897 replies to this topic

[galleygirl]

To prune the plant:

-if you want a shrub: remove one third of the oldest, thickest stems at their base each year for three years.

-if you want a tree: prune up from the bottom, but don't forget to deadhead

Hope you keep the boyfriend long enough to see the results.

As the saying goes, "From your mouth to...." :rolleyes:

Thanks for the pruning advice; I owe him one, he reglued one of the drawers on my Hoosier cabinet.

[Melonious Thunk]

And in a bonus *not* of my own making, I harvested armload of lilacs from the boyfriend's hedge....Lovely...My whole house smells of them.... :wub:

There is nothing sweeter than the smell of fresh cut lilacs in spring, (if not peonies a few weeks later). Lilacs make me remember my mother, who loved them.
I had a client in New Milford, Connecticut that enjoyed an enormous stand of lilac trees in front of their building, right on the river bank. When I went for meetings, they told me I could bring a cutter and take as many blooms as I cared to, since few others bothered. I used to drive home with the back seat of my car five feet thick in lilac blooms. It was heaven.

[galleygirl]

I have to admit, driving home, with a huge paint-container full on the floor of my car,as a temporary transport mode, the scent was intoxicating...Drug-like....

I think smell is the most evocative scent...

[MyKong]

I have 2 lilac bushes that sit next to the stairs up to the porch. I cannot wait for them to bloom....

sometimes, life in New England is heaven. I am getting a kick just watching my neighbor's peonies grow. They are no where near blooming, but I love keeping an eye on them still.

[Robert Schonfeld]

I associate the scent of lilac blooms with baseball cards. I'm an American boy.

[Rail Paul]

I associate the scent of lilac blooms with baseball cards. I'm an American boy.

for me, lilac is a very midwestern scent, like honeysuckle. Something like the scent of newly plowed soil in the spring, very evocative of renewed life...

[Melonious Thunk]

I associate the scent of lilac blooms with baseball cards. I'm an American boy.

That's Fleers, right?

[Robert Schonfeld]

Right

[Cathy]

The viburnum has gotten tall enough to get full sun, and it's covered with beautiful white blossoms. And my beloved Japanese maple is doing very well.

Some of the perennials didn't come up this year. I miss the bleeding heart and the hostas.

Miguel the garden guy is coming Friday to clean up and plant some annuals - baby impatiens, calladium, fuchsia, oxalis.

[Ron Johnson]

Hostas here are huge from the combination of very wet and very warm spring.

Azaelas and dogwoods have already peaked, and it was an equally good year for them. Some of the azaelas looked like the colors were fake they were so vivid.

[Robert Schonfeld]

I decided to commission Tim Heady to refurbish our gardens. 

Miguel the garden guy is coming Friday to clean up and plant some annuals

Don't any of you guys get your hands dirty?

[Melonious Thunk]

I decided to commission Tim Heady to refurbish our gardens.

Miguel the garden guy is coming Friday to clean up and plant some annuals

Don't any of you guys get your hands dirty?

Yes, but I try not to leave fingerprints.

[Cathy]

Don't any of you guys get your hands dirty?

Absolutely! I just need all the help I can get. ;)

[Liza]

I've heard there's a new tomato plant lady at Union Square on Saturdays - she grows over 100 varieties of plants. More info to come..

Tomorrow: in go the leeks, basil, peppers, etc.

[Priscilla]

I have a few blooms on the sweet peas training on my front fence ... just a few, though. I fear this might be it, these few. I am grateful for whatever they offer, however, as I've never had sweet peas even get this far priorly. The seeds were put in the ground in November, or possibly even October, and the vines have just matured enough to bloom now, in May -- 6 months later. It's me, not them -- there's a bunch of different varieties with respectively different habits. All pink, though.