Spring is Here!

One day it was winter and the next it wasn't. Just as winter was starting to become unbearable, we were hit with rising temperatures into the 50s and even very, very low 60s. It was like the universe answered all of the north's silent (and not so silent) prayers for spring. The warmth is making me even more excited to get done with my degree and enjoy a summer of growing food, working (hopefully!), and hanging out in the Twin Cities. 

Sunshine and 60 degrees on campus.

One exciting, new piece of life is that I've signed on as a member of Southeast Como's FairShare Farm! FairShare has a really neat model that allows members to pay a small, one-time fee, work a few set hours per week at the farm, and then receive a portion of every harvest. No one has their own individual plot, but all the plots are shared and rotated every year in keeping with good crop rotations. So it's somewhat like a CSA and a community farm smooshed into one. I'm just excited to be working with others who share my passion for gardening and meeting people from my neighborhood at the same time. 

One of the old grain towers near my house.

Otherwise, things are pretty normal. I'm heading home to Michigan for spring break on Saturday, leaving my roommates to have fun in the Twin Cities without me. But it'll be great to have a relaxing week of sleeping and taking care of myself. I'll also be helping out my dad who's having surgery on his knee while I'm home.

Once I get back, it's full steam ahead on seed-starting. The only thing I have going right now are perennial, native, pollinator friendly seed mixes started in some makeshift greenhouses (juice containers with holes poked in them) sitting outside. Since they don't mind the cooler temps, I've left them to generally fend for themselves with the occasional watering. I didn't want to start anything else until after spring break because I didn't want to leave newly-started seeds on their own for eight days... But I'm planning on some small space gardening at my own house as well as having things to grow at FairShare. I have some dry beans that I want to grow simply for seed-saving purposes (with the couple of beans I have, I wouldn't be able to grow enough to eat), as well growing some mini-bell peppers in pots for the ledge outside. I have several tomato varieties I'll probably offer to start for my family members as well. 

The last project I have are some perennials that I grew from cuttings in plant production last semester. I have some rugosa roses, a hydrangea, a mum and a pretty crispy-looking cold-hardy hibiscus (don't know if that one has made it...). I attempted overwintering them in our cooler stairway area and once it warms up even more, I'm going to set them outside, throw on some fertilizer and see if they come back. 

I'll probably have a seed-starting post up eventually, but this semester has been way more crazy than I thought. Plant genetics has been tricky and keeping up with it is requiring tons of work. But I just have to keep it up until the beginning of May...

Hope you all are enjoying the lovely spring weather, wherever you are!

Spring! Spring?

So Minnesota has decided it doesn't remember what season are anymore and, despite the few days of gorgeous, spring-like weather we had last weekend, yesterday brought almost a foot of snow to the southern part of the state. Thankfully, the Twin Cities didn't get any and instead get to enjoy chilly, cold, gray weather. I'm sure all the plants that got excited and sprouted during the warm weather are rather confused by this point. Frankly, I am as well. Last year, we had daffodils by the beginning of April, and this year we're dealing with 30 degree days at the beginning of May. Doesn't really make much sense.
Thankfully the St. Paul campus has some color to offer up in the form of the adorable little scilla flowers that blanket the more wooded areas.

In other news, last week I started my greenhouse job and am having a really good time. Just being able to work in a place filled with plants makes even the more simple tasks enjoyable. We do a lot of rearranging displays, watering and lots and lots of sweeping. My favorite task so far was when we got a new shipment of  moth orchids in and I got to help unpack the boxes, tag them and set them out on display. It was like a mini Christmas, pulling plant after plant out of the boxes, all with amazingly vibrant colors. They were right in mid-bloom and absolutely gorgeous. Some of the larger varieties included some giant, pure white blooms, a white variety with purple spots on the petals and a purple center, one with yellow-green petals and a purple center and rich, dark purple ones as well. There were tiny ones too, some bright pink with yellow edges, purple with darker centers and peach colored ones with gold centers. I've probably ranted enough about orchids now... Anyway, I've found I have to learn things in a really short amount of time, and by no means do I know even close to half yet. But I have another full weekend of work starting tomorrow, so we'll see what that brings.

I'm planning on filling another Grow Write Guild prompt for my next post, but I'll probably be pretty busy until finals week is over. So probably somewhere around the 17th or 18th I'll try to have that up.
In the meantime, I leave you with more scilla carpet pictures. I hope spring is proving to be a lot...springy-er than mine!

An Adventure to the Conservatory!

Since I'm with my family for Easter weekend, I convinced my mom and grandma to come with me to the Como Zoo Conservatory. This has been one of my favorite places in the Twin Cities since...well, as long as I can remember. When I was little I loved watching the carp in the garden ponds. Now I just love the flowers and the tropical air.
I'll try to label as many pictures as I can but there are TONS of them, so I won't be going through and naming each and every plant.

In the entryway they had two flowering trees with HUGE flowers.

 These flowers were hanging down from one of the trees.

Now THAT'S a hibiscus. It was bigger than my hand!

The first room you walk into is the fern room. I always imagine little dinosaurs running  around in the ferns because it reminds me so much of Jurassic Park.

Then you walk into the huge main section of the conservatory and get hit with a tropical blast of air.

 These plants are called bromeliads.

 Mini orchid!

 One of the more common orchids.

 This one reminded me of the lady slippers that grow near my house in the spring.

 

 They also had this 40-year-old bonsai tree in a little room off the main room.

Attached to the main room are two smaller sections of the conservatory. One is the North Garden. This has more tropical flowers, but while the main room tropical plants from what seems to be South America and Africa, these plants seem to be native to parts of Asia.

 Little oranges. :)

 A knobbly fig tree.

 An all-spice tree. Yes, the same all-spice that you might have in your spice rack.

 A chocolate tree.

 Red Torch Ginger

Macaw Plant

The main attraction of the day, however, was the sunken garden. This is where the conservatory has flower shows that change every season. One of my favorites is the spring flower show. This year, was a gorgeous color scheme of pink and purple.

 The sunken garden.

 Hydrangeas were one of the main attractions. 

 Foxgloves!

 Pink and yellow tulips.

Iris

 The crocuses (croci?) weren't quite blooming yet but the muscari were adorable.

 Giant pink amaryllis blooms.

 My favorite bloom of the day were the ranunculus. They were just so big and bright and happy.

 The lilies made the whole garden smell amazing.

 Pink hydrangea.

 A bed with bright pink tulips and purple pansies.

 Blue hyacinths. 

 Foxgloves

 A tulip with more than one layer of petals. 

 Easter Lily

 One of the planters in the middle of the pond.

The conservatory is an awesome place to visit if you're visiting the Twin Cities. Suggested donation is only $2 ($1 for kids). It's a great way to expose your kids to lots of different types of plants. Or, you're like me and just love plants, it's a great place to come for a few hours just to be surrounded by tropical air and the smells of blooming flowers.

They're online at http://www.comozooconservatory.org/

They also have a gardener blog here: http://marjoriemcneelyconservatory.blogspot.com/

(Also, in accordance with their photo policy, I did not use a tripod for any of these pictures and do not intend to ever use them for commercial use. They are purely the pictures of a plant lover to show one of my favorite places in the Twin Cities to my blog's followers.)