I also have no ground per se to plant in but I've been busy repotting and up potting many of my container plants. And I've been adding to my collection! Two lupines from the West Country series (bicolors), a perennial erysimum, Lobelia tupa, a 'Snow Fever' hellebore and red Asiatic lilies. I've also been acquiring some desperately needed broadleaved evergreen shrubs - Mahonia 'Soft Caress', nandina 'Gulf Stream', choisya 'Aztec Pearl' and a Honey Butter rhododendron. I still need more :-))

And I potted up a bunch of pure white zonal geraniums and cheated and bought an assortment of sweet pea starts. I am so not good with seeds!

Lugging 40 or 50 pound bags of potting soil through my condo and to my tiny little backyard planting area was not fun and I still need more of that as well.

Haven't planted any perennials yet. I've been working on the bare-root fruit trees that came -- had a lot of sod to dig out and holes to prepare, one more to go today and I'm done. Also have been focused on seed starting/indoor growing. Another 4 weeks or so and everything will be outside and in the process of being planted - it's fast approaching!

I haven't even started weeding the (very large) vegetable plot. Ugh. I want to plant some large trees down by the road for privacy, but I'm going to hire that out. I contacted a local landscape company to see what they charge, the nursery I usually buy stuff at isn't planting anymore.

The only perennial on my buy list is Anemone sylvestris. Going to replace some hellebore with the anemone. Should be easy to find this time of year and quick and easy to plant.

Same as Floral...but I make pesto with mine.

I started sorrel(I'm assuming rumex acetosa?) from seeds years ago so I can eat it but never actually got around to harvesting it. I moved them to my new house 2 years after I started from seed but is not as vigorous here.. doesn't seed for me either. Thanks for sharing the recipe, I might take some this year if they grow big enough. Right now they are just starting to show new growth and tiny

My grandma used to make sorrel soup, so I'd love to make it sometime. But I don't grow it, so unless someone brings it to the farmers market, I'm out of luck.

I do use a rooting powder when I feel it is a bit of a crap shoot - Rhizopon green is, imo, a very excellent product which outsrips gels and most other brands.

There are any number of greggii varieties now so almost impossible to say for sure what variety you have but cerro potosi is an old and classic variety. Alsopopular are the smaller 'Mirage' cultivars which top out at around 60cm.

I would treat your cutting with a dipping of hormone powder, pop it in a lean mix of soil and grit (or perlite) and cover with a cloche - plastic bottles cut in half, upended over a small pot to make an airtight fit is ideal. Leave in bright shade for 2-3 weeks when you should strt to see roots. Resist the urge to poke about. Good luck - salvias are usually very amenable to growing from a cutting.

Maybe it might help: even though I have gardened for decades and decades... I only just started propagating about 5 years ago. This past season I started trying all kinds of things. I don't claim to be an expert, and I'm really willing to learn something new 🥰

I would trim off each side shoot. Or you could take heel cuttings by simply stripping off the side shoots by hand. Little 2 - 3 inch cuttings take quite fast. My photos of Salvia cuttings are on a different device but this article pretty much covers it. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/sep/22/how-to-create-new-plants-for-free

No worries on the seeds! I don't "need" another mallow. I was asking because I was trying to picture it in my mind. Seemed to remind me of one of my favorites that is just now gearing up, Callirhoe digitata (poppy mallow. HA!). Can't wait for hot pink wispy flowers.

https://www.prairiemoon.com/callirhoe-digitata-fringed-poppy-mallow

Here's another: a ratty vine is tethered to a fence by the tool shed. It's blooming this week... Carolina jessamine?

Lovely. I've grown a dark one like that in the past.

Delightful. Primulas have always been a struggle (lean soil, dry climate) but I do grow the smaller types in pots (trying chionantha and secundiflora this year). Auriculas and cowslips(p.veris) do well for me in the openground, while oxslips (elatior) and the likes of japonica or beesianum need continual replacements. Plus,the vine weevil nightmare (I have to use nematodes). I tend to avoid miffy plants (cos negligent and lazy) but willmake both the exception and the effort for primulas.

I did once have an absolute horror (but beloved by many) - a horrid striped one with dark leaves, (Dark Rosaleen), given to me by a nursery owner friend. Passed on as soon as I decently could.

Despite being a less than together gardener, I am afraid that I am also a massive snob with puritanical tendencies (only towards plants though). Those brightly coloured polys are not getting traction in my garden (and yet, to show my double standards, even the most austere of the auriculas are distinctly gaudy)..

Um I planted 2 packs in pots and did not get one to germinate

Put the pots in the fridge for 4weeks - they like a bit of a cold spell. Keep them uncovered.

No, I wouldn't bother cos they are easy to raise from seed (but I don't much like them either).

Gardengal and rosaprimula,

thanks both for your replies. I am attracted to the colors. I found them in a farmer’s market and they do not carry the same varieries each year. Good to know it is easy to grow them from seeds. I will also try to overwinter them in garage

Yep, splendens is more commonly red. I am immune to it's charms after being mortified by certain patriotic UK bedding schemes featuring alyssum, salvia and lobelia erinus (I don't grow alyssum or lobelia either)

I tuck my pants in my socks (have never worn shorts in my life).

Omg. I was trimming and weeding my blackberries this afternoon and when I got inside I found a tick walking on my hand!

Thank you to everyone who commented!

Mazerolm, That’s interesting that your self sown seedlings are just as dark as the parent. A small percentage of mine are on Dark Towers. Most of them have green foliage and are taller, with larger flowers which I assume must be the traits of one of the parents.

I’d like to see what your seedlings look like when they bloom this year…

'I don't know how you hold so much detail in your head'

O Prairie - almost certainly because there is not much else going on (vague and confused).

So are you saying that paulownias are on a notifiable list in every state? It is increasingly grown as a street tree here in the UK. I agree that knowledge of what we are planting is always worthwhile but feel increasingly uncomfortable with polarised positions used to apply to all. Might just be a response to the creeping authoritarian populism which passes for government, these days. I dunno.

Anyway, tHere are a few plants which are illegal to propagate and yep, Japanese knotweed is one. It isn't strictly true that you cannot get a mortgage with it on your property as with all these things,there are caveats...not least a definite whiff of profiteering after a single legal precedent was used to establish a law which a heap of pest control companies gleefully exploited. While there are a few mortgage lenders which remain cautious, the moral panic in urban property exchanges has diminished...which is not to say that it isn't a tremendous problem in rural and unmanaged locations (it is) we just don't have anything like as much'wilderness' in the UK and most of the problematic species have generally been riverine.

Yep, it's a tricky one, isn't it? In fairness, I am not that keen on seeing Paulownias appearing around my hometown because they are problematic inasmuch as like any fast-growing tree, there will be a cost - stability and strength and worse, our town planning dept. is woefully lacking in horticultural rigour with a tendency to go for the fashionable quick fix. There has been expensive and widescale removal of another of these fashionably popular trees ( rose acacia - robinia hispida ) after generally failing to endure the hurly-burly of urban street life...and I don't think Paulownias are going to be exempt from this either, in the next decade or so...but you know, that line between 'fact' and 'opinion' is often very blurred and we do tend to make sweeping statements on the internet. I know I do - I am not one whit less opinionated or lippy than I have ever been...just a tad more circumspect - possibly because the more I learn, the more I realise I 'know' sod-all.

I absolutely abhor the whole 'culture wars' around 'woke', 'free speech', nationalism etc. and the insane attempts to categorise every aspect of life in terms of ideological purity with a 'with us or against us' mentality.

I like nice jewelry though I rarely buy it. I find those pieces to be awkward in scale.

Tacky. Looks cheap.

nemophilas (various, all lovely), phacelia campanulata, vaccaria, gypsophila repens, silene coeli- rosa "Blue Angel', phlox drummondii, convolvulous tricolour.

also a bunch of slightly tender daisies such as ursinia, platystemon, layia, dimorpotheca, arctotis, zinnia marylandica, heliophila.

The company you have on Amazon is great, been buying off them for years. Just got a order in the mail from them. Try the code Amazon at check out for 10 percent off the order.

A lot of us garden intuitively, westes. I might test my soil if I had problems, but I generally observe my plants and alter their care according to the way they falter. Soil tests are interesting and informative, but certainly not mandatory. A plant that doesn't like it moist is not going to like a moist mulch---no matter the soil underneath.

Charles Kidder, I can't imagine any climate where a compost mulch couldn't be recommended. People nowadays don't seem to know about using compost as a mulch, because in the 70s all of a sudden everybody embraced the wood industry's successful marketing of wood chip mulches, resulting in a total hijacking of the term 'mulch'. I never saw that fast food style wood mulch until I actually saw my first MacDonalds. When I was a kid, my father (who came from hot Oklahoma) called our compost pile the 'mulch' pile.

I do think wood chip mulches are fine if you can't get compost---better than a stick in the eye.

I grow loads of bulbs in containers...but mostly cheap ones which I grow for one season then toss - tulips,iris reticulata, crocus, babiana, sparaxis, dahlias, begonias. Lilies and smaller narcissus are the exception in that I have ancient lilies and hoop petticoats which return, year on year, in the same pots. Species tulips are always good to grow in a pot,then replant in the ground the following autumn., but I don't bother with garden hybrids as they split too easily and come up blind the next year.

@ LaLennoxa - Well, it's all a learning experience, right? Even if it's just learning what your limits are. Yes, throwing them into a compost pile will turn them into something good. I salvaged about a dozen hyacinth bulbs and half dozen daff bulbs, just by continuing to water them indoors until it was nice enough to bring them outside. The potted remains of the bulbs are outside getting watered when needed until it's time to plant them. But in your case, once they've been out all winter and didn't make it, you're right, they will turn into nutrient rich soil.

And you don't have to give up on a 'glorious spring display' for next year, you just have to come at it a different way next time.

Yes, I think what I had really reinforced for me is that planting directly in the ground works best for me for bulbs. I’ve taken on another double plot at a community garden. So one plot will be for garlic; the other plot will be my “holding plot” for excess bulb planting and overwintering stuff.

Well, good luck with your new clematis plants!! I hope they are delightful and grow well for you. :)

Heya Cynthia,

A useless comment from me since I am not on the same continent and worse, I don't even grow that many roses anymore but just want to post my admiration for your indomitable spirit. I thought I had a true pash but it turns out I am just a dilettante so yep, sending you my hopeful thoughts that you get the garden you honestly truly deserve in the face of unstinting service to rose love.

Daylily 'Tetrina's Daughter': very fragrant, and I like the shape of the flower better than 'Hyperion'. Daylily 'Penny's Worth': tiny rebloomer, under 12" I think.

No response from garden fanatic - are we shouting into the void?

Exactly so, linaria. The pots are easily dismantled so there is none of that uprturning pots, loosening soil etc. The sides are fastened by a plastic grommet which allows the walls to detach from the bottom. And yep, no root girdling or blocking of drainage holes. And with a drip system, the soil is held at an optimal level of moisture. But these advantages do not really translate to garden use. Ignoring their looks (although I, couldn't) the design flexibility comes at a cost of robust functionality - they are not suitable to the hurly-burly of a garden like mine, where plants are moved about weekly, hidden or displayed according to bloom cycle - grommets popping off, bottoms, falling out...so no, mine have been dismantled and boxed in the allotment shed for years, as they were also smaller ones which really didn't justify their use.

Thanks all for the feedback.

(If I ever did use one, I would have it in the garden surrounded by other plants rather than out on a deck or patio for all to see)

Yup, agree that they are ugly indeed!

debra

I am not a lifelong gardener - I am almost a cliche in that I came to gardening fairly late, when my offspring were adolescent and I could have a garden which was more than stomped earth and a random collection of old bikes, footballs, dog balls. When one of the offspring decided to 'tidy up' the (ahem) 'garden', we rushed off to buy a coupla plants, one of which was 'Honorine de Jobart' japanese anemone (which I still have in the garden after. 25 or so years..and the other was Madame Gregoire Staechelin. While I adored Madame G, it was the later acquisition of r.hugonis which started me on a path I have rarely stepped off - one bounded by briars, eglantines, woodbine and musk rose- a romantic intersection of gardening, literature and the deep green lushness of the English countryside (but without pig-farms, rural deprivation, industrial agriculture etc). A ridiculous, highly improbable fantasy of lush wilderness, cow parsley, bluebells, campions and especially, the simple 5 petalled beauty of apple blossom, dogroses and primroses.

The Alnwick Rose! I always avoided roses before discovering the DA roses at a local nursery, my idea of roses were the old sickly hybrid teas my mom grew in the shade at our house growing up that rarely bloomed

I still have the teas. Oklahoma was a favorite of mine, so rich, so lush, so fragrant. Also had Don Juan, George Burns, Julia Child, Tranquillity, Marilyn Monroe - sigh. We moved in 2018, taking only the teas and the two Austins, Munstead and Darcey Bussell. Also brought my three Sexy Rexys.
Even though my lot here is tiny, I’ve done what I could. Climbers: Raspberry Cream Twirl, Lavender Crush, three Renaes. Moonstone, Our Lady of Guadalupe, and Love Song do well here, as do minis and minifloras. I sp’d the Sexy Rexys, replacing them with Bolero and Full Sail. Dream Come True is fantastic. Memorial Day is probably my current favorite. I was gifted a Princess Alexandra of Kent, and I do like it although it’s not a frequent bloomer. Can’t end this without mentioning Life of the Party. What a winner!

My Lady Hillingdon is in its second year - she didn’t do much in 2023,but I have high hopes, and have given her a lot of room. I love teas, and would grow more if I had space for them,

My dad grew roses back in Staten Island. Also vegetables and, yes, figs, in zone 7. I inherited the gene.
I do miss my big yard and the citrus trees - Valencia orange and lemon - but as life goes on, I’m kinda-sorta happy I don’t have that much to do anymore. Although I have no room (famous last words), I have two new polyanthas from Burling, in pots right now, and a Fragrant Plum that will have to go in the
ground sometime.

Naturally I’m looking forward to Otto and Sons Rose Days this month, and will probably not walk out of there empty-handed. Maybe an apricot this year.

Update: Well, blow me down -- I have parsley seedlings! IDK if it's the sheer fact I bought fresh seed or what, but this last round germinated. I put a note on the seed packet to buy fresh every year, just in case that it was did the trick.

Yep, all the apiaceae need fresh seed for germination. Same with ranunculaceae too, I think.

Omg the thought of planting 400-500 bulbs makes me start shaking lol. I love the bloom of spring bulbs but hate planting them! Hadn't done any for the last few years but last year I bit the bullet and planted some more daffs and crocus and am certainly glad NOW that I did!

You guys MUST show us pictures of your hundreds of bulbs in bloom!

:)

Dee

Cold damage manifests itself in the weeks and months after a freeze. I wouldn't risk it. Especially not in a container - why wouldn't you make an effort to move it under cover. Last year, I lost ALL my agapanthus, salvias, scented pelargoniums and citrus after a perfectly normal UK winter (but had got lazy and complacent) so I guess I am a bit more circumspect now...although I do get it that you are keen to push the zone envelope.

tree time is counted in decades ,.. this is a truly huge tree in its native range ...

damage on evergreen conifers can take months to 'show' ...

i suspect you will see significant damage when the heat of summer hits.. especially if you do not move it to full bright shade with summer sun ...

with the cold temps.. the damaged tissue will not brown.. until the heat hits...

i hope im wrong... let me know... would be very happy for you.. if i was.. were??

ken

Deer already ate my Norfolk, my A. araucana in the ground is fine, along with the A. bidwillii. OP said nothing about freezing temps, only snow. We have had snow here in the upper 40's. This species will be fine untiess temps remain below 40 for an extended time.

Yep - day and night time patrols (hunt and kill) save my tiny garden (eventually)...but the allotment...bloody hell. Twice as wet as normal, mild winter, gastropod heaven.

My garden is containerised GG - just provides extra hiding spaces (such as under the rim of containers). You could try nematodes though,if you do get an infestation - can work well in containers (I have to do vine weevil nematodes twice a year). No good for protecting the hundreds of seedlings in teeny pots though.

Lost my entire pot of salvia subrotunda so at least I won't be fretting about where to plant 'Giant Brazilian Red'. Mind, also lost an entire seed run of delphinium nudicaule, icelandic poppies, dryas octopetala, teucrium hircanicum, salvia roemeria...

Sadly slugs and snails are not deterred by coffee grounds around plants. They happily attack my hostas even when the soil is entirely covered in them. https://www.gardenmyths.com/getting-rid-slugs-coffee-grounds/

As for spraying coffee on foliage, I believe the experiments were done with a caffeine solution, not brewed coffee. And in a wet climate spraying anything is a hiding to nothing. I'd be applying it everyday.

I've just removed three of my giant garden snails from a clematis obelisk. I cleared it yesterday too. And the day before ...

I'm sure you have done research and have tried a number of things, but don't give up, all you need is ONE way that works. Seek and you shall find.... 🙂

25 ways to rid your garden of slugs and snails

12 Natural ways to rid your garden of snails

Natural Predators of snails and slugs

A Western Washington Gardener's secret to ridding her garden of snails and slugs

The self-set seedlings can take a few years to get to flowering size, so I try to sow easy annuals around. Does nothing to speed up hellebore gro'wth but does give you something interesting to look at while waiting. This year, I have the ubiquitous love in the mist' (nigella damascena), perpetually self-sowing limnanthes (have a white,with pink veins, this year - limnanthes rosea) and a lovely borage relative - omphalodes nitida) - nothing thuggish. The annuals seem to act as nurse plants for the tiny hellebore seedlings, while disguising the less than stellar older hellebore foliage.

I know this may sound a bit simple, Prairie...but I often find water to be the best 'fertiliser'...at least in the normally arid eastern half of the UK.

" I can barely get them established in heavy shade. "

And that makes a certain amount of sense :-) Hellebores are shade tolerant but not necessarily shade lovers. Most species in their natural habitat grow in quite open locations and some are native to very dry, sunny climates and prefer as much sun as possible (eg. H. argutifolius).

Ideally, most of the popular hybrids like the early season sun position under the canopy of deciduous trees. This provides maximum sunlight when in flower but some protection to the foliage in the heat of summer once the trees leaf out. Heavy shade is not at all to their liking.

Here’s another clump I have growing. The original was the yellow - I don’t know the variety. At the time, I had no idea they were actually producing seedlings, I just left it there and the clump slowly grew. Then I realized there was a pink variety working its way in there…then I began to notice there were seedlings and the pink maybe was coming from the new seedlings…you can see from the second photo the small up and coming seedlings…

Do you think it looks vaguely hawkweedish (hieraceum), Floral? Don't laugh, I am trying to get better at screen ID (am much better IRL)

There are loads of fleabanes and hawkweeds (and bits). I have tried to categorise them all in my head (failed).

Erigeron philidelphicus looks right. http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?flora_id=1&taxon_id=250068358 right.

I was wondering about that one but, never having seen it, I didn't want to stick my neck out. We should know soon.

"... i think i’ll file it away as Not Quite Wendy’s Wish!..."

I'm sorry I can't help you with your ID, but your comment made me smile. Years - decades! - ago, I kept trying to buy a hosta. I think it might have been Royal Standard but I can't quite remember. I must have bought something labeled as Royal Standard at least five times, by mail order, different companies, etc., and each time when it came up, it was NOT Royal Standard. So I had a little hosta bed named "Not Royal Standard". It got to be rather fun after awhile lol.

:)

Dee