Roll Call: Spring Seeds
ATTN: landscape designers and architects who don’t so much care for plants: hi! I’m a landscape designer too, and I love nothing more than a fat, juicy plant list, chock full of sophisticated flora, many natives, most low-care and all low-water. May I help with yours? Just say the word.
Lists are one way I make sense of the world. I inherited it from my mother, whose impeccable print graced innumerable lists you’d find around my childhood home. It should come as no surprise my favorite lists are plant lists. Listmaking is chief in my planning process, and easily my favorite part.
Though I do make capital Plant Lists for clients, I make oodles of lowercase plant lists for myself, and today’s is one of those. It’s my spring seed list, and I filled it last Friday. Take a gander:
- Hibiscus cannabinus: whose Latin name denotes its resemblance to, ahem, another plant. Read about it on Plantfiles in an entry that said it was a perennial, but the packet says this variety is an annual. No matter — I love the pale yellow of its flowers, and plan for it to serve as a curtain growing in front of and through other, chunkier plants. (Baker Creek)
- Alonsoa meridionalis: annual, spire shape for an orange-inclusive color plan I have. (Baker Creek)
- Emilia javanica: annual, also part of the orange scheme. (Baker Creek)
- Brassica ‘Nero di Toscana’: annual dinosaur kale! You’ll be my first food crop ever, and I’m growing you with my ornamentals because I’ve always admired your looks, you reptile you. (Fedco)
- Lunaria annua: biennial money plant I’m finally getting around to. Plan to use it as a filler. (Fedco)
- Moluccella laevis: annual bells of Ireland, prime example of a plant I hated one day and realized my unrequited love for the next. My garden needs more spires. Will plant with the likes of Emilia and Alonsoa. (Fedco)
- Sanguisorba officinalis: perennial, a burnet whose brown-red flowers I’m gaga for. Like Hibiscus cannabinus, think it’ll be an excellent curtain in front of and amidst other plants. (JL Hudson)
- Quamoclit pinnata: annual cypress vine. Very southern plant, from what I understand, though never knew it there. This is the white-flowering type, and I’m going to try training it up through a waist-high rhododendron for leaf contrast. (JL Hudson)
- Salvia sclarea: clary sage, biennial or perennial, and one I’ve always wanted to grow. It’ll go by a seating area and be an investment for next year when I hope it blooms. (JL Hudson)
- Polymnia uvedalia: perennial native called bearsfoot I hope will be a nice textural accent in dappled shade. (Horizon Herbs)
- Asphodelus ramosus: Mediterranean perennial I’m intrigued by but heard little about. Its leaves look almost succulent and remind me of Kniphofia. Will it be happy here? We’ll see! (Horizon Herbs)
So what’d you order for seeds this year?
- Posted by AK on 2010 Jan 26 at 1302
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Me and the BF both started plants at a local nursery! I now feel it’s a bit like cheating. We are starting seeds for veggies that get planted later, and I’m thinking about planting sunflowers around the compost heap.
Great blog name!
Thanks on the name! I’m pretty new at seeds, but I’m having more and more good luck with direct sowing outdoors. Starting indoors is NOT my forte… I considered some sunflowers this year but still haven’t pulled the trigger. We still have 999 more months of winter, though, so I’ll probably revisit that!
I have found that the key to indoor seed starting success is self-watering seed starters. Peat pots dry out faster than I can drink my morning coffee, so they are a disaster for me. Also getting the shop lights going is easy and cheap and well worth the effort. I’m still doing my annual deer in the headlights thing when it comes to ordering my seeds. Hope I’m not too late to get my favs.
Self-watering — VERY good idea. Damping off has always been my biggest problem, but by that point I’ve gotten impatient anyway. (OK, impatience is probably a bigger problem than damping off.) I’ve been thrilled with the “poke ‘em in the soil outside and go” method.