Gertrude's Flower Garden Weekly Diary

1/5/01 - This week I finished planting my impatiens seedlings. I have about 425 plants which is a few less than last year, but should be all that I need. Later this week, I am going to begin transplanting the white and yellow Star zinnias. I use a medium size container for these, and plant two to an opening instead of four as I did with the impatiens which go into the largest size containers. As I mentioned, it is better to plant only one seedling to an opening, since this makes outside transplanting easier, but space limitations make it necessary for me to put more than one plant in each opening except in the case of the smallest of the three sizes that I use. I now have two of my long shop-lights turned on under which I have placed the transplanted seedlings. They are on a timer which keeps them lit except between 10:00 p.m. and 4:00 a.m.
         In 1983, I wrote a poem entitled "Winter Dreams" the last lines of which read:
                     For though the dream fails the
                     perfection of its conceiving--slugs leave no
                     silver trails in dream gardens--who would reach
                     for even a momentary merging into reality
                     of the beauty of color and form if it did
                     not first dance in the white winter of the mind.
Gardeners are artists of a sort, and, like all artists, their creations must first be seen in the mind's eye even though the conception there may never be fully realized. I try to plan the planting of all of my flower beds during this season when I can't work outside. These plans, however, need constant readjustment depending on how my basement garden grows--I may plan to put Periwinkle vinca in the Sundial bed, but the seeds that I have saved may not germinate.
         This year I found that poinsettias were quite reasonable in cost so that I bought six of them to decorate the house for Christmas. I put two of them in the bay window of the den, which is a room we added to our house after World War II. The walls of this room are knotty pine and the floors random width hardwood. A stone fireplace in the wall towards the terrace has burned many a cord of oak, but is now equipped with a gas log which is wonderful--no more wood to carry in from the terrace, no fires to build, no more ashes or smoke, and an easy on-and-off when I go out for a short time. The bay window has a draw-curtain part of which you can see to the right of the picture below--I close it on very cold, windy nights. The lamp between the poinsettia plants is a very old kerosene lamp that belonged to Gertrude's mother; we had it wired for electricity which, we were told, destroyed its antique value, but made it practical and beautiful for us. I spend most of my leisure time in this room.

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