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Post by Gianna on Dec 30, 2017 14:13:26 GMT -5
The past few years with the drought, I've grown pretty exclusively vegetables in the garden. As my dad used to say, if you can't eat it, why grow it? But like Mom, I also like flowers and this year have decided to add bloomers to my garden again.
Right now, I've got sunflowers to put out, yellow cosmos (in bud already!), bachelor buttons, and soon, scabiosa. Also in various stages of germination are Rudbeckia, Aster, stock, snapdragons, and sweet peas. In the garden, reseeding themselves now, are Calendula and Nigella. And of course California poppies which really do well here. Sometimes native lupines come up too, but only in good rain years.
I saw a video by a lady who grows flowers for a living. She had a presentation about winter (cool weather) annuals and said that you could start them earlier than 'in the spring' depending on your area. Since frost here is rare, Ive decided to go for it. Naturalized varieties germinate and grow with the first good rains, so why not try other varieties that might take when watered? it's only seed, and of course time.
What flowers are you thinking of growing this coming year?
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aqua
Pro Member
Posts: 295
Zone:: 8b9a
Favorite Vegetable:: all of them
Joined: March 2012
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Post by aqua on Dec 31, 2017 8:26:46 GMT -5
I ordered some Celosia (looks like fuzzy brains) so I'd be glad to share some extra seeds.
I also got snapdragon babies in the ground outside but they may not handle the coming weather.
Honestly I think more like your dad but my hubby likes flowers.
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Post by Gianna on Dec 31, 2017 13:09:29 GMT -5
I ordered some Celosia (looks like fuzzy brains) so I'd be glad to share some extra seeds. I also got snapdragon babies in the ground outside but they may not handle the coming weather. Honestly I think more like your dad but my hubby likes flowers.
Thanks for the kind offer of Celosia, but I also ordered some of that too. I'm waiting for more warmth to start it. Not sure why - maybe because it just looks summery.
Snapdragons are one of the flowers that got me on this current kick. A month or so ago, I purchased 3 pony packs of them to put in. They are starting to bloom now. But I realized if I wanted to grow more flower$, plus varieties I wanted, I'd have to start them from seed. Besides, looking for them is another reason to look through seed catalogs and websites.
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Post by pepperhead212 on Dec 31, 2017 14:36:54 GMT -5
I also grow pretty much only edibles. My front flower bed is peppers and lemongrass every year, which become ornamental, eventually! But I do have a patch of alyssum (between the last row in the garden, and my neighbor's fence) - for the bees! And I threw a bunch of the seeds behind my shed, and it is starting to take over there.
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Post by brownrexx on Jan 1, 2018 18:08:17 GMT -5
I don't grow many flowers from seed. I usually pick up a couple of 4-packs of annuals every year and that's it although I did discover tithonia (Mexican sunflowers) a couple of years ago. You might want to look that one up Gianna,. They don't look like real sunflowers, they are more like a bush with lots and lots of orange flowers that are an absolute bee and butterfly magnet. I have been planting them every year for the past several years.
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Post by Gianna on Mar 15, 2018 14:49:42 GMT -5
The flowers I planted from seed at the end of Dec are doing very well. A good number were put into the ground a couple months ago and are prospering, with some beginning to bloom. There however were a number I never got planted out, but were still limping along in their original germination containers/soil blocks. I decided to plant them in 5 gallon pots just outside the 'view' windows. I got 5 of them planted just now. I didn't bother to divide most the plants since I thought it might damage them. I'd never though to do this before - to have bloomers just outside of the windows. This could be quite pretty. And this way the humans will get to see them from inside the house all the time. And I can use some of my prettier pots too. Now I'm enthused to plant more seeds for more flowers to put outside another similar window. Mid march is good timing too.
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Post by brownrexx on Mar 15, 2018 17:38:34 GMT -5
this way the humans will get to see them from inside the house all the time. And I can use some of my prettier pots too. That sounds like a great idea. I do a similar thing with a bird feeder with hangs right outside of my home office window. I can be inside working at my desk but still see something that I really enjoy outside.
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Post by spike on Mar 15, 2018 19:24:13 GMT -5
If I can't eat it, I seldom can grow it. But I grow several kinds of sunflowers every year along with marigolds and zinnia's. I love to be kneeling in the dirt and being dive bombed by bees, humming birds and butterflies.
I will say that my hubby loves Mexican Sunflowers! I have planted them for years now. So pretty!
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Post by ahntjudy on Apr 7, 2018 9:04:49 GMT -5
I mentioned in another post I was growing gomphrena from seed... This is a previous year's planting... They make great bedding plants and are great in pots...require virtually no care nor watering in the beds...minimal watering in pots... I love them...they're my go to flowers anymore...
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Post by ahntjudy on Apr 8, 2018 7:16:35 GMT -5
Good morning all...
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Post by bestofour on Apr 8, 2018 8:36:02 GMT -5
The gomprhena is beautiful.
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Post by september on Apr 8, 2018 23:36:24 GMT -5
Gosh, it's nice to see flowers blooming in your yards! Mine is still white with snow.
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Post by Laura_in_FL on Apr 9, 2018 9:09:36 GMT -5
I have flower buds on a couple of my daylilies. If all goes well, maybe later this week I can take a pic of those flowers.
These are new-to-me daylilies - I planted them last year but they didn't bloom - so I am excited to see them.
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stone
Pro Member
Posts: 170
Zone:: 8
Favorite Vegetable:: Bambi
Joined: December 2011
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Post by stone on Apr 9, 2018 17:20:28 GMT -5
My poppies have started to pop!
plenty of perennials also in bloom... like spiderworts, and those native lyre-leaf sage... bearded iris and iris pseudacorus and bulb iris... Salvia urticifolia budding up nicely should see colour this week... tons of violets... bloodroots are pretty much finished... also columbines... huge masses of eastern columbines!
Tons of perennials that are barely coming out of winter dormancy...
As far as planting annual flowers from seed? orange cosmos and zinnia... and... whatever...
If you want to grow veggies... gotta attract pollinators!
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stone
Pro Member
Posts: 170
Zone:: 8
Favorite Vegetable:: Bambi
Joined: December 2011
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Post by stone on Apr 10, 2018 16:51:59 GMT -5
Got a columbine pic...
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Post by bestofour on Apr 11, 2018 16:07:10 GMT -5
View from my bedroom window this morning
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Post by bestofour on Apr 11, 2018 16:08:21 GMT -5
stone, beautiful. I've never seen columbine fill the woods like that.
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Post by Laura_in_FL on Apr 12, 2018 9:30:24 GMT -5
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Post by ahntjudy on Apr 14, 2018 8:40:53 GMT -5
The aroma from these is intoxicating... Too bad they don't bloom all spring and summer...
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Post by bestofour on Apr 14, 2018 15:31:35 GMT -5
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Post by Laura_in_FL on Apr 15, 2018 12:21:58 GMT -5
Beautiful!
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Post by ahntjudy on Apr 19, 2018 10:59:55 GMT -5
Flowering quince
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Post by bestofour on Apr 19, 2018 15:13:36 GMT -5
I used to have a quince shrub that I started from someone else's. It must have died because I haven't noticed it in years. Beautiful.
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Post by ahntjudy on Apr 20, 2018 9:04:26 GMT -5
This flowering quince came from a cutting from Mom's cousin's quince up in Massachusetts probably close to 50 years ago... I remember coming home with it and a small cutting of their Rose of Sharon both in Dixie cups... Now, they're the healthiest shrubs in the yard... But more importantly, the most sentimental...
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Post by bestofour on May 8, 2018 10:10:21 GMT -5
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Post by hairymooseknuckles on May 8, 2018 10:43:37 GMT -5
Oh how pretty!!!
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Post by bestofour on May 18, 2018 20:57:27 GMT -5
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Post by september on May 19, 2018 9:11:58 GMT -5
Great looking yard and patio! Love the flowers.
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Post by bestofour on May 19, 2018 14:22:42 GMT -5
Thank you. I love the look of that hydrangea before the flowers turn blue.
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Post by bestofour on Jun 5, 2018 16:43:02 GMT -5
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