[gardeners] Saturday in the garden
George Shirley (gardeners@globalgarden.com)
Sat, 24 Mar 2001 17:07:12 -0600
We started out the day doing the first mowing of the season and finding that the
!@#$%^ wild strawberries (inedible kind) have taken over the lawn again. Rather
than weed and feed the whole lawn we have elected to selectively hit the worse
areas and see what happens. Don't have much lawn left anyway so don't want to
over do it. Later in the morning my big sister came driving up, we were
expecting her, in her old baby Chevy Blazer (1982 model with only 94K miles on
it). I had a big meatloaf in the oven anyway so started a pone of Arkansas
cornbread to go with it along with some green beans, last jar of those I put up
last fall.
After lunch we took off to the annual 4H fundraising garden show. Number of
exhibitors there selling their wares. My sis bought about a dozen nice geraniums
for her front porch. She lives in a retirement community about 60 miles away and
likes to have some color around her. We resisted the urge to buy plants but did
buy two pots from Colombia for $18.00. Pretty good buy as both were hard fired
and had the requisite hole in the bottom. They are heavy enough to put a taller,
larger plant in and not have to worry about the wind knocking them over. I did
purchase a subscription to "Louisiana Gardener" a fairly new magazine that is
out now. That one along with my "Texas Gardener" should give me all the info I
need.
Argued with the Ag hort specialist again, trying to get him to start a Master
Gardener class here. He only has a bunch of MG's that are even older than I am
who all got there MG in Baton Rouge. This is the idiot who keeps telling me I
live in USDA Zone 8 when everyone else in the world knows it's Zone 9b where I
live and 9a in the northern part of the parish. I'm giving up on him, guess I'll
have to talk to the folks at LSU to see if I can get them on my side.
Anyway, the Louisiana iris are blooming. The bronze, deep purple with yellow
throat, the yellow, and the near-white (light lavender) are all in bloom. We're
hoping our lone red LA iris will bloom this year too but no sight of blooms on
it yet. Miz Anne visited an older friend of hers yesterday who is well known
locally for her LA iris only to find that she has dug up and thrown away most of
it. Something over 200 plants (tears and sobbing ensue) were tossed. She did
manage to salvage about 20 plants but the colors aren't known. The lady did
mention that she had paid 8 to 10 bucks each for those rhizomes so we may luck
out and get some neat colors out of them.
The azaleas are starting to fade out but the blooms this year have been
spectacular. As a bonus all the dogwood in the neighborhood and along the
highways is in full bloom. We did see a wild azalea for sale at the garden show
that had a yellow bloom, lady said it came from Alabama. All we've ever seen in
the wild are the pale pinks, whites, and reds so the yellow really stoked us up
but we resisted. The same vendor had some LA iris in pots but she didn't know
what color they were. She was selling them for $5 a pot (good sized plant) so I
didn't buy any. She said come back tomorrow afternoon and if she hadn't sold the
yellow azalea and the iris I could have them for half price. Reckon I'll try
again tomorrow. <VBG>
Miz Anne is finishing the mowing of the backyard (10 minute job at most) and I'm
resting my weary feet.
Life is good.
George