Gertrude's Flower Garden Weekly Diary
3/24/00 - This was not a good week for outdoor gardening. Winter returned even though we did reach the calendar's first day of spring on Monday. We also had a considerable amount of rain which unfortunately beat down the daffodils, although they will recover after a few days of sun. On Sunday (the anniversary of Gertrude's death), I cut a large bouquet of forsythia, which is now in full bloom. My wife always brought forsythia indoors much earlier and forced early blooming; she made sure to pound the stems with a hammer so that they would draw up sufficient water. I also cut several dozen Ice Follies daffodils, since there are now hundreds of these in bloom and more in bud.
This week, in my basement "starter garden," I transplanted several varieties of sunflowers (Helianthus) and some hyacinth bean vine (Dolichos lablab) plants into individual pots. These are big plants even as seedlings and need lots of room for both their roots and leaves. When I planted my browallia in clumps in individual pots (see "Weekly Diary" for 3/3/00), the soil I used was from the compost pile. Of course, this is loaded with flower seeds, since the compost pile is made from annuals that are pulled up in the autumn and the tops of perennials cut off when I tidy the beds at the end of summer. Well, this week I was busy "weeding" flower seedlings (cleome, coleus, ageratum, hyssop, to name a few) from my browallia pots--there will be hundreds more of these "voulenteers" coming up in the garden beds as soon as the weather warms up. Only five or six of the packet's listed 75 seeds of hollyhock (Althaea rosea) came up, but they are good self-seeders, so that I will have more in the future.
I thought that a good way to welcome spring in this week's "Diary" would be to have a picture of "King Alfred tootling his trumpet." Most of the hundreds of daffodils in the garden are Ice Follies, which are white or light yellow in color, but we still have quite a few of the large yellow King Alfred--one of the oldest and most reliable of the many daffodil varieties.
3/31/00 - Gertrude's Flower Garden Weekly Diary
3/17/00 - Gertrude's Flower Garden Weekly Diary
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