BellaOnline Forums Home and Garden Container Gardening Where's Spring?

Isn't Spring a bit late this year? Here on the East Coast (New Jersey, Zone 6B) <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />, we are still running the house heat at night and waiting for some warm days to open the blooms. My viburnum is still tightly budded and the miniature roses well-leafed, but not a bloom on them. Even the early dianthus are still in wait. I see this as a real benefit, though, because I sense the anticipation in these wise old plants. They are holding back and gathering their energies to burst forth into bloom, and I know they will. My allergies are telling me... <img src="/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

It is in the 90's here in Oklahoma...spring kinda passed us by! Connie

lol...and we just had snow here day before yesterday..now it's back up in the 70's. <img src="/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

I'm trying to decide if I can even ~try~ to plant a vegie garden this year..

On the coast of Washington State we had an early and unseasonal dry beginning to 2005. It has seemed like Spring for months. With rain now coming and going as usual, May flowers are blooming. I am a newbie to BellaOnline and am looking forward to participating on all gardening subjects. I have much experience, having spent my working life in greenhouses, nurseries and gardens. Am now sidelined with Rhuematoid Arthritis and finding joy in getting back to my roots of containers, houseplants, sedums and topiary.

Great to hear from y'all! I've not been able to get online for a few days, and I come back to find that there is life out there! Excellent!

This big country sure does give us some diverse climates, yet we can all grow just about anything we want if we put our minds to it.

I have an neighbor, a fake-curmudgeon 82-year-old Brit, who insists that it is unethical to try to grow anything that can't take care of itself. I deliberately mis-speak and call him a "naturist" and enjoy watching his shoulders heave as he runs off with his dog. When he thinks I can't hear him, he lets out a whoop and goes home to tease his wife, who is a good friend. Their garden is totally natural...but full of the most interesting stuff you can imagine. First, the snowdrops in mass profusion, then the daffs and narcissi, and on throughout the year. He's been dumping the kitchen waste there for 42 years and will not allow anyone near his acre of God's green earth for love nor money. What a character!

Anyway, he hasn't convinced me yet, because I have an estate to care for. We live in a historic residence in Monmouth Hills, NJ, that overlooks the Atlantic from one of the highest perches on the East Coast. It is wild with rhodos of all varieties, azaleas, and mountain laurel.

I take care of the Clubhouse garden, which is a bit of an issue, since it is supported by a dozen weddings every year. So things have to look tip-top all the time. I have one good raised bed, bordered in peanut-stone, and several others. The containers, however, are the showpieces, and the brides love them because they dress up the entrances. I have found several perennials (daisys, sweet alyssum and others) that show well all summer until late fall when the season ends, so about half of the containers don't even need to be replanted.

Enough about me. Karen, I share your arthritis problems and use my family to help whenever I can. They do. The raised bed, containers, and anything that is off the ground are very helpful! Stay with us and see what comes up.

Now, if the pollen would just abate a bit, everyone who has allergies could enjoy the flowers again!

Happy Gardening! <img src="/images/graemlins/heart.gif" alt="" />

You can do veggies in containers. Unless you're trying to feed an army, it's more practical. One or two tomato plants is more than enough for a small family and lettuces don't take up much space, especially if you use them as they green up. Wow, fresh baby lettuce. Mouth-watering.
I love to grow green peppers in a pot because they get bigger than they do in the ground here. When I put them in the ground they were always puny. But you are definitely in a different zone to me!

Yeow! I think I would have to stay inside. I'm one miserable puppy when the thermometer goes up there. We have a lot of humidity as well, and the only relief is on the sand at the beach where the wind blows it off. Luckily it's not too bad on our little hill because the breeze off the ocean hits land and comes up, so it's a few degrees cooler here in high summer.

But I'm a pale-skin, evolved in rain, mist, gales, and damp...but still 40 shades of green...and that's just how I like it! Funny how that doesn't change.

I don't know how you manage to work in the garden. Do you use all desert plants in your garden or is there a "fertile crescent" where you are?

I'd be interested in hearing how you satisfy your green thumb in what I only know of from cowboy movies and "Grapes of Wrath."
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Today the forcast is to be in the upper 80's...perfect for me! Its when we top 100 or higher that I have issues with being outside.lol

Colorado really does have the best of both worlds if you love heat..or if you love cold... there's a saying here..if you don't like the weather, just wait a few minutes..and that is so very true! But so hard on the garden!

And unfortunately with everything being so unpredictable, you never know about watering and the elements. I have a small garden spot on the side of my home..sheltered between the deck and a privacy fence..it gets sunlight in the mornings and is fairly well shaded for the rest of the day in the hotter hours - the soil has been well cultivated over the years with mulching and the like, but this year will (or was going to be) the fist that I actually tried my hand at a vegie garden there.

I've heard that you should never start planting until after mother's day- so maybe it's not too late...but most importantly...~hopefully~ it's not too early either..as we've been known to even get a really good spring snow of 4-8 inches in the middle to late parts of May!

Mary Elen, WOW, and I thought I was busy! When my girls were small, I had a business (Box Gardens) where I would do light landscaping, entry flower boxes, table flowers and edible flowers for plate garnish for area restaurants and other businesses. I did not make much money but it sure was fun. One of my favorite perennials to use is 'Campanula rotundifolia' aka Harebells or Blue Bells of Scotland. Have you used this in containers?

I guess I am just used to the hot weather. I lived in Alabama a year and give me dry hot over humid weather any day! It does reach the triple digits here in the summer. We walk our dogs every night after supper and I guess we are just accustomed to the hot summers. We do get some rain, but not usually enough to sustain anything. You do have to water. The winters are very cold here and so anything that you plant has to be hardy. We often have wind chills below zero.

My hubby has a garden, he has it worked out to where it is very minimal work/watering. He puts down straw and has soaker hose on the row crops. The tomatoes (27 this year) he plants in buckets with the bottoms cut out and uses a hose with sprinkler attachments in each bucket and waters them this way. This year we are raising okra, green beans, cucumbers, watermelon, sunflowers (these are for the wild birds we love to feed), bird house gourds, jalapeno peppers, pink-eyed purple hulled peas, onions and garlic. We also put down newspaper and lay grass clippings in the rows to keep weeds down and it conserves water to mulch like that. We water the garden 2 days a week.

We have tried to plant things that will not have to be replaced every year and I have mums in one flower bed and they so well. I had snapdragons that overwintered last year (our first year here as we moved from Texas at Thanksgiving) and so I have a bed of snapdragons this year. We have honeysuckle, grapevine, just created a new bed of perenials and we will see how they do this year (I will post a photo below). Bulb wise we have day lilies, irises, red hot poker, daffodils, tulips and elephant ears. You just have to be vigilant about watering.

I have lots of containers on my porch and those get watered twice a day in the hot weather.

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