Lilac Bouquet and George

I went outside this morning, before the rain, to gather some lilac blossoms for my first ever lilac bouquet. The lovely fragrance just fills the room. I can't wait until my small shrubs grow and I have more of these delightful blooms.

On my way back to the house, I noticed that something had been digging in one of my winter sowing containers,(#22 Hollyhock), I bent down for a closer look and jumped back when I saw the dirt move. I slowly moved the container around with my foot...


and this toad poked his head out of the dirt.

The first few springs and summers in our new neighborhood we had a lot of frogs. So many, that when I would walk in the evenings I would have to really watch my step because they were constantly jumping across the sidewalk. As our neighborhood grew and people began to use chemicals on the lawns causing runoff into our neighborhood ponds I saw fewer frogs, (at least that is what I believe has caused the decline). In fact for the last two or three years I haven't seen a single one. So, I am very glad to see this fellow here today. When my children were young and I would find a frog I'd call them all George. I'd use a funny voice and for some reason George just sounded like the frog name that fit with the silly voice. I hope "George" sticks around Robin's Nesting Place for a while.

Buebirds Again

The bluebird is becoming a regular visitor now, I spotted him at the birdbath today. I'm not sure if he was checking out the nesting box again.

I got a few pictures before he flew away.

The ducks are so funny. I was outside on the patio this evening and spotted them coming into the yard. I walked over to Lilly and sat on the grass beside her to hold her leash so she wouldn't chase them. They walked right up to the patio and ate the sunflower seeds. I couldn't believe that they would come so close to me and the dog.

Hopefully Lilly will get used to seeing them and won't bother them, but between the cat yesterday and the neighbors dog in my yard today, they better be careful.

It was a beautiful spring day today with temperatures reaching around the low 70's. My son mowed our backyard for the first time today. It only needed it in the areas where Lilly regularly "waters".
I transplanted the zinnias and quite a few petunias. A few weeks ago, I took some cuttings from the sweet potato vines, that I had overwintered, and placed them in water.


They had nice long roots already and I put into containers today. I'm getting tired of taking care of all of these plants inside and I'm ready to do some real gardening. With temperatures in the 70's it's hard to imagine another cold snap, but I know better than to put these babies outside yet. I have so many petunias that I did get tired of re-potting them today and stuck a few into containers on the patio. I'll just have to cover them if it gets too cold.

All but two of the winter sowing containers have plants growing in them and one of those is purple fountain grass seeds that I just planted a few days ago. The other is columbine. Everything else looks great. We have rain, rain and more rain in the forecast for this week. I'm so glad I was able to play outside for awhile today.

Winter Sowing Update

I had read a lot about winter sowing last year and was a little sceptical, but thought I'd give it a try this year. So far it is working great and I have sprouts in just about every container. Here what has sprouted so far:

1- Foxglove, Candy Mountain
2 & 3- English Poppy
4- Foxglove Excelsior Mix
6- Delphinium, Blue Bird
7- Delphinium, pacific Giants, Mixed color
8- Milkweed, Rose, Asclepias incarnata
9- Viola
10 & 11- Cosmos
12- Bellflower, Campanula carpatica -Blue
13- Lantana - (I see two sprouts, I hope these aren't weeds)
15- Daisy Garden wildflower mix, (Black-eyed Susan, Blanket flower, Coreopsis, Cosmos, Shasta Daisy, Tricolor Chrysanthemum)
16- Verbena bonariensis
17 Alyssum
18 & 19 Gazania
20 & 23 Larkspur
22 Hollyhock
24 Ipomopsis Hummingbird mix
27 Malva

I have enjoyed this method of sowing because I've not had to do anything to them after the initial preparations. While the seeds/seedlings inside have been pampered and watered daily.

I've got to get busy and get a few more things planted in the little milk jug green houses to get an earlier start. I want my yard to be covered in blooms and I want my blooms covered in bees, butterflies and hummingbirds.

Bird Pictures and Lantana Update

We had beautiful sunshine this morning and even though our highs were only supposed to be in the lower 40's, it felt warm enough for me to have my morning coffee on the patio. I have so missed doing that. Being right beside the common area/playground, early morning is the only time I truly get peace and quiet in the yard. The birds were singing and there was quite a bit of courting going on.

There are quite a few robins here at Robin's Nesting Place this year. I went outside this afternoon to piddle around but it was a little cloudy and too cool to stay out long. I did take a few minutes to pull up some scraggly lamb's ear that had been spreading out of control. I saw a lot of earth worms, so the robins should have plenty to feed their young.


The goldfinches are beginning to molt and will soon be sporting their bright yellow plumage. A sure sign of spring. I adore the sweet sound of the goldfinch, I'll be glad when I can raise the windows to hear it better. I have several feeders with nyjer seed in them, so I was surprised to see this little cutie come to the patio to eat the black oil sunflower seeds that I put out for the cardinal.


I was elated today when I checked my winter sowing containers and saw a sprout in the lantana container. I hope it survives and that more will sprout. The seeds I had inside were a complete bust, because the gnats really liked the peat pellets since they had molded, I have them sitting out on the patio, but I don't really have much hope for them. This was just an experiment, because lantana is very difficult to grow from seed. I will consider it a success if I just get one plant from the seeds I collected.

I hope everyone had a lovely Easter weekend.

Winter Sowing Update 3-21-08

Even though it's spring, it doesn't feel like it today. It's cold, but thankfully we aren't getting the snow the upper Midwest is getting.

I took a stroll around the soggy yard today to see if anything else was blooming besides my lone crocus, other than one other purple crocus, there isn't. I wasn't too disappointed though because I'd rather the blooms hold off just a little longer until it warms up so I can really enjoy them. I saw a lot of tulip, lily and daffodil sprouts coming up. Soon, it will really look and feel like spring!

This picture was taken spring 2007. I hope the pink tulips are as pretty this year.

I checked on my winter sowing containers on the patio and there are more sprouts. Here are the containers that have germinated so far:

#1- Foxglove, Candy Mountain
#2 & 3 -English poppy
#10 & 11- Cosmos
#17- Alyssum
#18- Gazania

I don't think I had ever made a complete listing, in one post, of what I had winter sowed, so here is my winter sowing list for 2008:

1- Foxglove, Candy Mountain
2 & 3- English Poppy
4- Foxglove Excelsior Mix
5- Blanketflower Gaillardia Aristata
6- Delphinium, Blue Bird
7- Delphinium, pacific Giants, Mixed color
8- Milkweed, Rose, Asclepias incarnata
9- Viola
10 & 11- Cosmos
12- Bellflower, Campanula carpatica -Blue
13- Lantana (This is just an experiment since I had plenty of seed. Considering this is zone 5, I doubt it will be successful.)
14- Columbine
15- Daisy Garden wildflower mix, (Black-eyed Susan, Blanket flower, Coreopsis, Cosmos, Shasta Daisy, Tricolor Chrysanthemum)
17 Alyssum
18 & 19 Gazania
20 & 23 Larkspur
21 Milkweed
22 Hollyhock
24 Ipomopsis Hummingbird mix
26 Butterfly bush
27 Malva

I'm missing numbers 16 and 25, I'm not sure what happened, I may have skipped the numbers or just forgotten to write down what I sowed.

The Verbena IS a Perennial. It is, it is!!!

On January 31, I posted pictures of the many little creatures that had enjoyed the Verbena Bonariensis in my butterfly garden and I made the statement that it was my favorite perennial. Jodi left a comment saying that it was an annual where she lived. I was curious to see if it was indeed a perennial or an annual in my zone 5 garden. After checking several sources I saw that it was only hardy in zones 7-10. Embarrassed and feeling a bit foolish about my mistake, I posted again telling why I had thought it was a perennial.

Nearly in a panic after reading that so many people had trouble getting this to grow in their garden, I went outside in the cold weather and snipped off the seed heads of just about every verbena in the garden. I winter sowed some and sprinkled seeds in every flower bed.

The weather was absolutely perfect here today, in the mid-fifties and I spent a considerable amount of time outside cleaning up in the flower gardens. I started pulling up the verbena, my poor verbena that I had thought was a perennial, but was really only an annual....wait a minute... what's that green stuff at the base of the plant? It is the verbena coming back! It is a perennial here in my zone 5 garden! I'm not crazy after all. I really had been seeing the same plants coming back for the last several years, not new plants that had grown from seed. Just about every verbena that I checked had new growth. I wonder why it is hardy here when it really isn't supposed to be. I mulch for the winter, but not a thick layer. I'm so glad the verbena is hardy in my garden. Even if the thousands of seeds I planted don't grow, I will still have verbena in the butterfly garden again. That is a very good thing!

The snow is just about all gone. Another very good thing!

Look what I found! I do have crocuses coming up after all, not many, but hey, I'm very happy seeing these two.

More spring blossoms on the way!


My first winter sowing sprouts are in container #17, which is Alyssum.

I was shocked to find that the parsley had survived the winter. I saw little sprouts coming up all over the place. I even did a bit of weeding pulling out those little dandelions that were coming up in the flower garden.

I cut the ornamental grasses back, gave Lilly a good brushing and went for a nice long walk with her. Spring, a very good thing.

Winter Sowing Lantana

I'm trying winter sowing, (outside), for the first time this year. I had already started eleven containers including:

1- Foxglove, Candy Mountain
2 & 3- English Poppy
4- Foxglove Excelsior Mix
5- Blanketflower Gaillardia Aristata
6- Delphinium, Blue Bird
7- Delphinium, pacific Giants, Mixed color
8- Milkweed, Rose, Asclepias incarnata
9- Viola
10 & 11- Cosmos

Yesterday, I added a few more containers to that list and will try to continue adding others over the next several weeks.

12- Bellflower, Campanula carpatica -Blue
13- Lantana (This is just an experiment since I had plenty of seed. Considering this is zone 5, I doubt it will be successful.)
14- Columbine
15- Daisy Garden wildflower mix, (Black-eyed Susan, Blanket flower, Coreopsis, Cosmos, Shasta Daisy, Tricolor Chrysanthemum)

I also soaked and sowed lantana seeds, for growing inside under the grow lights. I've read mixed reviews about the ease, or rather difficulty, of propagating lantana from seed. I hope at least one method is successful.

Winter Sowing

I read about winter sowing last year and knew I wanted to try this method for growing seeds in 2008.

Last year I purchased shelves and lights to create this makeshift indoor growing system, the ones I saw in the gardening catalogs were way out of my price range. This set-up worked beautifully and I successfully grew many of my own plants from seed. There is a wonderful sense of joy and satisfaction in taking a tiny little seed, nurturing it for weeks and watching it grow right before your eyes. There is also immense pleasure in gardening during the winter months. You have a daily reminder that spring is just around the corner.

Even with this large indoor growing system in place, space was still limited. Winter sowing sounded like the perfect solution to me for getting even more flowers for spring.

Kylee, from Our Little Acre had posted about her winter sowing on her blog last year and I had been watching her blog closely this year to see when and how she would do her planting. She posted a few days ago, and gave wonderful directions.

I finally got around to sowing some of my seeds on Tuesday. I used a small drill bit and drilled my drain holes in the bottom of the plastic milk and water jugs.

I can be such a klutz sometimes and this part was a bit unnerving for me, after all I'm the same girl who once stuck a letter opener all the way through her finger while opening mail at work when I was about 20 years old. I still don't like sharp objects. I used the smaller blade for the softer plastics but had to use the box cutter for the harder ones. I'm not sure how you're supposed to cut these things straight, mine certainly were not. I am happy to report that this task was completed without injury to myself.


Next, I numbered the containers on the bottom and the top with a permanent marker. I then filled the bottom part of each container with potting soil and planted my seeds.

This project would be quite enjoyable were it not for the fact that you have to tape the jugs. I was getting frustrated, since the tape just would not cooperate and I had a difficult time aligning the flimsy uneven plastic. Kylee's containers looked so neat and mine, well, their not neat, but their done. Yippee!

Here is my list so far, I say so far because I still want to do a few more, but ran out of containers.

1 Foxglove, Candy Mountain
2 & 3 English Poppy
4 Foxglove Excelsior Mix
5 Blanketflower Gaillardia Aristata
6 Delphinium, Blue Bird
7 Delphinium, pacific Giants, Mixed color
8 Milkweed, Rose, Asclepias incarnata
9 Viola
10 & 11 Cosmos

I'm still trying to find out which seeds can be winter sown in zone 5, so I'm not particularly confident with my choices. I usually have volunteer cosmos, so I thought I try to winter sow it to hopefully get an earlier start, I have so many packages of it I thought I'd experiment. Hopefully the others will be successful, especially the Candy mountain Foxglove and English poppies.