Lavender fever.

My longing has started early this year.

For Elaine, the constant gardener.

via The Farmers' Almanac.

Transplanting
May is the biggest transplanting month. A seedling’s move to the outdoors can be traumatic. Here are some tips to minimize transplant shock:

• Be sure the plants “harden off.” During plants’ last week indoors, lower temperatures a bit, withhold fertilizer, and water less often.

• For the last 7 to 10 days, bring seedlings outdoors for increasing periods each day, first placing them in dappled shade, protected from winds, and then gradually moving them into full sun and wind.

Do not leave seedlings outside if there is danger of frost. See frost-free dates for your area.

• When buying plants at a nursery, choose stocky plants with deep-green foliage, roughly as wide as they are tall.

• Ideally, the seedlings that you grow or buy are in individual containers so that you do not disturb the roots of neighboring seedlings when you remove each plant.

Read more tips on transplanting your seedlings.

For planting by the Moon dates, see our 2009 Outdoor Planting Table.

I'm no photographer

but here's the first little glimpses of spring out our neck of the woods...

Green and cold.

A front has blown in to our part of the world and it's gotten quite cold and windy. It's enough to make me want chili, beans, and any kind of soup you can imagine with a big pan of cornbread. That's manageable. What I am having trouble with are all the plants I've had to bring inside for their own protection/inevitable slow and painful death. I have too many plants and not near enough south-facing windows for their own good, and I've no idea how to save their little green lives without investing in tacky grow lights that make the house look for all intents and purposes like a weed farm. I'm pretty sure those lights were installed in this house at some point in its history, but I do not intend that we repeat it. So, little calamondin orange tree, unidentified gigantic flowering shrub, a few sick looking succulents, ponytail palm, two goldenball lead tree shoots, massive giganto porch-sized fern, bleeding heart dischidia (what a name that one has), zz plants, ivys, and numerous happy jades, it's kill or be killed, survival of the fittest. I want to see y'all duking it out for the available sunlight. Godspeed to all of you and may the best plant win.

At least I can cook up some soup and go chop firewood and feel productive. Or at least distracted from the murders I'm committing. Sigh.

Ancient bee.

This is just too interesting to pass up: ancient bees, ancient flowers, and dinosaurs!

And in a related [if old] article, bees once again prove their worth... as if they needed to.

Future Nashville :: could be worse!

If it truly is "climate changed", then it's time to educate myself on native plants. I've got to know more about them, and start using them here at home. O how I'd miss my Japanese maple...!

1. from the TVA
2. from the Tennessee Native Plant Society
3. from the TEPPC
4. Native trees for Tennessee
5. and I must get this book!
   

Houseplant Endeavor

This weekend Mom and I planted many things. Here's a few, plus some older plants I am enjoying this summer.

Fun Times with Plants

Spent a lot of time planting inside and out this weekend, faithfully aided and abetted by Mom. Found this nice blog on houseplant care. There's a satisfaction that comes from planting and watching little green things [not mold, though] grow and thrive. Probably it's only to be matched by the futile sadness that comes when you realize you forgot to water it just about a week too late to save it. I bet God feels the same with all us human critters...