Hallson Gardens

I usually just plant some perennial seeds in the early spring for thenext year, but this year I brought in quite a few of my more unusual annual plants from the garden and will be doing massive amounts of cuttings to bed out. I built a 4 tier seed starting rack based on one I saw in Fine Gardening (...

Wow, I was going to take a picture of my fairly large Korean box to show someone the brown tone it takes on in the winter only to find it was under at least 6" of snow (It is almost 2' tall.) and a barely discernable bump!

I'll be glad to provide the "reference" "milk names" as in the hosta that looks like Loyalist or Thunderbolt, but like it is DEFINITELY NOT...

Hosta ID is just never that easy!

Actually this has been a great discussion on three very similar hosta, although in flower I feel the platiginea can never be confused! Great photos of the similarity, but marked difference in leaves.

There was some discussion of Messenger here a while back. Kent, did you have a control group of plants for comparison with Messenger? And what happens when I plant is deprived of Messenger? Has it had any effects on winter hardiness?

Anyone using Messenger?

...enough with the white mulch already!

At least I have found it a good brace for my pendulous Crimson Frost birch. Its trunk is four feet deep in a snowbank!

...but I do have great success...usually better than 90%.

Sometimes getting out of the little mental box of "the only way 'professional hybridizers' would do it" and experimenting with different methods is useful...consider the whole wintersowing process of seed germination, for example.

Let's see...

From sort of left to right, a few maybe: Thunderbolt, Stained Glass, Regal Splendor, Komodo Dragon, Nightlife, Revolution, June Fever, Blue Mammoth, Loyalist, Sagae....

I didn't get a one other than June Fever...did I!

Where I live we have peat, it is the natural boggy soil (not the moss stuff) and it has anti-fungal properties. I use it for all my seed starting and cutting propagation with wonderful sucess. I never have to bother with fungals or damping off...

My vote goes to Earth Angel.

I was reading on another website of this guy experimenting with peroxide to break dormancy of some tropical seeds, too. I think this might be more common than you would think, although it surprised me at first. As for the fridge as cold stratification, I thought I had placed my daylily seeds there b...

Cottage...are you in WI?

Just a note to spider... I had been going back and forth with the village...someone of my neighbors had called the village and complained I was creating a swamp! This in the middle of a drought, mind you! If only! Imagine being able to create a wetlands by planting daylilies! It was a long-drawn out...

The depth thing and mulching is interesting, Chris, as when I grew them in IL they didn't always get enough water yet would spring back when they did. The organic component of mulching the crowns might be significant as I have no leaves here and had plenty in IL which I raked or chopped into my beds.

I think brunneras are a wonderful genus of plants. I grew them when I lived in IL which was almost a zone and 1/2 warmer than where I live now. I brought a small piece of one north, but it continually struggled. I moved it a couple times but it wasn't happy and finally dwindled away. I am interested...

I thought I would share this picture of one of my hosta that gets a lot of afternoon sunlight.

Yeah, I think Quiet Waters is too quiet also...maybe:

White Water Rafting or Wild River

I'm not sure what it is other than a florist's long stem red rose. I got roses for Valentine's after my son was born and clipped the stems from all of them, clipped the stems off again and planted them in a pot in a window sill. One rooted. I have been dragging this plant from house to house as it i...

When I lived in Elgin, mine when wild and it was evergreen in the mild weather. Three years and you may be cursing us! I have always grown it in partial to full shade and kept it dry to curtail its passionate assault! The flowers are nice (get a purple one!) They seldom bear fruit. Trumpet vines wou...

I was exposed to the Korean ash (think of its more familiar rrelation mountain ash...no relation to those being decimated by EAB) and was impressed by its form, foliage (leaves appeqar pleated), warm honey orange fall color and it beautiful bark. The Katsura is wonderful too and it has an interestin...