First freesia bloom of the season, February 23rd

-
It's February 23rd here at The Tropical Paradise in Glendale, Arizona (a suburb of Phoenix) and the first freesia flower is starting to bloom. These are from bulbs from +Easy to Grow Bulbs, Inc.  that were planted three years ago, and they come back beautifully every year.

The best place to plant freesia here in the desert is at the bottom of a slope, in full sun. It's important to keep them within easy reach so the spent blooms can be tended to regularly. Also, they are beautiful and fragrant, and you want to be able to walk up to them. These are not "background plants"! I call something like this a "walk-up-to-it" from a design point of view, so if you plant them way back in your garden, don't be surprised if people stomp through trying to walk up to them. Good garden design does not encourage people stomping through the garden - put them where they are easy for people to see, and smell the fragrance.

Freesia will bloom throughout February and March here. The flowers appear in sequence, and once the blooms are spent, I trim the flower stalk all the way off. Like daffodils, it's best to let the leaves die back naturally, which they will, once the heat starts coming on in late April and May.

Yeah, it's too late to plant the bulbs now. If you buy freesia in full bloom now all you will be able to do is to watch the plant fade away. Put a note in your calendar to plant some bulbs next September. And don't be tempted to buy "Dollar Store" bulbs and just punch them into the ground. Get some decent bulbs, prepare a planting bed with some good potting soil and plant food. Yeah, it's absolutely ridiculous the trouble that I go to when planting, but in the long run, it's the best way to go.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How to tell if your cycad (sago palm) is alive or dead

-
Image
Cycads are strange plants. They're beautiful, and look like small palm trees, or large ferns. They grow very slowly, and can be very expensive, even common ones like "sago palms". But sago palms, in spite of their common name, aren't palms at all. They belong to a group of plants called cycads. They are wonderfully weird, and grow in strange ways. And sometimes they lose all of their leaves. Of course, if it were a palm tree that lost all of its leaves, you would know that the plant was dead. But it's not true of cycads. So don't dig that cycad up and throw it away! Not yet. If you've recently transplanted a cycad, and the leaves have all faded away, hang on. Take a look at the top center of the plant, at what I call "the pucker". There you will see some stubby, soft fronds, no more than an half-inch or so. At least that's what you should see. That means that the plant is still alive, and has dropped its leaves to focus on building r
Read more

Growing sunflowers from Pennsylvania in Arizona

-
Image
It's October 21st, and I just received some sunflower seeds from a friend in Pennsylvania. Their season is ending and the season for planting here in Arizona is just beginning, and I'm kinda wondering if the seeds are wondering what's going on? It's spring again already? If you're new to the Phoenix, Arizona area, and are from back east it must seem kinda strange that fall and winter is our flower season, but it is. By springtime it will start to get so hot here that the flowers will die, and of course back east the season is just beginning.  Sunflowers growing in Peoria, Arizona, about a mile from where I live I've seen sunflowers blooming around my neighborhood of Glendale, which is a suburb of Phoenix, in the winter, and although I've never grown them I understand that they're easy to grow. I guess I'll find out - I learn best by doing! The seeds arrived safely, and it's my understanding that they were still connected to the spent flower (I do
Read more

Rooting sago palm pups for more plants

-
Image
Once a sago palm ( cycas revoluta ) reaches a certain level of maturity, it starts to create pups. Like agaves, these are little plants that are exactly the same as the parent plant, only smaller. And yes, you can trim them off and grow them into new plants. This is how to do it. Cut them off from the parent plant with a sharp knife. If there are any roots at the bottom, try to save them, but chances are there won't be any. That's not a problem. The next step is rooting them. Douse the cut part and the bottom of the plant with some garden sulfur and some rooting hormone powder. Rooting hormone powder is pretty easy to find at your local Home Depot. I had to go to a real nursery to get garden sulfur. Anyway, the idea is to keep the little plant from rotting while giving it time to grow its own roots. Sago palm pups being rooted Bury them fairly deep in some free-draining mix. It should include volcanic pumice, if you can find it, and if not, you can use perlite. I
Read more