The Beds are Full

I'm having trouble with finding areas to plant flowers at now,you know its bad when your eyeing the vegetable garden for space,but that isn't gonna happenIve wintersown most of my perennials I have and I do the toms and peppers that way also and it is a wonderful method of doing seeds and in my zone it works too good on seeds,lol..I need to put in new beds for next year and I think I will do it this fall.I'm thinking the back of the property along the fence will be a good place and about the only place I have left,lol.I will have to dig up all the bulbs and the peonys and Iris's to do this but it needs to be done.My camera needs batteries so you have to look at something from last year

WinterSow try it You'll like it

This is looking into a soda bottle in the winter,notice the lil snow heart..

What is Blooming Now

http://s961.photobucket.com/albums/ae97/diggertom/slideshow/?albumview=slideshow


Ok I cant figure out how to put a slideshow on here and I cant seem to be able to make a clickable link,but if you copy that address up there and paste it in the address bar it will take you to my slideshow,,,Enjoy..
and if someone knows how to make a clickable link clue me in cause Ive been writing code for an hour now and no luck.. Daggonit I did it,unbelievable..never mind now just put your cursor over the link and click,hahaha

Foxglove

It was in the low 80's yesterday,today lower 50's and rainy and I hate the cold.Tomorrow its gonna warm back up,which brings me to my point, I almost wished it was tomorrow already and I caught myself because I hate to wish time away.I hear people say on Monday how they wish it were Friday already and that would be terrible if we didn't have to wait for things.I sometimes hear parents with young children wishing the children were a little older and I'm thinking to myself,no way,be careful what you wish for..Now that my children are all grown up,I've caught myself wishing they were small again but then I would miss the Grandchildren, and I do countdown the days till spring because I do hate winter,hey I'm a gardener and I run a research facility called Tom'sGarden,winter is the enemy.So you see this moment in time is not so bad and being patient and enjoying Monday,Tuesday,Wednesday and Thursday just makes Friday that much sweeter

.I Wintersowed Foxglove in December of 2009

and here it bloomed last week for the first time

and I wouldn't have wished it quicker

because the wait was just as enjoyable

as the blooms..

Confederate Rose Update

Well I've got 10 sprouts, now to get them to grow this year and return next year,since I have 10,I can experiment a little bit.I will plant some directly into the soil and some will be repotted and I will try to overwinter them in their pots and plant them out next spring.

My daughter gave me a birdhouse a few years back that is falling a part it has been residing up in a tall pine for the last couple of years and its falling apart so I got it down today and restored it and put it on the front porch where I can admire it from the swing,that swing is getting a workout,believe me:o)

                                                   I put it back together and stained it

                                                           

                                                 

I restained the little well house I built a few years back,it helps hide the well pipe that comes out of the ground in that area.

                         I think now I'm gonna go plant me some confederate roses...



Rooting a Hibiscus Cutting

This is the way I do it,a lot of people use sand or some other growing medium but I've always had good luck this way.1st I take the cutting,I try and take it in the beginning of May seems the best time for me,after that it gets too warm and the growth becomes more woody.I think its very important for success  that you take the cutting for this method at the right time of the year.

I use a mason jar and a plastic sandwich baggie and I use rooting hormone which you can find in the gardening section of like Lowes or Walmart

Wound the cutting by scraping a thin layer off one side and dip the end into the rooting hormone,it doesn't take much of the rooting hormone,you don't want it caked on there just dusted.

I put water into the mason jar,you can pull the leaves off except for the two top ones but I don't bother with it but I do pull lower ones.I cut a lil slit into the baggie and add cutting,the baggie is to keep the humidity high in the jar.This method takes 2 to 3 weeks and I should have a cloned plant,an exact duplicate of the other hibiscus.There are several other ways to clone plants depending on what the plant is,you can air layer which is good for like trees in which you cut a branch(always use this years growth)halfway through then u soak some moss in water pack it around the wound and wrap it with plastic wrap when u see the roots through the wrap you can then cut the little branch off and plant and then you have a cloned tree this would be good on like Japanese maples and flowering cherries and so forth.another way would be to layer which is quite easy and I do this on shrubs that have lower to the ground branches..Dig a trench in the ground by the branch,strip all leaves of the branch that you lay in the trench,wound the branch by scraping one side and place branch in trench cover wounded area with soil and let other end of branch be out of the trench and set something on it like a brick.Wait until spring and cut the branch as it enters the trench,remove brick and dig up new plant.Also you can divide your plants,I do that alot with hostas and Iris's.and then you have seeds but remember with seeds there is no guarantee that your gonna get the same characteristics of the parent plant,might not even get the same bloom color because of hybridizing and cross pollinating..
                                                        I will give updates every Monday on this cutting..

Vegetable Garden

Today I put most of the vegetable garden in,I still have some more to do but my brother came by and we have been walking around looking at plants in the yard and taking a bit of a break.Here's what I got,the row near the fence is all Tomatoes,there is Black BrandyWine,Red BrandyWine, Rutgers,Cherokee Purple,Paul Robeson black Russians.The next row is all beans there is Eye of the Goat,Red Calypso,Turkey Craw,Pinto Snaps,and Florida speckled.The next row is all yellow squash and zucchini's and next to the last is a row of pickling cucumbers and the last row is cabbage and early jalapenos and pablano's and hot Portugal peppers and that's all I'm doing this year..Tomorrow I will clone a FireBall Hibiscus,there is a gray area on reproducing a patented plant.I feel that like shine if its for your use then you can for instance if a plant needed divided in order to preserve its health would you throw the divisions away,not me,but I wouldn't sell them that wouldn't be legal to do and more importantly it wouldn't be right to the person that worked so hard developing this plant if it is a hybrid.so for varying reasons I'm gonna clone it then destroy it.:)