Lupine day 15

Lupines are putting up first true leaves - this really looks like a lupine. plus more are germinating:
Soakers: 7 of 10 pots for a total 10 sprouts.
Scarified: 10 of 11 pots for a total of 18 sprouts.

Other seedlings ... eggplant is growing nicely - robust and straight. Laveneder is up but small. Yarrow is up but crazy, a littel bit all over - needs to learn from eggplant. Globe Amaranth has a good few shoots and I can see one unrolling before my eyes today. Salvia is also up, small and of course looking similar to lavender in leaf shape. So everything that I planted has sprouted at least one so far. just planted some Mexican Sunflower yesterday. Also need to get the poppy and one other seed in the true ground - first seeds to go outside.

Lupine experiment

The lupines are still sprouting so there's still time for the experiment to swing in favor of the soaked seeds. Not!
As of today the scarified seeds have 10 of 11 pots with sprouts for a total 18 sprouts. The soakers have a measly 4 of 10 pots showing anything, for a total of 5 sprouts.
The packet said germination in 14-21 days and we are only at day 10 so maybe the soakers take longer. Personally I doubt it.
Some of the sprouts are just beginning to show their true leaves (I think that's what the leaves are that come after the first two on the sprout, right?)

Photo from Bob

Simply gorgeous. Lovely. And in my garden too boot!

Concept sketch #4

Concept sketch no. 4 - where we stand after class #3 of Brooklyn Botanical Garden's "All About the Space". It's coming together, still need to work on the area near the RH side of the house.

Landscaping Class #3

Last night was class #3 of 4 in Brokklyn Botanical Garden's "All About the Space". Homework had been working up to concept sketches for your space. Lsat week Jim had suggeste the diagonal approach. I worked on that one first and it went together very easily. Still hard to balance what you want to have with where you can put it when you figure in sun/shade, poor soil, shallow tree roots, proximity to house, view etc etc.
I struggled to come up with a 2nd concept sketch, worked hard, drew furiously and ended up with an almost carbon copy of the first concept. Oops.
yesterday morning I got to work early and taped the drawings to my desk so that anytime I got an idea I could just swing over and do it. And I came up with a good 2nd concept: more "woodland", work the patio area to combine with the screened-in porch as a unit etc.
At last night's class we each got time one-on-one with Joan and Jim individually where we explained our 2 concepts and then picked them apart. I had Jim first - he liked both of my concepts but preferred the one with more woodland as having a more natural feel. He made some good suggestions such as looking to move the currently centred door on the porch to another location to open up space in the porch and to then work on a third concept that worked on shapes (focussing on a shape for the lawn rather than just have what's left as lawn) and to fill in activities afterwards.
This I worked on while waiting for Joan. She too liked the woodlandy, more natural concept and pointed out that my "shapes" concept drawing was quite similar in basis to the woodland layout.
There's still some work to do to work out the side of the garden that gets the sun as certain things can only go on that side and the layouts weren't working (flower beds, veg areas/beds, pond? etc). Joan is keen to hack down the ash? on the eastern border as it throws shade on the sunny edge but i don;t remember it having hard shade so I would rather keep it as there is no other tree on that side.
Next week is the last class - we each get to present our concept sketches/layouts and resources/ideas/vision and then the group discusses/helps etc.
I have to do some research and work on my layout for the sunny side of the garden.

It was a good evening and my drawing really progressed.

First crocus (croci)

Landscaping class

So homework is to come up with 2 concept sketches. I went with Jim's suggestion to go diagonally and that actually really worked well: the design fell together with an ease. It puts the patio where we were thinking it would go, it moves the shed which I wanted to do to gain 12ft of backyard back and makes it a focal point (it would definitely need to be paintes and/or shingled) and it gives a view that diffuses all the house views as you are not looking directly at the house behind. Plus it allowed for a centred pond which fits in between the two huge white oaks (good?, bad?) which could be lawn until we get around to it.
Then I decided to have a go at a second layout when I realised that if we want to have vehicular access to the back yard for the tree guy then the patio can't go all the way into the corner. Man, that made it very hard, so I am still working on that concept. It's tempting to move it to the other side of the house more in the shade on the soil that doesn't support grass but I'm not sure that works and that side tends to have more potential tree root issues (unless it was raised - hmm, now there's a thought).
Also seeing as we just took down a 90ft white oak that cast a lot of shade, this next growing season will hopefully help the whole yard in the way of sun, breeze, less dampness etc.

Eggplant day 14

Eggplants are coming along great. The lupines are coming up hearty not like the yarrow which seems a little frail and spindly. In the lupine test the soaked seeds really did not do well: only 4 of 10 pots have anything for a total of 4 shoots. It seems that scarifying is the way to go: 9/11 pots have seedlings for a total of 14 shoots.
Spent the weekend on some lawn care. Scarified in my battle against crabgrass - can't believe how much stuff comes up. Next year I will not mulch/mow leaves into the lawn - they tend to cake on it. I'll mulch them into the leaf pile. I had a bunch of compost delivered from Ferris Mulch. Saturday was taken up with scarifying, overseeding and topdressing the front lawn. Sunday was taken up with scarifying and topdressing the back and then making a storage spot for the remaining compost, I could've got maybe 1 less yard although I'll use it for sure. The yard looks a lot tidier (kind of like me, I had a spring haircut and got rid of the mop on Saturday) and I gave all the plants a good shovelful of compost.

Landscaping Class #2

Last night was class #2 of Brooklyn Botanical Garden's class "All About the Space" (part 1).
Six of us turned up (2 suburban gdns, 2 rooftops, 2 brownstones overlooking gardens). There was a little theory but the mian part of the evening was taken up with each of us individually showing our site photos and plan, drawing/discussing activity areas to produce a first concept sketch and discuss options. Homework, amongst other things, is to come up with 2 concept skteches for next week.
It was a very interesting process and great to see what other people have - some alread have quite a bit of hardscaping in place, one gal had a beautiful double stairway out of a sunken patio below a large deck with a nautical-ish railing. Another gal had a 600 sq ft roof area that they had already built lovely slatted integrated raised planters. The floor material on her deck was sheet metal - it was like something out of a magazine! in the area sthat they had done but she still have other areas to define and work on.
Don't know about anyone else but I am ready to get beyond concept sketches and get drawing!
There was also one bush at the garden in blossom - I forget the name - very early blossoming - white. Need to find the name.

Loopy Lupines

I planted the lupine seeds 4 days ago. packet said germination: 14-21 days. Already I have sprouts coming up!
Interestingly my little experiment on soaking or scarifying is favoring scarifying: 7 of 9 pots have a total of 13 sprouts. The "soakers" are 5 of 12 pots for a total of 5 sprouts. We shall see how they fare down the road.

Landscaping Class #1

So I realised thast I did not post on the first night of the Brooklyn Botanical Garden class 'Your Garden Tutorial: All About the Space."
It was a good first class. There are 8 of us. The class is run by Jim Russell (bio at http://www.bbg.org/edu/bios.html#russell) and Joan McDonald (http://www.gardensbyjoan.com/). They are a good yin and yang, he seems more arty and emotive, whereas Joan seems more realist and practical, which I guess is the ideal mix.

We all had to briefly describe our space to start things off and we have a mix of 2 suburban gardens (inc. me), 2 rooftops, 2 brownstone small gardens and 2 more I forget but a good mix. I have to admit I almost envy the folks with a smaller space.

Jim went through different styles of gardens and then we had to write three visions of our garden: in 3 years, in 10 months and in 1 month. This was hard to do, you had to project how it would be and try to get more descriptive and make it into something real. Then the process is that you use the vision to outline what you have to do, to create a list and from that make a project list, prioritize etc. it was a good exercise and I will have Bob do it too.

Then we went through the workbook they provided to keep all our stuff together and then it was pretty much the end of the evening. Took me 2 hrs to drive there from Stamford and 1:15 to drive back home.

The class notification had asked us to draw a plan of our space and collect inspirational photos etc. That became the first night's "to do" (grown-up word for "homework") so I am ahead of the game there.

Last night I went out and checked some measurements. When I first did them I used a wheel on snow, last night I used the tape measure and got a different reading which still throws off my drawing so maybe I have to go measure for a 3rd time.

Fussy lupines

So with about 40 yarrow seedlings showing and one teensie lavender popping its head up, it was time to plant lupines. I was going to do it yesterday and decided to split my pack of seeds between indoor seed and outdoor direct plant and also to split the indoor seed into a soaked group and a scarified group. That way I hoped for future years to get the best way to grow these.
My trays are pretty small and as I was reading a little about lupine on the packet, it said "sow directly into cell packks, nothing smaller than a 32 tray" it continued "transplant when ready, do not delay, established plants do not transplant well." I'm not sure what a 32 tray is but combining the comment about transplant I was pretty sure that my tray was to small. Also some of hte seeds were already soaking so I had 24 hrs to get some larger pots.
So I made up a bunch of 2-1/2" newspaper boxes. I had seen these very briefly when flicking through a mag in Borders books. It was about frugal gardening or similar. I managed to replicate the boxes perfectly. I really like these as I can plant the little boogers straight into the ground.
To make the boxes I used 4 sheets of newspaper. The mag said to cut 7-1/2" squares, which just happens to be one third the height of a newsheet. You fold the square into thirds, rotate 90 deg and fold itno thirds again. Then you flip it over and fold on the two diagonals (corner to corner). Then flip it back over and the diagonal creases make the corners pleat in beautifully boxed. Quite amazing!

Landscaping class is tonight

First class of the Landscape Design session at Brooklyn Botanical Garden is tonight. Exciting to finally be here. Not so excited about actually driving down there from CT for 6pm. We shall see how that goes.
Also 22 of the yarrow seedlings are just peeking through in my pots on the office window sill.

First seedling.

OK they are miniscule and I also said I wouldn't grow seeds again but those 3 little green specks about 1/3 the way up on the L. They are the yarrow coming up. Now, i just have to not kill them.
Also planted lavender and eggplant seeds.

8" and more on the way

Aaaarghh!

Tonight's forecast is for 14" of the snowy, white stuff.