March 5, 2012 at 8:37 pm (Uncategorized)
The changeover has been made, and we are now at the new Minerva’s Garden. You will find all of the great content that was here at the old blog, and new content with a fresh and bright new look! Please don’t come to this URL address anymore, but instead subscribe to us at our new blog to get all of the latest posts and information from Minerva’s Garden!
So excited to have you see it–please join us at the new and improved Minerva’s Garden. We are located at http://minervasgarden.com.
Athena at Minerva’s Garden
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February 3, 2012 at 1:52 am (Basil, Bulbs, Fall and Winter-bearing vegetables, Fruit, Herbs, Hummingbird plants, Lettuce, Mini-Dwarf Fruit Trees, Salad Greens, Season extenders, Vegetable gardening, weather, Winter-Blooming bulbs, Winter-blooming shrubs)
Tags: minerva's garden, minerva;s garden blog, winter flowering shrubs, winter flowers, winter vegetables, winter weather and the garden
Hi everyone! It’s been really busy here, but very soon I will be having Minerva’s Garden make the switch from WordPress.com to WordPress.org, which will make the site better. Stay tuned for (hopefully) some blog beauty!
Now, what in the world is up with the weather? (Can you say climate change–why yes, yes, I can.) We haven’t had much cold weather, one day of snow in January. (You know it’s warm here when the agapanthus hasn’t died back at all, and it isn’t even covered with plastic or anything–that’s a zone 9 plant!) All of my fruit trees are breaking dormancy already, as are all the roses. NONE of my bulbs are blooming yet, and normally by this time of year I have snowdrops, crocus and winter aconite in bloom, not to mention sarcococa shrub flowers. The winter jasmine is loving the warm weather, as is the Chinese witch hazel, and they are blooming away. All I am seeing is some bulb greenery coming up.
My greens under plastic were in fabulous shape and we were eating off them a fair amount until the snow. I haven’t had a chance to even go out to look under the plastic in a while, but that will be a project for one of these upcoming sunny days, perhaps tomorrow or Saturday. Hopefully all is well, and I suspect it will be, because the snow didn’t crush the hoops or plastic coverings.
My baby lettuces, radicchio and basil are growing away under lights. I may just keep them around, and if this weather keeps up, plant them out under the plastic (of course, not the basil–it’s way too cold for them to be outside, even covered.)
What’s the weather like in your neck of the woods? Do you have any early bulbs in bloom yet? Let me know down in the comments!
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January 14, 2012 at 5:48 pm (Botanical decorations, Pelargonium, weather)
Tags: Dollar Tree spring decorating DIY, inexpensive spring decorating, minerva's garden
January is always so grey and dreary, although here at Minerva’s Garden I did notice an English daisy and violas with one or two little blooms on them, and some crocus tips pushing their way up out of the mulch the other day. However, I was determined to start out the year fresh with some pretty indoor spring decorations! I have paper and silk flowers, as well as some real flowers blooming away indoors to make our house more cheery. Here they are:
- Paper cherry blossoms on a branch from the backyard, plus a hot pink silk flower with a bright imitation green apple in a basket, and some white silk flowers in a soft pink, grey and white vase.
The flowers couldn’t have been easier to make–from Martha Stewart, and then hot-glued to the branch.
The mantle with more paper cherry blossoms, bright pink silk flowers in glass vases, some little birds in a basket--love it!
- Sideboard with a pottery bird in the basket, clear tumbled glass and wine corks with a pink flower in a tall vase, and a shot of green in the bottle with white silk flowers.
As you can see, the color scheme is mostly shades of pink and green, with some crisp white as background.
Re-imaginging some things I had around the house--Dollar Tree silk roses stuck through the fabric of an old lampshade, with a base I had but got at a flea market for fifty cents years ago and painted white. Alongside are paperwhites blooming on the right, and a little green vase with white silk flowers, and an imitation bright green apple, all on a pink placement!This lamp is so sweet--makes me smile each time I walk into the room and see it!
Some real flowers: Paperwhites, January 2012
- Pink pelargoniums, commonly (but erroneously) called geraniums, on a curly wire plant stand and a stout ceramic container, January 2012
None of these ideas are original to me, but I found them online, and just tweaked them to suit what I had on hand around the house and garden, or what I could get inexpensively at Dollar Tree–love that!
Have you done a little spring decorating this year–do tell in the comments! I love to hear from my Minerva’s Garden readers!
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January 14, 2012 at 5:23 pm (Salad Greens, Vegetable gardening, weather)
Tags: growing salad in winter, minerva's garden, snow, winter vegetable gardening
Welcome to 2012 at Minerva’s Garden. Sorry for the lack of posts lately–had a family member with emergency surgery, so things have been hectic. However, I’m back now!
The weather reports are saying that we might get a bit of snow tonight through Tuesday, so if you are living in the area and haven’t done so, you may want to take today to protect any sensitive plants that are still lingering outdoors. I have salad greens outside under two and three layers of clear plastic, and so far this winter they have done great! I picked a big bowlful of them last week, which we thoroughly enjoyed in our Saturday Cesar Salad and homeade pizza tradition. With winter salad green production, because the temperatures have been so cold, it takes the plants much longer to recover and regrow than in warmer summer months, so I’ll have to wait a while before I can pick again, but still, it’s great to have some fresh produce from the garden!
As you may remember from a previous post, I have some basil and lettuce and radicchio growing under lights indoors as well. They are still pretty small, but the lettuce is about ready to pick at the baby stage, with leaves about four inches long, so that will be an additional source of greens for us.
Would love to hear from you–feel free to leave a message. Do you do any winter vegetable gardening? Will it be snowy in your area this weekend–let me know, because I love to hear from you!
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December 23, 2011 at 1:29 am (Annuals, Fall and Winter-bearing vegetables, Lettuce, Pelargonium, Salad Greens, start seeds, Summer-flowering plants, Vegetable gardening)
Tags: growing basil indoors, growing lettuce indoors, growing radicchio indoors., overwintering geranium indoors, overwintering pelargonium, winter flowers for the home, winter solstice
It’s the shortest day of the year, but I am happy in the knowledge that every day from here on out will bring more and more sunshine!
I hope you enjoy the winter solstice and celebrate it in a festive fashion!
I have a confession–
Lettuce, radicchio and basil starts under lights, Winter Solstice 2011
I have baby-sized basil, lettuce and radicchio growing under lights in the basement. This gardening stuff is like an addiction, is it not? Ever the gardening optimist am I. I’ve already re-potted it up into four inch pots, and from there they’ll go into one-gallon-size pots. We’ll see what comes of it–hopefully some useable comestables in the bleak winter months.
I’ve already got my eye on early spring as well . . .
Pelargonium hanging out under lights, Winter Solstice 2011
Pink and green will figure prominently after the Winter holidays around the house. They will spend the winter and spring indoors under lights and in good natural light throughout the house, and then come May they will go back to their rightful spot in my hanging baskets and containers out in the garden. These are the Energizer Bunny of flowers–they bloom all year long if you water and fertilize them.
If you like, leave a comment.
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December 14, 2011 at 8:43 am (Botanical decorations)
Tags: botanical Christmas decorations, do it yourself Christmas wreath, Dollar Tree Christmas wreath to make yourself, english laurel, fireplace mantle, inexpensive Christmas wreath to make, Solstice decorations, winter decorations using garden trimmings
I like to use greens from the garden to decorate for the winter holidays. I have a large bay tree, and so I pruned some branches that were sticking out, and used the prunings as part of the greenery for the house and around the front door in containers. Our neighbors also have tons of English laurel shrubs on their property, and they allowed me to prune some of that to use in decorating as well. I came up with a mix of greens with more Christmas-y items, just things that I like that we’ve collected over the years. Enjoy!
A wreath for the front door made of English laurel, a little bay leaf, and a few pine cones.
Fireplace mantle, 2011 version
The centerpiece of this arrangement is a pretty red and green dwarf bamboo that really comes into its own in December. I put some in a tallish vase, and surrounded it with bay leaves, and the red ribbon strung through the top curlicues of the wire basket. Some red-curled sticks coming out of the top. Little things that I like that might not survive cat examination go up here safely for the season. For the same reason, my favorite ornaments get hung up on the picture rail all around the living room, rather than on a tree where they would be irresistible to curious cats.
Sideboard with English laurel clippings, gold pointsetta flower and gold ribbon, and a little drum basket holding cards
The top of a bookcase got in the holiday spirit
Ornaments on the chandelier
China cabinet with holiday decor.
A festive table centerpiece. I have collected the plates and dishes over time from Goodwill. The red plate is a favorite from Johnson Brothers, an English manufacturer from the turn of last century, and the cabbage-leaf bowl is a newer addition to my small collection. Good old bamboo and bay leaves do their holiday job in a simple vase.
One new item I made over the weekend . . .
An ornament wreath inspired by Eddie Ross
This indoor wreath was pretty inexpensive to make, because most of it came from Dollar Tree–the ornaments, ribbon and wreath hanger. The base is just a wire hanger that you shape into a circle, then hot-glue the caps onto each ornament and string them on the wire hanger. When it’s all filled–it takes about 70-80 ornaments for this–you (carefully–it’s easy to break ornaments at this stage) twist the wire ends shut, leaving the cupped part of the hanger still in shape. I made a loop from wire and used it to attach the wreath to the wreath hanger, and then covered the hanger with the ribbon, which I tied at the top. I haven’t made any ornaments or decorations in years–got pretty burned out from times past–but I saw this at Eddie Ross’ site and was inspired! Except for this, I didn’t really buy anything new, but I reused what I had on hand in different ways to give them a new look this year.
Happy Solstice, Merry Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Yule and all of the other winter holidays and festivals found at this time of year!
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December 5, 2011 at 7:31 pm (Bird feeding, Bulbs, companion plantings, drought tolerant plants, Feeding, Hummingbird plants, Hummingbirds, Insects, Mini-Dwarf Fruit Trees, Natural Pest Control, northwest native plants, Pests, Plant Combinations, Plants, Shrubs, Spring-Blooming bulbs, Vegetable gardening, weather, Winter-blooming shrubs, Winter-Flowering plants)
Tags: leaf mulch, mulch for flower beds, mulch for vegetable beds, winter flowers
Over the weekend, our across-the-street neighbor was raking up the many Japanese Maple leaves from his gorgeous tree, and so I ran out and asked him if I could take the leaves for my garden beds, pretty please? He said yes (not the first time for this same reason, I might add), and so away we hauled a bunch of beautiful tiny orange and gold leaves to dress our flower and vegetable beds. Some photos to illustrate:
- Bulb bed mulched, Dec. 2011
A little bulb bed, tucked in for the winter with a couple of inches of Japanese Maple leaves for mulch.
Another flower bed mulched, Dec. 2011
In this bed I’ve left room around the rose on the left and daylilies on the right, and mulched over the top of where I have lots of bulbs planted. From garden writer Ann Lovejoy, I learned to mulch the bulb beds, because it helps to keep the upcoming spring flowers from getting mud splashed on them from incessant spring rain that we get here.
Fruit trees mulched for the winter. My fruit tree row, weeded (and I was aided in this by the neighbor's chickens who like to come over and visit--there must have been bugs that they were excited to eat there) and mulched with a couple of inches of leaf mulch. Dec. 2011
Vegetable bed mulched with Japanese Maple leaves, December 2011
It’s also a good idea to cover bare soil in your vegetable beds as well, and the leaves work great for this. In the upper left corner there are some bright green garlic leaves–I planted them several years ago, and even though they get pulled up every year, they keep coming back, and not a bad thing I might add. They are much more pungent than garlic from the grocery store.
Japanese Maple leaf mulch
Japanese Maples grow readily in the Pacific Northwest. They are gorgeous, there are many in smaller sizes, and they tend to grow unaffected by disease or pests, making them a winner for the garden. I like to use Japanese Maple leaves in my garden for several reasons:
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They are already naturally small, so I do not have to chop them up like would have to do with full-sized maple leaves
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They are free
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They are amply available when I need them
In our climate, it tends to be best to use about a two-inch layer of leaves for mulching your flower and vegetable beds. Leave room around the plant crowns; don’t cover them with mulch. If you put more than two inches, it can sometimes become a haven for mice and other pests that like to live in the leaves if given the chance. I also like the small leaves better than large maple leaves, because the large leaves, if they are not chopped up fine, tend to stick together in our rainy climate and don’t break down very readily over the course of the winter, and they also become a haven for slugs, which will winter over and eat the plants that you have so carefully covered nearby.
Another type of “mulch”:
Outdoor containers covered in plastic, Dec. 2011
I just grouped my containers on the garage roof together, and covered them with several layers of clear plastic. Old clear shower curtains also work great for this, and are made from heavier plastic, which is better. Although it occasionally goes down as low as 18 degrees here, it is pretty rare, and this in times past has been enough protection to keep containers from splitting, and plants from dying in the containers. (Fingers crossed.)
Now here is a pretty plant combination (or two):
Gorgeous early winter foliage, December 2011
The yellow leaves are on a red-flowering currant, Ribes sanguineum, that I plan to begin shaping into an espaliered form on the wall. The brilliant red leaves adorn a Berberis thunbergii ‘Helmond Pillar’ barberry. This is a perfect plant if you are looking for a low-maintenance shrub to fill a tight and narrow spot in the garden. It reaches five feet tall but only two feet wide, and is great in a small garden. It’s deciduous, and it has semi-glossy burgundy leaves that turn green as they age, but still keep a burgundy undertone. It also gets bright orange and red seeds in the fall as well. I need to take a few more pictures of it, and will then present it in a “Through The Seasons” post.
Viola and feverfew, December 2011
As you can see, I haven’t gotten around to emptying the hanging baskets yet, (wanted to leave them til the last minute for the hummingbirds, because they had nasturtiums in them), but there are still some purple violas along with chartreuse feverfew. I may pull those out and transplant them in a protected spot in containers at the front of the house.
Some more plant hangers-on:
Snapdragons in December
Roses flying high in the sky, December 2011
A lone, bright pink 'Zephrin Drouhin' rose, Dec. 2011
And some winter-flowering plants:
Yellow forsythia and white viburnum, viburnum=hummingbird food, December 2011
I’ll do a post soon of holiday decorations!
Enjoy a break from gardening. I still have a couple of little chores left to do, but nothing major. The temperatures have definitely dropped–it’s ranging from the low to mid-40s during the days and down to low 30s at night, so I am on winter hummingbird patrol, putting the feeder out in the morning and bringing it in right after dark. Sun shining through the bright blue sky today–I love it!
Leave a comment if you like!
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November 27, 2011 at 12:54 am (Bird feeding, Bulbs, companion plantings, drought tolerant plants, Feeding, Hummingbird plants, Hummingbirds, northwest native plants, Plant Combinations, Plants, Shrubs, Spring-Blooming bulbs, Spring-Blooming shrubs, weather)
Tags: minerva's garden, Red-Flowering Currant, Ribes sanguineum
The red-flowering currant, a Northwest-native plant and hummingbird favorite with the Latin name of Ribes sanguineum, not sure of the particular variety but could likely be the commonly sold ‘King Edward VII’, through the seasons at Minerva’s Garden in photos:
Ribes sanguineum, Red-Flowering Currant, in my garden blooming in April, along with hyacinth and narcisus
After the flowers on the red-flowering currant are done, the leaves on the shrub turn green, and it looks pretty unremarkable for the summer. But this is what happens in the fall:
- Red-flowering currant foliage, end of November
Pretty remarkable change, making it a great plant selection for the garden, because it gives two wonderful seasons of interest, and doesn’t require any special watering or fertilizing once it is established.
Hope you had a great Thanksgiving–we had company over and had a great time. Still eating leftovers, which actually I like. It was sunny today, but we just went through two weeks straight of rain. Welcome to the Pacific Northwest. I’ve left the autumn decor up in the house, and will probably switch it out next weekend for the winter holidays.
Leave a comment–what’s new in your garden?
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November 15, 2011 at 9:10 am (Fall-Flowering plants, Shrubs, Winter-blooming shrubs)
Tags: Chinese Witch Hazel 'Aronold Promise'
Just a photo journey of one great shrub, Chinese Witch Hazel ‘Arnold Promise’:
'Arnold Promise' in bloom in the winter
The spider-webby flowers are beautiful, especially against the grey stonework and grey sky of the Pacific Northwest in the wintertime, but here is what it looks like in the autumn:
'Arnold' in October
Go;den foliage of "Arnold Promise' Chinese witch hazel in November
We have had rain, so it has dropped some leaves, but what a beautiful plant.
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November 7, 2011 at 9:25 pm (Botanical decorations, Bulbs, Container Gardening, Winter-Blooming bulbs, Winter-Flowering plants)
Tags: indoor winter flowers, paperwhite bulbs, paperwhite bulbs in pots indoors
Paperwhite bulbs starting to bloom
Today, November 7th, is the best day to pot up paperwhite bulbs if you’d like them in bloom for the winter holidays. So easy–put potting soil in virtually any container that is at least one-gallon size deep and wider is better, plant the bulbs so they are completely covered with soil, water it in, and put it in the garage. You want it to be somewhere where it won’t freeze but will be below 50 degrees, and where it is dark–you can cover the container with newspaper, and that works well. Then wait. By December, there will be green shoots coming up out of the soil. When they are about two to three inches tall, you can bring the pot up, water it and place it in front of a bright window–I put mine in the dining room on the south side of the house, and it gets good light here. They should be blooming near the end of the month, and will bloom into January (and who doesn’t need some fresh blooming flowers in January?) These are annuals for me, so I usually just compost them when they finish blooming. I’ve tried planting these outside to get them to rebloom outdoors next year, but they never really do much, even with fertilizer–they kind of give their all the first year and that’s about it, at least that has been my experience with them.
Give it a try–it’s super easy and worth it! Leave me a comment and let me know if you’re growing some paperwhites this year, and how you like to use them around the house in the winter season.
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