Happy New Year! Another year, another chance to garden. Here are some gardening tips for the month of January, to get you back outdoors, where we belong.
And heres...
reBlogged
to gardening
on Dec 31, 2007, 8:44PM
Posted by Reblogged by Old Roses to Gardening on 2008-01-02, 00:36:06
Do you spend more time cursing your backyard than enjoying it? If you associate your backyard with chores (mowing, weeding, etc.), that may very well be the case. So make...
reBlogged
to design
on Jan 1, 2008, 1:38AM
Posted by Reblogged by Old Roses to design on 2008-01-02, 00:34:19
The Magpie was chattering away yesterday.You can see the lovely blue streak on his feathers from the tree top. Hope all your new years eve went with a bang. Two more nights to go....
reBlogged
to birds
Posted by snappy Reblogged by Old Roses to birds on 2008-01-02, 00:34:09
As the clock ticks out the last few hours of 2007, I find myself wondering why the Roman/Julian/Gregorian calendar seems so arbitrary. Shouldn't we mark off the years at some meaningful point in the Earth's orbit around the sun? A solstice or an equinox or something? But we don't. For thirteen years or so (1793-1805), the French started the New Year at the autumnal equinox, coinciding with the grape harvest. This makes a lot more sense to me, especially given the prominent role played by alcohol in our New Year's celebrations. Got your party hat on yet?. ..
reBlogged
to vegetables
Posted by Entangled Reblogged by Old Roses to vegetables on 2008-01-02, 00:33:23
2008 it almost here, I wonder if I will be able to stay awake to see the new year in..........doubtful :).
As seed catalogs arrive earlier and earlier each year I stack them up until after the first of year, three more arrived today, but after tomorrow I can start browsing, YEAH! Spring is just around the corner, right???? Select Seeds arrived today, it is my favorite catalog so I may have to look at that one tomorrow. We have a very quiet day planned, I am going to watch the Rose Parade start to finish on HGTV as they air it without commercials.
Have a happy and safe new year, I feel 2008 is going to bring some changes in my life.
Considering the extreme climates that coastal plants need to contend with, surely they have something to teach us gardeners about the way we garden? For while there seems to be a patternless randomizing about the plants that grow near the beach, there are many attributes coastal plants share that help them succeed where even our hardiest plants would fail. . . .
reBlogged
to plants
on Jan 1, 2008, 3:05AM
Posted by Reblogged by Old Roses to plants on 2008-01-02, 00:32:26
I am still celebrating the holiday season...my daughters and their husbands and the Sweet Granddaughter arrived Friday, December 28, for our family gathering. Even my son, who lives across town, has moved in for the weekend. But I'm taking a moment to check in and reflect on the past year a bit. One year ago I made several resolutions (I think they qualify as goals according to Carol!). ..
reBlogged
to gardening
Posted by Leslie Reblogged by Old Roses to Gardening on 2008-01-02, 00:31:54
We just love to watch the antics of the squirrels. They love to hide peanuts and seeds in various spots in the gardens. They will chase each other up, down, and around the trees.
The black squirrels
The gray squirrels
reBlogged
to pests
Posted by Crafty Gardener Reblogged by Old Roses to pests on 2008-01-02, 00:29:23
The seed swap is a fundamental part of human history. Seeds were one of the first commodities valued and traded. Today, modern gardeners collect and exchange seeds for many reasons ranging from cultivating rare, heirloom varieties to basic thrift. The exchange of seeds perpetuates biodiversity. It is an act of giving and the ultimate form of recycling. . ..
Well, as the year winds up, I find that I haven't blogged nearly enough, there are hundreds of unedited pictures in my computer, and leaves still in my front yard. Peonies didn't recover and bloom, but I still bought more. I finally got around to purchasing bulbs to stick in the ground, but 8 are still unplanted and I don't know where I want to stick them. I have plans of a red clematis to let grow over my stairs, so they won't be an eye sore when I sit in my swing and its a lot of my yard without flowers.
The canoe eats up my weekends, but that's what its for. I wasn't really getting that much more mowing and garden preparation anyway, and there's always the time for that in spring when it's too cold to be on the water. Or fall. Speaking of which, I need to rotate my compost pile more often.
Happy new Year from the garden birds. They are eating the fat balls, this acrobatic blue tit flew in and gripped the cage with his feet. The robin had been doing the same earlier. December 2007 has seen the most page loads of the entire year, surpassing even the Summer months. I must be doing something right :) May all your New Years be beautiful, and all your plants flourish and give you pleasure and healing in equal measures. I am working nights again, so I will be at work when the traditional Big Ben clock at Westminister tolls midnight, and sounds in the the new year "2008". I'll raise a glass of non alcoholic drink if its not busy. Hope to see you all soon. Best wishes to the Blogosphere, all the garden blog readers, and my regular commenters.... from the Snappy Gardener, all the well fed garden birds, and the plants.
reBlogged
to birds
Posted by snappy Reblogged by Old Roses to birds on 2008-01-02, 00:28:11
It used to be that the new vegetable seed catalogs would start to show up in my mailbox sometime after New Years. Well times have changed and guess what arrived in my mailbox right around Thanksgiving? Yep, the first new vegetable seed catalog of the year.
Not that I’m complaining… I’ll confess to actually reading through a vegetable seed catalog as if it was a favorite magazine subscription. What else is a frustrated gardener to do during the cold sometimes snowy days of a long northern winter?. . .
reBlogged
to catalogs
on Dec 31, 2007, 4:25PM
Posted by Kenny Point Reblogged by Old Roses to catalogs on 2008-01-02, 00:27:28
Cold weather is predicted for mid-week but in the meantime the Camellia is putting on quite a show. Happy New Year to all! I hope to see many interesting plants and gardens in the new year.
reBlogged
to camellia
Posted by Ki Reblogged by Old Roses to camellia on 2008-01-02, 00:26:33
1) a variegated euphorbia-- it was just green & white until the cold weather, now this! 2) this also seems in the euphorbia family to me-- but they grow like weeds here & there about the yard-- sometimes getting 6 feet tall. We've heard them called 'gopher spurge' (supposedly they discourage the critters?) Just this past year I started noticing them for sale in nurseries. 3) a variegated 'wallflower' (erysimum) gets ready to bloom
reBlogged
to foliage
Posted by LisaBee Reblogged by Old Roses to foliage on 2008-01-02, 00:25:36
The former prime minister and leader of the Pakistan People’s Party was killed December 27th at a rally in Rawalpindi. There, at her burial place in Garhi Khuda Baksh and across the nation, flowers fell in her honor.
It's been a few years since we've seen this amount of snow! I can't say I'm not enjoying it. This is part of why I live in the North Country. As far as the garden is concerned, the snow provides a good, stabilizing cover for everything. It acts as a mulch, protecting the ground from the heaving frosts. That's a good thing. The bad thing about this much snow is that it can become a very heavy burden for trees and shrubs. The branches are often pushed to their breaking point and hence we see a lot of broken branches in the spring. We can help with this. It's a good thing for us to get out into the fresh air anyway, so let's be productive when we can. . . .
Oh wow! I just noticed this change of color yesterday. This would be the "pup" of my origional plant, and according to the Sunset Western Garden Book, "...As plants prepare to bloom, their central leaves redden. Red flower spike appears in late winter or early spring." Oh! I am SO excited!! This must be T. bulbosa. It didn't have a tag when I bought it.
reBlogged
to plants
Posted by weeder1 Reblogged by Old Roses to plants on 2008-01-02, 00:22:10
Ponds and waterfalls are popular water features in a landscape. But you might wish to take it a step further and add a garden stream to your pond. Why? "The...
reBlogged
to ponds
on Dec 31, 2007, 12:54AM
Posted by Reblogged by Old Roses to ponds on 2008-01-02, 00:21:39
The Gulf Restoration Network GRN formed in 1994 is a network of environmental, social justice, and citizens' groups and individuals committed to restoring the Gulf of Mexico to an ecologically and biologically sustainable condition. Their efforts, among others, include: . . .
reBlogged
to environment
Posted by Nancy Reblogged by Old Roses to environment on 2008-01-02, 00:21:21
Reservoir levels are dropping, the Colorado River is in crisis, and the southwestern U. S., as well as northern Mexico are facing severe water shortages.
reBlogged
to environment
on Dec 31, 2007, 3:00AM
Posted by Reblogged by Old Roses to environment on 2008-01-02, 00:18:29
via The Garden's Gift on 1969-12-31, 19:00:00
~ Cheers! 
