Saturday, February 04, 2006

Planting By Numbers

Ah...February. One month closer to spring. Regardless of whether the groundhog sees his shadow or not (did he? I wasn't paying attention), this is usually when I start planning for the warmer weather. And warmer weather, for me, means planting. Lots of planting. To give you an idea of what I mean by "lots", I've broken it down by the numbers. Last spring, this is what I did:

Tilled:
356 bags of manure &
72 bales of peat moss into
43 flower beds

Mixed:
17 bales of promix with
93 bags of topsoil to make soil mix for
42 flower pots &
136 window boxes

Planted:
129 Argyranthemum
518 Begonias
215 Bidens
115 Calibrachoa
6 Diascia
68 Dracena spikes
1263 Geraniums
475 Hibiscus
38 flats of Impatiens
44 Ivy
6 Lantana
392 Nemesia
199 New Guinea Impatiens
621 Scaevola
456 Petunias
28 Torenia

To be fair, I do have help tilling the first eighteen flower beds, but I'm on my own for the rest of them. And the guys do most of the work planting the topiaries, so I didn't list them. But I shape all the beds myself (even the first eighteen), and I do all the planting alone. So, that means I dug roughly 4,839 holes last spring. And the worst thing of all? I can't wait until it all starts up again.

Sick, huh?

So in a few months, when everyone else is flying kites or hunting down Easter Eggs, I'll be standing on a mound of dirt in muddy jeans, splitting open bags of manure. Bet you're all jealous!

Posted by The Gradual Gardener :: 12:51 PM :: 8 Comments:

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