The Gardening Thread

[Noodles]

Ooh, Jitter, I especially like those first creamy-white ones...such a lovely color 

[Jitter]

Noodles, those have been an absolute delight! This is their third if not fourth year and they just become more! Sometimes when the sun is in the right direction shining through the petals, I’m expecting fairies to dance on them

Roisin, I have some of the more “primitive” ones as well, I like both big and small flowers. The small purple Turkish ones are past already.

The bush is a Berberis variety, this one is in reality a bit orange in color. The variety may in fact be ‘Orange rocket’, I think I have one of those and this one is the most orange one I have. They are among my favorite plants, although they are a bit inconvenient with the huge barbs.

I love so many kinds of plants! It’s a shame my garden is tiny. I would like to have at least a dozen versions of red-leaved bushes, basically anything with white variegation of the leaves, and so so many flowers

[Róisín]

Berberis is so useful, even with the barbs. And the tiny yellow flowers are pretty, and the berries. My gran used to make a sharp sauce from the berries, to serve with rich fatty meats like pork and goose, the infusion of leaves or wood is a digestive bitter, and most parts of the plant yield a yellow dye. Usefulall round.

[lumilaulu]

The rosemary has a bad case of scale insects. I think I quarantined it in time, before they could get to any other plants, but I suppose I should check them anyway.

[Róisín]

And check that the scaleinsects are not being carried from plant to plant by ants? Ants do that because many scale insects produce a sweet  liquid which ants enjoy.

[lumilaulu]

I've never seen ants here (first floor balcony), so I don't think that's likely. That said, I don't know how they got on the rosemary in the first place. There were two near each other on the thyme, but there don't seem to be any others. I'll spray the rosemary with a soapy solution and keep a close eye on all of the plants. At least the chives seem to be doing great.

I also wish to make it very clear how disgusting removing and squashing those many many insects felt.

[Jitter]

Scale insects are in Finnish kilpikirva, literally ”shield aphids”. I was at first confused because the Wikipedia page for “scale insects” didn’t appear to have a Finnish version. But based on the description I searched for kilpikirva and yep, same thing. It’s not as if we didn’t have any!

[midwestmutt]

Here are some spring blooms from my yard. First some peonies which were lavish again this year.
https://66.media.tumblr.com/50f7c0b0fa894b95d72ae53d1dbee942/072768ccde4f965b-6b/s2048x3072/799926503f15ab3b3088415726afdafd0e18270b.jpg
Some newly planted sunflowers
https://66.media.tumblr.com/2bb10eec3ba3c2c470e95cae9502f842/feca5f5894cbc60f-be/s2048x3072/9a012c9d6b61aeb070d320cc79b703790bc23381.jpg
The tag said compact hot corals
https://66.media.tumblr.com/dc8bc1a7b5cc08937d77ce7c071f5d63/7e8fb3a633f972df-d8/s540x810/95218fd0a6e1bed925f0519b0d4e6a6a4c9f0a5e.jpg
I've forgotten what these are.
https://66.media.tumblr.com/90f389919396d71f90520478cbf6ca47/07e9427d49016d51-bd/s540x810/43e460946702efa4e7a6a8940eb5514b705d7e44.jpg
I like hostas, they are nicely low-maintenance.
https://66.media.tumblr.com/6b74e9357a7272c7e77837882e9e4a48/73d95956905858b6-f1/s540x810/640a848fd47baf49bf029aa52338b053c85e32a8.jpg
https://66.media.tumblr.com/c78aee1f01750edb8d2bc7f04a4df482/b619921ee2855b19-aa/s540x810/1d886ed446e8344b7066bcc0798380b865f42da0.jpg
Heres's a hummingbird at the feeder for a closer.
https://66.media.tumblr.com/b2ec0cec2dacebdee89a38e22e99ff77/9cf33ce3959272f0-35/s540x810/991d36b5f4a48556ade322c81726b63e89a6954c.jpg

[Jitter]

Oo, lovely! I love peonies, and hostas! And many others, but those are among my most best favorites! Mine are still budding (Peonies) or inly starting to grow (hostas). We are currently in allium phase

The one you mentioned you have forgotten what it is, is a bleeding-heart. In Finnish the name is ”broken heart”. I like those too, but haven’t been successful with them.

[midwestmutt]

The bleeding hearts must be quite hardy once established since those were planted by my mother many years ago. The peonies are over 50 years old from bulbs transplanted by mom from ones gifted by an old friend of her mother.

[Róisín]

The bleeding hearts are Lamprocapnos (old name Dicentra) spectabilis. Pretty things. They belong to the Fumariaceae, a sub-family within the broader Papaveraceae or Poppy family.

[afreude]

Roisin I have to say I'm intrigued by the depth of your plant knowledge!  I'm new to the forum and I perused a bunch of threads over the last couple days and I've already seen several plant-y posts by you.  I worked/still sometimes work for my partner who is an arborist, so I have a pretty good idea of cultural requirements for woody plants in the Pacific Northwest of the US and I generally enjoy gardening, but it's super cool how much you seem to know about the actual uses (historical and current) for different plants!

Everyone's gardens look lovely!  I was going to share a picture of my herb bed but I don't think I've quite figured out how to attach an image yet.

[wavewright62]

afreude, you have discovered the Fount of All Knowledge herself!  (Well, comparatively)

As to attaching images, they cannot be uploaded, but embedded with links to images hosted elsewhere.  This thread gives links to in-depth discussions.  We do want to see your images!

[afreude]

Thank you!  I may have eventually found my way to that tutorial, but this made it much faster, I appreciate your help!

Here's the picture.  It's from a couple months ago before it got really hot here and I was busy and didn't water as much as I should have...  The artichoke and sunflower are enormous now, but everything else is a bit dry and so are my veggie beds.

[Róisín]

Dunno about ‘fount of knowledge’, from my point of view I am still learning as hard as I can! But I enjoy sharing what I have learned so far. That’s why I was a field botanist and botany lecturer for 40+ years, and still teach informally. I’m a total plant nerd who grew up on several very old-fashioned subsistence farms, then went to uni for science. My gran was a village herbalist and midwife as well as a farmer, so I picked up a lot of my plantlore and info about brewing, making dyes and general arts and crafts stuff from her. I can’t draw, at all, but I’m okay with most three-dimensional skills. Mostly it is farm kid stuff.