Gertrude's Flower Garden Weekly Diary

12/15/00 - Work in the outdoor garden is almost finished for this season. Next week is the last leaf pickup. I still have a few stray leaves to gather, and I must clean out the cellar window-wells that always fill with leaves. In addition, some pesky leaves always manage to get entangled in the evergreens and other shrubbery and must be shaken or pulled out.
         As always, the first harbingers of a new gardening season are the seed catalogues. My usual source for seeds, other than those that I gather from Gertrude's garden, seems to have switched to selling plants rather than seeds, so that this year I have gotten seeds from an English company who have a U.S. branch. These people (name on request) have the most comprehensive selection that I have ever seen--they also give the botanical name for all of their seeds which is helpful. As you know, I buy very few seeds, depending for the most part on the trusted seeds that I collect myself, but each year, I make it a rule to try a few new flowers. This year my selections were: Rudbeckia (x birtha) "Chem Cheminee," Antirrhinum (nanum variegata) "Frosted Flames," Zinnia (tenuifolia) "Red Spider," and Sweet William (Dianthus barbatus nigrescens) "Sooty." It is always fun to try something new even though many times the effort results in colossal failure. As the season progresses, I will be reporting on these new flowers: black-eyed Susans, snapdragons, zinnias, and Sweet Williams.
         It is only mid-December, but the basement garden continues to progress. The two containers of Wings begonia seedlings are now under one of my shop-lights--long florescent tubes inside a white metal reflector. I have raised the containers so that the tiny begonia seedlings are close to the light, and also placed a container of impatiens seedlings there. On the warming pad, under another light, there are three more containers of seedlings: a second container of impatiens seedlings and one each of white and of yellow Star zinnias. I planted two batches of impatiens so that there wouldn't be too many to transplant at once.
         The glass-room is very colorful now. This is particularly so since this is the blooming time for the Christmas cacti. There are four large plants with flowers in shades of red and orange. I can't say that these are my favorite flowers--they always look a bit disheveled to me--but, at this time of year, they are certainly colorful.
         Here is a late autumn view taken from the back of the garden looking towards the glass-room and the rear of my home--as I write this, the view is much more wintry.

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