Today, I planted the Flambe Salmon petunias. There were 40 seeds in the pack but I only potted up 24 peat containers. The seeds were the smallest seeds that I ever remember planting. In addition, they are a black color so I couldn't tell if they had actually landed in the soil or not. I used up all of the seeds hoping that I was able to get at least one seed in each pot. The package said not to withhold light so they are now under the grow lights.

So far, I have sown the following:

• Pansies. Not all of the seeds germinated but I think that was due to the fact that I took some of the peat pots out of the growing tray when I didn't see anything happening. I think that they were the ones that were slow to germinate. If I had been more patient, they probably would have produced plants. When I first placed the pansies under the grow lights, they got leggy so I moved the shelfing closer and now they are more compact. The plants have grown several sets of leaves that have the characteristic pansy leaf shape.


• Wednesday, February 25: Four 4th of July tomatoes. All four have germinated and are growing very well.


• Monday, March 2: Four SunGold tomatoes. I thought that all four of them had germinated but when I was examining them today I noticed that one of them looks like a pansy plant!


• Tuesday, March 3: Thirteen Salmon Velvet Petunias. Seven of the thirteen pots have germinated so far. If I don't see plants in the other six pots by the end of the week, I'll replant them. I still have a few of these seeds left.

Today, I removed the pots with the Alberta Mums from the bed in front of the porch so that any bulbs blocked by them could sprout. Suprisingly, two of the mum plants look as if they survived. Both of them have some green leaves growing at the base of the plants. I hope that they do survive because they are a beautiful shade of reddish-orange.

Alberta Mum

I also took a walk around the front and back yards to see how the beds are doing. I didn't clean up the beds in the fall (I prefer to do that in the spring) so there is a lot of dead plant material. However, I did notice that bulbs are also starting to sprout in two of the beds in the backyard. I planted one of the round beds with minature daffodils and crocuses in the autumn of 2006. The following spring the plants did very well but the results were disappointing in 2008. The leaves came up last year but most of the flowers did not bloom. I decided to wait and see what happened with them this spring. If they do well, I will keep them in the bed. If they don't, I'll take them out.

I also noticed some of the daffodils that I planted in the long bed in the fall of 2007 are breaking ground. There are three varieties in this area--Salome (14-16 inches), Carlton (18-20 inches), and Ice Follies (16-18 inches). Brecks describes each of these flowers as follows. Salome is a large cupped daffodil with a creamy white preianth. The cup opens apricot yellow which soon turns pink. Carlton is a two-toned yellow large cupped daffodil with a nice vanilla scent. Ice Follies is one of the best large cupped daffodils for perennializing and naturalizing. It has a yellow perianth and yellow cup.