Spings almost here! I gonna need info on how to get going here in Lincoln Nebraska!
Any Nebraska Gardeners Out There?
Hi Robbilyn! Lincoln here also! The sky was so nice and blue today, and the snow is rapidly leaving.
From my own experience, now is the time for indoor seeding, the perfect time to start perennial plants (this year I'm starting some monarda aka bee balm), peppers, and cole crops (broccoli, cabbage, and spring cauliflower). Also half hardy annuals (petunias), and early tomatoes such as Early Girl (I'd wait until April to start main crop tomatoes, I find that if I plant the main crop tomatoes now, they don't produce as well as those I start later). Geraniums and onions from seed should have been planted back in February. Late march to early April start bedding flowers (zinnias, marigolds, alyssum,
Outside planting won't start until the end of the month at the earliest, planting potato sets, onion plants or sets, and early peas, radish, lettuce, spinach. April for beets, carrots, kohlrabi (I prefer direct seeding to transplants, otherwise start inside now), chard. Late April to early May, beans and sweet corn, early to mid May to put out tomatoes and peppers, and to sow cucumber seed in the garden. Late may to early June for squash and pumpkins and melons (seed or transplants started late April).
Please note these times work for me 90% of the time. Your mileage may vary.
I've haven't done a vegetable garden for a few years but plan to do alittle since the price of veges are more expensive out here. I plan to do more flowers but I can't stand to wait so long! I'd already be planting in Texas. Late March huh? I'll see if I can last that long. I guess I can look at it as more time to work on the soil.... I love bee balm it's one of my favorite smells! What flowers work the best out here? I'm thinking of having someone come in and prepare an area for wildflowers. We have three acres with trails throughout so lots of space to work with.
Perennials out here (based on my favorites and what the seed catalog is jogging of my memory) - peonies (even tree peonies), bearded and siberian iris, daylilies, tiger lilies, asiatic lilies, echinacea, coreopsis, bee balm, hosta, achillea (although I find it invasive), columbine, delphinium (half hardy, I can't keep them more than a couple years), hollyhock, scabiosa, gaillardia, shasta daisies, chrysanthemums
Shrubs and bushes - Roses, althea, spirea, forsythia, hydrangeas (make sure they bloom on new wood like PeeGee, the ones that bloom on old wood seem to be bud-tender and I've never gotten them to bloom), viburnum, dogwoods (pagoda dogwood is one of my favorites)
Annuals - go ahead and start now if you want, I just have better luck with younger smaller transplants than I do with the big older ones.
A lot of the wildflower mixes will work - check out the Audobon prairie by Denton or Nine Mile Prairie out by AirPark to see what's growing out there too.
Hi Robbilyn! Seward here.
I feel your pain! I'm anxious to get digging in the dirt too. Now is a good time to prepare the soil (as you said) and decide what to plant where. I'm new to the area myself so I'm just now learning about the plants that can be grown here. I know that coneflowers, catmint, lilies, iris, marigolds, petunias, nasturtiums, poppies, and cosmos are just a few. Have you visited the UNL Extension Lincoln County website? They have a ton of information... here are some links:
http://lancaster.unl.edu/hort/articles/
Flowers for hot dry areas: http://lancaster.unl.edu/hort/Articles/2005/FlowersHotDry.shtml
Hope this helps.
Diane
Robbilyn and Peachykeen (welcome to Nebraska!)
Another good resource - and a great place to get plants - is the upcoming Spring Affair 2007, this takes place Saturday, April 28, at the UNL Fairgrounds, from 9 am to 4 pm - although I've found it best to be there before 9 as it is a madhouse especially for some of the choice plants.
http://springaffair.unl.edu/
There is a link at the top to the tenative list of the plant varieties that will be there. And there are always a few 'surprises' thrown in...
Richard
thanks for all the great info! The people who we bought our place from planted lots of lilies. I haven't done any bulbs in the past. Do I need to do anything to them? There are alos lots of hostas and iris. I just let the lilies die back. I did cut back the hostas. Where is the best place to get compost in bulk here in Lincoln? I have a few areas I want to start working on.
Have any of you tried to grow blueberries? I couldn't resist the ones on sale at Sams this week. We would go to East Texas every summer and pick blueberries for the year.......am I dreaming?
Here is a good article about lilies... http://lancaster.unl.edu/factsheets/086.htm
They don't seem to require much care other than dividing every couple of years. If they are tightly clumped and growing up on top of one another, you may want to divide them in the fall as this pub suggests. Mine are awfully overgrown so I will be doing the same thing this fall.
Iris are the same way in that when they are tightly clumped and pushing up out of the soil they should be divided. You can tell when it's time to do this because the bulb mass is large and bunched up and flowering diminishes. See this pub:
http://lancaster.unl.edu/hort/Articles/2004/BeardedIris.shtml
for dividing advice. I need to do this too as my iris are really out of control, but I want to see what the blooms look like this Spring so I know what I have before I start digging and dividing.
I'm glad you asked about blueberries... I had been thinking of making room for some but haven't researched it until now. There are several varieties that do well in this climate among them... Earliblue, Blueray, Bluecrop, Northblue and Northcountry. Beyond the issues of site and soil, there is the waiting period. Some cultivars will bear the second year after planting, but full production is not reached for 6 years (!!) with a yield of 4 to 6 qt. per plant. Not exactly instant gratification, but you'll probably have enough for your morning cereal after two years! Meanwhile there is always WalMart!
:) Diane
Robbilyn,
Lilies (day and bulbed types), irises and hostas are about the most fool-proof perennials here, except for peonies.
We do get iris borer in Nebraska, in my experience they favor the white, pink and yellow irises, so I've been on a 3 year division plan for mine (dig up, divide and replant anytime after blooming to the end of August) to try and keep the borer out of my plot.
Never tried blueberries so I can't help you there.
Compost - you can get that at the landfill on North 48th Street (north of 48th and Superior) - free for the hauling (load it yourself) up to a pickup-full. You can also get wood chip mulch there too, either free (dig it yourself from the pile outside the gate), or $6 a pickup load (front end loader fills it for you) - I pay for the speed and convenience.
Smiles... cauliflower, ice plant and monarda have sprouted, crocus are blooming and hellebores have flower spikes... spring is on its way...
This message was edited Mar 13, 2007 9:49 PM
Just a fellow Nebraskan, saying HELLO, new to DG. It's good to see others close to home.
Hello 7oaks, and welcome to DG!
Hi 7oaks! Welcome to DG. I've only been a member for about 4 months but I can't imagine life without Dave's now.
Do any of you other Nebraska gardeners have experience with bog gardening, or know someone who has one? I have a small pond, some things work well in pots there. It gets so full off burr oak leaves in the fall, that i don't bother keeping it going in the winter. Just start fresh in the spring. I do sink my water lilies and a couple other things. The rest, I take out and bury them with mulch.
7oaks--I don't have any experience in bog gardens, but would like to get one started. We re-routed the drainage pipe for our sump pump and I want to use that water to create a bog instead of a soggy yard. I haven't figured out how to do this without creating a muddy mess but I'm working on it. Right now I'm in the process of digging a hole (to remove the clay soil), and I'll refill with some gravel/rocks and then soil and compost. Any tips or advice would be appreciated.
Daltri, with clay soil, you shouldn't need to put a liner in at least. Are you in a new development? We live on a acreage close to the Kansas border, pretty much straight south of Lincoln. I have gardened here for about 23 years, I guess that means I'm no longer a spring chick! When time permits, i want to do a lot of research on this site. Summer time means i'm outside.
Good luck with your project.