What I Got for Free Today: Bulbs

I am officially addicted to two things: cleaning out my junk, and bartering with it. This is what I got today:

A shopping bag full of daffodil bulbs!

Usually I buy our bulbs (3 years in a row now) from the Garden Club President, but I could not pass up a chance to add to my collection- especially since I know this bag is full of white and cream daffodils. So anywho- when I saw a post on my favorite barter page on the Facebook, I started looking around for things to swap. The lady with the bulbs wanted to trade for other plants, and I happen to have quite a few of those.

So I snipped off some nice sized pieces from both of our rosemary plants and stuck them in water. A couple of days later new root knots had started to form and I jumped at the chance for free flowers.

Now I just need to get these babies in the ground and let'em go. They will be the perfect addition to a new flower bed we're installing in the front.

I love free stuff and bartering. What would you trade for daffodils?

Leave No Plant Behind

I like to think that I have a green thumb, and I like for all of you to think that as well.  I walk around, replanting baby plants, and growing seeds and showing off pictures of green leafy things, but sometimes, even I let a few things slide, and suddenly I find myself having to back peddle.  Case in point.

I acquired a few plants when the library had their foyer redone.  The Master Gardener's of Oxford came in and repotted things, fixed things, watered things, and suddenly things were looking great!  Plus, me and several other library assistants got a few things out of the deal as well.  I brought home one of these:

Actually, that is a weird branch that I cut off a mother plant.  The mother was huge and very branchy, so last summer I just sawed off a branch, stuck it in a milk jug of water and let it grow roots.  Low and behold, a few weeks later I had a plant- so I planted it.

Then winter came and most of our plants were moved inside.  Sadly, the mother plant was not moved inside fast enough... and when it did, it came in looking like this:

Please note that the first and second picture were taken on the same day.  This is not a "and several months later" kinda deal.  Sad isn't it?  It gets worse.

Because then I did this to it:

I know!  I just cut it all off! You see, the plant has frost damage.  Frost is a four letter word in this house, unless we're talking about kale or cabbage which both like the frost.  It had tried very, very hard to kill this plant, but I am trying very, very, very hard to not let that happen.

In fact, when I chopped off the major parts of the damage, I noticed the insides of the stems looked like this:

That black on on the left is the frost damage, the middle is too, but the one all the way on the right is the new, still damp and smelling fresh inside of the newly cut parts.  Looking good right??

But I still had this to work around as well:

The plant is majorly root bound.  See that crazy piece leaning to the right?  That's a whole new plant that should have been removed years ago.  And the Y shape on the left?  That's two separate plants that have fused together.  So I'm planning to take my hand saw back at it and get these guys good and separated.  I have been soaking the roots for a few days to help loosen up the dirt and try to unweave some of the damage by hand, but there are no promises with this one.

Anyone else ever bring a plant back to life after frost?  Have you ever sawed a plant into pieces and then had all of them regrow??  Most importantly, if this works... who wants a free house plant?!

Bottles: Phase Two

Slowly but surely we are inching towards finally finishing our first bottle boarder flower bed around the house- and you know what that means!  Almost time to start the second one...

But first things first.  When I last shared our bottle boarder update it looked like this:

Bottles a plenty, yes, but top soil, prettiness, weed control??  Not so much.  Well it was about time I did something about that.  So on top of adding another 18 bottles to the end of the line (still about 4 dozen short, just need to get out there and do that already!) I also installed some free weed control.

I had a bunch of newspaper left over from a recon I did for the neighborhood (you can read about that here at OxfordHandmade), so I unfolded it and laid it out over my flower bed.  I tore holes/left space so that my plants could peak through, but I covered the weeds with two solid layers.  I went back every few minutes and sprayed everything with water to help hold it down.  Soon, my flowerbeds looked like this:

Classy right?  Well I didn't intend for it to stay that way.  I've actually read about this process several times online and several people swear by it.  The newspaper is supposed to suppress the weeds, then break down and just become one with the earth.  I'm so tired of weeds choking up my flowers I'd try just about anything, and this idea was free and easy- I figured it was worth a shot.

Well I added my newspapers, sprayed them with water, and then waited around for Marco.  He had spent all morning going back and forth from our house to the "free mulch place."  This place is for real here in Oxford- and most towns and cities have similar set ups.  Basically, when the city cuts down branches or trees, either from storm damage or power line maintenance, they mulch them up and pile it high.  The mulch is free to get, it just takes a little muscle power and you have to bring your own containers.  Well we had plenty of containers, so six trips later, we had plenty of mulch.  One of those trips went straight onto my newspapers until the entire bed looked like this:

Huzza.  We buried just about everything in mulch. Most things had died for winter anyway, but if it was still kicking, we went back and unearthed it a little.  There was plenty of great topsoil already composted in there, and it will settle with rain and time.  Now we just have to wait for spring when we can pour on a few bags of garden soil, toss in some of our own worm compost and watch it grow!  

Who else is excited for spring planting already??