More on Strawberries

After talking to my brother about how lovely his strawberries perform every year in his garden south of the Twin Cities, I decided that I'm going to grow strawberries come hell or high water! After researching the University of Minnesota Extension Service site for information on strawberries, I decided to pull up my strawberries and start over. I think I planted ever-bearing plants there four summers ago and made two mistakes: 1) I let fruit form the first year and should have pulled the flowers, and 2) I shouldn't expect high yields from ever-bearing plants. So I'm going to order some Glooscap plants this year from Indiana Berry & Plant Company, which I found from a simple Google search. I did some research on a site called Dave's Garden. This site is incredibly useful as it provides feedback on mail order sites. So I'm going to order 25 of these babies, pull the flowers this year, and see what happens next year. If I don't get fruit next year, the strawberries are coming out and will be replaced by raspberries, which do very well here!

Pretty Much Picasso petunia

I've seen this 2010 new variety petunia in the Minneapolis Star Tribune and in Better Homes & Gardens. Hopefully some greenhouses in our area will have some. I don't have many spots in my yard that get full sun, but I always plant some petunias in hanging pots that are facing the lake and these will be just gorgeous there!

Easter Weekend

What a beautiful week it's been. We've had temps in the low 70s, all the snow and ice has melted (even on the lake!) and we're almost done clearing out the leaves. We have a heavily wooded, large lot, so it takes the equivalent of two weekends of my husband and I both working out there to get it done. I'll save some leaves to chop up for mulch on the garden as it helps reduce weeds and when I till them into the soil in the fall, it adds some organic material.

I was at Rita's the other day measuring away to plan the vegetable plots. Exciting!

On a flower note, most everything except hostas, astilbes, lilies and peonies have started to grow.

Now to think about what to do with those strawberries - give them another year to see if anything happens, or pull them out to plant something else. Wish I knew a strawberry expert!

Be Out There Pledge 2010

Brrr!!

Of course, spring in Minnesota means crazy temps. Last week we had 60 degrees, and today it's barely above freezing. The daffodils have about an inch of stem peeking up out of the ground. Rhubarb is actually making an appearance, as are some of my asiatic lilies. I'm just hoping it really hits 70 degrees next week as is currently forecast. Wouldn't that make a nice spring break.

There is still a lot of raking to do in the lawn. As I was out there today (freezing, I might add!), I was thinking about how to expand the shade garden by the road. I read a great article about martagon lilies in Northern Gardener this month. Too bad they're hard to find and take even longer to come to bloom. But in ten years I'll have wished I had taken the time to plant some now. It seems from my little research that they're fall planting bulbs. I would love to connect with some Minnesota gardeners who have had success with these flowers.

It's time!

I was able to get out in the gardens a little this weekend and clear out the leaves that I used to cover everything for the winter. I cut back old growth as I had left everything as is (except for the lilies) for the winter so birds could find some winter seeds. I discovered the following already peeking up to say hello:
daffodils
creeping yellow sedum
geum
pink mallow
bee balm
evening primrose
jacobs ladder
Autumn Joy sedum
bachelor button
rudbekia


Tomorrow I'm hoping to get in the shade garden to see what good stuff is coming along there. So much fun!

March Thaw

Wow, have we been having gorgeous weather! It's been above 60 degrees the last two days here with lows above freezing. All of our snow has melted and I'm waiting to see signs of daffodils peeking out through the layer of leaves in the garden. It's tempting to start poking around but I know I could do more damage than good right now until the ground thaws.