Plant shopping and garden projects...

24 Apr '09 12:58 pm

Although it started out cold this morning, it warmed up over the day and was a pretty one. By the time I got home from work this afternoon, it was warm enough for a flannel shirt instead of a jacket or coat. I saw on my porch that my wild strawberry has a yellow bloom, and on the side of the house, a bee was enjoying a dandelion. I checked things out in the garden and flowerbeds and saw that my plants are doing quite well.

This afternoon, Mom and I went to Flag Fork Herb Farm and I purchased lady's mantle and scented geranium 'Snowflake'. Mom got lemon grass. I was happy checking out their many plants, and deciding which scented geranium to purchase was not an easy one. In fact, I asked for Mom's help with that. We both looked in their antique store while we were at that place and I checked out the seed packets in their gift shop, but didn't buy any of those.

At home, I moved my tansy fern onto the ground on the left side of the porch where it might be more shaded, and I carried my plastic strawberry jar of hen and chicks to the porch from the concrete area behind the house. Some side openings in the jar were bare, so I filled one hole with an aloe start and the other with some kind of onion from my yard. This onion looks different from the grassy looking onion that I've got potted up in a terra cotta container. Maybe it's another wild onion type. Well, I wanted to do more potting up, but it had started raining so I came in.

I still want to fill a remaining side opening in the strawberry jar with something. At first I was going to dig up a small start of feverfew and tuck it in there, but then another idea came to me while here in the computer room. I could break off a piece of the wild mint that I have in here and plant it into the jar. And there's still a bare spot in the other hole where I stuck that onion, so a start of Mother of Thousands should help fill it in. Also, I saw a start of borage in my main garden that I would like to pot up and add to the front porch. Those do well and bloom in a large enough container.

As for the lady's mantle and scented geranium, I just set them on the concrete area behind the house for now. I'm going to double check, but I think that the lady's mantle I purchased is the species herbal variety. On the tag it says this plant likes full sun to part shade so I may plant it under the corkscrew willow out in the main garden in time. I wonder how well it would withstand a really cold night if I planted it soon. I know that once it's established, it should be fine. And this plant gets yellow blooms, too, which is what I want in my garden.

24 Apr '09 2:32 pm

Very desciptive - I like the idea of an onion poking out the side of a strawberry planter. How 'bout some photos? We'd love to see what you're on about... Very Happy

25 Apr '09 3:15 pm

Thanks.