Teddahlia "Will you make cuttings of these varieties or will you just enjoy this basket as is?" For many years , we took cuttings from the plants in the baskets. We are older now and the number of hours per day doing gardening tasks has declined and we focus more on "things dahlia" . Yes, Margaret takes plant cuttings but mostly of the filler plants that root easily without having to be under lights. She used to have several hundred petunia and calibrachoa, verbena ,and other plants in flats under the lights stealing my dahlia cutting space. She has discovered like most people that you can buy small plants at the nursery and grow them bigger. Hint: we buy small plants at the retail portion of large production nurseries. They put together many thousands of hanging baskets. They order the plants for the baskets from the international mega nurseries as "plug flats" and put the baskets together from those plugs. They always order too many of this or that and sell the extras in their retail area(one has 10 acres of greenhouses and only one acre is the retail nursery) and Margaret has a good eye for her favorite varieties or new ones. She has done as many as 250 hanging baskets and other similar containers but she is cutting back to ??? number. We are going to her sister's house today to put together the 20-30 containers for her.
Teddahlia Margaret only did about 10 baskets at her sister's house. I suppose 20 would have been rather impossible unless they bought more plants.
Justafewdahlias This ātwo headedā anemone. They used to be right next to each other but one is maturing/growing faster
Krista My beautiful ornamental Mayapple is blooming! Itās endured immense trampling due to the reconstruction of the deck itās tucked underneath in Seattle, and Iām so happy to see it came back at all this year. It wonāt be coming with us in our move because I donāt think thereās a single spot at the new place thatās protected enough for this shade lover. I grew up with the North American native variety covering the river valley of my parentās property so it was added to our Seattle yard as a tribute to my memories wading through them as a kid.
Teddahlia Our favorite nursery(they sell wholesale and specialize in hanging baskets sold to stores and retail nurseries) grew too many bacopa baskets and we snagged two of them for $10.00 each at the retail section of the nursery. We re-potted this one into a larger pot and it has done really well.
MissyWeitzel I've been having fun bringing tulips to loads of friends and family the last couple weeks. I'm keeping plenty to enjoy too. š
Juliarugula MissyWeitzel me too! I sent a bucket full with my mom for her Meals on Wheels route today.
MissyWeitzel Juliarugula oooohh you have fancy ones! Where did you order? I think I'm gonna do more fancy ones next year and fewer total bulbs. When it stays really warm for a few days they all mature at once and it has been a bit overwhelming while busy with planting dahlias. Like 25% less would be perfect!
Juliarugula MissyWeitzel I actually get most of mine at Menards, same as you! Some I also pick up at Costco. Costco used to carry bags of parrot dahlia bulbs, but they havenāt had them the past several years. There are a few that still come back from those bags though. I think my doubles were about half Menards/half Costco.
Teddahlia Calibrachoa has been bred to have double flowers and this one in Margaret's basket is almost blue.
MissyWeitzel Last year I organized a greenhouse crawl and my flower friends and I had so much fun we did it again this year but with matching shirts this time! Here's my haul. I really love the plum cockatoo petunias!
Justafewdahlias MissyWeitzel I love that petunia also! Green & purple is a great flower color combination. I told myself I am done buying plants this season but I will keep an eye out for this one for next year!
MissyWeitzel There is an 8 day festival called Tulip Time in early May in Holland, MI. There are all sorts of events, tulips everywhere in the town, klompen dancers, Dutch food, and touristy stuff. I took my mom today and even though some of the tulips were past their prime, we still saw a lot of beautiful ones. We didn't go to the big touristy areas and saw plenty of blooms just walking around downtown and in Centennial park.
