Yep – It ’s January 9th , and I am just beginning my second mail . I know I am not alone , for a few fellow garden blogger booster are also feel the stress of catching up . My good acquaintance and neighbour , Rochelle Greayer(ofPith & Vigor , the seasonal and quarterly , and author of the top Amazon rated Holy Scripture – Cultivating Garden Style ) admit in a web log post on January 5th , that she too is trying to catch up .
Rochelle and I did find time to meet for dinner though , twice actually , over the Holiday break and last week , so maybe clip itself is n’t the publication exactly , possibly the reason we garden blogger are stalling is because it is still rather unseasonably tender here in the East ? Or perhaps , we just all are still recovering from the Holidays ? I do know that one reason I am more than a niggling banal is Daphne ’s new litter of puppies , which were carry over the weekend .
After my friend Glen ’s sojourn with the pots ( both of our birthdays are this week ) , we decide to point down toLogee ’s Greenhousesin Danielson , CT , only a 20 second drive from my house . We joked that we really did n’t require anything , but then , who really does ? Of course , that did n’t break us from impart with a boxful or two of treasures !
Daphne ( we call her scribble most of the clock time ) , had her first bedding material of Irish Terrier pups this weekend . Even though her twin pal is the issue 2 Irish terrier in the country this past year , this was her first bedding . At first we felt that all would go well with this one , but there were some complication , and as usual , late at night as such things happen to always go . It all seemed right after she broker her water at 6:00 PM . but then , after 13 hours of labor Saturday dark and Sunday morning , we necessitate a 5AM trip to Tufts University Veterinary Hospital for an emergency C - subdivision .
Now that it is Tuesday , the drama is over , and Doodles is the majestic mummy of six little , rascally puppies . We lost the 7th one last night , but she never looked as if she would make it . We ’ve been tube feed every 2 hours around the clock for the past 2 sidereal day which is in the main Hell for everyone , but now she looks as if she has her mommy genes in order , and has mastered the “ feeding matter ” . I ca n’t imagine operation and then 6 Sir John Suckling pup without pain killers ! Now , we all just ask to overtake up with some sleep after to harrowing days and nights .
I realized something this week – this class marks the ten class day of remembrance of this blog grow with Plants . I kind of ca n’t believe it . The melodic theme of write at least 2 posts a workweek for ten years seems so overwhelming when I think about it , yet I have so many more estimate for posts and projects , than I doubt that I will ply out of approximation . Thanks to all of you , I feel motivated to continue spell these petty posts which I know sometimes , can be a morsel geeky , too personal or even a picayune excursive sometimes , but hey , it ’s a blog , not a book . Again , that prison term will occur – and then , my editor can worry about my amateur writing skills !
These early weeks of January , as the days slowly being to become longer in reality involve a good flake of gardening . That is , if one considers garden as regularise seeds , hunting though semen and plant catalogue , or ordering ejaculate and plants , which must be done cursorily sometimes , since plants can betray out . I ’ve already order a few chrysanthemum before my gravid order in February , since I know they will sell out – even though the cutting wo n’t be ship until late March .
Dahlias are on my other list too , just the grueling to get ones . Then , some double victorian nasturtium which can not be begin by semen , only cuttings , which have been shared between partisan since the Victorian era , that I have been looking for ( must keep my source secret until I get my order confirmation ! ) , but I base them . Now , something very exciting – some very remarkabledelphiniumsfrom British plantist Blackmore & Langdon available for the first meter , here in the US as plants . So , if I could tell you how many times that I have ordersBlackmore & Langdon delphiniumseed from B & L in the UK , and never had any success in develop them , you’re able to imagine how emotional I am to now see their plant available at White Flower Farm . If you ’ve ever had the chance to attend the Chelsea Flower Show , you would recognise what I think . I have visions of tall , intercrossed delphiniums in front of the nursery next year , as it will take two age for the perennials to bloom .
I have already experience some seed , and tonight , I am soaking 14 species of Australian Acacia seeds – first in boiling water , to mime the bush fires so necessary to break through their hard seed coating , then sown in a variety of sharp sand and potting mix . Many the great unwashed only retrieve of Acacia trees with the plains of Africa , where yes , there are good deal of species , but most there are thorny and not suitable of a just clay pot in a greenhouse , but many of the Australian species are known as fine indoor garden plants , even as home plants . Trees ? Sure , but many are shrubby , 3 meter high miniskirt - trees which if take into account to grow in a nerveless , unheated room , or in a cool glasshouse , will bloom during the belated wintertime with clouds of often fragrant prime which need to be receive by every gardener .
There was a time , Twenty or thirty years ago , when a very illustrious collection of Acacia trees were develop here in Massachusetts – the famed Stone Family Acacias , ( you could read about them here ) a private collecting kept in the 12 wood and methamphetamine nursery at the Stone Family Estate in Marion , Massachusetts . This collection , which any plant life enthusiast of a certain age will for sure call up if they experience on the East coast , were very influential to me . Today , I ca n’t seem to find any phonograph recording of the collection , perhaps it has been lost , but I have many memories of them , and I dreamed of someday raising my own collection .
That aspiration never really cease me before . In high school , when I had a base made greenhouse made of storm windowpane , I observe a half dozen Tree alive until I go to college in Hawaii ( where , honestly , there were plenty of acacias for me to loose my self in ! ) . More recently , I have raised a few species both planted into the ground in my greenhouse , or raise in pots . The problem is , they grow too quickly , and become unmanageable over time . I am trying again , but now with some small-scale growing species . I just involve to keep the trees under 16 invertebrate foot tall , which should n’t be too concentrated .
I have so many memories of potted and force acacia trees from childhood , that I much become watery-eyed eye when I see a potted tree now ( like last summer , at Tower Hill Botanic Garden , where a marvellous specimen was in full prime near their entrance ) . If I see a cutting blossom clump at our local grocery store , I ca n’t resist it , even though I have sex the leaves with shatter and dry up in just a duad of days . They are available at florist shop , but deplorably , can not handle live and dry indoor clime .
The Stone Family Acacia ’s we ’re renowned through the late twentieth century at the great East Coast flower bear witness , from Philadelphia to New York to Boston , even sport a few times at our own local Worcester County Horticultural Society Spring Flower show in Horticultural Hall here in Worcester . I imagine each of those exhibition days – mostly freezing moth-eaten snowy days in February or March . I do n’t jazz for sealed , but it may have been 1966 or 1972 , or even 1976 – when those clip and train , 15 foot umbrella - like tree with cascading branches of fragrant cloud of fortunate yellow flowers took over my romantic mind . I keep a bar of mimosa ( acacia ) scoop from Spain on my dresser even . I know , do n’t say it , it ’s an unwellness .
So , these acacias are deserving revisiting for me , and perhaps , for you as well . They can be save as planetary house plants as long as you never permit them to dry out , and if you’re able to keep them in a cool way , again , that unheated Dominicus room or bed elbow room with a shining window . truehearted growing , they can and should be start by semen , and eventually kept in tubs or pots of various sizes ranging from 10 inches to 24 inches if you really desire something telling .
II have ordered my seed from theSeedman , who pack a few safe varieties that might be deserving trying . All of the seed from The Seedman.com are Australian , but a few can also be find atChiltern seedsin the UK , they ship to the US . Logee ’s Greenhouses have a few usable as seedling , but you may have to call them , for they are not in their catalogue . I saw flats there this weekend .
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