This is a picture of peonies that were picked from a garden in front of the house we were staying in during our visit to western Kentucky last week. I have never seen peonies growing where we live in California. Now that I have seen how pretty they are, I am interested in trying to grow them in our yard. The bushes are smaller than I thought they would be. These flowers were from bushes that were only about 2 feet tall.
May 31 2009 | Peonies | Comments Off on Pink Peonies
We are visiting family in rural Kentucky this week. This is my first trip to this part of the country. It’s interesting to see what plants people are growing in their gardens in other parts of the country.
Many beautiful plants are growing in Kentucky gardens this spring, such as this lavender clematis that is blooming right now. Clematis is a deciduous flower vine. The vines grow up a support, such as a fence or post, and are covered with colorful large flowers this time of year.
I have noticed many differences about the way people garden here compared with how we garden in California. One of the most interesting differences is that people here in Kentucky seem to get away with relying almost entirely on rain to water their plants. Typically, enough rain falls in this part of the country in the spring and summertime to keep their gardens watered without supplemental irrigation. It’s interesting to me that people here can grow so many water hungry plants without constantly having to water them. It has already rained a few days since we have been here.
May 25 2009 | Clematis | Comments Off on Flowers in Kentucky
These are more pictures of roses I am growing in our garden. The first picture shows a beautiful pink rose that I inherited from the previous owners of the house. It’s flowers are always so perfectly shaped. They almost look fake. These roses form in clusters that look like bouquets of arranged flowers. Although they don’t have any detectable smell. I don’t know what type of rose it is.
The second picture shows a Mr. Lincoln red rose. I have had this rose for about 6 years. Every year it looks more healthy and has more flowers. The flowers are very large when they are fully open, about 6-7 inches wide, and they have a wonderfully classic red rose fragrance as they are opening.
The third picture shows a new rose bush that I just planted last week. It’s a Floribunda rose called Surprise. It’s flowers are initially yellow, fading to a deep pink as they age. The flowers have an interesting candy-like smell as they are opening.
Roses are a joy to have growing in the garden. They are so beautiful, and many of them will bloom repeatedly from spring through summer and fall under the right conditions, unlike a lot of other flowering plants. They are also relatively tolerant of a variety of weather conditions. But to really flourish, they need lots of sun and lots of watering.
May 14 2009 | Roses | Comments Off on More Great Roses
I planted a new crop of green pole beans back in March around the first day of spring. I planted seeds that I harvested from dried bean pods on the Italian beans growing in our garden last year. I also planted some blue lake pole bean seeds that I bought from a local store.
The seeds sprouted in about 2 weeks and have grown incredibly fast since then, especially in the past few weeks. They have already grown several inches up the support from where they were just a few days ago!
In the past few years since I started growing beans again, I have been growing each group of beans up a single pole. The problem with this technique is that when the beans get large and heavy they tend to slide down the pole. For years, my mom used chicken wire held up by 2 poles on each side to support her annual crop of pole beans. But when the beans get large and heavy by late July, the chicken wire support begins to sag down in the middle.
This year, I decided to use a different technique. I nailed two 6′ tall wooden posts to the edge of one of our raised beds. Then, I screwed small hooks into the posts near the tops of the posts. I then hung a wire frame on the hooks. The wire frame is made up of rigid metal wire that is about 2 mm thick. I think it’s the type of wire frame that’s used in supporting concrete.
The wire is flexible enough to bend, but only with sufficient force. I can bend it with my hands, but it probably won’t bend under the weight of the beans. It’s not flimsy like chicken wire, but it has wider openings between the wires.
I bought a 4′ x 8′ piece of this wire frame from a local hardware store for about $8. I mounted the bottom of the wire frame about 12 inches off the ground. Beans don’t usually need support until they are about a foot tall. So far, our new bean support system seems to be working well.
May 09 2009 | Beans | Comments Off on Green Beans Growing Fast
The long days and warm weather have arrived, and our plants are loving it. Our long day Sequoia strawberries started ripening about two weeks ago. Today, I picked a whole bowl full of strawberries, which we enjoyed for lunch.
Strawberries are probably one of my favorite garden plants. Our Sequoia strawberries have grown really well in our garden and have produced many strawberries. Our home grown strawberries are so delicious. They are softer and sweeter than the strawberries I typically buy in grocery stores.
In order to get more plants, I let the runners from last year’s strawberries root in our raised beds, and then I transplanted them into pots back in December. The second photograph above shows the same strawberries pictured in my December 29th post. I now have about 15 strawberry pots, because I had so many runners last year. The newly planted strawberries from last year’s runners are growing very fast and are getting lots of berries. But even the strawberry plants that are 2-3 years old are growing and producing many high quality berries. The first photograph above shows strawberries that are about 2 years old.
Some of the newly planted strawberries from last year’s runners are already starting to generate runners of their own. This year, I plan to trim some of the runners so that I don’t get as many. I have read that cutting off the runners encourages the plants to produce more strawberries, although I haven’t tried this technique yet. I have noticed that the older strawberries do not seem to generate as many runners.
Recently, I decided to try experimenting with some new day neutral strawberries. I planted several Quinault strawberries about 3 years ago, and I was really unhappy with them. They produced very few strawberries. The strawberries they did produce were small and tough, even though they were growing under the same conditions as the Sequoias, which have always been wonderful. A few weeks ago, I planted Seascape and Aromas. Both are day neutral strawberries that are supposed to produce strawberries over a longer season. I admit I will be surprised if they taste as good as Sequoia.
I have read that strawberries will not produce berries when the daytime high temperatures exceed 85 degrees F on a regular basis. We are lucky here, because the summertime highs average around 77-80 degrees, and daytime highs above 85 degrees are rare except for the occasional heat wave. Last year, we harvested strawberries from May through August, except for about a month in June. I attribute that gap to not fertilizing them regularly. As soon as I started to fertilize them, they began to produce berries again.
May 09 2009 | Strawberries | Comments Off on Strawberry Season Is Here