mail order butterfly magnet

i came home late this afternoon to find a small package waiting for me at my doorstep. i knew immediately that it was one of the plants i had ordered. this butterfly garden has been kind of an exotic journey (or at least it feels that way sometimes).... some plants have been difficult to find - but then maybe that's because i started looking in the middle of winter, right? who knows?... but in all of my infinite impatience, i decided to order some seeds online... and when i couldn't find seeds, i ordered living plants. one of the living plants was in the box i found this evening at my doorstep... and it's the first one i've received. it was fascinating in a rather ordinary sort of way. i had no idea how they would go about shipping a live plant to my house from Pennsylvania.... all of that wonder and amazement... and guessing... ended in a pretty mundane way. i opened the box, and found a little, ordinary plant container with a little, ordinary looking plant growing in it... all tipped on its side, with some crumpled packing paper wrapped around the plant part to protect it during the shipping process... that's it. nothing terribly different or unusual about it. there was a paper folded in half with instructions for what to do when i received the plant.... basically it told me to water the thing. (duh, right?)

nonetheless, i'm still totally stoked about it. i'm trying to figure out if it's ok to hike right on out this weekend and start acclimating it, or if the plant would prefer to coast along indoors with the rest of my seedlings until after the frost quits hitting us. it's a perennial, so it just might be ok.

i also got 3 new packets of seeds in the mail today (mail order is totally fun... because then i get something cool in the mail - and even though i know it's coming, it's still a fun surprise... especially compared to all of the bills that keep arriving in the mailbox. i way prefer it when the mailbox is a fun place to visit).

here's a little info about what i got in the mail today... the live plant i got is a red fortune hyssop... which i hadn't even heard of before i started planning my butterfly garden... i have a blue one on order too, from another nursery (couldn't find a single place that had BOTH in stock. go figure). the seeds i got are for Queen Anne's Lace, Butterfly Weed, and Pentas... none of which i've grown before, but all of which attract butterflies like magnets.

i'm waiting for 6 more plants to arrive in the mail... one of which is called 'orange butterfly plant' ...i currently have butterfly weed & butterfly flower... and all of them are orange. i'm not exactly clear about the differences between them. i ordered 2 online and found seeds for one in the store... there wasn't enough info available when i did the ordering to tell if they're all the same things, and are being called something different by different seed vendors... or if they're actually different from one another. i suppose i'll find out sometime this summer when they really get growing, right?

i'm also waiting for the blue hyssop, a blazing star liatris, swamp milkweed, joe pye weed, and a new variety of bee balm. again, none of which i've ever grown before. i'm so hoping that i can keep them all alive. i worry about things like killing seedlings. they just seem so fragile in the few weeks after they first come up. i'm sure it's rediculous, but i always worry that i'm going to do something wrong and kill them all. i've already managed to kill all of my sunflower seedlings. i think i kept them too moist, but who knows for sure? i have no idea! and then if i don't do something to kill them, mike probably will. he's notorious about leaving the door open to the room they're in - and when that happens, Akira sneaks in and eats them like he's a starving kitty at a seafood all you can eat bar. he killed all of my corn... which i KNOW i can grow, because i've done it before. i grew corn on my balcony last year! :) i've since replanted it, and i've got 6 new corn seedlings going strong.

playing in the dirt

it has been snowing now on and off for 2 and a half days or so. it's just enough to be annoying, but not enough to get me out of going to work. it's prevented me from going outside and getting much done in my beloved butterfly garden... which has made me restless.

the good news is that i have had some time indoors to sit around and plant zillions of seeds (and by zillions i mean more like 160 or so). of the seeds that i currently have in my possession for the butterfly garden, i have planted enough to fulfill my butterfly garden plan. the rest are currently in the process of being shipped to me via various online vendors. they were difficult to find locally for whatever reasons... so i ordered them. i got bronze fennel this afternoon, only to discover after inspecting it that i most likely already had some in my spice rack. i don't know if it's a little known fact, or if i'm just a naive and inexperienced gardener so far... but bronze fennel appears to grow from anise seeds. whatever. at least i've got nice fresh seeds speficially chosen to grow nice, healthy plants. who knows what i'd get if i just started planting my spices... though in college i did try just that, and i think some of it did come up - but i don't think that experiment got too far. i moved out and trekked to Europe not too long afterward. but i digress...

i've also had time indoors to play with my dirt. i've been performing highly scientific experiments on it. i've discovered that it has a pH of 6.0 (or perhaps slightly higher, but not high enough to be 7.0)... it has Low to Very Low levels of the 3 big nutrients: nitrogen, phosphorous, & potash. i'm currently conducting an experiment that will tell me the approximate levels of sand, clay & silt. that one's not quite as exciting to watch - it will take several days to settle, and will settle into levels... the other experiments turned fun colors when i added the necessary chemicals. fireworks or not, it'll give me some useful information.

in attempting to dig out a big fat rhododendron on Saturday, i also discovered that i have hardpan soil - which is easy to dig through until you get several inches down - then it's hard as a rock. the recommendation for it was that i take a pick ax to it, and chop the crap out of it... the good news is that even with a little hand shovel, i was able to chip away at it with just a little effort. a pick ax should make quick work of it (or so i hope, right?)... i've also discovered that i have a really healthy earth worm civilization moving around out there. that can't possibly be a bad thing. i just hope i don't kill 'em while i'm chopping away at the hardpan problem.

as far as i can tell, the number one best thing i can do to to my crappy soil after whacking at it with my brand new pick ax (that i just bought this afternoon, and i'm super stoked about), is workin a bunch of compost... which i also bought this afternoon. i'm not quite as excited about the compost as about the pick ax... mostly because it's not MY compost. not to worry, though, i am working on building my own compost bin, and should have an abundance of my own compost next year. even so - it's annoying to go out and buy something i could have for free if i had thought ahead and tossed my vegetable waste and dead leaves into a bucket, right?

so between all of this math to figure out just what will fit in my butterfly garden without crowding stuff out... and all of the science to figure out what kind of soil i've got - so i can start improving it... i'm finally finding (after 30 years of life) actual uses for all of that math and science they pushed on me in school. i'm finding that it's far more exciting and fun when it's done in direct correlation to a real life problem. so naturally, i'm plotting ways to bring all of this math and science into my art classroom in an interactive and fun way. why not? i find that the kids get excited about the things i show excitement about. it's contagious. i'm planning lessons at both of my middle schools that will include some of the stuff i've been playing with.