My Annual Winter Window Garden

anna_in_quebec

10 years ago

Left to right: Desire, Violetta, Dancing Queen, Celebration, and Barbados.

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Comments (15)

kaboehm (zone 9a, TX USA)
10 years ago
Anna.... The first thing I noticed was the empty spot in the middle. Looks like the perfect spot for a new kitten...any plans?

Looks like you have many other blooms coming soon!
K
anna_in_quebec
Original Author
10 years ago
Are you psychic, Karen?? A recent rescue last fall, then an abandoned wee kitten just after our ice-storm at Christmas and before the coldest weather ever. She would not have made it had we not found her! Both are pictured here :)
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Begonias are tender perennials for the most part and that includes semperflorens (wax) begonias. You can take cuttings to increase your stock. They root fairly easily. Semperflorens need higher light to be at their best so move it outdoors when you can (indoors they just don't do much at all) - not full sun but morning sun should be fine. Dappled or indirect sun would be excellent.
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Thank you for all your kind comments. The Buddleia is my real treasure and Trudi and Tiffy I must thank you so much for your advice. I was planning to cut it back in the next few weeks, so you really saved me. I met a young man recently (horticultural student) who was surprised I could grow Buddleia here. He advised me to wrap it for winter, but it's about 7 feet tall. I think I will mulch the roots with leaves as I did to the little plants I put in last fall. v1rtu0s1ty, I sowed two different sets of Budddliea seeds and only one set germinated. They were fresh seeds, taken from my neighbour's sister's garden in Toronto. You may want to try again with seed harvested this year. Vera, I swear by M. fistulosa. I grew it in full sun last year and had a huge, 6 foot tall plant. This year in part shade, it's more manageable. I will be discarding my M. didyma which is always full of worms and gets PM even in full sun. Thanks for the hint about the tea - it's now 5:23 and I've been up since 2:30 a.m. This is the third year for the perennial sweet pea. I got the seeds in a trade in 2006. They grew beautifully in a large pot, and these plants were a few extras which I planted in front of my peony to grow over it. After getting no flowers, I realized they were the perennials. The plants grew last year and had only one bloom, but this spring they took off. They are very vigorous plants and I think I should move them - too near the front of the bed. But the blooms were glorious - perfectly formed flowers of pale pink, white, pale blue. I even had a small vase of them on my deck table. I spent my first few years of WSing planting lots of perennials and large flowering shrubs. It seemed spent those years madly scurrying around the garden, moving seedlings, planting, weeding. This year was more relaxed: fewer containers and it has been devoted to annuals: petunias, nasturtiums, marigolds, daturas, four o'clocks, which have been very rewarding. I have so many differnt types of petunias which are really very beautiful flowers, if you take the time to look at them. They are all still in bloom as well as many of my late flowering perennials, so my garden still has lots of colour. I would never have achieved this without Winter Sowing, so hats off to Trudi!! You are really a treasure!! Northerner.
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I'm in northeast MS and I bet it DOES get cold in NW Ark, as far as I'm concerned. I'm originally from deep southeast Louisiana, and it's already getting cold "up" here! Well I will give you some suggestions. First, find out if the plants you have are annual or perennial in your zone. If they are annual then they will die permanently when it freezes. What you can do is collect the seeds around this time, label and save (use envelopes, ziploc bags, or old pill bottles, and label. Keep in cool, dry place). You can replant those seeds come spring. Or better yet, visit the "winter sowing forum" here on gardenweb, and you can sow those seeds during winter and the plants will be ready in spring. Some of those annuals, however, will reseed, meaning some of the seeds have already fallen, or go ahead and let them fall, and if you have bare soil there, many will come up again in spring. You could also dig and pot up those annuals, if you have a garage or place you can overwinter them indoors. You can also take cuttings, like I do of coleus, now, and keep the cuttings in my garage over winter, replant after last frost. If the plant is a perennial, that means it will come back year after year. It may die back and look like it's gone, but it will come back. You would want to label those so you know where they are come spring. I'm not experienced with all the plants you've listed but I know that for me columbine comes back (but I also save the seeds, which are very easy to collect), four o'clocks reseed, and also seed is very easy to collect, morning glories definitely reseed, and are well-known for that, I think sedum is perennial, also very easy to take cuttings, let's see parsley, basil, zinnias are annuals; zinnias reseed but also can collect seed easily. My chives come back but also very easy to get seed, lavendar should be perennial but there are several kinds. My thyme is very hardy even evergreen. Coral bells are perennial here. I hope this was somewhat helpful to you. Laurie
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I should point out that I'm not winter sowing for that back woodland area this year. I'm actually wintersowing edibles and flowers for my front garden - mostly edibles for the terraces and a herbaceous border for the side slopes. Growing plants from seed for my 1/4 acre front garden seemed ambitious enough for the first year... I have coughed up cash for foundation shrubs and trees, particularly ones necessary for privacy and to stabilize steep slopes and pull water out of wet areas. I picked up 10 Western Red Cedars and 10 Oregon Grape for now from the local native plant sale. That's about all the cedars we can fit in until we clear more uphill (and all the Tubex tree tubes I can afford). We'll put more in next year and keep working our way uphill. The Oregon Grape we're putting along the property line up the hill. Hopefully it will eventually block out the view of the neighbors driveway and parking pad so they're not looking in the back of the house. I'm still tempted to head out to the King County sale to pick up sword fern, which works really well here. The local sale only has shrubs and trees. As for island living, I'm personally in love with "the moat" as the locals call it. Keeps out the riffraff. ;) Living here would be much less convenient if we commuted, but we both work from home, so it suits us perfectly. We end up over on the mainland every week or two for some appointment or another, which keeps us from getting cabin fever.
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lenanen
10 years ago
Lovely Anna! Both your hippies and your cats.
How wonderful that you happened to find the little kitten just in time. A miracle indeed.
anna_in_quebec
Original Author
10 years ago
Thanks! And just so you know, I religiously remove the pollen off the hippy blooms, as we all know, it is toxic.
parodise
10 years ago
My deepest respect and admiration for having saved the two poor things! I see most of your bulbs are rather large and produce multiple scapes. How many times, roughly, have you already rebloomed them?
Lena
dondeldux z6b South Shore Massachusetts
10 years ago
I just got home and read your post and as soon as I saw your empty spot in the window in your first picture I had the same thought as Kristi!! Glad you found a warm furry body to fill the space! Lucky little kitty!! Oh, and your flowers are lovely too!

Donna
anna_in_quebec
Original Author
10 years ago
Donna - don't worry, there are other furry residents vying for that spot! They just have to get over the new ones - some of you may know how touchy that can be!

Lena - ah, that is quite the question! I have a basement full of old (resting) bulbs from previous years, that are now smaller, and many do not rebloom. But I cannot throw them out, and as long as there are leaves, and the bulb is a decent size, I hang on to it. So, the annual "pilgrimage" outdoors will begin again come summer. :) Hope springs eternal! The bulbs you see here are newly purchased this year, as I MUST have them every winter season.
anna_in_quebec
Original Author
10 years ago
Kristi !! of course I now that! - so sorry for saying Karen accidentally!
mariehass
10 years ago
Anna - what a lovely winter garden!!!!!!

Please pardon my stupid question. Why do they not rebloom? My Aphroditie is from 2011, My Red Lion is from 2012. My Chico is 2013, etc. They have lived happily by benign neglect through the summer. I bring them in before frost, rest them for about 6 - 8 weeks (October through mid-December) and they usually just restart themselves. My Aphroditie has about 3 offsets, and I just repotted all of it in a bigger pot so I can grow a "family".
parodise
10 years ago
Anna, I know what you mean about the difficulty of reblooming bulbs from the previous years. Mine have all also shrunk in size. I'm trying to give them sunnier spots and fertilize regularly. Come spring, they will all be moved to a sunny balcony. Hopefully, with some TLC they will bounce back and bloom for me next year. I have had a lot of Hippis just languish in the years following the first flush of blooms... This time I'm dead set on nurturing them back into the blooming frame of mind... and body, for that matter.
anna_in_quebec
Original Author
10 years ago
Well, I do what is best prescribed: sun and fertilizer over summer - they go outdoors - then indoors at the end of the summer, into the basement and I take leaves off as they fade. In the early days of my "mania" I did none of this, and for sure, since then I have been more mindful, and I do have more reblooms. Maybe I should just discard the really old bulbs, and maintain properly the recent ones. But, one year I was shocked to see a rather old bulb, quite small in size, produce a most exquisite scape with many blooms. Anyway - it is fun, and I like surprises - nothing like seeing that little "nose" emerging :)
And one year, an old San Remo, which had produced 3 offsets over a 2 or 3 years, finally bloomed with the offsets as well - now THAT was pure joy!
mariehass
10 years ago
Thank you, Anna and Parodise. I can see that growing these amaryllis is a labor of love and there is a lot I have to learn. Please do not take offence at my "why" questions. Sometimes I can be too direct. All of you have a lot more experience. Anna, what do you mean by "old" bulbs?

Marie
anna_in_quebec
Original Author
10 years ago
Old bulb, as in not bought this year, prepped by the professionals to bloom reliably. I buy new ones every year to guarantee I will have blooms in winter :-)
mariehass
10 years ago
Ah. Thank you. i was thinking "old" as in multiple years. I am dense. LOLs. :-D
jstropic (10a)
10 years ago
Anna,

Your window of blooms is absolutely gorgeous and I love the very lucky cat and kitten. How warm you home looks during a cold winter!
-J

My Annual Winter Window Garden

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kaboehm (zone 9a, TX USA)

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