Pages

Friday, December 30, 2016

Rooting cuttings with a Forsythe pot - how did I not know about this?

I was scrolling through the plant propagation forum on the National Gardening Association site and stumbled across something I'd never heard of: a Forsythe pot for rooting cuttings. So I did what any good librarian gardener does: I researched it (OK, I Googled it and followed a link from the forum post). Turns out that the Forsythe pot method seems to solve the biggest problems I have with rooting cuttings:

  1. Forgetting to water them enough
  2. Solving problem 1 above by covering them with plastic, only to have them mold or rot
The Forsythe pot uses a reservoir of water in a clay pot to provide steady moisture. I haven't tried it yet (I just heard about it a few minutes ago--give me till at least noon), but it sounds promising. 

If you'd like to learn more, see the following: 
Each one recommends slight variations, so it's worth reading through all three before you create your own Forsythe pot. 

Now if only I had something to take cuttings from, but it's winter in Flagstaff. *sigh* If it weren't for winter sowing seeds, I'd be reduced to sharpening shovels. 

Thursday, December 29, 2016

Winter sowing, or how to stay sane till March

I’m not a big fan of winter. I don’t ski (too clumsy), I hate being cold (I’m a Californian - we don’t do cold), and, most of all, I love to garden, which is extremely difficult when the ground is frozen. And really--frozen ground? What sort of hellish concept is that? Apparently I live on Pluto. So my challenge every winter is to keep from going crazy until I can play in the dirt. I do that by:
  • Reading garden porn (gardening books, magazines, and seed catalogs, preferably glossy and colorful, preferably read while in the bathtub)
  • Playing in the snow
  • Planning next year’s garden (the triumph of hope over experience)
  • Walking through the garden department of every big box store in town and staring at the empty shelves with a pathetic look on my face, then checking for the 59th time to see if they have any seeds in stock yet
  • Looking at the Flagstaff gardening calendar for the 812th time this winter, trying to find something fun I’m supposed to be doing in January (watering evergreens and sharpening shovels doesn’t count as, “fun.”)
  • Dreaming up garden projects for my long-suffering husband to do when the weather is better (he doesn’t know it yet, but he’s going to help me dig a pond in the spring)
  • Complaining about being cold
  • Moping


When I lived in Portland, I had a greenhouse, so I could play with plants in the dead of winter. I had a greenhouse here in Flagstaff for about 3 weeks till it was destroyed by a dust devil (Yes, really. It was reduced to a pile of plexiglass rubble. So was my soul as I stared at that pile of shattered dreams.) I also tried winter sowing when I lived in Portland, and it worked pretty well. So, since I’m tired of complaining and moping, I’m replacing those two items on the list above with winter sowing.


What is winter sowing? Glad you asked! I’d hate to think I’m talking to myself over here. It’s a method of sowing seeds, usually perennials and hardy annuals but some trees and shrubs too, in miniature greenhouses in the winter. Then you put those miniature greenhouses--usually made from containers like milk jugs--out in the rain and snow and leave them there till spring. The seeds germinate when they’re ready, and you have a garden full of plants that cost you very little.


This is my first year winter sowing in Flagstaff. It may be trickier here than in some places, because we have some pretty wild temperature fluctuations in the winter. We’ll see how it goes. If you’d like to try it (hey, it beats moping and complaining), here are some resources to get you started:


I managed to sow a few things today: lupine, chives, and two kinds of milkweed. I’m using the patio table on my deck to store them. I hope to have it full of containers by spring, but it looks kinda pathetic now:



If you’re going to winter sow, you’ll need seeds. You can buy them, save them (from your own plants or a friend’s), check out a local seed library, or--my favorite--trade with other gardeners. Try hosting a winter seed swap with your gardening friends or trade seeds with people online. GardenWeb has seed swap forums, and some members of the Winter Sower’s Facebook group post their trade lists. If you’d like to trade seeds with me, just leave a comment on this post. Here are my current trade lists:

You'll also need containers. The sites listed above will give you lots of ideas for those. Right now I'm using containers from restaurant takeout and the Safeway deli. When my stash gets low, we'll probably start eating takeout or supermarket fried chicken for every meal--just so I can have the containers for winter sowing. Gotta love my priorities. 

Good luck staying sane this winter, and just remember: spring is coming.

Saturday, December 24, 2016

Christmas past--with Krylon


Christmas is one of those times when past and present converge in a strange time warp. Memories haunt this time of year--happy memories we try to recreate for our kids and grandkids (often at the cost of our own sanity), sad memories that rush back with the sights, sounds, and scents of Christmas, and memories of loved ones no longer with us. The ghosts of Christmas Past and Christmas Present blur together in a muddle of memory and emotion and nostalgia and joy and pain. It’s no wonder people drink a lot this time of year. But this isn’t going to be an essay on the joy or heartbreak of Christmas or (heaven forbid) how to do Christmas right. Ugh. Instead, I’m going to share one of my Christmas stories with you, the first memory of Christmas I have. And yes, for you purists out there, it’s gardening-related (sort of). Come on in, find a comfy chair, and join me for a visit to Christmas Past.

The first Christmas I remember was when I was somewhere between 4 and 6 years old, so sometime between 1971 and 1973. We lived in the country in Northern California, and we were, ahem, dirt poor (garden jokes = dad jokes with dirt, not to be confused with dirty dad jokes). I don’t remember the presents I got that year, though I’m sure there were one or two. What I do remember are the ornaments. My mother bought a dozen royal blue Christmas balls, and those were the only ornaments we had. So my mother, being the creative problem-solver she was, decided we would make more. We cut up styrofoam meat trays and some other sort of packaging we had lying around, glued bits of eucalyptus to them (California, remember? Not a lot of evergreens where we lived except for juniper), and coated the results in silver spray paint. A Krylon Christmas! See? When I describe myself as a California redneck, I’m not lyin’.

Somehow my parents had gotten an artificial tree, and that year it was festooned with blue globes and silver eucalyptus meat tray parts. Awesome, huh? Actually, it was. I still have a few of those homemade ornaments, though the last of the blue balls (ho ho ho - I said, “blue balls”) broke about 20 years ago. There's a picture of one of them at the beginning of this post. Here are a few more:



They don’t have much eucalyptus left--it’s worn off over the last 40+ years of loving use--but they’re still around, and I still hang them on the Christmas tree each year. Each time I do, I think of my mother, doing the best she could and making something beautiful out of what she had and could afford--and teaching me to do the same.

I’m not poor now. We aren’t rich, but we have what we need and some of what we want, and that is a blessing beyond measure. But the lesson I learned that Christmas, cutting out scraps and gathering bits of eucalyptus, has stuck with me. For me, it’s part of the allure of gardening. You can start with almost nothing--a tiny seed, a fragile transplant, a cutting--and nurture it into something beautiful. Growing things is a form of magic to me, a way to make something out of (almost) nothing. Gardening also teaches me to find clever uses for stuff that other people throw away: garden art from recycled materials, pots from yogurt containers, winter-sowing containers from takeout boxes, and, of course, compost from kitchen scraps and yard debris. Reuse and repurpose and recycle--and make something beautiful. Thanks, Mom, for teaching me a lesson that has shaped my life these many years. It’s the best Christmas gift you ever gave me.

Sunday, December 11, 2016

Gifts for Gardeners

Close-up of ornaments on a Christmas treeYesterday my husband asked me what I wanted for Christmas. He asks me this every year, and every year I give him some variation on the same answer: gardening stuff. Yesterday he thought he was pre-empting that reply by asking, “What do you want--besides plants?” It didn’t work. I said, “Other gardening stuff.” He rolled his eyes and changed the subject.

So, as a public service for people like my husband who are stuck buying gifts for the plant-obsessed, I offer you this list of gifts for gardeners:

  1. Plants. Duh. Especially plants they can plant in their yards rather than something they have to pamper in the house. They’ll think of you every time they see it, water it, or pick aphids off it.
  2. Seeds. Seeds are my favorite stocking stuffer. It hardly matters what kind. If you give me seeds, I’ll try to grow them. Seeds are magical.
  3. Gift cards for nurseries or even big box stores that have plants, seeds, and gardening stuff. This is the easy option for those who want to do all their shopping in under an hour. Bonus points for gift cards to specialty nurseries (check online if you don’t have a local one). We gardeners will have a blast picking out weird plants that the local Home Depot would never think of carrying.
  4. Good quality tools. Some of us hesitate to spend the money for high-quality tools, but good tools will last long enough to be passed down to the next generation of gardeners. Plus, they are a joy to use and make it less likely that your favorite gardener will get injured and need a ride to the ER. Don’t ask me how I know this.
  5. Books and magazines about gardening. Bonus points for ones with full color glossy pages. These are called garden porn, and we love them.
  6. The gift of your time and your hands--a homemade gift certificate for a load of manure or mulch and a promise to haul and spread it. Or maybe a promise to build a new raised bed. True story: my husband once got me a truckload of compost for our anniversary. I was thrilled. We gardeners are a strange bunch.
  7. A tree can be a wonderful memento for you and your gardener to admire for many, many years to come. But only get one if you know what the gardener wants and what will grow in their yard.
  8. Amaryllis or paperwhites to force indoors. Winter bulbs are great for brightening up dark days.
  9. A piece of garden art--if you know the recipient’s tastes. Garden art, like any art, is personal. If you’re going to buy that giant orange welded wire slug, be sure your gardener wouldn’t rather have a sundial or a full-scale model of Stonehenge.
  10. Some smaller items can be combined to make a gardener’s gift basket: seeds, a pair of gloves, a nice trowel, a gift certificate for hauling and spreading manure, etc. You can use a big pot instead of a basket. Big pots are the best.

So that’s my list. How about you? What gifts make your gardener’s heart thud with excitement?