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Garden Gate:  What's blooming at your house?  |
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mdotterer
True Blue Farmgirl
78 Posts
Marlene
Pleasant Hill
CA
USA
78 Posts |
 Posted - Aug 18 2005 : 1:06:18 PM
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Arlene - I don't think you can freeze the squash raw, but you can make some squash soup and freeze that. I've been putting the squash in just about everything I cook - it adds a nice touch. I also use it in pasta sauce - just sautee it with onions and garlic, add some tomatoes and herbs. You can make a big batch and freeze that, too! You'll be set for the winter!
In my little garden, I've grown a few tomatoes, a few zucchini, a few eggplants and some miniture peppers. I don't have much luck with gardens. I've planted flowers for the first time - some lavender, southern charm, sweet peas and azealas. Then, my dog dug some of them up - she liked the soft dirt and the smells! I love to garden but I'm very inexperienced and we have lousy, hard clay that, in typical suburban fashion, has been sterilzed by too much pesticide and herbicide. I grow my veggies in containers, even though we have a huge yard!
Marlene |
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FloralSaucer
True Blue Farmgirl
156 Posts
Australia
156 Posts |
Posted - Aug 18 2005 : 5:37:45 PM
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I bought some winter squash from Eden Seeds, a nice man told me about their seeds. I have no idea about banana squash so I can't help with that. At least after this summer I will know about winter squash.
I would love to trade seeds, but I think it wouldn't pass Immigration. Thank you very much for thinking of me. My first name is Linda.
I am very tempted to order some okra and collard greens seeds, I haven't tasted either.
If it is OK for seeds to go into your country I would be happy to send you some. |
Edited by - FloralSaucer on Aug 18 2005 5:41:59 PM |
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lirene
Farmgirl in Training
16 Posts
Irene
WA
16 Posts |
Posted - Aug 21 2005 : 11:25:19 AM
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Bramble, I've read several of your posts -- thanks for sharing your knowledge and expertise. Now I know why my hydrangeas have taken so long to bloom!
Here in the foothills of Mt. Rainier we have lots of roses blooming: Mermaid, Just Joey, Livin' Easy, Flutterby, Royal Sunset, Autumn Sunset, Polka, Hot Cocoa, and some miscellaneous minatures who've lost their tags.
Caryopteris, white geraniums (not pelargoniums), heliotrope, coral yarrow, lime green sweet potato vine and cascading evening primrose in side-by-side whiskey barrels strategically located to hide the big plastic stock tank which catches rainwater via a rain chance at the end of the back porch. Mop head and lace cap hydrangeas and rudbekias along the garden fence between the rambling roses, toad flax, catnip, Japanese anemone, California poppies, goldenroad, rose campion, marjoram, asters (the ones that escaped the slugs!), red monarda, anise hyssop and more running riot behind the arbor around a teepee of vine maple poles gleaned from our woods.
The arbor's purple jasmine has a few blossoms, but more red berries. The low growing periwinkle blue clematis at the back of the arbor is started to intertwingle with the Mermaid rose growing on the back corner of the arbor.
We're on 20 heavily wooded acres with our house, organic vegetable gardens, stable, chicken run, small pastures on about 5 of the acres in the center, the rest left in tall old firs, hemlocks, spruce, alders, wild cherry, mountain ash, big leaf maple, etc.
Who has time to worry about dust bunnies when there's gardening to do?
lirene
Trillium Woods
Latitude 46.905, Longitude -122.316 |
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FloralSaucer
True Blue Farmgirl
156 Posts
Australia
156 Posts |
Posted - Aug 21 2005 : 7:08:03 PM
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Paula I can relate, and the advice you were given was great, I could relate to that too.
I sit here reading about all the flowers, it is just the beginning of spring here. I do have some johnny jump ups that have been out a couple of days. I found a pretty vinca type creeper from the neighbours that had a really nice flower on it, I thought it didn't flower, it nicely creeps along the tall cement plynth. |
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bramble
True Blue Farmgirl
2044 Posts
2044 Posts |
Posted - Aug 21 2005 : 7:38:34 PM
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Lirene-- You are most welcome and thanks for sharing your garden with us, it sounds wonderful! Sounds like you are a great gardener in all those woods! I have spent the summer battling 100 degree heat and constant watering to keep what I've planted going. I have both full sun and the back of the property is heavy shade so I know you have to be creative to keep it looking like something. I hope to get a digital camera one of these days so I can post some pics. Hope you can too! It's nice having you here with us, keep coming back there is
always something new to chat about!
Floral Saucer-- You lucky girl! You're growing season is just starting! I hope you miss the scalding, steamy heat we have had now for almost six weeks straight. This is very uncommon for my part of the country. What kind of things do you like to grow?
with a happy heart |
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FloralSaucer
True Blue Farmgirl
156 Posts
Australia
156 Posts |
Posted - Aug 21 2005 : 9:33:19 PM
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Lirene welcome! I read through your list of roses, I only know one, sounds really good. My favorite rose at the moment is Friendship I think. We have been here 18 months and my MIL has given to me lots of roses. She has given me 10 standards, one I haven't seen yet, it was planted during July. I have a couple of purple ones sold at the craft shop down the road. A pretty white one with pink edges and three minatures, one was already here. The 8 standards are white, pink and red David Austins.
I haven't heard of purple jasmine, as least that name, sounds interesting. Lime green sweet potato vine sounds interesting too.
We have mostly full sun, can relate to how that feels. I am lucky though as we water less, if you soak at the right time it seems to keep everything going. Our old house a few hours away you had to water all the time but we had shade there as well. Here, the mountain breeze at night must help alot. Still it is hard to find a spot for a camellia, we moved one last week to the shade of a winter buddleia, they grow quickly so that was handy.
I had been looking at everyone's camellias on a walk with my daughters on the weekend, just beautiful, and I have a new arch over the front path. I found alot of people in the two street, mine and the next one over have arches with climbing roses, I will compare notes later on in the year. My MIL gave me a pair of Renae.
I like wintersweet, have a small plant growing. I like my yellow winter buddliea "wattlebird". I like lemon verbena or lime verbena, my Japanese maples, pink rose-leafed sage that I left behind, hellebores. |
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lirene
Farmgirl in Training
16 Posts
Irene
WA
16 Posts |
Posted - Aug 21 2005 : 11:23:16 PM
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FloralSaucer wrote
I haven't heard of purple jasmine, as least that name, sounds interesting. Lime green sweet potato vine sounds interesting too.
<blush> Well, of course you haven't heard of purple jasmine, neither have I! Something must have bewitched my fingers when I typed that. I meant to write purple honeysuckle.
Thank you for the welcome. I always love to talk about gardening and it's really interesting to hear above gardening down under where the seasons are reversed from ours here in the northern hemisphere.
I love camellias as we lived for six years in Japan where they are quite common as hedges as well as specimens shrubs in more formal gardens. I have two red ones (don't know their given names, sorry) and a sasanka winter blooming camellia that I'm hoping will bloom around Christmas time.
We have our own well, but this time of year we're careful not to ask more of it than it can produce, so I try to water early in the morning before the heat of the day can evaporate the surface water. I also keep a bucket in the kitchen to capture water that would otherwise just run down the drain while I wait for it to run hot. Every little bit helps.
Do you have problems with slugs? They are the absolute bane of my gardening existence, and because we are right up against the woods we will never be free of them. They ate all the carrots as soon as they emerged three separate plantings! I almost have to sit up all night with a flashlight and a salt shaker!
Best wishes from the Pacific Northwest of the US,
lirene
Trillium Woods
Latitude 46.905, Longitude -122.316 |
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FloralSaucer
True Blue Farmgirl
156 Posts
Australia
156 Posts |
Posted - Aug 22 2005 : 02:16:31 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by lirene
I love camellias as we lived for six years in Japan where they are quite common as hedges as well as specimens shrubs in more formal gardens. I have two red ones (don't know their given names, sorry) and a sasanka winter blooming camellia that I'm hoping will bloom around Christmas time.
We inherited a Japanese garden in the backyard near the back door. It has three Japanese maples, one large and two small, rocks around the edge, moss, other rocks, sacred bamboo, papyrus, ferns and little pebbles and some mondo grass.
We are trying to expand on the theme, I have to borrow the books I got from the library a few months ago and refer to the planting lists again. I have a few day lillies and some iris japonica and an osmanthus hedge. I have some photos and may put them in the album to show.
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FloralSaucer
True Blue Farmgirl
156 Posts
Australia
156 Posts |
Posted - Aug 23 2005 : 6:57:10 PM
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I do have one sasanqua that I bought last year, they tolerate the sun more than the others, it is Paradise Sayaka and is a small flower, pink and white very cute, and I am happy with my choice.
The other one is Japanese too, in a yellowish shade. I love yellow camellias and had a Brushfields Yellow at my old house.
I thought having a sasanqua out for Christmas is such a lovely thought. At Christmas at our first house, the bottlebrushes were always lovely and red, and the gardenias nice too.
I love red camellias, had one at our old house that was already there and 18 months ago in our temporary rental had a red one which I found out later was called Prelude, I enjoyed it. At the rental I adored our medlar, it is a fruit tree. |
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Julia
True Blue Farmgirl
1949 Posts
Julia
Shelton
WA
USA
1949 Posts |
Posted - Aug 26 2005 : 10:38:47 AM
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My Sweet Peas are going crazy! The vines are about 8 feet tall. Usually they start to peter out about this time, especially with the fact we have had no rain for well over a month. I picked them yesterday and ended up taking a vase to all the girls at the bank.
What few apples we have we are starting tl be able to eat. One is a granvenstein, not sure of the other. Will miss not being able to do cider and applesauce this year.
"The gloom of the world is but a shadow; behind it, yet within our reach is joy. Take joy!" Fr.Giovanni |
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FloralSaucer
True Blue Farmgirl
156 Posts
Australia
156 Posts |
Posted - Sep 05 2005 : 5:25:33 PM
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| I saw a camellia like "Prelude" yesterday, if I had the $9 I probably would have bought it. It was more pink, which put me off and had little white flecks. |
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Aunt Jenny
True Blue Farmgirl
11381 Posts
Jenny
middle of
Utah
USA
11381 Posts |
Posted - Sep 05 2005 : 5:51:54 PM
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All my sunflowers are in full bloom now...the big "skyscraper" and "grey stripe" ones, and the yellow small ones that are wonderful for cut bouquets..and the short fat "music box" and sunsine smiles ones. ..I love those the best! I love to look out my window over the sewing machine and see their happy faces!! I wish I would have planted the ones with the oranges,reds and browns...autumn looking..I will have to do that next year. I get teased about all the sunflowers..I tuck them all over the garden..but it is worth it this time of year!!
Jenny in Utah
The best things in life arn't things |
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FloralSaucer
True Blue Farmgirl
156 Posts
Australia
156 Posts |
Posted - Sep 05 2005 : 6:16:18 PM
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| I hope to get my seeds soon for the brown ones. Do you plant yours at the same time as all the other spring planting things? |
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Aunt Jenny
True Blue Farmgirl
11381 Posts
Jenny
middle of
Utah
USA
11381 Posts |
Posted - Sep 05 2005 : 8:09:38 PM
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Yep... I planted them same time I planted all the rest. They are real easy. I usually plant 3 or 4 seeds on a "hill" so that I get a couple plants together...love that!
Jenny in Utah
The best things in life arn't things |
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Alee
True Blue Farmgirl
22941 Posts
Alee
Worland
Wy
USA
22941 Posts |
Posted - Sep 05 2005 : 9:47:32 PM
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My Daisies that came as Mail Art just started blooming last week! I am really hoping that they will drop seeds before it gets too cold so that I will have even more next year!
Ciao
Alee |
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lirene
Farmgirl in Training
16 Posts
Irene
WA
16 Posts |
Posted - Sep 06 2005 : 12:39:56 AM
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Sunflowers are blooming in all the oddest places in my garden: right in the middle of the cabbage patch, at the end of the pea trellis, among the strawberries. That's because the seeds were planted by ... blue jays! Starting in late spring those rascals stop at the feeders and after they've eaten their fill they load up on sunflower seeds and then stash them everywhere for winter snacks!
Now the sunflower heads are full of seeds and the same (I guess) blue jays are picking them out and stashing them, too.
And a ground squirrel recently joined the planting crew. He fills up his cheeks with sunflower seeds from the bird feeders and then buries them in all the hanging baskets he can jump into. So now, in addition to petunias and geraniums, the baskets contain clumps of sunflower sprouts!
Trillium Woods
Latitude 46.905, Longitude -122.316 |
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Eileen
True Blue Farmgirl
1199 Posts
Eileen
USA
1199 Posts |
Posted - Sep 06 2005 : 09:37:33 AM
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My perrenial sunflowers are just beginning to bloom but my annual ones even the burgandy and brown ones still are not showing any sign of blooming. They are at least 10 feet tall but no buds even? Hmmmmm? Could be that where I planted them does not get the sun at the crucial time of day. It does get sun most of the day off and on but the maple trees in the neighboring lot tend to crreate dappled light at certain times of the day. I am beginning to think that they will not bloom until the maple have lost their leaves. Hope by then it is not too cold.
Eileen
songbird; singing joy to the earth |
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Aunt Jenny
True Blue Farmgirl
11381 Posts
Jenny
middle of
Utah
USA
11381 Posts |
Posted - Sep 06 2005 : 09:39:46 AM
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Won't that be pretty though, if you have big old sunflowers when everyone else has nothing but bare leaves..it will be a happy spot in your yard!!!
Jenny in Utah
The best things in life arn't things |
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Eileen
True Blue Farmgirl
1199 Posts
Eileen
USA
1199 Posts |
Posted - Sep 06 2005 : 09:42:54 AM
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If it happens I'll post a photo!
Eileen
Same garden has lots and lots of Kale and calendula right now.
songbird; singing joy to the earth |
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FloralSaucer
True Blue Farmgirl
156 Posts
Australia
156 Posts |
Posted - Sep 06 2005 : 4:16:19 PM
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| The calendulas here flower all through winter. One of our neighbours have them out on the street and I love visiting them on the way past. |
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Mari-dahlia
True Blue Farmgirl
269 Posts
Marianne
Hoosick Falls
New York
USA
269 Posts |
Posted - Sep 06 2005 : 5:25:44 PM
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| Here in the Northeast in the mountains things are going fast. The phlox are still hanging in there right next to roses, butterfly bush,heliotrope, and especially beautiful are the dahlias and gladiolas. Something new this year for me is turtleheads. |
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FloralSaucer
True Blue Farmgirl
156 Posts
Australia
156 Posts |
Posted - Sep 06 2005 : 6:35:06 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by lirene
And a ground squirrel recently joined the planting crew. He fills up his cheeks with sunflower seeds from the bird feeders and then buries them in all the hanging baskets he can jump into. So now, in addition to petunias and geraniums, the baskets contain clumps of sunflower sprouts!
Trillium Woods
Latitude 46.905, Longitude -122.316
In Australia the hanging baskets are left alone. I thought this was very interesting. When my husband went to the States and Canada there were squirrels in the park on the lawn etc. which ones are ground squirrels? |
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lirene
Farmgirl in Training
16 Posts
Irene
WA
16 Posts |
Posted - Sep 06 2005 : 9:52:46 PM
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[/quote]
In Australia the hanging baskets are left alone. I thought this was very interesting. When my husband went to the States and Canada there were squirrels in the park on the lawn etc. which ones are ground squirrels?
[/quote]
The ground squirrels we have here in the Pacific Northwest of the US are very much like chipmunks. Do you have chipmunks in Australia? They are ground-dwellers, these ones living in a warren of burrows around the roots of a tall fir tree off our back deck. They can climb (obviously!) but aren't usually as arboreal as squirrels.
The squirrels your husband saw in a park were probably Eastern Grey Squirrels, a large and aggressive (for a squirrel) species which has migrated, tree to tree, right the way across the US from their original home in the hardwood forests of the East coast. Here in the woods east of Seattle we have a native squirrel, the Douglas Squirrel, smaller than the Greys and limited in distribution to fir forests. Alas, the Greys displace the Dougs when they move into their territory, but as we live deep in the woods the Greys haven't reached us (yet).
That's probably a whole lot more than you wanted to know about US squirrels! : )
lirene
Trillium Woods
Latitude 46.905, Longitude -122.316 |
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FloralSaucer
True Blue Farmgirl
156 Posts
Australia
156 Posts |
Posted - Sep 07 2005 : 12:06:04 AM
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Wow, I thought they were all the same. They seemed small and on the ground. I will ask but I think he saw them on the east, although he did go to San Fransisco as well, but I think the photo was from NY and Ontario, will check.
The closest Australians come to chipmunks is to watch Chip and Dale on TV! There are no skunks, racoons, chipmunks, squirrels or anything.
The ones you have at your home remind me of our rabbits, which are an import from England.
We have possums, they eat roses, to tie it to a gardening theme. We don't have any in our yard though. They are cute and make a noise in the roof which is why I am glad they are not here.
The only thing that has been in my yard is wombats in the night in 2003 when we lived near the forest, oh and a skink called a Blue Tongued Lizard, one is quite handy for eating snails. There is a childrens book called Wombats Diary and it suggests that wombats are not garden friendly.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0618381368/002-8208793-5286422?v=glance |
Edited by - FloralSaucer on Sep 07 2005 12:12:14 AM |
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Aunt Jenny
True Blue Farmgirl
11381 Posts
Jenny
middle of
Utah
USA
11381 Posts |
Posted - Sep 07 2005 : 06:24:47 AM
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The difference in squirrels is quite large...I grew up on the west coast and like lirene said, they are very small like chickmunks..my picture of a squirrel was always just that and then I heard that folks in the south hunt and eat squirrel and I never understood why since they were so tiny and NO one where I grew up did thta..even though I grew up in a hunting/fishing type family. Then oldest son moved to Kentucky about 5 years ago for almost 2 years and called me to tell me about the giant squirrels and it all made sense. Since then I have done a little research out of curiosity.
It is so amazing how you dont have the same small animals..I never thought about that. No skunks..now that would be nice. But you do have possums..I guess I sort of lump racoons, skunks and possums in the same catagory and would have thought if you didn't have one you wouldn't have any.
But then wombats and skinks are things we don't have here..so interesting!!!
Jenny in Utah
The best things in life arn't things |
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Garden Gate: What's blooming at your house? |
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What's blooming at your house?
