April Garden

Most of my bulbs may have rotted, but at least we have violas!

I have so many plants living outside at the moment that Drew has taken to calling the garden “the farm.” He might as well call it a viola farm; I have so many! All of the plants I bought and sowed last year survived the winter. In January I sowed Antique Shades, and then picked up a blue variety at Lowe’s that I couldn’t resist. I just love them, especially ‘Antique Shades,’ which is every bit as good as people say it is. The stems are long and the blooms are larger than those on the rest of the violas—is it a pansy? Anyhow, the petals are slightly ruffled and vary in color. Mine are mostly peaches and mauves that fade out a bit in the heat, which we have been getting our fair share of lately.

Now, I know I promised tulips in my March garden update. And the ‘Apricot Beauty’ tulips were really so close to blooming, but as you’ll read below I had a bit of a bulb disaster this year. Understatement, really, and I did get depressed about it for two days and question my abilities as a gardener. But then the weather warmed up and all of the violas popped, and I got the beautiful kind of distraction that I needed. I might be a failure when it comes to growing tulips, but when it comes to growing violas maybe I’m not so hopeless.

Sowing

• Zinnias: Last year I only sowed Floret’s ‘Precious Metals,’ which I’m definitely growing again this year, along with some ‘Alpenglow’ seeds sent from my pal Alison.

• Cornflowers: I direct-sowed some ‘Classic Romantic’ seeds, also sent from Alison. In my opinion nothing beats cornflowers for filling a space, especially a space between tall-ish plants.

• Nasturtiums: These are good direct-sowers, too, though I also grew some seedlings under lights for the month so I could give them a good head start. Last year I grew, I think, four different varieties, but this time I’m only growing two: ‘Purple Emperor’ (for trailing out of window boxes and the edges of big pots) and ‘Tip Top Pink Blush’ (because it’s my favorite).

• Alyssum: Even though I (successfully!) managed to winter sow some seeds I’m still poking more into pots. Like cornflowers, they’re easy space-fillers. I first grew them last year and was impressed with how fast they grow and how nice they smell.

• Nigella: I always direct sow nigella, to varying degrees of success. It never grows quite as prettily for me as it does for other people, but I can’t help but love it, especially the seed heads.

• Celosia: Trying out ‘Flamingo Feather’ this year. I’ve only grown ‘Pink Champagne,’ but I’m not crazy about the way that the blooms can look like brains. And to be honest when I bought it I think I got ‘Flamingo Feather’ confused with the variety I really wanted to grow, which is ‘Vintage Rose,’ so I guess we’ll see how this one works out in the garden. Flamingo? What was I thinking.

Isn’t this muscari a beautiful color, though?

Spring-Flowering Bulbs

• ‘Baby’s Breath’ muscari

And that’s it! Remember the post I did last year on all of the bulbs I was planting for a spring display? Well, let’s just say it didn’t go according to plan. It’s not as if I went crazy and planted thousands of bulbs or anything, but I’m still too sad to go back and reread that post, since all of my bulbs except for the muscari rotted. Why the muscari didn’t rot, I’m not sure, but it came up beautifully.

What happened? I tried to be so careful. I stored away all of the pots in a big storage bin on our terrace, and when I took them out I covered all of them with chickenwire. Squirrels weren’t getting anywhere near those bulbs. But I took the pots out in February and it was way too early, at least this year. It was cold and rainy, and even the bulbs that got close to blooming eventually rotted. I swore that the tulips in the bulb lasagna with the muscari were going to bloom—there were even buds! But the buds stayed small and then just disintegrated: heartbreaking.

I already was on the fence about growing bulbs in pots next year, especially after going to the farmer’s markets this spring and seeing all the potted flowering bulbs for sale, looking bright and ready to go. It’s true that the markets didn’t have the varieties that I planted, though, or ones that I really like. But I guess I have a long time to reassess before bulb-planting season comes back around. One thing I do know is that I’ll definitely try to save and replant those muscari bulbs. The color is so pretty!

The lone survivors in my winter sowing experiment; I’ll take any success I can get.

Winter Sowing

• Alyssum: I sowed pastel and tall white, and both sprouted and grew into plants that I’ve already tucked into pots and window boxes. Thank you, alyssum, for being foolproof!

• Sea Holly: I think it’s sea holly, at least; Drew collected some seeds from a garden at his workplace, and they just happened to be one of the few varieties that germinated for me. Thank you, Drew!

• Larkspur: I can’t remember the variety: it was one of those Botanical Interests seed rack impulse buys at Whole Foods. And I wasn’t sure they’d germinate, but two of them actually did and are growing into nice little seedlings. I’m pretty sure that my mom told me that my grandma Dorothy loved blue delphiniums, which makes me want to grow them even more. Thank you, Botanical Interests seed rack!

• Penstemon of some kind: Sorry to be lazy again, but I can’t remember the name of this variety, either. I got the seeds from a seed swap at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden, and I think that they were collected at one of the local parks and is probably a native plant. Weird to see what decides to germinate!

• Orlaya: Another one that I’ve never grown before, and out of all my winter sown seeds these have done the best. I’ve got to get these planted out, like, right now.

• Erigeron: This is the variety known as the ‘Mexican Daisy.’ I grew some indoors and under lights as well and I’m glad I did because the winter sown erigeron is still teeny-tiny. I don’t know if it will even grow, but if not, it’s not a big deal since I have three plants already close to blooming.

My experiment in winter sowing was . . . fairly successful? Better than my bulb experiment, I guess. It’s true that most of the seeds didn’t sprout, but I’m blaming the container I had them in—a plastic bin that was probably too large to trap in the heat and humidity that the seeds needed for germination. It turns out that there’s a reason why people winter sow in small containers like milk jugs and water bottles. Oh well. Seeds are cheap, so this one hurts much less than the bulb rot disaster.

On a side note remind me never to sow verbena bonariensis ever again—as long as we have this garden there’s no need to. I had no luck with germination in the bin, but it turns out that it doesn’t matter since I must have hundreds of self-seeded plants popping up all around the garden.

Just a portion of the seedlings that need to be planted out (not sure why I included the verbena in this photo—I got them at the farmer’s market for my ‘90s window boxes)

Hardening Off

Hardened off and (probably) ready to plant out: dahlias, cosmos, bacopa, phlox ‘Creme Brûlée,’ aster, asarina, thunbergia, feverfew, Savannah grass, salvia, and nasturtiums. They’ve been outside for around two weeks, and some of them are starting to looking unhappy in their three-inch pots. The dahlias are in larger red cups, but I can tell they’re getting stir crazy, too.

I’m slowly getting the blue lace flowers and zinnias outside, though they’re still mostly under lights, along with the celosia. But it really is warm enough. Also I’m at that point in the year where I’m getting fed up with seeing seedlings everywhere. They’re spread out across the terrace outside and still taking over the bookshelf/ grow light station inside. They’re all just longing to be planted, and I’m longing to take our room back and to put the grow lights away and to put my books back on the shelf where they belong.

A Japanese garden shop-inspired planting: violas, bacopa, alyssum, and dusty miller in a street find basket (don’t worry—I gave it a plastic lining first)

Planting

I’m really having to hold myself back on this one, especially since my impatience is to blame for most of my failures this year. I always want to jump the gun; I plant out and move pots out too early. But . . . the weather forecast is looking so promising: nighttime lows in the 50s and 60s for the next two weeks, and then we’re at Mother’s Day, which is the unofficial start of the horticultural safe zone here.

I’ve planted out a few seedlings already, just as an experiment. I put in a phlox and a cosmos with my ‘Windermere’ rose, and even planted a cobaea scandens in a big pot. If they die, I have more. I really don’t think they will, though, fingers crossed.

I’ve been trying to distract myself by planting out all of my violas, which are perfectly happy in any cold weather we might get. I’m so grateful for them—I was worried I’d planted too many, but right now they’re making up for the absence of my poor tulips. I just planted up a bunch of blue violas in a street find basket, along with some bacopa and alyssum I grew from seed as well as some dusty miller. My inspiration was the baskets at the Japanese nurseries I love so much. I also just wanted to cheer myself up, and I think it worked.

The bulbs may have been a setback, but I’m almost over it. Out with the old and in with the new, because we have much more exciting things on the way in the garden. Who cares about tulips when the ‘Carding Mill’ rose has little buds on it? The dappled willow tree I bought last month is just starting to turn pale pink at the tips of the leaves, and my ‘Sweet Autumn’ clematis, though far from blooming, is beginning to climb fast. And it’s already May, which might be my favorite month in the garden. This is a time to look forward, not backwards: those rotted bulbs are in the trash and in the past. And given my track record I’m hesitant to make any promises this time around, but maybe in May’s garden update we’ll have roses? Not a promise, mind you. :)