Broken Hearted...

I was out of town this week, and we had quite a windstorm yesterday. My greenhouses (the portable 4-shelf kind) packed with flats I have nursed since March fell over, and it was carnage. I am still not certain of the damage because it was dark when I got home. My neighbor was kind enough to try to straighten everything up and save what she could (I just love her - gotta find a way to repay her...), but everything is all mixed up now - I didn't mark every cell!

I am in tears. Yesterday on my job was horrible, and I got off work to get that news. I still have lots left, and I know which are pinks, columbine, petunias, etc... but I was growing several different kinds of each, all earmarked for certain color gardens. Guess that has gone right out the window.

How do you all deal with a loss like that?

Oh, Zarebeth, I'm so sorry for you! Perhaps as the plants you have left get bigger you can sort them out. If you have your heart set on certain colors in certain gardens, you can still move the plants around for a long time after you plant them if you take enough soil with you. I'm sure you can still have your color gardens, you'll just have to be a bit creative about how you manage it!
I hope most of the seedlings survived for you!

It does appear that the snaps and the columbine got the worst of it. The columbine looks to be recovering, but the snaps are goners. And it won't matter if I mix Origami with McKana Giants - I am not including it in a color scheme because they are both mixed colors. Luckily I had taken in some of the less cold-hardy plants as I knew we were going to get a hard freeze last week so they escaped unscathed.

Now, how do I tell California Giant Petunias from Cascading? They sure looked identical before! Oh well, if they get mixed up they get mixed up. And the pinks were the ones that got mixed up the most, but I think I mostly planted red, and red and white so it won't play havoc with my color scheme if I get some of them in the wrong place.

My daisies all survived, as did my Phlox, Verbascum and Chalon Pansies. The one flat I was able to germinate of the Bronze Velour pansies are goners. The small 6 packs fared the worst, and the 3 inch pots all did pretty well.

On the plus side, after two months, I actually have 6 Alstroemeria seedlings! Guess the cold snap finally worked. They weren't in the greenhouse because I wanted them to be cold treated, and it worked!

Well, it looks like the damage could have been worse! You'll have nice gardens after all. Too bad about the pansies, though. Sounds like you are getting it all sorted out!