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
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
Orchid Potting Party - 6/26/2008 11:06 am
Posted: April 22, 2008 - 12:47 pm
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Happy Earth Day!
Green is a GOOD color. Squash seedlings on their way. Photo by Fran Durner
A letter is arriving in local mailboxes from Costco and the Garden State Bulb Company apologizing for selling bags of tropical plants and other non-hardy perennials in the Costco stores. It advises members that they can bring in their bags for a full refund if they wish.
Now that's a first!
Costco has been selling bags of cannas and colocasias and crocosmias and other plants that are not hardy in Alaska (in fact, some won't even bloom in our short summers) for years, but this is the first time they have sent out a recall and an apology that I can remember.
Perhaps people are finally complaining about these plants. Maybe next summer they'll actually ship plants that are right for our zone.
Bring back these bags of tropical plants for a refund.In the meantime, if you bought the "Lush Tropical Garden Collection," or the "Exotic Lily of the Nile Duo," or the "Tropical Diamond Collection," (the names should have been a clue) you can bring back the packaging with the UPC codes for a refund.
3 April 24, 2008 - 7:29am | tagalak
AK Mill & Feed greenhouses are filling up
I saw plants in the greenhouses at AK Mill & Feed on Wednesday afternoon. Lots of roses, and lots of annuals ... nice looking pelargoniums, wave petunias and wonderful house filling up with herbs. Margaret says there will be a lot more plants arriving daily so to check in often ...
Fred Meyers had some Alaska hardy rugosa roses for
around 9 bucks. And around $5 for a hybrid tea. Lots of nice shoots for those of use jonesing for some greenery. Hooray... spring to be here shortly...
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2 April 23, 2008 - 1:50pm | talkdirt
Just came back from Costco across the street from the ADN and they have their first small shipment of trees and shrubs in. All hardy for our zone. Someone already bought ALL the blue spruce but there is weeping Norway spruce, Piciea abies pendula, $136.99; Mt. Ash, Sorbus auc, $72.99; Amur maple, Acer ginnala, $72.99; and a Burning Bush, Euonymus alata 'Compacta', $37.99. They also had double spikes of various colors of phalenopsis orchids at $18.99 that were walking out of there as if they had legs. I have heard that shipments of orchids will be coming in sporadically.
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1 April 22, 2008 - 3:07pm | tagalak
trees in at Sam's Club in Muldoon
I slid by Sam's Club on Friday and they had a huge stash of evergreen trees. Said they had just gotten them in.... I suggested they water them thoroughly and anyone who wants to buy one (think they were around $87 a piece)..buy now..... and just keep them
in your garage or basement in their pots until you can
dig in the soil...... it's a bargain price for an evergreen as long as it doesn't dry out before going home with you. Unlike flowers, trees take a lot longer to die than a few days when they've been starved of water....
buy now... or when the NEXT shipment comes in.
Anyone notice if Costco has evergreens in?
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4 April 24, 2008 - 10:02am | rosmarinus
tropical plants at Costco
I know crocosmia is not hardy here, but my neighbor had a pot last year and I fell in love with the flowers. I can bring them in, no big deal. Ditto agapanthus (lily of the nile). Neither are begonias or fuchsias but that doesn't stop the local use of them.
Costco doesn't need to appologize at all.
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