Category: garden.

to plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow.

thinking outside the box.

Published on by Quandie3 Comments

Good morning from the garden!

If you’ve followed me for a while, you’ll know that I have a large window box that goes across almost the entire width of our front three-season porch.  Our house faces north-west-ish, so it’s basically full shade in that spot although it does get some evening sun.

I’ve tried lot of different looks over the years, but so far there is really no contest for the most successful plant for this shady window box, it’s definitely coleus.

It absolutely thrives, and it creates quite a dramatic show along with some sweet potato vine and lemon coral sedum.

In fact, it’s almost too successful as it grows high enough to block any breezes that might want to try to get through those windows.

Quite honestly, it almost feels like cheating to just fill up the window box with coleus and sweet potato vine and call it good.  It’s a little too easy, and it also seems a bit … well … uninspired.

So sometimes I try to change it up, think outside the box a little (pardon the pun).

Unfortunately that can lead to what I consider to be window box fails.  Last year is a good example of that.  I tried experimenting with some new things, and the combination really didn’t work.

The silver of the Dusty Miller and the Dichondra Silver Falls just wasn’t me.  I put in some lovely coral pink begonias that ended up being totally swallowed up by other more vigorous plants, as did the Streptocarpus Ladyslippers™ Deep Blue Vein.  Although those did become some really pretty houseplants.

The very worst year for the window box had to be 2015 though.

Oh my gosh, does that look like a hot mess or what?  That was the year I tried angelonia.  I don’t know what I was thinking.  They clearly require full sun, and I definitely don’t have full sun here.  Plus, I combined the angelonia with a purple annual salvia and some Diamond Frost euphorbia, all of which have a delicate, airy look about them.  I definitely needed to add something more substantial to the mix.

I did have some success in 2017 when I decided to go with a deep coral pink sort of color scheme.

The New Guinea impatiens did well, and paired nicely with some fuchsia.

But when the cooler purple astilbe that is in the ground right below the window box was in bloom, it didn’t really pair well with those colors.

I did enjoy the monochromatic white color scheme that I tried back in 2014.

That year I used white impatiens, euphorbia, jester’s crown ferns, a swedish ivy and a gorgeous white and green caladium.

And when fall came around I pulled out the impatiens and replaced them with white mums.  Then I popped in a couple of white pumpkins, and added some cut Annabelle hydrangea blooms for a less traditional autumnal look.

As much as I love that look, I will admit that it doesn’t have the same impact from the street as the brighter coleus combinations.

Once again this year, I was in the mood to do a bit more experimenting instead of falling back on the tried and true coleus/potato vine combo.  After checking out what was available at a few of my favorite nurseries, I ended up with a ‘black and white’ theme.

First of all, you have to know that gardeners call colors by the wrong names.  Anything called ‘blue’ is typically really purple, while ‘purple’ is often a hot pink or magenta color.  And ‘black’ is really a very deep purple.

I based my ‘black’ on this coleus that I found at the Amish farm that my neighbor nnK and I visit every spring to buy plants.

It didn’t have a label, but I think it may be a variety called Black Coral.

I know it doesn’t look too exciting at first, it’s not bright, it’s not wildly variegated.  But I next found this rex begonia to add to the mix, and it is pretty exciting.  Paired together, I think this is going to make a fantastic combination.

Once again, no label, but I think the begonia may be Curly Mint.

I also added this rex begonia to the mix …

Both of the begonias have that rich plum color that ties in with the ‘black’ coleus.  I’m just hoping that they won’t be overpowered by the more vigorous growth of the coleus.

For the ‘white’ component in my window box I went back to that white caladium that I loved so much.

I also added a bunch of white New Guinea impatiens, and some Diamond Snow euphorbia.

The Diamond Snow euphorbia is supposed to be a more dense and compact, less ‘airy’, version of the Diamond Frost that I usually use.  And again, I’m hoping this one won’t overpower the other plants.

Finally, I also threw in a Firehouse White trailing verbena.

I may have trouble getting the verbena to bloom in this shady location, but I thought I’d give it a try.  For now all of those blooms are compliments of the greenhouse that grew it (Country Sun in Stillwater, FYI).  Also, you do need to deadhead trailing verbena to encourage more flowers, so we’ll just have to wait and see if I keep up on that.

I added some more ‘black’ to the mix with this Charmed Wine Oxalis from Proven Winners.

It will have white flowers when it blooms as well, so it’s perfect for my black and white theme.  However, I grow it mainly for it’s foliage, it won’t bloom profusely.  Much like the Streptocarpus I mentioned from last year, Oxalis can be taken inside and wintered over as a houseplant.  I may give that a try in the fall.

Finally I put in a couple of Blackie sweet potato vines.  I guess I couldn’t fully escape the coleus or the sweet potato vines.

Now, I just have to be patient and wait for all of these to fill in.  I’m guessing that’s going to take at least a month or so.  Gardening is not a hobby for the impatient.

I’ll try to remember to give you all an update on how my black and white window box turned out at the end of summer.

How about you?  Have you ever tried a black and white theme?  Or do you have another combination that you love for containers?  Leave a comment and let me know.

the garden herbs tote.

Published on by Quandie14 Comments

I’ve posted before about the Trash to Treasure day hosted by a neighboring town, White Bear Lake.  Basically the home owners in WBL can put things that they want to discard at the curb, and the rest of us can drive around and take anything that catches our fancy.

I’ve found a few fun things there over the years including my concrete Japanese lantern.

I gave it a bronze metal makeover last year, and it still looks great in my garden.

I often even find a couple of decent pieces of furniture.  I brought this washstand home for a makeover back in 2021.

I did check out this year’s Trash to Treasure day back in April, and I brought home a small pile of goodies.  However, I didn’t get a photo of my haul because it was raining for most of the day.  So I tucked it all away in the carriage house thinking I’d pull it out later and get a photo.

Yeah, that didn’t happen.

But as time goes by, and I give the items some much needed makeovers, I’ll be sure to share them here on the blog starting with today’s project.

This large wooden tote was sitting at the curb filled with plastic pots and other junk.  It was half full of rain and quite bedraggled.  But I sensed some potential.

After bringing it home, I gave it a good scrubbing with some hot soapy water and then hosed it down.  I left it out in the sunshine to dry out.  Once dry, I gave it two coats of Dixie Belle’s Caviar.  Once the paint was dry, I sanded the entire piece to distress it.

Next up I pulled out my Garden Herbs stencil.  I first stenciled ‘Garden Herbs’ and the herb names in DB’s Dried Sage.  Then I shifted my stencil up and over just a tiny bit and stenciled ‘Garden Herbs’ again in DB’s Drop Cloth, thus creating a bit of a shadow behind those words.

I finished it all off with a topcoat of Dixie Belle’s Big Mama’s Butta which really brings out the deep rich color of the Caviar.

The tote is quite large at 24″ by 18″, and it’s also a bit heavy.  So it wouldn’t be practical to use for actually toting things around the garden.

But wouldn’t it be fab for your potting shed?  You could fill it with gardening books, or magazines, or just empty clay pots and vintage garden tools.

Of course, you could also fill it with potted herbs and put it outside, but since it’s made of plywood, it wouldn’t hold up forever.  But then again, who needs it to last forever?  Isn’t it kind of fun to have pieces like this that last for two or three years and then you move on to something else?  Or is that just me?  I would recommend drilling some drainage holes in the bottom if you were going to go that route.

This tote is headed to the pile of merch that I’m accumulating for my upcoming sale.  Locals, don’t forget, save the date for June 21 and 22!

Thank you to Dixie Belle Paint Co. for supplying the paint and topcoat for this makeover.

from plastic to fantastic.

Published on by Quandie17 Comments

Last summer while out garage saling I saw a house with fabulous lights in big flower pots on either side of their driveway.

I have to laugh, because initially I was completely flummoxed as to how they accomplished that.  I thought they’d had to run electrical wiring to the pots somehow.  But duh, of course, they were solar lights.

Seriously, how did I not just realize that immediately?

Well … anyway … I thought they were fabulous, so I decided to copy the idea myself this year.

But I didn’t want to spend the $70 for the really pretty copper lights that I found online, so I decided to see what I could do to dress up a pair of plastic lights that I found at Fleet Farm for less than half that price.

I’m not sure that photo shows it, but these are made out of black plastic and that’s exactly what they look like up close.  In other words, not terribly nice.

So I pulled out Dixie Belle’s patina paint and went to work on them.

Rather than doing my usual rusty finish using the Iron paint and Green spray, I brought out the Copper paint and Blue spray.

Full disclosure, I probably should have used the Bonding Boss primer in this situation since I was painting over slick plastic.  But I was being impatient and I skipped it.  I may pay for that later, especially since these lights will be out in the elements.  I’m willing to risk it though.

So although I skipped that important step and went right to stippling on two coats of the Copper paint, you should do what I say and not what I do and use the Bonding Boss over slick surfaces.

While the 2nd coat of Copper was still wet, I sprayed on the Blue spray.  It was looking really blue though, and I wanted more of that green verdigris sort of color, so then I quickly added some Green spray as well.

Perfect!

I think the lights look totally legit with this paint treatment.

If you want to see the full instructions on how to use the Dixie Belle patina paint, check out my how-to post by clicking here.

My only complaint about the lights is that big honkin’ solar power collector thingie.  No one would mistake these for proper electric lights!

Although the panel is not very well disguised right now, as my plants get a little taller it will be a bit more hidden … but I can’t let it get too hidden or it won’t work properly.

But aside from that, I love how these turned out.

I’ve had them outside for a couple of weeks now, and so far the paint is holding up just fine as well.  I’ll be sure to give you an update at the end of the season to let you know how they did.

By the way, speaking of plastic to fantastic, those planters are also plastic.

I gave them the rusty treatment (Iron paint with green spray) last year … or wait … maybe two years ago?  I’m not sure.

Either way, they definitely don’t look plastic anymore, right?!

Leave a comment and let me know if you’ve tried any of the patina paint, or if you have something that you think would benefit from the rusty treatment, or the verdigris copper treatment.

Thank you to Dixie Belle Paint Co for providing the patina paint used for these projects.

practicing jumping worm safety.

Published on by Quandie6 Comments

Good morning from the garden, and Happy Mother’s Day to all of you mothers out there (wait a minute, that sounded a little wrong)!

Earlier this week I mentioned having purchased some plants while out garage saling last weekend.  I have always been a big fan of what I call garage sale gardening.  So many of the plants in my garden came from garage sales, such as the Bigroot Geranium (or Geranium macrorrizum) that grows like mad in just about any conditions.

So when I saw some of the plants on my ‘wish list’ being sold for $5 each at a sale in Tangletown last week, I couldn’t resist.

For one thing, I found a Sweet Autumn clematis.  You may remember seeing this growing on the side of our carriage house (the vine with the little white flowers on the left below).

It was spectacular in the fall, but last spring it didn’t come back.  I find that this happens sometimes with clematis, possibly due to clematis wilt, I’m not really sure.

Anyway, I picked up a new one for $5 and we’ll try again.

But, that brings me to today’s q tip!Have you heard about jumping worms?  They are a non-native earthworm that strips the nutrients from top soil.  And according to Ramsey County they are an emerging problem in our area.  They can be introduced to your garden in mulch, compost and potted plants.

For that reason, I am now hesitating to continue recommending buying plants at garage sales because it puts you at risk of bringing home jumping worms.

However, garage sale perennials can still be a good bargain, so if you have jumping worms in your area (check with your local University Extension program if you don’t know) you should practice some jumping worm safety if you purchase plants at a garage sale, or even at a garden club plant sale for that matter.

Here are some recommendations from the U of M Extension:

  • Accept only plants from gardeners that have looked for jumping worms and use these practices to prevent their spread:
    • Plants and materials do not come from an area known to have jumping worms.
    • There is no reason, like soil that looks like coffee grounds, to suspect there are jumping worms at the site that produced these plants or materials.
  • Remove soil from all plants before transporting them to limit the spread of weeds and worms. This helps to remove earthworm cocoons (egg cases) or weed seeds.
  • Completely submerge plant roots in water and wash away remaining soil. Actively look for worms. Protect clean roots for transportation and sale.
    • Water is sufficient to remove soil and other materials from the roots.

I questioned the person I purchased plants from and she said they were not grown in soil from her garden, but in a potting medium (sorry, my eyes glazed over at the exact details).  So they should be jumping worm free.

OK, let’s move on from the worms.

The garden has just exploded over the last week, so I thought I’d share some of my favorite spots with you this morning.

Remember the tulips that the deer like to eat?

I saved a couple of patches of them by enclosing them with chicken wire and they look amazing right now.  Unfortunately, only a handful of the patch of 100 that I planted in fall of 2022 came back this year.  I had chosen Darwin Hybrid Pink Impression tulips specifically because that variety is one that will naturalize.  But apparently not for me.  However, I’d also planted 100 new ones this past fall and those look fantastic.

In the end, I have come to realize that I need to treat tulips as an annual in my garden, and an annual that has to be protected from deer at that.  I tell myself that they just aren’t worth it, but right now they look so good that I know I’ll be tempted to plant them again this fall!

The Double Sherborne Narcissus that I planted last fall are also looking good.  They add a bright pop of yellow next to the red carriage house.

I’ve mixed in some muscari (grape hyacinth) and I love the combination.

In the background of that photo you can see the azalea that I added a few weeks ago.

I can’t take any credit for all of those flowers since this shrub was already covered in buds when I purchased it at Home Depot.  This particular azalea is supposed to be hardy in zones 5 thru 9, and my area was bumped from 4b to 5a last year.  Will it survive our winter?  That remains to be seen.  I plan to protect it over winter for a few years until it gets established.

The Sugar and Spice tiarella (foam flower) that I put in last year is just starting to bloom.

As is the Raspberry Splash lungwort.

Aren’t those color gorgeous?

The star of the garden this week has to be the Phlox divaricata, or wild blue phlox.

It has created a lovely patch of bright blue.  I have it planted ‘under’ a Sun Power hosta.  You can just barely see the Sun Power in the early stages of emerging behind the phlox.

I love this combination because although the phlox looks gorgeous right now, after it blooms it looks fairly weedy.  But that’s when the hosta takes over and fills in the space and I just cut back the phlox.

Last, but certainly not least, the lilacs are just starting to pop.  We’ve had some cool nights recently (in the 40’s Fahrenheit), and I think that is slowing them down a little.

Also, I’m finding that they last a lot longer in a vase if I cut them before the flowers are completely opened up.

So tell me, do you have jumping worms where you are?  Have you gotten many plants at garage sales?  And what’s blooming in your garden this week?  Leave a comment and let me know.

 

impatiently waiting.

Published on by Quandie2 Comments

Good morning from the garden!

I know it’s only late April, but I have been patiently waiting all winter for spring to arrive.  Since returning from my mom’s house, where it was in the 80’s and sunny, I’m officially now impatiently waiting.

I’ve also been watching many of my favorite garden YouTube channels (Garden Answer, Hello Garden, The Impatient Gardener and Dig, Plant, Water, Repeat), and most of them are far ahead of my formerly zone 4b/now zone 5a garden.  With the exception of The Impatient Gardener, because she’s in Wisconsin.  But I have a serious case of spring garden envy when I see these videos with hostas already completely leafed out, crabapples in full bloom and masses of tulips and daffodils flowering.

I’ve done pretty much all I can in the garden for now until I can plant annuals, which around here is not until mid-May at the earliest.  However, our average last frost date is May 21, and the official recommendation is to wait until the last week of May to plant.

I rarely follow that advice though.  I definitely can get some pansies in way before that, which is why I went ahead and planted some up this week.

Pansies are pretty cold-tolerant so they will be OK unless we get below 20 degrees or so.  If I see any cold nights in the forecast, I can just cover them up with some old sheets to protect them a bit.

There are a handful of bulbs blooming in my garden already too.  Remember those leucojum’s I planted last fall?

They’ve come up and are pretty sweet.  I’m hoping that they multiply for next year.

They’ve turned out to be deer resistant too, which is nice.  Especially since once again the deer have munched most of my tulips down to the ground.  I have a couple of groupings that I managed to protect with chicken wire, but the deer got to all the rest.  Please remind me to quit trying to grow tulips, it’s just not going to happen for me.

That being said, I have a handful of tulips that the deer missed that are blooming now …

It looks as though grape hyacinths are also a safe bet.  I was pretty excited to see them coming up and blooming for me.

You may remember that I purchased them already potted up and blooming in about mid-May last year.

After using them as a photo prop, I decided to pop them in the ground and see what happened.

They were perfect right between my Maiden Hair ferns and those small lime green hostas (that I don’t know the name of).

Unfortunately, their normal bloom time appears to be much earlier than mid-May (ie. now), and the hostas and ferns are barely even out of the ground yet.  So the grape hyacinths stand alone this year.

I have just one variety of daffodil blooming this week …

The rest of the daffodils in the garden are up, and they have buds, but they seem far from opening.

Daffodils are also deer resistant, so maybe I need to add more of them this fall as well.

I do have a few perennials that are already blooming including variegated vinca and bleeding heart.  My fern-leaf bleeding heart is particularly pretty right now.

This type of bleeding heart is a workhorse in the garden because it will keep blooming all summer, unlike the more traditional bleeding heart which blooms early and then pretty much dies back and looks terrible for the rest of the season.

Maybe I should quit feeling sorry for myself.  My gardens may not be completely up and filled out yet, but they are getting started.  What’s up and/or blooming where you are?  Leave a comment and let me know.

a harbinger of spring.

Published on by Quandie6 Comments

Good morning from the garden!

Actually, as I mentioned on Friday, I’m not really in my garden this morning.  I’m out visiting my mom.  But I just had to get some photos of the first flowers of spring before I left town so I whipped up this quick post for you before I left.

OK, OK, it’s still quite early for a Minnesota garden, but my scilla (Scilla siberica or Siberian squill) are blooming like crazy.

I have two different varieties of scilla, the bright blue one shown above and a white one with blue streaks.

Personally, I love this early harbinger of spring.  But some people consider it invasive and I even read one blog where the author called it ‘nasty’!  That feels a bit extreme to me.

But, I do get it.  This stuff will spread everywhere, and even into your lawn.

I will admit, I do have them popping up everywhere.

But I don’t mind, and in fact, I actually rather like it.  They die back down to the ground quite early in the season and then it’s like they were never there.

And I absolutely adore the carpet of color that I get just outside my kitchen window every April while other plants are barely even popping out of the ground.

This spot in particular is full of hostas, which are notoriously late breaking dormancy.  By the time the hostas start coming up, the scilla will be done.  By mid-May, this section of garden will look like this …

If you look closely, you can see the foliage of the scilla is starting to die back.  However, my other plants surrounding it, like brunnera and primrose are filling in.

By July you’ll never even know the scilla was there.

As for the scilla in the lawn, that gets mowed over with the first mowing of grass and after a couple of weeks you don’t even see them there anymore either.

I do see two problems with the scilla takeover.  First, it is a little bit of a chore to pull out the yellowed foliage if that’s what you want to do (and I usually do because it is a bit unsightly at that point).  Second, if you are trying to cultivate other very early native spring plants the scilla will compete with them for space.

To me they are worth it for their early spring show though.

Some years they even start to bloom before the snow melts.

Fortunately that was not the case this year!

I hope to find some daffodils blooming by the time I get home from my mom’s house, but as for the tulips, those darn deer are at them again this year.

When will I learn?  When fall bulb planting season arrives again this year, someone needs to remind me ‘no more tulips!’

As much as I love the look of them …

they aren’t worth the headache of trying to protect them from deer.

Last fall I planted some leucojum (a.k.a. summer snowflake), which are new to me.  They are deer resistant and should bloom around the same time as tulips.  I’m looking forward to seeing if they do well for me or not.  If I like them, I’ll put more of those in the ground this fall instead of tulips.  I’ll be sure to keep you posted.

In the meantime, I hope you are enjoying some spring blooms in your garden today!

 

gardening in March?!

Published on by Quandie6 Comments

Good morning from the garden!

I don’t think I’m back to regular weekly ‘Sunday mornings in the garden’ posts quite yet, but due to our crazy mild winter I was actually out gardening this week.  I can hardly believe it myself.

Gardening in early March, in Minnesota!  Who woulda thunk it?

I am a full month ahead of schedule with pruning the hydrangeas!  Last year I pruned them mid-April, and there were still patches of snow and ice on the ground.

Since I’m so far ahead of schedule this year I’ve decided to take my time and focus on cleaning up one garden bed at a time.  So far I’ve finished the front garden under the window box, the shade garden alongside the house, and now the garden next to the carriage house.

That is the ‘after clean up’ photo, in case you weren’t sure.

The right corner of that flower bed contains a Vanilla Strawberry hydrangea, a Tiger Eye Sumac and that amazing Roguchi clematis.

I started my clean up with the hydrangea and followed the general panicle hydrangea pruning rules:

  • reduce the overall height of the shrub by about 1/3.
  • remove any dead, broken or weak branches.
  • remove any branches that are rubbing on other branches.
  • prune just above a leaf node.

This photo doesn’t do these trimmings justice …

But they were all at least 3′ long, if not more.

The Roguchi clematis went next.

In case you’re new here and haven’t heard me go on and on about this variety, let me just say that right now it’s my favorite clematis.  It blooms from May through October and is absolutely covered in flowers that whole time.  The flowers aren’t particularly showy, but they are pretty sweet.

Clematis plants belong to one of three pruning groups, and these groups have different rules.  This one belongs to group 3, which means that you want to prune it right down to about a foot or two from the ground.  In my opinion, this is the easiest sort of pruning job for clematis.  Just prune all of the stems right above a leaf node, about a foot or so from the ground and then discard everything from above that point.

So all of this …

came off and got discarded.

As for that Tiger Eye Sumac, you may remember that I pretty much thought it was dead last year.  It normally doesn’t die back to the ground, but last year it did.  We cut all of the dead limbs off assuming it was a goner, but then it sent up new shoots from the ground.

Unfortunately those ground level shoots seem to have been a rabbit magnet this winter.  The easy way to tell rabbit damage from deer damage is when the damage only goes up to maximum rabbit height.

I’ll just have to wait and see how the Tiger Eye does this year.  I may dig it out and plant a new one in another spot.  It’s competing with the hydrangea in this location anyway.

But speaking of rabbit damage, you may remember my ongoing struggles with creating a lilac hedge.  I started this hedge in 2011, and after much trial and error, I think only one of the original lilacs I planted remains.  All of the others died off and have been replaced.  Currently I have a tall section of hedge in the middle, with two newly planted sections on either end.

This past fall I decided to go above and beyond with protecting the newer plants from the rabbits by enclosing them with chicken wire filled in with chopped leaves.

And it worked like a charm!  The rabbits weren’t able to get to them, and now they are chock full of buds.  I’m so hoping that their growth really leaps over the next couple of years and they catch up with the rest of the hedge.  Maybe I will finally have a lilac hedge after all!

Who doesn’t love a good lilac?

As for the rest of that garden bed cleanup, I just needed to cut back some perennials and clean out fallen leaves.  I tried to be mindful of where I was stepping because I have bulbs coming up!

Wait, what??  Bulbs up in early March?  And actually, most of these were already poking their heads up in late February before I left to visit my mom.  How fun is that?

I have quite a few more garden beds to work on over the coming week, plus I should really get some chicken wire around my emerging tulips.  I don’t want a repeat of last year when deer completely munched on one whole section of new tulip bulbs.

I purchased some more green chicken wire specifically for this purpose, so I should get it in place now since the tulips are starting to come up already!

I’m really looking forward to seeing whether or not my Darwin Hybrid Pink Impression tulips have multiplied.

Darwin hybrid tulips will supposedly naturalize well.  We’ll just have to wait and see.

In the meantime, have you been back out in your garden yet this year?  Leave a comment and let me know!

a brown christmas.

Published on by Quandie14 Comments

Merry Christmas from the garden!

The probability of a white Christmas in the Twin Cities is somewhere between 70% to 75%, depending on which source you look at.  I’m surprised it’s that low, it really feels like we almost always have a white Christmas.

Last year we definitely had a white Christmas …

and then a white January, and a white February, March and even April!

We got a fresh foot of snow on April 1.

But according to sources online, 2021 was a brown Christmas.  I definitely don’t remember it that way.  I have photos here on the blog that would beg to differ.

But apparently all of that snow melted by Christmas Eve, technically leaving us with a brown Christmas in 2021.

Prior to that both 2018 and 2015 were brown Christmases.

I did get a photo of the carriage house in 2015.

Seeing that picture reminds me of how much I liked having evergreen garland and lights hung all the way across above the doors on the carriage house.  I may have to try that again next year.

While digging out that brown Christmas pic, I came across our family Christmas photo from that year.

That was a fun year, despite no snow.  From the left; that is my sister, my nephew (her son), my mom, me, Mr. Q and my niece (also my sister’s kid).  My nephew was visiting from Philly and my mom was visiting from Las Vegas.  It was so nice to have both of them here.

It must just be that I don’t really remember whether a Christmas was snowy or not, I just remember the fun times spent with friends and family.

That’s lucky because it looks like we’re having a brown Christmas this year.

It may not look as festive, but it certainly makes it easier to spend some time in the garden when there isn’t any snow and/or ice, or sub-zero temps.

I re-visited the idea of a garden Christmas tree this year.  Back in 2021 I put up a faux tree that I’d gotten for free at the curb.

I’d filled it with watering cans and garden implements.

But that tree ended up getting blown over in a storm and the ‘trunk’ was bent so much that it couldn’t be salvaged, at least not if I ever wanted it to stand upright.

This year I decided to purchase a small real tree and put it in a pot in that same spot.

It’s quite a bit smaller though, so the watering cans were a no go.

Instead I used some terracotta pots.  I also added some real winterberry sprigs and some rusty ornaments that I use somewhere outside every year.  I topped it all off with a rusty garden crown.

All things considered, I much preferred the full size tree.  Not only did it make much more of an impact, it was also much cheaper!  That little bitty real tree was $50!  I’m going to be on the lookout for another cheap/free faux tree to use next year.

By the way, did you notice the pair of skates hanging from my Rudolph and Co sign on the deck?

Those are the pair that I was questioning whether or not to paint.  At the time, I suspected I would end up using these outside.  Although paint with a good sealer would hold up outside, I don’t think a rub on transfer would.  So in the end I did not paint this pair for now.

I hope that those of you who celebrate Christmas have a very merry one, whether it’s white or brown.  I’m going to take a bit of a blog break over the next week, but I’ll be back in the New Year so be sure to stay tuned!

will it last?

Published on by Quandie18 Comments

Good morning from the garden!

I don’t usually spend much time out in the garden in December, but this year has definitely been an exception.  So far we’ve had a lovely warm fall/early winter, and although we’ve had a dusting of snow here or there, it has melted pretty quickly.  We’ve also had some lovely days with sunshine and temps near 50° this past week.

Will it last?

Well, it’s unlikely to last all winter, but for now it has given me plenty of time to get out and rake leaves, clean up wilted hostas and do some extra mulching (we chop up leaves with the lawn mower, and then spread them on the gardens).  I also managed to get some protection set up around my newest lilac bushes in an effort to keep the rabbits away from them this winter.

I purchased a roll of chicken wire at a garage sale for $1 and it was just enough to do my five newest lilacs.  I simply surrounded the lilacs with a length of the chicken wire, and then filled them in with some chopped up leaves.  Fingers crossed that this will be the trick to getting these shrubs established.

Speaking of winter protection, I decided to risk leaving my fairy garden in place for the winter.  I covered it with some chopped up leaves and am hoping that’s enough.

There’s a chance that everything in it will perish, but I’m willing to risk it.  Worst case scenario, I have to buy all new mini plants next year.  But the Alberta Spruce is a zone 3, as are the mini hostas.  The mini Barberry shrub is a zone 4.  The rule of thumb for overwintering perennials in a container is that they should be hardy to two zones below your growing zone.  Since we were just updated to 5a, maybe these things will be OK.

I was also able to fill my window boxes for winter without having to battle rock hard frozen soil this year!  I can’t even remember the last time that’s happened.  I looked back at some of my blog posts from previous years, and even November 9 was too late in 2019!

You may remember that I put some ornamental kale in the front window box for fall, it was still looking so good that I decided to leave it in place for winter.

Will it last?

I really doubt it.  I suspect it will turn into a frozen glob of mush by mid-January at which time it will be frozen in place and impossible to remove, but I thought it was worth a gamble.

In addition to the kale, I filled the front window box with spruce tips and a variety of other evergreens.

Then I added some faux branches of red berries.

I purchased a bunch of these at the after-Christmas sale at Bachman’s last year.  I decided that buying some faux items that I could use year after year in the window box was a good investment.

I think they look fairly realistic mixed in with the real stuff, and they are especially pretty with the dusting of snow that we got yesterday.

I also invested in some faux garland at the same sale, and I used it along with more of the berries to crown the headboard sign on our carriage house.

When I pulled out my Christmas lights this year I found that quite a few of the strings weren’t working.  I’ve always just used white lights in the past, but this time around I decided to add some strings of red and green lights that I found at Home Depot.  So I have a mix of white, red and green both over the headboard and in the front window box.

In addition to keeping the kale in place, I also decided to experiment with some ivy.  This past summer I planted ivy in the front window box, and also in the rusty urns next to the deck and like the kale, it was still going strong.

Since ivy is technically evergreen (meaning it doesn’t lose its leaves in the winter), I thought it might be worth keeping in my winter arrangement.

Will it last?

A quick bit of research online tells me that English Ivy is hardy down to around 10°, so no, it likely won’t last all winter.  But here we are in mid-December and it still looks good, so this will be another experiment to see if keeping the ivy is worthwhile or not.

I filled out the rest of those urns with the usual suspects, some spruce tops, a variety of other evergreens, some birch logs and some dried hydrangeas.

Add some lights and a little bit of snow and they look quite magical.

I was beginning to think that there wasn’t much chance of a white Christmas this year, but then we got an inch or so of snow yesterday.

Will it last?

Nope, I don’t think so.  It’s supposed to be in the 40’s here this week so it should all melt.

We’ll just have to wait and see if we get anymore snow before the big day!

overwintering annuals.

Published on by Quandie8 Comments

Good morning from the garden!

Do you remember last year when I said I was going to attempt to overwinter my caladium?

I went back to read that post and was reminded that we had a ‘feels like’ temp of 12° in October last year!  We are having a much milder fall this year, we had temps near 60° this past week which was delightful.

Anyway, my attempt to save my caladium was a dismal failure.  When I pulled the tubers out of their box in the spring to plant them they were totally dried up.  I totally overdid the ‘keep them dry’ thing.  I should actually have kept them slightly damp, but not too damp, and definitely not completely dry.

Maybe overwintering caladium tubers just isn’t for me.

But I am going to attempt to overwinter a couple of other plants this year, the first being the Streptocarpus Ladyslippers™ Deep Blue Vein that I had in my front window box.

These actually weren’t a great choice for that spot and I considered them to be a bit of a fail.  They were totally swallowed up by the more vigorous annuals planted around them (Dutsy Miller, Diamond Frost Euphorbia, Dark Eyes Fuchsia).

I was quite surprised by how large they had gotten when I dug them out before our first frost though.  They were so buried under those other plants, but they’d still put on a good bit of growth.  I hadn’t planned on keeping them, but they looked pretty good and were still full of blooms.  So I decided to pot them up and see how they perform as houseplants over the winter.

They’ve been blooming like mad since I brought them in.  Some online sources say they will continue to bloom all winter long indoors.  Since they like cooler temps, between 60° and 70° they should be quite happy situated next to our fairly drafty windows in winter.

I also decided to try and save my scented geraniums.

You may remember that I picked up a pair of them at Tangletown Gardens back in July.

I brought these indoors a week or so before I headed off to visit my mom.  They were growing in terracotta pots outside, so I didn’t have to dig them up or anything.

Unfortunately, they didn’t get watered while I was away and I came home to mostly dead looking plants.  After cutting away all of the brown stems, this is what I was left with.

Um, yeah.  Not much.

But they aren’t entirely dead, so I’m still willing to give it a go.

There are multiple ways you can overwinter a geranium.  You can let them go dormant and then hang them upside down, or place them in a brown paper bag, and put them in your basement.  However, if you use this approach you do need to give them some water about once a month.  I’m definitely an ‘out of sight, out of mind’ kind of gal, so I’m pretty sure I would have the same success with this method that I did with the caladium (in other words, none).

You can also take cuttings from your plants and place them in water in a sunny windowsill.  Once they develop some healthy looking roots, you can pot them up in small pots and keep them indoors until spring.  This would have been a great option had the leaves not all fallen off while I was away.

But the option I’m going to try is to just keep them as houseplants over the winter.  I’ve got three more trips planned for this winter though, so we’ll see if they manage to survive.

Last up is my newspaper roller full of succulents.

You may remember that I purchased this strange looking item at a garage sale last summer and learned that it was meant for rolling old newspapers into ‘logs’ for a fireplace.

I decided to turn it into a succulent planter, and it worked out beautifully.

I couldn’t bear to just let those succulents freeze, so I brought the entire thing in the house.

I made a spot for it in a sunny windowsill, so we’ll see how it does.

One downside to this arrangement is that the newspaper roller isn’t entirely watertight so I have to use caution when watering and not overdo it.  So far, so good though.

How about you?  Do you have any plants that you attempt to save each winter?  Leave a comment and let me know!