Park Seed Garden Journal

Seed Starting: Being Prepared To Grow

Growing plants from seed is easy--people have been doing it for thousands of years. Essentially, all you need seeds, soil, and water. The difference between your garden and the gardens of thousands of years ago is that you are not a tenth-generation farmer growing native plants on your ancestors' land. You are a busy, modern person working a 40+ hour work week, and you may need a few extra tricks and gadgets to coax your seeds into giving you the garden you want.

Remember these 3 things when you are starting out with a new garden:

1. Choose good quality seeds.
   To ensure good germination rates and healthy, fruitful plant growth, untreated, Non-GMO (genetically modified organism) seed, make sure that you buy from a trusted source. Park Seed is a trusted brand that guarantees the quality of their seed products.
2. Know Your USDA Hardniness Zone.
   Choose the hardiest varieties with resistances relevant to your zone. If you live in a hot dry climate, choose varieties that are drought resistant.
3. Get as much information about your plants as you can.
   At ParkSeed.com, we always list tolerances, hardiness, and specific care instructions for all of our seeds. The seed packet itself will give you planting and germination instructions.

You can read more in this extensive seed-staring guide from our Online Gardener's Handbook which feature other articles and links to helpful gardening sites..

 

Speaking of seed packets--by popular demand, Park Seed has brought back the classic gold foil seed packets. People like them because they keep your seeds safe and dry, and most of our long-time customers associate them with the Park Seed brand.

High-Resolution Floral and Vintage Desktop Wallpapers

Happy New Years Everybody!

The people over in the eCommerce department have decided to share a few of their pictures with you. These are beautiful, large, high-resolution images that are pre-sized to fit most monitor resolutions. There are beautiful pictures of some of the most popular flowers and colorful fruits and veggies, and a couple of vintage logos and designs--Everyone loves the Park Seed Squirrel!

You can see the full page of clickable thumb nails here: Park Seed Desktop Wallpapers
To set your wallpaper: after clicking the thumbnail or appropriate resolution to see the full-sized image, right-click and select "set as desk-top background".
Here are a couple of my personal favorites (I'm currently using the purple Ornamental Peppers pic!):

New Organic Squash Eastern Delight Hybrid!

I hope everyone is having a happy Holiday season! It's the day after Christmas and we are already back on the job, getting ready for the first spring seed orders.

We have plenty of new and exciting seed varieties this season. I'm gonna try to highlight some of the favorites throughout the spring planting season. Today I want to talk about Squash Eastern Delight Hybrid Organic. This plant is tolerant to powdery mildew, yields heaps of fruit, and offers a unique color for your dinner table. These lightly spotted, ivory green squash, also called Mexican White Squash are very popular in Mexico and the Middle-East, and they have a similar taste and texture to zuccini.

Victory Gardens Are Back

With recent economic troubles there has been new interest in Victory Gardens.

Victory Gardens are fruit and vegetable gardens planted originally at private residences throughout Allied English-speaking nations during WWI and WWII. The idea was to reduce the pressure put on the food supply by the wars. With the US currently participating in two wars and the economy making the headlines everyday, Victory Gardens have become very popular once again. Not necessarily to ease pressure on the general food supply, but many people are easing the pressure on their own wallets by growing more food at home.

Recently, more people have bought fruit and vegetable seeds than they have in many years. Many people are getting into gardening for the first time, people who may have never considered gardening otherwise. With all of these new gardeners, many people are looking for tips, hints, and seed suppliers. The Park Seed Company plans to do our very best this year to accommodate the new gardeners as well as the many veterans who have ramped up their gardening needs in light of current events.

We've got seed-starting kits that are easy to use. Most of the people here in the office are young inexperienced gardeners, and they all own a Bio Dome Seed Starter. Often our window sills are lined with little seedlings because everybody wants to try out all of the new stuff.

We are also offering a special Victory Garden seed collection that features 6 easy to grow garden favorite veggies for $9.95. This collection is enough to fill a small garden: cucumbers, crook-neck squash, tomatoes, green beans, red lettuce, and some giant bell peppers.

New Spring 2009 Park Seed Catalogs Are Here!

Park Seed's spring catalogs have been mailed. It is now time to start planning your spring garden and thinking about seed starting.

Our Spring 2009 Seed Book is full of all of your favorite hybrid and heirloom seed varieties, but it is also packed with almost 100 brand new rare varieties. You can also get all of your vital seed starting supplies like Park's famous Bio Dome seed starting system. This is the catalog that many gardeners wait all year for--it gives you everything you need for a strong start in the spring planting season.

If you like the Seed Book, you should also check out Park Seed's Spring Planting Catalog 2009. This books is full of a huge variety of bulbs, roses, perennials, shrubs, and trees that will really make your garden glow this season. This book contains many old favorites, but you will also find many new and exclusive plant varieties.

You can request these catalogs to be delivered free to your home, or you can look through them on our website: Park Seed eCatalogs. The pictures and descriptions in the electronic catalog link to full descriptions on at Park Seed's website.

Holiday Blooms: Amaryllis, Christmas Cactus, and Poinsettia

The Christmas cactus

A beautiful jungle cactus with a really exotic, festive look. They are easy to care, requiring very little attention to look fantastic. Getting the nice winter blooms isn't too hard--they just like to be in tune with what's going on outside. As long as the temperature is not getting too low (into the 40s) you can start sitting your Christmas cactus outside in the fall. As the days get shorter and the temperatures drop this will trigger your cactus to start budding and give you those nice bright blooms through the holidays.

The Amaryllis

Amaryllis always has a nice display with huge showy holiday blooms. And this one is even easier to care for. Plant is in a light planting medium, like sphagnum, with the top 1/3 showing and water lightly. After the blooms fade cut it back to the bulb and store it in a cool dry place until next Holiday season. You will start this process again about 4-6 weeks before you would like your Amaryllis to bloom.

Poinsettias

 Another popular, low-maintenance, holiday plant--water them when the planting medium is dry and they should stay bright and showy all season long. But, after the holidays, usually late winter to early spring, the poinsettia bracts (modified leaves, "petals") will return to green. Most people will just throw them out. I thought I wrote a guide for reblooming them last year, but I can't find it--here's one I found from the University of Illinois extension that is pretty helpful: Reblooming Poinsettias

Cold-Weather Tasks - a Gardener's Work is Never Done

As many of you have noticed, the mornings are getting colder each and every day. But don’t think for a minute that we here at the Park Seed trial gardens have slowed down any. We are now in clean up mode, whether that means raking leaves or pruning back all of the plants that have been affected by the cold. Those plants that have been affected most are perennials, soft tissue plants, and deciduous trees and shrubs. These include Musa (Banana), Colocasia (Elephant Ear), Rudbeckia (Black-Eyed Susan), and Echinacea (Coneflower), to name a few.

It's also a time for limbing trees, preparing soil, and making sure irrigation lines are leak-free so they don’t burst. We are now concentrating on limbing trees like Taxodium distichum (Bald Cypress) and many of our Acers. It's also important to remember that in the landscape, all trees should be limbed up at the same height to create a unified look. The best way to do this is by standing back at a distance, creating a visual of what the tree would look like without the limbs. You can also flag limbs with some type of marking tape so you will be able to clearly see which branches will be removed. For bigger limbs (over 3"), you might want to use a chainsaw for a more even, cleaner cut.

As you know, keeping a yard or landscape looking great takes continual love and care, so even though there might not be as many weeds growing out in the yard, winter is a great time to do a few of those things that summer doesn't allow!

Winter is also a great time for us here at Park Seed because it gives us time to plan out how we will designate the beds for spring. "Planning for spring already?!" you say. Yes, to ensure another beautiful and quality spring like years past, the time is now!

Quick Reference Bulb Planting Chart

While searching for more information about our spring bulb line-up I came across this handy little bulb planting guide. This is the same information that is shipped with the Park Seed orders. The full booklet tells you how to plant, where to plant, and other general care tips for a long list of garden plants. I thought this bulb chart was especially handy.

Item	Planting Time	Flowering Time	Height(in.)	Depth to Plant (in.)	Distance Apart (in.)
Allium	Spring or Fall	late spring, early summer	various	2 X Diam. Of the bulb	6-8
Amaryllis	4-6 weeks before booms are desired	spring, unless forced	12-18	1/3 of bulb above ground	Pot 2" larger than bulb
Anemone	fall	early spring	4-12	2-3	2-4
Butterfly Amaryllis	4-6 weeks before booms are desired	spring, unless forced	24	base of bulb blow soil line	6" pot
Calla Lilly (Zantedeschia)	late spring	early to mid summer	12-18	3	6
Colchium	aug.-sept.	sept.-oct.	4-8	3-4	6-8
Crocus, Autumn	sept.-dec.	fall	2-6	2-3	2-6
Crocus, Spring	sept.-dec.	early spring	2-6	2-3	2-6
Cyclamen	late summer, early fall	fall	6	top of corm level with soil	6-12
Eranthis	early fall	early spring	3	2	1-2
Eremurus Foxtail Lilly	sept.-dec.	June	4-8	4-6	2-3
Freesia	early spring	summer	18-24	3	1
Fritillaria Imperialis	fall	early spring	18-24	4-6	6-8
Fritillaria Meleagris	fall	spring	12	3-4	1
Galanthus	fall	early spring	4-6	2-3	2
Gladiolus, Hardy	fall or early spring	spring	18	2-4	3-4
Hermodactylus	fall	early spring	6-12	3-4	3-4
Hyacinth	fall	early spring	9-18	4-6	6
Ipheion	fall	early spring	8-10	3-4	1
Iris, Bulbous	aug.-sept.	early spring	4-24	2-3	4-6
Leucojum Summer Snowflake	fall	April	12	4-6	4
Lily	fall or spring	early spring	2-8	4-6	9-18
Lily of The Valley Convallaria	fall or spring	May-June	6-8	1	3-4
Lycoris Hardy Amaryllis	mid-summer to fall	late summer, early fall	12-18	2-4	5-8
Muscari	late summer, early fall	early spring	6-9	3	2-3
Narcissus, Daffodils	sept.-oct.	Apr.-May	12-24	5-6	6-8
Oxalis	fall	spring	2-8	2	2-6
Ranunculus	spring	early spring	8-12	1.5	6
Scillia Hispanica	fall	spring	15	2-3	4-5
Scilllia Siberica	fall	mar.-apr.	6	3	3-6
Tulip Hybrid	fall	spring	6-18	6-8	3-6
Tulip Species	fall	spring	4-8	2-3	1-2
Zephyranthes	spring	mid-summer	9-12	1-2	3