Gardener's Group discussion
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Great book Heucheras and Heucherellas. Perennials some for sun some for shade. Probably zone 6 Warning they are habit forming and you have to have them all!!!!
Elizabeth wrote: "Great book Heucheras and Heucherellas. Perennials some for sun some for shade. Probably zone 6 Warning they are habit forming and you have to have them all!!!!"I have good luck with Heucheras in zone 4, but am not familiar with Heucherellas. I'm working on growing many varieties of Heuchera and add a few more every year. I love them because they're so versitile.
I have them here in zone 6 and they are lovely. They peter out after a few years, is this usual? Maybe they just can't keep going in the desert heat.
I find that quite a few heucheras will rot in our very wet climate but I have had my Chocolate Ruffles for years.Heucherellas seem to be much easier to grow and the foliage is wonderful. Expensive and hard to find though. Interesting about how they perform in desert heat.!!
Sally, I wonder if they don't just deplete the soil of nutrients? Perhaps if you mulch with compost regularaly. Try replanting the ones that are depleted now, with a rich compost mixed into the soil around it, and mulch with compost. Mine go strong forever! But Iowa soil is black gold!
I'm so glad I found this group. I just wrote a blog about how gardening was quickly becoming an obsession for me. So much so that sometimes I forgo buying food so I can buy anything gardening related. It's craziness, but I love it.Great group!
Cathleen xx
MWelcome Cathleen! Good to see you here :-) Make yourself @ home.
Understand how you feel Cathleen. A couple perenials are alot more important than a loaf of bread. Welcome I just joined and am really enjoying it
Hello, I am Cristiana. I love being outside and squishing dirt through my fingers! I have had my hands in the dirt since I was a child, helping Grandma and Grandpa in their garden. I have flower gardened with moderate success for around 17 years. I worked in the greenhouses at Busch Gardens in Williamsburg for 1 enjoyable season. I am now, with a great deal of trepidation, planning my first vegetable garden. I am very happy that I have found Goodreads and this group!
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Bloomin’Chick (Jo) aka The Eclectic Spoonie
(last edited Apr 06, 2011 07:55PM)
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Welcome to OGSG and Goodreads Cristiana! Make yourself @ home & if you have any Qs, my in-box is always open :-)
Living in southwestern Michigan can be challenging for my most favored hobby. Never knowing when the snows have truly ceased or when the rains will subside to more manageable proportions. I have been a gardener since renting my first apartment in California, then living in the woods of South Carolina, to the sand hills of western Nebraska. My 2011 gardening plans include building two flowerbeds along a fence line and one side of my house. And another one solely dedicated to the flowering shrub, hibiscus. Lost a Blue Spruce this winter, due to excessive water (flooding) from melting snow, so that will need replacing. And then some debris removal in the back yard area so I can add to my mowing tasks. Lovely thought, huh? I also have 10 nut trees to move from the nursery area to the grove – located in the back four acres of my property. So it’s gonna be a busy season this year, which I love!
My other interests are vast, and to name a few: reading, writing, web page design, sewing and other hand crafts. I am married and the mother of two daughters; 26 and 17 years old. I am also an animal lover, and now owned by two finches, two cats, and two Toy Fox terriers.
Looking forward to more interaction here…
Welcome Pamela. Lived in Ann Arbor for a couple years and had relatives in Kalamazoo. Remember wonderful apple trees and beautiful blue spruce. Because of all of our rain here in the Northwest (Seattle area) the blue does not stay on the spruce and they turn rather gray. Once the Northwest gets going weather wise we are a paradise. Just this year the decent weather is a long time coming.
Welcome Pamela, Sounds like you will fit right in!
I've been around the board for a few months, but neglected to introduce myself. Thanks for the reminder, Jo!I love to garden -- perennials, some annuals, veggies, fruit. I have crocus coming up in a perennial bed this spring & get so excited when I walk past them. My daughter and husband just roll their eyes. Don't they realize how amazing and beautiful blooms are after 6 months of winter?! And just wait until the daffodils and tulips start to flower! I'm already planning my veggie gardens -- I've got 2 raised beds in the back yard. A wild turkey destroyed one last year, but I'm hoping for a turkey-free planting season this year.
I work full time in an office, and write on the side. I love to write -- I've got a comedy-mystery short story series out, with a short story romance series coming out soon. I also love to spend time with my family and friends, garden, read, volunteer with our church/community, sew, exercise, and travel. Some days are pretty full of activity, and you can usually find me asleep in front of the TV after 9pm.
Elizabeth wrote: "Welcome Pamela. Lived in Ann Arbor for a couple years and had relatives in Kalamazoo. Remember wonderful apple trees and beautiful blue spruce. Because of all of our rain here in the Northwest (Sea..."My husband lived in Seattle some years back... he is always saying we have one more move left in us. He spoke of Seattle's calm weather, lack of mosquitoes, etc. I'd do anything to be free of this snow; I don't mind winter per say, but the ice, snow and sleet is too much for my already achy joints and muscles. :)
Miriam wrote: "Welcome Pamela, Sounds like you will fit right in!"Thank you Miriam. :)
Beth wrote: "I've been around the board for a few months, but neglected to introduce myself. Thanks for the reminder, Jo!I love to garden -- perennials, some annuals, veggies, fruit. I have crocus coming up..."
*ROFLOL* Beth my family too cannot fathom my love of nurturing dirt and plant life. *LOL* But then they have hobbies that I cannot fathom why the interest too. *S* Its a fair exchange. *wink, wink*
So where are you published at... and under what name?
Pamela: I totally agree about the hobbies, lol! Everybody's got their own interests! I publish under Beth Mathison. My publisher, Untreed Reads, is great about getting titles out to dozens of venues -- Amazon, B&N, etc. Goodreads has a nice page for authors, too :-)
Beth wrote: "Pamela: I totally agree about the hobbies, lol! Everybody's got their own interests! I publish under Beth Mathison. My publisher, Untreed Reads, is great about getting titles out to dozens of..."
Thanks for the heads up on your publisher and name. Will be checking out both soon.
Speaking of hobbies, my husband is into antiquated straight razors. Now that is totally wierd to me, but there are tons of forums and videos about straight razors and their use. *LOL* So now he doesn't fuss so loudly about my "need to seed". *LOL*
Welcome to the new members--- this should be a lively season with all the new additions to our group!
Hi my name is Ann and I was told I needed to get a hobby to reduce my stress. I decided to start gardening a few months back and really love it. I started off with tomatoes and since then I have grown cabbage, lettuce, peas, peppers, onions and herbs. I guess I am a gardener-holic because I love working in my garden.
Ann, welcome! You chose a great hobby to reduce stress! Gardening is definitely part of my wellness plan- sunshine, exercise, and fun!
Welcome Ann! ((((hugs))))Thats why I started gardening, to reduce stress as a single mom. And it was something my daughter could do with me too. She loved planting the flowers, but kept replanting them around the yard. *LOL*
Hi Cheryl S. *waves*
Miriam wrote: "Ann, welcome! You chose a great hobby to reduce stress! Gardening is definitely part of my wellness plan- sunshine, exercise, and fun!"I like that phrasing you used, "Gardening is definitely part of my wellness plan- sunshine, exercise, and fun! Gonna post that on my wall by my computer.
Welcome Pamela, Beth and Ann! Glad to see you're making yourselves at home!
Ann wrote: "Hi my name is Ann and I was told I needed to get a hobby to reduce my stress. I decided to start gardening a few months back and really love it. I started off with tomatoes and since then I hav..."
Ann, nothing soothes my nerves and my soul like gardening :-)
Ann wrote: "Hi my name is Ann and I was told I needed to get a hobby to reduce my stress. I decided to start gardening a few months back and really love it. I started off with tomatoes and since then I hav..."
Welcome Ann!! So glad you found gardening as your stress reducing passtime. Warning--it is very addictive, but so much fun. My favorite thing is if something doesn't work you can just rip it out or move it and try again and when something you're sure is a goner unexpectedly comes to life.
Pamela wrote: "Welcome Ann! ((((hugs))))Thats why I started gardening, to reduce stress as a single mom. And it was something my daughter could do with me too. She loved planting the flowers, but kept replantin..."
I was a single mom too and didn't think my girls paid much attention to my gardening efforts when they lived at home. As adults they are both gardeners and the oldest one is now in landscape architecture design school, so you never know what you're passing along.
Hello Everyone and welcome to newcomers, First of all I am on Spring Break next week. It is 47 degrees, very cold and has been raining all day. Hopefully the rest of next week will be warm and sunny. I am gearing up to begin my spring gardening. It has been way too cold to be outside here in Southwestern Ohio. My sister encouraged me to start gardening a couple of years ago and it is time consuming but rewarding-real fruits of my labor so to speak. Two years ago I planted over two hundred tulips and last year they were beautiful when they bloomed. I live in a suburban neighborhood-not much of any woods around. This past winter the deer ate the majority of the tulips and what they didn’t eat the snow fall we had a couple of weeks ago took them out. I have about five tulips left. (sad face) I planted two trees and the deer trampled over one and broke it off at the roots and ate all the new buds off the other one. Anyway, I have learned a valuable lesson – use deer repellent. Deer were coming into our yard in the late afternoon around 4:30pm. I was amazed to see this-I do feed the birds all winter and the deer ate most of the bird feed, too! One deer was so engrossed in eating the birdseed that it didn’t even notice me walking up on it. I love deer by the way! So I have my work cut out for me this spring-next week. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated from anyone. My husband and I are going to have two new trees planted next week and ones deer will not be able to reach and eat. Happy Gardening (happy face)
Welcome, Linda. Don't ya just love the critters? The bunnies ate off the tops of all my new tulips so today I sprinkled red pepper flakes around them in hopes of saving the ones that haven't poked through the soil yet. I don't know much about fending off deer, wouldn't mind having that info also.
Jo, question for you. I have over 250 books on my "to read" list here, and I have tried to print the list so I can start ordering some from my library. It seems to be impossible to get a decent printout. I don't need anything but the title and author, but cannot select just those columns to transfer to a word processing document. Is there any way to do this? It would be REALLY nice if I would!
Hm, there are options to 'view' the shelves on here now (covers, table, print) so beyond that what about going to your to-read list, right clicking at the end of the author's name and then dragging to highlight the title of the book, then clicking on copy then pasting into a word document? That might be time consuming though as opposed to just printing the shelf via the print option.
Miriam wrote: "Jo, question for you. I have over 250 books on my "to read" list here, and I have tried to print the list so I can start ordering some from my library. It seems to be impossible to get a decent pri..."You can download the whole list and then delete columns you don't want.
http://www.goodreads.com/review/import and look on the righthandside for export to a CSV file.
I saw that, but didn't know what a csv file was. What is it?Thanks Petra!
csv is comma separated file. Every field is separated by a comma. Very basic. You can open or create them in Notepad, but they aren't very pretty unless you open them in a program that can read them properly (Excel, Google Spreadsheets, probably Word).
Petra, it takes the csv file in to Microsoft, even though that is not the word processing file I use on my computer, and I can't do anything with it! Cannot delete columns, copy, move, anything! Darn!
You need a spreadsheet program. Do you have Gmail? If you do you can access Google docs from there. If not go to Google and I think you can access docs from there (its in the More menu at the top). I don't think you need a Gmail account. When you get the docs menu at the top left it says Create New and Upload. Click upload, find your file etc. It will then be on an editable spreadsheet. To delete columns you just highlight the column, go to edit and click delete.That sounds more complicated than it is. Sorry.
I finally got it figured out. I opened the spreadsheet for my wordprocessing program (a free one) and dragged the icon of the goodreads file from my desktop over it. So it transferred the data. Trying to do ANYTHING from the Microsoft program without paying for it was impossible. So I went around it, not opening it. Darn money grubbing...
Having problems, need help. Some type of insect eating away at my leafy vegetables. Holes in the plants.
Are you able to post a pic Ann? I just gave Beth directions on how to post pics to goodreads in the Daily Happenings thread. If not, try to decribe the leaves in as much detail as you can (are the holes near perfect circles or does it look like somethings munching? Is there any black or white on the leaves, are the edges torn away, looking munched & so on) and check the under-side of the leaves to see if what's eating them is there.
This is the introduction thread? Okie dokie!I'm a Western PA gardener, mostly vegetables, and though I grew up with it, I didn't become obsessed until I married a man and moved to the country with him about seven years ago. Now, it's me who's the obsessive. I've been waiting for a break in the rain to duck out to see if any more of my beets have sprouted.
I'm also a writer & recent MFA graduate who's supposed to be looking for a job -- not joining gardening "support groups." ;)
Peace!
Jody
Welcome Jody! Best of luck w/the job hunt!
Hi. I just joined your group. I'm an avid gardener and garden book reader. I have lived at very high altitude in CO for the last 2 1/2 years which has made gardening a huge challenge. Very short season: our Spring starts in June - there's still snow on the ground here now. Plus the winters are extremely cold and windy. The underground critters (voles and pocket gophers) and above ground critters (rabbits, chipmunks and deer) present the greatest challenge of all. But I persist in trying to garden. Hope to have some fun discussions with all of you.Anne
Welcome Anne!!!!
Thank you, Jo. And Anne--I can relate in part. No, we're not CO, but our season is a full two weeks shorter than our neighbors a mile away in any direction because of altitude. This year, it looks like we've escaped late frost. We're lucky to get pears and apples from our trees or lilacs every three to four years. Our tomatoes and peppers can't go into the ground until June, so late varieties are a gamble. I haven't looked around here much yet, but I will be scoping the threads for ongoing vegetable discussions.
Gardener's Group
Books mentioned in this topic
Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World (other topics)Introduction to Permaculture (other topics)
Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture (other topics)
Teaming with Microbes: A Gardener's Guide to the Soil Food Web (other topics)
Edible Forest Gardens (other topics)
More...
I am not very good with the computer and putting on pics. Need lessons.
I miss my nursery alot but every year there are new plants, new ideas, and new friends to learn from.