Have you started garden dreaming for spring 2018 yet? (Dogwood, Lilacs, cats)
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Wait, you've already started buying? Oh great, you have now unleashed Jim Cantore upon all of us (you know, that guy who when he's in your town is a signal that you're currently in the wrong town to be in). Bring on the blizzard.
Just kidding (love that screen name!).
I have cabin fever pretty badly, and yes I am eager to get spring here too and get started. I call this time of year "stick & bricks", because that's all I see is bare trees and buildings. We're on the hunt for a second Japanese maple tree to complement one we already have, and planning on redoing our front mulch beds yet again this year to see if we can finally get this right. When we bought this house two years ago, the landscaping was essentially dead everywhere.
Wait, you've already started buying? Oh great, you have now unleashed Jim Cantore upon all of us (you know, that guy who when he's in your town is a signal that you're currently in the wrong town to be in). Bring on the blizzard.
Just kidding (love that screen name!).
I have cabin fever pretty badly, and yes I am eager to get spring here too and get started. I call this time of year "stick & bricks", because that's all I see is bare trees and buildings. We're on the hunt for a second Japanese maple tree to complement one we already have, and planning on redoing our front mulch beds yet again this year to see if we can finally get this right. When we bought this house two years ago, the landscaping was essentially dead everywhere.
I can relate. The story on our house is the original owners brought in landscapers who overplanted everywhere, 25 years ago. So the people right before us must have gotten tired of having to whack everything back and took all the bushes out.
So here come we damn Yankees with visions of the exuberant lush gardens up north. After many trials and failures here, we started seeing the allure of having nothing. But since our side and back yards have many of the original healthy evergreen shrubs, we will stick with those in the front and see how they do.
It is so very hot here in the summer that most anything we were used to growing starts to croak in June.
I'm in an apartment now so it's a new ballgame. Soon I'll be starting cuttings for geraniums to put on the balcony railing. I want to get nasturtium seeds so I can have more balcony flowers.
Then, on the ground, there's space too. IF the daffodils and hyacinths come up, I'll know where to put things like Coreopsis and Lamium Herman's Pride. When I moved here in Sept I looked at the other gardens, and yellows seem to look really good. Besides, I am facing south, at last. I love perennials because they get to be like old friends who come back to see you every year.
I still want vegetables, especially beets, and am hoping they can grow in a Grow Box with their need for root space.
I am in the Denver metro, zone 5b, where we have had an oddly warm winter so far. I expect that we'll have snow well into May, not unusual as it has snowed at least two consecutive Mother's Day's in the last five years.
Despite the late springs here, I always start thinking about my garden as soon as Christmas is over.
I ordered a bunch of seed packets from Botanical Interests, flowers mostly as I am still up in the air about which vegetables to plant this year; they arrived yesterday.
Now I just have to restrain myself from starting them too early.
I am in the Denver metro, zone 5b, where we have had an oddly warm winter so far. I expect that we'll have snow well into May, not unusual as it has snowed at least two consecutive Mother's Day's in the last five years.
Despite the late springs here, I always start thinking about my garden as soon as Christmas is over.
I ordered a bunch of seed packets from Botanical Interests, flowers mostly as I am still up in the air about which vegetables to plant this year; they arrived yesterday.
Now I just have to restrain myself from starting them too early.
Zone 5b is my zone too although I am in southern New Hampshire!
I tried to do some front-yard landscaping almost 3 summers ago ... recorded it here: //www.city-data.com/forum/garde...questions.html . The heuchera bed is doing great -- I've added to it the last couple of years and will again this year. The tulip bed has been a disaster -- I planted 100+ bulbs, maybe a dozen came up the first year (the company I bought from replaced them), maybe 2 came up last year. I may just give up on it and plant something else in that bed OR just re-plant grass. I would be so sad about all my wasted efforts, though!
I have been following this thread with interest (and sometimes ENVY! ) although our last frost isn't until mid-May! I would also love to do vegetable gardening in the back yard -- it's very large and just about a perfect Southern exposure. I don't know that I'll have enough energy to do it this year, but I read Cambium's veggie garden threads every year and drool!
I have not tried flowers from seeds. How do they do in zone 5-ish?
What a crazy dry winter. I am out in the back yard watering everything because that's what the garden center lady told me to do. My Redbud tree is new and I definitely don't want to lose it. We had a lot of rain in Fall but practically no moisture this winter except for 1 inch of snow. It's nuts ! Can't wait for March to come so I see some buds.
My neighbors had grape vines all across their back wall and I see they pulled them all out. I would have loved to have those plants, if I had known.
Zone 5b is my zone too although I am in southern New Hampshire!
I tried to do some front-yard landscaping almost 3 summers ago ... recorded it here: //www.city-data.com/forum/garde...questions.html . The heuchera bed is doing great -- I've added to it the last couple of years and will again this year. The tulip bed has been a disaster -- I planted 100+ bulbs, maybe a dozen came up the first year (the company I bought from replaced them), maybe 2 came up last year. I may just give up on it and plant something else in that bed OR just re-plant grass. I would be so sad about all my wasted efforts, though!
I have been following this thread with interest (and sometimes ENVY! ) although our last frost isn't until mid-May! I would also love to do vegetable gardening in the back yard -- it's very large and just about a perfect Southern exposure. I don't know that I'll have enough energy to do it this year, but I read Cambium's veggie garden threads every year and drool!
I have not tried flowers from seeds. How do they do in zone 5-ish?
I've had a lot of success with the more hardy varieties - marigolds, poppies, zinnias, sunflowers, snapdragons...
Despite the late frosts, the summer sun is brutally hot so I try to only plant things that are listed as drought tolerant and that need full sun.
Sorry to hear about your tulips. I planted a couple hundred bulbs year before last and most, if not all, bloomed last spring along with my daffodils and hyacinth. I think I bought most of them from Breck's or Costco.
I've tried to concentrate on bulbs that have very strong stems and are cold hardy because there's always a good chance that we'll get snow and/or a deep freeze after they start blooming.
I added more this past fall, along with some allium, but our weather has been so weird, I fear that they haven't gotten enough moisture to get a good start.
I'm debating too about vegetables. I really want a raised bed for them but I just don't know if I am up to that much tending any more.
We'll see.
This year my greenhouses is not in use, because it was vandalized last Winter and never put it back together ; lost Card Cara, Washington Navals, Kadota, turkey figs, coconut palm, too many things to mention to cold. This year I am wintering plants in doors. can't wait to get my California fan palm,three large majesty palms, bougainvillea, hibiscus ect. Outside. Tree roses are dormant wintering in my unheated garage.. Time to move back to California lol.
With overnight lows still below freezing and daytime highs eeking into the 40's we've got a ways to go before and dreams can be worked in the garden.
At the moment I'm trying to figure out the best place to site an asparagus bed. Since it will be a long term crop it's important that I get it right. I did create a 30 x 30 ft fenced in area using the modular 10' chain link fence panels that use to be for dog runs to enclose a space that the dogs can't get to and damage. It also has a bump out with an 8 x 10 unheated greenhouse.
Although I have 28 acres only a small portion of that is flat land around the house and about 60% of it across the creek which must be driven though, not even a small foot bridge yet. Ultimately I would like to turn it into a sustainable, permaculture food forest with some cattle, hogs, chickens, etc.
I spend too much time watching great YouTube videos by lots of different people and I'm learning so much but until I know whether or not my pension will be permanently cut by 60% (or more) I can only wait, continue to save and hope that I can go forward with this plan to put the land to its highest and best use.
For now I will be content with a rather typical back yard garden for summer veggies and fruits.
I am worried about my clump of agapanthus. The leaves are totally wilted from frost. I am not sure, but I think the leaves have always remained green all winter, until now. The clump would be very expensive to replace.
Hubby says the agapanthus are sending up new leaves, so that’s good.
Today we went to the Home and Flower Show in Savannah. It was short on flower and long on folks trying to sell stuff, but the great thing is there was a garden center display by a nursery that is opening a second store in my town. Yippee. I hope they have a good selection, knowledgeable employees, and that they label their plants a lot better than the other places in town.
We had really awesome garden centers in Ohio, with plants that were labeled with the botanical names and mature sizes, and prices.
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) although our last frost isn't until mid-May! 
