Bye-bye, ’09
I’ve been having the guilts about this dormant blog. Could come up with lots of excuses, but I won’t. Even with this past summer’s generally rainy days, there still seemed to be lots of writing, dogwalking, watering the porch container plants, etc., to deal with.
Summer’s just not a good time to blog, for me.
Now, in this time-between-time, which is how I always think of the period between Christmas and New Year’s, I’m thinking over the successes and not-so’s of the past summer.
Scratch Roma tomatoes
I’m never going to try growing Roma tomatoes in containers again. I’ve done it a couple of times now and it just doesn’t work. The wretched things take too darn long to fruit, and demand constant watering. They’re utterly unforgiving of the occasional lapse. In future, I’ll stick to Cupid, a prolific grape tomato that pumps out fruit in big dangly clusters, very much like grapes. It doesn’t get that disgusting black-end thing that neglected tomatoes get and merrily chugs along even when the gardener is otherwise occupied.
Not sure if I’ll bother with hanging basket strawberries, either. I did get a few precious berries from my hanging container. They were great fun and tasted fantastic, but took a lot of care for the tiny harvest. My plant is wintering in the dark on the unheated back porch, so I’ll see if it comes alive next spring. If it’s ready to keep going, I’ll have another go, too.
Cheers for geraniums–in red, of course
If I can get my hands on it, I will happily plant the spreading geranium marketed by Loblaws again. I got one sample plant from them and the thing filled the giant tub on my porch by mid-summer. It was a great performer and took little care, so I was impressed. I realize some folks probably think red geraniums are utterly low-class tacky, but I love their sturdy shape and big, bold flowers on my hot, west-facing porch. I also enjoy the unique geranium (OK, pelargonium) scent, which takes me back to my childhood.
Spring experiments
The back porch is full of container plants sleeping peacefully until spring. Some, like the garlic chives, I know will come back faithfully as soon as the freezing days are past. Others are experiments. My Clematis tangutica seems to have seeded itself and there’s a baby plant in a pot tucked away back there. I’ll see if it survives the winter and find it a new home if it does.
A young lilac I was given in very late fall, when the ground was too frozen to dig, is also wintering under cover in its pot. So is a gorgeous container clematis that was another trial plant from Loblaws. The clematis is supposed to winter over in its container in a cold, dark place, so I hope it survives. I think it probably should have been moved into a larger pot before its winter sleep, but that was one job I had to leave undone. As with many things, we’ll see.
Website changes ahead
The garden society board plans to change our website again. I’m not up to speed on what’s happening, but I hope they let me keep trying with the blog. Will let you know. Meantime, this post is appearing so that the blog (and website) live on. Hopefully, it will all come together in the new year.
–Mary Fran McQuade, writer, gardener and BGS member/blogger
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