SNAPDRAGONS FOR 2010 - WHOSE IN #3

I'm hoping I'm giving you the right advice. Just basing it on the fact that impatiens do ok in your summer heat. Snapdragons are a winter annual flower down here. I just planted snapdragon seeds last week in small containers and can move them into the garden in October. They generally start blooming for me in early December and continue blooming until the end of April. Once the tropical heat/humidity/intense sun begins in May they die back.

Jon, your advise sounds pretty good. It would work in my zone and I am north of her.

I guess there's one way to find out!

Yup, gardening, by trial and error! Thats US!

I have a terrible confession to make. I made a list of favorite plants from every place I've lived and have been planting them here one by one. (Well, I did try to find zone-compatible varieties of each one.) Talk about trial and error! Some have done well and some, not so much, as you might expect. Poor things. I know you're not supposed to do it that way but some plants are so beloved you just want to have them around.

That all makes perfect sense to me. I think we're all guilty of attempting to grow something "out of zone". Picking the right variety can help and finding the right location outside can help also. Personally I've had lots of failures, but the few success stories make it worth the efforts.

Failures keep us humbe.Besides with all of them, we have more to brag about!! LOL!

Some years I have gotten so much traded seed I just make a long bed or big patch and put it all in willyscrambled and hope something comes. Rainbows can be fun. You ought to see my 4clock patch! I kept all the seed from last year and put it in a 150 foot long bed and its pretty neat.. although its skippy in some spots with poor soil,the colors are neat and when the flowers open, holy cow, the aroma is awesome! Sorry no pic of it... maybe tomorrow

One of the things I've been happiest with is a Turkey fig. My father always had one in Texas and loved to eat them, and they have such a distinctive shape and leaf. I set one out in a raised bed last year and buried it in straw for the winter. We had some unusual cold this year and the fig looked moribund until late May, when I could see some little fingernails of leaves. Now it's ten feet tall!

(Garden design is my next trick. Maybe I didn't really want a ten-foot tall fig in the middle of the small vista I am trying to create but heck, I'm just glad it grew.)

LOL! Well, sometimes you just have to let things grow where they choose!

150-foot bed of flowers! You must have an amazing garden. Pictures today?

Yano, its hard to take a pic of that bed!

Well, here it is. a portion of it anyway and too bad the clocks were not open... it looks rangey when they are closed! I have potted plants sitting onthe rr ties right now for lack of a better place to put them until I prepair another bed.

I envy you having so much space! But I suppose it's a lot of work, too.

oh my achin back.. ! Actually work is what you make of it.. Having a lot of space gives way to creativity and mass mowing! I hate pulling weeds by hand and every year I for some reason need a mower extracted from my posterior! On one hand downsizing is a blessing on the other.. I run out of space too fast...just no happy medium I tell ya! It is one reason why i am a daylily addict.

Weeding does suck. It's the most time consuming thing to maintain a decent "look". Try to stay at it every month so things don't get out of control. The 3-4 inches of deep mulch does help, but weeds pop out so fast down here in the summer with out consistent rains.

Weeding in the mulch is a joy, weeding in the dirt.. well....puts a new spin on the carpal tunnel symptoms!

What a bust for me! I only got about 2 snaps.. this one and an orange one. None of the seed I had germed except for this pink and I am inclined to beleive its a stray from last year!

Still, they are very pretty - I wouldn't kick them out of the bed!

Well, they are in a pot.. I am liable to transplant them so I can bring theminside too!

Better still!

;>)

Well, the last of the snaps.. these were in my cutting garden, I potted them.. dont know if they survived the shock.. they are in the GPS.

I still have the pink ones to move.

Brave babies! The last ones are always so sweet.

They are still blooming! LOL!

Ok, time for Snappers 2011!

Anyone coming?

C'mon over....

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