The Seeds of Summer

I am being buried in seed catalogs. I love it. Last year, I dabbled in the Dried Flower Bed at Rutgers Gardens. It was assigned to me at the last minute, so I had to settle for planting leftovers from the greenhouse. Needless to say, it was not a success. This year, I will be able to grow flowers ahead of time in the greenhouse specifically for the Dried Flower Bed. I’ve found a lot of interesting flowers but need to narrow down my list. It’s a small bed. There’s just not enough room for everything that I want to grow.

The bed is surrounded on two sides by a fence. I plan on growing small decorative gourds on the fence. Yes, I know that they aren’t flowers but neither are the decorative grasses that are already in the bed. I’m such a rebel!

Being a long time volunteer (6 years!) has its privileges. I’ve decided to branch out and try growing veggies. There is a waiting list for veggie beds, but the Volunteer Coordinator allowed me to jump to the head of the list and grab a bed that was being relinquished by another gardener. I will be growing stuff that I cook with such as parsley, carrots, onions, garlic and herbs. I have to have a few flowers so I will be growing edible flowers such as nasturtiums, marigolds and calendulas.

I think I will declare this the Year of the Zinnia. I saw lots of interesting varieties of zinnias in the catalogs that would be perfect for my gardens at home.

This is my favorite time of year when I can dream about my gardens. In my dreams, they always look lovely and never have weeds.

Saturdays in the Greenhouse

The Flower House

The Vegetable House

The Cold Frame

The two new greenhouses at Rutgers Gardens went into production this year. Gone are the days of not enough room to work, not enough room on the mist table, not enough room for all the plants. The old, small greenhouse is now used to house tropicals being overwintered while the new, larger greenhouses are used to raise plants for sale or for use in the various beds around the Gardens.

With more space available, we are able to grow more plants. This year’s Spring Flower Fair will be our biggest plant sale ever.

Photos taken with my Blackberry Storm

Frelinguysen Arboretum

Visiting gardens and arboretums with non-gardeners can be trying so I jumped at the chance to re-visit Frelinghuysen Arboretum today, this time with volunteers from Rutgers Gardens.
First, I give you the Photo of the Day:

As usual, this was one of those “oh, that’s nice, let me get a quick shot of it”. At the time, I was concentrating on finding an artsy way to photograph the architectural details of the accompanying house. Which did not come out as well. When will I ever learn?

There is a rose garden at Frelinghuysen, but my favorite garden is the veggie garden.

I don’t even grow veggies, but if I did, I would want to do it in a garden just like this.

About a decade ago, someone had the bright idea to use the runoff from the parking lot to create a “marsh/meadow garden”.

Today we would call it a “rain garden”. No matter what you call it, it’s still beautiful.

You can see more photos of my visit to Frelinghuysen Arboretum on Flickr.

Park Seed

Normally, I only order a few things from Park Seed. They don’t carry many heirlooms and the modern varieties that they do carry aren’t all that attractive to me. This year, I don’t know if I just read the catalog more closely or that they had some rather unique seeds, but I really went overboard with my order.

Who knew that you could grow astilbe, coleus and Coral Bells from seed? Or hardy Cyclamen and daylilies? Ditto Stokes’ aster and Toad lilies.

And then there were the houseplants.

I have had astounding success with African violets so it was only natural that I ordered seeds for Fantasy Hybrids mix African Violets consisting of “doubles, semidoubles and singles in all colors, patterns and even speckled bicolors.”



And Ponytail Palm that Park assures its customers “grows in a flash from seed”.




Just for fun, I ordered Blue Himalayan Poppy (Meconopsis betonicfolia). Our New Jersey summers are probably too hot for them but they prefer partial shade and shade is something that I have in abundance.

The bonus pack of seed Park sent me left me scratching my head. I have never ordered anything but flower seeds from them and yet they chose to send me a packet of Sweet Banana pepper seeds. I’m not sure what exactly I will do with them.