Mmmmmm...free samples!

On Thursday evening I got home to find a pair of large boxes waiting for me. Well, I didn't order anything and opened them with some curiosity. Inside were these two trays of plants from PanAmerican Seed. Left to right we have:

Marigold Bonanza Deep Orange
Begonia Dragon Wing
Begonia Gryphon
Petunia Shock Wave Coral Crush
Angelonia Serena Blue
Wave Purple Improved Spreading Petunia

When I got them it was too cold to put them in the ground and so I kept them on the back porch. In fact, it was so cool that I was concerned enough to put a sheet over them at night. But, the weather is now improving so once I get a chance to get a little garden clean-up going I'm going to stick them in the ground. Some will go out front and some will go in the back yard flower bed.

Love that Easter Grass!

Examiner.com is getting better with the ads and pop-ups so hopefully I can get back into promoting it a bit more. Though, April is going to be a busy month for me and I just put up "Growing natural grass in an Easter basket" as a placeholder. After that there are probably going to be a lot of events posts as so many local garden festivals happen in May.

Ah, as for Easter grass. I never grew winter rye specifically for an Easter basket but I do use it for my outdoor pots. I just scatter seeds over the tops of the soil in the pot and let it go. In spring I turn it out into the compost pile and let the grass rot. It doesn’t look very Eastery at that point but the grass did its job (soil conservation and enrichment so I can reuse the soil). I never had real grass in my basket when I was growing up but then I never felt deprived for not having it. I mean, if I had kids I’d grow a basket of live grass for a centerpiece or something but I’d just give them baskets full of the fun fake stuff. I can’t imagine any kid would enjoy loosing jellybeans down in the dirt.

While I’m busy, enjoy this seasonal photo from Maja of stock.xchng. (I promise I’ll get back to my own photos sometime soon!)

Backyard Dove

After last night's snow I went out on the back porch to play with my camera. I caught this dove resting in our tree.

I Love Zinnias

Yes, I do and I try to grow them every summer. I usually have a mini variety in pots and semi-doubles in the main flowerbed. This year I tried some new types but they didn’t quite make it. I find that mysterious, as zinnias are the one flower that will grow for me anywhere. In fact, they were the first flower I grew in the all cement yard next to the outhouse.

Well, as you can see some of them are recovering from the drought and heat of early summer and beginning to bloom. I believe this is a Candy Cane mix. I also have them in white with pink streaks, and pink with white streaks. They add a lot of splash and I will certainly grow them again next year. Last year one of my neighbors had a great bed of cactus type zinnias in their front yard. I want them next year but I’m afraid they’d look too crazy in with the candy canes.

And yes, I wrote an article about zinnias. Actually, I wrote this last winter but deleted it a few months ago and re-wrote it for summer. I had planned to introduce a “flower of the month” thing to my column but it seemed hokey so I dropped it. I wanted a winter series but I’ve since come up with better ideas. I also liked the photos in that article, but since Examiner is migrating to a new style we don’t have control over our layout and things look wonky unless they are super simple.

Flowers From Eden

I’ve been a little bit under the weather these days. Besides my arm problem (which is slowly going away) I have this weird tiredness. I have a friend who went though this and can only assume it must be a virus of some sort.

The flowers above came from How Sweet it Is, which is located in Eden, Maryland and on the way to Chincoteague. I always look forward to getting a flat of plants from there each year. They have annuals we don’t have in the city such as double petunias and pink stocks. Some of these are destined for the front of my house, but others I don’t know what to do with yet. They are just so appealing I had to buy them. Also, they have good produce and I got some excellent strawberries from them.

Daffodils, English Ivy, and New Writing Projects

This morning I went to put out the recycling and when I was doing my garden check I saw a spot of yellow. It was this daffodil! You see, our neighbor has a garage that borders our yard, and that has English ivy growing all over it. The ivy is a pain, but I only trim it enough to keep it from invading my garden beds. I like to keep it otherwise because our birds shelter in it.

Well, large hunks of that ivy fell over in the February snow storm slumped over my one flower bed. I ignored it, thinking that it wasn’t doing any harm but today I did a little prune and rescue for the plants underneath. The daffodil stem was broken so I cut it and put it in a vase in my kitchen. I also found some pansies that survived (the ones in front of the house didn’t). I had a few Brussels sprouts seedlings in last fall and now one has survived to be about six inches tall. I also have some Red Russian kale about that size, too. It has been so wintery until just now that I forgot to plan any serious garden clean-up, but I will do that soon.

I wrote another article on the 2010 Maryland Home and Garden show. I got some nice attention from the last one I did, but it took me a long time to do all of the photos. Plus, I had a bit of a headache during the show and didn’t take great notes so I had to go back and carefully look at all of the signs and ribbons in my pictures.

I have a March “What’s blooming in Baltimore?” in the works and now that I have the daffodil I actually have enough photos for a slide show. I have some sort of clover themed article for St. Patrick ’s Day, but beyond that I’m looking forward to brainstorming a new set of fresh article topics. It is spring, and my fingers are worn out from typing “2010 Maryland Home and Garden Show” so much for the last series. I’m bad at clever titles and often make them too long, so that didn’t help.

This past week I’ve just been thrilled to be back outside, getting my own photos of flowers again. I like stock.xchng for what I don’t have because I can find photos that match my style, but I’d rather use my own stuff.