Why I Oughta...

Yesterday, I posted a photo of a Phlox Cherry Caramel bloom and talked about how that was the first bloom on one of the non-dahlia cut flowers that I have been trying to grow this year.  Today, I'm posting a photo of my second cut-flower (non-dahlia) that has bloomed: a single Didiscus Lacy Blue .  I ordered a rack of plugs of Didiscus from Garden Club (Farmer Bailey ) that arrived earlier than they should have (my mistake, not theirs) and I ended up first potting-them-up into larger pots and then, eventually planting them in the ground.  All eight plants went into the Island Bed in the front yard .  I wasn't sure how attractive they were going to be to the (dang) rabbits, so I encircled them in some chicken wire cages to protect them from being nibbled/gnawed. This post is going up in July, but these photos are from late June - about two weeks ago.   I had my first bloom open up on one of the Didiscus plants.   They're about the size Silver Dol...

Earlier this year, I ordered a bunch of plugs from Farmer Bailey/Garden Club and I've documented my (learning) journey with them along the way.  From ordering them to having them arrive too early (Self-inflicted) to potting-them-up to keeping them (some of them) alive to planting them in.   Part of my 2026 to-do list was to 'experiment with other cut flowers' and these plugs were a bit part of of my answer to that challenge.   Amongst the plugs were an eight-pack of Phlox Cherry Caramel .   These faired the worst of all of my selections with four of the eight making it to planting-time and the other four withered while they were in the small pots.  I planted the four in different spots:  two in the pizza oven bed, one in the front island bed and one IB2DWs down by the sidewalk. They're all on different growing schedules with some already growing larger than others.  One of them has even bloomed.  I'm posting this in early July, bu...

Day three of accent plant plug being planted-out in the garden. First day was the eight Didiscus Lacy Blue in the Island bed.  Yesterday, I showed a photo of the six Silver Shields going in the corner bed by the back patio .   That brings my accent plant total to 14 (so far).  Today, we continue with eight more cut flowers that are new (to me).   Lisianthus Celeb Metallic Blue .  Lisianthus has taken on sort-of a mythical state amongst the cut-flower-farming-tok world that I've fallen into.  It is (by reputation) very slow growing, so no idea how these will do out in my garden.  To help them, I planted all eight in the newly expanded Saratoga Ginkgo bed out front .  This gets good sun and because of the annual Vinca in the adjacent bed, I'll water the heck out of them.   Below is a photo showing the eight Lisianthus Celeb Metallic Blue in rabbit protection cages.  I'm hoping that like everything else, as these put on some ...

Yesterday, I started the posting series about planting out my cut flower plugs with the first eight Didiscus Lacy Blue in the front yard Island Bed .  Today, I'm showing the six Plectranthus Silver Shield plugs in the corner bed in our backyard near the patio.  These are going where I planted a mix of Dusty Miller and border Dahlias last year, but in a newly expanded bed.   These plugs also came from Garden Club and because I ordered them for too-early of a delivery , I had to pot them up into something larger.  Of all the varieties that came from Garden Club, these Silver Shields did BY FAR the best.  All eight of them were happy two months later.   Overall, I've been really happy with the Garden Club plug order - from the greenhouses they came in to the vibrancy of the tiny plants.  A positive experience.  I'm trying something different with these:  no rabbit cages.  Instead, I'm applying Liquid Fence.  *Fingers Crossed...

Last month, I shared that I made my first (ever) order from Farmer Bailey (Garden Club Plants) for a few sets of plant plugs .   I ordered six sets of eight (8) plugs each - 48 total.  One set of six (6) of each of: Lisianthus Celeb 2 Metallic Blue , Phlox Cherry Caramel , Plectranthus Silver Shield , Gomphrena Audray White , Eucalyptus Silver Dollar and Didiscus Lacy Blue . When you order from Garden Club, you get to select your delivery date.  With this being my first time doing this, I likely made a mistake:  I ordered for delivery too soon. I don't recall (now) if some of the later (late April, early May) dates were already sold out or if I just selected mid-April because I thought that was appropriate, but either way...my plugs arrived in mid-April.  They came in these cute little green plastic 'greenhouses': All 48 plugs look good and had leaf'd out.  The only one of the set that I had grown before was eucalyptus, so I knew what *that* foli...

Yesterday, I posted the first "Getting to Know" posts about the set of plugs that I bought from Garden Club this year: Lisianthus Celeb 2 Metallic Blue .  Next up is another blue bloom: Didiscus Lacy Blue .  This one is a direct recommendation from Erin the Impatient Gardener.  She mentioned that she grows these.  So...that's why I added to my cart.  So, what are they? Here is the listing from Floret : There is nothing like this super-productive, dome-shaped beauty. Each graceful disk is made of hundreds of tiny, forget-me-not-blue flowers, and the branching stems are smothered in buds. ‘Lacy Blue’ will flower for months, is slightly scented, and is the perfect size for bouquet work. Well...that sounds perfect, no?  They get 2-3 tall and need just 9" of spacing. Here is a photo from Farmer Bailey showing these growing in tunnels: Source via Farmer Bailey The Farmer Bailey growing guide mentions that they want some afternoon shade, so I think that mea...

Yesterday, I posted my Garden Club plug order and talked about how all six varieties are new (to me).   Lisianthus Celeb 2 Metallic Blue is the first one up.  I bought eight plugs and this is my first Lisianthus.  If you follow any flower farmer on Instagram, you can't go a week without hearing about Lisianthus.  They're rose-like and from what I've come to understand have good 'vase life'.  These "Celeb 2" Metallic blue are described by Garden Club as: The 'Celeb' series features large to extremely large, fully double, fringed flowers. This series dominates the Japanese Lisianthus market, and many of the cut flowers we see imported from Japan are Celeb types. Those Japanese gardeners.  They're so prolific .  Anything BLUE is of immediate interest to me, so the name made these an easy-add.  The photos show a more purple color, but we'll see what happens when/if they bloom: Source via Garden Club Ball Seed says : Huge blooms with strong, w...