So enough about sports, let's talk gardens.

[wildeyed]

I have finally made my fall bulb choices. I have been dithering for the longest time, I always buy too many.

Anyway, here are the final winners:


Narcissus Thalia


Species Tulip Mixture


Tulipa Queen of Night

I also managed to harvest the last of the summer basil and make pesto. Mmmmmmm........

[Blue Gardener]

1. I'm always up for talking about gardening

Planted about 220 bulbs last weekend, mostly daffodils since the deer and bunnies won't nibble them down to nothing next spring. Plus they are less likely to dig up the bulbs. So far so good anyway.
The pesto sounds wonderful.

[wildeyed]

5. The pesto was good, but really could have used more garlic.

Can't wait to hear about the 220 daffy bulbs in the spring. Bet it will be quite a show.

[Philostopher]

2. I moved my black tulips last fall.

They didn't do too well in the transplanted spot, sadly.

I have two packs of mixed blue and black tulip bulbs, and probably will buy more bulbs before I feel pressed to do the planting. My lessons have been:

Anemones, however pretty, ain't worth the trouble. I have nowhere to plant them at the moment that is dry enough and sunny enough that the squirrels and rabbits won't eat them down to the dirt within the first week they start coming up.

Grape hyacinths and crocuses will grow anywhere.

Dianthus (pinks) also will grow anywhere and, if left alone, will seed themselves indefinitely. Good thing I like them!

Potted lobelia only looks expensive -- it's always worth the money because it always does just fine as long as it gets plenty of sun.

The fifty bucks for the double-flowering almond bush I bought a couple of years ago was well spent. The thing's always beautiful in early spring, and it brings back pleasant memories of my grandmother, who was a kickass gardener. I hesitated to spend that kind of money on it, when I finally found it at a local nursery, but now I'm glad I did it.

[wildeyed]

6. add species tulips to the list of things that grow anywhere.

I had a clump of the pink ones in my old garden in dry part shade and they came back every year. Not showy at all, but sweet in there own way.

The best thing about gardens is growing plants that bring back memories. I always grow nasturtiums, even though they are annual where I live now and I have to start them from seed. But growing up in the bay area they were everywhere. I remember the sharp scent from rolling in them. Now having a few in a pot on my patio always remind me of childhood.

[Philostopher]

8. I feel like a dope for moving the black tulips.

They'd been established and were doing fine there for a couple of years, I shouldn't have moved them -- but I dug a new flowerbed. I should just have sucked it up and gone and bought some new ones.

There's a climbing rosebush here that was here when we bought the house -- from the look of the base, it's probably at least 20 years old -- that looks almost exactly like a climbing rose my mother's elderly neighbor had, when I was a kid. It's a pain in the neck, I have to prune it every year or it grows out over the sidewalk and the driveway, but boy is it loaded when it blooms!

My mother lost one of her heritage rosebushes -- it was one we think my grandmother may have brought up with her in the twenties or thirties, when she was student teaching in Georgia (she was one of those people who had a green thumb with everything and used to 'appropriate' slips off perennial plants wherever she went and bring them home to plant in her garden). It got rose rosette disease and died the next winter; Mom has one that she 'slipped' off the original, it seems okay right now but another of the roses in that same planting got rose rosette, too, and she had to have it removed. We're hoping it won't get the others, she has four bushes -- the one that just died was about 30 years old. It has pretty little white blooms that turn pink in the sun -- we're not sure what it is, maybe a sweetheart rose of some kind. I've tried several times to get it to take here, I live about 70 miles away, but so far no luck. Now I'll have to wait a couple of more years to make sure it doesn't have the same disease, I could kill off the few I have here.

[wildeyed]

9. good luck with the roses.

Sound like a nice piece of family history. I hope they survive.

We just moved to a new house last year. No one has ever planted a single nice thing here. Just ugly overgrown holly bushes. So we pretty much have a blank canvas to work with. I am trying not to rush into it, get a little plan going before I start planting willy nilly. I am the worst about going to the garden center and randomly buying things that I have no place for. Or that clash horribly with the stuff I have already planted.

My last house, the garden was neglected when I go there, but at least someone had the sense to plant camellias at some point in the past.

[UKMichael]

3. Bulbs

You see, here's the thing. You should be thinking about next spring - how cool would it be to have some vegetables growing there. eh? pretty sweet eh?

"Oh, these lettuces. I grew them out back."

Very cool, very hip. I hear even Brad and Jenniffer are doing it.

So think about a green manure (I'd suggest Kent Wild White clover - looks really nice)

[wildeyed]

7. I tried veggies one year.

I just couldn't keep up. But the promise of a really good home grown tomato will probably have me trying again sometime soon. Cannot buy a decent tomato in a grocery store ever.

[Blue-Jay]

4. Madison Square Garden is a great place to see boxing!

[wildeyed]

10. What is the significance of the squirrel in your sig line?

It is a funny picture, but it must have deeper meaning that I am not aware of.

[Droopy]

11. Dodgers are up 1-0 going into the second

;)

[wildeyed]

12. watch out, or I will start posting about seed starting

in the football threads. :P

[Droopy]

13. lol

You never know, you might find that football fans have a green thumb.

[JohnKleeb]

15. hey they do

my grandfather is a gardiner and enjoys football.

[yardwork]

14. Great choices!

The narcissus thalia smell wonderful. I had them at our old house.

I need to plant some bulbs this year. Good suggestions in this thread.

[wildeyed]

16. The thalia was great with pieris, also called lilly of the valley, shrub.

I had that combo at my old house until the stupid dogs dug it up. :mad:

[NamVetsWeeLass]

17. did you know Lilly of the Valley is highly Poisonous?

well according to my Mother, anyway.