Perennials, schmerennials

My perennial garden, a month after planting. Now that I can compare my perennials to everyone else's, it's becoming really evident how much sunlight my plants are missing out on. Some people's gardens are getting more than 20 hours of sunlight right now; mine gets barely eight in the sunniest spot, which is where I put my J.P. Connell. Of course the fact that all these perennials were just planted this spring also slows them down compared to established plants, but I blame mostly the sunlight.

More specifically, here is how everyone is doing.

• J.P. Connell is putting out tons of leaves. Not a lot of height being gained, but certainly the leaves are doing great.


• None of the tulips came up. That's too bad, but then again, it would be foolish to underestimate a plant. Maybe they're biding their time.


• Only two of the three double oriental lilies came up, and I can't remember where the third one is, otherwise I'd dig and see what's happening. Now the thing is, there are three of them because they came as a set: Soft Music, which I really liked, Lodewijk, which I really really really really liked, and Magic Star, which I bought because it was included with the other two. So if the missing one is Soft Music or Magic Star, well, that's one thing. But if it's Lodewijk, I'll be very sad. On the other hand, now that my garden is essentially complete, I can afford to buy a few more Lodewijks next spring if I have to.


• The Celebrity peony (the $40 one) is putting out canes. Not nearly as fast as everyone else's peonies that get three times as much sun, but it's alive and well. You can't be in a rush with peonies anyway, they live 20 years and don't like having their roots disturbed, so it's pretty fair that the first summer is a bit slow.


• The Shirley Temple peony (the $12 one) has live roots, but so far no canes. I wonder if I should have buried the entire thing like I did with Celebrity. But, again, if it fails, there is a lot more room in the garden budget for next year, so I can replace it. In fact, I can replace it with something much fancier, from a peony specialist.


• The Asiatic lilies are... still alive, I guess. They got horribly burned and beaten by the cold north wind since they've been out there, but the roots are alive. The orange one that wasn't what I ordered is even looking like there is new growth on it.


• The Stargazer lily is out there somewhere... maybe. It hasn't come up. But since I paid $6 for it and it gave me some lovely flowers last year, maybe I've got my money's worth out of it.


• The dicentra stopped blooming, but the leaves look very happy.


• The toad lilies are all alive, though not growing quickly.


• The anemones are growing. In fact, they may be the fastest-growing bulb I have.


• The ranunculi which I bought from my work's fundraiser haven't come up, but it was more for a good cause than because I wanted ranunculi anyway.


• Someone donated a foot-tall lilac. They grow everywhere in her yard because there used to be a big one that the landlord cut down. Anyway, it's wide awake. I put it in the shade, since they seem to be highly shade tolerant.


• The flax finally seems to be prospering, though there isn't nearly as much as I should have got out of four packets of seeds. Hopefully this time it will establish itself and I won't have to do it again.


• The pansies are sprouting, but since the dog picked that spot for her bed at first, I suspect most of the seeds stuck to her fur and are gone.


• The hollyhocks are also sprouting.


• The California poppies are also sprouting.


• The pear trees are not moving much. They withstood the wind very well, but I suppose it must still be a drag.


• The two mayday trees haven't leafed out yet and have no new growth whatsoever, even though they're alive and they were growing inside the winter hut. I might have to get more seeds in the fall.

That's pretty much the things I know about. I know I seeded some other things, but I don't know what I put where or what they look like as sprouts. There are certainly many shapes of sprouts coming up. I suspect some of them are from the bird seed mix, but clearly some are weeds. Luckily, I now know a black mustard sprout when I see it, so I've been able to pull them when they're less than an inch tall and still harmless.

Perhaps the greatest sign of progress is that I have not dumped thousands of seeds indiscriminately because "nothing is coming up." So it looks a little sparse right now, but when everything gets moving in July, it's gonna look pretty good, if I do say so myself. On the other hand, it certainly doesn't make for a lot of blogging.

I hate my camera, or, the new summer garden

Once upon a time, I had the best camera ever: the Canon PowerShot S5 IS. Then Canon came up with the next generation of big zooms: the Canon PowerShot SX30 IS. I immediately bought it and gave my S5 away to a friend. Sadly the SX30 is worthless. Yes, it has a big zoom. That's nice. On the other hand, it's nearly impossible to focus. The autofocus is bad, the macro doesn't work at all, and the manual focus not only can't be worked in cold weather, it also re-focuses to be out of focus every time. Supposedly you could stop it doing that by setting "Safety MF" to "off", but I did that and it's still doing it. I emailed Canon about it and they said thanks for the feedback, we will certainly work on it. And everyone else said the same thing. So when Canon issued the next model, it was... exactly identical. Oh, wait, no: it has a CMOS instead of a CCD processor. Other than that, it's exactly the same piece of worthless, unusable junk that everyone told them wasn't working.

At times I've considered buying a Canon DSLR, although it would be a waste of money and I don't feel like walking around with that much weight around my neck. But since they're obviously not interested in selling me a camera, I'm now in the market for anything but a Canon.

Anyway, the point of this long story is, I'm not getting any reasonable pictures of sprouts, because my camera can't focus. But that being said, here is what's happening in the garden.

You may remember that back in October, I had winterised my garden, thusly:


I wasn't sure when would be a good date to open it up, but the weather has been so warm this spring, I could probably have done it much earlier than May 4. The reason I did it that day is, it was a Saturday, it was warm, and my spring bulbs had been shipped.

So. Step 1, clear my living room floor.


Wow, I have a living room? Who knew?

Step 2: remove the tarp from the garden, spread it on the living room floor.


Step 3: remove all the batts and pile them neatly on the tarp. I was extremely please to find that both the batts and the cardboard were still in their original condition: no weathering, no mold, nothing. Perfectly preserved. Yay, me!


Step 4: fold up the tarp and use the same rope to tie it all up. It didn't pack down exactly as small as in the original packaging, but it's pretty compact, as used-batt-storage goes.


And yes, I did make a handle with the rope. Rope work is one of my many untapped talents, if I do say so myself. (Thank you Dad for all the summers on the ocean sailing Lasers!)

The result:


Ok, you can't see in the picture, but it's perfect. The two trees are still alive, they still have water, they are neither dry nor moldy. The Jungle is neither dry nor moldy. Everything performed exactly as planned. BOOYA!

Now, I need to set up my giant flowerbeds.


What the???? They don't have any bottoms! Aaaaaaaah! Well, that explains why they were so affordable. And it does give me some latitude in setting them up: as you can see in the bottom left corner, I can slide it so it's a rectangle instead of a square, thus giving me a little more room to walk around them.


I used 2" rigid to make a bottom. I'd have needed some rigid insulation underneath for the winter anyway. The only difference between this and having a bottom is, I won't be able to move them. I had been toying with the idea of moving to 707, because the 07s are one-bedrooms with the biggest balconies and the best exposure in the whole building. It would have been rather difficult to move these giant planters had they had a bottom; without a bottom, they'd have to be disassembled and the dirt wheelbarrowed over there, and I doubt I'd have that kind of ambition. Oh well; saves me a fortune on rent and prevents people inviting themselves to live in my house.

The insulation was donated by Drill Guy, who insisted on "helping" with this project. As if I needed help. I did need insulation though, and this is about $70 worth, which is nice. Except I don't like having a $70 obligation to some dude. But oh well.

The gap between the two sides is deliberate, for drainage purposes. Then as you can see, I put some mesh screen over the gap, to prevent the soil from washing away.


Then, I dumped the used soil from previous years, which I was keeping in a large garbage can, and all the planters. The ones you can see here, all root-bound, are the Wall of Insanity. Brutal, isn't it?

But as we know, I needed much, much more soil. Thusly:


I think I ended up with about 20 bags of soil and manure. And this is my very awesome Fnord minivan, which is excellent for hauling anything under the sun.


This is how much bonemeal it takes for one flowerbed. Finally, I'm making a dent in my inexhaustible supply of bonemeal.


The thing is, and I should have thought of it sooner, the pressure from the soil caused the free side to slide out, thus reducing my walking space, increasing the amount of soil needed, and leaving a gap between the insulation and the wall. So, I had to dig the soil away from the wall,


slide the wall back into place, and stabilize it with spacers made from the lumber of the dog's former lawn.


I transplanted everything that was ready to go out, but it didn't lend itself to much photography. I had tulip bulbs in the fridge. The tulip bulbs in the Jungle got too much moisture and were all squishy; I threw them out. Peng Dehuai and Liu Shao-ch'i are wide awake. Deng Xiaoping, sadly, died. Funny that the two that were outside lived and the one inside died, but I'm not surprised. It broke dormancy and then got too much water, or some such problem. Anyway, it's dead as a doornail. I'll have to find something else to name after Deng Xiaoping. Also my two pear trees. Oh yeah, I only have two pear trees left, because the other two got so badly infested with spider mites, I cut them off and put them in the garbage. Sorry, little dudes. Natural selection didn't select you.

What else... My peony, but more on that later. My flax / dogwood / cotoneaster experiment, which is displeasing me considerably. And my old lilies: the orange one that was supposed to be black, the two that never flowered that were supposed to be black, and the Stargazer from last year, which hasn't shown any sign of life since being moved in with the other lilies.

Two days later, my spring bulbs arrived. Yay, spring bulbs! A big box, too. Ooooooooh, exciting!


This is my $40 Celebrity peony. As you can see, it's wide awake. The downside is, I have absolutely no idea which side is up and which side is down. Hmmmm... Think think think. I ended up burying the whole thing. If I know anything about plants, it's that they have excellent proprioception. A few days later, I worried that this was the wrong thing to do, so I dug back to my peony root, and found that it had grabbed on to the soil and was sending upwards growth. Booya!

My other peony, the $13 Shirley Temple one, came in the fall and had no growth on it at all. It shouldn't, of course. Fall bulbs are supposed to be dormant. So I had it in a planter all winter, and it never did anything, and I assumed it was dead. But when I set up the garden, I dug it up, and found the roots were starting to produce some downward growths. Rhizomes, maybe. I don't pretend to know the difference between a root, a bulb, a rhizome, or all the other disturbing things plants do under the ground. I do, however, know the difference between alive and dead, and both my peony roots were very much alive as of two weeks ago. They're still not growing above ground, but I looked at other people's established in-ground peonies, and they're not doing anything above ground yet either.


And this is my J.P. Connell rose. J.P. Connell is one of the hardy Explorer roses, developped by Agriculture Canada for our climate. Back when the Canadian government actually did things for people. Here, J.P. Connell is soaking, along with some anemone bulbs. And as you can see, it too is still alive, with green growth already showing on the canes. At least I don't have to guess what's up and what's down on this one.


These creepy things are toad lilies. There is supposed to be one purple, one orange, and one pink.

There were also three double oriental lilies in the package, which I didn't photograph. If they succeed, they will be absolutely spectacular.

As for the anemones, they're not supposed to go out until after last frost, and I was in a hurry, so I dumped them into something that had soil and nothing growing, put some dirt over top, and forgot about it for a few days. Then white mold got at them and ate about half of them. Boohoohoohoohoo... How sad. But then again, maybe I shouldn't have bought anemones. They're not even the ones I really wanted. Now the survivors are sprouting. We'll see.

Then, I also seeded everything I could think of: jacks-in-the-pulpit, dodecatheon, all the pansies, hollyhock, columbine, California poppies, regular grass, cat grass... That's all I can think of. And I can't quite remember what I put where. I know where the poppies and hollyhocks are, and more or less the jacks and dodecatheons. For the rest... it will be a surprise, I guess.


Voila. This was the summer garden as of 10:14 on May 12.


This is J.P. Connell today. As you can see, it's wide awake. I'm taking it as a bellwether for the health of the roots that have no above-ground component yet. If the rose is doing ok, so must they. Right? I hope so.


And this is one of the double oriental lilies. Took about eight tries to get the camera to focus on it. Again, if this one is alive, that must mean conditions are adequate for the other ones underground, right? And as you can see, the grass is starting to sprout. There are some other seeds sprouting, but since I forgot what I put where, and the whole thing is riddled with old seeds from the last three years, it could be anything.

This morning the weather being ridiculously warm and comfortable, I also transplanted the dicentra. I bought it from the hardware store a while back. As you may recall, the hardware store has a habit of carrying bulbs in little baggies. It's a horribly unhealthy thing to do to a bulb; they come on a truck from who knows where, and then sit in the store for days or weeks waiting to be bought by someone who doesn't know better. That's how I got my Stargazer. And this particular dicentra looked very healthy for all that, and what's more, it's a white one. Dicentra is commonly known as "bleeding heart" and I don't really like the pink ones. I didn't even know it came in white. So I took it home, put it in some dirt, immediately it grew and flowered. I could have sworn I took pictures of the flowers, but I'm not finding them. Anyway, it's very pretty. But now it's just putting out leaves and no more flowers. Anyway, I didn't want to put it out in the cold wind too soon, but this morning I found it a spot outside. Now I just got to do the anemones, and then I won't have anything left to plant.

Hmmmmmm...

Ok, so what do I do with the rest of the summer? Grow pumpkins, I guess. But that's for another post.

Pray for my baobabs!

Currently I have six baobab seeds on the go, but I'm pretty sure one is dead and a second is not moving. Of the other four, two have been in the dirt for a long time, and two were just planted two days ago in pasteurized soil. I'm refraining from checking on them on the grounds that if they're alive, they don't need me bothering them, and if dead, there's nothing I can do about it.

In addition, there is still a lychee, which I think is dead; two kwyjibo seeds; three Robusta coffee seeds; 27 freshly destratified cherry pits; and the holly seeds that still have one month to go in the CryoVat. And then of course the dogwood and cotoneaster seeds in the outdoor CryoVat.

That's not all! There is also the peony root, the three alien spores, 12 tulip bulbs sleeping in the fridge, and 18 bulbs of various species spending the winter outside in the Jungle.

Why am I on about this? Because some weeks ago I read an article about the efficacy of prayer. You see, I'm a Lutheran, and I would say a fairly devout one. Though of course since Lutherans are fairly rare (about 0.26% of Canadians, if I'm not mistaken), I only meet them at church, and ipso facto every Lutheran I know is "fairly devout."

Be that as it may, I don't believe in prayer.

GASP!

How can you be a devout Christian and not believe in prayer? Because we Lutherans believe in thinking about what we believe, whereas most people consider that faith and reason are intrinsically incompatible. But if you look at prayer logically in the context of what we believe we know about God, it should be self-evident that prayer, as most people do it, is useless. There are three things you can do with prayer: give glory, give thanks, or admit you're powerless and affirm your trust in God. Most people, however, use prayer to make long to-do lists for God, and therefore expect that God will manifest his approval by getting some of the to-do list done. And then they'll tell you "prayer works."

All right then. I set out to find out what evidence there is of the efficacy of prayer. Because one thing I can tell you for sure, I've read the entire New Testament, and nothing in it supports the idea that you can tell God what you want and he'll get 'er done for you. So if there is evidence for the efficacy of prayer, given that it isn't supported by the Bible, it better be supported by something very, very convincing.

Promptly I found an article titled Scientific Research of Prayer: Can the Power of Prayer Be Proven? by Debra Williams, D.D. (1999 PLIM Retreat, (c) 1999 PLIM REPORT, Vol. 8 #4).

Ok, first of all, "D.D." means "Doctor of Divinity". I have a B.Sc., "Bachelor of Science." That means I have scientific training and she doesn't. So I feel competent to question her findings. Or lack of findings, insofar that the article isn't original research, but a survey of some of the existing research. In particular, I find the following statement: "In a study on germinating seeds done by Dr. Franklin Loehr, a Presbyterian minister and scientist, the objective was to see in a controlled experiment what effect prayer had over living and seemingly non-living matter. In one experiment they took three pans of various types of seeds. One was the control pan. One pan received positive prayer, and the other received negative prayer. Time after time, the results indicated that prayer helped speed germination and produced more vigorous plants. Prayers of negation actually halted germination in some plants and suppressed growth in others."

Hmmmmm...

Most interesting. Further on, regarding an experiment using bacteria:

Bacteria presumably do not think positively or negatively. Another major advantage of microorganisms in studies of distant mental intentions has to do with the control group. If the effects of intercessory prayer, for example, are being assessed in a group of humans who have a particular illness, it is difficult to establish a pure control group that does not receive prayer. The reason is that sick human beings generally pray for themselves; or outsiders pray for them, thus contaminating the control group, which by definition should not receive the treatment being evaluated.

In studies involving microbes, this notorious "Problem of Extraneous Prayer" is totally overcome because one can be reasonably certain that the bacteria, fungi, or yeast in a control group will not pray for themselves. And that their fellow microbes will not pray for them.

If the study involved negative intentions instead of positives, the advantages remain the same. The thoughts of microorganisms do not influence its outcome.

Jean Barry, a physician-researcher in Bordeaux, France, chooses to work with a destructive fungus, Rhizoctonia Solani. He asked 10 people to try to inhibit its growth merely through their intentions at a distance of 1.5 meter.

The experiment involved control Petri dishes with fungi that were not influenced in addition to those that were. The laboratory conditions were carefully controlled regarding the genetic purity of the fungi and the composition of the culture medium, the relative humidity, and the conditions of temperature and lighting.

The control petri dishes and the influenced dishes were treated identically, except for the negative intentions directed toward the latter. A person who was blind to the details of the experiment handled various manipulations. The influences simply took their stations at the 1.5 meters and were free to act as they saw fit for their own concentration. For 15 minutes each subject was assigned five experimental and five control dishes. Of the ten subjects three to six subjects worked during a session, and there were nine sessions.

Measurement of the fungi colony on the Petri dish was obtained by outlining the boundary of the colony on a sheet of thin paper. Again, someone who did not know the aim of the experiment or the identity of the Petri dishes did this. The outlines were then cut out and weighed under condition of constant temperature and humidity. When the growth in 195 experimental dishes was compared to their corresponding controls, it was significantly retarded in 151 dishes. The possibility that these results could be explained by chance was less than one in a thousand.

Hmmmmmm...

You see, I'm pretty sure that this proves the opposite of anything, but first of all as the more educated scientist here, I take exception with the idea that "one can be reasonably certain" that micro-organisms cannot pray for themselves or each other. In fact eukaryotes very much have the ability to sacrifice themselves for the good of the colony, so whatever non-thoughts go on in their non-brains, I think the last thing I would want to assume about them is that they're not capable of wishing for the well-being of their peers with all their non-heart, with all their non-soul, and with all their non-mind.

Regardless, if we make the assumption that humans have far greater capacity for prayer than bacteria, we can still explain this result as a sign of the power of prayer, in a sense. But if we grant (which I haven't so far) that this proves that prayer does indeed reliably control the growth rate of bacteria, then it also proves that the mechanism by which prayer works has nothing to do with any Higher Power. If the power of prayer lay in the ability of humans to dictate the actions of a Higher Power, then most certainly this experiment would have failed, because the Higher Power would not waste its time speeding and slowing the growth of bacteria over and over as the humans dictate. If there is a Higher Power, then by definition we do not have power over it, therefore we can't make it do this sophomoric little trick with the bacteria every time we ask.

So apparently, attempts at scientific investigation of the efficacy of prayer have shown us two things: 1) prayer makes plants grow faster and 2) this is completely independent of a/the Higher Power. Which means that it isn't necessary to believe in any Higher Power, or in the efficacy of prayer in influencing said Higher Power, in order for prayer to make plants grow.

Ha.

Well actually, that's rather to my advantage. If I believed God listens to those whiny lists of demands and goes out of his way to comply, I certainly wouldn't pray for something as irrelevant as a baobab seed. But since obviously this has nothing to do with God, and since there is some rudimentary support for its effectiveness, it's worth trying. So if you're NOT the praying type and/or you do NOT believe in a Higher Power, please pray for my seeds, bulbs, roots, rhizomes and alien spores. Because the more you do, the more I'll have to blog about.

QED, yes?

Welcome to the Winter Garden

Here is what's going on in the Winter Garden, that is, my living room. (I live in a bachelor suite, so my "living room" is also my bedroom, music room, office, kitchen to the extent that there is no wall between the two, and tropical plant conservatory.)

• Planter #8: one Passiflora edulis that survived my complete lack of effort and some overwatering over the summer. Also there are some seed pods I harvested off an unidentified yellow-flowering plant in someone else's yard, and an avocado pit that I've buried in there, but I'm gonna dig it up because it's probably just rotting instead of sprouting.



• Planter #9: the oriental lily, having now shed all its leaves and been cut back to the ground; the alleged "blue" geranium, still alive, still not blue; and two or three globe thistles, one of which is putting forth some new growth. I don't expect much from any of these, but that's no big deal. I'll get more globe thistle seeds in the spring, and the other two never meant much to me.



• Planter #10: two pear trees.



• Planter #11: the Hope lemon tree, beautiful as always though currently dropping leaves. I gave them 6 L each of water around October 13, when they seemed to be finally thirsty, and as a result they are again showing signs of being over-watered. In addition, they are getting no light lately, October being a particularly bad month for sunlight. People think we lack light in winter; in reality, the real winter months have lots of beautiful sunny days, but while the lake is open in October and November, we get mostly overcast skies and precipitation. It's depressing for people, and makes lemon trees pale and sad.



• Planter #12: the Faith lemon tree, again showing its strength compared to Hope by not complaining so much about the circumstances. On the other hand, and I'll tell you more in a later post, Faith has the problem of very poor branching habits so far, so that I have the choice of pruning almost everything off or letting it go on with really crowded branches until a path suggests itself.



• Planter #13: two pear trees.



• Planter #18: baobabs and lychees. This planter is now in a dark corner against the heat register, after I read a post on a gardening forum from someone who couldn't get his kaffir lemons to sprout until he built them an incubator and raised the temperature to 35 C. That reminded me that my original baobabs were sprouted in June, so in warm weather, and my lemons were sprouted by leaving them against the heat register for a month. So I hie the planter thence, and sure enough, now I have a digitata sprouting. Perhaps even two digitatas, as I planted the dried-out (I thought) seeds from the previous attempt, and I seem to be seeing two roots. However, time will tell. At least one za seed is not sprouted yet; I know because I removed some surface mold with a fork and found it, the mold, had reached the seed. So I washed off the seed, which seems healthy though not cracking yet, and replanted it. As for the lychee, I'm not touching it. I can see its shiny carapace, so I know it hasn't rotted yet, and there is no point in disturbing it yet again.



• Planter #19: Deng Xiaoping



• Planter #20: the peony, which is of a variety called "Shirley Temple". I don't like that name, but the catalog photo was pretty. This afternoon I decided to make sure I had the planting depth right, so I dug it up, measured 1 3/4 inch up each stalk, tied a string marker there, replanted it so the dirt came up to the string, and then removed the strings. We construction workers like this sort of simple-minded trick. So now the peony is also by the heat register, awaiting its fate.



• Planter #21: the Asiatic lily / grotesque carnivorous alien bulbs. This one is in the kitchen right now, but I might move it to the heat corner... later. If the fancy takes me. And if I get around to tidying up that corner, which was recently occupied by some sort of amorphous clutter.



• CryoVat: there are actually two cryovats going right now, one for cherry pits which I plan to destratify in two weeks or so, and one with holly seeds which still have six weeks to go, and even so, I mentioned it before, can take "18 months to three years" to sprout. I'm not sure where I got the idea that I want to be challenged by my garden, but apparently, that's the path I'm taking.

Meanwhile, on the balcony:

• Outdoor CryoVat: Planter #17 is out on the balcony with dogwood and cotoneaster seeds. Like I said before, I figure that since it worked for the maydays, it should work equally well for anything I harvest around town. Meanwhile it's also contributing to my heat reservoir, if only a little.



• In the Winter Hut: the Jungle, with bulbs of tulips, daffodils, and stuff I don't remember the name of which is welcome to die; and also hollyhocks and flax from this year, which I hope will live to fight another year. Also, Liu Shao-ch'i and Peng Dehuai, which I really really really hope will make it. Inshallah.

So now you know.

Bulbs, schmulbs

I received my fall bulbs on Thursday. October 27. What the? I thought the supplier was supposed to have a schedule of when to send these things out so we get them in time for planting?

See, here in "the north", we have six seasons: spring, summer, fall, freeze-up, winter, break-up. Fall bulbs have to be planted in the fall. October 27 is not fall, it's freeze-up. Fall bulbs needed planting a month ago. And in any case, I winterized the summer garden on October 23, and I'm not taking it all down again for some bulbs.

So, bulbs.

Mind you, not all "bulbs" are bulbs. Some are roots, others are rhizomes. I'm not sure how a root or bulb is different from a rhizome, but a bulb is certainly different from a root. So in my shipment of "bulbs" I had one bare root (of a peony), eight bulbs (of tulip), and three...


What in the world is this thing, anyway? A bulb? A rhizome? A spore that will turn into some hideous alien creature that will eat me and the dog from the inside out?

Be that as it may, these things were marked as "plant right away, don't allow it to dry."

Anything you say, boss. Except I didn't have a planter ready for them, as I wasn't expecting them, or anything else, on that day.

I soaked the peony root, because I remember reading that it's good for bare roots to be soaked. Then I filled Planter #20, which is a 12" self-draining planter, with soil, manure and perlite. Then I planted the root, which is a rather stressful operation because first I wasn't sure which side was up, and second, peonies have to be planted quite accurately, with the crown (where the roots and stems meet) 1 1/2 to 2 inches below the surface of the soil. So now I'm haunted by the thought that my peony is not exactly 1 3/4 inch below the surface and will never flower.

The whatever-it-is, on the other hand, is fairly easy to plant. It's an Asiatic lily, by the way. Or some repugnant flesh-eating alien. In any case, you plant it 6" below the surface. Aye, there is the rub... I didn't have any planters with 6" available. Almost all my planters are only 6" deep, and that only in the centre. So I had to bring in Planter #21, where the pansies were, bizarrely, still alive. I hadn't been watering them, so they were drooping, but the leaves were still green and there were still some open flowers. October 27. I kid you not. And the other thing about pansies, they're really shallow-rooted, so it's easy to reclaim the planter for something else.

Still, I had to wait overnight for the planter to thaw. Because pansies are so badass, they can bloom in frozen soil. I kid you not. So while waiting for that, I did some maintenance that was overdue on the rest of the winter garden, namely, pears and Deng Xiaoping. I had mentioned, I believe, that they needed repotting, and that I figured it would be easy because the pears make taproots and Deng makes wide, shallow roots.

Ha.

Outsmarted by a plant again. Sigh...

The pears had indeed made taproots. And mind you, there were five pear trees, not four. Somehow one of them had escaped my eagle eye so far. I may be eagle-eyed, but apparently I'm also eagle-brained. So anyway, these five little trees had made taproots, dug down to the bottom of the planter, and wrapped themselves around and around. "Pot bound", or "root bound", as it's called. A very nasty condition that one is supposed to prevent. On the other hand, if you're making bonsais, as I am to some extent, they do need to get pot bound, otherwise they don't get stunted.

But that's not the worst! The worst part is that Deng Xiaoping had made not only wide shallow roots that had tangled into the pears, but also some long deep roots that were winding around the bottom of the pot. Woe!

Fortunately, I clued in soon enough when I couldn't lift Deng out with the potting trowel, and got smart and dumped the whole pot out, so I could shake out the dirt and detangle the roots with a minimum of damage. Like I've said a few times, I've never lost a plant to repotting yet, and so far it looks promising. 36 hours after repotting, none of the four pear trees I kept are even drooping. I threw out the spindliest one. The other four are two in Planter #13 and two in Planter #10. I know, I know... I should have culled them down to two, but I want to see which two of the four do the best, and also maximize my chances of having any live pear trees left come spring.

Deng meanwhile moved to Planter #19, formerly inhabited by English daisies. Trying to kill and uproot English daisies is a considerable endeavour, so there are still roots throughout the soil in that planter, but hopefully they'll just decay and become "organic matter" for Deng to eat. Plant cannibalism. Ew.

The next day, Planter #21 being thawed out, I dug down 6", added some bone meal and manure, and planted the three alleged Asiatic lilies.

So in all that, the eight tulip bulbs are still in the fridge, and I'm wondering what to do with them. Tulips, allegedly, can winter in the fridge quite safely, but since I've never done it before, I'm inclined to plant four, leave four in the fridge, and see which group does best. But since tulips also need 6 to 8" planting depth, I'd need to set up another deep planter, and I'm not sure how I want to approach that. If it was spring and I was just waiting for the soil to warm up, I could bury them quite shallow and then replant them in a few weeks, but it's six months until summer gardening season, which seems like a rather long time to be in "temporary" planting.

One thing I like about gardening is, you never run out of life-or-death decisions that you're hopelessly unqualified to make.

More reasons I'm single

Some people use their kitchen for cooking food. In my kitchen I have:


A peony root soaking in water prior to planting.


A fridge that contains almost exclusively dog food and garden things. On top of the fridge is more dog food and garden things, and some bird food. On the board are more seeds and notes about the garden. Not shown, to the left of the fridge is a pile of planters and a big bag of composted cow manure; to the right of the fridge are the dog's food dishes; and opposite the fridge is a bigger pile of planters. And the dish drying rack contains several garden tools.

I do use my kitchen for food, though. Sometimes I make toast.

Garden Ninja hits a snag

I got bored of waiting for the seed pods to open on the peonies, so I picked one and cut it open with a knife. It was full of tiny white seeds like those in a bell pepper. Hmmmmm... That doesn't look right.

So I googled and I read that most peony seeds from hybrids are in fact sterile. Dang! There goes Plan B. And even if you get fertile seeds, they have to be stratified not once but twice: first warm, until they make roots, then cold for months, until spring. And you know how I feel about stratifying.

Next, I asked the Head Librarian if I could dig a bulb from their peonies, since they have a variety that no one else has. But she said she'd rather not as there is "only one plant". Hmmmmmm... In fact there isn't "only one plant" as herbaceous peonies multiply by their roots and can be divided every three years at least, but, it's her plant, I'm not gonna argue with her. She said I'm welcome to the seeds...

Hm. This is proving tougher than I anticipated. If the library won't let me dig bulbs, I'm doubting the goodwill of the total strangers on whose private properties are two of the varieties I want. So we might be back to Plan C: money.

But at least I know I can get a white one from Ioana. That should get my feng shui started in the right direction, at least.

Garden Ninja tightens the noose

After some discussion with my peony expert, it appears that buying a tree peony is a bad idea, for two reasons. One, it might not survive shipping, and two, it doesn't do well (according to her) as a household plant. And normally I don't care what plants want, as I'm sole master here after God, but an $80 plant gets to make the rules. So if the plant says it won't work, I'm not gonna try it.

This brings us back to the herbaceous peonies, of which I've now discovered two more locations: one at the library, of a variety not occurring at any of my other locations; and one in my friend Ioana's garden, and she says I can dig it. Yaaaaaaay! Thanks Ioana!

So now I have permission to dig one variety; I'm sure I'll get permission to dig at the library and the church; that leaves one variety that I've only found on private property not belonging to someone I know. But they have such a massive quantity that I doubt they'll refuse if I ask politely. I could even offer to give them money. Peony roots are quite expensive, so it would be fair to pay them something.

Excellent.

Now I need a container.

Hmmmmmmmm...

Not so much. I just came back from the hardware stores and there was nothing suitable. There are tons of 10" planters, but that's too small for four peony roots. I found one kind of 12" planter; it's very ugly, and also too small for four peony roots. There is one like the Jungle, therefore 20", but I don't want it for two reasons: it's black and doesn't have a false bottom. And then there is one 20" with a false bottom which I suppose is intended to look like... some kind of period piece, even to the fake-aged-metal colour. It is beyond hideous... and costs $50. So no.

Ideally, I'd like a square container, not a round one. I think I might have to have them order one for me. And hopefully we get going to Rocanville so I can pay for it.

Next question: when? Peonies are supposed to be dug "in September" and "at least two to three weeks before first frost".

Hahaha.

"Two to three weeks before first frost" is in August. But I suppose the peonies here know that. So I think I'll dig them the second week of August; unless I get called to work before that, in which case I'll dig them before I leave and hope the drip line takes good care of them.

Then, how?

Lois Hole explains how to dig bulbs and it seems fairly easy. Thusly:

1. Dig.
2. Remove plant from excavation.
3. Cut off a chunk of the roots.
4. Put plant back in excavation.
5. Backfill.
6. Water.

Sounds easy enough. Hopefully this isn't one of those things that sound much easier than they really are.

Hehehehehehehehe... My relationship luck is totally gonna be activated! Woooooo!

Garden Ninja on the prowl

I have identified eight locations on the dog's walk where peonies are growing. Real peonies, not roses that I can't tell the difference.

Pros: there are three different colours. Most of them are easily accessible from the driveway without disturbing the owner's property. Two are currently going to seed and the owners have not removed the spent flowers so far. Therefore, if they leave it alone until the seeds mature, I can harvest some seeds from each variety and have a very pleasant assortment of peonies, for free.

Cons: they're all herbaceous peonies, and I really, really want a tree peony. The owners might yet remove the spent flowers before I can get any seeds. And according to Lois Hole, it takes five to seven years for peonies to flower from seed.

On the other hand, time is the one thing I have in ridiculously large excess, so if the peonies take seven years to bloom, so what? I'm not going anywhere. And the baobabs are gonna take 20 years. Free peonies in seven years versus $80 peony next year. Think think think...

Besides, nothing stops me from doing both. I can get free peony seeds this year, and then if the job works out and I have some money later, I can also buy an expensive tree peony.

Of course I could also ask permission to dig some bulbs. There are some at the church, and I know they'd let me. Another house has so many, I doubt they'd mind. And I'm personally acquainted with a third. Between those three, I'd have all three varieties. Could be worth a try.

Good grief, these things are expensive

Since my peony turned out to be a rose, I'm still on the market for a peony. I like this one:


You like? It's called "shima nishiki". It's Japanese. I think it's very pretty.

It costs $55.

Plus $20 for shipping and handling.

Plus $3.75 GST.

Plus $0.50 fuel surcharge.

Anything else?

Nope, that's all of it. $79.25. Eighty bucks.

Eighty bucks? Have I mentioned lately there are kids starving in Somalia? That you could donate money to here? $10? Pretty please?

Oh, right, I was talking about my peony. My eighty-dollar peony.

That's ridiculous.

You know what peonies do for your feng shui? They "activate your relationship luck." My regular readers know this cause I'm on about it all the time.

Ha.

When I meet a man who's worth spending eighty bucks, I'll buy a peony.

Ok, I lie. As soon as we get to Rocanville and I pay my overdues and I send some more money to Somalia, I'm buying this peony. Aye, but there's the rub: there is a limited supply of peonies and they're first-come first-serve. A lot of the varieties are already sold out for this year. And they ship in September / October, so if I don't get mine this year, I have to wait another year. And who knows what the world economy will look like a year from now.

I'm so tired of waiting for this job to start.