Salve for the Gardener's Winter Blues: How to Grow Amaryllis

As any gardener will tell you, winter is an excruciatingly long season. Trapped in our homes with no active gardening to be done, we plan the next season's gardening projects and count down the days until the glorious spring days arrive and we can get our hands dirty.

Ready to be planted and pre-planted Amaryllis bulbs are readily available--I've even seen them sold at Target and the local grocery store. For a broader selection, I purchase my Amaryllis bulbs from:

http://www.vanengelen.com/

I purchase them in September, as some types sell out by October. As you can see in the picture, they start to bloom around Christmas.

If you buy ready to be planted bulbs, they can be placed in shallow pots with the tops exposed. I cover the exposed soil with moss to enhance the pot's appearance. Over the next couple of months, it is pleasing to watch the Amaryllis grow and flower. Each stem produces three to four blossoms.

After the flowers have bloomed, I dispose of the bulbs. By this time, the other bulbs that I have chilled--daffodils, hyacinth, tulips--will be ready to replace the spent Amaryllis.

While it is possible to keep your Amaryllis bulbs so that they flower the next season, I neither have the space nor the time to do this once spring arrives.

For a prior post on forcing bulbs and branches, see:

http://heirloomgardener.blogspot.com/2006/02/forcing-forsythia-and-bulbs-of-all.html

Q. What Do You Do With Rocky Soil? A. Make Dry Laid Walls

In honor of Gardening Gone Wild's Design Workshop on fences and walls, here is a post about a rock "wall" my husband and I created.

In a prior post, I wrote about the disaster which befell us two summers ago when one of our oak trees fell after a storm and the tulip tree growing with it had to be removed subsequently:

http://heirloomgardener.blogspot.com/2007/11/brief-catch-up-since-last-winters-post.html

This event not only ruined the shade garden I just planted, but also unearthed more rocks than you could believe. Further, the heavy machinery in and out of our backyard compacted the earth and made even more rocks visible on the surface. I always knew my property was rocky seeing that each time I dig a hole I come up with more rocks. But, what to do with so many rocks at one time?

In preparation of redesigning our backyard, I sketched on graph paper the outline of a central lawn bordered by different gardens and play areas for the children. Before finalizing the plan and laying the new top soil and grass seed for the lawn, we used the rocks to demarcate the future lawn and garden areas. It always helps me to transfer my plan on paper to the ground and adjust the plan according to what looks best.

Once we finalized these lines, we decided to relocate all of the now visible rocks from the tree and lawn areas for the safety and comfort of running and walking barefoot. It was at this stage that we decided to make the "wall" that provided a name for the Walled Garden.

We followed none of the rules of laying a dry laid wall, but simply stacked the rocks together in a line. It's not as beautiful as New England's dry laid walls, but its primitive appearance fits with the rest of our garden. All of the rocks have the distinctive orange coloring of all of the iron-rich earth in Chatham, New Jersey and the surrounding area.

For more on Gardening Gone Wild's Design Workshop, click here:

http://www.gardeninggonewild.com/?p=466

You Grow Girl Blog: Plant-Related Christmas Gift Ideas You Can Make

This is a great post about gifts you can make from your garden:

http://www.yougrowgirl.com/use/giftideas.php

Q: How Do You Keep Deer Out Of The Backyard? A: The Deer Fence

Chatham, New Jersey is overrun by deer. It is not uncommon to see shameless groups of deer grazing in our neighbors' yards or strolling down the street. The first victims are the deer's favorites--like ewe hedges, hostas and hydrangeas. By the end of the season, their appetite expands to include some of the deer resistant plants (so called by our local nursery), such as cone flowers and shasta daisies.

In order to keep the deer out of our backyard, we have installed a six foot tall wooden fence. For added protection, the fence posts (four by fours) are ten feet tall and strung with very strong, weather-resistant, plastic-coated wiring. There are three rows of wire above the fence, each spaced about one foot apart.

Aesthetically, the wiring is virtually invisible from a distance and does not take away from the beauty of the garden as some traditional deer fences do. In addition, we have topped many of the posts with bird houses.

Cold Climate Gardening Blog: Why Aren't There More Younger Gardeners?

As a relatively new gardener (age 35), I found the following discussion over on Cold Climate Gardening of interest:

http://www.coldclimategardening.com/2007/12/14/why-arent-there-more-younger-gardeners/

Common Witchhazel Blooming in December

When driving to my friend P's house (also in Chatham, New Jersey), I almost ran off the road when I noticed Common Witchhazel (Hamamelis virginiana) in full bloom. I'd never noticed it before, as it is a small tree in the corner of her yard--but now that it's in bloom, you can't miss it.

My friend P was kind enough to give me a branch that came off during the recent ice storm to enjoy indoors.

From this branch, I have taken a few small cuttings and put them in the refrigerator, so I can try to propagate them in the spring. If I can't, I'll have to find one to mail order.

Christmas Decorations from the Garden

When decorating our home for Christmas, I try to bring some of the garden indoors. Below are some examples.

In the first picture of the staircase, I have paired some of my Ballerina and Dog Rose hips with the Princess Pine I purchased from my local nursery and the Leland Cypress clippings from my backyard.

In the second picture of the chandelier, I have placed additional Leland Cypress clippings.

Cut Heavenly Bamboo (Nandina)

As a follow-up to my previous post on Heavenly Bamboo, here is a picture of what it looks like as a cut flower.

I often use glasses, jars and other objects as vases. The vase in this picture is actually a small glass.

For the previous post, click here:

http://heirloomgardener.blogspot.com/2007/12/heavenly-bamboo-nandina-in-december.html

Heavenly Bamboo (Nandina) in December

Next year I plan to plant more heavenly bamboo. When most every other non-conifer has lost its leaves, nandina looks as fresh as it did two months ago. The red berries are beautiful and cuttings of nandina last for weeks in water.

The plants are pretty undemanding. They will grow in sun or part shade, do not require feeding, and have modest water requirements. They grow 3-5 feet tall and will spread with time. Nandina does have a tendency to become leggy, so good pruning in spring helps stimulate growth lower down on the plant.

The Garden in Winter by Suzy Bales

The winter is my time for armchair gardening. Also, during the winter I always give the garden a hard look to see how I can improve it next spring to increase its winter beauty. I was thrilled to read Suzy Bales recently published book The Garden in Winter. I have read many books on winter gardens, but this is the best so far because of the breath of the information. It covers not only the garden, but indoor decorations made from material cut from the garden and various other winter occupations.

As expected Bales highlights various plants that add to the seasonal beauty of the garden, but goes beyond the laundry list to include her own experience in growing these plants. She grows Petasites japonicus, for example. Although, the plant blooms in very early spring and has distinctive leaves, its size and spreading habit allows Bales to only recommende it with caveats.

Throughout the book are many short essays on topics related to winter which are very interesting and informative. In these essays, Bales profiles many people and gardens that make use of the season in spectacular ways. For example, she interviews Les Brake, a gardener in Willow, Alaska, who is passionate about making sculptural ice lanterns to fight off the winter doldrums. His work is amazing and inspiring.

I love snowdrops. Every winter when I walk the garden I look with anticipation to see if they have begun to come up. I was thrilled to find Bales profile on Temple Nursery which specializes in hard to find and rare snowdrop cultivars sold in the green.

Container Gardening: Autumn Cleanup and Rosemary in Bloom

In autumn, before the first frost, I move some of my non-hardy plants grown in containers from my deck into more sheltered locations.

Some, I move into the garage so they can go dormant under milder conditions, like my fig tree and a few of my roses. Others, like the elephant ears, I move into the house. The herbs, except the chives and thyme which are hardy and can be left outdoors, I have usually treated as annuals.

This year, I brought my rosemary plant indoors and, to my surprise, it started blooming. It is now covered with the small, light purple flowers that you see in these pictures.

Gardening with Children: How to Build a Children's Playhouse (the Fort)

As a gardener with five children, I am always thinking of ways to make the garden a fun place to play. I had the idea of building a playhouse, or as my husband likes to call it, a fort.

When he was younger, my husband had a fort in the field behind his house. It was crudely built, but the four plywood walls, flat roof, and squeaky door was the center of play for many of the neighborhood boys. For our backyard, I wanted something a little more finished. seeing that the fort would be a focal point of the backyard.

First, we considered buying one of the playhouses we saw advertised in a gardening magazine, but these were too expensive. Next, we looked at some pre-built playhouses that you purchased and installed yourself. While these were less expensive, they looked too cute for our boys. Also, they were built for a flat property and would not work on our slope.

At this point, my husband decided to build one from scratch. We started doing some research for similar structures that we could modify, like the ones we found here:

http://www.freeww.com/storagebuildings.html

These different plans provided some good ideas that we could adapt to our needs. Here are some of the unique aspects of our fort:

1. Our fort has a dirt floor to discourage the groundhogs in our neighborhood from nesting underneath.

2. Given the absence of a floor, the foundation of our fort is made of bricks and stones from our property that support the walls.

3. The walls of our fort are built at an angle to accommodate our slope.

4. The scale of the structure is child-sized: it is basically an seven foot cube with a five foot tall door opening.

5. The generous trim hides the less-than-perfect carpentry beneath.

6. We hung two lanterns on the front, merely for decoration.

The rest of the fort pretty much follows the standard recommendations for this type of structure, including a frame made of two-by-fours, walls made of hardboard (barn siding), and a roof made of asphalt shingle.

The entire project took about a month, mainly on weekends. The total cost of the materials was approximately $700. My husband did all of the work himself, except the cutting and installation of the walls which he did with a friend on a single afternoon.

In front of the fort, my son wanted "two round ball plants" a.k.a two boxwoods. On one side of the fort is a trellis with clematis growing and hollyhocks planted in a row.

*****

Related posts: How to Build a Sandbox, Ten Tips for Planning a Children's Garden