I counted all my seedlings this evening, and here is what I have: 34 Coreopsis grandiflora ‘Mayfield Giant’ 10 Salvia nemorosa ‘East Friesland’ 62 Echinacea purpurea, a white variety, possibly ‘White Swan’ but not sure. That is, if they come out true from seed. It’s possible some will be purple or maybe even a very light purple cross between the white and the purple! Wow! 62 of them! Those were some good seeds. 48 Eschscholzia californica ‘Summer Sorbet’ — the pink California poppies 28 Cosmos bipinnatus ‘Double Click’ They seem to be doing well. The coneflowers that have been on…

Yesterday was a good gardening day. It was warm enough to work in a short sleeve t-shirt while pruning roses (ouch!). Here are things I accomplished in the garden: Pruned the Ruby Meidiland roses in front to about 18″ high. Planted the English daisies and pansies I bought last week along the front walkway. Cut out the dead remains of last year’s chrysanthemums and asters along the front walk. Pruned the Arctic blue willow bush by the driveway. Pruned the linden tree. Pruned one of the cherry trees, and the other one looks like it doesn’t need any. I put…

Yesterday at Home Depot, I bought some flowers (my daughter Hannah was with me and she complained that I must be addicted to gardening or something). I got some yellow and some purple pansies and some white and some pink-to-purple English daisies. I also bought two bare-root roses at Wal-Mart. The roses are a floribunda called ‘Nearly Wild.’ They grow only 2-3 feet tall and spread out about 3 feet. I’m going to put them as specimen plantings up among the aspen trees when I cover that area with weed blocking fabric and compost or bark. They’ll add some interest…

Earlier this week, I took the jiffy pellets with the white coneflower seeds and put them in a different tray that’s on the heating pad and is still covered. That did the trick, and within seven days, many of them are sending out roots now. The salvias are finally starting to grow more, so they are developing larger true leaves (not just the seed leaves, or whatever you call those first two that emerge from the seed and later drop off). I moved the poppies off the heating pad, because they seem to like cooler temperatures. The coreopsis plants are…

Here’s a response to that GardenWeb.com posting from someone who lives in zone 6 in New Jersey: RE: Camellias in Zone 6 (Utah)? Posted by: ermazi z6, NJ. (My Page) on Tue, Mar 21, 06 at 17:23 April series could be what you need. However, they do not flower from Jan. to March in zone 6, instead they may just start flowering at the end of April.You need to set some protection on them for the first few years. And you may also need to find some acid compost under old, big pines to change your soil. Here’s something from the…

I just installed an online task list for my garden tasks. It’s cool. Click the link on the sidebar to see it. There are a lot of things I need to do in the next few weeks! My seeds and seedlings are coming along well. I put some new white coneflower seeds on some of the jiffy pellets that aren’t producing poppies. I just did that two days ago. All the other little seedlings are growing as expected. I’m going to have a lot of coreopsis and white coneflower plants. Not enough salvias, though. Tomorrow, I’m going to a “Garden…

Today, I took the lid off the tray with cosmos seedings. I’ve been propping it up for three or four days to allow some airflow and to accommodate the tall seedlings that were starting to hit the cover. So far, the seedlings are handling it well.

Last fall, I took some cuttings from my Japanese maples and put them in cups of water with willow cuttings. The willow branches are supposed to release a rooting hormone into the water. I left them in the water all winter. Some got a bit moldy or mildewy. Today, I dipped them in rooting hormone powder (RooTone) and placed them in a moist mixture of peat moss and Perlite. I put four or five in a 4-inch pot and closed it in a ziploc bag. I put them in a spot in the basement where the sun won’t shine directly…