A Seussian Flower

Have you ever read "The Lorax" by Dr. Seuss?  It's a  cautionary tale that describes  the consequences when the concerns of nature are placed second to the concerns of commerce.   Weighty topics such  as  the conflict between economy and nature aside, some of the drawings by Dr. Seuss look an awful lot like one of my favorite flowers.





In the spring, the Bee Balm starts out as a collection of leaves near the ground but as the season progresses, long stalks emerge with tuft like flowers that, it turns out, the bees just love.  

 

If you look really close you can see that the flower is not really a single flower but a collection of individual blossoms. No wonder the bees are so busy around these plants, there is quite a lot of pollinating to be done.

I really have to wonder if when creating some of his characters, Dr. Seuss did not have a bee balm bush or two just outside of his window and used the flowers for inspiration.   

Maybe the bee balm was not the inspiration for the Truffula tree it is certain that this is one of the more unusual flowers in my garden.  Enjoy!

It's been a busy month but the plants are in!

I 'm sure anyone who has been following along will be shocked to learn that my original goal of growing a few snapdragons indoors ahead of the current growing season has suffered from a little, shall we say, scope creep.  I ended up with not only a whole crap load of snaps, but also a significant number of marigolds, vincias and dahlias.  So, I have well and truly gone off the deep end with this plant husbandry business.


The really good news is that I have found a place for all of the plants I grew from seed this spring.  No plant give-away this time around.  I still remain in awe that I was able to coax the little buggers from tiny seeds to blooming plants.  Going from this ->

To this!!






Seriously, how cool is that?

So, let's go to the Scoreboard

From this winter/spring indoor sprout-fest I ended up with quite a few plants out in the garden.  Here is the tally:

                                                               Snap Dragons: 112

                                                                        Marigolds: 68

                                                                        Dahlias: 21
                                          OK, so it's a little early for the dahlias I planted this year to
                                                        flower (although they have buds!!)  This one went into the
                                                       ground last year. 

                                                                      Vincias: 28

And some perennials too

Not to be dissuaded, I have also planted seeds directly in the soil for a number of perennials that seemed (at least from the literature) to be happier being direct sown vs. started indoors.  Here's the list:

• Foxglove
• Tritoma
• Achillea
• Gaillardia
• Celosia (OK, so not a perennial)

I decided to follow a suggestion for planting seeds directly in that I use gallon water jugs with the bottoms removed to sit over the seeds and provide a warm humid environment until they germinate.  Once the seedlings make their appearance, the top of the jug is removed to decrease the humidity.  Then when the true leaves begin to appear, the jug is removed completely and the new plants are on their own.  I'd like to say I thought this whole technique up but that would be a fib.  I did extend the idea however and prepped the soil into which the seeds were being placed with a concoction of starter mix, sphagnum moss and vermiculite (hey, it worked indoors).  Once the seeds were in place, I hand dropped some water into the mix and then put the jug in place.

OK, so it does look dorky and more than one neighbor strolled by slowly and then asked "Are those watering jugs?"  to which I usually replied "Nope, greenhouses!"  To which they usually said "Uh, OK" and strolled on a little faster.  I have to say, the Celosia plants thought this was a great idea and they took off like gangbusters.  The other plants seemed to germinate OK and are growing but I think I need to wait a little longer to see if this technique is a complete success.

Hang in there, more to come!

Setting up shop (or, "If I build it, will they... sprout?")

I now know that there are six important factors to producing happy, healthy plants. Seeds, water, air, a growing medium, temperature and light are all required elements to get these little buggers to grow. It would seem however that each required element has a level of detail that may not be obvious at first glance. For the gory details, pray, read on.
To begin, I purchased two seedling starting kits  that contain most of what's required.  Several companies make such kits. More or less, they see to all be trying to do the same thing.  If you are interested, I picked this one  from Burpee.   

Seeds

I found a plethora of vendors only too happy to sell seeds that are "guaranteed" to germinate. Sounds comforting, doesn't it.  After digging around with Mr. Google, I settled on a couple of seed sellers with which to get started. There are no recommendations here (at least not yet).  These guys just won the coin toss for the first round.

• Burpee Garden Products 
• Ferry-Morris Seed Co. 
• Park Seed Co. 

For my first attempt, I decided to start with a couple of varieties of Snapdragons:

• Ladies First, Mixed Colors from Ferry-Morris
• Rocket Mixed from Park

Water

Next, is water.  Apparently, seedlings need lots of water and do not tolerate getting dehydrated -at all.  Sounds simple enough until you read that regular tap water may not be the best for seedlings.  Distilled water or at least unchlorinated, unfluoridated plain old "two hydrogen and one oxygen atom" water is what's needed here.

Air

Then comes air. Yes, we have that.  I have recently learned that seeds are not completely dormant and in fact still require oxygen even in their "not much going on here" state.  In fact when planting seeds, soil is not the recommended medium into which to first place the little guys.  It turns out that soil can compact around the seeds so tightly that they cannot get any air with which to carry on respiration.  Also, new roots are have an easier time if they are not trying to mine their way through dense soil on their never ending search for moisture.

Growing medium

On to a growing medium (notice I did not say soil).  So, soil is not so good at this stage.  OK, then what?  Well, it turns out, what is needed here is a way to suspend the seeds in a material that will allow the water and air to get to them and support the roots as well as the plant stem as they develop.  If you purchase one of those seedling growing kits (as I did), you find out the growing medium is something like coconut fibers.  Who'd a thunk it.  If you want to make your own growing medium, there are lots of recipes but most involve materials that will help create space for the roots, retain water and provide some nutritive value.  I'll be saving that discussion for another post.  The kit I bought had these nifty pellets that expand when watered and create a sort of a lattice in which to suspend the seeds while they germinate.

Temperature control

The temperature of the soil and so the planted seeds is important for germination. When one is thinking about starting plants and especially in doors in February, maintaining a consistent seed temperature during seed germination requires some planning.   There are lots of articles on the Internet about optimum temperature for seeds to germinate and grow.  One of the more straightforward is from North Carolina State University http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/hil/hil-8703.html   I found a heating mat and thermostat from an outfit called Hydrofarm on Amazon.com. The idea is that the thermostat have a temperature probe that gets stuck in the growing medium. The power plug for the heating mat is also connected to the thermostat so a feedback loop is formed where the thermostat turns the heat mat on and off to keep the growing medium at a preset temperature. Very cool and I didn't cause a short circuit, start a fire or anything - imagine that!

Light

The last piece of the puzzle is light. This too seems simple until you find out that most seedlings require about 16 hours of light per day. Sorry but even if I had a greenhouse with full sun all day long, there is no such thing as that much daylight at my latitude in February. 

I had to create a way to get the required amount of light on the plants by some other means. The obvious answer is to get some plant lights.  However, shelling out for special plant lights is not necessary. It turns out that common fluorescent tubes will do just fine.  The lights need to start out a few inches away from the seedlings and adjust upward as they grow.  Most importantly, since I am "borrowing" our guest bedroom to to set up this entire adventure, the whole rig needs to be something that can be broken down and stored when not in use.  Using a little ingenuity and a couple of trips to the home store and I came up with a functional, adjustable light bed! Check it out!

Note: In this post, I've included several links to other web pages and some of them are commercial sites.  I did this so that those who may be interested in the details, can get more information.  I'm not advocating the associated vendors other than I plunked down some of my hard cash to purchase their stuff.  Whether that was a good idea remains to be seen.  If you are not interested, don't click on the links.

Starting from scratch

This year, I'm growing my own.  A poor gentleman gardener can go broke trying to buy all the plants needed to fill four garden plots.  In past years, I have provided enough financial support with my purchase of flats of marigold, vinca, snapdragon, dahlia, celosia, an assortment of perennials, not to mention  soil amendments,  fertilizer, plain old topsoil and various other plant growing concoctions from my local garden shops that I have their Christmas card lists. While I have no illusions that this year I will once again be crossing the palms of my local plant suppliers with gold, I decided this would be the year to start some plants from seed.  Aside from my economic motivations, I am also curious, just how much more interesting can gardening be when one begins at the beginning?

As simple as this idea sounds, previous attempts on my part to coax plants to grow from seed to maturity have met with less than stellar results.  It appears there is more to the process than just flinging some seeds to the ground, drenching them with water and wishing them well.  Certainly this method can yield a few plants but for me, the result have always been less than desired and I never seem to get the kind of full, luscious blooms that appear on the front of most seed packages.  Gee, I wonder why?

Clearly a more formal and structured approach is in order.  But now, how to begin?

Whilst wandering through my local Home Depot one Saturday morning in early February, I happened upon a display of seed starting kits and a wealth of seeds, for both flowers and vegetables.  This seemed the answer to my quandary.  Easy, quick, no muss, no fuss....Excellent!

With enthusiasm  I called my wife who was shopping next door.  "Honey, I've got this great idea..."  Most of my adventures start out with those words.  We've been married a long time, she is used to such beginnings and is very patient.

To be fair to myself, I know very well that product packaging not withstanding, successfully growing a crop of plants from seed is not going to be quite as easy as it sounds (see paragraph #2 above).  So, standing among the peat pots, seed packages and kits, I began to think about what might be involved in my new project.  Clearly some research was in order.

There are many books available about starting plants from seeds.  One book I found particularly interesting was Nancy Bubel's The New Seed Starter's Handbook.  If this sort of a project is new to you as well, this is a good place to start.

In the beginning there was grass...

I have reached the conclusion that I hate grass.  I'm sure I'm not alone.  I grew up in New York State and there, we did not think about grass too much.  It grew, it was green, you cut it in the summer and did not even have to look at it over the long winters.  We moved to North Carolina almost 25 years ago and that is when my personal battle with my lawn began.

I've decided that between the climate and the soil of this state, you actually have to work to grow grass.  Let me be specific, crab grass grows just fine. Chick-weed - no problem.  In fact, there are lots of low profile green plants with blade shaped leaves that will grow just fine here.  Unfortunately, they are weeds and they are not what's needed.  Any home owner worth his curb side appeal needs to be able to display a well manicured carpet of  tall fescue with nary a weed in sight.

It isn't so much the plants themselves as it is the yearly ritual that is required to keep the desired grass happy and thriving while ruthlessly exterminating any chlorophyll laden interlopers.  The Cooperative Extension that is part of a local university has a calendar of monthly stuff you are supposed to do the maintain your lawn.  Fertilizer, pre-emergent crab grass killer, grub poison, more fertilizer, lime applications and then winter fertilizer, sheesh!  My personal favorite however is coring the lawn.  Here the task is to rent a spike-laden steam roller drum and proceed to roll this thing over the entire lawn thereby creating holes in the lawn that you have spent the last twelve months trying to get to grow. - Really?

The soil here is mostly clay, red clay to be specific.  I don't know if this is the same stuff they make pots, plates and casserole dishes out of but it sure is dense.  When we first moved into our current home, there was still construction going on around the neighborhood.  In summer we were treated to clouds of red clay dust, generated by the trucks that rumbled by, that settled on every horizontal surface.  When it rained, the streets ran red with rivers of clay.  So each spring you are supposed to core the lawn with your spike laden steam roller so your grass roots can expand.

In my view, growing grass here is entirely too much work when the result is a sea of featureless green.  If I'm going to put in the effort to have a yard, then I will at least get colors, contrasts, textures and hopefully some wonderful scents out of the deal.  I've embarked in turning my yard into garden plots with the goal of limiting the grass to that which can be mowed with a weed-whacker.  If you are interested in following along, stay tuned.