Spring Bulb sale

The Friends of Boone Area Library are selling flowers, primarily spring blooming bulbs, to help raise funds for the library. The library receives 45 percent of the proceeds. The sale ends May 16.

The bulbs or plants will be delivered to the buyer's address at the correct planting time, which is generally in the fall.For more information, contact the Boone Area Library at 129 N. Mill St., Birdsboro, or call 610-582-5666.

And speaking of bulbs, I've officially started my spring planting Wednesday night with some Agapanthus bulbs I received from Breck's in Holland. As pictured here, Agapanthus are beautiful bunches of lavendar flowers that bloom mid-summer. The plants get up to 3-ft. tall and will make a great focal point along my garden path. I've chosen to plant them in large ornamental pots because Aggies will not survive winter in Zone 6. They will have to be taken indoors in the fall, dried and saved for replanting the next spring. Aggies feature prominently in HGTV landscape shows (primarily filmed in California), and I've always wanted to try them. Wish me luck!

That reminds me, now's the time to get those Elephant Ear bulbs into the ground. Mother's Day is generally regarded in our area as the date we're free of any possible frost. And speaking of Mother's Day, go out and buy Mom some flowers/plants this weekend and give thanks to the lady who probably got you started gardening in the first place (I know mine did).

And remember, the best time to weed those planting beds is right after a good rain. Tomorrow should be perfect for this!

Next week I should have lots to share as I plan on doing a lot of gardening this weekend.

Master Gardeners Plant Sale!

I was going to wait till tomorrow to put this in, but since it starts Friday, I figured the sooner you knew, the more you could plan to attend!

The Penn State Master Gardeners of Berks County will hold their spring plant sale on Friday from noon to 7 p.m. and Saturday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Berks County Ag Center, County Welfare Road, Bern Township.
Master gardeners will be on hand to offer information on soil preparation, planting techniques and plant care and answer questions on gardening and landscaping, with emphasis on appropriate plants for home gardeners particular sites.
Included in the sale will be vegetables, including dozens of heirloom varieties, plus herbs, native plants, ornamental grasses, perennials and woody ornamentals including flowering shrubs and some small trees.
For Mother's Day, the sale will offer hanging baskets and dish gardens of selected herbs.Sale proceeds will benefit Master Gardener volunteer projects throughout Berks County.

See you there!

What to do with Daffodils after blooming

Today I was all ready to tell you about how to care for your daffodils after they're done blooming. I was going to share Martha Stewart's braiding method that I've been using for a couple years that helps keep your garden looking nice while the daffodil foliage fades away. Or maybe the bend and tie method, sometimes made easier by just using rubberbands ...

I'm a little behind at home with my own daffs; I haven't taken the time to braid them yet so I don't have any current photos. So I went to the Internet to look for some usable photos to accompany this blog entry.

While searching "daffodil braided foliage," I came across a bunch of warnings about this technique. (So, Martha doesn't know everything afterall ...)

According to Barbara Martin's garden tips on flowergardens.suite101.com, "You may hear or read suggestions for braiding the daffodil leaves or bundling them up with rubber bands and who knows what else, but it doesn't help the bulbs at all to do this and it is a lot of extra work for the gardener, too ... give yourself -- and your daffodils -- a break: Leave the leaves alone!"

"Daffodil foliage needs the sun to make and store energy this year for next year's flower. That concept is alien and hard to accept by some. However, if one follows the daffodil bulb growth, a dissected bulb clearly shows next year's flowers developed in this year's bulbs. It is for that reason that the theory of letting the folliage die backnaturally is so strongly defended," writes Clay Higgins on the same web site.

Easier said than done. I know, I know, who wants to look at those long green leaves now when it's time for all those pretty, colorful annuals? Well, I'm going to give it a shot this year, since it was an especially good year for my daffs! I want to do everything I can to ensure a good showing for next year, even though I had to move my double daffodils to make room for those dwarf rhodies I showed the other day.

Suggestions for "living with" the faded daffs include: Hiding the foliage with taller perennials and planting colorful annuals in front to take the eye away from all that green. At least it will save me some time not having to braid all that foliage this year.

Gardener's Block

Ok, you've heard of writer's block right? Well, I'm suffering from a case of gardener's block.

It's nothing severe, it seems to always strike this time of year. I'm sure some of you have suffered the same symptoms ... You've gone to your favorite greenhouse/nursery, perused the aisles for the perfect plants, made your selections, purchased the items, carefully drove home, unloaded your stock, placed them on the deck/patio and marveled at your score. Now comes the hard part -- exactly where to put everything!

I love when I first bring all my new plants in to their new home. I place all the containers on my back patio (this year, in the new greenhouse) and look at all the pretty colors. Then I sit and look at the various planting gardens and try to decide which goes where ... and that's when the "block" comes into play. So many new things to plant, so many open spaces, so many colors, perennials, annuals, seedlings --- AAAARRRGGHH!!

By rights, perennials should be the first to go in the dirt, since (with any luck) they'll occupy the same spot for years to come. Then the annuals, always making sure to plant up front because they provide the most color throughout the summer. Always try to take into account that perennials from prior years are just coming up now and some will get quite tall and block out the sun for the other plants. This is a hard one to remember, because a large empty spot may not be such a great place to put a plant that requires "full sun." Especially when the ornamental grasses are only about 2 feet tall right now and will go on to tower at about 8-12 feet, blocking the sun and any light rain from the new plant. (There's a reason you didn't plant anything there last year ...)

Oh well, I'm feeling overwhelmed right now, but I'll get thru it -- I always do. At least one thing's nice for now -- I can easily water everything right on the patio, it's all in one spot. I don't have to roll out the 150-ft. hose yet!

Anyway, the lovely little plant appearing in the blog today is the dwarf rhododendron I mentioned yesterday. Isn't it cute! I first saw it in my neighbors' yard and had to know where they got it. They got it from Lowe's about a month ago and, after checking for the last 3 weeks, I finally spotted some there last Saturday.

It's officially called a Purple Gem Rhododendron and it'll get about 2-ft. tall. It's described as having deep violet blooms mid-Spring to early-Summer with tiny, dense evergreen foliage and a low-mounded growth habit. It's an "excellent border plant," and enjoys morning sunlight.

Coming up: What to do with those faded daffodils and tulips.

Making your bed

Well, wasn't this past weekend just a gardener's dream? The weather was perfect, not too hot, breezy and even Saturday was overcast, which is great for planting. My Saturday was not spent planting -- but buying!

All the local nurseries and greenhouses had to have been packed, and I mean with customers, not just flowers!

My local greenhouse of choice, Glick's in Oley, had to have moved a lot of merchandise on Saturday -- and not just because of me. Actually, I was there making my purchases Thursday afternoon, Friday night and Saturday afternoon! There's always something else I absolutely have to have for a perfect garden display, and I guarantee you that Saturday was not my last trip...

I also made a trip to Lowe's and got a great little shrub that I'll tell you more about tomorrow. And I found a new variety of sweet potato vine at, of all places, Redner's Market in Douglassville! You never know where you're gonna find that new must-have plant!

Anyway, today's entry is all about making a new garden/flower bed. Last year, toward fall, I joined a national gardening club, and was sent a pack of Cutting Garden seeds as a Thank You. Since my beds are pretty packed with plants already, I decided that I had to create a new one. A cutting garden is just what it sounds like -- a garden that features flowers meant for cutting and displaying in vases indoors or outdoors.

So last fall (yes, that's right) I staked out an area in my side yard next to the gardening shed. This particular spot gets plenty of morning sun and will also make a nice view for my neighbors' kitchen/dining window. After attaching some chicken wire to the stakes, I gathered up some dead leaves and chopped them. If you don't have a leaf vacuum that will do this, you can always just put the leaves in your trash can and use an electric/gas lawn trimmer to chop them.

I placed five or six sheets of used newspapers on top of the grass and then covered it with about five inches of chopped leaves. It's important to do this in the fall because over the winter, hopefully, rain and/or snow will wet the leaves, help break them down and keep the grass from coming through.

OK, so it doesn't work perfectly (at least not for me). The grass has been starting to come thru, so yesterday I figured I'd better either clean up the whole mess or really make a garden of it. So I went up to the ole' compost bin and started pulling compost material off the top. And guess what I found underneath, way on the bottom -- I think it was some actual usable compost!! Finally! It only took two years, but I think it's ready. (I detailed my composting problems in a prior blog, it's in the archives if you're interested.)

Anyway, I put a good layer of the compost on top of the not-so-decayed leaves and then finished with a layer of topsoil. A few retaining wall blocks to hold it all in and voila, a new garden bed! Now it's all ready for the seeds -- I'll let you know how it goes!

Coming up tomorrow -- can't wait to show you my Dwarf Rhododendrons

A Fish Story

Way back in March, I told my backyard pond story. If you missed it, you can find it in the archives. Today I'm going to get more into the story of my pond's primary inhabitants -- the fish.

Yes, I know I promo'd this yesterday as "Trouble in the Pond," and I'll get into that later. First a little background ...

We started out with a much smaller pond by buying a kit that included two plants and four fancy goldfish (Red Comets, to be exact). We added four more fish that first year -- fancy Shebunkins. Shebunkins are basically more colorful goldfish. They don't require additional care or specific water conditions like Koi, but they come in color combinations similar to the beautiful Japanese carp. Red, gold, silver, black, spreckled or paint, Shebunkins are every bit as beautiful, just not as expensive.

Anyway, the following year our fish gave us four babies that survived spawning season (the fish tend to eat their young, and since they give birth by the hundreds, this is not a bad thing). But before that, I went and bought four more, never thinking in a million years that they would breed!

So now we're up to 16 fish in a 240-gallon pond. (We upgraded to a bigger pond two years ago, because the fish were getting too big for our original pond.) Our biggest fish is almost a foot long from nose to tail tip (and since, she's so big and white, we call her "Moby"), and the other "original" fish are almost the same.

Well last summer, the fish got really busy in the new pond and as far as we can tell, we have about 30-32 fish now (it's hard to count accurately when they're all swimming around). Don't get me wrong, we totally enjoyed watching the tiny babies last year, especially at night. Our pond has three underwater lights, so at night we can spy on the fish and they don't really see us. When we first discovered them, they were only a few millimeters long. All survived the winter and are about 4-5 inches now.

This is all great, except having too many fish in a small pond is not good for them. We have to clean the filter twice as much (that's twice a week in prime summer months), because naturally, they make more waste. And, over the winter in January, I spotted a tiny white fish that must have been born sometime in December (isn't that against the rules of nature?), followed by the discovery just last month of a tiny black fish (the black ones are really hard to see) that was probably born the same time.

Now on to the Trouble in the Pond -- Just the other day I noticed one of our big white Comets (not Moby) looking particularly huge toward her tail section. I think she's pregnant!!! and it's only April (well, actually it's May as of today). In the past the fish waited at least until June to give birth, which means, this is just the first pregnancy of the season ...

I think I'll be having a fish sale this summer!

Starting those seeds

OK, let me reiterate once again that I'm incredibly late starting seeds this year. They should've been started weeks ago, but I just got around to it last Sunday. Shame on me.

Oh well, better late than never. This year I picked up a new "green" trick from of all people -- Martha Stewart -- yes, good ol' Martha, the woman who can always come up with a better way to do -- EVERYTHING!!

Anyway, while perusing one of her many magazines, I came across her suggestion for saving used yogurt cups to start seeds. (She really thinks of everything, doesn't she?) So, since we throw plenty of used yogurt cups in the recycle bin every week, I figured why not? Other plastic containers can be used just as well, like butter containers, Cool Whip, Beneful dog meals, etc.

So on Sunday, I got out my menagerie of "recycled" plastic containers and went to work creating what I hope will be beautiful seedlings to add to this year's garden. (I say this every year ... only to find it's easier to go out and buy the plant, letting the pros do the seeding work.) But darn it -- this WILL be the year I get those seeds growing!!

I planted a wide assortment of Celosia Plumara (ordered from the Jung Seed catalog), Gaillardia/Monarda (sometimes called Mexican Daisy), Zinnias (virtually guaranteed to grow), Wayahead Tomatoes and Cucumbers (both freebies from Jung Seed). And, of course, fancy Sunflower seeds -- yes, I'm going to try to grow them again.

As I've stated before, every year I put out sunflower seeds, only to have the chipmunks, birds and squirrels (mostly the chippies) dig them up, within minutes I'm sure, after I walk away, and eat them!

I also have a pack of Wildflower mix and a Cutting Garden mix that I hope to start this weekend in a new flower bed I'm developing...

After carefully putting all the seeds to bed with a little watering, I proudly stacked them on the top shelf of the new greenhouse and zipped the cover closed. Now comes the hard part --- WAITING ....

Up next: Trouble in the Pond!