Tag: salvia

Seed my Valentine

The Burpee order arrived yesterday bringing a packet each of the Lady in Red Salvia and Dianthus Valentine. I proceeded to put out 6 Valentine seeds into the growing system. I believe I will sow the Lady in Red Salvia in 3″ pots, given the vigor of these “Texas” or Scarlet sages. Now, all that are left to arrive are the columbines, petunias and ice plant seeds from Swallowtail Gardens.

I thinned some pepper and Thai basil seedlings that I discovered that had doubled up, including the ones I intentionally increased, namely the Thai chili peppers. I am testing the hardiness of two by putting them outside the growing system into a 3″ pot. Technically, I should leave the seedling cells uncovered now, since most of them are putting out their 2nd set of leaves

Meanwhile, I was investigating the dinner trays and thinning some of the impatiens seeds. The impatiens flat needs a vent hole in the dome. Last year’s seeding venture has taught me to expect some sprouting within 7-10 days, if conditions are right. Unlike the fast-growing annuals: one of the alyssum trays is already showing 2 sprouters the 3rd day after sowing. If I had to guess, I would think the white alyssum were the first, being more vigorous than colored alyssum.

However, the biggest surprise was to find a pansy seedling. It’s been 15 days since sowing and I had seen nary a root until this morning. One of the cells hid a sprout, which I discovered while trying to home a chili seedling. So there is hope yet.

More sowing to come!

More seed sowing

1/23/2011 Dianthus Cutting in BudI checked the mailbox earlier today in discovered I received my Park’s  package. Yay, more seeds! I took a quick trip to the Lewisville Home Depot in search of some seedling flat trays, but all I walked out with were 2 packages of Burpee growing pellets and 20 feet of garden fencing. Thankfully, my honey picked up a spray bottle for me earlier in the day, so I can mist the alyssum and impatiens trays.

Also, I had earlier shaken some seeds out of the purple pastel salvia greggii sitting potted up in the garden and placed 2 of them into a 3″ pot. I still had plenty of aluminum cake pans to tap, and so proceeded to get some more 3″ pots into them, including the 2 rooted asters I brought indoors. I’m minded to browse the white salvia in the salvia row for some more seeds. I realize that salvia greggii may not always come true from seed, but I think this will be a good experiment to see how well they germinate.

So, to sum up, I sowed 12 21st Century Blue Star Phlox and 1 row of 6 Blue Knoll Chrysanthemum seeds in the Burpee grow system. Both packages had an expiration date, and the Blue Knoll was marked as “low germination” so I’m crossing my fingers to see what the results will be.

I will hold off another week before I sow the marigolds and the vincas, since my focus for now is on cool season annuals such as phlox, alyssum, and impatiens. Meanwhile, I eagerly await the rest of my seed orders…from Burpee and Swallowtail Gardens. My live plant orders from Delaware however have been delayed due to inclement weather.

Seed starts and purchases

It’s been a week since sowing, and the first plants out of the gate are the basils. Nearly all the basil plants have sprouted their first set of baby leaves. I have to remind myself to look closer at the Red Rubin basils because their dark purple color blends into the soil background. It only took 3 days for the basil to put out their first roots. I regret not having collected some of the lime basil seeds while I had them available. I hope to find some volunteers in the garden this spring.

Monday holidays are for shopping. So I put in a large order of seeds at various outlets:

Artemisia vulgaris Oriental Limelight 2x Accents from Home & Garden
Felicia amelloides variegata Variegated Felicia 2x Accents from Home & Garden
Petunia x hybrida Easy Wave Series Flag Mix 1×10 Swallowtail Gardens Seeds
Aquilegia caerulea Origami Blue & White 1×15 Swallowtail Gardens Seeds
Aquilegia caerulea Origami Red & White 1×15 Swallowtail Gardens Seeds
Delosperma floribunda Starburst 1×50 Swallowtail Gardens Seeds
Heteropappus meyendorfii Blue Knoll Chrysanthemum 1×15 Park Seeds
Phlox drummondii 21st Century Blue Star 1×15 Park Seeds
Cosmos sulfureus Cosmic Red 1×50 Park Seeds
Cosmos sulfureus Cosmic Yellow 1×50 Park Seeds
Catharanthus roseus Vinca Titan Mix 1×25 Stokes Seed
Lobularia maritima Wonderland White 1×250 Stokes Seed
Lobularia maritima Wonderland Copper 1×250 Stokes Seed
Lobularia maritima Wonderland Mulberry Mix 2×250 Stokes Seed
Thymophylla tenuiloba Dahlberg Daisy 1×50 Stokes Seed
Salvia coccinea Lady in Red 1×25 Burpee
Dianthus chinensis Valentine 1×75 Burpee

Out of the order above, only the Artemisia and Felicia are live plant orders. I suspect I may not get these plants until Delaware comes out of their freeze. I should remember to pay attention to such things…and January is just too early to be ordering plants.

Easy plantings for difficult tree rings

The tree ring in the front yard is a terribly challenging spot to grow. Last year I seed the area with Cosmic Red and Yellow Cosmos which somehow managed to find only the sunny spots to root in. The ring therefore ended up with too many bald patches taken up by weeds.

This year I hope to heavily reseed by obtaining good amounts from Stokes. They had larger volumes available of the Yellow and Red varieties. This year, I intend to introduce two different ever-flowering varieties of plant. For a foreground, I’ve chosen annual alyssum…most likely a white-flowered cultivar. To background the cosmos, I determined that the prolific scarlet sage or salvia coccinea would have no trouble adapting to the arid conditions under the tree ring. I already witnessed the rampant prolific nature of the bicolor Coral Nymph sage which nearly overran the purple bed, and I’m certain that a red-flowered coccinea, such as Lady In Red, would suit the barren conditions in the tree ring. My fave wildflower seed distributor also carries this salvia seed in bulk.