Garden

[gardenman]

The geranium seeds (53 of them) got started yesterday along with some old lobelia seeds and a couple of cells of catnip. I'm courageously (maybe foolishly?) growing them under the new red/blue LED lights. We'll see how they do. The lights are now about six inches above the soil. I have no idea if that's too far or too near. I'll start finding out as the seedlings grow. If they get a bit too leggy, I'll lower the lights. If the leaves start to burn I'll raise them higher. We'll have to see what happens. The seeds should start to germinate in about a week. 

[Dazlin]

I pruned my roses a little over a week or so ago, and I noticed one is already getting tiny shoots from the canes.  I just today started adding a fresh soil mixture with compost and peat to freshen up the existing soil...ill fertile in a couple of weeks.   I also planted a rose called Lavender Simplicity,  own root.  It was a gift from my daughter...she ordered it from Jackson and Perkins.  I'm excited to see how it does.

[Tennesseegal]

I have several pots of pansies blooming and my daffodils are poking green shoots out of the ground!

[Flatbush]

---

@gardenman wrote:

The geranium seeds (53 of them) got started yesterday along with some old lobelia seeds and a couple of cells of catnip. I'm courageously (maybe foolishly?) growing them under the new red/blue LED lights. We'll see how they do. The lights are now about six inches above the soil. I have no idea if that's too far or too near. I'll start finding out as the seedlings grow. If they get a bit too leggy, I'll lower the lights. If the leaves start to burn I'll raise them higher. We'll have to see what happens. The seeds should start to germinate in about a week. 

@gardenman 

I love lobelia, esp the deep, bright blue. Haven't had them for a while, but as I remember, they were pretty easy to grow.

I didn't know you could grow geranium with seeds! Are they a special variety?

I know you can snap off a piece of the stem of the ivy geranium and root it in the ground, because that is how I propagate them.They are almost like weeds here in Southern Ca.

---

[Flatbush]

@Tennesseegal 

Those are two of my favorite spring flowers.

[gardenman]

@Flatbush 

Lobelias are very easy to grow, but take a long time to start from seeds. The seeds are very small and dust-like. A packet of lobelia seeds will often hold thousands of seeds. They do very well here, but by September they're starting to fade a bit. These are Lobelia Crystal Palace, a lovely dark blue form.

Geranium seeds have been around since I started gardening. (That would be sometime in the sixties/seventies.) They've improved the quality of seed grown plants immensely over that time and most of the store bought geraniums you see these days are seed grown. You pretty much have to go to a specialty retailer to find cutting grown geraniums these days. The Multibloom Geraniums are a nice variety topping out at ten to twelve inches tall, with up to fifteen flowering stems in flower at one time. They come in seven colors (capri, lavender, red, pink, white, violet, and salmon.) They start to flower when just ten weeks old (give or take a bit) and flower and grow even through a light frost or two.

The 53 seeds I bought cost $10.25, so the initial investment is pretty low. The plants at retail typically cost $3.99 and up each locally. These seeds come coated with a fungicide to help protect them which makes them look like they're 24 karat gold. They're almost too pretty to plant. Out of the 53 seeds I should get 90+% germination so there should be about 45 or so plants come spring, which if bought at retail would cost around $180+. Not a bad return on the investment. The potting soil for them cost less than $5 and I just reuse old pots for them. 

Plant prices here in NJ have skyrocketed in recent years. Four/six packs used to be readily available for $1-$2. Now they're $3-$4. I'll be starting 250+ Accent Impatiens seeds ($7.99 seed cost) pretty soon that at retail would cost me about another $200. Later on about 50 maigolds will get started also along with some other plants. My total seed/soil investment will be under $100 but would cost around $500 to buy those same plants at full retail.

[happycat]

They aren't blooming, but I was excited to see my daffodils coming up just a few mintues ago. Now, I need to get some more mulch to put around them.

I also went to atwoods this morning to get some birdseed and I got some okra seeds. They are called baby bubba hybrid, they are suppose to do excellent in containers. I'm looking forward to finding out.

[Flatbush]

@gardenman 

Such an interesting post. I really had no idea about all the seeds you wrote about.You will have a busy time caring for all those seeds and seedlings.. I wonder what you will do with all those plants :-) What a fun time you will have watching the seeds mature.

Thanks for the posting, full of information for me.

[gardenman]

@Flatbush 

This is what I do with all of those plants. This photo is from the Fourth of July in 2019.

The hanging baskets, railing planters, planter boxes on both sides of the front porch, then there's a fountain in the front yard that gets surrounded by plants also, so I can never have too many plants. I use a lot of plants.

[Flatbush]

@gardenman 

How beautiful!.

I'm sure the people walking by love seeing your home. You must get a lot of compliments.

No wonder you plant seeds, instead of purchasing plants at garden centers. You DO need a lot of plants.

Greyt job.