Guess what! I have germination on my Nelly Moser seeds!!! I collected them this past spring and they are poking their heads through the dirt:)
This is the first time I've tried sowing the seeds in pots. I'm so excited so please help me keep them growing...any advice?
Winter dreaming of clematis...and chat, of course!
Fantastic! Now you'll encourage all of us to save and sow our seeds.
Just don't overwater them! I know I killed one clematis by giving it too much water.
Take photos for us and post them. Thanks!
Congratulations!!
Good luck with the seedlings! I hope my Omoshiro gets to look like yours, Pirl....I bought it last year and had a bloom on it, so fingers crossed for this year....
In-the-garden....How do you have them growing now? Lights? Careful on watering seedlings. Let me know I might be able to give some pointers, (have grown thousands of babies from seed, so I have a little experience, lol).
Such great pics and intersting info.
Pirl - i would love to come visit your gardens when it warms up. From the looks of your yard I may ask to move in with you:-) LOL!!
I remember way back you told me you grow japanese iris, i would love to see them in bloom.
Inthegarden - wow that's great that you got clematis seeds to germinate. How exciting, especially since I hear it is not easy to get clematis seeds to germinate.
We haven't had luck with clematis seeds either so I wish you luck.
Jack has calmed down from the early 90's when he'd grow 3000 seeds under lights every spring. Thank God! It was a lot to get planted every year.
Late June to early July is prime season for the JI's, Maureen. Come on out!
Sounds lovely Pirl. We will stay in touch. I would love to meet you and see your gardens in person. I met a really nice lady from GW, she lives in my town and grows like 1000 daylilys. She is great, we get along so good and she is crazy about gardening like me...even more so:-) So much fun hanging around with other plant/flower lovers!! I don't know if i am allowed to spread the word about a clematis coop on another forum- but if yes let me know and i will post info. I've ordered 6 clems and they are very inexpensive. I'm sure they are small but i don't mind growing them out.
Pirl - one last bit of info I have to share with you. I was told today by the new Director of Procurement that effective tomorrow I am being promoted to "buyer". Yay, i'm so happy. I've been trying to get this promotion for the past year. Just wanted to share my good news.
Congratulations!
You are not prevented from mentioning a sale. Many of us have been involved with co-op's that didn't do well at all and most plants died a sad death. I had one survivor so for my $48.00 I was not happy and would rather have had 3 nice big healthy plants from Brushwood.
Bring your friend out with you.
I did measure the height of the obelisk today and it's 53", Etelka.
Congratulations Maureen. I would love to see a daylily garden that big. I have to couple rightnow and want to add more.
We have had over 2000 daylilies but deadheading alone is back breaking work and only aches more as we age. At least they are easy to divide in the ground with just a sharp knife.
This has all changed but the line of daylilies went more than 120'. There are other daylily gardens as well.
How beautiful and green. I do not think I want a lot but would not mind having a few more daylilies. I can imagine the work it took you. Vines and bulbs are my favorite plants.
That's sweet. Which one is it?
Lachenelia (sp). I like the south african bulbs because come May I can push the pots to the side. They do not need water until the fall
This message was edited Jan 25, 2012 8:43 AM
Pirl, your gardens are beautiful.....lots of work, but lots of love! Last summer, no watering was needed here in CT....tried to keep the flowers from drowning!
Thank you, Marilyn. We had our share of rain and then you and I (along with so many others) suffered through that hideous heat wave with no rain at all.
I'm enjoying this winter and expect a call any moment now to help my friend dig plants to be moved to her new home in Michigan. She's already given me Sweet Tea heuchera and two daylilies.
You all are such GREAT inspiration. I love seeing everyone's pictures. I'm so grateful for the information and ideas from such wonderful gardeners. I have two wire trellises that I pulled from another area. I ordered Fijimusume and Little Mermaid to go on one and Happy Birthday and Moonfleet for the other. I SO wanted to order more and probably will but I just HAD to have these. ohboy ohboy ohboy!! kim
Good job, Kim. I've anchored a few trellises with rebar at the sides...just in case the vines get heavy or we have gusty winds. Have fun "just looking" at a few more.
Yup, we kinda do the same thing only we use metal fence posts that are shaped like a "u" and the trellis then fits in the "u" part. I'm intrigued by the rebar though as I want to make a new support system for my Lemon Chiffon. It sits next to an ash tree and I want it to "climb up" it. That's actually where the 2 trellises came from that I'm using for the four new clems. The LC grows about 12-15 feet up and it has never had enough "up top" to grow on so I drew out what I want this past weekend for DH to "digest." I want one long pole on each side of the tree and then I want to attach fencing to each long pole but have it "bow" out from the tree about 8-10 inches so, in theory, the LC can grow up inside of the support and go as high as I want. I was going to wrap bungee cord around the tree and the "bars" at the top and at the bottom. I want to not have to fuss with it or cut it back to the ground every time it gets big. At least not until every 5 years to so. We were thinking PVC pipe or some sort of metal tubing that is for wires to thread through b/c it has threads on each section (apparently) and we could make it as long as I want...I can't remember what this is called though. The problem with the rebar, I THINK, is that we have a very small truck and I think it would be hard to transport. That's kinda why we were thinking of "sections." That's why the four clems I picked interested me too was that they aren't very tall. I'm all ears though.....
We get the rebar cut for us to the size we want. They come in (I think) 20' lengths and I opted to get four 5' pieces out of each one.
Wouldn't deer fencing (the mesh type) work for you with the tree and the rebar? Even a section of cattle fencing should work for you. I'll try and find a photo of what we used around the tree (now a stump thanks to hurricane Irene) and it does a great job of holding the clematises in place.
I've had Lemon Chiffon for a few years but not much growth and never a flower. It is paired with rose Graham Thomas. I'd love it if you could post a photo of yours. Thanks.
Hope you can spot the cattle fencing at the left side of this tree/stump. When the clematises put on their growth spurt it's almost invisible.
In August:
Pirl your garden is absolutley beautiful!! Pictures like these are what makes me miss my home state of PA. So green and lush!!
Thanks. The gardens aren't great but I do love the flowers. I just don't have the trees and shrubs that would make it much nicer. We've lost nine major trees in the 20 years we've been here and that does change so much.
Pirl where is your friend moving in Michigan I live near Midland ???
Rockford. I don't know if that's close to you or not but please tell me.
thats by Grand Rapids I'd say about an hour and a half away I'm up state some look at your hand she will be more in your palm I'm between your thumb and first finger closer to your thumb about where your life line ends . That is how we give directions in Michigan LOL
LOL is right!
I love the cattle fencing. That would be ideal, in my eyes. How do you attach it to the tree to still allow for tree growth? I so wish I could post a picture of LC. I only recently got a digital camera. I'm wondering if I could scan one of my regular photos and post that in b&w. pirl, I wish LC did better for you. I've been very impressed with mine (I hope I didn't just jix it). It was the first clem I planted some 8 years ago, I guess. I've never had a good support system for it. I happened to choose it b/c it said it like shade more than most and it's pretty shady where it is. I LOVE the Austin roses....your GT is soooo pretty.
We attached the wire to itself since it went in a circle around the tree - don't make that mistake! The tree grew more, though we thought it was at the maximum but we were clearly wrong. You could wrap it very loosely and it would still keep the clematis in place but keep an eye on it. Time goes by so fast! When it gets tighter you can use a few pieces of wire to tie the cattle fencing together. (So we didn't actually puncture the tree.)
I planted it for almost the same reason - part shade. Now the tree is history so I hope LC likes sunshine, too!
In the garden
I am so pleased for you. Please keep us posted on your progress with the clem seeds.. I gather you planted them this past spring.
Some questions:
Did you collect the seeds two autumns ago?
Did you plant them inside or outside ?
Did you detail the seeds before planting
Surface planting or Depth?
Again I am very pleased for you.
John
TGIF. End of a long work week...
How is everyone doing?
Pirl - do you know who the supplier was when you only had one clematis survive 48.00 worth of plants?
You'll miss your TGIF days someday when you retire, believe me.
I do, Maureen, but unless I hear the person is doing co-op's for clematis again I won't mention the name. It may have been a bad delivery or something unavoidable.
It is not Brushwood, Silver Star, Garden Crossings, Joy Creek or any of the major companies that deal in mainly clematis.
If anyone is interested, there is a clematis co-op on "allthingsplants".
I only just found the website this week, so don't know much about it. But they have a large group of people who are buying from this co-op. They have all kinds of plants, i'm only getting clems. They have them in 2 or 2 1/2" pots, 1 yr old plants for 3.90 ea.
I'm getting: Tie Dye
Roogucci
Multi blue
Dutchess of Edinburgh and a bunch of others i don't remember right now.
I have no idea of the quality of the plants, but the members speak very highly of the person runnning the coop.
I have MultiBlue Its in its third year.
I thought I had a pix but no.
Maureen
when you recieve your plants, remember they will need to be babied. Plant them into a larger pot. You will eventually want to plant them into gallon pots and not plant them out in your yard until the roots start to come out of the bottom.
When planting, remember to plant the crown of your plant a couple of inches deeper than the soil level that you received them. Make sure you plant them with plenty of bone meal and at a 45 degree angle. This will help to promote more vines to come from the crown of the plant - more vines equals more flowers.
I know when I have bought the smaller plants, that I had to heel them in for the winter and then not plant them out in my garden until the following year. I do have some that I started from the smaller liner pots and although they did take a couple of years, they are now large and thriving in my garden.
Carolyn is 100% right with the little liner clematises. You will have to baby them the first year and still watch over them very carefully the second year but by year three they should be established. Just don't over water them and mulch them very well - a good three inches.
Our Multi Blue will celebrate its 20th birthday this spring!
Thanks for the tips everyone. I love the pic of Multiblue Pirl - really pretty.
Thanks, Maureen. It would grow more profusely with more sun but as hard as I try pushing the house to change the orientation of the house, it just won't budge.
LOL!!!
Your funny Pirl.