Now that the Xmas and New Year celebrations are well and truly over you may have more time on your hands to think about and work on your garden. What are your January gardening tasks?
Well mine are clearing the garden of storm damaged items and repairing fences etc. Apart from that there's all the new bulbs and plants to get into the ground and/or pots. I'll also be digging in some of my home-made compost and then putting down a new dressing of bark mulch. Gotta keep my babies happy!!! :-D
On the lot where our house used to be, I had planted several thousand paperwhites. The new owner has not started construction yet and I know he will just bulldoze everything. I am seriously thinking of going over there and digging up as many as I can. There is a big BUT attached to that. Our yard here is so low, I would have to add another raised bed, or more just to put them in. So that means I would have to order and spread another 48 yards of soil. Now the paperwhite idea doesn't sound so good anymore.
Are these narcissi what you mean when you say paperwhites Jan? If so I'd get my spade out and collect as many as you can from the old property even if it means filling every kind of container you have with them. They are such beautifully delicate blooms that I'd hate to think of them being bulldozed.
At this point I am just checking on the little group in the greenhouse and doing lots of picking up branches that the wind blew down. Some little bulbs are coming up already, but I planted so many different ones here and at the church this past year I can no longer remember what they are - guess I'll see when they bloom. I would most definitely go rescue at least some of those paperwhites, Jan - If you can't plant all of them yourself, surely there must be someone you know who would like some? I would be over there fetching some myself, if I were closer.
My gardening tasks are limited to the indoors this time of year, so I think I will re-pot some house plants. Of couse there is still garden planning to be done so I'll be going thru seed catalogues.
I have already spent a couple of days laying out the plans for the birthmonth flower garden, found info with pictures of the flowers going there, only one that I will probably have to find a mail order source for. A couple of years ago I started making a to-do list of projects each year by sections of the backyard....got that updated and found info with pictures of plants. Today, when it gets a little bit warmer, I need to get our there and do some pulling out and cutting back. Since the ground is still soft I can probably get some weeds/grass out of a couple of designated future pathways. And getting started on the 12foot circle for the new bed will be easier. The rain is supposed to start tomorrow, getting very much colder by the weekend and possibly turning into ice and snow for Sunday and Monday so the rest of the outdoor work for this month will have to wait until late nextweek.
Eileen say: 'Are these narcissi what you mean when you say paperwhites Jan?' Jan say: Yes, Eileen, they are narcissi. I have at least 2000 of them there along with daffs and jonquils. They are beautiful right now. We drove over to a used to be neighbors house a few days and all are in bloom. Of course, I did not have my camera with me.
Take a picture Jan, before they are gone, please :-D This is the first thing I thought of when you mentioned them. 'I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud' I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. Continuous as the stars that shine And twinkle on the milky way, They stretched in never-ending line Along the margin of a bay: Ten thousand saw I at a glance, Tossing their heads in sprightly dance. The waves beside them danced; but they Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: A poet could not but be gay, In such a jocund company: I gazed--and gazed--but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought: For oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils. -- William Wordsworth
Well, as Richard said getting the yard dry would help. If that happens I have a lot of leaf raking and bed cleaning to do. Some dirt hauling to build up one of my beds, but that all depends on the rain.
It is temperature warm and windy cold here and I have no enthusiasm for any outside work. Sometimes I wish I could hibernate from January until April. Wannabe
Wannage and I are in the same predictament. Snow or sleet or freezing rain is in our forecast so no outisde work for me. I'll just have to study the garden catalogs for awhile.
Trying to convince hubby to let me get landscape logs and soil since he made me leave the old ones behind when we moved.
