Monday, July 23, 2012

Gardening in zone 5

I live where it hot, crazy stupid why do I live here? hot! My gardening zone is 10+ ( zone 13 for those of us who trust in Western Gardener.) Imagine my shock when I realized that the cabin is a zone 5 ( WG zone 2) I was in the nursery and they had blueberry plants, with real blueberries growing on them. I just stood there looking at the plants. Well sampling the plants. It took a while for my brain to get around the idea I could grow blueberries!
So lucky me I had an experienced hole digger on had, because after confirming the zone thing on my phone I went a little crazy at the nursery.  It was also very nice that there was a dance Friday night that he really wanted to go to so he was more than happy to dig a lot of holes.
More excitement...I planted a Red Indian Raspberry plant last year. All week I had been thinking about where I would move it once winter hit. It hadn't done a thing and it looked pretty sad. I was sure I had put it in a bad spot. But as I was mulching I realized it had sent out 4 shoots. Baby raspberry plants. Yeah I am not a total failure in a good climate.



And...as I was mulching the Irises I found this! A seed pod, on an Iris plant! I had no idea this was possible. I have grown Irises in Hades for 20 years and have never had an Iris plant set seed.
I love zone 5!

2 comments:

  1. Good thing I got dragged around in nurseries my entire life and used test tubes to test the alkaline level in the dirt at 10, otherwise I would have killed my plants. They are doing pretty well considering I'm just going off of memory from listening to you-- but yesterday, I discovered mold in the bag of spare soil. MOLD???!!! in dirt? Mold doesn't grow in Phoenix except on food left in the refrigerator or in the sealed Tupperware from my lunchbox. I'm kind of freaked out that I have to learn how to handle this strange concept... and that I have to google search whether or not I can still use the soil. I hate to throw it away

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  2. ha! It's dirt I think it will live. More humor. I was just thinking I need a ph test kit up there. Where is my geology girl when I need her?

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