Hi, gang. I count the first day of spring as the day that the first seed catalog arrives. I have two, burpee's and another one, which came in the mail last week. Also, I saw a very stupid robin sitting on the fence at my neighbor's house yesterday. This is a secondary sign.
Martha
Spring is here!
I like your thinking! To me the first day of spring is when I see something growing, anything growing. A crocus leaf out a quarter of an inch will qualify. Also going out without a heavy winter coat counts.
It is not spring for me until I see the first Robin. I have a huge stack of catalogs already. I'm taking them with me when I fly to Arizona to see my sister and brother-in-law on Saturday. They will be putting in a big garden this year so I will make myself a (short) list and then leave the catalogs with them. They are going to let me use a chain saw while I am visiting. I am excited!
I think your robin was up here temporarily. He probably missed the turnoff for CT and landed here in Saugus.
Martha
Y'know, it's funny - last year all my catalogs came late. This year they're all either early or on time. I'm lovin' it!
I just got one full of heirloom varieties of tomatoes. I may play with some of those this year.
Martha
oh I have tons of catalogues... I have a pile that I am avoiding...oh such a hard thing to do....
DH and I spend a lot of time looking at the catalogs. I can't believe the number we got this year. We pass them back and forth...hey, did you see the great 'whatever', we should get that. And then we remind ourselves that we agreed to go slow this year. I really want to focus on getting a couple of trees, which always falls to the bottom of the list.
Martha - you're going to play with the tomatoes? Ya mean juggling or something? LOL!
Spring for me begins when the day's high temp is 55 or better. Of course, sometimes that happens way into summer. Oh well!
Made the mistake of looking thru a couple yesterday, now I'm plotting.
I have been checking for some perennial additions for my Garden Club's butterfly garden. I also want to set up several large pots with butterfly type annuals along the edge of the deck that's there. Burpee's has some fascinating looking cosmos for sale. Heck, I don't care if the butterflies like them or not! I want some!
Martha
I have a question about cosmos. First some of the new ones are really tugging at me, like that double pink one, but so far I am holding firm. My question is about the orange/yellow and red ones. Has anyone grown them and when do they bloom? Do you like them? Do they re-seed well?
I have done the orange/yellow ones. They bloom about the same time as the others. They didn't appear to reseed like the ordinary ones and those of my ordinary ones that reseeded usually came out purple whatever color they were originally. I had about 6-7 years of reseeding from a couple of six packs of the ordinary ones of mixed colors, white through dark magenta. They were great plants and grew giant cosmos but the later generations all turned to that mid purple color. I haven't had any of the fancy ones reseed and some may not because they are probably hybrids. Also, birds like cosmos seed and so you may not get as big a seed germination from cosmos if the birdies have discovered the dried flower heads.
Martha
Thanks for your response Martha. I have had the tall pink and white ones re-seed here for maybe 9 or 10 years. Fewer every year. Thought I would try the orange ones and the new double pink one. Maybe I will give them a try and see what happens, thanks. Are the flowers about the same size as the pink ones?