Do you love to make mud pies, grow a houseplant, eat veggies, or stop to smell the bouquet on your co-workers desk? Everyone enjoys a bit of green growing around him or her and then there are those that are passionate and needy when it comes to dabbling in the dirt. With this blog, we'll try to satisfy those needs and tell you about what's going on with the Anchorage gardening scene. You know, as I finally learned, it's all about the dirt.
Photographer and gardener Fran Durner (fdurner@adn.com) writes the blog.
Take an interactive tour of the gardens showing in Anchorage's garden tour, with photos and audio commentary from each gardener.
Deadheading and seed collecting
Harvesting herbs from your garden
Municipal Greenhouse Gardeners
Alaska Society of Outdoor and Nature Photographers
Alaska Plant Materials Center:
Fairbanks Georgeson Botanical Garden
Palmer Hay Flats State Game Refuge
Pyrahs Pioneer Peak U-Pick Farm
South Anchorage Farmers Market
Christmas tree time - 12/4/2008 1:30 pm
Splitting dahlias with Amelia Walsh - 12/2/2008 9:53 am
December Garden Calendar - 11/30/2008 4:39 pm
Thanks - 11/26/2008 9:50 am
Greenhouse, nursery and peony conferences coming in January - 11/24/2008 6:20 pm
About Garden Design - 11/23/2008 4:15 pm
50 Years of Statehood - 11/19/2008 3:26 pm
Try pinwheels for moose defense - 11/18/2008 3:38 pm
Harvest bark responsibly - 11/16/2008 2:52 pm
Have a healthy winter - 11/13/2008 3:09 pm
Bits of this and that - 11/10/2008 8:04 pm
Garden grant money available for 2009 - 11/10/2008 4:00 pm
How did your garden grow? - 11/9/2008 4:28 pm
Snow Makes Sprouts Sweeter - 11/4/2008 3:59 pm
Separated at birth? - 11/2/2008 11:21 am
November Garden Calendar - 10/30/2008 12:06 pm
Valley Apple Guy - 10/28/2008 11:47 am
One more weekend to prepare - 10/27/2008 11:06 am
Autumn elsewhere - 10/23/2008 11:02 am
Apples again on Thursday - 10/21/2008 8:46 am
Season of the Larch - 10/19/2008 6:34 pm
The winter of late flowers - 10/15/2008 3:55 pm
Posted: April 6, 2008 - 3:47 pm
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How about that Mother Nature? She's not behaving very motherly at all. Or perhaps she's reminding us that, after all, SHE is in control. Despite the weather setback, I will admit the clean, white snow looks very pretty and it WILL be gone SOON.
How many of you cut out the Adopt-A-Tree coupon in Friday's ADN? It's on page B-4 if you forgot to look. Free bare root trees include flowering crabapple, edible crabapple, 'Canada Red' cherry, edible apple and lilacs. Winning entries will be notified by mail and can pick up their tree in May. Don't forget to mail in your coupon and help beautify Anchorage!
A call to gardeners to find out what's growing brought in these answers. I am SO impressed with the lengths Alaskans are willing to go to and what they DO grow successfully.
A few of the plants in Rosemary Kimball's sunroom. Photo by Rosemary Kimball.The three trees, 5 shrubs and 12 alpines are in the new sun room, blooming and worse. We can't tile the room until I can move the plants out and that isn't soon. And then I saw a small rose "on sale" which appeals to my Scot's ancestry. And that's still snow you see outside the window. When I need somewhere warm I move into my neighbor's light fixtures with the tomatoes and peppers. He has three but I let him use them too. - Rosemary Kimball
I have some tulips in pots on the porch that are about 3 inches tall -- they spent most of the winter in the garage. I bought some columbine starts at Costco that I WILL get potted up soon...in the garage which means the car moves out. Several members of The Wildflower Garden Club have marigold starts growing in preparation for our marigold giveaway for children at the Sears Mall Garden Fair. (don't forget - next Saturday, April 12.) Outside, there are signs of life in the primrose beds. - Mary Ellen Harris
In his continuing quest to grow things that "can't grow in Alaska", Troy has started okra!! The variety is Annie Oakley and supposedly has the best chance of actually growing in an Alaskan greenhouse. We'll see-I remain skeptical! He is also trying a giant pumpkin for the first time. I am looking forward to an Alaskan wildflower garden and have started the seeds that we got from Verna Pratt at the Alaska Botanical Garden conference, including those that were collected from flowers at the Bering glacier! How cool is that? We are also trying an Italian variety of zucchini that grows on climbing vines, which has necessitated some garden re-arranging. The red runner beans that we normally plant along the fence around the vegetable garden are going to be planted out in the front yard around the fence that surrounds the fruit trees. Troy's plan is to plant them on the north side of the fence so that the trees will still get south and west sun exposure! Those are the plans!!
- Lori and Troy Zaumseil
I've started herbs and tomatoes only. I have three of five tomato varieties sprouting their first leaves - Sungold (cherry tomatoes, coming up the fastest), Tumbling Tom (also cherry, in 2nd place), then Super Bush, Polar Star and Stupice. The cilantro will probably be ready to harvest next week or the week after and I've already transplanted thyme and flat-leaf parsley into new containers. Yeah! All of this is growing under a 2-foot full-spectrum light kit that I purchased at Alaska Mill & Feed. It seems to be working well...though now I wish I had the four-foot kit. I didn't have a lot of space for that, though. - Elizabeth Bluemink
I think I’ll just name a few of what has sprouted to date. Crepis rubra, Erigeron compositus, Arabis, Polemonium boreale ‘Heavenly Habit’, Incarvillea mairei, Papaver sp. ‘Tajikistan,’ Succisella inflexa, Linum suffruiticosum, Lychnis alpina, Aethionema iberideum. Every day there are more. I keep trying ones I have never had before from the NARGS (North American Rock Garden Society) seed exchange. Plus the tomatoes and cucumbers are sprouted. - Carmel Tysver
Cerinthe
Cerinthe major 'Purpurascens.' Photo by Dana Klinkhart.or BLUE SHRIMP PLANT, BLUE HONEYWORT, BLUE WAX FLOWER is one of the seedlings that are growing here at my place under lights. It came packaged with 13 seeds and they all germinated. The seedlings stay sturdy if kept cool and they are given plenty of light. They have handsome blue-green foliage or bracts and purple/blue bell flowers. This annual likes sun and part shade and will grow in containers as well as a well drained garden bed. It’s about two feet tall and if used as a cut flower, the ends of the stem need to be either flamed or dipped in hot water. My other seed starts are the old world favorite ‘sweet peas’ or Lathryrus odoratus ‘Fragrantissima’. They were ‘nicked’ with small scissors, soaked for several hours, drained and kept moist between paper towels. Once they sprouted they graduated to rich composted soil in containers and placed under lights. As they grow, I pinch them back to keep them bushy until it’s time to harden off in May. The stocky structure does not ‘dwarf’ their growth at maturity. Our have grown in the garden to six feet or more. Last year, this process yielded blossoms in early July instead of August. I love to start seeds each year but trying to limit my enthusiasm is more than difficult. - Dana Klinkhart
April 7, 2008 - 11:49am | tagalak
I was holding my breath til I got to the end of your post, Jane ,to see how the Primula's hung in there... Glad to be able to smile by the time I finished the paragraph... good job... Verna says the snow is going to go quickly, and I've always believed in Verna.
Good moisture for the trees to do their leaf-out, too! thinking positive in Muldoon, Nickel
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1 April 7, 2008 - 11:15am | jbaldwin
What's Growing
10” of snow? I can deal with that; altho the bright green Primula auriculas I had been thoroughly enjoying as they poked through the dead, brown, bleak mulched garden beds were now gone. I must admit, however, to a panic attack at 6 a.m. Monday morning when a glance at my outdoor thermometer showed 9 degrees (THAT wasn’t in the forecast). Could my tiny greenhouse with small heater have held it above freezing? Or did the 65 young primrose plants die an untimely death? Seedlings & rooted cuttings planted for garden withdrawal symptoms last October & lovingly tended for six months in the garage under lights were moved from the garage to make room for my excessive seed starting. 6 a.m to 8 a.m. is the coldest period in my yard. It took three cups of coffee to get up my nerve to go check the greenhouse temperature at 7 a.m. 32 degrees: YES! The floor felt colder than 32 and there was a bit of ice on the edge of a half-filled water bucket on the floor. I know the fan going 24/7 kept the temperature from going any lower. Turning on a couple of 100 watt light bulbs and by 8 a.m. the temp was at 36 and climbing. They live another day!
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