Flower Garden

Flower Planting

/ Joan C. Thomson / Leave a comment

A woodpecker hunts for his lunch in a dead tree in the surrounding woods. The sky is blue again with a few white clouds cooling the warmer weather.

Today, I started my gardening with digging up my rudbeckia/black-eyed Susan from my still weedy vegetable plot. I’d bought it in a pot as a fundraiser at the previous place we lived; though I had no garden there, I looked forward to our next home, which would surely have a garden. Actually it was a non-negotiable for me to have a garden in our next home. Gardening is necessary for my well-being. (The NHS of the UK (National Health Service)increasingly prescribes gardening for good mental health.)

As a young girl, I loved to answer ads for garden catalogs in the  back of my mother’s magazines. I’d tape my precious dime to an index card, slide it into a small white envelope, address it to the seed company then ask my mother for a stamp. A clothes pin held my request to an arm of our mailbox for the postman to pick up (yes, our postal worker was a man). I’d eagerly check the mailbox several times every day until the wondrous day my picture book, aka seed catalog, of colorful flowers finally arrived. As I pored over the pages of “dahlias the size of a dinner plate!” and other “exotic” flowers, one plant stood out. I’d never seen a clematis growing in hot, humid Texas but the purple-flowered vine captivated me. Recently, our landlady presented me with a gift of a purple-flowered clematis—my first. I hope I grow it well in the Southern Piedmont. I found a lyrical trellis of black wire and metal leaves, to support it when it does grow.

The other night, the BBC Gardener’s World TV show (I highly recommend it) had a feature on geums, reminding me of how much I enjoyed the orange-flowered perennial I grew in my garden in England (see older posts for the story of that garden). I came across a geum plant at the local big box garden center and of course, I needed to buy one. I have some flower seeds to plant but it’s good to have some already flowering plants to get the garden started.

 I also learned on Gardener’s World that when sliding a plant out of its pot for transplanting, it’s good to run a finger over the bare roots  to stimulate growth. This plant was definitely ready to be free of its pot and be planted in the ground.

Transplants have to be well watered. I’ve had to water the transplants more than I expected, even when it had rained; it takes a few days for them to get established.

Progress! There’s still a lot to be done, which is a good thing, but I have to remember that the zinnias, and tithonias I have planned, take up a lot of space.

Do you prefer to grow your flowers from plants or seeds? Or both? I’d love to hear from you in the comments below. Please feel free to share these posts with your gardening—and garden-loving, friends.

In the Dirt

/ Joan C. Thomson / Leave a comment

Today was the day to travel to the local big box garden center to buy some bags of compost. I looked online first, so I wouldn’t stand there all day trying to decide—I had work to do! I found a product that claims to break up the hard red clay soil and improve the structure. It surely needs something. The website said that my ninety square foot flower bed would take ten bags. Our little car can’t carry that much and neither can I. Too expensive anyway. So I ended up with five bags—three of the “Clay Breaker” and two of another product (as it turns out, by the same company) that “contains organic fertilizer” –from a hen house it seems. I hope the rain doesn’t enhance that “fragrance” and/or bring the local flock pecking. From a bug standpoint I don’t mind but I don’t want to trip over them or have them in the way of the cars.

Some helpful young guys at the garden center hoisted the 1.5 cubic foot bags off the pile, onto the flat bed cart and into our car trunk. Too bad they couldn’t do the reverse on the other end. But a wheel cart (I don’t know what else to call it) and I managed to haul them out and to the garden, with my husband happily doing the wheeling.

Before I spread the compost, I dug up the clay soil, thankful that the weather was perfect–my mother calls it “Chamber of Commerce weather,” blue skies and mild temperatures, a soft breeze. The bag instructions said to dig up four to six inches; my back says I dug about four inches across the plot. I think I will feel it tomorrow; it’s said that if you keep on doing the thing that made you sore, you won’t be sore anymore ( of course not if you’re injured) so tomorrow’s garden workout might help.

Would I get it done before dark? It had turned cooler in the “golden hour” (the hour before sunset that photographers cherish) but it didn’t take long for me to warm up. The neighborhood rooster had given up his crowing and the crows their cawing, making way for songbirds who called, “Secret, secret” and were answered by “Picchu, picchu.” A dog barked in the distance, but otherwise it was totally quiet, giving space for my prayers. Countless shovelfuls later, the red clay became black with a layer of compost—not a deep one, but hopefully enough to make a difference in the clay bog.

Tomorrow, Lord willing, I’ll begin to plant some flowers—and make progress on weeding my vegetable patch.

What is your soil like? Do you add anything to improve it?

It’s Time! De-stressing With Gardening

/ Joan C. Thomson / 4 Comments

“Isn’t this fun?” As I grinned my way through the large garden center for first time since autumn, I spotted a woman loading a tall red hibiscus and other gorgeously vibrant scarlet, and cobalt blue-flowering plants onto her flatbed cart, and enthused over her choices. It felt so good to be back in the gardening wonderland!

I see that it’s been a long time since I’ve posted on this blog. Life has been upside down as my husband and I have moved from place to place after returning from living in England (see my posts about my English garden here https://aleafyjournal.com/2021/02/15/goodbye-and-hello-new-growth/)

We did finally land back in the Southern Piedmont of the US last year, with spaces for me to garden–a non-negotiable for me. However, because of my late start with the move, and not knowing the soil, my garden didn’t go well. Red clay that was strangely always wet didn’t germinate flower seeds well, and bugs and tomato horn worms decimated my vegetable plants. I did get a few tomatoes and flowers though.

Yesterday, after a stressful morning, I made my way outside among the trees with their bright new leaves against the saturated blue sky, air filled with birdsong and breeze, and felt the stress melt away. That’s when I knew it was time to start my garden!

At the garden center, I was enthralled with the deep red, tropical Mandevillas and several colors of hibiscus, but I reminded myself that I already had those plants—I just need to get them outside in the sun, and fertilize them. The selection was huge, but other than a couple of plants for a large pot, I brought home non-living things for my flower garden—stones, a lyrical metal trellis shaped like leafy vines, and a colorful “hose guard” with a yellow green glass globe topped by an iron(?) songbird.

After being without a place to settle in and call home for a while, it’s become important to me to have more substance to my garden, starting with outlining my flower bed with “X-tra Large Beach Pebbles,” the size of a large fist. I realized that lining gardens with stones has spelled home to me since I was a young Girl Scout making a platform tent, “home,” for the weekend. Today, I had almost enough of the heavy, but not too heavy stones. More to come.

But first, the weeds had to go. What is a weed? Anything that impedes the growth of the cultivated—though we do leave a LOT of (tiny) wildflowers on the property. Thankfully, the morning was cool today so I got a lot done before the temperature heated. However, it was hot, sneezy work that ached my back, legs and feet, but it felt good get the flower bed ready for its next step—soil testing and amending. By the time I get that done—and clear my vegetable patch, there should be no more frosts to threaten plants and seeds.

I even ordered some special, unusual seeds online since the ones in all the stores didn’t do so well last year (the one company must have a monopoly). Special though they are, they didn’t cost any more than the everyday brand. This year, I chose a lot of deep pink flowers. I look forward to showing you what I got.

What are you planting this year?