The Garden in April

It may be just a collection of pots now, but soon it will be a garden.

Well, there are a few flowers in the garden now, but not any I grew from seed. On Easter weekend I bought a primrose to put on the table and to eventually put outside to add a tiny bit of color, and that dianthus (‘Firewitch,’ I think?) I potted up last month has little pink blooms all over it at the moment. But there is a lot of green, from fresh growth on the roses to all the tiny seedlings I’m finally planting out into pots, and it really does feel like things are happening in the garden. Every morning I go out to check on the plants I swear they all grew a bit overnight. Especially the sweet peas, which are climbing a little further up the pole every day now.

Sowing

• Nasturtiums: Did I have bad luck with them last year? Yes! But I really love them and I’m a sucker for the new varieties that keep coming out. Three varities seems a little much already, but I just saw that there’s a new one called ‘Tip Top Pink Blush,’ so maybe I’ll be planting four. I grew ‘Tip Top Apricot’ and ‘Ladybird Rose’ last year, and I’m going to try out ‘Purple Emperor’ this year for trailing out of a window box.

• Cosmos: I’m growing ‘Apricotta’ again and I’m going to try out ‘Rubinato’ since it’s more compact and might be another good option for a window box.

• Cornflowers: I’m not sure where I’ll put them, but they’re so quick to grow and I always like their weedy look.

• Zinnias: I grew a few different kinds of zinnias last year, but this time I’m only growing ‘Precious Metals,’ from Floret’s new breeding program, so that I can collect the seeds without any cross-pollination taking place.

The zinnias and nasturtiums are usually under lights, but I take them out every morning for a wellness check. Not under lights: the scented geranium cuttings

Growing

Not a lot is happening inside under lights. I have the baby zinnias and nasturtiums inside still, maybe for another week or so, until these warm days we’ve been getting every so often start becoming more consistent. The seedlings are still small enough to live in their cell packs a bit longer, and I’m hoping they’ll stay that way until I can plant them out. The less potting on, the better, especially since neither of these plants likes their roots messed with too much. I know I said I was going to forego the lights and just direct seed them outside, but as I already mentioned, that didn’t go so well for the nasturtiums last year, and the Floret zinnia seeds cost $20 a pack, so under lights they went.

I’m also trying to grow cuttings of the scented geraniums I pruned last month. I’ve never had luck with taking cuttings before, unless you count the salvia I cut and stuck into the ground back in Portland. It actually took root, but whenever I tried to take a softwood cutting I would fail. This time around the cuttings might actually make it? At least the ‘Attar of Roses,’ which has at least one new leaf growing. I do hope they survive, because I already have plans for them.

I thought the size of these cold frame bins might be overkill, but I guess I need all the space I can get

Hardening Off

So far the plastic bin cold frames have been working great, and I’ve only had a few fatalities, which I don’t think were temperature-related. Some plants are just weak and don’t make it—that’s why I grow more than I need. I sowed the cornflowers inside and put them directly out into the cold frame, since they don’t need to be babied. I still have a lot of the hardy annuals in there, though I’ve been slowly planting them out into the garden as I find the space for them.

But not everything in the cold frame at the moment is a hardy annual. Dahlias love heat, but mine were looking so sad under the lights that I sent them outside to live in the smaller of the bins. Maybe my grow lights weren’t strong enough or placed high enough, but the dahlias’ leaves and stems were twisting and contorting their way to the light, and I figured that, between a bit of cold and not enough light, the cold might be the lesser evil.

The cosmos were getting big, too, and honestly I do reach a point where I’m tired of having so many plants inside under lights still. They start looking overgrown, and I just don’t want to look at them anymore. So they’re now in the cold frame, and the two kinds of nicotiana are, too. We’ve had some really warm days and no frosts at all lately, and if the nights get too cold I bring in the entire bin. I just keep an eye on them, and if any of the plants look like they’re suffering from the weather I’ll put them back under the lights, but so far they look better than they did living inside.

The sweet peas took their time to branch out, but they’ve all of a sudden grown tall enough to tie to the teepee posts.

Planting

The fun part that I save for sunny weekend days, when I can go out to the terrace with Peep and just stare at empty pots for ages, trying to figure out which plants to plant where. Last year I mostly planted individual varieties alone in their own pots, but this time I’m doing more container combinations. I’ve been really inspired by the new Sarah Raven book, A Year Full of Pots. I love the idea of mixing colors, textures, and shapes: putting together a container really is like putting together an outfit.

So far—aside from the sweet peas—I’ve planted out scabiosa, snapdragons, lace flower, calendula, cerinthe, mignonette, and silene. The snapdragons were planted the earliest and are growing the fastest—that’s them in the photo below, underneath the homemade cloche I made from chicken wire I got at Michael’s. It was very strange—I went out one morning and one of the snapdragons was pinched off at the stem, and some tiny calendula seedlings in another pot were pulled out completely. Drew thinks it’s probably a rat, but I’ve seen a blackbird outside with a guilty look on his face, and I choose to believe that he’s the culprit. I just don’t want it to be a rat.

The ‘Carding Mill’ rose is really growing all of a sudden and is about to form buds. ‘Windermere’ just started putting on leaves. Oh, and I went to a popup sale put on by Gowanus Nursery and bought some little perennials to plant out. Some are waiting for their homes still (have to get holes drilled into some pots), but I already planted out an echinacea ‘pallida’ and planted it along with lace flower for some High Line/Piet Oudolf inspired wildness.

Finally some growth on the ‘Windermere’ rose! Snapdragons under their homemade cloche after one got decapitated

Planning

April and May are my favorite months in the garden, even when there’s not a lot to see yet. It’s the anticipation that gets me. Putting in work and planning and knowing that something will happen. Still sowing seeds and picking out plants, finding excuses to go to plant sales, figuring out pot combinations. I think that I’m the kind of person who likes the anticipation of a moment more than the actual moment itself. I like to plan and to dream. I do actually dream about the garden, but it’s all boring logistics—not the flowery pastel haze I wish I’d see in my dreams. Oh well. Right now I’m excited about coming up with new container combinations and by doing my own take on the window boxes of Brooklyn Heights, but more about that later.