May 13th Garden Walk

I have started my morning garden walks, things are starting to pop open and though I still have tons of weeding to do (our last rain storm followed by pure warm sunshine has given the weeds a jump start) I ignore them and tour for blooms to photograph and share.

My Clematis are all starting to open up..I have several but I will start with the first two to open up.

Bourbon Clematis

This beauty shares the arbor over our front walkway with a Tess D'Urbervilles English Rose. 

Nelly Moser Clematis

This one is located just in front of my front porch rail. 

My Iris are getting started too, this one is a bi-colored iris, unfortunately I cannot remember the name.  I bought the majority of my iris corms for Schreiner’s. 

They ship only huge healthy corms, I have never lost a one and they reproduce like crazy. 

 

 

This is one of the old fashioned “Flags” they are scented, this one smells like Grape Kool-Aid. I have another color in my collection here that has the same scent and when you walk past it is soooo delightful.

This is the one my cousin  dug up in an old Idaho homestead’s forgotten garden.  Do you still have this one Brenda???

It is loaded with buds and the orange one behind it is getting ready to open.

Now to a couple roses…

Crown Princess Margareta English rose

Dream Weaver climbing rose

And my favorite of the moment,

Cecile Brunner

It is climbing my chicken house…

When the sun hits it you cannot even smell the chickens, the rose scent is so powerful it overrides the chicken doo, not THAT is powerful.

Enjoy the rest of your day….

 

Pamela

Woo Hoo 100 on Facebook.

I said I would giveaway one of these signs

when we reached 100 Likes, and today is the day.

And the winner is Melody Harmon.

Dear Melody, let me know which sign you want and I will get it out to you ASAP!

Congratulations!

Thanks everyone for your participation. 

Maybe we should do another for a 200 like goal!!!  What sign should I offer??? 

Come back tomorrow, I have some garden shots for you.

Pamela

Cheap and Easy Cedar Fence Board Planters

Have you got a bare spot you want to gussy up?
 
My back deck rails were less than pretty and I want to see cascading flowers when I look out my kitchen window.  (pretend the flowers are all filled in and cascading down hiding a good portion of the pickets and the view of the neighbors back roof)

My fix…. cheapo DIY planters made from cedar fence boards.

1.  Buy some cedar fence boards, I went with two 6 inch wide x 6 feet long and one 8 inch wide, and some scrap wood to make the ends.  (note: They are called 6 inch and 8 inch wide but in actuality they are 5.5 and 7.5 inches wide)

The 6 inch boards $2+ and the 8 inch were $3.50+

2. Square off the dog eared end and dry fit the boards.  Fence boards are willy nilly and do not always match in width or length.  So you have to make them match with your trusty tape measure and saw.



Or just line them up and then view and mark how much to cut off.



3. I put the end piece on first, used just scrap pieces of wood I had on hand.  I applied wood glue before nailing.  Actually this is a photo of me putting on the last side but it does show my end piece is just scrap and the generosity of Titebond glue.  

 I started out with my brad nailer but it jammed so I fell back on a good ol’ hammer and finish nails.  A wee bit slower but still quite effective.



4.  Screw to deck rail so the pesky raccoons will not knock your wonderfully roomy planter to the ground below.  Here I am letting the glue dry before filling.  Be sure to drill holds for proper drainage, I drilled mine towards the back of the planter where it hangs off the deck rail.



5.  I gave them 24 hours to dry then I had fun planting them up.  I left them unpainted or stained, I want these to weather naturally to a soft grey, that will not take long at all.

6. Mix up some coconut coir into your potting mix for added water retention.  It is natural, sustainable and easy to work with. You can purchase Coconut Coir in bales or bricks, a little goes a LOOOONG way as it is compressed. 



First I must soak the coconut coir for a good few hours, make sure you have plenty of room in your bucket, this stuff really expands as it soaks up the water.  I mix it maybe a quarter or third of coconut coir to 3/4 or 2/3 potting mix. 



7. Fill you fantabulous planters with the potting/coconut coir mix and plant all your cascading flowers, give them room to fill in. 



We have Purple Wave Petunias, Trailing Lobelia and a wee bit of white alyssum.   I will be sure to share once it is filled to overflowing with flowers. 

These were cheap and easy to make,  I had the wood glue and finish nails on hand, for a total on the rest of the supplies it may have ran me about $8 per planter and they are a good size to fit plenty of flowers, 6 feet long by 7.5 inches wide.  If you wanted you could also just slip in some 4 inch pots instead of putting the soil in the boxes.  The height of the sides is just right to hide the pots and you could easily change out the flowers is you wished.

So there you have it, quick and easy planters.

Now off to photo what is blooming this fine Monday morning in my garden.   I will share that tomorrow, I do hope.

Pamela

Custom Growth Chart

How is everyone this fine Monday morning.  We have awakened to a bit of rain after a unseasonably warm week for the month of May.

When I was not painting away on special orders in my studio (with the French doors flung wide to enjoy the fresh air) I was in the garden.  More on that in a moment.
We had a baby shower to attend this weekend, (wish I had gotten photos, the gals that put it on did a fantastic job) and I had to whip up a gift.  The parents wanted to wait until the baby was born to find out the gender so my present needed to be gender neutral.  I have had an idea for customizable growth charts knocking about my brain for a while now.

Ones that can hang on the wall, be move around or taken with you if you move.  And the above is what I came up with for a start.  Since we do not know the name or the birthdate of this child it is plain but when I add a line of growth charts to my website the customer can order plain stained wood like this or I can paint the background a color, names, birthdates and sayings can be added along with motifs.   A longer version will be available too. 

I already have a couple orders just from gals seeing this one at the baby shower so I think it will be a great addition to the website.

Now on to my garden.   I am slowly getting things cleaned up.  Here is my side yard complete with roses climbing the porch posts.  
 


I pegged many along the lattice to garnish as many blooms as I can, and these bushes are LOADED with rosebuds so soon this will be full of color.



This rose is already blooming away but it is always first.


  This is one of the mini roses you can pick up in Wal-Mart or grocery store in a little 4 inch pot. 

Since this one does so well for me I just picked up a red one in SaveMart when I spotted it.



I over winter this pink one every year in the greenhouse or on my side porch and it has just flourished and blooms thru the summer without let up. I have had this one for 7 years now and it just does not quit.



The Creeping Jenny is filling in the dry bare areas as I wished it to, now this can get out of hand for some people so be careful where you put it or of where you live, I can control it by not watering and since we have dry summers that works but if you live in an area that gets plentiful summer rain you might want to skip on this one. 



I have a few iris starting to bloom, this darker purple always goes first and is normally done by the time any others open but this year I have an early bird on another.




This white one with lavender edging is just opening up and it has stayed rather short, now sure why might be the spot it is in.



A carpet of lavender and pink creeping phlox, a shame this only blooms a few weeks. The dead clump of sticks there is really my Butterfly Bush.  It is just starting to bud out.  I have to cut it back hard each Fall or the snow breaks it down. 



I have about 6 of these Japanese Maples, I grew them from seed.  If you can believe it they are about 5 years old.  Slow growers to be sure.



See the plant snuggled up to the iris here, it is already taller than the iris.  Look at it just a month ago in the photo below.  How fast it shot up with a little warmth and sunshine. These are my Canterbury Bells and they bloom in lovely purple and pink.



It has been so warm that I braved it and put my tomato and basil plants out earlier than usual.



Normally we don’t put out frost tender plants until the third weekend in May.
Above is my basil planted in the straw bale raised bed.  Also if you look by the little overturned pot in the photo you will see the sprouting sugar snap peas. 

Speaking of raised straw bale beds, I am taking down the one in the side yard.



It was in the way of what I wanted to do here and it was starting to break down, it worked great as a hot bed last season and now it is already mostly fantastic compost.  I have been spreading it all around to heavily mulch my garden to help conserve water on what seems is going to be a very dry summer.  



My Pear tree.  Since we had a frost when it was in full bloom I did not expect to see any fruit but it is loaded with little Pears, now to keep them safe from marauding birds. The Robins have already been scouting around all my strawberry plants. 



And I have a lone little apricot on my tree.  Half of the tree has died and I am holding my breath that whatever is wrong has only effect those branches but it does not look good.

Only time will tell. 

I am off to paint in the studio.  A happy Monday to you all.

Pamela

Pelargonium cuttings (aka: zonal Geraniums) have Roots!

Many enjoyed my blog post on propagating Pelargoniums.  Do you want to see some results?

We have healthy long roots.  Time to pot up this baby up and give those roots some room to spread out!

First I put a bit of Perlite in the bottom of the pot for good drainage, about 1/2 an inch in depth.

Add your potting soil.  You can see the size difference between the pot I took the plant from (right) and the new one (left).  The roots are going to love that room to spread out.

It looks happier already.  They will stay in the greenhouse to get settled then I will acclimate it to the outside as soon as I know the nights will stay out of the frost zone (normally that is the 3rd weekend in May but this year we are out of sync and everything is blooming a month ahead).

All cozy on their shelf in the greenhouse.  This week I shall put them out on the back deck in the shade then return them to the greenhouse at night, in case it drops in temp too far for their comfort.

I have done this with some ivy geraniums too, they are taking a bit longer to root.  We shall see how much longer. 

The petunias I did the same time as these geraniums rooted even faster.  Now to build my raccoon proof planter!

 

Happy Planting

 

 

Remodiholic

Layering for propagating Wisteria, Japanese Maples etc

 

 I love plants.

 

I love free or nearly free plants even better. 

 

I find it enjoyable to learn how to propagate (unpatented) plants to expand my garden so I am constantly reading garden magazine, websites and blogs. I test out the techniques in my own garden.

 

Growing from seed is a wonderful way to start annuals and some perennials but some perennials can take years and years to bloom from seed. 

 

Cuttings are another way to get plants as seen in my last 2 posts…Rooting Lilacs and Roses..aka: Rooting Semi-hardwood cuttings and Propagating Pelargoniums (zonal geraniums) or Softwood cuttings.

 

 This post is on how to Air Layer and Ground Layering to get new plants from plants like wisteria and Japanese maples (these are just two examples, this method can be used for enumerable plants)

 

 Definition of layering: Layering is a propagation method that encourages new roots to form on branches still attached to the parent plant. The parent supplies the layer ― the new plant ― with water and nutrients during the rooting process.

 

First I will show Air Layering.  Air layering is most successful when the plant is actively growing, like now in Spring and Summer.

Step 1: Gather your Materials

 

 A sharp knife

 

Something to tie with, I use old pantyhose cut in strips.

 

A planting medium that retains moisture well, like sphagnum moss, coconut coir, or I use potting soil mixed with perlite.

 

A form of plastic to wrap with. I used a produce bag cut open and in half.

Rooting medium (not shown)

 

The Parent Plant below, a lovely wisteria with fresh new growth.

 

 

Step 2:  Wound the plant

 

With a sharp knife, make two parallel cuts about 1 1/2 inches apart around the stem and through the bark and cambium layer. Connect the two parallel cuts with one long cut and remove the ring of bark leaving the inner woody tissue exposed.

Some say when you cut thru the bark and scrape it back you expose enough of the layer below the cambium to be successful in rooting.

 

 

Step 3: Tie on bag

 

Below the wound, tie on the piece of plastic.  You will be creating a pocket with it.

Pretty, it is not but it gets the job done.

 

 

Step 4: Fill pocket.

 

With one hand kind of wrap the plastic around the wound and hold while filling with the soil (moss, coir) in the pocket create, make sure it surrounds the wound.

 

 

Step 5: Moisten soil

 

Pour water into the pocket of soil to moisten thoroughly

(you can pre-moisten the planting medium (soaking the moss for several hours is recommended if you use that or the coir) and maybe next time I will be sure the pre-moisten my mix too, I think it may work better.)

 

 

 

Step 6: Close up plastic

Once you have the soil mix well moistened close up the pocket made of plastic and tie above the wound.  To make sure there was good contact with the moist soil and the would I tied another strip around the middle of the pocket.  I made sure to tie the branch to the trellis, the pocket of soil adds weight.

 

 

Step 7: Shield

 

Finally, wrap with foil to block direct sun from over heating the pocket.  It may take months for roots to form but keep checking on the moisture level of the soil mix for the duration, it is best not to let it dry out.  Check after a few months to see if the wound callused over, if it has it will not produce roots.  If it forms a callus it means the cambium layer was not peeled back  enough to expose the inner wood.

Here is a link to an excellent YouTube video of air layering. 

 

Air Layering

 

Soon I will do a post on Ground Layering.

Happy Growing!