Gardening: Starting from Seed Update

Remember all of those trays of seed I planted weeks and weeks ago? Well the weather up here is finally starting to become more consistent. As a result, this past weekend I moved the "babies" outside to start hardening them off. They're sitting under a tree in the back yard getting ready to be planted this coming weekend. Hopefully Jonathan remembers to water them since they're at his house :)

Gardening: Privacy Fixes

It was only a few years ago the area next to Jonathan's house looked a lot like this photo - pretty, natural grass that provided both privacy and a nice, scenic backdrop to the patio in the summer. Unfortunately, a couple years ago, the neighborhood association cut down everything next to the house to "fix" a water drainage problem (I like to gripe about this since first they never notified Jonathan before doing this and second since they left the grasses shown in the photo below behind all the other neighbors' houses...not fair!). Anyway, this spring, Jonathan and I decided it was time to do some planting to make up for the lack of privacy. The ornamental grasses I've started from seed will hopefully help us add to the volume - it's a fairly large space to cover. And our parents gave us some grass divisions from their plants too. Once we have more items planted and they start growing, I'll show you what progress we've made making it pretty and private once again.





Here's what the area by his patio now looks like now, without tall grasses to block the view...Views are shown from the neighborhood side and the road side:

Gardening: Starting from Seed Update

It's now week three in my seed starting project and the plantings are coming along very nicely. Almost EVERYTHING has germinated with the exception of a few delphinium (even the giant plume grass has shown it's baby roots). So far so good...I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Luckily the frost-free date is quickly approaching (May 15 for here in Detroit) meaning these babies can be transplanted outside very soon!

Gardening: Starting from Seed

This year I decided to try growing ornamental grass from seed for the first time. Unfortunately I haven't had a lot of luck starting plants from seed in the past - probably since I get a little too anxious when it comes time to put them outside during the day and bring them in at night. But I took a leap of faith that this year that I will get it right and all the little babies will survive and grow into lovely plants! This past weekend I planted three, 72-cell seed starting containers. Although I did plant a few flower seeds, the trays primarily contain ornamental grass with the goal to develop plugs for a yard privacy barrier. Here's what my project looks like right now...all of the seeds are nested in moist little peat pots. Germinate little seeds, germinate!