Jan 23, 2012

Gardeners’ Give & Take

Our gardeners’ round table took up a series of very interesting topics on Saturday morning.

“Zone Stretching”: growing plants that aren’t supposed to be hardy for our zone 5 or 6 area. This conversation touched on everything from the effect of warm winter to creating microclimates, strategies for protecting tender plants, techniques for helping plants to adapt and much more.

Collecting, processing, and using manure (of many kinds) to enrich your soil. We are excited about possible new local sources for manure, too.

Double Digging: what it is, how it works, other practices for improving your soil. And consider gardening “rules”: did you ever feel guilty for not double digging?

Plant IDs and Characteristics: velthemia, phygellius

For our next discussion, we have the beginnings of an agenda already which includes:

Planting a bulb collection for continuous sequential bloom from late winter to late fall.

Plant partners: bulbs and perennials to provide continuous bloom and camouflage decaying foliage.

Growing hardy succulents and cacti.

If any of these topics are of interest to you, or if you have a topic or two of your own to bring up, we welcome gardeners of all ages, expertise and experience to join us every other Saturday morning at 10:00 for Gardeners’ Give & Take.

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