Setting up my Garden

Well, it’s Feb. 26th and it’s still nice out. it’s only 34, but it’s bright and sunshiney. It was 60 last week, and it’s been decent most of the winter. My brain is starting to activate and come out of winter hibernation, so that means it’s time to start planting.

Since I live in an apartment, I don’t get a real garden, so we have a bunch of pots and windowboxes and such. Jackie picked up a weeping Fig and another cane-y palm tree looking thing. While we were at it, we decided to repot almost all of our other plants.

The current cane/palmtree things we have were getting a bit crowded, and the smaller of the two had grown some extra shoots pretty low on the stem, so it needed to be raised up. It should be noted that with these, you have one small and one large, usually. We switched pots, cleaned off the roots, gave them fresh dirt and got some new rocks to cover the top with. We also wiped the dust off the leaves while we were at it. it looks much better now. Jackie originally got the new cane/palmtree in the hopes she could put the two new stalks with the 2 old ones, but that just wasn’t practical, so we gave it the same treatment, and got a new big pot for it as well. The weeping fig was a mess, but we got it out of the old pot and into another large one. When I say large, I mean that this and the cane/palms have 14 inch pots. I think it’ll grow nicely.

The Creeping Jerusalem (I think that’s what pete called it) didn’t have enough soil and needed a bigger pot. We transplanted it, seperated the roots as much as possible, and replanted in a bigger pot. It’s roots were fairly tangled, but we did get some of them seperated. It’s sitting in the living room on an end table, next to some forget-me-nots that jackie had from her grandfather’s funeral. Jackie brought my old (failed) window box in from outside, cleaned it up, and I planted spearmint and sage in it. it’s sitting on the desk next to me. Jackie also has a pot on her side of the desk she messed with a few days ago, but it looks like it’s just ferns and such.

The window sill in the kitchen has a couple of windowboxes and some pots on it. My window box has basil and “various peppers” planted in it, and jackie’s has more forget-me-nots. We also got two of those “plants in a bucket” things from walmart, although we got nicer pots for them- one for strawberries (I have my doubts on this one) and one for cayenne peppers. with any luck I’ll get some nice peppers for salsa this way. The other pot is this weird looking plant we got somewhere, but I have no idea what it is- it’s got a red mohawk. As long as it doesn’t eat the cats, I’ll be happy (note- jackie says it’s what we got from her aunt joann). We also have my 2 basil pots that still haven’t died yet- as soon as they do, I’ll toss them, but not before. Rounding out the window sill are two bamboo stalks, which are growing suprisingly well. On the far side of the counter in the kitchen we have our old bamboo forest of about 10-12 stalks, and a new one- jackie found some nice bamboo in an ugly pot, so we tried transplanting them in a glass vase and holding them in place with some rocks. It looks pretty good, but I’m curious how long it’ll last.

So it’s not quite a garden, but it is some nice greenery, which makes the pain of being in DC a little bit less. I’ll try and get some pictures up later.