Watering needs

I have a post on the watering tools I use and why I use them over on Cold Climate Gardening.

Cold Frame

I have a new post on cold frames and my first book review over on Cold Climate Gardening. Check it out.

I've got Magnolias on my mind

I have a post on the topic of Magnolias on Cold Climate Gardening. It's like deja vu.

Here's a little history on Magnolias I stole gleaned from Monrovia Nursery, of all places:

The genus Magnolia was conferred by Linnaeus who named it after Pierre Magnol, (1638-1715) a botanist of Montpellier, France. There are over 35 species and countless hybrids and this one falls into a group known generally as Magnolia x soulangeana produced from two distinct species. One parent is the white flowered Magnolia denudata, introduced from China by Banks in 1789 where it is locally known as Yulan magnolia and classified for a time as M. yulan. The other parent, red flowered Magnolia lilliflora was introduced from Japan by Carl Thunberg in 1790. This cross and its subsequent varieties and hybrids began 1820 and were named for Chevalier Soulange-Bodin who raised the first hybrid in France.

The number of species listed, 35, is way too low, but the rest of the information is interesting. The Frenchmen sure lent us some beautiful names to remember them by.

Here's the original of the picture I used for April's header and my post on Cold Climate Gardening:


I really liked the flowers but the background was distracting and uninteresting, so I erased it. It's my first time doing that to a picture and it turned out ok. Not good enough by any means for a graphics professional but at least a "c". I thought the different colored backgrounds I added were appropriate and worked well with the color schemes on each blog.

An aha moment

I was lucky enough to cobble something together (on frogs!) for a new post on Cold Climate Gardening. Check it out when you can.

Many of the window ledges are filling up with packs and trays of seedlings with no end in sight. It takes 6-7 days for tomatoes to germinate and a few were coming up from last week's sowing. It seemed odd they were only germinating on one side of the tray but no activity on the other. And then my aha/doh! moment hit me and I slapped myself in the head. The window is too cool for the seeds closest to it but the ones above the radiator were doing fine. The tray was turned around and everything is right with the world once more. Not a biggie but I found this amusing.

Snow Jobbed

Well I did it again and posted to Cold Climate Gardening.

Check out Snow Days of Winter
and Kaleidoscope Skies

Seed info on Cold Climate Gardening

I sometimes guest post on Cold Climate Gardening blog. I posted "Seed info" today, so please check it out.