Long Distance Garden Updates

So I have been away from Rochester the last three weeks, and will be away for another three....BUT...Every time a new flower bloomed these last 3 weeks, Palash took a picture with his phone and emailed it to me :). That way, I knew how the garden was coming along, and did not feel as out of things as I might have. Such good ideas Palash has, no :)?

About 10 days after I moved to Ithaca, he took these pictures and sent... our first successful convolvulus, livingston daisies, and the very first sweet pea. We were (he was!) working with all these for the first time, so seeing them was a HUGE thrill!!



A week later, the flowers really got blooming, as you can see.





Still, the live garden is even more stunning, and more colourful. The hours that Palash is putting in are showing in every single section.

A not so neat border

These are flowers from our 30' long border to the flower bed. We went back to flowers instead of red bricks this year because I was tired of the neat look. There is a size mismatch though -- about 3/4ths of the border is 8"-12" tall alyssum, while the rest is 18" thumbelina zinnias. They all look beautiful though. The first picture is a lone sweet pea growing in midst of alyssum.

Trellis

After adding bamboos on the trellis every other week to keep up with cypress vine last year, I decided this year we wanted something bigger right from the start. I thought we'd do something very basic and rectangular using bamboos as before for the frame, with something like soccer net for the trellis. Our local garden center had 4" nylon netting, for $5 or so, perfect for us, we got two.

The frame kept Vasudha and me busy one hot Sunday afternoon, very basic 2 long bamboo sticks going up, 3 running horizontal, and 2 down, about 10'x15' in all. Put them in a good foot and a half in the ground for a solid foundation. Strings tied here and there to ground anchors to provide some tension and take away some of the flexure from the vertical beams... we had a working trelllis ready to take the first seedlings!

Spring 2008: Experiments with Bulbs, and Other Flowers

We planted all our bulbs in Fall 2007, and weren't sure how they would turn out. We only knew that they would liven up spring, which is always a nice period because things are warming up after all the snow (see the picture :p), but can be just wet and slushy if you do not have pretty things to look at.

This, on the left, was the world in January / February 2008:

And then the pictures of the world it had transformed into by April..... do you ever wonder why we wait for summer here?!?

Anyway... the pictures are as follows: on the right, on top, Daffodils, tulips, Delft Blue and Gypsy Queen Hyacinth; and below it, Blue and Gypsy Queen Hyacinths. The tulips we bought at Wegmans, and the hyacinths and daffodils at a nursery on Clover and Jefferson Rd.

The grape hyacinths -- muscari -- are really nice as a beautiful blue ground cover. They also attract a lot of bees, as you can see. There are four different varieties here, all ordered from John Scheepers.

Finally, some pictures from the neighbourhood and campus.... the snowdrops - outside the neighbours' window - were hardly taller than the grass. This was the first time I ever saw snowdrops, which were always much taller in my imagination.

The red berries grow on an extremely thorny bush that Palash and I absolutely hate and are dying to dig up and throw away. Unfortunately, University Park rules do not allow us to do this... even though Joyce at the rental office does seem sympathetic. As long as that is the case, it is a wonderful thing that the bush has such beautiful red berries (even though they're maroon here). Somewhat compensates for having to live with it, and gives us something other than thorns to look forward to.

The forsythia (sp.?) grows all over the complex; I never realized before this spring that we actually have this bush around, and that it gets flowers. I think I always saw the yellow in the spring, but it never realized that they were flowers. Somehow, they seemed like leaves -- because the whole bush is yellow I guess.

Finally, the River Campus has lovely cherry blossoms in the spring. These pictures were taken within a few weeks of each other, at bud stage and then in bloom.

Updated to add :

Tulips, Irises and Glads are favourites of the squirrel. Alliums, Narcissus, Hyacinths, Daffs are not. So, if you want tulips or irises to survive, either cover it with chicken mesh or surround them with something that the squirrel cannot stand! We went with the former with our glads in a container, and the latter for everything else. Like a chakravyooh of sorts. -- Palash

Garden 2008

After some beginner's luck in the garden last year with mammoth sunflowers, marigolds, cosmos and cypress vine, we decided this year to plan more and do more with our 3'x30' space.  Saari planning dhari-ki-dhari reh gayi.  We basically started from seeds sown directly outside after last frost (15h May). 

Here is a list, for the record, of what we planted this year :

On the trellis :

Canary Climber, Painted Lady Bean, Scarlet Runner Bean, Morning Glories, Sweet Peas, Cypress Vine

Bulbs :

Muscari, Brodiaea, Dutch Iris, Deft Blue Hyacinth, Gypsy Queen Hyacinth, Daffodils, Allium, Mini Narcissus, Stargazer Lily, Helenium Autumnale, Gladiolus

In the Bed :

Larkspur, Poppies, Zinnia, Pansy, Sunflowers, Dwarf Cosmos, Convolvulus, Nasturtium

The Border :

Allysum and Thumbelina Zinnia