The blooms from my garden are beautiful this year. Last year I had very few because the plants were fairly new. This year my daylilies and asiatic lilies have decided to bloom. I just wanted to share my bounty of beautiful blooms with all of you.
Enjoy and gain inspiration for next year 
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This week the weather has been in the low 70′s and beautiful. Not until today have we had rain. All the windows in the house were open until yesterday when the temperature peaked above 80 and the house was getting too warm. The only downside to this is that with all sun and no rain even as mild as it was the plants still needed to be watered. There was a lot of lugging of hoses this week. The water we use in the yard comes from our well and has the distinct smell of sulfur – yuck!
In any event in the front yard the dianthus had finished blooming and needed to be trimmed back. The artemisia shrub that was behind them grew to such an extent that it covered over much of the dianthus, so I decided to move the dianthus. I split the plants and started to get them planted around our cistern top. The cistern top had been a huge point of contention because all the bulbs and corms I planted there last fall didn’t make it through the winter and weeds took over before I was well enough to go back outside again. It really did look like a jungle. That is gone now and I moved a few hostas there and planted the dianthus. I also have some vinca that I’d like to plant around it to brighten the area with some pretty blooms.
The decision to move the hostas to the front in full sun was a hard one. I had always learned that hostas do best in shade and don’t like full sun much at all. The more I look around though I am finding more and more plantings of variegated varieties in full sun and even some full green varieties there as well. The green varieties tend to bleach a bit, but I haven’t seen much in the way of burning of the edges. So, we’ll just have to see how they do.
My plan is to keep them well watered so that even on hot summer days the hostas won’t scorch. An idea I saw was to use old 20 oz. plastic bottles as watering containers for thirsty plants or container plantings. Just by punching a hole in the cap with a hot nail or a drill, filling the bottle with water, putting the cap back on and burying it cap side down up to the bottle collar close behind the plant you want to keep watered you’ll have a constant flow of water when it’s needed. I guess the concept is to take advantage of the vaccuum that is formed when the inverted bottle is buried in the soil. Water only leaks out when there is air from the soil to leak in. I’m going to give it a try and hope that they escape the husband radar .
I learned the hard way that even with proper storage commercially produced seeds lose their viability with time. In 2003/2004 I bought a boatload of seeds and have been trying ever since to get them all used up. Well I think I’ve finally succeeded. I should have thrown them away about a year ago. None of the carrot seeds I sowed in the garden germinated, nor did the chrysanthemum, corn salad, arugula, dill, beets or chard. Thankfully, after years of trying I do have a successful and attractive bunch of cilantro. My mache is growing and so is my craquante de quatre saison. Rabbits ate the tops off all my radishes before I could harvest so they were a bust. You could see their little teeth marks in the top of the radish.
Here is a plan to not get stuck with too many seeds. Find a friend that likes to garden and share your seeds with them. Sometimes one package of seeds is too many for a small home garden so splitting it gives both (or more people) something to share. There are several sites across the internet that offer seed sharing and trading, including, Wintersown.org, Gardenhere.com, and Gardenweb.com from iVillage. There is a plethora of people willing to share their seeds and plants for postage and you can too.
When you buy seeds don’t go cheap. It is tempting to buy cheap packs from Big Lots that offer a lot of seeds, but often their viability is much lower than other seeds thus the bulk just gives you more to gamble with. Really consider your space and pick plants/seeds that will fill but not overwhelm each other and you. Also, think about what your family likes and will likely eat in one season.
If you happen to have seeds leftover at the end of a season that you weren’t able to use don’t fret. Keep them in a cool dry place until the beginning of your next season. A freezer is OK; a small college size refrigerator or a corner in your fridge (if you have room) would be ideal. Put them in small plastic boxes with silica gel packs from your shoe boxes so that no moisture bothers them and causes them to mold and rot. If you visit Trudy at Wintersown.org you will see that she has a number of ways to store her seeds, most of them out of cold storage. You must remember though that she turns over those packets very quickly and will rarely have all of those seeds in her possession for a whole season. In any event, try to get your seeds shared or used by the end of the next season. After that it may be time to add them to the compost heap.
This is always one thing that makes me nervous in the growing process – repotting your new seedlings. Sherxr from Ur Resident Chef had a question about when and how to repot. Well, I’ve had my share of successes and failures in this regard, but I’ll share with you the process that seems to work best.
I’d wait until they have one set of true leaves before you move them to a pot (unless they are too crowded). As the seedlings grow make sure they have some airflow to help stave off dampening off fungus and also to make the stalk strong before you repot them. If you plan on setting the pots outside – like on your porch or a rooftop garden – harden them off before you repot unless they are overly crowded.
Hardening off is a process where the plants get accustomed to the conditions outdoors – gradually. Take them outside early in the morning for an hour or two so they get used to the air flow and sunshine. Increase the time they spend outdoors gradually as the days go by. At first keep them out of the heat of the midday sun or you’ll end up with dead seedlings fairly quickly. As When you are getting ready to repot let them dry out a bit and stop fertilizing. Get your pots ready with a good potting mix and use the first leaves that came up after germination to pull them from their current location. A pencil usually works well to lift the roots from the dirt.
For tomato and pepper seedlings if they have more than one set of leaves you can probably bury the plant up to the lowest set in the ground. This gives the plant added stability as it grows.
Monday I spent most of the day driving around because I had appointments everywhere but home. It was nice though because my baby girl got to spend some time with her cousins. I took the opportunity to get some cow manure compost, petunias, basil, rosemary, sweet marjoram and lavender at the local Lowe’s store. 
There were a few groceries I had to pick up so I took the opportunity to peruse the garden center at Meijer and
found they had Stargazer Asian Lily bulbs packed in bags shoved in a small end cap hanging box. I found one that had sprouted and was semi upright with no other signs of abuse. They were so cheap I just couldn’t leave them. Not to mention the Asian lily bulbs that I picked up last year probably rotted in the ground. Well, all but one that seems to have divided as well
even though it never broke ground last year. I got them in a pot as soon as I could, but with all the stuff that was clanging around in the back of the car the little bud and topmost leaves got pinched off. I also lost half the basil plant (that’s why I got the biggest one I could find).
Tuesday, Earth Day, was such a nice day from the get go that we had all the windows open, the lights off and the air conditioning off. I don’t think I even turned the lights on in the aquariums that day. Poor fishies. Eh, they don’t care as long as they’re fed. It actually got pretty hot in the afternoon. My little one wanted to be outdoors with me and I doused her with SPF 50 before we went outside. She covered herself in sand while
I spread compost and gypsum on the garden. After a little while even though she was mostly in the shade you could see the rosiness of her cheeks increasing. So, I convinced her that it was time for her afternoon nap.she wanted to go to her room, but since she was covered in sand (though I couldn’t see it I was convinced it was there and didn’t want to try and get it out of her carpet) I had her sleep on the couch, which she loves anyway. She was out for three and a half hours. Plenty of time for me to plant some 2 year asparagus plants, re pot all my herbs and plant the lily bulbs. I wanted to keep the herbs fairly close to the house so I found some old pot hangers and a birdbath that was left with the house and used them to display the little herb garden near my front door.
I was very curious to know how to start hosta from seed, but everywhere I read said that it was not commonly done since the seeds are not always produced. Turns out that one variety of the hostas I collected in the fall of 2007 did indeed produce pods with hundreds of seeds. The hosta seed I collected this year was an open pollinated Elegans hosta.
The pods that form after the flowers die are about an 1″ long on this variety and hang down on the flower stem. You have to keep a close eye on these because once they’ve dried and opened a strong gust of wind could take off with all the papery seeds. The pods will become very woody and open when the seeds are ready for harvest. Removing the pods when they are still green may give you seeds, but they may not be mature enough at this point to germinate. The seeds are very small and have a papery, black tail on the husk.
This year I had three varieties of dianthus growing in my garden: Sweet William, Spangled Star and a Neon variety. Like the daylily, once the bloom expires a pod behind the bloom begins to swell with seeds. Allow the pod and stem to turn brown and dry out. The little pod will usually open at the top allowing you to pour out the seeds once you’ve carefully separated them from the plant.
I discovered that daylilies are one of the easiest flowers from which to collect seeds. After the flowers have bloomed and died back the portion just behind the bloom begins to swell and form a pod. The pod starts out green and supple the seeds are not ready yet. Allow the pod to turn brown and dry out. If the pods have split open it’s definitely OK to collect the seeds. There are usually several 1/8″ diameter black seeds to a pod.
