Progress!

Flower Bed

In the last post, I mentioned that we were working on a large flower bed.  It's purpose is to provide food and a habitat  for local birds and insects, and to provide opportunities for the kids to observe them.  We're working towards creating a Certified Wildlife Habitat through the National Wildlife Federation.  If anyone has extra plants or seeds that need a home, we're more than happy to help out.  Here's what we're looking for:

Monarda (P)

Buddleia (Butterfly Bush)  (P)

Bronze Fennel (P)

Lobelia (Cardinal Flower) P

White Dragon Flower (native) (P)                                    

Yarrow (P)

Aster (various) (P)                                                            

Sedum (P)

Rudbeckia (Black Eyed Susan) (P)                                    

Mexican Blue Sage (P)

Coneflower (P)                                                            

Blue Queen Salvia (P)

Columbine (P)                                                            

Butterfly weed (Asclepias) (P)

Lamb’s Ear (P)                                                           

Joe Pye Weed (P)

Creeping Phlox (P)                                                            

Thyme (various) (P)

Tarragon (P)                                                                        

Rosemary (P)                       

Dianthus (pinks, Sweet William, carnations) (A/P)

Poppies (A/P)                                                           

Parsley (A)                                                                        

Dill (A)

Love In A Mist (A)                                                            

Bachelor’s Buttons  (A)

Zinnias (A)                                                                       

Mexican Sun Flower (A)

P – perennial

A – annual 

Also, we're still looking for more apple trees.  We have one now, thank you again to the Cohen family, but unless it gets some friends, it will never produce anything.  We're looking to eventually have approximately 20 apple trees of different varieties.

If an apple tree seems like it might be to expensive (money is tight lately, I know) perhaps you might like to donate a strawberry plant or two.  We're going to be planting a large strawberry bed in the next few months.   They're inexpensive, and seem to be what the kids most want to grow.  

Of course, we can't plant much of anything right now. . . but hang on!  Spring is quickly approaching!

Garden Club Day

It was a good day for gardening today.  Well, yeah, the wind made it feel a lot colder than we expected, but we got a good 15 feet of a new big flower bed covered.  Next week we'll do a bit more and talk about what we want to grow this spring.

A Call For Cardboard!

This week my small group of hardcore garden club kiddos are going to get a flower bed ready for spring. In the fall we worked really hard on removing the grass from the area, but it was difficult. We're going to try a different method. I've got a load of topsoil ready to go, but we're going to need a lot of corrugated cardboard if you all have any old boxes looking for a new life in the garden. It'd be great if you can drop any off at my room (C-2) at school. We'd prefer it you all could remove any labels or tape, but it isn't necessary if you're pressed for time.

The Great Backyard Bird Count

If you're looking for something to do next weekend (and you're tired of reading seed catalogs and waiting for spring), the Great Backyard Bird Count runs from February 18-21.

It's very easy to participate.  You don't need to know a lot about birds or have and special equipment. There's all kinds of good information at the website.  If you put your zipcode in here, you'll get a great checklist of birds you'll see this time of year in our area.