. Yum!
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Jackie, oh I love that Whoole Foods comment and it's quite true! My husband is the vegetable gardener around here, but I have input to what he plants.
I trimmed up a few more rose shrubs today, and rooted around the soil of a few plants checking for signs of life. It looks like a cute little butterfly bush I planted last year made it thru winter, sometimes for some reason those bushes get killed off. I also saw tiny leaves on a coneflower I put in late last year. And the clematis are starting pop a few leaf buds.
There's some white vinyl fence in the backyard whch just gets covered in big green splotches from the flowers growing in front of it. Can't wait to pull out the garden house and scrub that thing!
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Katy definitely with you on the 'looking through seed catalogs in March' feeling. But wistful about the greenhouse.
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