Seed Snatchin' XIII...First Recon Mission

ROTFLOL. That's really funny. Add me to those who might eventually destroy all the grass. The Central Experimental Farm in Ottawa has display beds of annuals and perenniels. Great place to snatch seeds. Must make a trip over there..

Ann

I should have phrased it another way-- no need to work harder thatn you have to. I'm a fan of just putting newspaper on the intended bed area and building up a whole bunch of organic stuff on top.. coffee gorunds, horse manure, kitchen scraps, and so on... and then giving it some time and letting the worms do the work of mixing it all in and pulling it down. Then whalla...plant your lovely garden :)
It's called lasanga gardening, but I didn't want to say that since I can't spell lasanga!!
Susan

That's a good idea! I will give that a try if I ever get moved out and into my new digs! I might need some DG'rs to come over and prod me into it!

Nicole

Nicole,
The best part is you don't have to put any effort or chemicals down to start with. Just at least a stack of 12 sheets of wet newspaper, or wet card board. I really wanted to lasagne the new garden in front, but it was just too big. I have used this method in other areas. I like it.
sidney

Sounds like lasagna (used ispell!) gardening is just another way of creating a raised bed. We try to use nothing but raised beds around here. It aids drainage and keeps the soil warmer. For those of you in hotter, dryer areas, it might make it harder to keep the plants moist and the roots cool. You never know!

Hello fellow snatchers. The garden party is over, so I'm back to snatchin'. Today I am reporting a very successful snatch of 4 mature ferns that grow wild here. Not sure the species yet, but they like boggy areas and are about 4 feet tall. They'll look lovely by the streambed! Also snatch an iris someone had tossed out . Back in the saddle again!

It kills me how people throw out plants!!!!

Especially daylilies/iris, etc etc that you can barely kill even if you try!

Nicole

Found some pretty deep blue viola seeds on my tour of the town window boxes the other day. No bright pink Petunia seeds though. I don't think I could grow a Petunia anyway. I think I read they are hard to start from seed.

I dug four giant holes out back for some trees that I never ended up receiving, and DH keeps seeding them over with grass seed. Luckily, he is really stingy, and doesn't want to use any water so the grass seed is just sitting there on top of the soil. I cackle like a witch every time I walk by. He is not amused. Imagine how he'll feel if I plant my crazy giant Bush Clovers in the four holes while he is at work!

DO IT Ivy!
;)

Ivy, petunias are not hard to start at all. The seed is small, so I mix it with sand. I start mine indoors in February every spring in order to have blooms in early June.

O. K. Thanks for the info, Weezingreens! I am unsure of the timing for next year, because everything was so slow this year. Things I started in Feb. didn't start blooming until July!

Sugarweed- I think he would have a fit!

I discovered by accident that they start from cuttings easily AND they were happily blooming in the basement over the winter. Got favorites? Take cuttings in for the winter. :)

One time a rival band all pulled out a handfull of rye seed when they were in formation of their schools obvious initials at half time of a football game. 2 weeks later the double T of Texas Tech was very well seen on West Texas State's field. What a hoot.
;)

Thanks 8 ft. How big a cutting do you take? What part? I am not good with cuttings.

Sugarweed - Being an old Okie Sooner, and knowing how big those football rivalries can be, I think that is a riot!

Love it Sidney!!

Ivy - there you go - get handful of the pure hot pink petunias and you will be all set!!! No need to wait for seeds at the end of the season!! Hmmm take some for me too!! ~ Suzi :)

Look at it this way - you know how you can chop petunias way back in late summer if they're getting leggy and in a few weeks time they're all bushy and blooming? They branch out willingly. I had been cleaning them out that fall (it takes a realll hard frost or freeze before the tunias give up) and a 2 ft section was left laying on the driveway. I took it to the basement, cut it into 4 pieces and stuck it in a pot of potting soil. Didn't even cover them, just didn't let it dry out. It was the Orchid Madness besides, so they have a great perfume. The basement never stunk better. :)

I've just got to get myself a heated area for wintering over rooted cuttings, 8ft! I don't dare keep them in the basement under lights, since I always seem to get aphids in the seedlings I start down there if I do.

I have hit a vein of gold!!! I just got back from my dumpster diving nursery and I did it all over again!!! OH MY GOSH!! I AM going to have the most amazing landscape. Thank you Lord for all your guidance and helping my find this.

I am going to put Aidan down for a nap and I will unload and post the list later on today. My husband is so great. He let me take the truck this morning and the poor guy got to his business and realized he didn't take the key to open the business and his brother was off and nobody else had a key, so I quickly went down to meet him and then onto the nursery and they were slow, so one of the guys even helped me load them!! I actually did spend some money today because I found out that they mark them down to $1 a gallon before they hit the trash and I bought some of the distressed plants that I could not wait to see in the trash next week :) I am so blessed. I just looked at the onlince picture of the rhododendron roseum elegans bloom of 5 plants I got and my heart melted. I did pay $2 per plant on these, and I am thrilled. I will care for those babies as if they were my kids! Here it is:

Yea Susan!!!

You go girl!! ~ Suzi ♥

HGTV should hire you for a Plant Rescue program. They could provide you with a van, complete with logo and siren. You could even offer before and after pictures.

I must confess now. I've never snatched seeds, but I've been following this thread with amusement. Now today I was in the drive-thru at Taco Bell, it was taking WAAAYYYY too long, and there were these pods of....I don't know....some little bushy thing that once had pink flowers. I sort of opened my driver's door and snatched me a couple. Serves them right for keeping me in the drive-thru lane 11 minutes, don't you think?

I don't know what I've got. I don't know if it will grow. But I feel sneaky and bad and it feels good. :-) I'm back at my office making a post-it-note envelope now.

On your way to Snatchin addiction McGlory!!

McGlory - my keyboard thanks you for the diet-coke nostril shower.

Thats how we all start. Quick while we think no one is looking, palm a little seed pod or pathetically small piece of plant. Soon - you'll be out there with buckets and machetes and everyone will think you either work there or are afraid to ask.
Congratulations and welcome to the bus.

McGlory - YOU'RE HOOKED!!! Your life will never be the same. All I can advise is try to figure where you will put said snatch before you snatch. That will make it easier when it starts demanding to be let out of the "nursery". Now, if I could just adhere to that advice myself, I'd be SO much better off!

ginni

Yes, the adrenoline rush of Snatchin'! Do you suppose snatched seeds and plants grow better than those that are offered? My first husband's step-grandmother always carried scissors in her purse. My mother-in-law was so embarrassed to take her to the doctor because she was likely to pull the shears out of her purse and start snipping at the plants. Grandma Pacyga always swore that stolen plants grew the best!

Sounds like good scientific theory to me!! When I was a kid, I realized there ain't no pepsi like a snitched pepsi!! Based on same theory, LOL ~ Suzi :)

I think this must work along the lines of 'food snatched from someone else's plate doesn't have any calories and won't make you fat'. LOL.
Maggi

ola Maggi! que tal estan tus plantas? Crecen bien? Eres una jardinera de mucho tiempo o estas aprendiendo?
Qual es la comida que te gusta robbar de otras personas?? La comida de Espana es maraveosa!!
Eres Americana o Espanola o commo yo, los dos? Que haces en Espana?
Adios :)

Susan

Susan, is there some reason you think maggi doesn't speak Engleseia?, or are you just showing off? ;)
sidney

Sugarweed,do you mean Inglés?(Only joking ;¬D). I'm sure Susan is just trying to make me feel welcome! Or is Sidney right and you're showing off Susana?? Either way, it's fun to practice a bit of Spanish on the net. De hecho, no soy ni española ni americana, sinon inglesa. Vivo en el Pais Vasco desde hace muchos años porque mi marido es vasco.
Estoy todavia aprendiendo como cultivar buenas plantas en un clima mas calida, pero me gusta mucho. ¿Y tu? ¿Cuanto tiempo llevas como jardinera?
¿Qual de tus mitades es española?¿de que parte de España?¿Vienes de visita?
¡Muchas preguntas!
OK Sidney, now you can accuse me of showing off too! LOL.
Maggi xxxx -besos

Hey, I recognized and deciphered some of that... Had Spanish I, II, III in high school; grad in 74, ha ha ha ~ Suzi :)

Hey Suzi, that's pretty good after 31 years....Eeek! Doesn't bear thinking about how long ago we left school does it? I left the year after you.
Maggi-¡Besos para todas las viejas!

The only Spanish I've needed in Spain and all the other spanish based countries

Cerveza and Gracias !

Maggi - Do you make it out to Palma, Mallorca once in awhile? Is the Dacquiri Palace still open and booming? Never left the shade of the bar but the telephoto pictures made it seem like I was out mingling with the crowds and the DW still gives me grief over pictures from those visits.

I'm sad to say I haven't visited Mallorca yet- it's a long way from where we live and the few holidays we can afford tend to be visits to friends and family in England. Very frustrating- Maybe one day...
Maggi

Sidney, yes I'm showing off!! And trying tro say hello to Maggi :))

Maggi, I'm somewhat new to gardening, but absolutely passionately avid about it. I have been gardening "full throttle" for a year now. I stay at home with my two young sons and I work outside with them. Since I have more time than money, I have recently taken up dumpster diving at a local nursery that throws out distresed plants. Just for clarification... I don't actually get into the dumspters, but I do reach into trash cans with gloves on!! I'm about to go outside right now in the extrmeme heat and take inventory of my 'take" from yesterday. Thankfully, I'll be in mostly shade and drink plenty of water.

E tu?

My mother, rest in peace, was born and raised in Madrid and my father was one of those American military guys over there in the Air Force and he brought her back :) I spent four years in Zarragosa as a child and thankfully I learned to speak the spanish language very well. My spelling isn't that great, (in English or Spanish!!) but I can write well enough to roughly communicate. I have an uncle and cousins in Madrid and I have not seen them since I was 11. I don't have many regrets in life, but one of them was not having gone to Spain to visit before I had a family and when I was still single and had the opportunity. I have not been back since and I do not visit. I do speak to them and email on occasion.

:)

Susan

This message was edited Aug 20, 2005 11:47 AM

Susan,
Make the most of the best and the least of the worst!

I'm glad I lived in S Korea (1st time=1 yr / 2nd=9mos) and Germany (2½ yrs), plus lots of dif places in the states. Older DD lived in Germany (age 4-6). Even the younger step dau came and lived with us there for about 9 months. Kinda makes me think my little one got the short end of the stick though.

I was in Army, then married Army member. Now I am civil service with the Fed Gov't. Sometimes I think I would like to take a tour overseas after she is older, before I retire, IF she were agreeable to it. ~ Suzi :)

Well Susan ,if you do get a chance to visit Spain, don't forget to come and see us here in the Basque Country! I think it's so good for children to grow up with more than one language and culture. Lucky you! My children are tri-lingual/cultural, and so far I can only see advantages.
I've only had a garden for a few years, (as you know , most people here live in flats), but I'm crazy about it. I work freelance from home now ,(English classes and translation work), so I'm out in the garden between classes whenever possible. Infact ,during classes too,if I can. It's amazing how many of my adult students end up doing a practical 'English for gardening' course. LOL
BTW, I've been following your snatching stories on here with admiration and envy ! I haven't found anything like your nursery source. If I`m really lucky I might find a dying geranium that fell off someone's balcony...
Besos, Maggi

hmm, hmmm, hmmmm Suzi! Factory seconds, kimchee and some great wine! I had a bunch of fun in Pohang and Pusan. Never bothered to leave the ship in Hamburg though.