It's become clear to me through posts and PMs that there are some gardeners here just waiting for the chance to discuss gardening!
So, I was thinking... how do you use gardening, or how does it affect you if you need a break, need some respite, need to relax, need inspiration....how do you use it as a therapy tool in caregiving?
What are your activities: Do you go out and pull weeds, read a magazine, design new beds? Look through garden catalogues? Go to garden stores?
And what interests have you added to your gardening? Visit estate or garden displays? Do you go to garden shows?
Does anyone design and plant Knot Gardens? Raised bed planters? Assistive gardens? Pollinator gardens (and have you thought of ways to help the bees and butterflies?)
Are your gardens primarily for pleasure or food, or a mix of both? Do you grow plants for medicinal purposes? Which ones, how do you harvest and process them? Any suggestions?
Do you grow plants that can be used in crafts, such as grapevines for wreaths and lavender for lavender wands? Do you make herbal products such as creams, lotions, chapstick?
What else can you share about gardening and the means in which it nurtures your soul?
Purchase plastic baskets similar to a handle held shopping basket with open square spaces for air. You see these in craft stores or elsewhere. Water the bulbs well the day before removing from the soil. Cut the tops of the plants leaving about 3-4 inches of green leaves. Carefully dig up the rhizomes. Rinse well with water and lay single layer in the container. You can cover the rhizomes with moist soil, straw, or paper. Check on them periodically over the winter to make sure they are not getting too dry or are too moist. If dry, rinse them in water again.
I provide this info now since I am taking my iris rhizomes with me when I move to Idaho the end of June. It is a bit early to be removing them now, but I don't want to leave them here, lol!!
There was a really dead flower pot that I have been wanting to have thrown out for over a year. Today hubs sat it on the porch so I would see the new bloomed pink flower! See, he really can be kind.
Saw another pink garden snake in the road-this one was not going to make it across. What is with all the pink snakes, never seen before this spring?
Feeling better, even though the pain at 8 is constant, there is improvement.....and hope.
Seems like you can take many cuttings from a bush and try to get them to root. If you take many, then you're likely to get a couple that will root successfully. I think I'll do this with the remaining massive red rose bush here. It's at least 30-40 years old and I keep it well pruned for past few years. It's about to explode in first-spring bloom again. I'll take a picture and post. I kill most things, but this rose bush is doing very well.
I will be taking the irises I planted last autumn to Idaho too.
My garden is green.
Garden Artist went back to nature, and I feel abandoned to our own devices.
But I will try harder to achieve the positive legacy left by the author of this thread, hoping she may visit again.......
Now, G, you are really secretly laughing! Are we done with the snake topic yet, or do you have more? Lol.
Why, or is it where oh where did the Vinca go off to? They're not blooming, still look dead.
Yes, dH does work cheap.
Now, there really is a snake in my garden. The takeover snake-type. I don't get a say anymore, because one cannot argue with aspergers. Maybe I will be visiting his wallet too.
The pink snake was on the road somewhere, but a few years back, there was a snake, so scared it left when I screamed.
I will just NEVER go out there, and make the pathway to the carport wider, so they don't bite me. Everything is very bushy now-the one cape honeysuckle that I wanted to grow for privacy, that was first on hubs list to decimate. I really don't want to wait for it to grow back. Sad, .....I give up.
Do you have to stake the sunflower to make sure it's got enough support?
When Mom passed away, I came home from the hospital that day, wrung out and exhausted - and found 2 pink roses blooming at the same time on her rosebush - something I'd never seen it do before. One for her and one for Dad, I guess.
I have volunteer green beans popping up so it must be safe to plant! I have peppers in, the rest I'm putting in this week. I started a lot of flowers from seed indoors and they are doing well getting used to outdoors. I'm going to try growing cucumbers up sunflower plants - who knew they are companion plants? I think it will look so interesting. We have tiny plums so I'm hoping for plums this year. I'm planting the usual - tomatoes, peppers, etc.
I feel for you about having to leave things behind. Actually I don't want to think about it, sorry :(
Looking it up online, it was a corn snake. Spring. Wonder what these snakes do when they are in the garden?
Oh No! Missed the blooming of my one and only white hyacinth! It already came and went, so when Crocus were mentioned (another bulb spring flower), I went outside in the sun to look for it today.
The cape honeysuckle got way carried away and hid the hyacinth. Only one plant, no other colors. Durn it!
Ornamental and kitchen. Might even try tomatoes, which I have never had any luck with! Spinach, radishes, hmmm wonder what else...
Butterfly garden? Hummingbirds? Grands would love that and would have to come more often to see how their garden grows. Quick I need ideas. 😁