Weather Setbacks

Thankfully, the freezing temps have passed (I hope!), and while rain is almost always welcome, this week and next are a long spell of clouds and rain.  Nothing else wants to raise its head from the cold, wet earth in the garden, and what's already up, along with my seedlings that are in flats outdoors, just sit in stasis waiting for some sunshine and warmth.  I could use some myself.

The lettuce in the garden that was hit so hard by high winds when I planted it, is rather sparse, but that will just leave room for a second planting.  The peas are in pleasing parallel arcs of little plants less than two inches high.

The Chinese cabbage came up nicely and will require some prudent thinning when it gets a chance to grow some more.

Chinese cabbage

flower seedlings

I ordered three tall flat covers with vents, and I'm experimenting with using one of them as a kind of greenhouse for some of the dahlias and rhubarb (as well as a few lisianthus and a couple lupine) to see if that makes any noticeable difference in growth at this cool time of year.

In the meantime, my seed starts indoors are rapidly crowding my available space.

On the wildflower front, those rivulets of poppy seedlings turned out to be only the first flush.  Whether they were one variety that germinates more quickly than the others or places where the seed was either deepr or more shallow than the rest, I don't know.  But I was happily surprised a few days ago to check on them and see hundreds and hundreds of tiny newly germinated plants scattered all over the areas where I'd planted them.  Happily surprised doesn't quite accurately describe it.  I was thrilled.  I'm excited to see them all flowering, but judging from past years of the small plots I planted in the vegetable garden, I will probably have to wait until June.

June 10, 2015 

I'm imagining that picture at about 20 times the area.  I'm hoping the 'Black Peony' poppy seeds I sowed amongst them come up and do well.  I'm not feeling so hopeful about the 'Tangerine Gem' ones, though, as the ones I started indoors didn't germinate well.  In fact, only three teeny tiny plants came up.  They're growing so slowly as to seem frozen, and they don't actually look like the other poppy seedlings.   Last year, in the vegetable garden, I had sown some red poppy seeds, and they never germinated.  The 'Lauren's Grape' and 'Hungarian Blue' did well, as you can see, and I even have some volunteers of them growing in that same space this year.

I got the 'Tangerine Gem' seeds from an Etsy order.  I also got several other types of seeds from that same order sold by The Garden Studio.  The 'Tutti Frutti' lupine seeds germinated fairly well, but the 'Purple Ribbon' lavender only produced four seedlings, and the Verbascum and blue lupine seeds didn't produce anything.  I won't be ordering from The Garden Studio again.  And, FYI, if you order any seeds from Amazon, some sellers are, of course, less reliable than others.  I probably won't use Amazon in the future for seeds unless it's something I simply can't find anywhere else.  Two orders this year never even arrived: from sellers RED Room and sgeeew.  They did refund my money when asked, though.

At any rate, I think this poppy area will be a gorgeous planting, and since I put them on the interior of the wildflower garden, they should be a lovely surprise as you turn the corner of the winding path that goes through what is mostly shoulder height Monarda and coneflowers.

I didn't have any lisianthus last year, but I'm looking forward to seeing something like this again this summer.

Looking forward to a beautiful new year.

And some sunshine!  (Just wait till July, and I'll start wishing for some clouds.)