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57 responses total.

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Valerie, Steffi says that Coleus is very hard to grow from seeds.
She's never tried and doesn't know what the seeds should look like.
She uses Burpee all the time, and they're very reliable.
The fact that the second seed pack came in looking just like the first
makes me suspicious that you may be looking at viable Coleus seeds.

Steffi says the way to test for viability is to use a double layer
of paper towels - damp but not leaking, put 5 seeds in the middle,
fold it over so you know have 2 layers of towel, 1 layer of 5 seeds,
and two more layers of damp towel. Now leave that in the proper
conditions for germination for at least as long as they say you should
allow for germination. You should see some sprouting when you open it
up and examine it after that period.

(Remember, I have a black thumb. In this conf only believe what I say
if it starts with "Steffi says" :-)

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ok:  i'm just a beginning gardener, what's coleus?

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well, why didn't you mention tha tbefore , valerie?  :)  (sorry..had too..)

well, i usually find that the best way to get coleus is from the farmers
market...usually mid-summer..by about that time the plants are beautiful, and
dirt cheap!  :)

anyone hav esuggestions for plants that are easy to grow and wont die in
a dorm room.  no pothos, i have so mcuh of that.  thanks  :)

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Yeah, spider plants are good.  Cacti are good, too (I have two
that have grown quite large, about 3' high and I'll be darned how
they grew so much--I ignore them so often).  I haven't had much
luck at all with potted palms, though...

I found cactus are good in dorm rooms, spider plants also do very well.  I had
maternity plants that did well.

Any offers of free plants wont be refused. I have prob;ems with cacti, 
but I think it is just me, I have never had luck wiht them. Thanks for the 
suggestions

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Heh.  val, be sure to get popcorn to bring you both the variegated
and plain green varieties of spider plant :)  Seriously, a big
hanging pot of both kinds of spider plant makes for an interesting
display, once they take off and start putting out lots of leaves and
those little shoots.  When I was an undergrad, living in the dorms,
our room had numerous plants (mostly spider plants) and I think if
three black thumb males could get them to flourish, anyone could!

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spider plants are like that.  that's why i love them!!!!

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i wanna adopt one!!!  

quick hint...don't ever plant a century plant indoors...we have one that's
decided to ake over the world...:)

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well, this hasn't bloomed...it's only about 3 years old...but for being in a
pot with a diameter of about 5 inches...wel, the actual plant now has a 
diameter of about 4 feet!!!

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Hey Val, bring any plants that need to be adopted to me at grexstock.  When
we moved about 11 years ago from Burkittsville to Gaithersburg, we put all
our plants with the farmer's daughter next door to us to hold.  She decided
that she liked them so much that she would not give them back.  I only had
about 70 plants, all different kinds.  Since then, I have not really raised
but one or two plants.  I think I am now up to about 8 different kinds, other
than in the garden, of course.

Another good plant for a dorm room is the elephant ear philodendron.  It can
work in lots of light or in very poor light and tolerates abuse quite well.
In good light and with fertilizer once a year, they will become huge.

I, thanks to my kind neighbor, have a bean which variety is no longer
manufactured and which is so old, that my neighbor does not even remember the
name of.  It is a purplish bean, sort of kidney shaped, which produces
beautiful trumpet flowers of red on its runners.  It is a pole bean.  Mrs.
B says that her family loved the flower so much, that they grew it against
the front porch pillars so they could enjoy it.  Mrs. B cultivated this bean
regularly and always saved some seed for the following year.  She is no longer
able to garden much now, and so she gave me some of the seed.  I would be
happy to share some of them.  I am looking forward to planting them.

Those elephant ear plants do get huge.  Like about 5 feet across!  Probably
not the kind of plant you want in a cramped dorm room.  :)

(I currently have one at work, clogging up a large amount of valuable floor
space.)

For #25:  That lovely bean is called a "scarlet runner bean".  My mother has
been growing them since forever.  Tecnicaly, they are edible, but they are
so pretty that the seeds get saved.  They are lovely on a trellis.  IF I ever
get run of a back yard somewhere, I 'd love to make a large frame , and make
a "scarlet runner room" out of doors.  If I remember correctly, they also
bloom forever, and keep going untill late fall.  They have seeds that are
large, sort of like a lima bean.  the seeds are black with scarlet (or more
accurately) magenta streaks (or spots..spotty streaks)  with a white eye. 
The best time to eat (:<) them is when they just pod, and are still green.
When they are older they are very startchy.
The older seed pods look  cool, too.  We've had the neighbor's kids steal the
seed pods and turn them into witches' hair for haloween!
Ofcourse, the seeds got realy big in new mexico.  Here, i believe they are
smaller, but they still are a bit larger than most of the comertial beans we
buy to eat.

Cool info...Mrs. B just calls them purple beans.  I have some!

Does anyone know what time of year one thins out and transplants day lilies?

Also, are hostas dividable any time of the year, or are certain times better?

My flowerbeds have finally matured enough that I've got to start this stage
of gardening and, while I've totally forgotten the hosta stuff, I've never
had day lilies before.  They came with the house.

day lillies are tuff and you can move and divide anytime they get enough
water.  Hostas are pretty much the same, just need plenty of water.
By the way, anybody want strawberries?  I have decided mine just don't fit
the lifestyle, we are sailing just about the time they get ripe.  So I would
like to give them away rather than plow them under.

The strawberries are *mine*!  Dibs!  FW privilege!  Nepotism!   ;)

Nepotism, yeah Nepotism. No fair!

Sorry, life's like that (sometimes) - ;)

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What's a sansevieria?

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<robh wants one>

Actually, Valerie, it's my neighbor who had gratiously allowed another
neighbor and me to thin out his over-abundance.  Since there are so many, how
many would you like?

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss