Garden

[gardenman]

I'm going with most of my old standbys this year, but I'm sneaking in a new (to me anyway) begonia called Bayou. It looks pretty impressive in the catalog. (Of course everything looks impressive in the catalog.) In addition to that begonia, I'm going with three types of impatiens (Accent, Envoy Peach, Envoy Tropical,) Maverick geraniums, lobelia Crystal Palace, and marigold Janie.

I sent the order off to HPS Seeds who tend to give you large quantities of the seeds. For a little over $42, I got a total of 50 geranium seeds, 450 impatiens seeds (250 Accent, 100 each of Envoy Peach and Tropical,) 250 marigold seeds, 250 begonia seeds, and roughly 40,000 lobelia seeds. That should keep me pretty busy for a while. My front porch eats about 400 plants between the railing planters, planter boxes, and hanging baskets, then I've got lots of other places to put plants, so starting them from seed is the most economical way to get a lot of plants.

I'll still have to pick up some salvia and sunflower seeds locally before I'm done, but that's a pretty good start. The lobelias, geraniums, and begonias will get started as soon as the seeds arrive. Geraniums and lobelias are really tough little plants who can take life in the coldframe from early/mid March on. The begonias will have to stay inside for most of the spring, but they tend to grow quite slowly so it's not a huge problem. The impatiens will get started a bit later and then the marigolds will get started even later.