{"id":288,"date":"2012-01-23T05:05:52","date_gmt":"2012-01-23T13:05:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/garden\/?p=288"},"modified":"2015-11-24T07:32:33","modified_gmt":"2015-11-24T15:32:33","slug":"spring-orders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/spring-orders\/","title":{"rendered":"Spring Orders"},"content":{"rendered":"

SPRING ORDERS
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\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>Spring is leaping up from the pages of the catalogs that arrive by snail mail every day.\u00a0 The e-mail traffic from the plant vendors is also surging, with new offers and enticements appearing on an hourly basis. \u00a0My head spins at the color and the variety.\u00a0 My heart sinks–but only a little–at the thought of what my garden fantasies would cost if allowed to go unchecked.\u00a0
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 But now I have to get serious.\u00a0 The plant ordering season is upon us and if I want to have my pick of in-demand varieties, now is the time to narrow my wish list and brandish the credit card.\u00a0
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I will start where I always start–with snowdrops.\u00a0 I am not a galanthophile or snowdrop fanatic.\u00a0 However, the bees that dare venture out in the early spring are as happy as I am to see the snowdrops emerge, so I add a few every year.\u00a0 I order from the fascinating Hitch Lyman of Trumansburg, New York, proprietor of the Temple Nursery.\u00a0 Mr. Lyman specializes in exotic snowdrops and has an interesting array of species and varieties, many of which have intriguing histories.\u00a0 The plants are expensive, but a happy snowdrop multiplies, and, in general, snowdrops seem happy in my garden.\u00a0 I love the double-flowered varieties and those with yellow, rather than the typical green petal markings.\u00a0 For size and vigor, nothing beats Galanthus nivalis ‘S. Arnott,’ which has blossoms that are about twice the size of ordinary snowdrop flowers.\u00a0 The Temple Nursery does not supply an order form, does not have an internet presence and does not accept credit cards.\u00a0 I don’t care.\u00a0 The snowdrops are worth taking up the checkbook and typing out the order.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 After I finish with the snowdrops, I’ll turn my attention to adding to my supply of ground cover plants.\u00a0 Tough, hardy groundcovers increase the overall beauty of beds and borders and decrease the need for mulching.\u00a0 Installing this kind of “green mulch,”\u009d is much easier on the back than hefting up bags of shredded cedar bark.\u00a0 I have been involved in a longstanding love affair with hardy geraniums, sometimes known as cranesbills, and there are several recent introductions that have caught my eye.\u00a0 I love Geranium sanguineum ‘Elke’, which is rose pink with a narrow white edge on each petal.\u00a0 ‘Elke’ is a sun lover, with nicely dissected leaves that look good whether or not the plant is flowering.\u00a0 I generally order odd-numbered lots of plants, as they work better in garden groupings.\u00a0 Whether I order one or three “Elke’s’ depends on the amount of temptation I find elsewhere in plant vendors’ inventories.\u00a0 Two other cranesbills, ‘Dragonheart’, with dark-centered magenta flowers; and ‘Butterfly Kisses,’ featuring late blooming pink flowers and good fall color, have also caught my eye.\u00a0 If finances permit, the garden will be chock full of cranes–or at least their bills–come spring.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Though I grow relatively few edibles, I am intrigued by the idea of edging my beds with colorful basils.\u00a0 This will supply me with lots of pesto, but it is also a form of decorative companion planting.\u00a0 Basils, with their strong minty fragrances, deter some kinds of predators and insects and are valuable even if they never make it to the kitchen.\u00a0 I especially like the purple-leafed types, like ‘Red Rubin’ and ‘Aromatto’ for color, taste and scent.\u00a0 These are good for pots as well.\u00a0 Basil is ridiculously easy to start from seed, so it is a good investment for me to sow my basil indoors in March and set it out when the weather gets warm.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 What else do I need?\u00a0 Realistically speaking, nothing.\u00a0 My beds are full of plants that can be divided and spread around to fill any gaps.\u00a0 Many of them are both exceptionally worthy and in desperate need of division.\u00a0 Still, I can’t resist some new introductions.\u00a0 Weeks Roses has introduced ‘Sugar Moon,’ a French-bred hybrid tea rose with a lemon scent and big, white blossoms.\u00a0 Despite my reservations about hybrid teas, I would love to try it.\u00a0 Seeds of Change, a terrific purveyor, is offering a pale yellow cosmos called ‘Yellow Garden.’\u00a0 It would look lovely amid some blue-purple flowered cranesbills.\u00a0 I saw an irresistible, shell pink, semi-double peony with the improbable name ‘Spumoni Whisper’ in the pages of the Klehm’s Song Sparrow Farm and Nursery catalog.\u00a0 The inner petal bases have just a hint of green, hence the “spumoni”\u009d in the name.\u00a0 It is ravishing and I need it in my garden, though at the moment I can’t think where I will put it unless I appropriate my neighbor’s yard.\u00a0
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Every year I entertain that possibility.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 So the winnowing process continues, as does the reconciliation of needs and wants that is part of every garden fanatic’s planning strategy.\u00a0 My neighbor had better watch her property line.\u00a0 She may find the fence moving.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SPRING ORDERS \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Spring is leaping up from the pages of the catalogs that arrive by snail mail every day.\u00a0 The e-mail traffic from the plant vendors is also surging, with new offers and enticements appearing on an hourly basis. \u00a0My head spins at the color and the variety.\u00a0 My heart sinks–but only a little–at … 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":[6,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-interest","category-spring"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288","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=288"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1503,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288\/revisions\/1503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}