Flowers

I haven't done a whole lot in the yard lately - mainly, I've been noticing flowers. Watching them go from buds to flowers to seed pods has left me wanting to know more. I know the basics of pollination, even if I don't remember what each part of the flower is called. (I started studying today) Last fall I did a little seed collecting and this spring I've been planting a lot of seeds, but I've really become interested in the last couple of weeks. I also tried to cross pollinate a couple of my daylilies last year, but I didn't get any seeds from it.

First it was the irises. I watched each one bloom and die, but I think only the water irises have seed pods - maybe the higher pollination rate is due to the water attracting more insects. Last year I was thinking the same thing - I'll collect the seeds and grow some more - but I always have too many of these things - so I don't know what I'll do with the seeds.

I brought home a few lilies from a now-wild area of the neighborhood and they have since formed seed pods. I've collected seeds from most of them, but I don't know when I should plant them. After some research, there are different techniques, depending upon which type and I don't know what these were. I'll spend some time this summer researching and I'll let you know what I find out.

My pitcher plants have been blooming for the last several weeks and I've been really curious about their structure. I could see into them until a few of the "petals" fell off. It appears that they have produced seeds, but most of them have fallen out of the flower. I'm not sure if I want to bother with germinating them - I've heard it takes months - and the plants you can buy at Lowes - I think those are two years old - too much of a commitment for me.

Before I had planted all of my squash, they started blooming - the same with my cucumbers. I didn't have anywhere to put them in the ground, so I just transplanted them into larger pots. As they continued to bloom, I thought I would try to take advantage of this and hand pollinate the flowers. As I started looking at the flowers, they turned out to be all male. This got me wondering about squash flowers, so I read about them in the master gardener's training manual - apparently most of the early flowers on squash are male. So I'll be biding my time until a female flower shows up.

I know you're supposed to be able to grow potatoes from seed as well as from a potato, so when my potatoes began flowering, I held out hope that maybe there might be seed pods when they were done, but no such luck. That's fine - they're very easy to grow from a potato eye. Same goes for water lilies. I've always wondered about getting seed pods out of them. A big problem is that there are so few blooming at the same time in most situations - except for the wild, white cowlilies that you see in ponds and ditches everywhere.

The last plant I want to mention is probably my favorite at the moment, at least as far as pollinating goes - it's the yucca. There's one on my route that I've been watching flower for the past few weeks, knowing any day the landscapers will chop it off, but it hasn't happened yet. I've been doing some research and I think I've figured out how to pollinate it. I'll let you know how it goes.

Front Yard Garden

I was glad to be off this past Wednesday, because I still had plants I wanted to get in the ground - and it took me longer than expected. I was expanding the vegetable garden into the beds in the front yard and had to move the plants that were there. After taking Ella to school, I went by the recycling center to get some compost, but they were out. I thought this was a little strange, but it was Earth Week and there is a sale on compost during April, according to Ken Burger's column in today's paper. It was also raining sporadically, so with two strikes against working in the yard, I took the morning off.

Once I made it outside, I started clearing the bed of plants - mostly lilies, but also a citrus that survived the winter that I had to pot up. After digging up the six or seven clumps of lilies - crinum asiaticum(I think) - I decided that, since I didn't know where they were going yet, until I do, I should pot them up for now. I was thinking about doing a mass planting somewhere, but don't know just yet. And while I'm digging, I figure I should go ahead and divide the clumps - they're quite large. I spent the rest of the morning and through lunchtime dividing and potting the lilies, ending up with 35 of them, some having multiple bulblets too small to divide.

I had an afternoon of non-gardening activities to do, so it was early evening before I got back to work. I worked some compost from a near-empty raised bed into the front garden and laid out three hills for squash, a place for watermelon to roam and room for supports for cucumbers and gourds. I planted nine Early Prolific Straightneck squash in the three hills and four watermelon vines, but I still need to get supports for the cukes and some for beans as well.

We had some much needed rain this weekend and the corn I planted a week ago is coming up, So everything is going well.

Weekend Gardening

All week I was looking forward to Sunday - I was planning to work in the yard, planting corn, pulling weeds, etc. When Sunday rolled around, I was feeling lazy. I decided that I would pull up the lettuce and spinach and prepare that bed for the corn, even though it wasn't the bed I wanted them in.

After I composted the lettuce, I put the spinach in the fridge for later. Once the bed was empty, I took a look at it and decided something need to be done. If you remember from before, this is the first bed I built and it's a little different than the other beds. I decided that I needed to fix that - it was just one concrete block longer than the others. Once I pulled the soil away from one end, I moved and leveled the blocks. The extra soil plus some compost went into my newest bed - one that was built, but not yet filled.

Since I filled the new bed, I planted corn there - where I wanted it to begin with. I planted two varieties - Early Sunglow Hybrid and Silver Queen Hybrid. I was having the gardener's version of writer's block - I couldn't decide what to plant in the other empty bed. I considered bush beans or cow peas, but ultimately I decided to transplant the three Razzelberry Hybrid tomatoes from one of the seed flats. With half a seed flat free, I put some sunflower seeds in it to germinate - I need more seed flats!

I've been dieing to get my squash, cukes and watermelon in the ground. I took another look at our front bed to see what I needed to move. I'm thinking about moving the phlox in front of the hedges and maybe do a mass planting somewhere with the asiatic lilies. I could put the Rose of Sharon somewhere else and I want to put the citrus back into a pot. It's starting to come back to life, but I don't know when.

While I was messing around the back yard, I decided to take a look at the plants we got at the plant swap. One of the things was a dried apple gourd. I thought I'd harvest the seed to grow my own - the birdhouse gourd seeds I'm trying to germinate haven't sprouted yet. While I was at it I went ahead and picked the dried fruit from the ornamental pepper, so I could get the seeds later.

All and all, it was a productive day. I got a lot done and I know what I have a plan for the near future. Hopefully, I have Wednesday off and I'll get the veggies planted in the front bed.

First Frost

I've been wanting to get a new wireless indoor/outdoor thermometer - the one we have doesn't work anymore. I got it for Xmas last year and I'll probably get a new one this year. I've looked at them online and they have ones with up to three remote sensors. I'd like one of those, but I can't justify spending the extra money. Believe it or not, but different areas of the yard can be different climates.

I've had conversations with serious gardening friends and they've told me about different areas of their yards being different temperatures and plants that thrive in the back yard, but not in the front - and I'm starting to believe the same is true about our yard.

I didn't pay much attention to the temperature when I woke up Thursday morning, but it was probably close to freezing. When I got the paper about 5am, there was frost on the ground. It wasn't until I got home from work that I was able to survey the damage the frost might have done. I've got a few tropicals by the pond that I knew wouldn't look good - hidden ginger, banana plant, etc - so I wasn't concerned about that. The vegetable garden looked fine - even the garlic, which is supposed to die back in the winter. It wasn't until I got to the front yard I notice that our asiatic(?) lilies showed some signs of frost damage - that's really the only thing I saw. I don't have multiple thermometers in the yard yet, but from what I've seen, the front yard is going to be colder than the back. The back has the pond and is a lot more sheltered with the house, garage, trees, etc. The front yard is mostly wide open - including the fact that the canopy of oaks that line our street, ends with our yard - the north side of our yard, where all our plantings are right now, is treeless and and exposed.

I wasn't expecting the frost, so I didn't protect the house plants I still have outside. To my surprise, everything is doing fine, including the night-blooming cereus, which I think might be trying to bloom. We've got near-freezing weather forecast for the weekend and maybe beyond - I just need to remember to bring in a few plants and everything will be fine.