Stir crazy, but there's nothing much in the nurseries yet

This is such a dangerous time of year. Even in zone 9, it's usually too cold and too wet to do any gardening outside, so I sit inside and look at all of the pictures of plants on Websites and in catalogs. This year I'll try to avoid temptation. I usually end up ordering dozens of plants from dozens of nurseries -- just because it feels almost like gardening. If I could just wait a month or two, though, all of those things would be available in my local nurseries in larger sizes and at lower prices. Right now, the local nurseries have almost nothing but bare-root roses, some leftover Cyclamen plants, and lots of different types of Primulas. I bought a cartload of those last week, but how many Primulas can one garden have?

I've said the same thing about roses, daylilies, clematis, and just about everything else, and the answer is: " NOT ENOUGH " !!!

This rose (and about 20 others) was pruned exactly 2 weeks ago today, and look at it now.

Oops. wrong photo. It's the rose just to the left of the birdhouse.

This message was edited Jan 25, 2009 6:51 PM

Our roses won't look like that until mid-April to mid-May, JD!

I do love the look of the snow but right about now I get itchy for spring. My caladium and dahlia and lily orders are placed and I'm sure I'll panic when they all arrive and have a "What on earth was I thinking" moment.

Hiya, Pirlie. You're up late tonight. Great to see you. I need more lilies. Now that I've discovered the gopher-proof planting cages, it's such a treat to grow dahlias and lilies wherever I want again. I had been concentrating all of them in a few seemingly safe beds and in containers, but I want to have them in every bed.

JD, I thought for certain you were going to post the right photo too. It's sort of hard to figure out what you're saying about the rose at such a great distance.

I'm doing very little rose pruning this year. So many of them were bands not long ago, so I'm just concentrating on scaling down the huge monsters. I don't know what Lagerfeld would do if I let it spin out of control, for example. As it is, it grows to about 6-7 feet tall shortly after I've pruned it down to almost nothing. I gave up on one of my Queen Elizabeths long ago. It has grown to the top of my magnolia tree and it isn't even the climbing variety of QE.

I keep looking for something new and exciting. I love getting the White Flower Farms and Wayside catalogue to look through them. I wouldn't order anything from them, but I love seeing anything new. (Well actually I do place a small order every three years to keep getting the WFF catalogue).

Has anyone seen anything new and exciting?

Very pretty Mike, nice and serene looking.

The only thing my local nursery has in stock now is shovels and ice melt.

We all love lilies. Can you grow the OT ones there Zuzu? They're my new favorites. Orientals don't do so well here. Asiatics and the LA ones do well here, but I just love the oriental crosses, like the OTs, and orienpets. I'm glad to see there's a lot of new breeding in them.

I've read about people ordering bands, Zuzu, but have no idea what that means. It sounds as though it would be a group of rooted cuttings. Is that right?

Compared to you and JD I'm almost embarrassed to say I only have about 30 - 34 roses but Lagerfeld is one of them and it even grows tall for me. Considering I had Heritage (and loved it) but it grew smaller each year. When I was down on my hands and knees checking it, at maybe 8" tall, I decided it had suffered long enough and it went to that great thorn pile in the sky.

How many roses do you guys have?

Yes, what are bands?

hi everyone . im suffering too . i went and started 3 72 cell seed flats . so thats like 216 plants. and ive also been bugging dh to get into something gardenlike so i got a book on carnivorous plants and left it in the bathroom . lol he came up to me and said i think im gonna start a bog garden . so my plan worked but then i thought about it and was like but i have plans for every inch of ground . i know the perfect spot though and it might be nice to have him out there . we will see if i should have left well enough alone .

A bog garden might be ideal for Japanese irises, which we all have. Did you want a new addiction?

lol pirl i went to the botanical garden and saw this huge 5ft wide 8 ft tall rose bush i was like wow whats that , it wasnt in bloom, when i looked at the tag it was heritage . i panicked because i had just planted it in the front of my house about 2 ft away from some other huge ones . i wanted a wall of roses i guess ill get it .

I love the Wayside and WFF catalogs too. I never order from either one.

I've seen some exciting new Hydrangeas, similar to the Shooting Star one that came out a few years ago in white. These look like Shooting Star, but they're pink, blue, and a really beautiful white/pink picotee one. So far, I've only seen them in the local grocery stores, but I'll snap them up if I see them at a nursery.

Some of the Primulas I bought last week have the biggest blooms imaginable. They're almost 3 inches across, and the man at the nursery said they'd produce 5-inch blooms if they were in a bigger container or in the ground. He grew them from seed last year on a fairly small scale and was the only source for them. This year he's been growing them for some of the big suppliers, so they should be available at many more places.

pirl i have been following the thread on the ji . yes that was my second thought after the oh no hes gonna take my territory . then that little gardener in the back of my head was poking my brain with a pitchfork saying but you can take it back with Japanese iris!

zuzu i got three primulas at the grocery store last week too . 2 smelled so good like fruity pebbles . the other had no scent but was so pretty. these also had big blooms . not quite 3 inches .

Oh Zuzu, I'd love to see the primulas. One of my all time favorite plants. I have a few, and they kept dying on me until I realized I had to divide them every couple of years. Post a picture of yours if you can.

Pretty and spring looking Iris28.

This message was edited Jan 25, 2009 10:33 PM

We'll be out tomorrow so I'll be sure to stop at a greenhouse. I always get in trouble and buy things though now I only have a path through the porch. It's loaded with plants as is the master bedroom, this guest room, and the kitchen. I guess another few won't hurt, right?

Thanks, Polly...but here is the picture I originally meant to post.

Pirl is responsible for two of my addictions...

iris: that's too funny about leaving that in the bathroom for your husband ! It reminds me of that old tv commercial for toilet paper where the husband wrote on the roll: " Marge. Please buy something more absorbent. Love Tom"
I actually tried that once...do you know how hard it is to write on a roll of tp ???

OK I give up. Wrong photo AGAIN.
Back to writing on tp...

there is one called silver black lace and i want it so bad . wayside carries it every couple years . i had it and the bunnies ate it . i went to look for the roots but it was gone . ill be putting these in the back the bunnies dont go there much

Oh no! I'm being blamed again! Twice in a week is too much.

Which addictions, JD, so I can keep up the good work?

I had to look up primulas. I'm so behind.

Daylilies and heroin.

(Just kidding, everyone )

Polly - between them they probably have 500 roses and iris collects them, too.

David - good to see you. Making any popcorn with Snickers tonight?

That was NOT heroin. It was Anthrax. Just kidding.

Wow, holy roses.

sure, sure...

I probably have the fewest roses of anyone who posts...I've only got 32 of them. Zuzu has hundreds.

gonna try this one last time.

My entire driveway is full. It's such a good thing I don't have a car. I have to move containers of plants and bags of potting soil out of the way just to take the garbage cans out to the street every week. I keep thinking everything will be in its proper place by the next garbage day, but it never happens.

Hi, Polly. I definitely will take some pictures of the primulas tomorrow if it isn't pouring. He had them in about 20 different colors and blends of colors. It was so hard to choose just a few, but I already had a bunch of tree roses, cyclamens, and other types of primulas in my wagon. There were a few other customers wandering around, and the nursery owner gave me a 10% discount because he heard me urging them to buy everything in sight.

Hi, Iris. I love your photo. Yes, you definitely should have a bog garden. I made one a couple of years ago and I love it. There are so many plants that do well in a bog.

Polly, all kinds of lilies do well here. I also love the OT's and the Orienpets. People are really doing some wonderful experiments with lilies now.

Bands are the smallest containers for roses. It's dark outside, so I don't want to go out there with a tape measure, but I'd estimate they're about 4 inches square and 6 or 7 inches deep. I should amend that to say I used to think they were the smallest, but this year I ordered some roses from Almost Heaven. They sent them in something like a glorified thimble. Amazingly, the roses started growing by leaps and bounds the minute they were repotted. The picture below shows one of those containers in relation to a cat. Bands are about three times the size of that container.

Pirlie, according to my list on helpmefind.com, I now have 1229 different roses. That doesn't count duplicates and the mystery roses I can't list because I don't know their names. Isn't it nice that I have 20 acres? Haha (or as someone else might spell it, hahhaahahhhaa). My poor half-acre was bulging at the seams hundreds of roses ago.

Hi everyone! Hope you don't mind me lurking and following what you are planning for your gardens this year. I will live vicariously through you! Gardening catalogs started arriving the day after Christmas, but I haven't ordered anything. I'll wait to see if there is anything I can't find locally. Right now, it is much too early for anything to be showing up in the stores and too early to start seeds because they will be leggy before it is planting time. So, as long as you don't mind me popping in once in a while, I'd like to see and learn from you!

- Lynn

Oh, OK, I know what bands are now, I buy shrubs in bands from Appalachian nurseries.

1229 different roses, oh my. You must post pictures, Zuzu.

Hi Lynn, welcome. Don't lurk, post. It looks like a good group here.

Wow, look at all of that new growth! It's so beautiful.

Popcorn with Snickers sounds great. Is it a microwave concoction?

Did Pirl hook someone else on anthrax now? You know what a mess that was last time. I'm seriously disappointed.

I think Annie's Annuals might have the silver black lace one, Iris.

Did you get caught up yet, David?

Hi, Lynn. Chime right in. Say anything that comes to mind. You don't even have to bother trying to make sense. JD rarely does. He goes off on tangents about toilet paper and such, although he feels obliged to abbreviate it as tp, the way Mrs. Cunningham always did.

I had never seen "band" roses either, until CalifSue sent me that Sunrise climber. Here they only come bare root or in 5 gallon containers and up.

Polly: go to the rose forum...Zu has lots of pics. there.

mamasita: "We" require regular posting here! LOL

Thanks Mike, I will go check out the rose forum for Zuzu pics.

sorry folks...I haven't been well since I discovered April Stevens on YouTube (35 years too late...)

zuzu i know, i know but their shipping is 20+ bucks so ill have to have a big enough order to justify that . ive filled up a cart there then turned away many times lol . i frequently think about your half acre with 1000+ roses when im trying to buy something and think i have no room . i say zuzu has 1000 roses on half an acre i can fit a bit more . i just have an average suburban lot so ill have to stop way before 1000 though

lynn , you are not that far from where im from .. orange county . i dont miss the winter there . i get a bad case of s.a.d . id love to be a bit further south

I'd like to to have warmer winters, too, and part of our plan is to relocate to the mid-south. A longer growing season with milder winters would be wonderful. I do love autumn in the Hudson Valley though, and when I lived in TN about 35 years ago, would become very homesick at that time.

As much as I love roses, I have never had much luck with them here. They are solid for about a year or two and then decline or are ravaged by the wildlife.

My sun room gets me through these cold, snowy months! But I am anxious for things to warm up and for the plants to start their summer vacation in the great outdoors.

JD, at the risk of causing an even more futile obsession, I have to tell you April Stevens reminds me of Louise Rainer, who turned 98 a couple of weeks ago.

http://www.goatview.com/january12.htm

Iris, I'm sorry. I forgot that Annie's only ships by air to your area. The shipping and handling costs are ridiculous in that case. I used to buy some exciting primulas from Forest Farm and Big Dipper, but they're not on your coast either.

Whoooo wheeee, what a fun thread!!
I have been pouring through the catalogs and looking through the co-ops too.
I am going to clean out my pond in a couple of months and I picked out 2 lotus and 2 water lilies from Moodene's Texas Water Lilies Co-op, prices were just too good!
For the clematis co-op, I went directly to his site and did a pre-order for April delivery for
Franziska Maria http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/144989/
http://www.gardencrossings.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/plants.plantDetail/plant_id/679/typeID/2/index.htm
and read the description on koigardenclub where I ordered it from and couldn't resist :
Very free flowering, compact double clematis. This double clematis far outperforms any other double clematis currently available. It produces the most beautifully shaped double flowers ever, in both old and new growth. It has many flowers per stem and has good foliage. The 4-6" blue/puple flowers with yellow anthers are full and follow a repeat flowering pattern lasting throughout the summer to early autumn. It is ideal for growing in a container.

The second one I ordered was Rooguchi
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/77519/
http://www.rainyside.com/features/plant_gallery/vines/ClematisRooguchi.html
http://www.joycreek.com/150-106-1.htm

My Mom's looking through the co-op list and if she wants something, I will probably order TESHIO
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/122516/ so we can split the shipping, I gotta stretch my pennies.

and I am trying to finalize my Forest Farm gift certificate order from last years DG Go Gardening contest, got to get stuff in pots or the ground before I go on vacation in June. My head is spinning with looking up descriptions!

I have to start a Picasa collage per Cottage_Rose's request to cheer her from the winter blues, poor thing!