How Does Your Garden Grow?

Saturday, April 11. "[The] spring sale brings a wonderful, fragrant and colorful collection of hard-to-find Oriental and Trumpet lilies. Add 'Aroma Therapy' to your summer evenings with the scent of these beautiful lilies. We also have a very nice collection of Asiatic, LA Hybrid and Orienpet lilies. We have happily acquired new varieties not seen before at our sales. We will have two very special Minnesota Hybrids: Hugh and Ruth Cocker's 'Sweet Surrender' and Louise Koehler's 'Hiawatha.' Add a bit of MN lilium history by adding one of these beautiful lilies to your garden. We also have a great selection of 'Pixie'-sized lilies. These gorgeous little lilies may be planted at the front of your garden's border, or will grow well in pots on patios and decks." Bulb Sale List

I have nowhere to actually plant anymore bulbs, but... I'd like the L. 'Dimension', L. 'Montezuma' and maybe the L. 'Rio Negro'.

I am really waiting for the Fall sale to get a few of the beautiful Asiatic lily, Desert Storm. The grower, Tim Zimmerman, says he will save me some before the sale!

I took a half-day off work and for fun I ventured all the way out to Gerten's. By "all the way out", I mean drove about 12 miles to Inver Grove Heights.

I had no idea Bachman's had any competition in the sprawling-garden-center department but I think Gerten's has 'em beat!

Seeds purchased include...

Vegetables

• Black Beauty Squash
• New England Pie Pumpkin
• Spacemaster Cucumber
• Sugar Snap Pea
  
• Super Sweet 100 Tomato
  
• Sweet Red Pepper
• Tendergreen Improved Bean
  

Herbs

• Chives
• French Rosemary
• Italian Flat Leaf Parsley
• Mammoth Dill
• Sweet Italian Basil

A photo chronicle of our garden from 2008. The garden was redone in Summer 2005. This Summer will be the third year. This past Fall I tucked nearly 1000 bulbs in around the various beds. The one shown below got white and yellow dafodils and Blazing Star Liatris.

An archive of my old Splashblog site. The garden pages.

I've talked about putting in a boulevard garden for years. Last year the project actually got started... as evidenced in the top right of the above photo. It doesn't look like much but that's because it's still winter.

Phase 2 of the boulevard garden will begin promptly in June—with the killing of the grass shown in the above photo. I know it looks dead already but that's because it's still winter.

It's still winter.

Have you ever been to the Friends School Plant Sale? They just announced their 2009 catalog online.

I plan to go for the first time this year... with a strict budget.

I planted nearly 1000 bulbs last Fall-- the last of which required the assistance of hot water to allow digging through an inch of early December frost. Assuming the bunnies don't eat them all, there should be quite a show in the coming weeks.

From UMN Extension Office: http://www.extension.umn.edu/distribution/horticulture/DG8464.html

This bulletin is written in celebration of 30 years of Master Gardener teaching in Minnesota. Here are the BEST plants for 30 tough garden sites: dry shade, slopes, lakeshores, all locations that call for tough, durable plants. Also included are hard-to-find plant lists of special traits and useful characteristics: self-seeding, fragrance, long-blooming, minimal litter trees. And who better to recommend these plants than the University of Minnesota Extension Service Master Gardeners? Drawing on their 30 years of teaching and experience, Master Gardeners list here their selections for these tough sites.

Elleni, Kare11, and Northern Gardener inspired me to try some winter sowing—an easy and economical way to start some hardy perennials from seed.

If all turns out well, these mini-greenhouses will hold multiple Pasque flower plants (courtesy of Elleni). The hardest part of this project was punching holes in the bottom of the plastic juice bottles.

My neighbor probably thinks this is trash in my yard.

So the pictures from Casa Double will be coming soon as the yard is a mess. Why is it when the snow melts, a month of work is revealed? Every year I am surprised by the magic of the meal, exciting and overwhelming all at the same time. This year the plan is to make a privacy fence that is attractive and out of cheap materials and greenery to make a chain link fence attractive. Quite the challenge but we are ready and up to the challenge. Bring it on Spring!

I got all excited seeing the little heads of daffodils leaves poking up in the front garden. But what was that patch of green there and over there? The creeping charlie and some sort of mullein were already bright green and had new leaves. I yanked those suckers right up.

On the brighter side, I also saw my first bluebird of the year today.