Gertrude's Flower Garden Weekly Diary

1/16/04 - The in-door garden in the basement is slowly coming together. On warming pads under florescent lights I now have boxes of White and Colored Impatiens that have germinated, boxes planted with Lobelia, Love-in-the-Mist, Dahlberg Daisies, and Heliotroph. None of these has germinated yet since most were planted only in the last few days. I have also planted a nine hole container with Ivy Geranium. Over the last year or two I have lost my Pink Ivy Geraniums, although I still have the purple one. I like the old-fashioned pink hanging geranium which is the one you see all over Europe in window boxes. I have already taken the Begonia and Star Zinnia seedlings off the warming pads and put them under lights. It will be several weeks before they will be big enough to transplant.
The second of the new seeds that I am going to plant this year is a Dwarf Morning Glory (Convolvulus) named Blue Enchantment. Here is the catalog description of the Dwarf Morning Glory: "Morning glory-type flowers that grow on bushy plants only 14" high. Their compact habit makes them ideal either for a hanging basket or tidy ground cover. Tolerates both heat and drought well. Truly enchanting from summer until frost." The Blue Enchantment variety is described as "the clearest blue with center starbursts of white and yellow." I think that this new flower will fit well into my plans for more container gardening. I am going to try the Blue Enchantment as a center planting with smaller plants surrounding it something in the same way that I use Geraniums as a center planting surrounded with Browallia, Love-in-the-Mist, Dahlberg Daisies, or one of the other smaller flowers.
The glass room is a very special place to me at this time of year. While all of Gertrude's Garden is dry or covered with snow, the glass room is filled with flowers and the colors of summer. It is a great pleasure to me when I step on the terrace to look up and see the flowers blooming despite the frigid cold that grips the outside world. This year the flowers that are in the glass room are Wings Begonias, Christmas Cactus, and Geraniums. The Wings Begonias were small seedlings that I found in the garden, potted, and brought indoors. Most of them are now blooming, and their pink and white flowers and bright green foliage add to the beauty of my indoor garden. Luckily, Christmas Cactus do not bloom all at one time. Some have already bloomed, others are just now in bloom, and one plant is in bud stage. The real stars of the glass room are the Geraniums, which, you may remember, I grew from seeds several years ago and have moved inside for several years. This week's picture is of the lovely pink flower on one plant with the flowers of a dark red Geranium in the background. I lost some of my Geraniums this summer, but still have nine or ten plants which I will put outside this spring. Next winter, I will probably grow some new varieties from seeds.

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