Weekly Photo Update, week of 5-17-15
This week in the greenhouse
This week in the Greenhouse (week of 4-12-15)
Seed room
Zinnias: planted! They won’t do much til we have nice hot days, but we thought we’d get the jump on them.
First batch of potted tomatoes. We’ll do more in flats, but since it’s still way too early to plant these outside, we have to stagger our plantings so we don’t have too many ready at once.
Coleus planters and geraniums have bulked up nicely in the past few weeks
Herb bay: Almost done planting 4″ pots!
This week we spaced the mixed baskets in this aisle, and cut back/put outside baskets that were too leggy. They’ll look brand new in about two weeks.
Non-stop begonias in pots and mixed planters
New Guinea impatiens baskets look super right now!
Pots of sun coleus, planted this week.
Mixed shade planter close-up
Mixed shade baskets
Non-stop begonias, just lovely
Main aisle, with a lively display of pansy bowls, herbs, and vegetables.
Pansies, now outside on display.
Pansies prefer cooler weather, and are one of the first things we’re able to move outside.
Mixed pansies
Just chillin’.
‘Overflow’ greenhouse, across parking lot, is now full of extra baskets and pansy bowls on drippers.
Phlox
This week in the herb section: Scented geraniums!
This week in the Greenhouse (week of 4-05-15)
Seed room, now with people for scale! The nearest tables now hold flats of basil, peppers, and flowering vinca.
Herb bay, 4″ pots being planted! Yes, I get both tables this year. 🙂
AND a third table. Not bad for someone who started off the herb department with a few pots of chocolate mint, fourteen years ago!
Pots lined up, ready to be planted with coleus and Sunpatiens.
Aisle. Still have lots of cuttings and plugs on carts; everything we plant slowly picks away at all of this.
So many succulents still waiting to be planted
Ferns and succulents
Gorgeous 12″ mixed baskets for sun– these are prime right now!
Perennials, filling in the rest of the bay
Scotch moss, freshly planted on the left.
Perennials and roses, plus flats of stock, violas, etc
Nifty succulent (String of Pearls)
He ate his spinach.
Crassula blooming
Aisle; pansy flats picked up and put on carts, ready to put outside on display.
You can see a bit of empty space where the pansies were; this will be planted with new flats soon.
Alyssum
Our shipment of potting & top soils and mushroom compost came in this week, and the pallets are lined up neatly on the edge of the lot.
Across the parking lot– we were able to move extra hanging baskets over here to free up some space in the main greenhouse. Once the baskets are hung overhead, we’ll go back through and put more on the floor. They’re all on drippers, which helps speed up the watering.
There was a flurry of activity at the greenhouse this week as we kept on feverishly planting but also prepared to open over the weekend. You’ll see a lot of changes between this week and next!
This week in the herb section: Visit the herb blog to see the transformation!
This week in the Greenhouse (week of 3-29-15)
Seed room
Hypoestes (polka dot plant)
Herb bay, currently planted with flats of wax begonias
Wax begonias
Herbs! Getting huge.
Lots of baskets still waiting to get hung up
Section of baskets moved across the parking lot (pictured later)
Mixed planters for shade
Coleus planters
Entry bay, still a busy work area
Blooming Echeveria
The earliest crop of mixed baskets– looking great!
Large spikes, waiting to be repotted into larger planters
Flats– pansies and impatiens are blooming! We’ve removed supplies that were stored here (see last week’s pics) and filled in with more flats.
Hanging baskets, now all planted
Perennials– remember what this looked like last week?
More perennials
About the same as last week, but we’ve added more flats and trays of 4″ Wave petunias. You can see how much the marigolds have grown in a week!
4″ pots of Wave petunias on the left, flats of alyssum, tomatoes, cabbage, and more on the right. Last week this was still storage!
Outside: pallets of pots stored nearby, ready to be brought in when needed. In a few weeks, after it gets warmer, there will be plants on display.
Greenhouses across the parking lot– finally warm enough to move baskets in!
We’ll wait a bit longer to hang things in the uncovered house (in case of frost).
This week in the Greenhouse (week of 3-22-15)
Here’s another bay-by-bay look at what’s going on. Compare to this post— it’s stunning how the space gets transformed this time of year! You’ll notice that most of the bays we’d been using for storage are now either full or in the process of being planted. As it warms up outside, we can begin moving supplies to the barn or parking lot where they’re still accessible, and plant all that valuable indoor floor space.
Seed room, Van Wingerden West 1
West 2
West 2
West 3, geranium bay
West 3
West 4, herb bay
West 4
West 5
West 5
East 5
East 5
East 4
East 4
East 3
East 3
East 2
East 2
Aisle
Aisle
East 1, entry bay
GGS West 2
West 2
West 3
West 3
West 4– more baskets planted!
West 4
West 5– getting ready to plant perennials!
East 5– Roses, just planted! Pallets of pots ready to use for planting perennials.
East 5, better shot of the roses
East 4– the rest of the roses, dahlias, freshly planted flats of marigolds, and 10″ hanging baskets moved from the herb bay.
East 4
East 3, still storing some pots and supplies here.
East 2, table is loaded up with plug trays of petunia & other seedlings.
East 2
Aisle
Aisle
For a closer look at what’s going on in the herb bay, check out this companion article on the herb blog.
This week in the Greenhouse (week of 3-15-15)
Seed room
Seedlings
Ferns
Fuchsia baskets– getting bigger!
Herb bay, temporary home to pansy bowls and wax begonias
Bitty begonias
More begonias
Bay, freshly repotted in nice mini planters
Scented geraniums
More plugs, waiting to be planted.
Mixed planters
Mixed planters (10″) for shade
Echeveria
Japanese painted fern
Kalanchoe
Compare to two weeks ago– storage no longer! Lots of baskets set up for planting (towards other end of aisle, some already planted).
This week in the Greenhouse (week of 3-08-15)
Seed room
So… we now know that sparrows will eat tomato seedlings. (These trays used to be full.)
Herbs, rooting on the heat table
Geranium bay: geraniums planted, still have room for other things.
Seedlings spread out (left). They start out in the seed room, most on the heat table. After they sprout we move them off the heat so they don’t stretch.
Herbs in progress
Lavender dentata, aka French lavender, aka toothed lavender
Aloe will spread by runners; all these little baby plants are ready to be dug up and transplanted. I’ll have aloe available in the herb section this year, all thanks to three very productive stock plants.
Mixed baskets for shade
Nonstop begonias
All sorts of ivy
Coleus
More coleus
Entry bay
First flats! Remember last week, when all you could see were supplies?
Planting larger succulent bowls
This week in the Greenhouse (week of 3-01-15)
A bay-by-bay look, this time.
Seed room, Van Wingerden house West 1
Hypoestes (polka dot plant) seedlings
West 2
View across West 3,2,1
West 3 (geranium bay)
Geraniums.
West 4 (herb bay)
Planting some larger rosemary– these are going to be huge, yet so reasonably priced!
Rosemary
West 5
East 5
East 4
East 3
Large planters with red fountain grass
East 2
Large coleus planters
East 2, far end
You can see how much bigger these mixed baskets have gotten!
Aisle
Pansy bowls~ pansies, stock, snapdragons, alyssum
East 1, main aisle
Gutter Connect house, West 2
The unobstructed view
Echeveria
Echeveria
Mixed succulents
West 3
West 4
West 5
East 5
East 4
East 3
East 2
(Herb blog companion article: here)
This week in the Greenhouse (week of 2-22-15)
Seed room
Seedlings
Coleus
Planting MORE baskets!
Petunias
Freshly planted spikes
Really cool succulent
Dorotheanthus baskets
Rosemary blooming
Taking cuttings from the stock herbs– a lot of nice lavender and rosemary, plus some new kinds of scented geraniums.
First batch of lavender: growing nicely!
Scented geraniums
Pallets loaded high with various sizes of pots, full of soil and ready to plant
Succulent hanging baskets & planters
Crassula
Fuzzy! Kalanchoe/Panda plant
One of my favorite succulents. (Another kind of Kalanchoe)
Soil bales
512-cell trays, ready to seed
This week in the Greenhouse (week of 02-15-15)
Seed room
Stock seedlings. Seeding is becoming more of a priority, as we get closer to getting all the baskets and planters finished. Flats will be the next goal, as soon as floor space opens up and we begin heating the cold section of the greenhouse.
Coleus with very fancy frilly leaves
Lots of puddles– ice and snow are melting off the roof outside, and the condensation inside is dripping everywhere.
Compare to same view last week– baskets on lefthand table have been hung up! This space won’t stay empty for long.
Trying something new this year: succulent hanging baskets
The New Guineas are really getting big!
Echeveria ‘Perle von Nurnberg’ & friends
Baskets have disappeared from the lefthand table, and small pots of New Guinea impatiens have been planted in their place.
Spider plants in hanging baskets
Exquisite succulent blossoms, from another Echeveria
Herb bay
Herb planting has begun! I’m starting on our larger pots of lavender and rosemary.
A jagged-leafed lavender, L. buchii
Boston ferns
Waiting for handles, which have a slot to stick the tags through
More of the mixed succulent baskets, moved onto shelves in a brighter, cooler section.
More nifty flowers, definitely one of the perks of being here at this time of year! A lot of succulents bloom at this time for us.
Even when it’s cold outside, it can get pretty warm in here (as long as it’s sunny). It’s normal to have a day where it’s 0° F outside, and as much as 80° inside. We actually have to turn on the fans to cool the place down! Then at night, the heaters have to be turned on to keep it all above freezing.
We had a section of petunia baskets get below freezing one night. The dirt froze an inch deep, and the water in the stems froze and then burst. (They’re actually recovering very well!)
Plastic walls help regulate temps between sections. Past that wall, we’re not yet heating and are just storing supplies for now.
Perennials. A mix of last year’s leftovers as well as new plugs that are waiting to be planted.
Hens and chicks
For a little more about what I’m doing with the herbs, you can visit my herb blog here, and the correlating blog post here.
Sammis Greenhouse 