Spring is here!

That means it's time to start planting and with fuel prices rising and food shortages on the horizon there's no better year to start. Last fall I harvested a "wild" sunflower growing near my house and this year I plan to grow numerous sunflowers along the south wall where there is currently nothing but peonies, spirea, and bare mulch.

One head of sunflower seeds and some crabapples.

Along the west wall there's more mulch, spirea, and sedum. I intend to plant cantaloupe in the bare areas here. I have grown cantaloupe in a pot before, producing one baseball sized melon.

In the northwest corner there is more mulch, spirea, daylilies, and coneflowers. I've also planted about 7-8 apple seeds here and am hoping at least one will sprout. In the southwest corner of the property I intend to plant the maple sapling I collected last summer.

Better days...

Winter was hard. The leaves dried up and fell off. I'm praying this means it's just dormant and not dead. Moving to the front yard I'll be removing the shroud from Lazarus the mulberry in a few weeks and praying that the rabbits don't get to it.

Lazarus

Just to the north of Lazarus I planted a sycamore seed. If that one fails to germinate I have several seed balls I can take more seeds from.

Lastly, I may or may not take some of the cedar saplings and transplant them to the north or northwest (if the apples fail) yard to create a windbreak and privacy screen. An alternative is the possibility of 'guerilla' planting them around town.

An abundance of cedars

Those are my gardening plans for this year.

A brief gardening update

It's late fall here in Iowa meaning there won't be much to do in the way of gardening until April but I do have a few things to share:

• I cut the end off of a plastic downspout and placed it over Lazarus to try and protect it from rabbits during winter.
• The potted maple is indoors and still green although some of the leaves have brown spots.
• I potted two cedars hoping I could get some growth out of them over winter.
• I found an American sycamore (Platanus occidentalis) seed ball in the parking lot of Hilton Coliseum and have potted about five of the seeds from it. If I can get one seedling out of it I'll transplant it outside when spring comes.