I've Got Planting Fever!

16 years ago

Maybe its because I was essentially overheated from July to mid-September, but this cool weather is making me itchy to plant as much as I can right now. This week I have put in:

* 2 mandarin trees - a Kishu on standard rootstock and a Gold Nugget on drawf rootstock;

* A mess of salvias: brandegei, munzii 'Baja Blue', clevelandii 'Winifred Gilman', leucophylla 'Figueroa', officinalis 'Berggarten', mellifera x ? 'Shirley's Creeper', and best of all, 2 trannsylvannica and one virdris I grew from seed.

* a Ceanothus 'Concha'

* a Lavatera 'Black Heart'

* a Leucophyllum frutescens

* a Lupinus chamissonis

* planted two rows each of beets and soybeans

* started flats of broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, cilantro, lettuce, basil and various other lupines.

I feel so productive, but am paying the price in all the parts of the body that bend (or use to).

Anyone else feeling the planting bug?

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Comments (9)

huachuma
16 years ago
Hi Dicot,

I've been putting in my winter vegetable garden since the temps have moderated. So far I've planted 5 types of lettuce, spinach, garlic, 2 types of strawberries, yukon potatoes, 4 types of onions, rhubarb, ginger (grown from store bought rhizomes, and artichokes. I've also planted three types of peas and three types of carrots from seed.

We started harvesting yellow and green string beans a couple weeks ago (planted the first of August).

Yummmmmm...

Mike
gobluedjm 9/18 CA
16 years ago
My haul from the past 2 days

Ca fuchsia Epilobium U.C. Hybrid
Flannel Bush Fremontodendron californica San Gabriel
Manzanita Arctostaphylos Dr Hurd
Cape mallow Anisodontea
Cape Honeysuckle
Butterfly Bush Black Knight
Escallonia Pink Princess
2- Lantana
2- Salvia Greggii
Salvia Clevelandii Winifred Gilman
Trichostema lanatum woolly blue curls
Flat of pansies
3 mexican sage bush
3 felicia blue daisy
Bush Violet Barleria obtuse
Penstemon raven
Bush Germander
Ceanothus Tassajara Blue
Dwarf bottlebrush

Some are in today the rest tomorrow.
AND is it raining, just a few short scattered showers moving thru. YAY!
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youreit
16 years ago
We've been getting some really nice rains up here near Sac, so my itch is ready to be scratched, too. :D

Just started some Centaurea montana seeds I got from a nice lady in CT, and I have tons of herb seeds to start, which I received in a trade. Went plant shopping last weekend, so it's time to get some of these plants in the ground. Not as many as you all have been planting, though! If I had more room....:D

I LOVE fall!

Brenda
kelpmermaid
16 years ago
With last night's rain, recent plantings should be getting off to a good start.

I went up to the Theodore Payne sale yesterday and bought a few plants (coyote mint, CA fuschia UC, and manzanita Louis Edmunds) but have not yet planted them. Now I'll have to wait until things dry out a bit. I also have some irises and a shrubby monkeyflower to plant - still deciding what goes where.
wanda
16 years ago
We got a little rain one night this week and it softened the soil a bit. When I heard it was going to rain again yesterday, I loaded my stash of plants that I had been buying all summer and started planting my heart out trying to beat the rain. I did and they all got a great watering in.

I planted
Eriogonum fasciculatum (3)
Eriogonum arborescens (2)
Encelia farinosa (2)
Coffeeberry 'Eve Case'
Arctostaphylus refugioensis (1)
Philadelphus lewisii ssp. californicus 'Margerie Schmidt'
Vaccinium ovatum (2)
Cleveland sage 'Winfred Gilman'
Carex pansa (3)

I usually like to wait until after Thanksgiving to start planting natives, but with the coolish weather and the early rains, my itch was to itchy to ignore. LOL

I got my winter veggies planted last weekend (Broccoli, lettuces, spinach, and snap peas) and put some pansy's and violas in pots.

I still have about 8 Clematis to plant, 3 or 4 Dudleyas, and some misc. stuff sitting around. There's some existing plants that I want to move, but I'll wait til the ground is really wet to move those.

I love the coolish overcast days. It's just great for planting.

wanda
dicot
Original Author
16 years ago
That's funny Kelpmermaid, I was at Theodore Payne yesterday too from about noon - 2pm. We might have walked right past each other. I have to say, as much as I love TP, I was really disappointed in their selection of Salvia dorii, clevelandii, sonomensis and other of the traditional CA natives, which is why I bought the named cultivars instead. So many of them were tiny, yellowing sticks in a 1 gallon for $8. You can't beat their native seed selection though. So that is todays task, soak those perennial lupines and get some more flats ready for them and my recent trade acquisitions.
gobluedjm 9/18 CA
16 years ago
I went to Theodore Payne on thursday to avoid the crowd and got my natives then.

Today I went to local nursery and got more:
Cuphea starfire pink
BennetÂs white rock rose Cistis hypridus
Salvia Ecuador
Salvia greggii red
Salvia greggii purple
Salvia sylvestris bluehill

and I checked the rain gauge and I got half inch last night.
kelpmermaid
16 years ago
Dicot, we were there at the same time. LOL! I really didn't notice people though, I was so intent on the plants.

I didn't really look at the salvias because I am set there, but they certainly smelled wonderful. I wonder what the selection was for the previous week's preview.
deep___roots
16 years ago
The Bay Area got some good rain on Friday. I had planted some onion sets, ixia, sparaxis and some other south african bulbs and freesias, as well as cabbage & cauliflower plants the weekend before.
This morning before work I dug two holes (one for a lilac, one for a crepe myrtle) and will plant tonight. I still have a conifer, a hydrangea and a fern to situate.
But I tell ya, some nurseries around here are having sales (40% off) and when I see the customers with 3 or 4 carts full of big plants, I know how much work is ahead for them and I smile to myself.

I've Got Planting Fever!

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