Intro

[katertot]

Hiya! Several friends of mine have moved over from livejournal and I'm hoping the communities are a little more active here than there. Judging by the date on the previous post, I'm out of luck. But it can't hurt to try. :)

I'm in central Iowa, the weather is cold, and I've recently ordered a whole bunch of seeds from rareseeds.com thanks to them matching sales for charity a few days back. I've got several garden areas, mainly a vegetable garden plus a bunch of neglected flower beds. (Thanks kids!) I'm excited to revamp at least one of them this spring, something I've been saying I'll do for a few years now. I've got zinnias, cosmos, and tomato seeds on the way, including a couple of more interesting colored zinnias.

In the meantime, hopefully the owls and hawks around here do a good job on the voles this winter, they are becoming quite a nuisance!

What are you most looking forward to this spring?

Comments

[gairid]

This time of year I'm just noodling through the incoming seed and plant catalogs looking for ideas and making a list of the seeds I'll be ordering. We have a good piece of property in a rural area, so we have a vegetable garden as well as flower beds hither and yon which include a plethora of daylilies (they do well here since they are not picky about soil and can take the heat we get here in the summer) some butterfly bushes, irises, clematis, roses, salvias, gaillardia, coreopsis and whatever annuals I choose each season.

We also have a couple old fashioned lilacs, a persistantly wayward and rampant forsythia, and your normal boxwoods, viburnums and and other such shrubbery. Tree-wise, when we moved here 11 years ago there were not a lot of trees, but we planted the front up with a few others to supplement the existing mature oaks and four ornamental pears (3 Bradfords and a Chanticleer). Those trees have all filled in nicely and the front yard is nice and shady in the summer. The little 3' spruces we planted along the driveway as a windbreak are now nearing the 20' mark.

I worked for 20+ years in the garden biz, managing a plant nursey and I have a pretty decent working knowledge for what works in different situations, diognosing plant disease or insect infestation and plant identification. If anyone needs advice, I'm happy to offer it; I am semi retired now and I miss daily garden chatting!

Thanks, katertot, for opening up a conversation!

[katertot]

I'm sure I'll be posting questions in the spring! reddit has a pretty active gardening community, though every spring there is the influx of leggy seedling pictures. :D

Ah forsythia! I had fond memories of one from my childhood home, plus I use the flowers to somewhat plan my crabgrass preventative. The beast I planted 6 years ago has exploded and I have to trim back part of it multiple times a year just to get to the back of the garden.

Come to think of it, I have an elm with a bad spot on it, I might post a pic later to get opinions.