Springtime in December

I'm new to Frederick MD (zone 6 - I was in zone 10 for years) and this fall I spent a bundle on bulbs, which I planted around Thanksgiving ... and some of them are coming up now. I'm particularly dismayed about some irises that are up about 6 inches. Last spring some narcissus came up early and a neighbor told me that as long as no buds had formed they would still bloom. But that was a comparatively short time span - my iris aren't supposed to bloom until June. What does a bulb do when it's halfway out and then it freezes for several weeks? Is there anything I can do at this point, like pile on more mulch? I tried talking to them, but they aren't listening. (I just checked the 10-day forecast and there's a week of sunny 60s ahead.)

They should be fine. This happens nearly every year in my garden when we get our usual crazy weather. I've never had it hurt the blooms. You need to worry a bit more about late spring freezes that happen just as everything is about to bloom than you do bulbs sprouting in winter.

And my irises stay up most of the winter. They're pretty hardy plants and it doesn't hurt them.

Oh, good! Thank you for that, hart.

Be careful about mulching irises. They'll rot.

Must be quite a switch for you gardening in such a new zone. It's really not that unusual for us to get warm spells even as late as December. I remember the first Christmas I was married (back when dinosaurs roamed the earth) and my new inlaws came to Virginia from way upstate NY. It was about 75 on Christmas day and I couldn't convince them this was unusual. It was the south, you see, so it had to be warm.

Of course they were also convinced that I grew up sitting on the veranda in my hoop skirts sipping mint juleps.

I can see you now hart, in all your finery. I bet you make a mean mint julep. ha-ha. Yes Yang, you are in good company. I have seen several people write in about their bulbs coming up now. It is always the same answer too. They will survive. this leads me to......

Does anyone here do any wintersowing? or know much about it? I am going to try it this year. Some time in January I will plant all my many, many seeds and leave them outside and to the elements all winter and spring. I have read a little bit on wintersowing and am looking forward to it. I was one of those last winter who had a small grow light area set up and started my tomato and few other seeds indoors. This will keep me involved in my new found love of gardening through out the winter months.

There is a wintersowing group on Dave's Garden. I have been reading a little of it, but probably won't begin posting there until I have some questions for the group.

Anyway, wecome to our group Yang, good to have you here with us. Have a great weekend all.

Ruby

Yep...it is looking like the only chance for a "White Christmas" is if my white daffodils start blooming early. I just took a peak at the extended outlook and it calls for more seasonably temps (high 44 / low 30 on Dec 24), though since the weathermen don't seem to predict tomorrow very well I don't have much faith in the extended forecast.

I have wintersowed before and I have a BUNCH of seeds for this year. Enough to keep me way too busy. I probably will not put out my first container for another month.

- Brent

I've gotten so many seeds through swaps this year, when you see a green glow on the horizon you'll know I wintersowed them. LOL

I often plant seeds in the fall in the garden beds to emerge in the spring. It's a lot easier than sticking them in the refrigerator if they need several weeks of cold to germinate. I haven't grown them in flats or pots before but I plan to do that this year. I've been collecting all my plastic apple strudel containers from the WalMart bakery. (Well, it's a good excuse to eat apple strudel every week. LOL)

I have been away & only just now am reading the rest of this thread - which could be called Springtime in January now, though there's a rumor that today's rain could turn to snow tonight - and back to rain tomorrow. My neighbor's forsythia is starting to bloom...

Yes, this is quite a switch from gardening a couple hundred feet from the beach in southern California, where jade plants and fuchsias and bougainvillea grow like weeds from the ground, and there's no concern about the "growing season". But it was very satisfying last year to see my new garden change from day to day. I spent LOTS of time landscaping in the spring and had all these empty beds which I couldn't afford to fill with the perennials I wanted so I started annuals from seed (idiot-proof zinnia and 4 o'clocks and cosmos) and was rewarded with a carnival of color that lasted well into October. I'm hoping that next year the perennials I planted in the fall will take and that the garden won't be quite as loud as it was last year. I am so fascinated by so many plants and their blooms though - I can't resist them so I expect the garden will be another wild mix next year. I suppose one advantage to this warm weather is that my new perennials will be well rooted.

Hart, you mentioned that irises will rot if mulched. I have a couple of different kinds - my mother gave me lots of Japanese irises that are pretty well established and I haven't mulched them at all. She said to leave them alone, you can't kill them with neglect. I also have a group of iris bulbs that I planted at proper depth at Thanksgiving. I lightly (1.5") mulched this group - more to give the bed a uniform look for winter than to prevent heaving - and was planning to remove what was left of the mulch in March or so. The bulbs are coming up now - about 6-8" - do you think I should clear away the mulch now?

BTW, I came across a recipe for mint juleps that was part of some Confederate officer's letter to a friend ... so I followed it to the letter. I like a good single malt scotch now and then, but (I declare!) I COULD NOT drink that mint julep.

Ew, I had a mint julep once and thought it was awful. But then I don't like bourbon or whiskey anyway. LOL

I mulched the bed I planted with bearded irises this year, but I kept the mulch well away from the iris tubers. I think the old timey irises are indestructable but not the newer hybrids. My old timey irises are tough as nails but the newer ones I know are prone to borers and rot.

I haven't grown Japanese irises so I don't know about those. Maybe someone in the iris forum could help.

I grow four o'clocks and zinnias every year. The four o'clocks self sow nicely and the tubers often overwinter too. Calendulas and cleome are very easy, very tough annuals you might want to try. The hummingbirds and hummingbird moths love the cleome here.

Welcome Yang! Here's to you from another scotch drinker, Blended though I my be.

Don't happen to have any pictures from last years garden do you, we love to share here!

If you have Bearded Iris, I know they will rot, you have to plant them like ducks floating on water (soil). Siberian Iris can take a lot of water, I have one planted in a pot in my watergarden.

And I'll be sending some snow your way, This is what it is doing this afternoon (see picture)

Thanks for the welcome, ladygardener. I am waiting for your snow!

And since you asked about pictures ... do I ever have pictures! I will post a few with explanations. I bought my house in June '05 and spent the first couple of months painting & unpacking &c. so all I did in the garden was learn how to use a lawnmower. That REALLY stank and I decided to totally change the landscaping and make my 100' x 25' downtown garden into a "looking garden" - everywhere you look there's something really cool going on. So most of fall '05 & winter '06 I would go outside and stare at spaces and dimensions and measure things with my feet and walk around in circles (my neighbors probably thought I was nutty - they're right, of course!). In the spring I bought a mattock and a shovel and went to work. I don't know what was harder - removing 5 huge clumps of pampas grass or taking out the lawn. The fact that I became obsessed with picking out broken glass and pottery and china and clay marbles and square nails and coins and toy soldiers didn't speed things up at all - I now have buckets full of "artifacts".

So the first picture is from Sept. '05 - one of my "before" pictures.

And the second picture is from July '06. By September it had really grown in ... I was so amazed! As I mentioned in an earlier post, I've put in more perennials now, and I'm crossing my fingers that by mid-summer I'll have my looking garden. Meanwhile, back in the deep shade at the back of the picture, I'm now doing more landscaping - digging out an old sidewalk, setting up a permanent compost site, planning for a shed, and thinking about ferns and hosta and dicentra ....

Y. So nice to see your before and after pictures, your should be proud of all you hard work. Will you be putting a bench under that tree so you can sit back and enjoy your flowers?

Chris

What a pretty patio! You did a great job.

Everyone enjoying our winter weather now? We saw a few sprinkles of snow in Woodstock yesterday.

Loving the snow...the young ones wanted to go out & build a snowman....didn't completely understand the snow needs to build up on the ground first :-)

Y...totally understand the walking around staring thing...i've been doing the same thing and what makes it even funnier to watch as far as others go is that i typically have 3-4 cats following me the whole time :-)
lynda

I'm still waiting for the snow ...

Larlienda - I feel better knowing that someone else does the same thing! As for cats, I have one, Ciccolino, who is my favorite person, but he has many friends, including all ELEVEN cats that live in one house on the next street ... All that freshly turned soil that I created last year was irresistible to them. You'd think I had a big neon sign with arrows pointing to my garden that said "Litterbox". They destroyed my catmint (of course) and just romping around they batter my new plants. I've taken anti-cat measures with the new plantings, but short of standing ready with a hose I don't know what can be done about the garden as litterbox issue.

Here's a picture of one of my catmints with anti-cat device in place. I'm hoping that once it's established it will withstand feline assaults.

I cannot for the life of me think of her name, but there's a wonderful bunch of books written by a woman who moved to the Bluemont area - city to country memoirs. She wrote in one of her books about finding a mountain lion rolling around in her catnip one night. Now that's a cat in the garden problem! LOL

Yang- I have the same "garden as litterbox issue." Of my three cats, only the old one goes out. Neighbor's cats spray my Azalea, hydrangeas and ferns, then old Pookie has to “mark” his territory again. If you find out how to keep felines from using your garden as a litterbox let me know.

How handsome Pookie is!

I think the only way to keep cats – and mountain lions (imagine!) – out of the garden is to not have a garden at all. Which is not an option.

Confession- I have two male cats that "go ' outside as much as possible- It hasn't been a problem for me- the neighbor's haven't formes a lynch mob in a long time... They seem to like dry leaves , well, there was a buildup of dry leaves under the deck at one time that got stinky!! but keeping that raked down to the stone has corrected it. Luckily I have a lot of area near that I can leave in dry leaves for them.

i'll have to see if i can get a picture of my cat gang...a couple of my cats don't go out, one was kicked out (we tried for 6 yrs to break him of going to the bathroom wherever & nothing worked except staying in the master bath at our old home (was larger than my room in highschool!) as soon as we moved we lost the option the problem started again, so he has a condo on the porch; another cat we have likes to go in and out and the two last adoptees were found outdoors (separately) but were obviously cast offs because they are VERY comfy indoors....we have one stray who sprays that i need to get fixed & hopefully that will stop the others from layering their scents on top!
i'm trying to figure out how to feed the birds & squirrels without the cats thinking i set up a buffet....i had to chase mia around the front yard to rescue one little bird who ended up escaping

I had to raise my birdfeeders another 5 feet off the ground to keep the birds out of harm's way - harm being my cat Ciccolino. Last summer, two days in a row, he brought two very lively young starlings inside the house, which I had to capture with a tea towel after locking the cat in the bathroom. They pooped EVERYWHERE - all over the blinds and windows... And then there was the hawk that I startled in the walnut tree and he dropped a freshly killed pigeon on my head, which Ciccolino grabbed and ran into the house. And then there was the noisy baby blue jay that fell out of a nest that was way up in an oak tree so high that I couldn't return him. I don't remember how many times I rescued that bird from cats while his parents fed him on the ground - that went on for weeks - and he eventually learned to fly. But if I hadn't seen it I would never have believed that Ciccolino could creep up, leap up, and snatch a lovely goldfinch out of the air as it landed on the birdfeeder. I felt so awful that I took the feeders down until we could figure out a way to elevate them. The doves and juncos are still at risk, being groundfeeders, but so far no victims. I keep Ciccolino's front claws clipped, and this seems to make a difference (it helps preserve my sweaters, too!). I tried putting a bell around his neck - the first day he showed up with 2 birds and then he tore off the collar, which is now a toy. So that didn't work. As for squirrels, they are so feisty I don't think Ciccolino quite knows what to make of them. If they run, he chases them, but if they turn on him, he sits down and pretends to be bored. Then they fuss for hours. My mother thinks Ciccolino will eventually outgrow his birdlust, since her neighbor's terrible cat lost interest about 2 years out of kittenhood. I have my fingers crossed that she is right.

Here's Ciccolino (chick-oh-lee-no), 6 months old and 2 hours after I adopted him from the pound in December 2005. I have more garden-oriented pictures of him, but they're on my other computer.

ciccolino is qute handsome- one of my favorite color patterns, out of a dozen, ha ha.
My two boys are 4-5 years and still getting the goods.
I feed on the ground in one spot and considered putting a large circle of 18 inch tall rabbit fence around it, assuming the cats want to charge straight on and it would stop them, while the birds could fly up out. I tried a 3 foot diameter circle but thought that was too small and would discourage the birds from landing in the seed zone. I don't think I will be able to observe whether it works.

Welcome to Maryland and to Daves Garden! You're about 30 minutes North of me. There are several other DG'ers in the Frederick area too.

What a beautiful cat you have!

Here is a Hyacinth bulb that is currently blooming...in January!

Ciccolino looks like a cool cat and very attractive, too. Tabbies have always been my favorites. I had a grey tabby when I was a kid who let me take him for rides in my doll carriage.

wow, ciccolino looks just like my new #6 brutus!!!! i will have to find the cord for the computer so i can download the pictures....they could be twins!
i will definitely plan on moving feeders higher...it's will take some trial and error, but if it helps it's worth it

Sally, Shirley, Linda & greenkat - I thank you and Ciccolino thanks you for the compliments. A few months before I got Ciccolino, my dear old black manx Seki gave out at 20 and a year before that my sweet little gray tabby Billi was killed by a car at 14 - so Ciccolino's youth & energy are novel and entertaining to me. I'll try not to go on & on & on about him, but he is SO FUNNY. I don't ever remember laughing so much at a cat.

Linda - do find your pictures of Brutus. I'd love to see Ciccolino's twin.

And on a gardening note - I love hyacinths. No blooms of any kind in my garden yet (unless you count the vinca minor, which never stopped blooming), but crocus and narcissus are up, and forsythia is swelling, and there is lots of new growth on all the roses. As much as I'd like a good long hard freeze to kill the japanese beetle larvae and maybe put a dent in the Asian Tiger mosquito population, I'll hate seeing all these buds getting nipped.

My hyacinths are in full bloom. They beat the ones I forced indoors by a week at least. And I noticed some tulips down the street.

Finally! here's a picture of your kitty's twin brutus


i kept misplacing the needed cords to transfer the pictures.....stay warm!

OMG! Definitely from the same gene pool ... a very good-looking cat!

How did I miss this? What a beautiful cat, Lynda. His stripes are so pretty.

thanks :-)

he was a drop-off at the house in west virginia (isn't even in the country)...definitely is used to being around people and children...he's a sweetie

i had another cat of this coloring long ago in colorado...her name was georgie...will have to see if i can scan her picture

when i saw y's baby i knew he and brutus were look-alikes!

Beautiful cats! I know this is a gardening thread but can't resist - have always loved "tigers" and Lucky is no exception :)

We'd only had him about month here - a stray kitten my mother in law found just before Christmas 3 years ago :)

And here he is napping on the sweater I made for my daughter last Christmas

can't help myself - "on vacation in Michigan" :)

You all have some mighty purty cats.

Ruby

Oh! What a pretty, pretty kitty! I just love cats. Have three myself.

what a gorgeous kitty....right now i have 6...each one is so different

Cat photo exchange!!! Not sure how good this pic is, the kids are always taking pictures of our beloved kitties.
Here are our two. They are half(at least) brothers. A friend of a friend has the mom, she had one littter and we got Chester. then she had another litter sixmonths later and we got Chip . Chester is almost doggy in personality, for a cat, and Chip is the quintessential stupid cat. At six-eight weeks they looked almost siamese in color, with boots, but then darkened on the body. now around four years old. Most friends can't tell the difference between them , except my friends boy who is somewhere in the autism spectrum, can tell them right off which I think is very interesting. Temple Grandin has books about autism and animal brain workings, I found interesting.
Thanks for letting me gush about my cats. Now please share yours. Or dogs! or whatever....

Sally- Your kitties are so cute! They look happy, too.

A lot of people can't distinguish the difference between two of my cats, either. They are both black and white.