Direct sowing flower seeds is about the easiest and most budget friendly way to get a mass of flowers all season long with very little effort. It's incredible just how much you get from a tiny $3 pouch of seeds. And I think it's a great way for a new gardener to get their feet wet or the experienced one who's looking to fill an empty spot. Direct sowing simply means that, instead of starting seeds indoors weeks in advance of putting them out in the garden, you spread the seed in the garden according to the package instructions, usually after all chance of frost is gone. Aside from deciding where to plant them and keeping them watered as they germinate, direct sowing is about as easy as gardening gets. My problem right now (is it really a problem, though?) is that just when I think ...
Search Results for: direct sow
Save Your Money, Sow Seeds Instead!
If you're like me, you've been buried in seed catalogs for the last few weeks, completely overwhelmed by the tens of thousands of possibilities concealed within those flimsy pages. I've since buttoned up my orders, mostly. There may be a few more stragglers in there but for the most part it's done and I'm really excited because I had a great experience last year creating a beautiful, layered new border mostly from seed that cost me about $20. Some were direct sown, while others like the Prairie Sun rudbeckia, were given a headstart indoors to get a jump on the season. I like instant gratification, especially after a looooong winter. The dry, full-sun area around the patio was screaming for a do-over. It was a long narrow border of Walkers Low catmint which has the not-so-attractive ...
Grow Birdhouse Gourds to Make…Birdhouses, Duh!
This isn't a quick process, but with a little planning you can grow your own gourd birdhouse. I can see my daughter rolling her eyes right now. She's not a fan of the little wren I'm attracting to the garden. He's loud. Very loud. Like four-in-the-morning fog horn loud and to a teen who loves her sleep, his Reveille is the last thing she wants to hear. It's hard to believe that something so tiny can be so vocal. Napolean syndrome, no doubt. First the planning part, seed selection. And if this is something you're seriously considering, I'd suggest ordering seeds ASAP. Unlike any year before, seeds were a lot like toilet paper in 2020. Everyone's hoarding them and while I don't think birdhouse gourd seeds will be in short supply, no one could have predicted the sudden popularity of ...
May in the Garden: A Mix of Beauty and Brawn
May has been a blur with all the clean-up and gear changing that comes with extreme temperature fluctuations, torrential rain, and the relentless march of weeds through every bed. It seems like the moment I pull a weed, three more grow in its place. Kinda like when you pull a grey hair. So I stop pulling altogether, the hairs not the weeds, and I can only imagine what that would look like if I did the same in the garden. Nonetheless, the garden is shaping up and plenty of plants are having their moment. I often imagine how beautiful it would be if it all just popped at once and remained so all season long. But then if it did, the novelty would wear off and there would be nothing to anticipate. I like knowing that no matter what, something in my garden on any given day is going to grab ...
Hyacinth Bean Vine: A Budget Friendly Problem Solver
What's the first thing you see when you look at this picture? Yeah, me too. When the air conditioner pooped out a few years ago, we had this beast installed. The HVAC guy talked about the efficiency of the unit and how much money we'd be saving. And all I could think about was that I was going to have to dig up the entire area to make room for this monstrosity. I knew it was going to be big, just not THAT big. I couldn't stand the sight of the thing until I figured out how to camouflage it, on a budget of course. Hyacinth bean vine saved my garden. That sounds so dramatic but it's effectiveness for hiding ugly things was equally as dramatic. And I did it with a handful of beans! Same garden, different time of year and you can't see the air conditioner. See the white sticker ...
A New Year, TONS of New Plants and a Growing Wish List
The new plant wish list is getting longer in my garden notebook. I also keep an updated one in the notes section of my phone just in case I happen to pass a garden center this spring. Who am I kidding? I write of it as though it's a possibility when the reality is I will visit MANY garden centers and road-side farm stands. It's an obsession and one my kids have learned to accept. I've gathered images of all the new for 2020 or new-to-me plants I'll be on the lookout for this year. It's a motley list of veggies, annuals, shade perennials, sun perennials, and a drop-dead gorgeous new grass. Perhaps you'll find one (or several) here that you can't live without. In which case, we're kindred spirits and you can tell your significant other that Heather made you do it. Here ...
