{"id":134,"date":"2009-02-09T11:55:02","date_gmt":"2009-02-09T19:55:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/garden\/?p=134"},"modified":"2015-11-24T07:33:00","modified_gmt":"2015-11-24T15:33:00","slug":"cheerfulness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/cheerfulness\/","title":{"rendered":"Cheerfulness"},"content":{"rendered":"

CHEERFULNESS
\n<\/font><\/font><\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 For the past few months I have read a lot about the art of growing food.\u00a0 In fact, I have read enough about growing vegetables–in back and front yards, in pots and even in window boxes–to last me for the next ten years. \u00a0Toothsome photos of glamorous vegetables, like Multi-colored Swiss chard and red-ringed Chioggia beets, have shown up in more magazines than Angelina Jolie.\u00a0 I have also been alternately inspired and amused by the efforts of a group of extremely earnest chefs, gardeners and sustainable food advocates to convince the new President to turn part of the South Lawn of the White House into a vegetable garden.\u00a0 <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

Food gardening is a wonderful thing and I indulge in a bit of it myself.\u00a0 But I think that in hard times, it is foolish if we don’t also remember food for the soul.\u00a0 This is why ornamental gardening is so important.\u00a0 While you can’t or probably won’t be inclined to eat daisies, gladioli or roses, their presence in the garden and in your house in bouquets can make the difference between merely existing and really living.\u00a0 <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

We all have to watch our pennies of course, and the best way to have beautiful flowers while watching pennies is to grow at least some of those flowers from seed.\u00a0 People get very flustered by this idea, because they have visions of tilling and tending, weeding and feeding and generally laboring long and hard for a handful of blossoms.\u00a0 If you pick the right plants, nothing could be farther from the truth.\u00a0 <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

You also do not need a greenhouse to raise annual flowers from seed.\u00a0 Most of the easy-to-grow varieties can be sown directly in the ground once all danger of frost has passed.\u00a0 To prepare the ground, forget about tilling.\u00a0 In the next couple of weeks, as the snow recedes from your beds, go out and cover them with a layer of newspaper two to three pages thick.\u00a0 Rake several inches of leftover dead leaves over the newspaper.\u00a0 If you have daffodils or other spring-flowering plants coming up through the ground, work around them.\u00a0 When you are finished, go inside and peruse the garden catalogs until real spring arrives.\u00a0 By that time night time temperatures will be fifty or above and the soil underneath your newspaper and leaves will be loose, relatively warm and friable.\u00a0 Rake aside the leaves and newspaper remnants and put them on the compost pile to finish degrading.\u00a0 Your soil will only need a quick raking to be ready for your seeds.<\/font><\/p>\n

To find some of the easiest annual flowers, start at the end of the alphabet.\u00a0 Zinnias, which bloom from mid-summer through frost, are a snap to grow and yield more flowers than you can imagine.\u00a0 For long-stemmed cutting garden beauties, try Zinnia elegans, especially the ‘Benary’s Giant’ series, which includes carmine, lime, orange, rose and scarlet-flowered plants.\u00a0 Soaring up to four feet tall, they are great for the middle to back of a sunny border.\u00a0 On the opposite end of the height spectrum, try the little Zinnia haageana, ‘Starbright Mix’.\u00a0 These are low enough to use as an edging, and bloom incessantly \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

Everyone knows about sunflowers, but I am always surprised that more people do not grow Tithonia rotundifolia, otherwise known as the Mexican sunflower.\u00a0 It is as tall as some sunflowers, but the flowerheads are smaller, with about twelve petals apiece.\u00a0 As far as I know, Mexican sunflower only comes in one color–orange–but it is bright, beautiful, easy to grow and attracts butterflies like nobody’s business.\u00a0 Kids also love tithonia.<\/font><\/p>\n

There are many kinds of annual cosmos on the market, and all of them are pretty.\u00a0\u00a0 ‘Psyche White’, which is a “crested double”\u009d variety, features a full row of white petals surrounding a second row of shorter, “crested”\u009d petals.\u00a0 It is a great garden filler that can bring disparate flower groups together.\u00a0 If, for example, you have planted a clump of ‘Green Envy’ zinnias in one spot and a flashy pink rose nearby, fill the space between them with ‘Psyche White’ cosmos.\u00a0 Your planting scheme will look less preppy and more coordinated.\u00a0 When repeated through the garden, clumps of white-flowering annuals like cosmos, zinnias, poppies or nasturtiums draw the eye and bring coherence.\u00a0 Of course white cosmos are hardly the only game in town.\u00a0 I am especially fond of Cosmos bipinnatus ‘Seashells Mix’, which features red, pink and cream blossoms that are quilled or rolled into tube shapes.\u00a0 They make great cutting flowers and are easy to sown directly in the garden.<\/font><\/p>\n

Most gardeners have their own favorite annuals and the list usually includes species and varieties remembered from childhood.\u00a0 My fondness for zinnias, in fact, comes from second grade, when we started seeds in Dixie cups to give to our mothers on Mother’s Day.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

Grow all the food crops you want this coming year, but don’t forget to nourish your senses with easy, inexpensive annual flowers.<\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Local nurseries, garden centers and mega-merchandisers offer racks of garden seeds starting about now.\u00a0 Another good source is Select Seeds, 180 Stickney Hill Road, Union, CT 06076, (800) 653-3304 or <\/font><\/font>www.selectseeds.com<\/font><\/a>. <\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CHEERFULNESS \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 For the past few months I have read a lot about the art of growing food.\u00a0 In fact, I have read enough about growing vegetables–in back and front yards, in pots and even in window boxes–to last me for the next ten years. \u00a0Toothsome photos of glamorous vegetables, like Multi-colored Swiss chard and … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spring"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1650,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134\/revisions\/1650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}