Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day - November 2007

I got a chance to play with the new digital SLR from work this week. Since I need to learn how to use it, I figured that taking a few pictures in the garden would be my best bet. After all, I've photographed the garden so often that it should help me gauge my skills with the new camera, right?

Well, I learned two things. First, that the camera goes way beyond my point-and-shoot experience, and I am going to need to read a book so I can get the most out of its capabilities. And two... that my nasturtiums are finally blooming! These late-planted 'Moonlight' climbing nasturtiums never did scramble up the chainlink fence like they were meant to, and honestly I had forgotten about them. It was a fun surprise to see them peeking out of a pile of beech leaves.

Those leaves were trying to hide a few other things, too, like the last of the toad lily flowers but I found them anyway. And I was happy to see the white-edged ajuga I planted nearby (and then promptly forgot to water) peeking through the leaves as well. (Whew.)

There's no hiding the blooms on my brave little alpine strawberries, which line the driveway and provide groundcover around some ornamental grasses and raspberry bushes there. I am unlikely to get any more juicy berries, but the sweet little white flowers are refreshing. And I did enjoy the sweet-tartness of two strawberries (and one raspberry) bursting on my tongue last week. Small fruit ripening in November... amazing.

Not so good-tasting are the acid-yellow leaves of the incorrectly named 'Golden Delicious' pineapple sage. I enjoy chewing on flavored herbs while I walk the garden, so on a whim I tried these one day in August... bleeeech. It was like chewing plain old unflavored leaves--and rough leaves, at that! It's very pretty, but I feel that if a plant is supposed to be edible it really ought to have a taste, like my reblooming 'Hopi Red Dye' amaranth. (Which tastes like spinach.) So I may go back to the plain old pineapple sage that I usually grow.

Flowers are still going in the front yard, too. Here you can see exactly why you shouldn't necessarily plant nicotiana sylvestris in a highly visible part of your garden: the leaves, flower stems, and flowers attract bugs, and their stickiness traps the bugs that come around to visit. The nighttime scent is amazing, though, so I'm planting them on a less obvious corner of the porch next year.

Last but not least, all three of my 'Paprika' achillea are absolutely covered in flower stalks and buds! The first blooms of this reflowering bent the stalks over into the sedum and heuchera, as you see here. The exact colormatch of the heuchera leaves and the 'Paprika' flowers was not really planned--I don't particularly like actual "matching," either in the garden or in my wardrobe--but it looks okay enough together, I suppose. Dark purple leaves elsewhere in the bed and the visual weight of the nearby rock keep it from being "too sweet" for me.

The sum total of what's in bloom today in the garden is as follows:

Perennials:
- digitalis parviflora (wimpy rebloom)
- unnamed purple toad lily
- miscanthus 'Zebrinus'
- 'Caradonna' salvia
- 'Paprika' yarrow

- chasmantium latifolium
- lavender ('Munstead,' I think)
- 'Hameln' pennisetum (almost done)
- 'Ozark' everbearing strawberries
- 'Canby Red' raspberry
- 'Lightning Strike' tricyrtis
- zauschneria latifolia var. etterii
- panicum virgatum 'Rotstrahlbusch'
- passalong silver-leaf lamium
- 'Walker's Low' catmint
- sedum sieboldii
- sedum cauticola 'Lidakense'
- hakonechloa macra 'Aureola' and 'All Gold'
- Japanese anemones 'Party Dress' and an unknown pink (possibly 'Robustissima')
- echinacea 'Merlot'

Annuals:
- 'Moonlight' climbing nasturtium
- nicotiana sylvestris
- 'Golden Delicious' salvia eleagans
- red snapdragons
- 'Hopi Red Dye' amaranth
- 'Huntington Carpet' rosemary
- 'Koralle' upright fuchsia
- bronze fennel

All in all... much more than I expected for mid-November, especially after a few light frosts! In fact, it looks more like October around here, with some trees sporting green leaves and the oakleaf hydrangea just starting to color up finally. I wonder if our extremely late snow over Easter weekend is responsible for shifting the whole growing season back a few weeks. Anyone know if that could still be possible? Maybe not, but I feel like it should take some of the blame--er, credit!

**Edited to add: I was remiss to not mention this originally (excited about my nasturtiums--sorry!) but Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day is the brainchild of Carol over at May Dreams Gardens. On the 15th of every month, garden bloggers post about what's growing in their neck of the woods... click here to visit Carol's November post and scroll through the comments to see who else has posted their bloom list!

Seed Buying: Method and Madness

Carol over at May Dreams Gardens posed a lot of interesting questions in her recent post, titled: "Seed Buying: Method or Madness?" There were too many questions for me to answer in a mere comment--after all, I can't even keep my regular posts under two screeens--so I figured they would be best addressed here.

- Do you carefully read all of the seed catalogs sent to you and then browse the Internet to compare and contrast all the options, then decide which seeds to buy?
- Do you order seeds from more than one seed company to save on shipping or buy from whoever has the seeds you want, even if it means paying nearly the same for shipping as you do for the actual seeds?
- Do you buy seeds from ‘bricks and mortar’ stores and get whatever appeals to you as you are browsing?
- Do you buy vegetable seeds in bulk where they scoop them out of seed bins, weigh them and put them in hand-marked envelopes?

My answers to the above are: Yes, both, yes and... I wish! When I buy seeds from catalogs and Internet sites, I tend to be very careful and methodical. My credit card might eventually come out to finish off the sale, but it usually takes weeks if not months to get to that point.

I make lists, research what I might want to buy and who offers the varieties I want at the best prices (shipping included) and then whittle the lists accordingly. If there is a plant I really want to grow and I know I can't find its seed locally, I will pay up as long as its total cost is still cheaper than buying the number of those kinds of plants that I want in the spring.

In bricks and mortar garden centers, on the other hand, I can get into real trouble. The pretty pictures, the choices... really, who can resist a whole half rack of different varieties of nasturtiums? Especially when you planted only red and dark orange varieties last year, and didn't realize how charming the buttery yellow ones were until you saw their pictures on the fronts of those packets?

- Do you buy seeds for just vegetables, or just annual flowers? Do you buy seeds for perennial flowers?
- Do you only buy seeds to direct sow into the garden or do you end up with flats of seedlings in any window of the house with decent light?

In terms of buying, I buy seeds for everything--veggies, herbs, annual flowers and perennials. I haven't sown indoors or direct sown in the garden since I discovered winter sowing. I can winter sow a lot more seeds than I have room to start indoors, and I have more control over what goes where in the garden with winter sowing than I would with direct sowing.

This winter, I am winter sowing crocosmia, echinops bannaticus, 'Apricot Sprite' and 'Apache Sunset' agastaches, winter hardy sempervivum, 'Wizard Velvet Red' coleus, stipa tenuissima and nicotiana sylvestris in addition to the usual suspects for the veggie garden. I would definitely not have the money to buy all of the plants of the above that I would like to grow--another benefit of winter sowing.

- Do you list all your seeds on a spreadsheet, so you can sort the list by when you should sow them so you have a master seed plan of sorts?
- Do you determine germination percentage for old seed?

I wish that I had the discipline and organization to keep a spreadsheet, but I tend to rely more on intercranial information filing--which I admit isn't always the most reliable method. Maybe if I set up a spreadsheet this winter, however, I can do better at record-keeping this spring.

I probably will not do much in the way of determining germination percentage for old seed, though, unless you count chitting and then planting the sprouts. I never seem to have enough of old seed to just test a sample, and I would feel badly about wasting sprouted seed.

- Do you save your own seeds from year to year and exchange them with other seed savers?
- Do you buy more seeds than you could ever sow in one season?
- Do you keep all the old seeds and seed packets from year to year, scattered about in various drawers, boxes, and baskets?

I saved seeds this year for the first time, from 'Pride of Gibralter' cerinthe, digitalis parviflora, and cimicifuga/actaea. I would like to save more this year, particularly if I find some good-tasting plum tomatoes.

As far as buying more seeds than I could ever sow in one season and saving packets from year to year... yeah, guilty as charged. Check out what a wreck my seedbox is, and it was just cleaned up this fall! I donated a bunch of extras to fellow gardeners and a couple of gardening newbies. I also talked myself into throwing out seeds older than 2002--more because I figured that after 4 years it was safe to assume I would not bother planting them than because of any concerns about viability.

- Do you know what stratification and scarification are? Have you done either or both with seeds?
- Do you have a fear of seeds? Some gardeners don’t try seeds, why not?
- Do you understand seeds? I once bought seeds at a Walmart in January (Burpee Seeds) and the cashier asked me, “Do these really work? Yes, they do. “Isn’t it too cold to plant them now?” Well, yes, if you are planning to plant them outside. I don’t think this cashier grew up around anyone who gardened.

I can define the processes of stratification and scarification, and have done both. I have no fear of seeds--but then I have no fear of any aspect of life, including death.

I guess that you could say that yes, I understand seeds... but I do have to admit that I don't want them to lose all of their mystery and magic, either. I love knowing the science behind them, but would like to always appreciate the small miracle that every seed contains as well.