Nursery Exploring

*updated with photos*

So last Friday I went shopping for the plants on my list (and naturally ended up with a few extras). It was a nice afternoon and I made time to visit two new (to me) nurseries.

First I hit up Sunflower Farms which was really cool! It is not like any other nursery in the Southbay. It is alot like what I image my nursery would look like if I ever ran one :9 You have to go there to understand, it's like someone's backyard forest jumble with plants loosely grouped into different areas. I love it. The lady on duty (I think Melissa?) was very helpful and pleasant to talk to. I showed her my plant list, she was sad they wouldn't have half of the items until spring, but had a guy from propagation go hunt down my echinacea. Here I found the coneflower "double decker" that I thought I'd have to order online, and the yarrow from my list. I also impulse bought two woolly thymes, a catnip and chocolate mint. I want to put the woolly thyme into wide low containers for my Felis catus to hang out on instead of plastering my flower pots again next spring..

Then I checked out Deep Roots Garden Center. It is nice, but I was sort of disappointed somehow. From their website info I think I was expecting something more California natives & xeriscape focused. It was way more upscale. They did have a nice patio with drought tolerants and natives, and a succulent section. But most of the their plant space was devoted to tropicals/indoor plants, and popular water-loving annuals. Inside was about 75% pottery and decor, a quarter fertilizers n' such. The soil & fertilizer choices were not bad, quite a few options, but not what I was looking for. Took home some petunias and succulents, but nothing from my Need list :/ I did see a shrub of which I already have a dwarf version but had forgotten the name of, I was happy to re-discover it (alas I have already forgotten its name again).

Finally I fell back on my 'safety' the International Garden Center. Plants here are often a bit more expensive than my usually nursery, but they always have a HUGE choice of all kinds of plants. I was super suprised to see their display of plants from Annie's Annuals, with good signage really giving good info about the plants. The guy (damn, I forgot his name and he was sooo helpful and patient that day!) told me that Annie's doesn't use growth inhibitors like most commercial growers, so their plants don't flower until after they are brought home and planted and grow - so they need awesome signs to show buyers how they will look. Nice touch. Guy also spent at least 20 minutes trying to track down if they could order the vanilla milkweed I have my heart set on. After a long catalog & online check he found none of their suppliers are carrying it :( but I was so appreciative that he tried. He also walked me out to check out their Clerodendrum ugandense - which was going by a common name that I've never heard for it before. I was interested because I haven't seen that plant since I bought two at a Home Depot about 10 years ago. I asked him how it was selling, etc. and he was surprised I was interested and happy to talk about how he'd been caring for them for the past year or so and was disappointed that they weren't selling. His explanation is that semi-deciduous is a bad word in our area :9 I did find a gorgeous bright blue delphinium that I'm going to use instead of a hollyhock. I also found the cottonseed meal and kelp meal I've been looking for.

So that is what I on a Friday. Next time the start of 2012 planting :)

2012 Front Yard Plan

Hey there. So I haven't been posting because I had my camera stolen and for some reason I don't like posting without pictures. My cruddy 8 year old backup camera doesn't take very good pictures anymore.

But I can scan stuff!

So for weeks I've had thoughts abut what to do to the front yard for 2012 stewing in my mind. The main themes: want natives, want hummingbirds, want butterflies (Archies!) and want perrennials. I did info lookups via Gardenswithwings.com and laspilitas.com and made a spreadsheet that really helped me narrow down what types of plants we should actually get.

Then I made scaled diagrams of the flower beds and scaled cutouts to represent the plants we have and what I want to see what will fit. Voila:

I realize the way I cropped it together some stuff is upside down, but that's the correct positioning :)

 The size of the circle is how much horizontal space each plant should need (larger gaps around plants I don't trust to stay within their listed spacing) and the numbers noted under the name is the average height (so tall doesn't end up in front of short).

With this I now have my shopping list ready! Also did a new soils test last month so I need some fertilizers as well.

Most of the very drought tolerant stuff is going the South Bed as I could, because that always suffers the most. Thing that need more moisture are going in the North Beds, because that's where I'm going to hook up a drip system this winter. The East Bed gets all the average water need plants.

I feel accomplished today :D

What am I gonna do with these Geese?!

When I visited Archie's Garden this past spring I was somehow talked into bringing home two geese (which started the Archie Jr. fiasco). Goose milkweed (Asclepias physocarpa )  that is ;9 haha. I vaguely remember asking them about pink milkweeds because my mom doesn't like hot orange/red flowers (doesn't like to be doubly reminded of the heat in summer) and she didn't have pink ones, but she had the white goose type seedlings.

Somehow one seedling from each little pot she gave me managed to survive the little jr.'s that ate every leaf up and had started on the stems :Z They rebounded very slowly though, it was just last month that I potted them up to slightly bigger containers from the square 4" ones they came in.

Last night I was trying to come up with a 2012 front yard garden plan. Want to eliminate some flowers that aren't working for us and move others to better suited spots. When I went over my list of what I've got in my propagation area and saw my Geese (yes, I shall enjoy calling these Green Children the Geese) on it - I realized I had no clue what size they grow to. Looked it up this morning and it turns out they have the potential to reach 7 FEET. Um, I think that will violate the 36" height limit truce currently in effect for new plants...

But they are Monarch magnets and have purty decorative seed pods....

photo: Wikipedia

So I ask: Anyone with any experience growing these? Is this a plant I can prune in a way to limit it's grow without sacrificing it's health? Any advice would be very appreciated!

Possible Tomato Comparison Experiment

I read in Territorial's catalog recently that they are trying a technique new to North America of grafted tomatos plants, like you would graft trees. A delicious tomato variety is grafted onto the roof of a different vigorous and disease-resistant tomato rootstock. One of the coolest things about it is you can purchase a plant with a single graft (one variety) and they also have double grafted with two varieties on one plant! Now that's a space maximizer.

I got a reminder about it in an email update yesterday and I'm serioulsy considering order one or two to try it out. Of course it begs the question - Will one of these really grow better than a normal one I grow from seed? So of course now I need to start some Brandywines from seed so they'll be transplant ready by the time a grafted Brandywine arrives and can be planted near each other to get the same growing conditions and....

Uh oh. I think I'm gonna go a little mad scientist this year...

First Soil Tests

Sunday night I performed my first soil test on the flower beds in the front yard. I got the kit about three weeks back for under $10, read the instructions and collected soil samples about 2 weeks ago. The samples are from the four flower beds I grow flowers for mom in, from the center of each bed about a trowel spade deep. I took about 1/4 cup of soil, labelled each of them and set them in the sun for a day to dry out. Then they sat in the garage until three night ago :)

So for the kit I used has four different tests- pH, Nitrogen level, Phosphorous level and Potassium level. It came with enough materials for 10 of each type of test, color coded test tubes and a results chart. I read the instructions three times- once when I first bought it, again right before taking the soil samples, and again the night I did the tests. They were printed on fairly heavy gloss paper which was nice because the booklet stayed open to the testing page when I set it on the counter and I didn't have to keep flipping pages to reference the steps.

The soil from each sample had to be crushed into little bits which I did with the back of spoon, and as many pebbles and recognizable plant matter removed as possible. Then came a bunch of measuring- measuring soil into a tube for the pH, measuring water to mix with soil in anothe container to use for the other three tests, etc. Each test also used a little pellet of I don't know what in each tube to cause the color changes related to the type of test. Enough for 10 of each test (the test tubes are reusable). And then came shaking, alot of shaking, to mix the soil/water/pellets.

I like the results chart. It's setup perfectly to stand up against something and place all the test tubes in front for easy comparison. The hardest reading for me was the phosphorus, the medium and high levels were a bit tricky to tell apart to me. Could have just been my eyes, I was doing this at 11pm for some reason...

Results:



TEST#
1 - 7.0pH, Low Nitrogen, Medium Phosphate, Medium Potassium
2 - 6.5pH, Low Nitrogen, Low Phosphate, Medium Potassium
3 - 7.0pH, Low Nitrogen, High Phosphate, Low Potassium
4 - 7.0pH, Low Nitrogen, Medium Phosphate, Medium Potassium

Anyway, good news is pH is pretty neutral across the board. Bad news is everything is low on nitrogen and there are a couple other nutrient deficiencies to try to balance out. I'm wondering if the low N everywhere is from the Gro Mulch I've been layering onto everything, if it's still decomposing itself it might be sucking the N out of the soil.

Hmm.. is my fish emulsion 5-1-1 or do I need some blood meal? I need to dig into my gardening books to see which natural fertilizers I should use. I am tempted to open up that leftover half bottle of miraculous crack that's 12-4-8 on the East flower bed...

Afterthought, maybe I should test my compost when it's done to see how balanced it is....

Want to Grow a Fruit Tree in California?

I'm so excited I just found this bit of info that I've got to share: Growing Termperate Tree Fruit and Nut Crops in the Home Garden

My dad manages some rental properties and he just asked me if I could grow some nice looking stuff at one of them where there's some baren ground. *!HAPPYDANCE!* Of course by grow stuff he means put some perennial ornamentals in there that will disguise the dirt and will only need pruning once a year.

Naturally I am dreaming of fruit trees and bushes instead :)

But of course they must be something that will grow well in our area with once a week checkups at most. I had no idea what would do best. I want to research the subject a bit before heading to the nursery because I want to know what to ask about, even if they're not carrying it and it needs special ordering. Then I found the above pdf that has categories of different families of tree crops, each category ending in a beautiful table of varieties of each tree and when their typical harvest is in each area of California - or NA if it won't produce there. I seriously wanted to kiss the computer screen when I saw those.

On to research...

Online Calendar

 So as I mention earlier I have some ideas on keeping my self more on-track with all my gardening work. One of them is keeping a bulletin board with a calendar and other often needed reference info near my back door. It's a strategical location - I mostly go in and out for gardening there, and it is also near the bathroom I use for indoor sowing, and my computer.

Speaking of computer, I'm pretty much the last person in LA to be getting home internet :9 That's why my posts are usually in the day from work, or at random odd late hours from a friend's house. But internet should be installed in my home this or next month which will make posting much easier to keep up with.

It will also make it very easy to use Google Calendars to keep a record of my endeavors :) Plans, and completed work. For sure I'll be using a physical calendar for the day-to-day notes and to reference without waiting for the computer to load. But every week or two I can update what actually happened in Google without having extra paper to store. I'm hoping that next year I can look back on this year and make better decisions.

So, the new calendar is public and now posted on my blog below the entry and comments :)

Sunset you are going to get me in trouble...

Some days catching up on my RSS Reader and the internet want to get me in trouble... Through links in the Fresh Dirt Sunset blog I can across this one about a shutter garden...

And I am now plotting to get my dirty hands on those unused shutter doors in my unbiological brother's garage.... (ssshhhh, don't tell)

Too Late/Too Early?

I've gotten a bit off track on my gardening in the last two or 3 weeks while trying to prepare for a yard sale. I'm glad I kept track of what and how many of everything I've sowed on an extra calendar, but I've begun to forget the general plan I had in my head. Now the problem I'm looking at is if it's too late to try to start growing some of the seeds I wanted and too early for others. This is always on my mind being in the Southbay area and the weird weather we've been having the last year and a half.

My major worry is the last frost date. Normally we just don't have any frost at all. Normally. Once every few years there will be one (maybe two)  mornings where I head out the door to work and find the grass frosty and the birthbath icy. Once the birthbath water was frozen solid...that was kind of funny. Anyway, with the weather so abnormally cold for my area this year I've been trying to plan around figuring we're likely to have a night of frost in February or March. I don't want any of my green babies to get frozen to death after all. But will one night of Socal frost really kill them? 90% of any seed and new shoots will be in my back patio area which is fairly sheltered, I can't remember if previous nights of frost affected anything beyond the open front and side yard areas. Will they be ok back there? I don't think any of the plants in the front and side yard were damaged from frost before...but I wasn't paying attention at the time, they were all dad's plants then. Am I wasting my brain cells and planting time worrying about frost at all?

Besides the frost question I'm concerned I waited too long to start some of my seeds, especially the spring veggies and bloomers. In my area "Spring" is practically over by May and "Summer" lasts into October. That said, should I stop planting anymore spring veggies that might not come into harvest before the summer heat?! Is it too early for my summer veggies?!

Ok, time to just go experitment and remember to record what happens so I know better next year...