Friday, April 25, 2008

Some of my spring flowers

This time of year is so exciting. It seems like every time I go outside there is something new blooming. Plants I had forgotten about popping up all over the place. Everything is so fresh looking and green. I guess you all of this by looking in your garden.
Here are some of the plants that are blooming now. I don't know all of the names but I will try and give you as much information as I can.

This first one is grape hyacinth. I discovered while searching on the net that in some regins in Greese and Italy the bulbs are pickeled and eaten. Interesting!!



This plant is a creeping phlox. I guess there are two kinds of creeping phlox because the next picture down is what I have thought of as creeping phlox. This one has flower spikes that are about 6 inces tall and the plant sends out shoots during the summer. Where as the phlox in the next picture grows more in a mound and the flowers are just on the top of the folage.

This is one of the daffadils I have blooming right now. Not sure what it is called but I bought it in the last couple of years. There are so many different bulbs to choose from now. It is hard to choose what to buy.
Can't tell you what this one is. But it puts on a show in the early spring. Pretty yellow blooms on a low mound of folage. Maybe 3 inches tall but strickingly beautiful.


This flower is what I would call and old fashion daffadil. The reason I say old fashion is that it is one I remember blooming when I was a kid. At the time I thought it was boring but now that I am older I appricate it's simple beauty.
This is the flower of the blood root plant. I am not sure I knew it had a flower but last year I took some plants from the woods at my mothers. Should be a great plant for in the shade under the trees.

This might not look like a flower but it is. It is the flower of the splurge plant. That is about all I know about the plant. I have had the plant for several years and it does travel but is easy to control. During the summer the folage turns a pleasing purplish green. Goes well with all the other plants and helps fill in the gaps.



Monday, April 14, 2008

Seedling Update


Last summer I had bought some ornamental pepper plants and when they went to seed I figured they would be easy to start indoors this spring. Little did I know that every seed that I planted would sprout. This first picture are the plants from just one of the containers I planted and that is after I had transplanted about twenty seedlings a couple weeks before. Rather than throw them all out I thought that I would plant 3 or 4 in these 6 inch square pots.




These are the ones that didn't make the cut. I felt a little guilty about getting rid of these but there was no way I could keep them all. I already have more than I have room for in the garden.









This next picture I was trying to show the difference in the plant size between the two different pot I used. I was at the store and saw some peat pots and thought they would be a good thing to use. I'm not sure how many came in the bag but they didn't go far. Then I found in the closet some plastic cups we had left over from one of our parties. To make a long story short I ones in the plastic cups grew better than the ones in the peat pots. Why you may ask? Well my thoughts are that the peat pots dry out faster which causes the plant to grow slower. After I thought about this for a while I remembered as a kid I planted in peat pots and the plants never did well. The peat pots never broke down in the soil. I guess you live and learn.

This was little friend that I found crawling around an the plants and thought I would share it with you.