Tag: plantblr

Well at least I found out why something felt different with the Pro-mix potting soil I’ve been using; The soil bales I had been originally using in the greenhouse + house were General Purpose BX mix, but the last bales I’ve been using are High Porosity

HP mix

(as in, extra moisture holding). Um… woops?

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We’ll see how that changes things for the majority of this years’ repotted nursery plants when it comes to winter survival (they definitely did well in regards to summer care at least… explains why I didn’t have to water them all every day)…. as for the houseplants (as in- the majority of the cacti/succulent collection that got repotted this autumn) I’ll need to hope that they continue to thrive as they have been despite the bad choice of soil mix. I am very lucky most of those are now in clay pots rather than plastic or there’d be far more panic about the damages from the mess up of soil mix choices; thank the lord for the moisture/air breathability of clay. If they had been kept in plastic I could’ve kissed those healthy roots goodbye.

Me: I don’t really get the appeal of the daylily cultivar Stella De Oro; its flowers are so plain and generic of a yellow flower, and its so overrused among daylily cultivars in cityscapes. I really don’t see the appeal when there are more exotic/colourful cultivars.

Stella De Oro: *stays smol and diminutive making it less aggressive than the Fulva hybrids in a mixed perennial flowerbed, and while spotty in predictability it continues to try to rebloom with flowerbud development even in frosty/snowy November*

Me:

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Photos of the first & last of the spring bulb plantings;

A troweled trench of Quail Daffodils and a shoveled trench of Tulipa tarda and Dorothy Crocuses (second pic somewhat showing the different planting depths in the same trench- 3" for the crocuses & 6" for the tulips).

This spring’ll be a show I know it will! Might be my first impactful spring bulb planting I hope as well.

Trowel about broke but I got more progress; I got more bulbs planted (even planted the Prairie Smoke & White Great Blue Lobelia during the work) but I still  have one final bulb zone/strip to plant. Tomorrow that’s gonna have to happen whether rain or shine; snowshowers are on the forecast for this Wednesday so the clock’s scarily a’ticking.

Hope you other Northeasterners are more ahead of the autumn season close-out than I am, cause man it feels like it’s gonna be a close one like it is for me every year.

Iris x hollandica & Iris reticulata are pretty different Irises

I fucked up. I really fucked up. I did not do my research on the Irises I ordered and only now have I realized my error. I honestly thought Iris x hollandica and Iris reticulata were both early spring bulb Irises of diminutive height, but no that’s not the case;

Iris reticulata, is a 2-6 inch tall early spring bulb that blooms in coincidence with crocuses (and is of similar height).

Iris x hollandica is a 12-24 inch tall (basically 2 feet tall!) early summer bulb.

Guess which bulb iris Gato ordered (the answer is the early summer bulb iris). This throws a monkey wrench into the planting plans, but I can nonetheless make this still work but man I wish I knew this sooner; I would’ve planted them with the hardy glads (so when the holland bulb irises would go to sleep the glads would take over the space). So I’ll have to find a different planting spot, and preferably in a way that they don’t become a problem spot for other perennials.

I’m a little sad that I’m not gonna see early bulb irises in the gardens this spring, but at the same time it’ll be interesting to see a bulb iris I’ve never personally seen before.

Almost all the bulbs are planted up, just have Tulipa tarda, Iris hollandica (*squints* I thought I ordered Iris reticulata, woops), and Crocus ‘Dorothy’ left, and I even changed my mind on how I’m going to arrange them in the gardenbeds to hopefully spread them out and still give visual impact. Also hooray for music keeping me locked to the task.

The bulb planting work slowed down when I switched from trench-style bulb planting with the shovel to individual bulb pit-style plantings with the trowel. Latter’s more tedious, but should give long term payoff and impact through naturalization; that is one thing I know Daffodils and Crocuses are good at promising their gardeners.

“I want mosquitoes extinct“ with the diseases and all, pretty valid.

“I want wasps extinct“ ok considering their position in ecology despite being assholes, this is becoming a bit grayer territory here…. You’ll break some major micro food chains on that one.


“I want ginkgos extinct“

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be mad at the poorly foresighted citylandscapers/landowners on this one, not the tree that didn’t get to choose where it got planted!!!

Me @ me: I stg if you don’t get those bulbs/corms in the ground today while the weather’s good, it’ll be YOU WHO I’LL BE BURYING IN THE GROUND FOR THE WINTER INSTEAD.

Tired/Lazy Me: hey could you put the bulbs in while you’re burying me then?

Me @ Me: wh-

Tired/Lazy Me:

Me @ Me:

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