Crimson Bedder (Red) and Self-Seeded (White) Nicotiana with potted Bronze Carex in front of the Bird Garden

Winter Aconite Seedheads: how Winter Aconite self-seeds

As a follow-up to my several posts from March about winter aconite in bloom and spreading, they have now formed their seedheads (pictured) by which they will self-seed.

CowPots™: Molded Manure - an idea to check out for next spring's seed starting

Lois de Vries' Garden Views: CowPots™: Molded Manure

How to Make a Planting Square to Uniformly Space Your Seeds

Do you ever wonder how you are supposed to uniformly space your seeds so many inches apart, as described in the planting instructions?

Well, last month, on a visit to the Family Garden at the New York Botanical Garden (NYBG), I noticed that they had these neat planting squares to do just that, which is particularly important to do when your amount of space is limited. With that inspiration and some additional thoughts of what would be helpful to me, I asked my husband to make one. The basic idea was a picture frame with a twelve inch by twelve inch opening with pegs placed at two, three, four, six, eight, nine, and ten inches to facilitate planting seeds two, three, four, or six inches apart. I also requested that it be weather-proof, as it may be left in the garden from time-to-time.

After getting the materials together at a cost of less than ten dollars, my husband was able to build the planting square in less than one hour. Here's how he did it.

1. Gather your materials. My husband had all of the necessary tools on hand: power drill/screwdriver and bits; miter box and saw; manual screwdriver, tape measure and pencil. He purchased the rest of the materials at the local hardware store, Dreyer's Lumber: two by two cedar (more weather-proof than pine) balusters for the frame; four brackets for the inside corners; and a box of brass screws for the pegs. I had my own rubber bands for stretching across the pegs.

2. Cut the sides of your frame. Using the miter box and saw, he cut the sides of the frame at forty-five degree angles with the inside (not the outside) measuring twelve inches.

3. Assemble your frame. After pre-drilling the holes for the brackets on the inside of the frame, he attached the brackets to the corners.
4. Attach your pegs. After pre-drilling the holes for the pegs on the front of the frame, he secured the pegs (screws), leaving enough of the head uniformly above the frame to stretch my rubber bands to the desired spacing.

Spider Flowers (Cleome)

As a follow-up to my earlier post about self-seeders, here are some additional pictures of this season's spider flowers (cleome) that better capture their beauty and complexity.

"Spider flowers (cleome) are big and are sometimes hard to plant in the garden without them looking like stiff soldiers. But once spider flowers are allowed to self seed, it transforms them. They look very natural growing through other plants and often to different heights depending on where they are.
They also have a range of color. In the front of Goldberry Hill, I only allow violet ones. In the Egg Garden, I try to keep more white than pink. In the Children's Garden, they are mostly pink because my daughter loves pink. Also, as the first plants become leggy, plants from seed which germinated later reach up to cover up the old bare stalks."

Covered Containers for Propagation: GardenTalk.com's Bell Boys

As a follow-up to my post on How to Propagate Hydrangeas, Part I: Taking Cuttings of Sister Theresa, I received several questions about the covered containers that I was using to propagate the cuttings. In response, I am re-posting the pictures of the containers with the information about where I purchased them.

They are from Walt Nicke's GardenTalk: A Catalog of Fine Tools for Gardeners. You can find them under the section Potting and Propagators under the name Bell Boys. They come in two sizes in packages of six.

You can use them to propagate cuttings of other plants too, not just hydrangeas. In fact, I am also propagating the rose Frau Dagmar Harstropp, in another set of these containers just now.

How to Propagate Hydrangea, Part II: Layering Marechal Foch

In completing my expanded Front Border, I wanted to repeat some of the plants that existed in some of the neighboring beds. This first picture is a large, mature hydrangea, which I think is Marechal Foch, across the driveway on Goldberry Hill.

As you see in the close up of the mature specimen, the leaves are thick and shiny. The mopheads change a lot over the course of the summer. Two weeks ago, in the the last picture on my Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day post, the blooms were various shades of pink.

The third picture is the baby of Marechal Foch in the Front Border which I propagated last year by layering my mother plant.

Layering is one of the easiest ways to increase your number of hydrangea. Simply choose a low growing branch. Place it in contact with the soil by burying it a bit or putting a rock on top of it. Leave the branch alone, yet check every month or so to see if it has begun to form roots in the area touching the ground. Once roots are developed, sever it from the mother plant. The baby hydrangea can be then left in place to grow a bit more or moved to a new location, as I did with this one.

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Related post: How to Propagate Hydrangeas, Part I: Taking Cuttings of Sister Theresa

How to Propagate Hydrangeas, Part I: Taking Cuttings of Sister Theresa

I just planted a hedge of southern magnolias. To cover up the space between each, I thought I would plant more of my favorite hydrangea: Sister Theresa. I love this hydrangea for its large pure white mopheads.

The purity of the white is stunning: it has no of pink or cream. The flowers are quite large and the individual sepals are very big making the blooms more striking. In addition, Sister Theresa performs beautifully in full shade and part shade which makes her a good choice for interplanting in my hedge.

This week I took cuttings from my Sister Theresa of non-blooming wood. I want about seven new plants, so I took two stems. I cut the stems into three or four parts with very sharp pruners.

I trimmed the leaves by cutting half or more of the leaf surface away. The easiest way to do that is to fold the leave at its midrib and cut half off. After which, I cut the stem which will be rooting at an angle and dipped it into rooting hormone.

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Related post: How to Propagate Hydrangeas, Part II: Layering Marechel Foch

Old Farmer's Almanac: Spring Planting Schedule (April) and Heirloom Seed Sources

I finally got to planting out my vegetables with the kids this weekend in the Children's Garden. According to the Old Farmer's Almanac, I made it just under the wire to plant many of my spring crops. In the early vegetable raised bed, I planted beets, onions, leeks, Swiss chard, carrots, lettuce, sugar snap peas, and broccoli raab.

In zone 6b, beets, broccoli, carrots, lettuce, parsley, onion sets, peas, and turnips need to be done now. The vegetables which can be started now until early to mid April are brussel sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, collards, kale, leeks, radishes, spinach, and Swiss chard. I have planted a mix of heirloom and modern hybrids. The following are the heirloom varieties I've sown:

• Lettuce Mix from Seed Savers Exchange of Amish Deer Tongue, Australian Yellowleaf, Bronze Arrowhead, Forellenschuss, Lolla Rossa , Pablo, Red Velvet, and Reine des Glaces


• Bull's Blood Beet purchased from Thomas Jefferson's Monticello; the Monticello online store is a good source of heirloom early American plants and seeds


• Nantes Carrot, also from Seed Savers Exchange; "Seed Savers Exchange is a nonprofit organization that saves and shares the heirloom seeds of our garden heritage, forming a living legacy that can be passed down through generations"

Related posts: How to Build Raised Vegetable Beds; Organically Preparing the Soil for Vegetable Planting; and Old Farmer's Almanac Gardening 2008 Calendar

Follow-up: Old Farmer's Almanac Spring Planting Schedule (May)

How to Make the Perfect Soil Mix for Seed Sowing

With spring just around the corner, sowing seeds offers me further hope that I will soon be in the garden. One of the most important factors in the success of my seed sowing is the quality of the soil that I use.

With seeds, it's a tricky balance you need to strike: when the soil is too heavy, seeds which take a long time to germinate are at risk of rotting and the seedlings succumb to more fungal disease; and when the soil is too light, the seeds dry out too quickly. I have tried various store bought seed starting mixes, but often even they are too heavy, so to provide proper drainage and aeration, I now mix my own.

If I am only sowing a few seeds, I will use a doctored cactus mix. I buy soil labeled cactus mix and lighten it by adding perlite at a ratio of 2 parts cactus mix to 1 part perlite. If I have many seeds to start, I will make my own starting mix of equal parts coarse sand, perlite, and peat moss.

Once the soil is prepared, I gently fill my containers, firmly tamp them down, sow my seeds, add more sand to cover on top, mist my containers, and I'm done.

Related posts: Raised Vegetable Beds - Organically Preparing the Soil for Planting; and How to Build Raised Vegetable Beds

Volunteers: Hardy Annual and Biennial Self Seeders

Hardy volunteers are a welcome gift from the garden. I have several reseeding annuals and biennials which each year enrich the garden. These plants which spring up where they please provide necessary filler and continuity within the borders. The advantage of volunteers is they weave themselves naturally into the garden. By doing so they hold the other plants together and give it a more relaxed feel. Also, they sometimes pop up where I would not have thought of planting them or could not have planted them. Reseeders also fill any holes in the plantings offering a sense of abundance. I have two types of volunteers: accent plants and unifiers.

The Accent Plants

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The accent types tend to be large: having height, large leaves, or heavily textured leaves. They draw attention to themselves. They cause you to stop and touch them. These have to be ruthlessly thinned out, or else they loose their impact.

Amaranthus 'Hopi' is a very tall, red stemmed plant which I grow in the Cutting Garden, Egg Garden, and Long Border (it is pictured here between the Egg Garden and the Front Border). I bought Hopi from Annie's Annuals three years ago. It is a generous self seeder which requires thinning out of the seedlings in the spring since I only want about five or six plants. The birds love the seeds so I usually don't worry about too many seedlings. I also cut off some of the flowers as the seeds mature to keep for fall decorations.

When the amaranthus is young, I transplant some into containers or to other spots where I want them to grow. I keep more in the cutting garden for arrangements and to be dug up at a later date to fill in any holes which develop.

Sunflowers are always welcome. Due to the birds, I only get a few of these, but they are greatly appreciated.

Verbascum bombyciferum is a plant I love. The rosette of large, felted, silver leaves are even more spectacular than the yellow candelabra flower spikes. I had a hard time establishing this biennial. Since it likes better draining soil than the clay in most of my garden, it took me several tries before I got it to survive the winter, flower, and set seed. The seedlings, however, have found the better draining soil or the areas that get the least water. So now, every year I am assured of having this in my garden.

On the opposite end of the spectrum is nicotiana which seems to grow everywhere. Luckily, the roots are shallow making it easy to thin out. I have a tall variety named 'Bella' growing in my garden. It has white, pink, and lavender flowers which open during the day and are fragrant. I bought the original plant for Select Seeds.

Each year I get one or two hyacinth bean plants in the Cutting Garden. As self seeded plants, they do not come up until well into summer, but grow quickly.

Plectranthus appears very late in the season. This is a beautiful plant for it's soft, grey leaves. It's good to place this near a plant whose leaves die down in the summer like oriental poppies. It very nicely fills its place. The seeds do not travel around my garden, so plant it where you would like it to reappear. It usually blooms for me in September.

The Unifiers

The unifiers are allowed to seed more prolifically, mixing with the other plantings. Usually, they look better in groups and often have thin, wiry stems that mix with other plants and grow up through them. I allow only one of these per border, so the border does look jumbled. Below are my top ten unifiers.

Verbena bonariensis generously weaves itself between and among other plants. It adds interesting height, butterflies love it, and it makes great filler in the border as well as in floral arrangements.

Cosmos are great as reseeded plants because they usually grow a lot stronger than the ones bought as a six pack or transplanted as seedlings. The stems don't tend to fall over as much either. However, since the plants seem to slow down once they set seed, I deadhead them until the end of August.

Inspired by Mottisfont Abbey (http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-vh/w-visits/w-findaplace/w-mottisfont/), I have white foxglove in the Rose Garden. Most of the seedlings which I don't thin out grow in situ, but others are moved to the Cutting Garden. I try to keep the foxglove in the Rose Garden white, so any which bloom non-white are cut for arrangements. If you don't like having the spent flower stem left up, it works quite well to cut the stalk and lay it on the ground. I find that once the upper most flowers have bloomed the seeds from the bottom ones are mature. Cutting the stems also has the added advantage of stimulating the plant to produce more flowering side shoots.

Sweet William, a biennial, is another heirloom plant which is extremely easy to grow, but often overlooked (pictured here under the wisteria). The flowers of the older varieties like Holborn's Glory are fragrant and make a nice edging in the front of a border. I have these in the Cutting Garden and Long Border.

Larkspur is a wonderful, old fashioned annual. It needs very little care to produce long wands of deep blue flowers for the front to middle of the border.

Blooming calendula is always a happy sight in the garden. The glory of self seeded calendulas is that they come into bloom at different times, so you'll have calendula in the garden from the early spring to the hard frost. I also like the light green leaves of calendula which add a lot of freshness to the look of the garden.

Forget me nots are wonderful grown as a carpet underneath tulips and daffodils. After they have had their show, I pull the plants up and scatter the seeds throughout the garden where I want them to grow on for the coming spring.

Queen Anne's Lace is confined to the Cutting Garden as it is great mixed with other cut flowers. It took me several years to get it to grow which leads me to believe that the freshness of the seed makes a great difference in establishing it. Since then, I have had no problems keeping it. With fresh seed it reseeds quite a lot; after all, it is a weed to many. To prevent it from going beyond its welcome, I do not allow it into other areas of the garden; I cut a lot of it; and I thin it out when I have too much.

Spider flowers (cleome) are big and are sometimes hard to plant in the garden without them looking like stiff soldiers. But once spider flowers are allowed to self seed, it transforms them. They look very natural growing through other plants and often to different heights depending on where they are. They also have a range of color. In the front of Goldberry Hill, I only allow violet ones. In the Egg Garden, I try to keep more white than pink. In the Children's Garden (pictured), they are mostly pink because my daughter loves pink. Also, as the first plants become leggy, plants from seed which germinated later reach up to cover up the old bare stalks.

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Bloodflower (Asclepias curassavica) is another treasure in my garden. Each year it is one of the favorite sources of nectar for the butterflies and a food for monarch caterpillars. It also gives me wonderful orange and yellow flowers right up to the hard frost in addition to great seed pods.

Japanese Beautyberry (Unexpected) Propagation

As a follow-up to my prior post about Japanese Beautyberry, I have an unexpected surprise to share with all of you. The Japanese Beautyberry that I cut back in November and put in a vase of water started rooting and sending up new shoots, as you can see in the pictures below. I should replant them now in some soil let them develop better roots inside before planting them outside in the spring.

For the original post, click here: http://heirloomgardener.blogspot.com/2007/12/japanese-beautyberry.html