More Bulbs

These paperwhites are almost ready to bloom. A few days ago spring seemed near. Now I am comforted by my bulbs.

I love this hyacinth vase. It has been blooming for about a week, perfuming the air.

At the base of the stalk is another flower and...

another flower stalk. 2nd flower stalks are generally smaller and strangely shaped but they are still a bonus.

Houseplants

It is snowy out. I have changed to a mac instead of PC and everything looks different. I wonder if my old computer was dim. Anyway, this is the green in my life right now.

This goblet has Thalia narcissus. I forced these last year too. I actually forced a lot of them last year. This winter I didn't go as crazy with it.

Here's one of the garden plants, lemongrass, I am wintering indoors. Some are out while others are in the basement in the cold room.

This is a narcissus, unknown variety and a hyacinth. I really like this hyacinth vase. And this bulb has cooperated by rooting nicely. We'll see how well it blooms. I'm always on the look out for hyacinth vases at thrift stores. This one is unusual.

Kitchen Bulbs

Here's my kitchen window display.later 2 then even later 3. OK, the window
First there is one bulb, later 2 then even later 3. OK, the window I am having a really hard time editing this. I want to post these pictures sequentially and to have my words go a certain way but I can't see what is going on until after I publish it.

I want quite simply to have the picture with 0ne bulb 1st, 2 second and 3 third.

Right, so where are they? I can't see in this weird window that is almost twice as wide as it is when finally published that gives me just 2 inches or maybe 15 lines of typing to look at and not even a complete image.

What the eF guys? Well anyway, notice how quickly these paperwhites grow. The roots don't take long to fill out. I am guessing that these probably won't last up to Xmas but they'll probably bloom Thanksgiving.

These pictures also give you a tiny glimpse of my backyard and the burning bush shedding its leaves. I'll show more of it later but only in a way that allows a fantasy idea, no messes back there, nope, not for you to see!

I think instead of starting a new post later, I'll just add more pictures here with links from whatever current post I do. I'm sure there's people out there who'd like to see my paperwhites bloom.

Hmm, this last photo is a little blurry but there they are. A bud is opening. Also the tallest one fell over so I ended up tethering it to the strings with some breadbag ties.

I will have some blooms by Thanksgiving. I posted the 4th photo on the 25th.

Bulbs, bulbs, bulbs

In a previous post (see lightbulbs) I showed my idea using hyacinths, here you see the same concept with paperwhite narcissus. It is again, the plastic packaging used for fluorescent lightbulbs. I discovered that there is a tiny vent hole that should but plugged up if you do this. I used a waterproof clear glue.

Paperwhites require no chill time so perhaps I should have experi- mented with them 1st but anyway, here's one. I intend to add a new bulb each week so that in theory they will bloom over a more extended time period.

In the background is a burning bush shedding it's leaves.

Next is my right foot and left hand. I'm wearing lime green gardening gloves that I got at Tuesday Morning for 6 bucks. I guess that they are some remaindered brand.

My preferred gloves are actually Atlas Nitrile Gloves which retail for about 7 dollars as I am typing this. There are currently very few places locally that sell them. Michaels Bros Nursery does. I have seen nitrile gloves sold at auto parts stores, but only in men's sizes. I personally have small hands. Online they are available at Nichols Garden Nursery.

Why are they THE gardening glove? They just are.

On my right foot is a gardening clog I got at Target or pretty cheap. They aren't my favorite. My favorite are Muck Boots. Muck Boots are nice because they are breathable and waterproof which is important especially when it's hot but they aren't cheap. I bought a few pairs of cheap clogs just so I can rotate them and also for just working in my own yard.

I decided to plant some bulbs because they are deeply discounted now. I have a small strip of green on the street which I have for the past year been encouraging with any low growing plant other than grass and annoying weeds. The result is mostly clover with a little yarrow(I think). I think my neighbors will enjoy seeing flowers poking out there next spring so I planted crocuses in small clumps and because I love danger, there's also some ice follies narcissus. Hopefully they won't get trampled.

Topics I want to cover

As promised, I am posting a pretty picture. Here's my 7 bowl paperwhite narcissus, before bloom. My sister gave me this lovely thing last summer and I initially did not know what to do with it.

I ended up placing basil flower buds in it which took root. I ended up with dozens of extra basil plants which I planted out wherever I could. I never did have any one basil plant that was huge, but I had lots of little ones everywhere.

When it started getting colder, the basils stopped readily rooting. I tend to be in denial about the change of weather so I tried for a while but now I've let most of my basils flower. I think that this week my garden will mostly die. But that's another story.

So, in giving up on rooting basil, and also rosemary and whatever other little sprig of whatever, I washed this lovely thing. Come September I was at Home Depot and they had all their bulbs out and believe it or not, I am a sucker for flowers.

The paperwhites came in bags of 10 for 11 or 12 bucks, which is a deal. I got some others which given this long cold season, I will talk about more. Anyway, below, you see my lovely thing with 7 bulbs in it.

The terracotta 'pebbles' you see are actually hydroton, which is something I experimented with for making self-watering pots which had limited success. This could e a reflection of my own limitations, but they have worked well for this purpose.

I did not plant the bulbs all at once. I planted them at 5 day intervals, which is why the plants are different sized.
So here it is a month or so later, showing one set of blooms. lovely isn't it? I sorta wish I had started it later. I mean, it isn't even Halloween and I have these Xmas flowers!

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this eyecandy.

I actually started this blog with what I posted below. I want to be focused. I want people to look at this and get inspired, but I also want to do some specific things here.

• how did I get into this?
• what kinds of people did I work for?
• what kind of people do I want to work for now?
  
• what did I do before this?
• where do I like to get my supplies?
• what books do I enjoy?
• what plants do I enjoy?
• how do you make your garden grow?

These are just a few off the top of my head.

Blogging annoyances

I don't understand how this works. I know some basic HTML and it's easy. You want things, pictures, words aligned left or right and whatever and you can do it.

This thing annoys the hell out of me. I want to arrange things outside the daily blog and I keep doing things guessing and the results are not what I want.

I uploaded a picture to picasa because if I upload it to this blog it makes a new blog entry and that's not what I always want. Then in picasa I have to think, "How do I find where this picture is actually hosted?

I guess I should stop bitching. If you see a picture of a lady holding some green feathery thing on the right, that's me holding a fennel plant I harvested in July of 2008. I'd love to post something more glamorous but I don't always photograph well. I have these illusions of myself.

Just for fun I'll post this photo of some paperwhite narcissus I am growing. Oh my god! The alignment command I typed in worked!

I love paperwhites because they are easy to grow and they keep things green and flowery when it is horrible outside. This image shows just 3 bulbs in this container. What I did is every 5 or so days put a new bulb in, which in theory means that they will bloom over an extended time period. This container has 7 bowls so that's stretching it by 5 weeks.

Anyway, as a rule, I want to post a picture with almost every post I do.