Gardening time!

[LaFille]

I know it was a while ago in most of Europe, let alone in the southern hemisphere, but it has finally just arrived here. ;D Sunday is Mothers Day, so today I went to get flowers for my grandmother (found a nice little orchid in a pot) and I ended up filling the car with cool vegetal stuff for home as well; suspended flowers that look like columbines but that I don't remember their names, supposedly hardy rose shrubs, young laurel, curry, eucalyptus, cucumber and tomato plants, even a little venus fly-trap (carnivorous) for my desk. I might post a few pics later.

I made a lot of tries to grow stuff indoors in the past few years but few survived (or sprouted at all in cases where I tried seeds); most successes so far where with plants that spend at least a part of the year outside and which I don't have to touch to too much. There already are a couple of fruit trees in the yard as well as hardy plants and herbs that should begin to grow soon. I find it very rewarding to see a nice flower or get a great essence from a plant I took care of and see growing, though, and I find that there's not much that puts things in perspective as much as to eat something you have grown yourself. Yet, I don't know much about gardening and my thumb looks far from green so I could sure use tips and insight, and I would be interested in knowing what kinds of things the rest of you grow, if you or the people around you do any.... ?

[Galadriel]

I think it's great if you have the green fingers! As for me, i don't have that talent to grow plants, if I plant anything, i choose to grow something i don't have to look for too much ;D Just watering them and that's it, maybe cut them in harvest or spring time. I used to have some herbs in my garden, eucalyptus, Levisticum officinale (very good in soup and pasta's), camomile etc. But now i don't have a garden, so no plants.
Though my son is growing a hyacint for my mothers day

[LaFille]

Oh, nice... I remember growing a flower for Mothers Day in early school too, but it was little carnations (not as special as hyacinths; he's very good if he can do that).

I don't have the green thumb yet; I like to try to grow a lot of things, but I don't know much yet about gardening and I need your kind of plants too. ;D The little study I made on plants in biology isn't very useful in horticulture; it's a too specialized field and the classification systems that they use are often different (annoyingly).

I have picked two plants of eucalyptus too. It will be the first time I try it; I wouldn't have thought it was so easy to get. I use eucalyptus essence to put directly under my nose when we're visited by mad skunks in summer. ;D What did you do with yours?

I'll probably plant one outside and leave the other in its pot with the 3 herbs I took, to try to make one of them indoor plants in winter (if they survive until then, that is). The curry plant smells almost exactly like the dry spice. I didn't think it was something we can do, making home plants with herbs, but speaking with the woman at the shop I learned that a lot of the "herbs" we use and try to grow in summer are shrubs, in reality, and that in fact we just use their baby forms. She talked about a place on the big six-ways boulevard in Vegas where they made a hedge with rosemary, which was apparently smelling all around. It's way more neat to have plants that have an additional use to making the place look nicer and producing oxygen.

[Galadriel]

May 11, 2008 2:57:56 GMT LaFille said:

Oh, nice... I remember growing a flower for Mothers Day in early school too, but it was little carnations (not as special as hyacinths; he's very good if he can do that).

Hyacints aren't that hard to grow you know, you take a glass bottle, one with a small neck and a large opening, fill the bottle with water and place the bol of the plant on the opening, the water has to reach the roots of the bol All you need now is some patience and sunshine

May 11, 2008 2:57:56 GMT LaFille said:

I don't have the green thumb yet; I like to try to grow a lot of things, but I don't know much yet about gardening and I need your kind of plants too. ;D The little study I made on plants in biology isn't very useful in horticulture; it's a too specialized field and the classification systems that they use are often different (annoyingly).

I will send you the seeds or the young plants if possible, I have to find out if it's allowed to send plants to your place. But you will have to wait because it's expensive for me at the moment to send packages

May 11, 2008 2:57:56 GMT LaFille said:

I have picked two plants of eucalyptus too. It will be the first time I try it; I wouldn't have thought it was so easy to get. I use eucalyptus essence to put directly under my nose when we're visited by mad skunks in summer. ;D What did you do with yours?

I used my eucalyptus to make tea, or rub the leafs on my skin to avoid musquitobites, you can place them in your room for the fresh smell and you can add them to your bath. I also used them in salads, very special taste, you should try it out.

May 11, 2008 2:57:56 GMT LaFille said:

I'll probably plant one outside and leave the other in its pot with the 3 herbs I took, to try to make one of them indoor plants in winter (if they survive until then, that is). The curry plant smells almost exactly like the dry spice. I didn't think it was something we can do, making home plants with herbs, but speaking with the woman at the shop I learned that a lot of the "herbs" we use and try to grow in summer are shrubs, in reality, and that in fact we just use their baby forms. She talked about a place on the big six-ways boulevard in Vegas where they made a hedge with rosemary, which was apparently smelling all around. It's way more neat to have plants that have an additional use to making the place look nicer and producing oxygen.

Rosemary is a very nice and thankful plant, even if you don't use it in your kitchen. If you combine rosemary with thyme in meat dishes, you will be pleasantly surprised. rosemary and thyme helps digest meat. (I'm not promoting to eat meat though ;D )
It also relieves menstrual cramps and sooths your muscles. Try to take a bath with rosemary when you have been working out.

[LaFille]

Awww, thanks. I didn't know that eucalyptus was good in food (human food, that is). Rosemary and thyme in food I have regularly and it's very good. I didn't know about the menstrual pain use, but for that a tea of raspberry leaves is quite good; strawberry leaves are to be avoided for pregnant women though, as it can also be a natural medicine to provoke labor or abort (dangerous practice, not to be tried).

I tried to grow an avocado plant from the stone and a pineapple tree by the fruit's top the way you set up the hyacinth bulb... The avocado try failed (I think because I put it upside down) but the pineapple worked and it's growing since about 2 years; it's about a couple of feet high now. That is one hardy plant that didn't require other care than some watering and removing dead leaves. ;D

[Gay Titan]

I have lilacs in a flower box by the side gate. The aroma is a beautiful way to start the day.

My son is "helping" plant a small garden of tomatoes and cucumbers. He also has been my water boy with the front landscaping.

[Galadriel]

How sweet Gaytitan, how old is your son?

[LaFille]

We had a lilac tree when we moved here... In the yard or in a flower box, it's nice to have. I find that the smell is too strong to put of those flowers fresh-cut in a vase close though, what some people I know love to do (but then again, that's almost nothing beside peonies, which start just after the lilacs are over ;D ). We lost that tree to storm damage and bad soil. There are still an apple tree and a miniature-apple tree that blossom at lilacs time (right now here) and give a nice smell, at least.

We try to grow cucumbers and tomatoes too (this year they have a kind I had never seen before: raisin tomatoes, which seem shaped a little like squashes but very small); it seems to be some of the vegetables that bring the most success... Freshly harvested cucumber is delicious in the heat of summer. It's cool (and so cute) that your son participates like that; it makes the activity even more valuable...