Sunday, February 24, 2008

Baby Plants

This is the incubator room. I use seed starting mix for all the seeds I plant. The green mat in the left rear is a heated greenhouse mat, it keeps the pots warm so the seeds germinate more quickly. I don't use the clear plastic greenhouse cover because the seeds I am germinating are enclosed in plastic, and the other ones are in a pie tray with lid.
You can't see the second one, but there are two grow lights being used. They are the compact florescent ones you can get from WalMart. If you are looking for them, they are labeled "Daylight" bulb. We just used ordinary lamps and screwed the daylight bulbs in.
Some of the seeds are in peat pots, with little plastic pots that someone had given us. I use these outer pots to keep the moisture from evaporating too quickly since the peat pots lose moisture through the sides. I also use recycled pots from plants we've purchased and planted in the garden.
You can see the two Passiflora Actinia growing in their little pots. They were the first to germinate of the seeds we got from Turtlegaby. I used the heated mat to germinate them and then transferred them to their own pots once they broke through the soil.
Here you see the Glory Lily freshly transferred into her own big pot. I germinated this one in the pie pan with lid and transplanted it as soon as it sprouted.
These are Zinnias from seed that we harvested from our favorite blooms when we lived in Georgia. Can't wait till they are full grown and blooming!
Here is the pie pan. It has only about 3/4 of an inch of soil so I have to transplant the seedlings as soon as they sprout.
As you can see, I divided the pie pan into 8 separate sections and labeled the lid. I also cut a notch in the pie pan and marked the lid to line up with the notch so I don't lose track of the seedlings.
The first thing that sprouted in the pie pan was the Red Flowering Gum, but I killed it when I transplanted it. Oh well, there are two more of its seeds in the pie pan.
More babies. The short plastic container has Hollyhocks, the pots on the right and left have Red Poppies in recycled pots, and the far left is a Sweet Pea, also in a recycled pot. I don't know which one, because we have a lot of different Sweet Pea seeds and lost track... LOL I like the recycled pots and containers because they work much better than the ones they sell for seed starting at the stores.

~Gerard~

Saturday, February 23, 2008

First Little Spring Bouquet

Today I had just enough flowers to clip the first little bouquet to enjoy!

Friday, February 22, 2008

WooHoo Sweet Pea Blooms!!!

This one is a short variety of Sweet Pea and lovely Bi-color pink!
Gerard grew all the Sweet Pea's from seed and lots of varieties so we don't know what's what anymore! LOL This one is a lovely pink climbing variety! I'm just so excited to have such lovely pink ones and they all smell so yummy!
Close up...don't you wish you could smell it?
Look at all those buds!!! Looks like bouquets are in the near future!

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Update More Blooms on the Way

Oooooooo a rose color sweet pea getting ready to bloom!
And this sweet pea is starting to climb and has got tons of buds and it looks like pink edged!!!
New pink lavender planted.
New rose starting to grow.

Monday, February 18, 2008

Spring is Coming!!!

First Sweet Pea bloom!!! It looks a little odd, wonder if something happened to it, but still it's nice to finally have a bloom!
The African Daisy we grew from seed is now blooming away!
The pretty pink early Hollyhock is continuing on too!

Friday, February 15, 2008

Monday, February 11, 2008

Two Gems to Share

First the early hollyhock is BLOOMING!!!!!!!!!!
Don't you just love the joys of having a garden?
Second a butterfly visited!!!

Saturday, February 09, 2008

More Garden Work

These are another variety of Sweet Pea we have about to bloom!!!
The roses are starting to bud out!
The african daisy has got tons of buds! We grew it from seed this winter!
The hollyhock is about to open and you can see it's going to be pink!!!!!!
Gerard is splitting up a couple of rose bushes we had bought it as one plant and noticed that there were 2 different roses in there so since they are dormant we split them now.
He found worms in the pot!!!
Here they are potted up
He even found a tiny one and just set it in the side of this pot to grow bigger.

Friday, February 08, 2008

Pretty Close-ups!

Beautiful yummy smelling Stock.
Viola seeds and bloom.
Sweet Pea buds getting ready to bloom!

Friday, February 01, 2008

Baby Plants

Passiflora Actinia
Passiflora Actinia
Unknown, we think it's the Sacred Datura.

Monday, January 21, 2008

Buds about to Open!!!

EXCITING!!!!!! Honeysuckle blooms popping open!!!
It's still small right now but I know after it warms up it will take off and ramble.
Yes, that is some sweetpea's growing with it at the base!
Overall photo from our sitting area. The stock and petunia's fill the air at night.

You can see the 2 new floribunda roses we planted along this area. The alyssum also smells so sweet! We walk down this area anytime we leave and return home so it's wonderful to have yummy smells along the way.
This is the Don Juan climbing rose, we are going to let him ramble, maybe give him a trellis or a few bamboo polls to hold onto. We'll see what will be best when he starts reaching out.
We put the new Hybrid Tea rose over on this side.
One hollyhock has buds, it's the one freak hollyhock that grew bigger than the rest and is ahead of the class!
The bougainvillea is still resting through the cold, and has sweetpea's at the base.

Sweet Pea BUD!!!!!!!!!!!!

Today we spotted our first Sweet Pea bud!!! So excited we've been waiting months for blooms!
Here is a photo of Madie waiting between pots for the ball to be thrown!

Saturday, January 19, 2008

New Roses

Preparing some bareroot roses to be planted! We recently bought four new roses, can't wait for spring! It's just around the corner for us here in the desert!
We bought Don Juan which is a great red climbing rose we've bought several times in the gardens we've had. It's a beautiful red and smells nice too. So each time we have to create a new garden I look for this one.
Also we bought Paradise which is a pink hybrid tea variety, we've never grown it before but it says strong fragrance.
Then we bought Gene Boerner which is also a pink floribunda rose, we can't remember for sure if we've grown it before.
Dream Waltz a red floribunda that we've never grown, but it says it's a prolific bloomer...we'll see! I hope it lives up to the expectations!