"There are many tired gardeners but I've seldom met old gardeners. I know many elderly gardeners but the majority are young at heart. Gardening simply does not allow one to be mentally old, because too many hopes and dreams are yet to be realized. The one absolute of gardeners is faith. Regardless of how bad past gardens have been, every gardener believes that next year's will be better. It is easy to age when there is nothing to believe in, nothing to hope for. Gardeners, however, simply refuse to grow up."
– Allan Armitage
01/26/17:
I've updated my yard map to show what's currently where. I sure have a lot of containers, most of them happily occupied by flowering plants, although a few are dormant at the moment. Some of the pots intended for tomatoes, peppers and other crops may stay empty until the proper spring planting time, or I'll root cuttings of geraniums in them temporarily (which is how that particular flower has ended up all over the yard!). I should combine geraniums and nasturtiums into just 4 or 5 containers, to make room for a greater variety of ornamental and edible plants. My yard map may look quite different in spring.
While I intend to stick to my usual low budget, and start from seed whenever feasible, it's hard not to want a ton of new plants. I have so enjoyed looking at the amazing variety of vegetables, herbs, trees, and beautiful flowers available to order online, but will attempt to buy locally first. I'd already picked up ideas of different plants to try from browsing links posted by other Twitter Gardeners, and by reading books: a new one I picked up this week is The Nonstop Garden.
Clicking on the small images below will bring up the full version.
New book, pressed leaves.
African daisy and bottlebrush.
The week's garden bouquet.
It's still been raining a ridiculous amount. I've read that this area of California has gotten 3 times the precipitation we'd receive in a normal winter, and it's not over yet. While some of my plants in containers could suffer from this constant watering, I've noticed that the hedges and flowering bushes around the property appreciate the well-saturated soil, and are growing bigger and shaggier. The bottlebrush and tall African daisy bush are among these. They're increasingly adding color to the front of the yard with more bright yellow and red blooms.
Indoors, the garden-related craft that's next on my list is decorated candles. I've gathered a good assortment of dried leaves, herb sprigs, little berries and flower petals that I'd like to use as ornamental and scent-producing elements. This article on making them from scratch and this one on applying leaves to ready-made candles will be useful guides.
