Record Keeping in the Garden

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Reading one of Angie's previous posts on record keeping in the garden and her mention of Beth's Lesson Learned, I thought I would describe my own record keeping system for the garden. Describing that system might offer an opportunity to improve it, in other words to learn some lessons of my own.

Crocuses ( crop from last year)

Blind Labels

I use a great many plant labels. First I use them in the flower beds to identify new plants (old favourites do not need a name tag). I use them with vegetables, for instance, to remind me where a row of carrots was seeded before they come up, and to list the variety. Most of my labels though identify the numerous plants I start from seed in the spring.

I have tried the various kinds of labels that are offered for sale. The wooden ones have the advantage that you can write on them with a pencil and as long as the written part is out of the ground, it will remain legible. However the end of the label that is stuck in the soil breaks down in one season and any writing in contact with wet soil disappears. The thin copper labels are very permanent but very hard to read after a few years. They come with a tie and they are too thin to stick in the ground. The zinc ones held on a wire stem are very good but too expensive to use extensively.

Plastic labels can last a few years in the shade. The more exposed to sunlight, the faster they get brittle. You can also write on them with a pencil (preferably a grease pencil). Usually, one side of the label is less shiny than the other and is easier to write on. The use of a pencil allows you to erase a mistake or even to re-use a label. A permanent marker is ideal when it is indeed permanent. The problem is that some are much less permanent than others, and it is only when the label has sat in the sun and rain for a year that you find out if the ink lived up to expectations.

Seed Sorting

I have all my seeds for 2014. In fact, like most years, I have far too many seeds, and these last few days I have been trying to sort them to simplify planting and to make sure I don't forget any of them. I am also writing out labels for each variety to save time later on. Some of you might think it is a bit late to sort seeds, but this is Canada in a year when the winter has been the most severe in decades. Three years ago, hellebores were in bloom at this time of the year, but as I am writing this, there is still about one foot of snow and a few inches of ice packed on the ground even if both have finally started to melt.

Some of my vegetable seeds and my planting schedule

A Workhorse of a Rose

We grow several roses, and they are just about at their best right now. Some I like for their hardiness (in a Canadian climate, that matters a lot). Others like Celsiana have a perfume out of this world. Some do a job particularly well (see, on the left, how Dortmund covers an  arch or, on the right, Nearly Wild looks against a fence). This post is about one particular rose I almost discarded, but which turned out to be my very best.

Dortmund

Nearly Wild

Overwintering Rosemary

For many years, I had at least one rosemary plant which I would take indoors for the winter. On the whole, rosemary bushes do not like spending the winter in a dry house. In such an environment, they hold on to life for a year or two, but soon give up the ghost.
A few years ago, I discovered that the most important way to succeed in overwintering a rosemary plant is to make sure it is stored in a humid-enough environment. Strangely, for a plant that originates in the Mediterranean, it can actually do without light for months, but not without humidity. I discovered that when I was going away for the good part of a winter. In late November, I potted up my rosemary and stored it in a crawlspace where there is no light, quite a bit of humidity and temperatures that do not reach the freezing point. I had little hope that the plant would survive but, to my amazement, it came out in the spring looking much better than it ever had done after a winter indoors. All it needed before another season out in the garden was a bit of trimming.

Pavement Gardening - edge of the path

Here is yet another series of rock garden plants I grow among the stones on the garden paths. However these are some of the ones I grow only on the edges of the paths, because they cannot be stepped on.

The first one is a variety of Iberis sempervirens. Normally the flowers are white. However, in this variety, they start white, but as they age, they slowly turn pink. It is a low variety whose name I do not know as I grew it from a cutting I was given at Larkwhistle Garden many years ago. It probably would prefer more sun than the 4-5 hours that it gets, but it seems to manage well.

Perennial candytuft

Plant Pots

I like pots and planters, but it means more work at this time of the year as they have to be emptied and stored away. Some of the glazed ones are supposed to be able to survive winter, but it is all relative. I expect they could survive -5C, but I am very doubtful they would come out intact after a week at -20C.

Pots drying in the sun before being stored for the winter

Pavement Gardening (2)

As I explained in a previous post, the paths in the garden are my version of a rock garden. Tucked in between the stones are small plants, some that survives foot traffic, and others that keep to the edges not to be trampled on. Mazus reptans is one of the tough plants that has been spreading nicely over the years.  I end the post with a mystery plant you can perhaps help me identify.

Mazus reptans spreading

Mazus reptans close-up

Late August

Late August is the time when there are still some blooms, but they look rather tired. Somehow, even flowers that have just opened seem tired.

More probably, it is the gardener's outlook which is defective. Even if the days are still warm, they are getting shorter and shorter.

Here are some of the things that are blooming now at Roche Fleurie.

Hellenium autumnale