Zone 5a vs 9b

When I've finally gotten years of growing in a Zone 5A climate down pat, pretty soon I'll be moving and changing more than just zones.. What grew in a Zone 5a will not grow in a 9b.  For example.  I love my hostas.  My garden right now hosts more than 50 different cultivars of hostas.  But, in a Zone 9B, hostas do not work.  I'm not exactly sure why, but I think it's because they don't have a chance to sleep through a cold dark winter so any hosta that does (try) to grow in a 9b zone just looks sad.  It never really amounts to anything amazing.

While recently away looking for another home, I did have the chance to explore some plant options in my new Zone that I think I'll love in my new garden.  Number one being "Society Garlic".
 

Society Garlic is, so far, my favorite border plant.  It is hardy in my soon to be new zone 9b.  It's from the onion/garlic family; has a really happy purple flower and grows in clumps that are easy to divide. I just love this plant.  Now if I wanted this last Zone 5a summer to include Society Garlic first I'd have to find it, which after visiting a dozen odd nurseries they all screwed up their nose when I asked for it.  If however you do find it, it works great in the northern climates, BUT, it does have to come in for winter (like me).

Number two choice is:  Angelona.  This plant is just beautiful.  It' is a native of Mexico and is suited to being drought tolerant which will work perfectly for me. This plant will be an absolute must for me in my new garden!




In my new garden there will be of course the typical bougainvillea bushes and mandevilla vines that we can actually purchase here in our Zone 5b nurseries.  There are wonderful looking vines but my biggest problem still remains finding a sunny enough window in the winter time to have it survive indoors.  It will do great in my new garden, never having to be dragged in doors for five months! during the cold of the 5B winters!

Last but not least the Pentas are absolutely going to be a staple in my garden.  They come in lots of colors - pink, purple, red, white, lavender and hummingbirds and butterflies love them.  They are super drought resistant and take little to no care.  Perfect !

OH BABY OH BABY

Eventually I'll stop collecting, and to be honest I am not a huge collector of things and when I do collect. I'll usually only pick up a few of one thing, but recently I have fallen in love with retro baby themed planters from the 1940's and 1950's. What is really lovely about these planters is that they're never all the same because parts of the planters were hand painted.  So the glaze dots for eyes and flowers are slightly different on every planter.

These planters were plentiful in the five-and-dime stores back in the forties, but after the U.S.'s entry into WWII dried up the supply of these ceramics from Japan, more U.S. manufacturers started pumping them out by the hundreds of thousands.

Unfortunately finding them isn't all that easy, but this summer I'll offering up some of my favorites to any new babies on the way.

I Never Would Have Guessed

I've always wanted to plant bulbs but because there seems to be an endless amount of rabbits and squirrels in my backyard it has been pointless.  The bulbs I have planted in past years were just a smorgasbord of tasty delights for the critters that wandered my garden.

Until now!  Last fall I thought I would give it another shot and bought some allium bulbs.  Alliums are part of the onion family and have these huge, happy purple balls on top of their straight stalks. 

This past fall I did something different and a little odd to my bulbs that I had heard would absolutely keep the squirrels away. Prior to planting the bulbs, I got a dab of petroleum jelly (Vaseline) on my finger and put it around  the bulb.  I didn't get any  of the jelly on the top or the bottom of the bulb. Then I planted my bulbs; (alliums like to be planted about three times the diameter of the bulb).  Our spring has not sprung yet, but the allium bulbs are all coming up and I haven't lost a single one to the squirrels.

I can only assume that this will work for all bulbs that are planted, but can't say for sure since I didn't plant anything else other than the alliums.  I am, however, thrilled that this petroleum jelly thing seems to have worked famously well! 

Old Wives Tales

Over the years I've heard the odd 'wives tale' about gardening. Some are very like the rhyme

"Plant your seeds in a row, one for the pheasant, one for the crow, one to rot and one to grow", 

which just meant, plant more seeds than you'll need because not all seeds will take.  Some new seedlings will die, and some may be taken out by pests in the garden and you do have to thin out the weaker ones to make room for healthy seedlings.

Another favorite - beer makes good slug bait.  And it actually does! However it seems after some studies were made (one study in particular by the Colorado State University) suggests that the beer be fresh (fewer were caught when the beer was flat), that slugs prefer a lager over ales, and they also found, believe it or not, that slugs preferred Bud Light.

Some old ways of doing things were simply wrong.  I was always told to put some stones in the bottom of a clay pot to cover the holes before I put my plant in.  Not a good move.  Since water moves through stones very slowly, the soil at the top of the stones stays wetter causing the roots to rot.  You're much better off putting a coffee filter over the hole to prevent the soil from washing out.

STARTING YOUR GARDEN - and staying on BUDGET

A couple of ideas when you're just starting your garden and want to stay on budget.

To start, decide exactly what you can afford to spend on your garden to start with and stick to it.

Take just part of your garden - (divide up in sections) and begin with one part of your garden first.

Absolutely do the work yourself.  It will save you TONS of money!

Don't ever scrimp on soil preparation - Great soil just makes for healthy plants that you don't have to replace down the road.

Buy plants in the fall (or late late summer) and buy smaller potted plants; like plants in four inch pots for instance.  Small plants grow. All nursery stock goes on sale at the end of the season and you can get some great buys on everything from hardscaping (like bird baths, etc.) to plants.

And last but not least, if you're not having fun, then you're never going to create a space that you enjoy being in!

Engleman Ivy

I've never quite understood how someone couldn't LOVE gardening.  For me, I could spend hours in the garden; actually I can spend hours in ANYONE'S garden and have often been seen in friend's gardens helping them plant, remove, replant, and dig!  As long as I'm digging in dirt, I'm happy.

So a bit about my own garden.  I have a very small garden.  Most of my backyard is taken up with a large deck and because I live in a cookie cutter house on a cooking cutter street, my yard isn't very wide.  The part that isn't deck out my back yard has a border garden.  

Engleman Ivy in full sun


And since in the cookie cutter design of subdivision homes, I decided to plant Parthenocissus quinquefolia 'Engelmannii  a.k.a Engleman Ivy to grow up and along my fence.  It gives a really nice softening affect to hard looking fences.  Plus the birds love it and are always hiding in it and eating the berries that come out in early fall on the plant. 

Engleman Ivy will grow in shade or sun so no matter what part of my fence I put it on, it looks great.  Having said that, the best fall colors are on the part of the fence that is in full sun.  In the fall, the leaves turn orange then red.  Very pretty!  Since it's a crazy fast growing vine, cutting it back is no problem in the fall.  It actually looks much better the following summer when it is cut back.  I usually take at least a foot off the top of it and tidy up the suckers that grow around the base.

The only problem I've ever had with Engleman Ivy.  I did try it once on some arbors that surround my deck, and it actually looked great (for a while) but as summer went on, the leaves started to stress and fall off.  Turned out that because the area was really sheltered. there just wasn't enough air movement to keep the vine happy.

Engleman Ivy in partial/full shade.  Both do great.