Home Again, Garden Growth and Enough About this Slow, Cold, and Rainy Spring

Now that I am home from traveling a bit,  (seems like everyone wants me to see their garden, but I am enjoying it). The home garden needs attention though – endless attention. I am trying to catch up with some garden chores – Oh geesh! That sounds like the most cliche statement of all – but don’t we all say that?  Weeds are growing faster than weeds, and sweet peas need daily staking but the cool weather makes such tasks enjoyable, at least for me. I visited White Flower Farm this week and bumped into Cheryl who was busy with muddy jeans and boots, planting their border. We both agreed that this weather really couldn’t be better. 

The truth is that it is June now and for much of us, we have little to complain about if we are true, hard-core gardeners given the weather and it’s delightfully wet and cool gift (sure, we can;’t cut the lawn, but in many ways, that’s a gift to us gardeners as well!).

It may be rainy and cool, but that’s just the type of weather I enjoy working in the garden in. What’s getting in the way a bit is the cooler temperatures, but while a delay in warm weather is interfering with the sowing of squash, cucumber and melon it’s providing the ideal conditions for the cool-weather crops such as the sweet peas, the shell peas, lettuce, cabbage, radishes, turnips and especially the broad beans (or fava beans) which seem to be thriving – believing that they are growing in the British Isles. I guess by raising both warm weather and cool weather crops, I am covered one way – not some brilliant mast plan, but it sounds logical and smart.

DAVIDIA INVOLUCRATA – FABLED DOVE TREE

It’s been so chilly that the Tomatoes eggplant and pepper seedlings are sleeping over in the greenhouse, but this also means that I am feeling a bit better about sowing all of them later than I typically do.  We are experiencing a weather phenomenon not that uncommon here in the Northeast, when a large low pressure area or vortex sets up over sub-arctic Canada, blocking warmer weather from arriving for the summer, and swirling down bands of rain and instability that has very cold air at high elevation which brings us daily thunderstorms and hail. Thankfully, we’ve missed the hail with each storm, but the pattern seems to be continuing through next week.

THE LAST OF THE WINTER BLOOMING SOUTH AFRICAN BULBS

In the greenhouse, the last of the winter-growing South African bulbs are now blooming in pots. Now, Ixia, Sparaxis and Babiana may be  late summer bloomers in warmer Mediterranean gardens, here I grow most in pots as a winter-growing bulb, allowing them to bloom in the spring just before they go dormant (under glass). 

Ixia grow well in much of California, but in a typical Zone 5 garden they can be disastrous. I think they are best grown in pots, either planted in spring for late summer bloom, or as I grow them, kept dry all summer but grown on under glass in the winter for bloom in the early spring. I visited another greenhouse while touring gardens in western Connecticut this week, and one had a large collection of South African bulbs – the homeowners gardener was trying to explain to me why the foliage all looked dead but then remembered that he followed this blog, and he knew that I understood that these winter flowering bulbs all look untidy in summer.

I have more luck with Babiana hybrids, grown in pots that are treated in much the same way as all of my other winter-blooming South African bulbs. I grow both seed-raised species, and inexpensive bulbs purchased here and there from Dutch distributors. These fancier hybrids bloom more reliably in pots and containers, but as you can see in the photo above, will also have some fading foliage, as it is another one of those bulb plants which blooms just before it goes dormant. The colors are strong and bright, and nothing like any other tone in the spring garden. I keep these pots in a sand bed under glass, but on sunny days I can move some into the garden.

TRANSPLANTING ANNUALS – SALPIGLOSSIS

Unusual annuals are an addictive challenge for me, always on the lookout for something only found in old nineteenth century catalogs or in old gardening books. What I can’t find at specialty nurseries must be raised from seed, and paying attention to cultural requirements is often key when it comes to having success with many of these rarely seen plants. Take Salpiglossis for example. An annual which demands strict cultural care from the moment one sets seed in a pot – I now use single cells, 72 pack flats with a hand-held seed sower that makes sowing a single seed easier. 

Salpiglossis seed needs warmth (25 deg.F), complete darkness and yet still be exposed to the air. covering the seed flats with cardboard on a heating mat works, but pay attention as it will need to be removed as soon as the seed germinates.  At this point, temperature management takes over, for if plants are kept too cool, flowering could be delayed until autumn (but you might have healthy looking foliage). The ideal growing temperature is in the 68 – 72 deg. range, which makes our cool spring weather rather imperfect.

Planting depth is also key with carefully transplanting Salpiglossis. Plantlets must be set in at exactly the same depth as when they were growing in cells. Then comes pH management, for while 5.5 to 5.8 is idea, and higher and leaves will yellow and go chlorotic as pH affects how some seedlings access nutrients. Which brings us to fertilizer. A Cal-Mag 13-2-13 is best, but if ones growing area a bright and sunny as in a greenhouse, a 20-10-20 can be tolerated.  Key here is low Phosphorus. This is probably why one rarely sees Salpiglossis for sale at nurseries or garden centers, which makes mastering their culture even more desirable, at least for me.