Late Spring Blooms

Here are some close-up photos of our flowers. We are only four days away from Summer Equinox and next week days will be getting shorter again! L Grrr...!!!

Black Eyed Susan Vine.

Cosmos Double-click

Lobelia

Nasturtium

Nicotiana

Purple Petunia

Pink Petunia

Climbing Pinata Rose

Salpiglosis

Snapdragon Lampion

Snapdragon Rocket

Dwarf Sunflower Sunny Smile

Zinnia

Purple Millet

I just love my Canon Rebel T1i! All pictures were taken using external flash with ETTL exposure metering for almost perfect fill-in light.

Lobelia Mix and Snapdragon Lampion

It has been almost 5 months since I have planted my first seeds and finally I start to see fruits of my labor. Or should it be flowers? Despite one of the wettest and coldest spring that I have seen the blooms are opening more and more every day. If the sun comes out I expect that in few weeks the baskets will be covered in blooms.

All other plants I grew from seeds are doing quite well, especially Zinnias, Thunbergia, Red Millet, Petunias, Nasturtium, Salpiglossis, Nicotiana, actually all of them. It is just that I didn’t realize how long Lobelia and Snapdragon need to grow to the trailing stage. Next year I won’t be so impatient, I hope.

Her are some photos.



Lobelia Mix started to bloom.

Snapdragon Lampion started to bloom as well.



Zinnias are in flower for whole month.

Petunia and Nasturtium,

Snapdragon Rocket.

Sunflower Sunny Smile

Nicotiana and Zinnias.

Monthly Garden Update – March 1st

I have posted “Monthly Garden Update – March 1^{st “}  on my Garden blog. This is a general update that I post once a month. Starting from Seeds updates are posted on weekly basis.

I am having fun with growing flowers from seeds. So much to learn!

Orchid Collection

This is something that I have absolutely nothing to do with, except on occasion encouraging my wife to buy more. Unfortunately or is it fortunately, space is limited and so is the collection. From what I see, orchids are complicated but beautiful plants. I didn’t know that they don’t like direct sun in general but when you think about it there isn’t too much direct sun close to the jungle floor so it is logical. Orchid and rose gardening are specialty fields, something that I don’t have too much patience for, I am afraid, even though I have done very well with growing heritage Victorian climbing roses from cuttings. I will have a post about them when they start to bloom.

Here is a mini gallery of Marjo’s orchids and I will update as each starts to bloom.

All the orchids that Marjo grows are Phalaenopsis.

I forgot to mention that I have made all of the orchid pots pictured at top. All of them are my original design and hand build with stoneware clay using slab construction and fired and glazed at cone 6.



Our Gardening Season Update 24/01/2011

After 6 days most seeds have germinated. So far it looks a lot better then 60% that Johnny's Seeds printed on their seed packet. I will post exact germination rate after 3 weeks from planting the seeds, February 15th.

Also, today, I have planted another Snapdragon, this time Rocket Mix.. Another late bloomer. Mind you, this is coming from a guy that lived in Toronto condo for last 35 years and first time he planted anything was back in 2005, but I am a fast learner.

Snapdragon Rocket Mix

Photo courtesy Johnny’s Selected Seeds



Our Gardening Season has Started

I know, it looks quite early to talk about garden when we still have about 6” of snow and 13 weeks to official Last Frost Day but some flower take long time to grow from seeds. Last month I bought Trailing Snapdragon from Johnny’s Selected Seeds, among many other vegetable and flower seeds. This particular plant takes it’s time to full trailing stage – 120 days, that’s FOUR months! Next to be started is my last year favorite, Salpiglossis (Painted Tongue). It is a long blooming and beautiful plant. My rough guess is that I will grow about two dozen plants from seed this year. Yup, Spring is coming even though it doesn’t look like it.

Snapdragon

Salpiglossis (Painted Tongue)

Photo courtesy Johnny’s Selected Seeds

After 6 days it looks like most seeds have germinated. So far it looks a lot better then 60% that Johnny's Seeds printed on their seed packet. I will post exact germination rate after 3 weeks from planting the seeds, February 15th.

Also, today I have planted another Snapdragon, this time Rocket Mix.

Snapdragon Rocket Mix

Photo courtesy Johnny’s Selected Seeds