Tag: flowers

Blooms and Planning a Garden

Spring is rapidly in gear. Everyday I notice another fresh sign of spring. The leaves are starting to come in on the trees, we leave the windows open all day, and I even dressed my toddler son in shorts. Flower blooms are abundant. While I was going through my pictures its amazing to see how a plant can go from dormant to budding to flowering in a matter of days.

We drove over to go hiking today and the drive was more fun than the hiking. The streets are lined with flowering trees and shrubs. There’s flowering plums, crab apples, eastern redbud, forsythia, quince, and an abundance of azaleas. All the pictures I’ve taken are from mostly boring landscapes around my apartment and at a couple parks. But spring is making everything beautiful.

Even with a two week old son, I’m itching to get some plants growing out on the deck. I’m missing having a garden to work in (but at the same time I don’t have a lot of time for one). At least I have some outdoor space to work with in my apartment. I’m planning on some potted herbs, a few cherry-type tomato plants, and some peppers out on the deck, with a few flowers to enjoy.

The only problem I foresee with this is watering…I’ll have lots and lots of watering in my future.

Zinnias and Dahlias

I have to admit some confusion with identifying dahlias and zinnias and I hope I’m not alone. With seemingly hundreds of varieties of each, they can look extremly similar. I was recently reading a book and came across a picture with two zinnia varieites and one dahlia. I could not tell which is which without a bit of further research. I tend to second guess my first reaction over some plants–Was that really a dahila, or could it actually be a dahila-flowered zinnia?

Both dahlias and zinnias are generally planted every spring, and showcase a long display of colorful blooms. They both have a plethora of varieties that vary in size, color, flower form, etc.

They are very different plants, even if at first glance they appear similar. Dahlias develop tubers, and are actually tender perennials. The tubers can be lifted and stored for succeeding years in colder climates. Zinnias are annuals grown from seed. Dahlia varieties can be larger than zinnias (although both come in a huge variety of sizes). Zinnias are more tolerant of heat and drought.

So how can you tell them apart? Zinnia flowers are supposedly more two-dimensional, but I think your best bet is to look at the leaves. Zinnia leaves are attached directly to the stem, with little visible petiole. Dahlia leaves have a petiole and are generally more serrated. (For non-botanist readers, there’s some botanical terms to look up. And they are good to know so go ahead a google away.) With that said, the picture at the beginning is definitely a zinnia.

Rose

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The calender is more right than our minds. Winter has not come, even though we are anxiously awaiting blankets of snow and singing carols about sleigh rides. It is still fall. This single rose has clung onto fall far longer than the rest of us. Protected by the house, it has not noticed that temperatures have dropped into the 20’s. I never look at this diminutive rose bush in the regular season, but now it is the highlight of the whole garden.

Pruning Roses

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I have to admit I’m not a big fan of roses. They have icky thorns,  they can get loads of pests/diseases in them, and they take a lot of maintenance. I would much rather a good perennial garden. In my mind peonies have prettier blooms, lavender has a better smell, and no perennial has thorn.

But I’m not going to rip out roses when I come across them either. They do have good qualities as well. On the grounds I’m taking care of this year, I had a row of overgrown, neglected roses. This is what they looked like:

The buds where budding out, so I knew it was time to prune. Not a task I looked forward to. But, surprisingly, I ended up completing it in a little over an hour, and without a single scratch on my arm. That was due to a good, albiet well-worn, pair of leather gloves, and my current favorite gardening tool: telescopic and geared loppers. I can’t believe how useful those pruners are. (In fact, I’ve already knicked the blade and I bought them a week ago. Could be poor craftsmanship, but probably is me cutting  three inch diameter branches with them. Because they slice right through and it is so much easier than getting out the saw. But way bigger than the 1 5/8″ recommended diameter.)

The roses were pruned back a lot. There was a lot of dead wood removed, and I pruned back until there where only a few good canes per rose, and those less than two feet (or so) high. Here they are now:

And I know I should have cleaned up the branches before the after pictures. That’s for another day, and might result in scratches.

Cheap Can Be Better

You get what you pay for. I was thinking of this saying and plants while lying in bed. I do not think you get what you pay for when you buy plants. For instance:

  • A pack of seed can turn into hundreds of great plants and costs only a few dollars. You have to spend extra work making them into those great plants, but at the same time you have control and know it’s done properly.
  • Larger plants cost more, but often just develop transplant shock when you plant them, and their smaller counterparts outgrow them quickly. This is especially true with perennials. I love 4 or 6 inch perennials. I won’t buy a gallon plant unless there is no other option.
  • Big box stores often stock from local and reliable wholesalers, but they don’t have the mark-up that many garden centers do.
  • Neglected plants are usually knocked way down, but can often quickly be brought back to life.
  • More expensive, newer varieties aren’t necessarily better: sometimes the older cheaper ones are.
  • If you get starts from neighbors it’s completely free and you know the plant will grow well in your exact location.

My neighbors redid their landscape right after I move here. Later on, I inspected their lawn and was pleasantly surprised to see a turf-type tall fescue. Tall fescue lawns are more drought tolerant, pest resistant, and often just look healthier and greener than their Kentucky blue counterpart. It also still handles traffic well, and the newer turf-types aren’t as stiff and spiky as the regular species. I inquired about there lawn later on and found out the reason they bought it wasn’t because it’s one of the best type of lawns to plant. (They had no idea.) It was the cheaper variety of sod.

Another time I was going to buy perennials. I went to about every garden center and store and finally found what I wanted at Smith’s Marketplace. They had the largest selection of perennials in the area, all in 4 or 6 inch parts, and a fraction of the price of the other garden centers. I noticed that a lot of the perennials came from local wholesalers–reliable companies that grew some of the best perennials to plant in our area. I ended up with better plants than many of the traditional varieties sold in garden centers and for a fraction of the price.

I have also bought plants that are poorly taken care of and succumb to rot or other problems soon after purchasing. I have also bought more expensive plants because it was the exact variety I wanted, or even because I loved the garden center it was sold at. But more expensive doesn’t mean it’s better.