Cut Flower Talk

I'm going to give a talk / workshop on cut flowers at the Ann Arbor Center for Independent Living next Wednesday May 26th from 1-3pm. The event is free and the Center for Independent Living is at 3941 Research Park Drive. Despite the usual late May slump, I will bring whatever cut flowers I can find. Please come!

Project Grow's 2010 Heirloom Vegetable Sale

Project Grow will is holding their heirloom vegetable sale on May 15th, 16th and 22nd in front of People's Food Co-op on 4th Avenue in Ann Arbor. This is a great place to get a single plant of strange heirloom tomatoes - there are 50 different kinds. All the proceeds go to Project Grow and the expenses are pretty low because all the manpower is provided free from volunteers and the plants are all grown from seed. I know all this because I'm one of the unpaid volunteers.

The sale offers tomatoes, peppers and basils but it is an especially good place to get tomatoes. Click here for a complete listing of what will be offered, hours etc.

Wisteria 2010

I read somewhere that the biggest limitation for gardeners is time (as opoposed to money or climate I suppose). I guess this can mean hours per day or years per lifetime, and sometimes one seems more meaningful to me than another. Ed Rasmussen, the guy who runs The Fragrant Path, summed up my attitude toward all this when he said, referring to growing shrubs and trees from seed, "if not planted, they will not grow". The point being that if you plant the shrub that takes forever to flower now, in no time at all it will be flowering away every year.

A couple years ago I printed a picture of the Japanese wisteria I planted from Carroll Gardens which took several years to produce a few flowers. Last year it produced even fewer but this year is is literally covered in blooms, so many I can't begin to count them. Here are a couple pictures:

This pergola Joe and I built in front of the house contains 5 sections, and the wisteria is now most of the way through section 2.