"These hearald in Spring" (now blooming)

Mrsfitts · #1 11-23-2001, 10:10 PM

I got home from vacation and saw that along with Paperwhites blooming, I have some Tête à Tête narcissus blooming.
(from www.dutchgardens.com) "These heralds of the spring bloom at the same time as Crocuses and Muscari. The flowers (2-3 per stem) last a month or longer. Excellent for naturalizing."

Are we having a wacky Fall season or what?

Pam

adonna · #2 11-24-2001, 02:41 PM

Oh, that happens all the time down on the peninsula, I remember that. Last year I was so angry, all my bulbs which I'd counted on to be dormant and ready to pull out to take to the new place had already sprouted and some had flowered. Twas about this time o'year too.

So, I figured they didn't WANT to come with me, but they WANTED to stay there.

Serves them right, I guess, the damn new owners tore out my entire garden and planted a gawdaful strip of lawn with a white picket fence. UGLY.

Why, they even tore down the $40,000 ten foot tall psychadelic cactus I had growing and blooming in the front yard. Ignorant peons!

I loved that cactus.

Actually, I loved that little garden, with its cacti, fuschias, bulbs, and roses, not to mention the bodacious white wisteria. It's awful to love a garden and then have to leave it behind to someone whose taste runs to strip malls and stupid scraps of lawn.

Mrsfitts · #3 11-24-2001, 04:19 PM

Adonna,

That's happened to me everytime we sell a house (only the condo where I did nothing stayed the same) At my Modesto, CA house we had planted a Japanese Tea Garden -it took all 8 years we lived there and hundreds of dollars in rare species of Acers (Japanese Maples) and hundreds of dollars in river rock, aggragate stone bridges and other plants and stone work. It's all a lawn now.... sigh....

I spend lots of money and time on gardens (my last house we 'built' an English Knot Garden that old neighbors said the owner let die) only to have garden-challenged people buy the house & put Sod over everything.

Sod Off you Hosers!

there, I feel better

It's my fault for not staying in one place. This current house I haven't done much -just a few hundred bulbs, but no major landscaping. With my gardening limitations (stupid knee -I'm still off work!) it's working out that I didn't get all carried away. When I sell this house, I won't care what they do to it (probably nothing -not much to do with such a tiny yard)

Hope you found a gardening outlet where you currently live. I LOVE the rhodies in your area!!! I didn't know they were supposed to look like that until we visited our kid at Humboldt State!

Pam

adonna · #4 11-30-2001, 08:37 PM

Pam! Come up to visit during the spring, to see the Rhodedendron Festival. I'll make up the nine foot sofa and tell the bird to shut up. Come and enjoy some of the spring time fun in the North Country.

And yes, for the soddish ones, I have news: Yesterday, IN THE RAIN no less, a got out my shovel and started digging away at the patch of lawn in the front, which I will happily erode with flowers from now till I start pushing up daisies. I planted about fifty daffodils, crocuses, and tulips in places where lawnmowers once roamed.

So it happens in reverse too.

nicholmere · #5 11-30-2001, 10:36 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by adonna
Why, they even tore down the $40,000 ten foot tall psychadelic cactus I had growing and blooming in the front yard. Ignorant peons!

Oh that's bad.

Many years ago the quadriplex where some of my family lived (rented) was sold. The new owners kicked everyone out using the 'we're going to live there' loophole. They never actually moved in, but that's another story. What they did do though was chop down one of the two Tamarak trees on the front lawn. Apparently when fall came they thought their 'evergreens' had died so they started to cut them down. Someone stopped them and explained what a tamarak was before they felled the second one.

The people who sold us our home probably (I hope) had a good experience. They had asked for permission (and received it) to meet with us after we had taken ownership. The husband showed my hubby many of the home's innerworking's features - the couple had built the house 20 years ago and the husband had been experimenting with home repairs ever since so he lots of tips and explanations for why things were the way they were. The wife showed me around the garden, naming everything and telling me the family stories around them - bulbs from her grandmother's garden, lilac tree was a gift from her mother ... etc.

The first season we were here I did not touch anything, except for some maintenance, in the garden. I wanted to see what came up before I started digging around in there. We've since changed some things, but for the better I hope. Right now we're working on relocating the entire garden near our deck. In a couple of years we hope to expand the deck, so I want to have all the things I like safely established in a new area, far from workers' trampling feet.

One of the things I did change as soon as I knew the garden was the iris bed. The previous owner had two very large sections of Irises, but they never bloomed - they grew big and tall and looked healthy, but no colour :-( So I moved them from their shady home to some bright sunshine - voila! Instant colour next year.

As to spring bulbs popping up early ... nothing has poked its head up here yet even though November was beautiful. The great weather has been very good for my herb garden. I'm still using fresh thyme, chives, sage, and rosemary in my cooking - lost all the basil on a frosty morning though.

Mrsfitts · #6 12-02-2001, 01:40 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by adonna
Pam! Come up to visit during the spring, to see the Rhodedendron Festival.

This sounds like a great road trip for hubby & I to make! I did want to go to Hawaii for our 20th anniversary, but now I'm not too jazzed on getting in a plane again. Maybe we will just pack up the car and do some Bed & Breakfasting up the N. Calif. coast -will let you know when/if (he might surprise me with some 1st class tickets to Hawaii after all...) Let me know when the Rhodie festival is... I can't believe the size of them suckers in your neck of the woods!

My original post about my Tête à Tête blooming, well a week + later, and some wild, windy, rainy weather, and they're still going! Wow!

Pam

(who wants a Big Humongous yard to grow everything she's ever wanted to grow...)

Psychovant · #7 12-02-2001, 11:48 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Mrsfitts
(who wants a Big Humongous yard to grow everything she's ever wanted to grow...)

Yikes, be careful of what you wish for. This house (remind me to post a pic or two later) was the first that my partner and I have owned and we have completely transformed the entire yard. So much so that the past two owners have stopped by and commented on how different and wonderful the house looks.

We are now looking at two acres (partially to have our goat babies with us) as well as try out all the new and exciting gardening things we have both come across in the past 6 years. Six years and I am telling you, you would not even be able to recocgnize this place. We live in the NW (Washington State) and I have a passion for roses. My partner grew up with bamboo. We both work in the landscape/turf field. I worked at a greenhouse for a bit to learn propagation.

Once you start, it never ends. Really.

But, oh my. What a rush my friends, what a rush.

Shannon

adonna · #8 12-03-2001, 09:54 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Mrsfitts

This sounds like a great road trip for hubby & I to make! I did want to go to Hawaii for our 20th anniversary, but now I'm not too jazzed on getting in a plane again. Maybe we will just pack up the car and do some Bed & Breakfasting up the N. Calif. coast -will let you know when/if (he might surprise me with some 1st class tickets to Hawaii after all...) Let me know when the Rhodie festival is... I can't believe the size of them suckers in your neck of the woods!

Will Do!

Of course, if you can go to Hawaii via first class, by all means do. I'm looking wistfully at these artifacts of the days when one visited hawaii by boat, and wishing I could go that way. The slower the better, for everything, for me. I live by island time.

I will let you know when the festival is. I just found out when the decorated tractor parade is in Ferndale (a Christmas tradition) and I'm going to drag SO to it, even if it's hailing.

But even if you can't make it for the festival, the flowers are blooming in indecent profusion throughout the spring. And the bed and breakfasts are top notch. It's definitely a great road trip.

adonna · #9 12-03-2001, 10:00 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by nicholmere

Oh that's bad.

The people who sold us our home probably (I hope) had a good experience. They had asked for permission (and received it) to meet with us after we had taken ownership. ...The wife showed me around the garden, naming everything and telling me the family stories around them - bulbs from her grandmother's garden, lilac tree was a gift from her mother ... etc.

I did the same both with my mom's house, and with my old place when I sold it. I was proud of both gardens and gave the new owners tours, thought in both instances they'd like to know the treasures in the garden. The folks that bought my mom's house have been OK about it. I was scandalized when they planted roses in the front, as we'd always kept the rose gardens in the back, but other than that, they treated the place OK.

The people that bought my old place, on the other hand, well, the less said about them, the better. If they happen by here, don't tell me.