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@plantanarchy / plantanarchy.tumblr.com

bre | 29 | probably touching dirt right now zone 6b
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I visited five greenhouses today! and it gave me some perspective because several places did not even have annuals yet at all! it's just a very odd spring because our 14 day forecast right now is above 50 night lows and that puts us past our average last frost date. so everyone is planting early. but the greenhouses don't quite have the stock.

anyway, the big revelation is that nowhere sells mixed combo planters. Nowhere!!! Hanging baskets, sure, but since my previous workplace is going out of business, my current workplace may be the only place up north that sells big pre-made annual combos designed and planted on site

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I always think I've already driven on the narrowest, most windy and hilly backroads my area has to offer and then my GPS sends me on a road that makes even me have anxiety. This wasn't even the worst curve and does not give a good frame of reference for how narrow and steep this baby is

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in other news. yeah, there has been some odd disfigured foliage on some tomato plants in the production house this year. the production house full of thrips and white fly. which is also home to several brugmansia i was suspicious of having mosaic virus that my boss said "we would send a sample to the extension office". we did not do that. but the brugmansia do look fine now though i'm not 100% certain why we have them. mosaic virus or not, we grow poinsettias why are we keeping a whitefly host plant

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plantanarchy

me: i kinda hurt my back and feet and also my sanity this week good thing i've got some days off to recover

also me: so we are going to weed for 6 hours straight and then move the chicken coop and then move a bunch of bricks and then tomorrow we are going to visit at least 7 greenhouses and--

ok i've decided on just 5 greenhouses tomorrow because i've evolved enough to be choosy but still

I HAVE A PLAN THIS YEAR OK i want to get: evergreens for the front bed. TWO new large shade perennials to replace some that died via mole damage (another aruncus maybe??? a different tiarella? a weird hosta? a FERN?) compressed bale potting mix. habaneros (4). ghost peppers (2). tomatoes (1 cherry, 1 slicer, 1 weird guy NO MORE THAN THAT NO MORE) stuff for my two to three mixed planters i do yearly... i want large blue torenia for my hanging basket and that's all i have planned we're winging it otherwise. a little tiny kitty cat statue or stepping stone or something for my parent's dead cat's grave which is behind my shed. and i want a fuchsia hanging basket. might get that from work tbh. why couldn't i get all of this from work you ask? well. i know what goes on there man.

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reblogged
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plantanarchy

me: i kinda hurt my back and feet and also my sanity this week good thing i've got some days off to recover

also me: so we are going to weed for 6 hours straight and then move the chicken coop and then move a bunch of bricks and then tomorrow we are going to visit at least 7 greenhouses and--

ok i've decided on just 5 greenhouses tomorrow because i've evolved enough to be choosy but still

Avatar

me: i kinda hurt my back and feet and also my sanity this week good thing i've got some days off to recover

also me: so we are going to weed for 6 hours straight and then move the chicken coop and then move a bunch of bricks and then tomorrow we are going to visit at least 7 greenhouses and--

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I weeded my front bed today and listen..... all of that whole patch are blue and red lobelia seedlings

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yesterday there was this old woman at the end of the day who was like. Where are your Rieger begonias. I point to the huge section of Begonia x hiemalis types. She says well these don't say Rieger begonia. Well no, that's just one of many names for them and sometimes they do not fit it all on the tag. But the care is the same. Solenias are a really nice newer variety that is particularly sun tolerant. And she's like huh what's sun tolerant. Well it tolerates the sun even at the height of summer. She could not comprehend. Anyway, she left and did not buy any begonias.

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Anonymous asked:

Do hanging baskets need shade? My front porch got a facelift this year and I would love to be the cute Southern Living house with hanging baskets and make my house look Not Abandoned. The front porch gets shade all day, except until around 4 pm where it is blasted mercilessly with baking afternoon sun. Every year I am gifted 2 of those ferns in baskets and they quickly perish. Am I SOL?

There are several things that would thrive there tbh though without knowing your climate can't give 100% good advice. New England afternoon sun is very different from South Carolina afternoon sun for example.

I would try geraniums!

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Anonymous asked:

hiya! i work in/manage a greenhouse too (maybe half the size of yours i think?) i was wondering if you had any favorite basket or planter combos you made up this year!

i did a few combos i really loved- antique double salmon geranium with a fern and baby tears pilea

peachy keen verbena, double orange superbells, salmon sunpatiens, vista bubblegum petunia, and silver falls dichondra

really im just a sucker for everything in the peach/salmon/coral/pinks

Yeah!! It's hard to remember to take pictures but this year my favorites have been pinks-blue-yellow but also purples with silver.

In total I designed uhhhhh ~350 cone hanging baskets, ~450 planters of varying sizes, 140 big coco fiber baskets, and 50 big moss baskets. Most of those had 10 of each design. So??? Almost 1000 different designs.

So it is tough to choose a favorite lol or remember which was which.

I really like Salvia Icon Blue as a central thriller, then Petunia Miss Marvelous and Dekko Lavender Eye and Lobularia Stream Lavender as fillers, plus Dichondra.

Also I used Big Eeze Geraniums with Dekko petunias again for the big combos and that worked very nicely! Dekkos are a little smaller so resemble Callies but are more vigorous and less aphid-prone. A combo of those with trailing coleus fills in a huge basket well. Also Diamond frost as a filler. Lysimachia sunburst as a trailer.

Bridal Veil and swedish ivy as shade trailers! Spider plants as well! We have stock plants of all three and they grow super wonderfully. For smaller planters, wire vine, though I didn't use much this year.

And my classic and best selling mix is just. Dragonwing begonia, mixed seed impatiens, and ipomea or trailing coleus. I've found that most customers prioritize lots of colors and flowers over anything else in terms of planter design so impatiens mixes are a big seller even though they're pretty basic

Also, I went heavy on the double impatiens this year. I hate them so much they are so messy and dramatic once it gets hot in the greenhouse but they grow fast and fill in so nicely.

If I could get begonias to grow quickly enough, I'd use them, because I feel like they're the real mvp of summer baskets for longevity but unfortunately, I'm growing for looking good pre-Mother's Day. Anything but dragonwings just can't compete in a mixed basket in early spring.

Anyway lol

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things today: tropical shipment first thing. unloaded it in a thunderstorm. didn't have time to water almost anything but it was meant to rain all day so i thought that would be fine. it didn't rain all day. forgot my sunglasses rip. unpacked and priced all the tropicals with help and then started the effort of moving some down for sale. golf cart cut out on me just as I was starting my second trip. just was chugging along and stalled rip. the boss attempted to fix it but was stumped so no golf cart for restocking. restocking right now is constant. Rip. Switched to restocking by cart. got a $20 tip for moving palm trees (a rarity) but I'm also like. Good God those people spent $1k on palm trees but also were really nice? 28k steps which breaks my record of all time. anyway

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ok we officially just filled the new greenhouses to max capacity with the latest tropical shipment. Hopefully things move fast because we have one more lol