Countdown to Spring: Zinnias!

Happy first day of spring!  It's the vernal equinox, an excellent time because our days are getting longer.  More light equals a happier me. However, the growing season has yet to arrive here in Minnesota. No matter...I offer you a bit of color with fabulous zinnias. The photo above is a Zowie zinnia with a Monarch butterfly.

Above is Cherry Profusion zinnia, which grows as ground cover. Below is a Lime green zinnia, a big flower in an unusual color. I just love the versatility and ease of zinnias! 

Countdown to Spring: Presentation

I'll be at Albany Library (Minnesota) on Tuesday, March 24 at 6:30 pm to present "A Year In My Garden." Join me for helpful tips and colorful photos. Bring gardening questions! We may not be able to dig in the dirt yet, but we can dream together and share some chocolate, too. Books will be available at the library and at www.amazon.com/author/llarson .

P. S.  Just a reminder that content and photos are copyright © 2015 Linda Larson. 

Countdown to Spring: Crocus

It's one week until spring! Not here in Minnesota but somewhere else (Indiana, perhaps, in zone 6 or thereabouts), these fall-planted beauties are blooming. I love them, but so do the mice and voles.  This year I've observed more vole tracks than usual, which makes me wonder if I'll have any crocus blooms this year.  I've read the advice to plant the bulbs inside chicken wire, but I dig in the dirt and I don't feel like scraping my hand on dirty wire.  What I do instead is sprinkle the bulbs with cayenne pepper powder when I plant them. Of course, winter happens (lots of snow and ice and wind).  It's a gamble, but one I'm willing to take.

Countdown to Spring: Forget-me-not

Forget-me-nots are often planted with tulips. The tall spikes of the tulip flowers pair nicely with the ground cover aspects of forget-me-nots. However, what's important about this blog entry today isn't this flower so much but its name. This winter has been brutal.  I write this on a below zero morning, days after snow was found in every state except Florida. Here's my message: Spring says, "Forget me not!" This little flower reminds us that temperatures will rise, snow will melt, and flowers will awaken. 

Countdown to Spring: Lilacs

Lilacs are the coffeehouses of flowers.  I stand beneath the branches and breathe deeply, practically tasting the scent, memorizing it since I won't experience for another year. Perfumes and colognes cannot recapture this fragrance. It's not only the scent that makes them a coffee house, but that the lilac becomes a gathering place, where butterflies come to eat and dragonflies come to meet. From the camouflage of its branches, I hide with my camera. I witnessed a butterfly...

a dragonfly...

and the elusive hummingbird. 

Countdown to Spring: Delphinium

Blue is not "normal" in the plant world.  Just a quick review from biology class: Plants use chlorophyll for green, carotene for yellows and oranges, and anthocyanin for reds and purples.  That true blue in the sky? Well, it'll have to stay in the sky. However, plants can get close. Delphinidin is a pigment, and it shows up in violas and delphiniums. Breeders have tried for years and years to create a blue rose, so if you have some extra time on your hands, try that and earn mega bucks if you succeed. Delphiniums are touchy plants but worth the work.  The tower-shaped clusters of flowers need staking, and the plants are perennials but don't last as long as other perennials, such as day lilies. Yet the wow factor is worth it!

Countdown to Spring: Violets

In the late 1800s in England, violets were the flowers to give.  What's not to love?  They're pretty and fragrant.  The flowers are edible and perhaps contain medicinal value (more study is needed). Viola covers a lot of wild and cultivated varieties, including pansies and johnny-jump-ups, but I let the wild ones take over my lawn.  In suburban lawns, these delicate-looking yet hardy flowers are considered weeds, but, as I mentioned in my last post, I grow weeds for bees. The photo below is one particularly fabulous year for violets in my lawn.

I wish someone would invent scratch and sniff for screens!  

Countdown to Spring: Daisy

My wedding bouquet featured daisies. The florist was appalled and pushed me to choose roses instead, but I insisted. I love them. I've tried to grow Shasta daisies, but the plants didn't last.  And the Shasta daisy flowers needed staking. The ones pictured here are ox eye daisies or field daisies.  Farmers and ranchers will be appalled by what I write here--I let them grow wild in my lawn. I stole this idea from an artist whose lawn is covered in daisies in the spring. Why the controversy?  The flowers are considered a weed because they are non-native and spread in native habitat.  (This is a good reason to keep them in check, which I do.  I grow them only in the cultivated part of my yard.) And cattle will not graze in daisy fields due to the bad taste. However, they are beloved by pollinators of all sorts. Due to the recent upsurge of bee deaths, I try to encourage plants that provide food. I grow weeds for bees!  To prove I'm not a hypocrite, I let dandelions grow in my lawn, too. And clover. It's a good thing I don't live in a cookie-cutter community of emerald green lawns, or I'd be in trouble. 

Here's what they look like in the lawn.

Pollinators love them!

Countdown to Spring: Cosmos

Every week I say that this week my choice for Countdown to Spring is my favorite, but cosmos rank high on that list. The crisp colors, the deceptively delicate flowers, and the feathery foliage are beautiful, but they are easy to grow and attractive to wildlife. They look best grown in a group or cluster. With so many varieties to choose from, gardeners can find one they like.

Spiders like cosmos.

 Dragonflies like them.

Bees like them.

 Ants like them, too. I wish I had a photo of hummingbirds near the flowers, but they're too quick. 

Countdown to Spring: Squill

"Squill" sounds like a fish instead of a flower.  The official name is Scilla sibirica or Siberian squill.  Gardeners will call this bulb scilla, a more dignified name, I suppose.  It's one of the flowers in nature that looks blue.  Planted in the fall, the bulbs bloom in early spring before the trees have leaves.  I've got them planted in my lawn with the hope that they'll spread  a little more every year. When the flowers die down, the foliage gathers energy for the next year, so I mow around them until the leaves have yellowed. The photo below is to show how small they are, but so worth it! After a long winter, I welcome their cheery brightness.

Countdown to Spring: Daffodils

Mice?  Squirrels?  Deer?  No problem!  Snow?  Cold?  No problem! These amazing daffodils (otherwise known as Narcissus) stand up to whatever Minnesota throws at them. The earliest they've ever bloomed for me in Minnesota is April, but gardeners in warmer climates may see them flower earlier.  (Perhaps January in Texas...  can it be true?) Planted in the fall, daffodils come in a range of sizes and levels of frilliness. The colors range from white and yellow to pink and apricot. The ones above have a delicate flower, but an amazing fragrance and they open later than the white ones below. I'm sorry that I can't give the variety names; one I planted immediately when I moved here and lost the tags.  The other was a gift from a gardener when I was a new homeowner. I try to continue the tradition by dividing these daffodils to give as housewarming gifts. Moving in?  Let me know and I'll give you some. But you'll have to wait until the ground thaws. 

Countdown to Spring: Daylilies

Daylilies, named for the blooms that last for one day, are my new favorite perennial.  I used to stay away from them because my grandmother had some daylilies planted around the foundation of her house.  The plants had to be nearly as old as the house; they grew too well, overtaking any other plants nearby. Once the flowers were done, the leaves were tall and scraggly. They were orange, which I never minded, but at one time orange was considered unfashionable.  (I've never understood this philosophy of colors coming in and out of vogue--I just love color!) But now daylilies are bred to stay in one place.  And they come in a wide range of colors, from pale yellow to mauve to rose, and--of course--orange. Eventually I broke down and planted those old fashioned orange daylilies, and they bloom in the hottest part of summer, holding up to the blazing sun with their bright colors and strong constitutions. Daylilies will need dividing eventually; you'll know because the flowers won't bloom as profusely. Reliable. Hearty.  Colorful.  Daylilies are the perfect Minnesota beauties for every garden. 

 

Countdown to Spring: Sunflowers

Sunflowers are striking--flowers with brilliant colors of sunlight in summer atop tall stems. New gardeners may not know that sunflowers are surprisingly versatile. Yes, some varieties grow as tall as 15 feet with bright yellow flowers, but there's more! Some grow only two to three feet tall, some branch out to include several flowers per stem, some are fuzzy (such as Honey Bear,) and colors range from yellow to gold to mahogany to wine-red. Here's a couple of tricks for planting.  Soak the seeds overnight.  Sprinkle cayenne pepper around the newly planted seeds to keep away the critters that like to eat the seeds.  If you live in an area with wildlife, once the seeds start to ripen, protect the flowers and the stems.  One year the stems were knocked over and the flowers half-eaten (we suspect raccoons).  For an impressive salad, add the edible flower petals. 

Winter has descended, but...

Winter has descended, bitter and cold, but I'm already paging through seed catalogs.  I'm curled up in blankets, true, but I'm thinking about spring.  I know I'm supposed to embrace winter.  People advise getting outside and enjoying it, but with this bitter cold and icy walkways, I'm stuck inside until we get more snow for my snowshoes and the weather warms up enough so skin doesn't freeze in ten minutes. I'm not the only who thinks about spring, right?  So I'm going to do a weekly countdown to spring on this blog. I'll focus on some of my favorite flowers, the ones that grow well in my neck of the woods here in Minnesota. Look for new entries on Fridays. For a preview, the photo is a frog on purple basil. Not a flower.  But I love basil! #countdowntospring