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.
Municipal Greenhouse Gardeners
Alaska Society of Outdoor and Nature Photographers
Alaska Plant Materials Center:
Fairbanks Georgeson Botanical Garden
Lazy Mountain Woolwood Gardens
Free Cooperative Extension Publications - While they last! - 8/7/2008 4:32 pm
The Tomatoes of Summer - 8/5/2008 4:39 pm
Creating Floral Displays - 8/4/2008 12:14 pm
August Calendar - 7/31/2008 3:50 pm
See Big Lake and Willow gardens this weekend - 7/30/2008 3:56 pm
Homer Garden Tour - 7/27/2008 8:49 pm
Dr. Armitage is a self-described plant nerd - 7/26/2008 6:34 pm
So many gardens, too little time - 7/24/2008 12:55 pm
State Fairgrounds in flower - 7/23/2008 9:38 am
Palmer Garden Festival - 7/21/2008 12:41 pm
Don't miss this weekend fun! - 7/17/2008 5:41 pm
Flowering indoor plants for low-light situations? - 7/16/2008 10:33 am
A succulent garden - 7/15/2008 5:08 pm
Lawns needed - 7/14/2008 10:02 am
Farming of the future? - 7/10/2008 11:35 am
Ants on the loose - again - 7/9/2008 4:43 pm
A view from the garden - 7/8/2008 10:44 am
Beetles swarm Fairbanks - 7/7/2008 11:02 am
Girdwood outing - 7/6/2008 1:18 pm
An homage to the lilac - 7/2/2008 1:05 pm
July Garden Calendar - 6/30/2008 6:06 pm
Poppy Perfection - 6/29/2008 5:42 pm
Posted: April 14, 2008 - 3:43 pm
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There's No Place Like Spring!
I've always wanted a ruby slipper...I used stained glass pieces. The shoe is leather, so I used a sealant on the inside and outside. I'll grout it later. I'm thinking of planting wave petunias and lobelia in it. Photo by Nickel LaFleurI have a HUGE crop of "love lies bleeding"... the red variety from Renee's seeds. I collected a bag of seeds from last year's crop and I'm pleased to say, a lot of them did germinate. I also have 35-40 seedlings of sweet corn...a lot of basil...a flat of ornamental sunflowers...and many 'Nikki Green' Nicotiana seedlings the size of an apple seed. It's very exciting to see each day's growth. - Nickel LaFleur
Have been mosaicing shoes every night! Photo by Nickel LaFleur
I started lobelia in January and some are just starting to flower. They ought to be in beautiful shape when I put them in my baskets. I also started tomatoes in my Aerogrow system and they are ready to transplant to larger pots. I started Sweet 100 and Peace Vine cherry tomatoes and Stupice. Just started my begonia bulbs. I started annuals Nigella and Convolvulus and perennials Aguilgia (lime green columbine), Knautia, Lychnis (salmon colored) and dwarf Shasta daisys. I really like the new seed started trays for the Aerogarden, however replacements are $19.95 for 72 plugs and fertilizer (too expensive.) - Susan Lang
Just a quick note to say I have not started a single seed this year. Just what you wanted to know huh? Anyway, I did take a shopping trip to the P & M Greenhouse in Eagle River a couple of weeks ago and bought a really great fern. It looks sort of like a Boston but much larger fronds and darker. The girl called it a "macho fern," I think. Anyway just thought I would tell you that no seeds but for sure thinking of spring and what better way to get in the mood (beside the weather) than buying a really great plant. Things are starting to peek out from the rocks and my neighbor is shoveling snow so for me spring is here. - Fran Flint
I've got basil, tomatoes (Early Girl about 8" tall) & artichokes going along with calendula and holly hocks. Just started sweet peas, and sunflowers. Experiment: I tried soaking half of my tomato seed until germination started, about 3 days, before putting in soil and seeding the other half with no soaking. The soaked ones were up way ahead of the non-soaked ones by almost a week. The stems are thicker and more sturdy even after 5 weeks. - Mary Shier
For seeds I’ll be starting broccoli ‘Super Dome’ and blue sweet peas (Lathyrus odoratus.) I bought the sweet peas off the Lily Miller rack in town and hope they’re really the blue color as shown on the seed pack. If they turn out purple I won’t be surprised. In the past I have grown steely blue Lathyrus sativus. They have small flowers but they’re a beautiful blue. - Julie Riley
April 21, 2008 - 7:55am | tagalak
Jane, I planted mammoth sunflowers, too and they are 1 1/2 ft tall as I type and I didn't even know if was an 'error'.... what does that make these 40 sweet corn plants I started in March.....an atrocity?? arararar... your flower selection sounds very exciting.. too bad there are so many seeds to a packet since we are all jonesing for some green shoots -- the more variety the better.... want to do a seedling exchange? I have the market on "love lies bleeding"..... Nickel
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1 April 20, 2008 - 9:26am | jbaldwin
My growing spaces are
My growing spaces are maxed… over planted annuals that I like and don’t find locally: silene colorata (4-5”, hot pink flowering mound); tangerine gem marigolds (they bloomed until October last year); my favorite flower blue in a dwarf, compact, not floppy, bachelor button, Florence Blue ( 12-15”, bushy & continually covered with flowers if deadheaded faithfully). Planted saved seed from blue & pink Clary sage (I can never find that locally--plants or seed), hoping for blues and pinks, but with open pollination who knows, since it also comes in white. . . Not successful in germinating saved seed from a tall purple thalictrum that spontaneously appeared (birds?) in my yard…. think I need to read up on cold stratification seed propagation. I did scatter seeds by the Momma plant so maybe some will germinate naturally (if a bird can do it, why can’t I?).
My worst error of the season (to date!) was starting some sunflowers for my g’kids to sell at a yard sale…. 64 Mammoth sunflowers, now 6-8” tall, well on their way to their potential 6-12 ft. height take a lot of space.
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