Week 3-4
February has been a fun and busy month for gardening here in Georgia. The weather has been a bit dicey, sometimes up and sometimes down, but for the most part it has been a beautifully cool and warm month. Cool enough for comfort, warm enough for comfort.
Roses in February
No, I do not have rose blooms, yet. I just want to let you know what’s been going on with my roses this month. I pruned them around the very beginning of February and, came the next warm spell, they quickly began to send out new growth. What do you do with these oscillating temperatures? One week the temperature is up to the 60s, the next down to 20 and the next all the way up to the mid-70s. I want my garden to have a lab-like, artificial environment, yet, such is not this world. What is that all about? Somehow the roses survive and look beautiful despite the fluctuating temperatures. (This reminds me of children. For the most part, they weather all the little ups and downs we parents worry about them going through).
Anyway, all this goes to say that it has been both very cold and quite hot this February. Our night time temperatures went down to 20 for a few days. On the night prior to the first of those days, I carefully covered each of my rose bushes to protect them from the frost. My yard looked pretty tacky.
When I walked around the neighborhood the next morning, I realized that my neighbor’s uncovered roses had survived the frost as well as my own. My roses even suffered a bit of squashing in the process of my swathing them. So, the next two cold mornings, I left them uncovered and they survived almost entirely unscathed. I did see a few wilted leaves on some extremities. The humidity was low, so I wonder if the lack of actual frost helped prevent damage.
Vegetables
My vegetable garden is beginning to burgeon with more and more life. And, that’s even with my relatively poor soil! Above are my romaine plants from seed my kids and I broadcast about the middle of the month. The peas are daily creeping higher. My first set of seedlings sown indoors were ready for transplanting this week. I don’t have enough room for all the broccoli I started!
I’ve been shoveling my compost into my garden beds as I plant my seedlings and trying to supplement the beds with water whenever the rain is sparse. In the picture below, you can see my radishes and some blurry, tiny carrot seedlings in the front. I bought a round, globular carrot this year which is supposed to be good for hard, poor soils. We’ll see how they do.
Flowers
Lastly, but my favorite, here’s a brief update on my annual and perennial flowers. My daffodils are beginning to bloom. A crocus peeks every now and again. The cornflower, calendula, daisy, salvia, dahlia and hollyhock seeds that I have begun outdoors are doing very well. I also sowed white cleome, or spider flower, inside but only one seed of 25 has germinated. The soil over the cleome seeds has mildewed, too. I’ll give the cleome a few more weeks, because it is supposed to take a long time to germinate.
Not all my flowers, however, are still in seedling stage. My anemone’s green fronds have been up for at least a month, but the first bloom came just last week. I was so delighted to find that tiny flower on a chilly February afternoon! In previous years, I have been loath to cut these beautiful blooms but recently I read that anemones bloom more if you cut them. Bringing the blooms inside brings beauty inside as well as out!
