Viewing comments posted by poisondartfrog

I am disappointed in this member of the Tattoo series of Catharanthus. The blooms are nice and large, but the color isn't orange. It's salmon with a few dark purple flecks. I was ready for shrieking, screaming, orange. However, if I had been looking for a large flowered salmon, as I sometimes am, I would have loved it.

'Crazy Legs' is my favorite flower form for Zinnias. I think the seed seller's photo shows a slightly darker color than mine, but I like the intensity and it is mostly consistent across the bed of these I grew out. The form is a bit variable. There are some off-types; and a couple of other colors appeared, crazy legs intact.

2022's favorite. Brand new to me, Shackelford Giant Pink tastes exactly how I want a tomato to taste. A bit of sweetness, but plenty of old fashioned tomato acidity. Very flavorful, beautiful texture, and even the smallest fruits are still huge. Love at first bite.

Yellow and orange tomatoes are my favorites. Casey's Pure Yellow is an attractive, medium to large yellow in my garden. There has been a fair amount of cracking on the stem end of the slightly flattened, globe shaped fruits. I like the texture, but I need a little more flavor to make it top tier.

White flowers are my jam, so I am especially taken with Ivory Towers Joe Pye Weed. I have plenty of natives for pollinators, but the muddy mauve color doesn't appeal to my personal human sensibilities. Also, my local population looms over me, so I am always looking up into it. I can stand eyeball to compound inflorescence with this one and enjoy the plant and its visitors without a ladder.
Commercial seeds germinated readily, blooming in July from a March 3 sowing planted out in mid-April.

Summer Dance is one of the most prolific large burpless cucumbers I've grown. It has been trouble free through heat and humidity and sets huge numbers of high quality fruits.

This plant reaches upward quickly and is a good subject for covering a naked support. I sometimes forget how much I like it. It never seems to get pollinated in my garden despite being a popular destination for hummingbirds and bees, and I was never able to collect seeds until a few years ago when I had success hand pollinating between flowers.

These are great cut flowers with many flower spikes on each plant and a great bushy habit that develops over time into almost a hedge form. For a plant designated as white, it's pretty far off the mark. I kept looking for Celway White in my garden, I knew I had planted it, and if it had been cream or straw yellow I would have recognized it right away, but turns out I should have been looking for something more saturated.

Tomato 'Velvet Red' is a beautiful plant with small to medium sized leaves covered in white hairs that make it look plush and inviting. The small red fruits are round and not prone to imperfections. It has performed beautifully in a large container and is highly ornamental. For me, however, the flavor of the fruits ranks right up there with sucking on a lemon. If you like that sort of thing, you'll appreciate this tomato. The fruits have not been sweet at any stage, from just blushing red to on the verge of rot. Probably great for adding acidity to canned sauces and juices, but not a "wandering in the garden snacker."

IQ Purple Ice is a pretty enough new Dianthus introduction, but a disappointingly large number of the flowers bloom down in the foliage where they go largely unseen. The display looks a little messy with a few blooms rising above the foliage while most of them hover underneath, aspiring to stardom, doomed to inferior status.

Nice stems for fresh cuts. Star Violet produces a series of blooms that start out near pure white with hints of violet on the finely quilled petal tips. As the blooms mature, the violet color intensifies. Easy from seed, has shown no sign of wilt so far and has handled heat and humidity without appearing stressed.

Called Farmer's Jalapeno or Farmer's Market Jalapeno, this pepper is deeply flavorful, but not really hot. The size of the fruit is highly variable and the progression from green to red seems quite protracted. Because of the unusual netting that covers them to a greater or lesser extent, it is sometimes referred to as the Potato Pepper. Enjoyable raw in a salad or with veggie dip. I have not tried it cooked yet.

The flavor is excellent, sweeter and richer than many yellows to me. The fruits are large, but don't quite reach giant proportions in my garden. Skin is smooth and not too thick, but of the tomatoes I have grown this year Brown's Yellow Giant has the most issues with zippering, unevenness, voids and blemishes than any other. Taste before beauty. I will grow it again.

Elongated sweet pepper that starts green, develops cream and later orange to red striping, finally all red. Bell Pepper flavor follows the ripening process; redder=sweeter. I use them at all stages, freezing them whole to use later. Fairly thick walls, perfect for pizza, Swiss Steak, most any recipe calling for a sweet pepper with a bit of substance. Prolific fruit set with pretty cream variegated foliage. Sometimes the weight of the peppers is an imposition on the stems, causing them to lean over and sometimes break in my garden.

These tomatoes are huge and tasty. I had to post a still-green photo of this plate sized monster because as soon as ripening is in progress it hops in a car and rides off into someone's BLT. Pink, sometimes green shouldered. Sets a lot of fruit for such a large tomato, sweet, firm texture.

I started with seeds March 1 and planted out in a container in mid-April. Low, shrubby growth habit, Peruvian native. Attractive greenish white flowers are on the large side for Solanums, and feature red nectar. That's why I grew it in the first place. I wanted to see that nectar and I was not disappointed. Looking forward to the orange mature fruits, which are reportedly edible.

Super Elfin Ruby Impatiens have the largest blooms I've ever seen on I. walleriana, including other colors in the Super Elfin series. Deeply red and quick to bloom from seeds, I wish I had sown more of these.

Wintersown on vermiculite 1-12-2019 and placed in an unheated greenhouse, two year old seeds of Plymouth Rose Gentian have germinated as of 2-3-2019.
A perennial coastal plains native, it inhabits pond and wetlands margins.

I was under the impression that Billbergia seeds in general do not age well and should be planted as soon as they are mature. My Billbergia brasiliensis seeds are a couple of years old and were sown in a flat on a heat mat using the baggie method on January 21, 2019. On February 1 when I looked at them again, I found germination well under way.

On 1/11 ten seeds dated 2009 were placed in 1/2 cup warm water with 1 teaspoon H2O2. I meant to nick the seeds, got distracted and forgot, but within two days of soaking three of the seeds had germinated and were potted on in loose potting medium. The remaining seeds were placed in plain warm water and within another day two more had germinated and all but 2 of the seeds were swelling. 10 years is not remarkable viability for many Convolvulaceae, but dormancy was easily overcome for these juveniles. Thanks, bluespiral, for the seeds.