I have updated (most of ) my flower seed exchange list at Gardenweb. Check it out and let me know if you’d like to trade!
I’m also making another database for seeds that I have (not just the Mary Garden one) — heh, wouldn’t it be neat to find Mary names for ALL the plants, including oriental vegetables… I’m compiling name, height, spacing requirement, sun requirement, water requirement, companion plant recommended, bloom season, and type (annual/perennial) on a spreadsheet.
Once the spreadsheet is done, I’ll group them according to sun and water requirements, then we’ll draw up a plan. At our last house, I had the kids measure the whole lot, the house, etc. then we drew the plan on grid paper. After that they lost interest and I did the planning myself.
This time around I’ll have them draw the plan themselves (great geometry lesson!), then we’ll cut up the plan into sections, assign a child or two to each section, cut up colored pieces of paper to represent the plants, and have them plan the garden themselves, giving them a general guideline (tall plants at back or center, shorter ones in front or around). I’d like a mix of veggies, herbs and flowers in each site, except for the ones nearest the road. The goal is a mix of edible landscaping and a 4-season tribute to Mary.
At lunch the other day, I thought I’d ask the kids’ suggestions for WHAT OUR YARD *REAAAAALLLY* NEEDS. I honestly was expecting them to say “swimming pool” (not that we would have complied) seeing how much they enjoyed themselves at the pool on our most recent hotel stay. Instead, they surprised me by saying they needed/wanted a TREE HOUSE. I’ve wanted one for a while but they were a bit too small to help out and dh and I don’t really want to do it all ourselves. We want them to invest themselves and their effort if we were to undertake a project such as this. LOL, the ideas they came up with! Aisa wants a treehouse with a floorplan to match the garden path below surrounding a honey locust tree, so that people can walk on the path, under the treehouse, AND be able to climb up the treehouse. Paco says this isn’t a good idea because even if we cut out all the locust thorns before building, they’ll re-grow every year and it will be a pain to maintain. Wise words. He wants to use the black walnut tree instead, and has made a list of design features — e.g., three levels, spiral staircase, etc. Yena and Migi both have their drawings as well. Who knows when we’ll get started on this, but I’ve put it on the project file and will review every week until we’ve got things ironed out enough to pick a start date. Sigh…. so many projects, so little time… 😀 I feel like I’ve written that numerous times before.
One book that I read recently was Perennial Vegetables — the idea of a 4-season harvest just sounds so good! I’ve made a preliminary list of things that I might try, but while most of the suggestions there sound attractive especially to a culinary nut like me who wants to try everything — some of the plants are just not practical at all. Imagine planting vegetables that you’ll have to cook 9 hours in a pressure cooker! It may be fun to grow, but I’m not sure I want to use that much fuel cooking something when I can have healthy broccoli in under five minutes instead. Besides, some of the seeds/plants are hard to find. Maybe one day when I’m old and gray and can sit around knitting while the veggies cook for nine hours….
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