Tag Archives: Container Gardening

Tulip Planting Time

Posted on January 10, 2010 | 6 comments

Well, we got the bulbs in a shade before New Year’s. This was very late for us, but a neighbor and terrific green thumb assured me it was okay, as the bulbs had had more than their share of fridge time leading up to the planting, and the soil is still diggable.

I’m in Sunset gardening zone 17 (USDA Zone 9), in which you pretty much have to plant bulbs fresh each year. While each spring, some do come up where I’ve neglected to dig them out, they’re generally not as hardy or pretty as they were the first year. Perhaps this is for the best. Each year brings new trips to the local nursery and new types of tulips to try. I usually buy 60 or so bulbs — enough for a good show on the deck (one of the benefits of a smaller garden) and a volume discount, while not enough to upset the flower budget. The homely bulbs go into the fridge in mid-October for their long (especially this year) hibernation. And, on an invariably cold, crisp day — in 6″ deep holes (aided by a simple bulb digger) and with a little organic fertilizer — into the ground they go.

The Blooming Bulb site sells bulbs and offers more detailed tulip planting and storing instructions. The Plant Expert is a fabulous resource about choosing, planting, storing and growing bulbs and all kinds of plants. Another is Doug Green’s Flower Garden Bulbs, which sells bulbs as well. Brent and Becky’s Bulbs also sells bulbs throughout the year by mail order. A huge bulb and perennial seller worth knowing about is K. VanBourgondien and Sons. They offer good prices, an extensive selection, and a catalogue worth perusing, any time of the year.

So, what did we plant?

Negrita

Of our six different tulips, one was a returner from last year, the irresistible Negrita. The Negrita is a great tulip with a dramatic magenta color that provides a nice contrast to more pastel-colored tulips, and a classic big Triumph shape that is slightly elongated. This is one of our Negritas last year. It’s a sturdy, thick-stemmed flower, 18-22″ high.

Beau Monde


The Beau Monde brings out many a poet among bulb catalog writers. Blooming Bulb writes: “Huge chalice-form blooms are a creamy white with flames of raspberry red and bright yellow around the inside bottom of the bloom.” Brent and Becky’s Bulbs calls them “beautiful and alluring”. Both note that, while the Beau Monde is officially classified as a Triumph, it’s strong and hardy like a Giant Darwin. I think they’re supposed to be around 18″ tall, but am seeing a wide range of heights offered. We’ll find out in a few months!

Apricot Beauty

I am always on the lookout for classically shaped tulips in a soft salmon or apricot color. Last year I found it in a Daydream tulip and this year I’m hoping the Apricot Beauty is as pretty as its picture. Brent and Becky’s Bulbs tells me it’s also fragrant – hooray! – a Single Early tulip with a range of heights from 12″ up. (The tag in the nursery said 14″ — early flowering tulips tend to have shorter stems.)

Golden Apeldoorn


In another section went two brightly colored and popular Darwin Hybrid tulips. Blooming Bulb tells me that “the Golden Apeldoorn has golden yellow blooms with a black star shaped base. Very weather resistant with strong stems.” They are predicted to be tall – 20″ or so.

Parade


Joining the Apeldoorn is the bright red Parade. That one is described by Blooming Bulb as “deep scarlet red with a black base. Regal blooms on 24 inch stems!” We can’t wait.

White Parrot


We usually try to plant one especially exotic tulip – one with frilly edges or flames of color shooting through it. This year’s is the White Parrot. Writes Blooming Bulb: “Large white blooms with apple green brush stroke markings sit atop strong, straight 18-inch stems. Impressive in the garden and in the vase.” Sounds pretty enough to paint!

Photos: Beau Monde, Apeldoorn and White Parrot: Blooming Bulb; Apricot Beauty and Parade: Netherland Flower Bulb Info; Others: Susan Sachs Lipman

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Slow News Day: Front Yard Gardening in Benicia and Beyond

Posted on October 13, 2009 | 6 comments

cornyard1

While wandering around the town of Benicia, CA, one late summer day, I encountered this exuberant example of front yard gardening. This person is really making the most of every square inch. It was a treat to see, especially after posting about the trend of front yard gardening earlier this summer.

I’ve been following some fun and inspiring blogs about front yard and even balcony gardening. (As a longtime deck gardener, in the deer-populated (read: lettuce munching) woods as well as in Manhattan, I’ve always been interested in doing the most with the smallest plot of dirt. Good small-space gardening and urban homesteading blogs include Beyond the Lawn, Leda’s Urban Homestead, Balcony Gardener, Life on the Balcony, Free Range Living, and Path to Freedom.

The last is an especially exciting farmsteading site that I just learned about this weekend when I saw an independent movie called HomeGrown. HomeGrown features a family of four living by the freeway in Pasadena, CA, raising all their own food and completely sustaining themselves and others on a small residential plot of land. The family is very winning and passionate, and they really make a go of urban homesteading, practicing extreme simplicity, conservation, community and resourcefulness — They use a hand washer, make their own biofuel, sell their produce to some of the area’s high-end (and appreciative) restaurants, and often do without. Learn more about them at Path to Freedom.

Still curious about Benicia? In addition to having great sun and soil, I learned that the bayside town was California’s first capitol, predating Sacramento and California’s gold rush. After going inside the old building (now part of a CA state park)  and pretending to legislate, we got to lock the old capitol’s giant door for the weekend with an outsized, cartoon-like key. Benicia also has a charming main street for shopping, antiquing, and taking a self-guided historic walking tour featuring old homes and businesses. I will post a travelogue soon.

In the meantime, like me, you can enjoy looking at this special, bountiful yard and wondering if its owners are still harvesting yummy corn into the fall.

cornyard2

Photos by Susan Sachs Lipman

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Slow News Day: A Bumper Crop of Gardeners

Posted on June 1, 2009 | Leave a comment

Last summer, I noticed a spate of news stories about the rise of home gardening. In July, ’08, Newsweek and NPR both reported that concerns about food safety, as well as an increasing desire to eat locally and healthily, was turning a lot of folks into Green Thumbs. People like Fred Davis and Yvette Roman Davis, bloggers at Beyond the Lawn, reported reclaiming their L.A. front lawn for a thriving Victory Garden.

I thought this was supremely cool, as it seemed to usher in an era of getting away from water-guzzling, appearance-oriented lawns and into practical, food-producing gardens. These prove beautiful, too, of course. It’s just a shift in perspective and priorities that allows us to bring the backyard up to the front. (Some neighborhoods have even loosened their restrictions on such sustainable practices as front-yard growing and line-drying of laundry.)

Peppers

As a bonus, front yard gardeners get to know — and sometimes feed — their neighbors. Community happens when we move yard and porch living out of the private and into the public. This summer, I’ve already heard about two monthly plant exchanges and a weekly vegetable harvest exchange in my neighborhood, as well as new farmers’ markets in my larger community.

Farmersmarket

Of course, further afield, the Obama White House broke ground for its organic vegetable garden (involving local schoolchildren in the process), the first White House vegetable garden since Eleanor Roosevelt’s Victory Garden in the 1940s.

I’m very moved by this picture of First Lady Michelle Obama and children in the garden, that appears in the White House blog. Food from the garden is feeding the White House and Washington, D.C.’s Miriam’s Kitchen, which feeds the homeless.

flotus_garden1_blog

Last week’s San Francisco Chronicle had another story about the rise in home gardening. Chris Romas, the president of W. Atlee Burpee, the world’s largest seed company, said he hasn’t seen this kind of interest in home growing in 30 years. Lots of currents are influencing people to turn or return to gardening — It’s a cost-effective way to supply one’s food, you have complete control over the way your food is grown, you can get in touch with the land, you can enjoy companionship or solitude, and it’s very satisfying to grow and make your own food.

I have fond memories of vegetable gardening with my dad, growing up. We had wonderful raised beds and great Southern California sun. But you don’t have to have either to enjoy growing food. I’ve grown tomatoes on a Manhattan balcony and pumpkin, corn, peppers and more on my fog-shrouded deck in Mill Valley. If you’ve been following my Deck Garden tales, you know the advice to use your vertical space, with trellises and vines. I also urge beginning gardeners to start small, follow seed-pack directions, weed out seedlings so that the hardiest new plantings will have room to grow, and harvest your crops, so you can enjoy them and also give new growth some room to come in.

I’m going to take my own advice and have a big home-grown salad for lunch. This is my 2’x 2′ lettuce box today:

Lettuce2

This is the box a month ago:

Lettuce3

Photos by Susan Sachs Lipman

White House Garden Photo Courtesy of The White House/Joyce N. Boghosian

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The Deck Garden: Hope, and Flowers, Spring Eternal

Posted on May 22, 2009 | 2 comments

What could offer more possibility than a garden in early spring? A couple of weeks ago, after some late rain, I got my little container garden going again. Spent bulbs were pulled out, fresh soil and organic amendments were put in. And seeds and seedlings were planted.

garden-seedpacks

I loved going to the nursery and wandering among the colorful bedding plants. I also loved picking out seeds to plant. Seed packets are always wonderful. They’re beautifully illustrated and full of promise and lore. I adore old-fashioned flowers, and managed to get some new ones this year to supplement my usual sweet peas, delphinium, cosmos, nasturtium, and stock. In particular, clary sage and scabiosa called to me.

garden-lettuce

Because I’m in a climate zone that gets cool summer fog wafting from the ocean, over the nearby mountain, and above my deck as it heads east, I’ve learned to plant shade-loving varieties. Peas love it here, and I always have vines of them climbing up trellises and lots of healthy peas ready for picking. (Verticality helps me get a lot of crops from my container garden.) I also plant lettuce and usually have a fog-tolerant tomato plant going.

Garden-Tomato2

A couple summers ago, I actually grew pumpkins, as well as stalks of corn in my largest container. The corn was able to cross-pollinate (which is key), as the container’s square shape allowed just enough rows across and down. Just planting them, in a small space with little sun, was optimism defined. The corn was miniature, as was the prized pumpkin, which trailed up and over its container and onto the deck.

This season, practicality, along with romantic heirloom flowers, won out. I usually plant a container I call the Aspen box, inspired by the beautiful summer flowers that greeted me in Aspen, Colorado, when I visited for my brother and sister-in-law’s wedding, some years ago. Here’s the start of this year’s Aspen box, with cosmos, lobelia and stock:

Garden-Aspenbox

Garden-Variety

I love stock, in particular. It’s praises are undersung, I think. It’s a wonderful cottage-garden flower, growing or cut. It’s delightfully old-fashioned, with hardy, though delicate looking, petals that give off a sweet-spicy scent.

garden-stock

I added spots of brighter reds and yellows in some of the other boxes, like this nice Pecotee petunia, and an accent dahlia.

Garden-Red Petunia

Garden-Dahlia

My Canadice champagne grape plant came back nicely after losing its leaves for the winter. Perennial plants never fail to amaze me.

Garden-GrapeJPG

I was happy to see a bee performing its pollinating duties on a cosmos.

Garden-Bee

Last year, I bought these sweet seeds at a school garden fair. Children had harvested the seeds and designed the packets.

Garden-KidsSeeds

Other seeds await planting in my cupboard.

Garden-PantryStock

Also in the cupboard, this robin’s egg, which we rescued from the ground. Of course, its hue is the quintessential “robin’s egg blue” that painters over time have attempted to replicate.

garden-robinsegg

Photos by Susan Sachs Lipman

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Tulipmania: One Bubble I Can Really Get Behind

Posted on March 17, 2009 | 3 comments

stock-tulips

I love tulips with the same passion I reserve for pumpkins. Both come in infinite variations. Both signal seasonal change. And both share some part of their jolly orb shape. Tulips provide the added, almost erotic, pleasure of allowing you to pour over a catalog of perfect color photos, to obsess about the difference between, say, the Golden Parade and the Jewel of Spring, to revel in the names that veer between the highly romantic and the very Dutch, and to plan the season’s planting accordingly.

Where I live, you pretty much have to plant fresh each year. Winters are not cold enough to leave the bulbs in the ground. (One year, I attempted to dry the bulbs with a root solution for safekeeping over the summer and fall, and the resulting flowers were puny and wilted.) Perhaps this is for the best. Each year brings new plans for stunning tulips. The homely bulbs go in the fridge in mid-October for their six-week hibernation. If I’ve gotten them in the ground by Frank Sinatra’s birthday (December 12), or even better, by Thanksgiving, I’m almost guaranteed a nice spring show.

This year’s crop came up fairly uniformly – a minor miracle – and seem to be at their peak right now, in mid-march. I photographed them during a break between rainstorms.

Daydream

tulip-daydreampshop2

I am always on the lookout for classically shaped tulips in a soft apricot color, with maybe a little color variation for interest. The Daydream, a Darwin Hybrid, has delivered all that. The flower height ranges from 20”-24”. The stem is nice and sturdy, and the bulb is a pleasing size. Some of the flowers tend toward a pale yellow color. Daydreams open in the sun to reveal a black center.

American Dream

amdream-tulippshop2

This is another Darwin Hybrid, with more extreme coloring than the Daydream. In fact, I was a little afraid it might be too garish. But it is a lovely flower, with just enough dramatic flair in its flame-edged petals. There’s even a hint of green climbing up into the yellow flower, making the American Dream wonderfully complex and artistic. Stems are sturdy here, bulbs are a nice size. Height ranges from 18”-22”.

New Design

tulip-new-design

The New Design is another tulip that looked a little bright in the catalog, but is a very pretty pale pink, with darker pink around the petal edges and some variegated coloring (including a little yellow and green) sneaking up the petals’ centers. It’s a Triumph tulip, which, like the Darwin Hybrid type, is a classically shaped tulip that is the happy result of years of patient breeding. These flowers are 20”-24” high and have fun, light green floppy leaves on sturdy stems.

Negrita

tulip-negrita

The dramatic Negrita is always one of the first tulip bulbs to sell out at my local nursery. It’s easy to see why. This classically shaped magenta flower – not as deep purple as some of the catalogues suggest –provides a sophisticated contrast to the other tulips of spring. The flower, also a Triumph, is big and slightly elongated. Flowers sit on thick stems, 18”-22” high.

With more than 2,000 named tulips, and more being developed all the time, there’s no telling which will catch my eye for next year. While I would keep any of this year’s flowers in my stable, I’m also attracted to the exotic fringe-petaled Parrot tulips in strong colors, and the group of tulips called Rembrandt, with their painterly blood-red flames that streak up each yellow or cream-colored petal.

Individual Tulip Photos by Susan Sachs Lipman

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