Garden Journal

I seem to have planted this Rozanne geranium directly on top of these snowdrop bulbs, but they coexist happily. 🙂  

Garden log 2/10/24. Hellebore, hellebore, hellebore, hellebore, hepatica, hobbits. This post brought to you by the letter ‘H’.

Garden log 2/9/24. Finally remember to go check on my little perennial starts (alliums and salvia) in the basement, and thankfully, although I’d forgotten to water for long enough that the soil had gone bone-dry (a perennial problem for me), the self-watering tray apparently got them water for long enough that they were still thriving.

Garden questions: 1) If someone was a little overambitious in her bulb-buying last year, and never quite got these into the ground, and they sat in an unheated shed all winter, should she a) plant them in pots, b) plant them in the ground (preferable, if there’s any reasonable chance of success), or c) give

Garden log 2/8/24. I gave my Thanksgiving cactus fertilizer for probably the first time ever (I rarely remember to fertilize), and it has responded with a second flush of blooms. I guess plants like food, who knew? Outside, the garden continues to wake — it’s stunning weather today and tomorrow, and I’m hoping to spend

Garden log 2/7/24. A few days ago, I started raking up the garden. It felt weird to do so this early — a solid month or so before I normally do. And we MIGHT get another hard frost, in which case I’ll be running out to put some leaves back on the most tender flowers

Garden log 1/28/24. So much of gardening is a question of whether you want to spend money or time. It’s cheapest to start with seeds (possibly even free, if you can gather them), but that’s going to take the most time, from start to finish. It’s easiest and fastest to buy nice big mature plants,

So glad I finally got around to starting paperwhites, even if it was months later than I usually do. So cheering in a cold and snowy Chicago January! (And yes, we took our tree down, but I’m leaving the garlands up a while longer…)