Finally some progress on the green front \o/

[gelbes_gilatier]

Yay, after weeks, I finally managed to do some planting and seeding. I didn't go to Staudenmarkt this year, after all because I didn't feel like it (I must have pulled some muscle or other the week before and moving my left arm wasn't fun that day) and I didn't want to spend a lot of money on plants that might not survive our projected forced absence at the end of July (did I mention that they want to build in an elevator here and need to demolish the entire staircase for that? Yeah). I did, however, find a butterfly bush (small plant, not that monstrum in the picture :D) at the garden center when my father sent me to buy some balcony flowers for him and I couldn't resist buying it because I've been wanting one of those for years. I also bought a lemon balm plant because I haven't had one in years and I like the smell and taste of them.

Looks like this now:



(butterfly bush to the right, lemon balm to the left)

I also took some pictures of the overwinterers that survived the winter:



(see those small green sprouts? That's the strawberry plants ♥)



(chives and tarragon, two years in a row. They're starting to scare me with their resilience...)



(one happy little blueberry plant \o/ Lots of flower buds this year, so I'm hoping that I'll have fruit this year)



(one decidedly unhappy sage plant :( it has bugs and I have no idea how to get rid of them. Can't decide between letting it die and trying to save it :S)



(last year's lemon tree, with a weird kind of... thinky sprouting from the stem (that green thing on the left side). Anyone know what that is? Do I have to get worried about it?)



(not sure if those two (Aztect sweet plant and lemon verbena) are happy or not but at least their still alive, so here's hoping!)



(sadly, my geranium is dead, but Mom's mint flavored generanium is thriving, as you can see)



(cardamom plant, definitely happy. Should I repot? Mh...)



(last but not least, physalis plant, apparently eager to get out and about but yeah, nights are still too cold for that)

So I took the time to day to pot them and, since I was already busy with soil and stuff, decided to do the seeding I'd been procrastinating. After careful consideration, I decided not to seed everything I bought. In the end I went with the following:

• Cherokee Mountain Mint
• Chili "Criolla Sella"
• Chili "Anaheim"
• Cornflower
• Watercress
• Nasturtium
• Poppies
• Korean Perilla
• Tagetes "Orange Gem"
• African Lemon Plant
• Agastache "Navajo Sunset"
• Aniseed Hysope

I decided to wait with the trees (guava and pomegranate), the frangipani and the scarlet bee balm because those seemed the most complicated plants needing a lot of attention after seeding and I didn't want to see all that work down the drain during the three weeks we have to move out here. I'm considering seeding the trees and frangipani after the staircase thing is over because apparently, those can be seeded all year round and I'm kind of curious to see if I can manage raising exotic plants from scratch.

What's growing in your gardens and on your balconies this year? Anything special?

Also, wholly, unrelated, I finally managed to get back to a story I haven't written anything for in a year and a half, which is proof that I never abandon stories, you sometimes just have to wait really, really long for me to finish them. But yeah, I'm just really glad I got back to it because once I'm done with it, I can finally post all that Minor Characters stuff I've been writing last year and didn't want to post because I wanted to stop posting so much stuff out of chronological order. I'm also a little positively surprised that some people at least still seem to read Minor Characters because honestly, I know you're not supposed to have favorites but SG10 and their Atlantis addition will always be just a little bit special to me :S