As the Garden Grows

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It’s time to start your seedlings gardeners!

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I meant to get started planting seeds indoors earlier this month, but it’s been one delay after another, most specifically _ I came down with a cold – my first in about 15 years!

So, this weekend I’m going to be getting out my seedling trays, and then I’m going to go down into the basement and find the two boxes that I keep seed packages and seeds that I’ve picked off of plants from my garden. It’s cool and surprisingly dry in our basement so it’s the perfect place to keep dormant seeds and even plant bulbs or corms like the four Cannas that I currently have down there.

I just have to decide where I’m going to put all my newly seeded trays. I think I’ll probably put them upstairs in our spare bedroom. It faces south so the containers and hopefully seedlings will get off to a good start with lots of sunlight. I do have a couple of grow lights that I can try to dig up out of the basement if I need them, but when I’ve grown seeds indoors in the past they’ve done well in that room without the need of additional lighting.

Have any of you started seedlings indoors for your garden?

I’m glad that we only have 6 weeks of winter left. I can’t wait to get outside and see new plants coming up in my garden beds. Oh and the crocuses! They’ll probably come up in my lawn by the last week of March like they normally do … perhaps earlier this year since we’ve had a fairly mild winter with barely any snow … so far anyway!






Orchid blooms for the new year

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Happy New Year! I hope that everyone is looking forward to 2009.

I’m looking forward to a fresh start. I didn’t make any resolutions other than to hopefully be healthier this year and well … I just have to hope for my Crohn’s to settle for that to happen.

I don’t really have any gardening news … not when it’s freezing cold here and the garden beds are covered in at least a few inches of snow.

My indoor plants are doing well though. One of my Orchids is blooming for the first time in about three years. It has one bloom so far and several other buds, so it looks like I’ll have Orchids blooming all month. The bloom is white.. Somehow I don’t remember it being white in the past. Odd! My other Orchid plant has developed a stem and has a few buds on it, so it will be blooming shortly as well.

I rescued my three Amaryllis from the basement yesterday. I’d forgotten about them! I brought them inside in early November when it started to get cold. I usually keep them outside on the enclosed from porch during the summer. It faces north so they don’t get a lot of bright light, but it’s enough to power them up for winter blooms.

They had survived their stay in the dark basement and were starting to sprout pale green leaves. Now they are on the kitchen table (near south facing window) and hopefully they’ll produce some blooms in February or March.

I love Amaryllis blooms. It’s a pity they only last about a week or so. Hopefully my three plants will stagger their blooms a bit and I’ll get a month of blooms.

How are your gardens and houseplants doing? Any blooms? Any new plans for the garden this year?

Wishing you a Happy New year, health and happiness (and a green thumb) in 2009! Thank you for being loyal readers!

Large selection of custom window treatments

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Like many home owners we try to do some type of renovation or decorating project on our home each year, whether it’s to help maintain the house or to make a room more functional and beautiful.

Many long term readers of this blog probably remember that we are completely renovating our home. We’ve been on a break from renovations for a while, but it will soon be time to start up again. We still have to finish our living room / dining room area, but after that we’ll move on to our Kitchen, the basement and the two bathrooms. After than the only things that will need to be done might be repainting, maintenance and perhaps changing decor.

If you are thinking about changing the look of a room you might start with a coat of paint and then perhaps move on to the windows. Adding shades or blinds to a window can help change the look and feel of a room, plus blinds and shades add function as well because you can control the amount of light in the room easily by simply adjusting the blind or shade.

If you’d like to look at a wide selection of custom window treatments for your home you might want to visit the DecoratingDepot as they have a fantastic selection of Wood Blinds, shades, horizontal and vertical blinds, Faux Wood Blinds and more.

They even have a selection of sliding panel blinds. I really like the look of their Woven Wood Sliding Panel. They’d look great in my enclosed back porch since it’s all windows.

Their blinds and shades come in a variety of materials and colors, for example you can get bamboo, wooden blinds, faux wood blinds, aluminum and vinyl blinds, and roman shades.

DecoratingDepot offers free shipping, no tax, guarantees their price and I believe you can even request free samples if you are having trouble deciding which type of blind or shade to choose. They even have a “virtual room decorator” that you can use to see how various types of blinds or shades might look in your room. Check it out for yourself.

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