I also want a magnolia tree in front of the house. We didn't manage to get one last year, but this year, I'll be after it. My parents have one in their backyrd and when it blooms it looks amazing. We will get a small one and let it grow though, so the blooms might take a while...
Please, Pearl Jam, consider a Benaroya Hall vinyl reissue!
WhoPrincess, I like that term, cottage garden! I cannot wait to get my hands dirty outside. Come on, weather!
When I was a kid, it seemed like every neighborhood had a little old lady with a cottage garden. I eventually decided that some day I'd be one of those little old ladies. I picture myself looking something like this:
Love it We talk about it a bit every day and are starting to gather ideas. We have a large rectangle backyard lined with trees and we get afternoon sun. There is lawn there now, but we are thinking of creating little "islands" with pathways. And knickknacks like bird houses and old stones or statues, stuff like that. It will be fabulous! I have also read up a little bit about how to attract birds. Right now, we only got a little bird house there, for the entertainment of the cat (and me haha). I found some cool stuff online yesterday and think we will be doing something like that... There are so many cool birds here, I love watching them
Please, Pearl Jam, consider a Benaroya Hall vinyl reissue!
I love attracting birds! It's easier than I realized. We have feeders but we also have 2 birdbaths. I've planted a lot of native trees and shrubs and that attracts birds too. It's just about time for me to put out my hummingbird feeders. They are probably my favorite birds of all.
Only problem with feeding the birds is the squirrels raiding the feeders. I always want to throw things at them.
We often have screech owls come to our birdbath at dusk. Last year we put up a nest box for owls but they didn't use it. I was kind of bummed but someone told me that they had theirs up for about 3 years before the owls starting using it.
Wow, super cool!!! We have loads of squirrels in the yard too. Since I am not used to seeing that many from Germany, I still enjoy them. And they don't seem to care about the bird feeder. So far. Yes, we also want to put up bird baths and such. At the old place, we had a couple of cardinals coming to the feeder. I loved watching them, they are so pretty. Then we had red and yellow finches, and the occasional chickadee and blue birds. My mom in law lives a bit more in the sticks and she has a veritable bird paradise in her backyard. I love sitting on her deck with binoculars watching the birds. She has orioles, hummingbirds, Blue Jays and woodpeckers there. And chipmunks! None of these I have ever seen in Germany. I love that the birds are so colourful here I am not sure if hummingbirds would make it here, but I will also put up a feeder for them. They are so amazing! We are also thinking about adding a bat house because the mosquitoes are getting rough when it becomes warmer. I know there are owls in our area too, but I have never seen one.
Post edited by Leezestarr313 on
Please, Pearl Jam, consider a Benaroya Hall vinyl reissue!
Anybody grow climbing peas? What type of trellis do you use? Cotton string or chicken wire?
The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.
I am ambitiously growing a lemon tree in a pot here in Victoria. This is really stretching the bounds of it's range but there is a guy out on the Saanich peninsula who successfully grows and sells all sorts of citrus. The lemons and limes can be grown outdoors (in exactly the right spot, mind you) but the oranges and grapefruit need to be in a greenhouse. I bought my little lemon tree last spring and had it in a really warm corner; it did fantastic and set a lot of fruit. Getting it to live over the winter was quite a production - we had to move the pot under cover, string it with old fashioned Christmas tree lights (the kind that emit heat), build a wire cage around it and swaddle that in an agricultural fabric, all in order to avoid it getting frozen or drowned in our rain. It was touch and go but it survived and the lemons are starting to yellow so I'm pretty excited. Another couple of weeks and we'll move it back to its happy spot near the rock walls.
my small self... like a book amongst the many on a shelf
Anybody grow climbing peas? What type of trellis do you use? Cotton string or chicken wire?
I flip a really big tomato cage upside down, bind the tines together with a cable tie and string some twine up and down on the in-betweens. (It ends up looking like a zig-zag pattern.) I pin the cage upside down (tent stakes or bricks will work) then plant the seeds in a circle around the outside of the flipped cage. They end up growing around the tomato cage, then up and you have a really tall cone of peas! It works. I swear.
Anybody grow climbing peas? What type of trellis do you use? Cotton string or chicken wire?
I flip a really big tomato cage upside down, bind the tines together with a cable tie and string some twine up and down on the in-betweens. (It ends up looking like a zig-zag pattern.) I pin the cage upside down (tent stakes or bricks will work) then plant the seeds in a circle around the outside of the flipped cage. They end up growing around the tomato cage, then up and you have a really tall cone of peas! It works. I swear.
Thanks deadendp! I bought tomato cages! I even did the zig-zag up and down but I stuck the tines in the dirt...wasn't sure if the cone thing would work or not-that was my original idea. Maybe I will lip the cages tomorrow if the starts haven't grabbed on yet. I took some of the tendrils, gently unwound them and wrapped them around the cage legs.
Another really awesome thing, I have been looking for a Lunaria Annua (money tree) plant, or seeds since I moved to the new house-they are supposed to be good luck-and I haven't been able to find one locally and was going to buy seeds online. Recently, our neighbor took down their portable storage unit, and I am finally able to access the back side yard which is horribly overgrown-I've never been able to access that area since we moved in. As I was cleaning out the ivy, I found a Lunaria! I thought it was still alive, but it was dead, so I collected the seed pods and will plant them when I get more soil. I kind of see it as even more good luck, I wanted one, and there was one already on the property hiding out.
This is what it looks like when it flowers: Flowers can also be white, can't wait to see what color I get!
Next year, it will produce the seed pods:
The outer coating of the seed pods can be taken off and this is why it's called a 'money tree':
They kinda look like silver dollars and:
I had a huge vase of these when I was a kid, I was so fascinated that a plant would produce the silvery tissue paper like leaves.
I guess they used to use the dried pods in flower arrangements, a quick look on the net...wow, there is another reason why it's called 'money plant'!
The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.
That sounds like a good sign! I hope it works out growing them from the seed pods
I have been reading about all kinds of stuff that you can grow from kitchen scraps lately. I have an avocado pit and green onions going in the kitchen window already, and today planted a ginger root in a bed of soil. I read that you can also grow ginger plants like that. I hope it works!
Other than that all my seeds have started to sprout. The yellow squashes and lemon cucumbers are growing like crazy and today, the giant pumpkin finally made it through. I hope the weather turns around soon, otherwise I might have to put some of the babies in bigger pots.
Please, Pearl Jam, consider a Benaroya Hall vinyl reissue!
I set up all kinds of bird feeders in these last couple of days, and we got a galore of birds in the backyard! I love watching them So far, I have spotted - an Eastern Bluebird (yay!) - a pair of Cardinals (double yay, I love them!) - chickadees - House finches in red and yellow - a tree creeper (thought at first it was a mouse) - a tufted titmouse - juncos - sparrows - Robins - Starlings
Well, and on top of that we got tons of funny squirrels and a groundhog.
I also hung up a hummingbird feeder, we don't know if they will come, but it is possible. I love the variety of birds around here, it is quite distracting to look out of my office window
Please, Pearl Jam, consider a Benaroya Hall vinyl reissue!
I went to the farmer's market and bought more starts. Glad to help out the 'little guy'. They sell 'organic non-GMO' plants...essentially, they grow everything to organic standards using non-GMO seeds. They aren't 'certified' because it's so expensive to get certification.
Also bought some daikon radish seeds, and Chinese Kale.
I have to wait on the other veggies, those starts won't be ready until May. The city holds a community farming plant sale, and I'll go there to get everything else. Everything is organic there, and they have classes on organic city farming.
Bird feeders will have to wait, the jays scream at me when I go outside because I haven't put out the feeders. Re-seeded the lawn, and the grass is finally coming in, and I don't need the birds to be ripping up the lawn.
The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.
No, seems easy. I saw its best to grow over winter, but I have several seeds, so maybe I will grow some now and some in the fall.
The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.
The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.
Awesome, enjoy QuarterToTen! We have to wait a bit longer, I think beginning of May is the time. Some of my plants want to leave the greenhouse, they are ready to pop!
Please, Pearl Jam, consider a Benaroya Hall vinyl reissue!
I enjoy it immensely. It may be a bit early, but I just can't wait any longer. The weather has been ridiculously awesome, everything is coming to life, I absolutely love it.
my peas are taking off...the weekend is supposed to be really nice, 70s...and I'm not home to water the plants. :(
The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.
We got snow today. I hope this winter stuff is over soon. My giant pumpkins are honoring their name and they are getting BIG! They soon will need to get out of the little pots and into the ground. Come on, Michigan, I know you got some summer in you!
On a sidenote, I still love all the birds. I watched how the cardinal fed his wife today, it was so cute.
I secretly hope the birds will take care of the mosquitoes in the summer. I don't really wanna spray any insecticide now that we lured them all into bird paradise...
Please, Pearl Jam, consider a Benaroya Hall vinyl reissue!
Just ordered green bean seeds, morning glories, portulaca and little orange daisies from Baker Creek Seed. They had an Earth Day sale and it was a good reminder that I needed to purchase my seeds!
I cleaned out the garden of the weeds, cleaned up around the lilac tree...there were all these tall grasses and some purple flowers that look like bluebells. When you pull them up, they have bulbs, and if you let them grow and die off, the flowers turn to seed pods. They multiply like bunnies! There were a few in the yard when we first moved in, I thought they were pretty so I left them. Now they are taking over everything! Hope I have them under control now.
I can't believe how fast the peas are growing, compared to the rest of the plants, they grow like weeds. Strawberries look good, the other veggies are still green, but they don't look any bigger. My dill died, but I guess it's a short living plant?
The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.
Nice! We have those liac/ purple blue ones as well. They are the first flowers to come out here at the moment. We trimmed a huge nut tree that is in front of our house yesterday. Because the old needle trees that we cut down last year took all the afternoon sun from him all the years, he started bending towards the morning sun side and grew large branches there. Now he can hopefully relax and will grow nuts again. The rest of the garden is still bird paradise, it is not warm enough yet to plant anything outside. But I cannot wait. Middle to endof May will be the time.
Please, Pearl Jam, consider a Benaroya Hall vinyl reissue!
WAY too hot (90s) the past few day here in south Florida for planting. Have a bunch of arugula, basil & lettuce seedlings growing nicely but will have to get in ground soon enough after it cools back down.
So, What you Giving ?........ (Thanks Speedy, Alesek, & Arq+friends)
What You Giving
I suggest you step out on your Porch.
Run away my son. See it all. Oh, See the World!
Comments
I have also read up a little bit about how to attract birds. Right now, we only got a little bird house there, for the entertainment of the cat (and me haha). I found some cool stuff online yesterday and think we will be doing something like that... There are so many cool birds here, I love watching them
I love attracting birds! It's easier than I realized. We have feeders but we also have 2 birdbaths. I've planted a lot of native trees and shrubs and that attracts birds too. It's just about time for me to put out my hummingbird feeders. They are probably my favorite birds of all.
Only problem with feeding the birds is the squirrels raiding the feeders.
We often have screech owls come to our birdbath at dusk. Last year we put up a nest box for owls but they didn't use it. I was kind of bummed but someone told me that they had theirs up for about 3 years before the owls starting using it.
This was at our birdbath several years ago:
We have loads of squirrels in the yard too. Since I am not used to seeing that many from Germany, I still enjoy them. And they don't seem to care about the bird feeder. So far. Yes, we also want to put up bird baths and such. At the old place, we had a couple of cardinals coming to the feeder. I loved watching them, they are so pretty. Then we had red and yellow finches, and the occasional chickadee and blue birds. My mom in law lives a bit more in the sticks and she has a veritable bird paradise in her backyard. I love sitting on her deck with binoculars watching the birds. She has orioles, hummingbirds, Blue Jays and woodpeckers there. And chipmunks! None of these I have ever seen in Germany. I love that the birds are so colourful here
We are also thinking about adding a bat house because the mosquitoes are getting rough when it becomes warmer. I know there are owls in our area too, but I have never seen one.
- Christopher McCandless
Tattooed Dissident!
2016: Lexington and Wrigley 1
Another really awesome thing, I have been looking for a Lunaria Annua (money tree) plant, or seeds since I moved to the new house-they are supposed to be good luck-and I haven't been able to find one locally and was going to buy seeds online. Recently, our neighbor took down their portable storage unit, and I am finally able to access the back side yard which is horribly overgrown-I've never been able to access that area since we moved in. As I was cleaning out the ivy, I found a Lunaria! I thought it was still alive, but it was dead, so I collected the seed pods and will plant them when I get more soil.
I kind of see it as even more good luck, I wanted one, and there was one already on the property hiding out.
This is what it looks like when it flowers:
Flowers can also be white, can't wait to see what color I get!
Next year, it will produce the seed pods:
The outer coating of the seed pods can be taken off and this is why it's called a 'money tree':
They kinda look like silver dollars
and:
I had a huge vase of these when I was a kid, I was so fascinated that a plant would produce the silvery tissue paper like leaves.
I guess they used to use the dried pods in flower arrangements, a quick look on the net...wow, there is another reason why it's called 'money plant'!
- Christopher McCandless
I have been reading about all kinds of stuff that you can grow from kitchen scraps lately. I have an avocado pit and green onions going in the kitchen window already, and today planted a ginger root in a bed of soil. I read that you can also grow ginger plants like that. I hope it works!
Other than that all my seeds have started to sprout. The yellow squashes and lemon cucumbers are growing like crazy and today, the giant pumpkin finally made it through. I hope the weather turns around soon, otherwise I might have to put some of the babies in bigger pots.
- an Eastern Bluebird (yay!)
- a pair of Cardinals (double yay, I love them!)
- chickadees
- House finches in red and yellow
- a tree creeper (thought at first it was a mouse)
- a tufted titmouse
- juncos
- sparrows
- Robins
- Starlings
Well, and on top of that we got tons of funny squirrels and a groundhog.
I also hung up a hummingbird feeder, we don't know if they will come, but it is possible. I love the variety of birds around here, it is quite distracting to look out of my office window
Also bought some daikon radish seeds, and Chinese Kale.
I have to wait on the other veggies, those starts won't be ready until May. The city holds a community farming plant sale, and I'll go there to get everything else. Everything is organic there, and they have classes on organic city farming.
Bird feeders will have to wait, the jays scream at me when I go outside because I haven't put out the feeders. Re-seeded the lawn, and the grass is finally coming in, and I don't need the birds to be ripping up the lawn.
- Christopher McCandless
- Christopher McCandless
- Christopher McCandless
15 baby tomato plants, 8 red peppers, lettuce, carrots and corn are going into my well tilled, manured, composted, fertilized gorgeous black soil.
A day I wait for all winter long, I'm so excited.
Happy Spring!
Hope you can get things in the ground soon
Till there aint nothing left worth taking away from me.....
2016: Lexington and Wrigley 1
- Christopher McCandless
On a sidenote, I still love all the birds. I watched how the cardinal fed his wife today, it was so cute.
I secretly hope the birds will take care of the mosquitoes in the summer. I don't really wanna spray any insecticide now that we lured them all into bird paradise...
Happy Earth Day!
2016: Lexington and Wrigley 1
I can't believe how fast the peas are growing, compared to the rest of the plants, they grow like weeds. Strawberries look good, the other veggies are still green, but they don't look any bigger. My dill died, but I guess it's a short living plant?
- Christopher McCandless
We trimmed a huge nut tree that is in front of our house yesterday. Because the old needle trees that we cut down last year took all the afternoon sun from him all the years, he started bending towards the morning sun side and grew large branches there. Now he can hopefully relax and will grow nuts again. The rest of the garden is still bird paradise, it is not warm enough yet to plant anything outside. But I cannot wait. Middle to endof May will be the time.
What You Giving
I suggest you step out on your Porch.
Run away my son. See it all. Oh, See the World!