Climbing Petunia

Holy peanut butter...it's hard to believe it's been so long since my last post. What a crazy, busy year. For the first time, in a very long time, I've had a few days to dedicate my time to the garden and heavens, what a joy.

With the economy being a little topsy-turvey, the 9-to-5 has taken it's direction from the stock market which means I've had to work longer and more intense hours. But enough is enough...the sun is out and the birds are singing and the squirrels are eating everything that has an tad bit of sugar. So, I need to be out there too!

While out in the garden, I noticed the climbing petunias that were planted last year are rampant...and have also gone to seed. Of course, I collected the seed but in honest amazement. It's planted in a pot where a lemon tree is growing...and it's managed to take full control of the tree for climbing purposes. By all accounts, the flower looks just like any other petunia...it just grows up, around and throughout whatever it manages to grow next to. It also has nice longevity as it's succeeded well with substantial neglect. They've grown, without being trimmed, or a large quantity of water for more than a year and has continued to bloom profusely (and is still on going). With a little concern and care, they'd probably end up as real dynamos in the garden.

Look for updates to the seed list in the early summer months. Much has been collected and will be made available and the remaining portion of the list will be consolidated until the next seed saving round.

January: White Stock Seed for SASE

Since it's the beginning of the year I figured we could start with some lovely, old-fashioned garden flowers. We grew so much of this stock in 2008 and placed the plants in so many different areas of the garden, our neighbors would comment how fragrant the garden was and they hadn't even made it up the driveway.

White Stock is a great addition to any garden for its incredible fragrance and beauty. This variety produced massive plants, much larger than anticipated. The bed was mulched with organic material which may have resulted in the enthusiastic growth. Leaves were a grayish-green-blue with an overcast of white. The leaves are heavier than dwarf stock and have a bit of a grainy texture. The flowers bloomed into single, creamy-white, flowers which grew to approximately 2 ½ feet. Some came through as 'doubles' but the majority are single flowers - still highly fragrant. They made an excellent bouquet as a filler or alone. Flowers produced over a long period of time. Fragrance is intense and delightfully sweet. This is another one I strongly recommend.

It's noted Thomas Jefferson grew White Stock in his garden at Montecello.

We are making small packets of this seed available to the first 20 people only. We'll post here when the packets are completely gone. The quantity of seed and packets are limited so please send in your SASE immediately upon contact.

For rules on the SASE distribution, please review this post.