Hi everyone and Happy New Year! My first gardening plan is to be more active here than I was in 2010. Life got in the way last year- Dad had more health issues, I had serious time issues, the cats, dogs and yard had tons of issues or their own, yadda, yadda, yadda.

My second plan is to go back to planting mostly hardy plants. After that huge freeze last Jan, I had whole beds brown and bare. After the spring swap I started to fill them, but it seems with mostly tender plants. After the December freezes, those spots are back to bare and brown. I hate that! 95% of front yard is hardy, and it's green year round. It's time to do that to the backyard...so keep that in mind for the spring Tampa swap, I'll need hardy plants, lol.
Lori

Here is a link that might be useful: My plants, my yard, my photos

For 2011 I'm going to try to keep my nuts from freezing!

Explanation for people who's mind wandered into the abyss.
I grow various nut trees here, pine nuts, walnuts, chestnuts, macadamia nuts, hazel nuts, peanuts, pecan nuts, etc. but I'm still searching for a grapenuts plant so I can grow breakfast.

Nutty Lou

" pine nuts, walnuts, chestnuts, macadamia nuts, hazel nuts, peanuts, pecan nuts, etc. but I'm still searching for a grapenuts"

Perhaps you're nuts? ;)

I want some Chinese Chestnut trees. The Americans are too whompin' big for my situation here. So, do you have any slant eyed Chestnuts growing? I need to fit my Chestnut dreams in with my solar power system reality.

I want to plant more hardy evergreen-type plants so there will be some green in the garden beds when freezes turn tropicals brown. Thinking about hollies, for a start. What do you have in your front yard, Crueltyfre?
Marcia PA/FL

Hi all,happy new year! I am currently re doing a flower bed that was full shade,now do to my huge oak dying(Thanks to hurricane charlie 2004)I have a full sunny bed so moving out shampoo gingers,cinammon gingers,iris,leaving in white 4 oclocks,&adding in morning glories&moon vine.I dont make plans mother nature seems to dictate that for me,LOL:>

Captturbo,
I have two Chinese chestnut trees that I had planted late spring-early summer of 2010 but I ain't gonna dig them up. I learned about the American chestnut trees later that some had survived and were blight free, so I bought some of those nuts to start the American chestnut trees too. They are in their cold 10 week cycle in the fridge right now and will be planted soon to sprout up.

Lou

Thanks for a couple of laurel oaks dying; the buried stump that intruded into the designated pond/fountain has been ground out - so finish up the pond/fountain and do some pretty and freeze tolerant planting around it.

This week-end has been a freenzy of seed planting. I've close to 100 seedling cups going for winter brassica's. Determined to fill up the freezer before the season is over. Hopefully I have learned a few things from hanging around here (and protecting the nuts ha-ha) and from the test plantings. Hopefully ....

Working in the garden + eating healthy veggie greens will hopefully combine to = lower cholesterol and blood pressure at next year's annual checkup.

So those are the plans that are hopefully achievable. Now, for the pie in the sky I can dream plans ....

Finally finishing clearing the NE wilderness and making it through the year with no surgeries!

~Dianne

Lou, if you're growing hazlenut and macadamia, I'd be very interested to know the varietes, especially the hazelnuts. I'm guessing they would do well in northern Baker County but doubt the macadamia would survive. Your opinion, please
Cora

Lou, I envy you having the room to plant so many wonderful trees. I know that planting the American chestnuts would be a mistake for me. I think I can get away with three or four Chinese chestnut trees though. I don't suppose you saved any chestnuts from yours that I could try sprouting?

I don't think I ever tasted the American chestnut but we had Chinese chestnuts in our orchard at the farm where I grew up in NE Ohio. I always loved to gather the nuts and freeze them for the Holidays. I'm coming to the bottom of my hoard of frozen nuts now and can't stand the thought of not having them again.

Marcia-my front yard is total shade, so I have Florida Anise, SweetBox and coontie shrubs, with lots of hardy ferns and bromeliads as fillers, and liriope as edging under oak, pines and a crape myrtle. Other shade stuff that did well with the cold weather was brunfelsia lactea, a maple sugar hibiscus, grand duke jasmine, nandina and hardy begonia's down the side yard. Bamboo came out fine as well. Honeysuckle did great freeze wise, though suffering some unknown affliction at the moment so looking nasty.
Lori

I am going to extend the front flower bed to make it a semicircle. That will give me a place to plant the Vitex and Rose of Sharon that gatormom gave me along with some other things. It will also appeal more to my accountant's sense of visual balance. :-) I'll move some of the plants around to places where they are better suited. I will look for bargains to add some hardscape like short fencing and archways. I will continue the fight against the wild grape and potato vines along my south fence.

That's if I get to all of it...

Melissa

Thanks, Lori. I have mostly sun, but think I'll look into nandina and bamboo.
Marcia

Cory,

The filbert trees are Corylus Americana.
The Macadamia are from seeds sent to me from a Calif friend.
He didn't know the name of them when I asked.
I also know a merchant mariner on a container ship that has collected seeds for me from the far east.

Lou

Thanks, Lou. I'm guessing that these past two very cold winters increased the harvest on the filbert trees. I remember my Dad telling me they grew wild up in Indiana.
How lucky to have a friend to collect seeds from around the world for you! I had a friend who was a long distance truck driver who collected seed and interesting seed pods. We used a lot of them to decorate wreaths and floral aggangements.
cora

Captturbo,

Plant a few of those Chinese nuts you have in cold storage. They usually stay viable for a few years under refrigeration, and if they sprout you'll have nuts in 3 to 5 years. They bear when small. You will need at least two trees for cross pollination. One chestnut will not self pollinate.

Lou

I went into Tropiflora in Sarasota today and told them I'd like to buy some bromeliads to freeze. He didn't quite get it.

My New Year's job has begun. I'll be taking out a wild overgrown patch of ferns and begin making a solid and beautiful shade garden.

Carol B.

No dice Lou on using the ones I have had frozen. I peeled or shelled them at least five years ago when I was last up there to harvest any.

I'm determined to get some young trees though. I'm trying to rally interest with a brother and a neighbor to plant trees too. If things click I should be putting in an order from one place or another within the coming week.

Maybe I will start a Chestnut tree thread tomorrow to get lots of insight from the Web folks and learn some more. I've been reading what I can find from on line searches all day and still have some questions so it would be a fun thread.

Carol - I swear that some people just have no sense of humor. It made me laugh. Good luck with your project.

Melissa