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chemocurl

I was hopeless at the $1 sale yesterday....sigh...

I got 3 new varieties of daffs, a few bags of each so I would have enough to grow and keep for myself, and some to share and/or trade next season after they bloom and die back.

I also got some tulips, that I thought 'might' be the perennial ones, and a pack of some really pretty alliums.

I accidentally left them in BF's truck, and now won't have a chance to plant them until maybe Thurs eve, weather permitting. I'm sure glad I got the 1/2 price chocolate unloaded before he left, because I sure tore into it when I saw the daffs weren't here.

Sue

Comments (7)

  • vetivert8
    15 years ago

    The only dollar specials I got were - three 'heirloom' tomato plants that I had to keep hiding under the windscreen sunshade sheet so they didn't wilt on the meandering journey home. Bulb specials come later. Months later. Sigh.

    Hope the chocolate soothed the frustration enough to let you hang on until Thursday. :-D

    PS After a solid hour of extracting Ixia spawn from their niche in a tangle of rose roots you again have my sympathy for your own bulb infestation. Those little iddy biddy hide-under-a-clod...Sympathy.

  • linnea56 (zone 5b Chicago)
    15 years ago

    $1 sale??? What am I missing?

    metaphorically slapping my hands, now...stop, stop, stop this.

  • Chemocurl zn5b/6a Indiana
    Original Author
    15 years ago

    $1 sale??? What am I missing?
    You know, big box store sales. They go from full price, to 50% off, to 75% off, to $1, or something similar. I found these at Orscheln Farm & Home Store. That reminds me, that I haven't been in to check and see what the local Ace Hardware might have.

    After a solid hour of extracting Ixia spawn from their niche in a tangle of rose roots you again have my sympathy for your own bulb infestation.

    Is your Ixia everywhere?
    hmm...I wasn't familiar with Ixia and wondered why. Thank goodness I guess, that it is not hardy here, thus I have never grown it and never will.

    Soon (late Feb) the foliage of the Ornithogalum umbellatum will start to emerge, and I will spend months on hands and knees hand digging the bulbs, hoping to clear some more ground for planting later in the year. I dig clumps and put them in a 5 GA bucket, which then gets emptied into a wheelbarrow, which then, once full, gets wheeled and dumped at the edge of the field. A lot of the bulbs are maybe no bigger than a piece of pencil lead, but can be seen due to the green foliage. The tiniest of bulbs, left undug, will grow and multiply and in time look like the clumps in the pics at the link below.
    I have big plans to clearing the land here this spring. I am hoping to get a 100' X 6' area cleaned and cleared of them. I have the area staked off, and plan to start as soon as any foliage emerges in the grass (which will be sprayed with RO). Last fall I dug hundreds of clumps (thousands and thousands) of wild onion bulbs that had emerged in the newly planned staked off area. I've got more than enough plants, bulbs, and shrubs already to fill the new 600 square foot bed. They have all been planted in rows in the veggie garden waiting for a new permanent Star-of-Bethlehem (sob) free bed area.

    Dang, you got me started ranting. Can you tell?


    Sue

    Here is a link that might be useful: Ornithogalum umbellatum-aka Star-of-Bethlehem (sob)-aka Flower from Hell

  • PRO
    Nell Jean
    15 years ago

    I'm curious why you just take them to the edge of the field and dump them?
    If they grow there, seeds will make their way back into your gardens.
    Anything I want to assure doesn't find its way home goes to the landfill or is burned.

    We have orthinogalum in the lawn but they don't move into
    the flower beds very often and they can't choke out centipede grass.

    Nell

  • linnea56 (zone 5b Chicago)
    15 years ago

    IÂve seen your posts on this Star of Bethlehem pest before, and you have my sympathy. When I see it offered in bulb catalogs I shudder (maybe itÂs a cultivated version that is prettier, but if there is a risk that it has some of the same invasiveness IÂm steering way clear.) I feel that way about my own pest, yellow wood sorrel.

    I never see bulbs on sale that cheaply here. I saw some (at the local hardware chain Menards where I normally get good bulbs) back in late November/early December marked half off; but after that the next week they were gone. Maybe they all sold at half off. Though I just got my last daffodils planted in the heat wave (40 degrees F) yesterday, maybe IÂm up for more punishment. HÂmmm, Maybe IÂm not checking at the right placesÂ

    No one gave me an amaryllis kit for Christmas this year (probably they forgot because I didnÂt go out and buy one for myself), I should at least go see if I can get one of those. I saw those a few days before Christmas still full price.

  • linnea56 (zone 5b Chicago)
    15 years ago

    I went to the hardware store yesterday, New YearÂs Eve, and picked up an amaryllis for $2.97. They were on a clearance shelf with a few marked down garden things like pots. This one has barely sprouted so it should be fine (unlike all the other boxes I opened to find a withered flower inside; makes me sad to see them bloom in vain unseen). There were some hyacinths and Tahiti daffodils on the same shelf, but no price. I was excited and scooped them up. If cheap enough I would force them, as IÂm DONE planting outside. I had them check the price at checkout and they were FULL price! CouldnÂt believe it. This was the same store where I bought most of my bulbs back in October, so I know what the prices were. What are they thinking? Or not thinking, more likely. I thought of asking the manager but I imagined he/she would be clueless and wonder why I expected them for less.

  • Chemocurl zn5b/6a Indiana
    Original Author
    15 years ago

    I'm curious why you just take them to the edge of the field and dump them?
    If they grow there, seeds will make their way back into your gardens.
    Anything I want to assure doesn't find its way home goes to the landfill or is burned.
    The field is close, and it is absolutely green with the sob each spring, along with the wild onions. There are very few that bloom, as the bulbs have divided so many times, they are most all very small non blooming sized ones. If I would take these to the landfill, it would be part of a truckload each week, for months, and I would have to pay to dump them, and it is on the other side of the county. I also dump some in a gully on the property. I dig a good bit of soil out with each clump too, to assure getting all of the nasty little boogers.
    The beds that I have cleared, and a bed where I removed all the soil to 6" has stayed sob free, so seeds aren't coming in, or at least not much. There are areas of the yard that won't grow grass because about 50% of the topsoil 6" deep are clumps of bulbs. I'll get pics next spring.
    Surprisingly, there are only a few clumps in the front yard woods. When the house was built, the lot was pretty well wooded. When the basement was dug, the builder ran into slate, so the house ended up farther out of the ground than it would have otherwise. As a result, the builder hauled in 65 dump truck loads of soil from the field...all of it infested with the sob.

    I thought of asking the manager but I imagined he/she would be clueless and wonder why I expected them for less.
    I would have just offered him/her $1 a bag, and told them that was what they were reduced to elsewhere since it was so late in the planting season. I'm not shy.

    I had the driveway blacktopped late one fall. Since it was so late (I was told) they did not put down any weed killer. The next spring the sob pushed up through the blacktop. The paving supervisor said he had never seen or heard of anything like it before.

    Sue

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