Mlle. Zabzie

We have Lilacs! I brought some back to the city and they smell DIVINE. The redbud is out and gorgeous too. We planted snap peas on Saturday as well as the wildflower patch. Today we planted peppers (my husband over orders from this pepper specialist in Nj, and orders early because he’s petrified they will be out when he orders) but they were dying inside so we are going to give them a shot outside), and the flower garden in front of the house. We planted Gerberas, Angelonia, French marigolds, some petunias, and for seeds, cosmos, zinnias, and sunflowers. I might be early, but meh. If the seeds don’t grow, I’ll buy seedlings from a nursery in early June. Next weekend I will put in carrots and prepare the beds for the great Memorial Weekend plantening. I’m planning on Okra, tomatoes, cukes, melons, squash (hope springs eternal),

My fight is against honeysuckle. We hates it. Also I dug up a lot of burdock today. I will need a winch to get me out of bed tomorrow (but did plant the peas :)).

I’m sorry-that just seems wrong. Mind you I think we get that Thursday, but I expect frosts up here until at least mid-May.

Today I went and spent money for the second time this spring at a garden center (well, the same one - Isk - Pound Ridge Nursery is truly worth the trek for you). Anyhow, bought two hanging baskets and some other assorted flowers for pots on my patio, as well as Brussels sprouts and broccoli. I’ve sprayed the latter two up but good with BT. We shall see..... I also was bedazzled by the Burpee display on the inside. I bought lots of seeds....

Runs in the family then, does it?

Maybe? Grew up in VA outside DC and we always had issues getting year after year return (and was actually discussing it with my mom last night). They do ok in in 7, especially 7a where you are, but won’t necessarily be perfect. 7b is further South, and so may exacerbate the issue. Also, there is a varietal native to Crete that does better in more Southern zones, I believe.

So I am no expert, but I think part of your problem is your zone. I think you are too warm for tulips. My understanding is that tulips CAN perennialize in zone 7, but do best in zone 6 or cooler (in zone 7 the period of cold dormancy isn’t QUITE long enough). If you want good blooms, pull them out, and refrigerate for 3 months in containers, then you can set them out and they bloom like a month later.

What zone are you in? You may need to dig them up every year and stick them in the fridge for them to “set”.

Maybe availability of enough other food (dropped pretzels, goldfish, etc.?). I always enjoy the drifts of tulips coming up Park Ave. as well.

I’m trying. LOL. The squirrels and chipmunks love them, sadly.

I’m not that far from you geographically/plant wise. For powdery mildew you have to make sure you are spacing your plants appropriately. Also, you can spray them prophylactically with a soap and baking soda mixture; if that doesn’t work copper sometimes does the trick but I don’t love doing that. My issues with squash are squash beetle larvae. I have wrapped stems, sprayed with neem oil, slit stems and pulled out larvae, etc. I have like a 50/50 success rate. I saved my cucumbers this year until after that big storm in august they got mosaic. My squash...did so-so.

I was going to suggest exactly that. You might want to edge it first so that it looks its best. If you want a groundcover of some kind, I would suggest a stonecrop if it is sunny and dry there, or maybe moss phlox, creeping phlox, or juniper. Please avoid vinca, English ivy, lantana and pachysandra, which are invasive*. *In the US.

What’s the handle? I would love to follow him! Totally on brand for me. I follow Seaview Gunwallow, Archigardenist, Birds and Blooms magazine, gardenersofig....(and more). I am pressing flowers this year. I have grand plans to arrange seasonal pressings in small frames by season. To that, anyone done that and have good tips for mounting and framing? But for me part of why I love flowers is their very temporality. They a little miracles - there is this little black seed that I put in the ground and hope, and then months later, somehow, I end up with a beautiful flower, that, then, turns into black seeds which either produce more plants or feed birds or feed me!

You saw my pansy haul..... Now I’m wondering if should order some non-dwarf dahlia bulbs and just promise myself that I will for sure dig them up and put them in the garage. I need to pull out the ladder and get my roses back on the trellis program....I might also need another trellis. I wanted to put them on my pool fence, but they kinda look scraggly, so a trellis may be in my future....

Plant wildflower that are basically weeds? Last year I chopped up my barren "lawn" area, did the "scatter" method like I was planting grass seed, covered it up with straw and waited. There were probably some unwanted thistle somewhere in there, but honestly one couldn't tell. Maybe I will try Dahlias again....They definitely can't over-winter here (I'm zones and zones North of you) but mine never get all that big - short growing season I guess? My peonies on the other hand...monstrous, blowsy and beautiful. Can't wait.

A word of warning on Lambs Ear. It gets everywhere. I am constantly removing it from unwanted places. I adore dahlias too. However, they are so high maintenance up by me. Maybe if I pot them and just over winter the pots in my garage? I dunno - by the time I get them in the ground they barely seem to have enough time to achieve any kind of bulk. Maybe I need to fertilize them more? I’m totally doing a wildflower mix on the barren spot by my well again. I have never been able to get grass to grow there, and last year I had the most gorgeous drift of flowers. Alas, that’s a mid-May (at the earliest) thing. Right now I am enjoying my pansies. In mid April I will put in carrots, and maybe cauliflower and peas.

I broke down and bought all the pansies this weekend (and a couple of ranunculus and some bulbs that were hardening outside at the nursery because I think the $*!@# squirrels or chipmunks ate the ones I planted last fall). Yay pansies!

Compost is super easy. We got a bin on Amazon for not that much. It isn’t a fancy one at all-just a black plastic corral. We followed the directions on layering and voila. Haven’t had to turn it or anything. We also have an irrigation system with sensors. I can’t claim credit for it because the prior owners installed it.

You should think about it. Like I said, I'm kind of a hippy dippy organic gardener, I make my own compost, etc. etc., but I do draw the line at tick risk. And snakes. I really hate snakes. We have lots of them. Most of them are harmless but they completely freak the f*ck out of me every time I see them. Yes. It's like a TJ Maxx for furniture (same company even I think), but the Westport one is known for having a lot of good high end inventory (of all styles). We have some RH, but I adore color, so it's not totally my jam for more than a couple of basic pieces (we are more transitional than fully modern). Our bed is actually RH, but we reupholstered the back to be colorful rather than beige linen.... Anyhow, CB2 for mass market for us for the color aspect.... Same, except it is our tree guy who sprays for ticks. We do a combination of chemicals and cedar oil so that it isn't all chemicals all the time. It seems to work.

Yes - think that is right, and I think you on the one had will get the benefit of the gulfstream, but on the other have the detriment of salt air. Your hydrangeas, for instance, are probably better than mine. It's kind of fun. I grew up a half zone south, and it is interesting the difference in what I can grow. And my Aunt is a full zone south and that is a huge difference still. I need to summon @Elder Sister - she's way down in basically the tropics as compared to me and it is SO different. (The Home Goods in Westport is known far and wide for being amazing, btw.)

It is very peaceful and bucolic. We have stone walls too (snakes love them). We are actually right on the Connecticut border (I can basically hike into Connecticut), so you probably aren't that far from us (we're about 15 min from Ridgefield, 25 min from Stamford and Danbury, and 30 min from Greenwich). Deer LOVE daylillies. LOVE them. They are like extra special deer dessert. Lillies only live in the deer fenced portion of our yard. Apparently they don't like Calla Lillies as much? I dunno, afraid to try....

Your wife would be appalled at our property. We let our front yard (which is basically wet meadow) just grow grass - only mowed it once in the middle of the season. Great wildlife viewing opportunities though. I have climbing roses rambling over a pergola between the driveway and the back yard. I planted a huge drift of wildflowers to screen the back yard from the driveway. Loved it so much I’m going to do it again this year. I have out bird feeders, which, in fact attract rodents (but keep the feeders far enough away from the house that hopefully that isn’t my particular problem - 100 year old house has holes though). I am ok with dandelions and clover and don’t let the lawn guys over-maintain our back yard. We do tick treat though (aggressively). We did have ALL THE CHIPMUNKS in 2020. It was apparently a banner year because of the mild winter and abundance of food. They were bold. We also have a family of groundhogs that live in the culvert under our driveway. We named them Bob and Susan. I put in more tulips in the fall. We will see if they lived or if the squirrels/chipmunks dug them up (they were well mulched, so I have some hope?). My answer to the current problem last year ended up being peppermint oil (which works better than you think), and trying to attract predators (I HATE snakes, but I’m live and let live as long as they are not copperheads or rattlers, stay outside, and eat chipmunks and baby groundhogs). We have pretty good raptor coverage: Rowena the red-tailed, the Ravens (who need names; but also their parents), a red-shouldered hawk who is un-named, and theoretically owls (saw a barred owl and have heard them before). The owl box is to attract more. There are foxes, coyote and bobcat behind us, but I don’t think they come into the deer-fenced back yard where the bulk of my garden resides (per our trail cam).

I have failed at beets every time I have tried. Basically, some critter (I think chipmunk or groundhog) loves the leaves and eats them to the ground. I may try peppermint oil and some other deterrents this year. But I’ve never had good luck. I’ve also historically failed with lettuce (and cauliflower). I even tried putting straw over my lettuce this year and still, nothing. I had three semi successful broccoli plants last year, but the pest control was out of control. Cabbage worms don’t come to play, that’s for sure. I am trying to be relatively organic in my gardening, but this year hit up some of the spinosads (still technically organic).

It's March! This is exciting because it is no longer utterly futile to be thinking about my garden (only mildly futile...). 1. Once the snow finally melts (hah!), I want to get some compost and other soil prep in my raised beds. I also need to assess the damage on everything else perennial. 2. I can start looking for my bulbs poking up. I have snowdrops and crocus for early, daffodils, then tulips, then allium and iris. Next fall, I plan to put in a bunch more iris. 3. I can start to dream about early spring pots - mainly pansies, and looking hopefully at my peonies. 4. I can start to dream about my annual beds and my vegetable garden. (And can watch the bloomset on my blueberries, and keep my fingers crossed on my strawberries and asparagus). I'm planting in US Zone 6b. For veggies I've historically planted cucumbers, Okra, tomatoes, peppers, beans, peas, onions, garlic, carrots, squash, melons. I want to get at least one root crop in the ground in April. Also am going to try early peas this year. Other ideas? I wish I liked to eat eggplant/aubergine more. Other ideas? For annual flowers, I tend towards easy, and, if not in my fenced backyard, deer-proof. I like things that are good for pollinators and birds. I have had bad luck with impatiens (either are deer snack or I have too much sun). I have had beautiful zinnias, sunflowers, flowering tobacco, snapdragons, asters, cosmos, poppies, cleome (omg, all the cleome - they aren't kidding when they say it self-seeds) I want to do better with salvia, ranunculus, marigolds, begonias, nasturtium. I also want to get better about design. Sometimes what I do works, sometimes it just .... doesn't. Anyone want to trade ideas and discuss?

U.S.A. Born and raised in Virginia. Did a little detour in North Carolina. Live currently in New York City.