Kimberly A. Cook

Military Romance Author

plants

Quest For The Perfect Garden Pot?

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by Kimberly A. Cook                       (Twitter@  WarriorTales)

My roses are blooming in April. Sweet sea biscuits! While we had hail, rain, sun and thunder over the weekend, I went on a quest last Friday to find the perfect large ceramic teal garden pot for the fairy rock garden. So far I feel like Goldilocks; close but not quite.

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Perfect color. Great shape. Too big. Rats!

Then I got sidetracked by the plants and flowers. Luckily I had an appointment or I could have wandered for hours.

 

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Look at these fun purple flowers.

Then I found this fabulous pink azalea in full bloom. Yummy!

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So, so pretty in pink.

Then a foxglove caught my eye and I had to take a very up close and personal picture.

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Fairies paint the insides of these blooms, I’m sure.

And then I came across this fabulous selection of water fountains I love but are way out of my price range. But maybe if I save my pennies over the winter…. What was I shopping for anyway?

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The big or the small blue one, either one will work. But I need electricity. Always something.

Taken a ramble in the garden center recently? Maybe I need to use spray paint on the current big pot. Another quest begins!

Got garden style?

Time To Dig In The Dirt?

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by Kimberly A. Cook              (Twitter@  WarriorTales)

Surveying my backyard this past weekend I knew it was time to downsize my pot garden. Wait one. Before folks get the wrong impression, I mean my garden in pots. Just to be clear.  Since my soil is clay mixed with concrete when I try to dig it, all my plants except for two are in pots. (The camellia and the Fairy rose are in the ground. I do not know how they survive.)

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Farmer Bunny watching over the new mint plants. Ignore the weeds behind the pots.

 

In the interest of simplifying my garden, it’s time to not plant things I don’t eat or enjoy. So the carrots, strawberries (alias slug bait), and the dill are history. But I did use big pots to plant new peppermint and sweet mint plants on Sunday.

While I don’t really use the mint, I LOVE their smell when I water them during the summer. Same goes for the basil, rosemary and the carnations. The sniff test passes as using the plants in my book.

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Can you smell the peppermint? You’ve got to plant some. Even just to sniff it or make tea.

 

Of course before I could plant the mint plants I had to buy more potting soil. Little did I know the bags of potting soil were wet until I tried hefting them into my grocery cart last Friday. Seriously? Then they peed in the back of the Subaru while I was driving home. Luckily I have a plastic liner back there. Note to self, only dry potting soil goes in the car.

On the upside, didn’t have to do much watering since the potting soil was drenched. Filled up the pots with a gravel base, potting soil, then the mint plants. My favorite part is sticking the little plant sign in the dirt as the final touch. Ready to go.

The rest of the backyard is in complete disarray with weeds and grass growing around the pots, dried plants from  last year and the perpetual weeds. The pot downsizing has not started in earnest either.

I’ll get to that next weekend. Maybe. I hope so…. Got potting soil? Get mint!

 

 

Do You Need To Be Re-Potted?

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by Kimberly A. Cook            (Twitter@ WarriorTales)

I’ve been doing a lot of projects lately. Granted, I always have projects to do, but these are the mundane drive me crazy kind of jobs. Feels great to accomplish them. Completed a rather sticky one two weeks ago.

A lucky bamboo plant a friend gave me a couple of years ago at work  was trying to eat my desk. It started out as a few short well-ordered stalks and then just kept growing. I find this amazing since I can pretty much kill cactus, but aside from the hardy African violets at home, growing a plant at the day job under fluorescent lights seemed like a challenge. Bamboo appeared to be pretty happy after all.

No, not new food, bamboo roots after finally getting them out of the small vase. Note the nifty use of my strainer to catch the rocks!
No, not new food, bamboo roots after finally getting them out of the small vase. Note the nifty use of my strainer to catch the rocks!

So when the plant grew taller than my desk shelf I had to move it out of the corner, then it began to block my hanging calendar view. Next thing I noticed it was trying to escape on its own. The roots were growing out of the vase. Root bound. Not wanting to stunt its growth, I found on the Internet how I was supposed to care for my bamboo plant. I’d been doing everything wrong. Oh well. Obviously my bamboo plant didn’t care.

Read the re-potting instructions and launching the space shuttle might be easier. So I did what I normally do, I took the advice I liked and struck out on my own. Directions said not to get a new vase more than an inch higher and 1 1/2 inches wider. Accomplished.

Airlifted bamboo home in my car, it fit perfectly in my drink cup holder if you don’t mind driving with fronds in your face. Bought new rocks at the craft store. Assembled my tools and  began to try to surgically remove the bamboo from the vase. Not budging. Okay. Rocks in there, tugging is in order. Major tugging. I may have shaved off a few roots in the meantime.

Long story shorter, planted in new vase and watered. Its been two weeks and the leaves are still green so I that’s good. Bamboo seems to like its new home where it gets light seven days a week instead of four. Now I just have to be careful it doesn’t try to eat my kitchen.

Upright and green. This was right after the major transplant, in case it croaked before I wrote this blog post. Happy plant!
Upright and green. This was right after the major transplant, in case it croaked before I wrote this blog post. Happy plant!

In fact, bamboo plant looked on while I watched the Seahawks pull out a miracle trip to the Super Bowl on Sunday. See, I had decided to sort my tax receipts during the commercials. Worked like a charm. Of course, during the Super Bowl that won’t work because the commercials are part of the show.  Alas, football will soon be  over. But there is basketball!

Do you need to be re-potted or moved or put in a different vase? A change of scenery can work wonders for bamboo plants and people. Especially if we get to pick the color of our own pretty rocks. Sunstones work for me. And diamonds. Rubies. Emeralds. Turquoise. I feel another project coming on…….