Get Growing
Craig Sailor is the Arts & Entertainment editor at The News Tribune. Last year he planted his first vegetable garden. Focusing on unusual varieties, “Freak of Nature” returns for 2008 with a new crop of uncommon vegetables and flowers. This year he’ll try yin yang beans, giant pumpkins, blue poppies and mutant sunflowers. He gardens at his North End Tacoma home and sneaks seeds in to his mother’s garden at Willapa Bay when she’s not looking. E-mail him at craig.sailor@thenewstribune.com.

Sue Kidd is the Lifestyle Editor at The News Tribune and the ringleader for the Home&Garden section. She is a decent vegetable gardener, but occasionally a tragic mess at growing other stuff. She’ll blog about gardening events, gadgets, her weird obsession with guerrilla gardening and all her assorted garden disasters. E-mail her with thoughts/rants/questions/bizarre observations. sue.kidd@thenewstribune.com.

More gardening blogs:
Greengirl
"Starting seeds, dreading weeds."

You Grow Girl
"Gardening for the people."

Between Plow and Wood
"Meditations on farming, nature, food, art, sustainability, the environment and rural living."

Downtown Tomatoes
"A gardening club for the rest of us."

Calendar
July 2008
Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
 << < Current> >>
    1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 10 11 12
13 14 15 16 17 18 19
20 21 22 23 24 25 26
27 28 29 30 31    
Archives
XML Feeds
What is RSS?
Misc
Who's Online?
  • benramm Email
  • MrSinister Email
  • Guest Users: 461
A Gardening Blog
Tuesday, July 1st, 2008
Posted by Craig Sailor @ 04:56:19 pm

My meconopsis betonicifolia, a Himalayan blue poppy, just finished blooming for the season. It was the first time I had grown them and it'll be the last.

In the past I've had many successful generations of meconopsis grandis (a few of my photos from previous years below) but I lost my crop of seed (I must have made it into muffins) so I thought I'd try something different.

Sure, the b's are the same sky blue color but they are just little wimpy versions of the larger G's. I guess that's why they call the big ones GRANDis.

This year I'll get some grandis seed from Lakewold Gardens and try again. Yes, you can buy potted plants at specialty nurseries but there's nothing like seeing your own seed-grown chunks of summer sky swaying gently in your garden.

If you want more information The Meconopsis Group is a great resource.

Categories: Flowers