I'm on a mission!

I spent a summer in Houston w/o AC in the car. Decided NOT my kinda town. We all have good things
about our region - summers are great in Alaska and winters are not. I guess its kinda inverse for Texas?

Hey Charlotteda,

You are in my neck of the woods. Glad to know there is someone here that is HERE. The weather has been the pits lately, you are so lucky to have a greenhouse. I am pretty new to all this gardening stuff. Purchased my first home last year and have been happily diggin' in the dirt ever since. I had no idea I would come to enjoy it so much. Learning as I go and looking forward to Spring.

Do you ever go to the fleamarket on Wednesdays? My mother told me there is a market in Pickens somwhere but I haven't ventured out that way, yet....I went to the Jockeylot over the weekend to see if they had any interesting gardening stuff but I didn't find anything.

Tia

Well I guess every place does have good things but I am often at a loss to identify any for my region. Ok that's not entirely true, but it's not my favorite place, just where I happened to end up after years of living in different areas.
And don't you know how good I look in long johns & parkas!
Our winters are pretty mild and that is our saving grace. We have best growing in Fall, then Spring. Lots of things cannot handle the brutal sun and high humidity of summer here. If sweating is good for cleaning out pores and impurities then those of us in Houston in the summer must be the purest of them all! LOL.

Ya know Kimmie, I keep telling you to move down here and you wouldn't have that problem. I spent 2 hours pulling weeds and putting in new annual seeds Sunday am. The ones I broadcast planted a couple weeks ago are already a couple inches tall. I only start the rare seeds indoors anymore. Your gold/green variegated duranta is well rooted and just went in a one gallon pot and outside to acclimate for shipping to you in the spring.
Jan...

Yeah! I'm really thinking about moving south. Seriously

I'm working towards moving to the Carolina's in about 10 years. I'm tired of winter in New York...

Ahhhhh Ronkonkoma....

I grew up in Port Jeff Station, Anita. Went to Hauppauge High School. Small world. Come on out, you will love it My friend just sold her house in Middle Island and moved to North Carolina. What she sold her house for in N.Y. allowed her to buy her house down this way cash.

The weather is great and gardening is good. Although, once in a blue moon I do miss the snow.

-Tia

Small world, Tia!! My sister is moving to Myrtle Beach - so that will be home base for the next couple of years. I can feel out the areas and decide where I want to be.

Anita

Hey, Kim, I thought you were heading to Alaska to help me transplant seedlings! Now you're moving south instead??? You must have checked Accuweather and found our temps today are hovering around zero F!

Please, please Weezin: send some fresh breezes over here. I already have brain damage due to the heat! Or did I already have that? Our temps have been around 95/97°F for the last 10 days and no air conditioners!

Hugs (but only cyber-hugs - it's too hot LOL)

Ursula

Zero??!!???!! Ohhh no no no noooo. Kimmie can't take that kind of cold! LMBO

Hey Kim! You know what they say about great minds thinking alike- I'm doing the annual thing this year to! And of course I want the unusual or heirloom things that are'nt available as plants ( I'm too cheap to buy them anyway, LOL). I've got some lights going and am about to set up more, and I can't wait to get the cold frames going.

So come on, let's see your list of goodies you're sowing!
Neal.

Oh, Ursula, I'd gladly send you lots and lots of cold breezes...I'll even include some snow! That will cool you down!

Thanks, Weezin. Seems your good wishes worked: today we 'only' had 29°C max. temp. As for the snow ...... thanks, but no thanks LOL.

Big hug,

Ursula

Well Neal,

First I have every color and kind of Antirrhinum you can think of. So I will start there and have fun with those. I'm sure they will put on a serious show. I will be growing Nolana, Petunia, Zinnias, Tagetes, Nigellas, Calendulas, Tropical Asclepsias, Daturas, Tropical campanulas, Talinums, Sunflowers, Stock, Statice, Celosias, Cosmos, Convovulus, Ipomoeas, Verbenas, Nemesias, Coleus, Commelinas, Scutellaria, Nicotianas, Arctotis, Diascia, Emilia, and Hyacinth bean vine. These are not the only ones...but the ones I'm concentrating on :-D

Oooh, many of my favorites on your list. I just sowed some coleus, violas, and pansy type violas. Will certainly be doing some zinnia, marigold, hyacinth bean, ipomoeas,sunflowers, cosmo, and nigella to. Do you grow larkspur? I LOVE larkspur, and will direct sow it the beginning of March. Can't wait to see pics of all your colorful pretties!
Neal.

Got my first Monarch cats for the year. Good thing I've started more asclepias seeds.
They will demolish the few mature plants I have. I'm just taking a break from transplanted some seedlings into 4 in pots. I've done about 30 so far and have about 30 more to go.
Jan...

Ohhh just keep rubbing it in Janice!!! You know Kimmie ain't growing nothing yet :-( But it was almost 60 degrees yesterday :-D

60 degrees? Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. You know I love to tease ya Kimmie. And I only got down 52 pots of asclepias and not 60 if that makes you feel any better. ;-)
Jan...

My only serious propagation effort last fall was to cut down a butterfly bush at work and try rooting some of the cuttings. It looks like 6 or 7 are rooting so I consider that good for a newby. I didn't even use Rootone.
All I have in my new greenhouse is greens and radishes, but I have some of last year's gartenmeister fuchsias and my brug cuttings. It got too warm in there for my Christmas cactus.

gemini
This is the 1st year I am doing anthirium- have seed for 3 varieties- I hear they are easy, tell me the truth, are they?

Me? April, I would'nt know about anthurium from seed, as the only tropical I've started from seed was Plumeria. But, I know excactly who to ask. On the Tropicals forum, you'll see many posts from our resident Aroid specialist, bwilliams. Just post the question and I'm sure he can tell you all you need to know.

Kim, the Antirrhinum, that's snapdragons is'nt it? Are you just doing the annual kinds? I've been reading about perennial varieties I'd like to try.

Oh duh, my fault, read what I wanted not what was there.

Neal,
I have some perennial kind too..I have 2 colors and kind, I can send you if you want to try them? One is Strikingly tall! LMK

Snap dragons are easy to grow from seed. Here is what Tom Clothier's site suggests for Antirrhinum majus: surface sow @ 39ºF, after one week, move to 73ºF in light, grow on @ 50ºF, pinch , 10-21d I don't recall sowing them at the low temp, and they came up just fine.

Yeah...they are very easy..

Oooh, now I need to get some snaps going. I love the tall ones.

Yep but they take a little longer to get to flowering stage so I start my snaps earlier than a lot
of the other annuals. Great cutting flower!

Hey Guys, hope I can join in. Speaking of the Tom Clothier site; I have been sitting at the computer for HOURS trying to collect enough information so that when I actually get ready to go here I won't have to be chasing information while I'm trying to garden. But even as good as the Tom Clothier site is, I am still having to look so hard to find germination guides for everything. I'm especially concerned about the ones that have to go in the refridgerator, because I know it's time already, like past time huh. Anyway, guess I should just be glad to have that much seein as I aint no hultaculterist lol.

Dear Kim . . . Floraddiction is a terrable illness !! The only cure I know is to grow something interesting that seldom flowers. Grow Aloe Vera. Break a leaf and rub the gelatin over your heart (its good for the skin.) then chew a piece of Aloe (it kills dental pain) then swallow a piece (it cures ulsers caused by Floraddition). If these treatments do not work for you, then try growing plants that are colorful but without flowers, like Philodendrons, Crotons, etc. See colorful pictures on: www. tropicalplantsearch.com and: (plug)
www. plantcollectors.net

Specializing in Floraddiction treatments:

Doctor Logos Formont Calamus / Maricao, Puerto Rico

Be careful when eating aloe - that is how the Arubans made exlax!

When seeds need special stratification, I try to winter sow them. If they need a week or two sown in warm weather, I start them indoors, then set them out for 2-4 weeks in freezing weather, then they get warmer temps as the spring weather warms. I just don't have time or space to deal with pulling them in and out of the fridge. A couple days ago, I went though some of my old diary entries looking for the recorded temps so that I can determine the right time to start these seeds indoors in order to have some freeze time, then warming.

That's a great idea Weez!

I really would like to know if anthurium can be grown from seed..... that is by far my favorite flower but the plants I buy in FL are not the Hawaiian beauties I fell in love with there. There is a guy on EBAY who has a ??? store maybe??? in Hawaii and his look good. I am thinking about ordering one from him.

I tried seeds this fall and flopped. I put them in plastic bags in the refrig... I put them in a green house... I put them in a terrium... they all fizzled out. The refrigerated ones did 'something' but it looked more like rot and didn't resemble a sprout, even in my wildest imagination, so I eventually threw them out.

teateacher - I just did a little research on the web. It seems that anthirium seed does not store.
You need to to use fresh seed. And I suspect tropicals would not want cold stratification. Have
you tried simply putting some on top of the soil on a heating mat and the rest buried a bit and
placed in a dark warm spot? See which ones germinate. (of course, keep on the ones in the dark
and move them to light as soon as they germinate.)

Dear Teateacher . . . Any Anthurium sprouted from seed will produce a drab greenish-white small flower. All Anthuriums in the nurseries are grown from Tissue-Culture, taken from an original "Sport" We cannot compete with Bio Tecknology. Soon, I've been told by a commercial lab, there will be plants at Home Depot for sale, that have no parents, new to the world and never before seen. I think this un-natural trend will eventually destroy plant collecting. Soon, we may be able to buy a silk Weeping Ficus in a box, take it home and watch it grow!! . . . . . Logos

Logos, I'm glad you chimed in with that info. I've had it in my mind (floating along with all kinds of horticultural trivia) that tissue culture is the only way they're propagated. Glad to know I did'nt just dream it!

Okkk My very first annual to pop up.
Calendula Officinalis var. Prolifera.
I got started so late this year. I'll keep a watch on this one. To see if it blooms the way it's suppose to. Then I'll post pics of the other ones coming up this week
.

Congrats Kim