I’ve done it again. After snapping up those cute Little Lanterns columbines, I went back and bought some lovely epimedium rubrum (3), my first ever, and no, I hadn’t finished planting the columbines. And NO, the High Country Garden order isn’t in the ground yet either. And YES, there is a so-called holding area where some plants go and die and others wither for a long time. Can I help it if I got a flat of echinacea ‘Sundown’ last October, $2 per plant, normally $8? OK, so only half survived and that makes them $4 each and I still consider that a bargain.

If I could just get that new bed dug and the retaining wall in……………….I know JUST where I want to plant them all…………

I told myself tonight I am soooooooooo far ahead of the game. It is just the 9th of May, some stuff is already in the ground! Usually I am scrambling to finish up by Memorial Day. I have 17 days left.

Post from: Idaho Gardener

In over my head…….

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Post from: Idaho Gardener

Canyon Bounty Farm/Local Harvest Links

So, will share with you what is new this season and what didn’t make the cut. That’s the part “off with their heads.”

In:
Aztec purple trailing verbena for the big BIG pot with the new dwarf apricot fruit tree (oh, I would love to harvest a couple of apricots this year! I told it so.)

In front of that pot, two new penstemon barbatus ‘Iron Maiden’. Also referred to as scarlet bugler

On one side of that pot, a new clump of pink mulhey grass, muhlengbergia capillaris ‘Regal Mist’

I found some very cool, very expensive columbine plants, mixed hybrids but I bought three of them called ‘Little Lanterns’. Mostly an orangey red with little yellow pantaloons. Got that description?

aeonium Schwarzkopf is planted around the cotoneaster standards I snagged for a song at Costco. And at my pal Jeffie’s suggestion, I interplanted the black aeonium with bright lime green ‘Goldilocks’ creeping Jenny

I put in a fresh new purple sage for culinary purposes. And keep singing Riders on the Storm (by the Doors) or some such thing in my head having completely confused that with New Riders of the Purple Sage…..never mind.

Out:
Every piece of rose campion that was seen has been eradicated. Ha! That’ll be a cold day in hell when I get rid of all the rose campion. Like getting rid of Devil in a Mist or Nigella. Not the floozy babe-a-lishus Nigella Lawson of TV cooking fame.

There seems to be a weird unrulyness about some of the tulips planted in the bed in question. One here, two there, another one over there. I believe the squirrels have been having their way with my tulip bulbs. I just took out the wayward ones……they were all stunted and failing to thrive anyway.

Everyone got a lovely little dose of compost to freshen the planting area and a nice big drink of water.

Now, if I can get out of bed in the morning (back is already starting to seize up from lugging the bags of compost and potting soil), we shall continue on our merry planting party. Stay tuned.

Post from: Idaho Gardener

What’s new in my garden (and off with their heads!)

Someone took a swipe at me a couple months ago about my post on Saguaro Canyon, the development in West Boise, where perfectly lovely saguaro cactus went to die and where now they have tied down the remaining SW desert plants to keep them from uprooting themselves and going back home to AZ and NM where they belong. Allow me to share this little picture essay with you, gentle readers, and then YOU tell ME what you think of the whole shebang.

I mean really, how can the residents of this neighborhood allow these ropes to stay on these trees and plants????????Why hasn’t someone cut the ropes off and FIRED the landscape company who left them there? Anyone?

I showed these photos to several local horticulture experts and they were last seen and heard running screaming off into the sunset………..

I wonder if I would get arrested for sneaking over to that ‘hood and liberating those trees?

Post from: Idaho Gardener

Rope-a-dope

So far, Soil Sorb’s p.r. person assures me the product is a coconut hull/coir-based product with 5 other natural ingredients. While I am waiting to hear back re: what those “other” natural ingredients actually are, let’s touch on the the subject of hydrogels.

Basically, hydrogels also called polymers, or water saving crystals, are a big no no and if they aren’t they should be. Contrary to popular belief, they do not make the water they absorb available to the plants which need the water, and worst of all, when they decompose they become nasty little toxic, hazardous pollutants in the garden and on the planet. Can you say “ICKY Yuck!?”

The person most quoted and referenced is the Washington State extension educator and scientist, Linda Chalker-Scott. Here is the link to her myth-busting website……a great resource for every gardener.

So, now that I’ve sworn off hydrogels, and while I am waiting to hear back about Soil Sorb, I guess I’ll just have to go and play in the garden. Alright……..if I HAVE to………..

Did I tell you that although we are short 2 inches of rain, past the rainy season in Boise, and my soil is dry dry dry, it has warmed up to a lovely 66 degrees?

Post from: Idaho Gardener

Just say no to water saving crystals or hydrogels

The human race.
We have so much courage, here we are flying
through space
on a molten rock
at 67,000 miles per hour
and
the only thing that keeps us from flying
out of our shoes…..
is a misplaced faith in gravity.

I have NO idea who wrote that or where I found it……I have had it taped to my computer forever. It just always cracks me up. Misplaced faith in gravity?
*******************************************************************************
“One can’t believe impossible things,” said Alice. ‘I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes, I’ve believed in as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

from Alice’s Adventures by Lewis Carroll.

Post from: Idaho Gardener

not exactly poetry…..

May 3, Ada Gardeners Garden Club……10608 W. Cruzer Drive, Boise…….888-2858

May 3, Golden Garden Club…..9185 Coleen (off Maple Grove)……..484-1468

May 10, Idaho Horticulture Society…..1211 S. Owyhee………343-3273

May 17, Master Gardens, Ada County Office on Glenwood……377-2107

June 7, Bobbie and Bob McCaw…….421 S. Custis Road, #71…..424-1056

Grab your cash and get goin!

Post from: Idaho Gardener

FOR SALE……HURRY……PLANTS!

Post from: Idaho Gardener

Nice little article from the Seattle PI

Readers, please note, I made a mistake re: the Sunset Western Garden Book - there are actually twenty four gardening zones in California. I told the paper 14. Sorry.

The good news about that is I have already heard from some friends I hadn’t been in touch with for awhile. Hi ya Deb and Hello Mercedes!

And while my name isn’t mentioned in the Austin TX paper, our first annual gathering of garden geek bloggers received a nice nod in the Austin American-Statesman as Garden Bloggers explore Austin’s Landscape. We had such a good time!

*************

While you are out today, stop by the Idaho Botanical Garden’s super duper plant sale. I hear tell the place is rockin’! Grab yourself some good buys, and get ready to hit the dirt. Tomorrow it is supposed to be 75 degrees.

Post from: Idaho Gardener

Laryngitis but still on the front page

Post from: Idaho Gardener

Have another mud pie for dinner