Posts Tagged ‘mums’
Move Over Summer, Fall Has Arrived!!!
Ahhh, feel that crisp cool breeze, stock up on that Halloween candy, and take in that stunning view as the leaves begin to turn shades of gold, orange, and red… I don’t know about all of you, but after that ultra-hot Summer, I’m thinking Fall has never looked so good!!!
The inferno-style heat really did a number on our landscaping here at the farm. But with the cooler temps ahead of us, we’re sending those sad old spring flowers packing and bringing in some fresh new faces to liven things back up. And with Halloween less than a week away, it’s high time to transform your yard into a spooky playground for all those trick-or-treaters coming your way. Don’t worry, we’ve got all the Fall Decor you will ever need right here on the farm. Our Retail Girls have been busy lil pumpkins and have created a whole greenhouse full of fanciful characters for your Fall Scene. And our pansies, violas, snapdragons and mums are in full bloom, eagerly awaiting a new garden to call home. We also have wheat straw, corn stalks, gourds and pumpkins to complete your Fall Make-Over!
Don’t forget that Fall is the perfect time to plant new trees. And in honor of the perfect tree-planting season, we’ve slashed our prices on all our fruit trees by 40%!!!
So grab your garden gloves, drag out that spade, and let’s transform our gardens one pansy at a time!!!
Pansy Pontifications
I like pansies almost as much as I don’t like mums. They have all the attributes that mums lack and their only drawback is that they don’t like it hot.
What other flower can you plant that will last for seven to even nine months? You can plant them in September (if it cools off early enough) and they’ll look good until April or even May (if it doesn’t get too hot). In additions to that, you have a lot of vibrant colors to chose from and here in the south if the winter is mild enough, they will bloom all winter long especially if you live in Zones 8-9.
The biggest challenge to growing pansies it the timing. When will your sales peak? Last year it was late October. This year we needed them all ready the third week of September. Next year, who knows? So much goes into determining how many to grow and when to try to have the pansies ready. We rarely have perfect weather for growing them so we are constantly either trying to keep them short, bushy and blooming or pushing them to hurry up and bloom while simultaneously growing the perfect plant. Our growers and waterers do a great job doing this, and we have great crops of pansies each year.
So this year, with the hot summer two things happened. First, the heat impeded the pansies uptake of nutrients which put all of our crops a week or two behind. Second, the heat cooked everyone’s flower beds so EVERYBODY wanted them replaces as soon as possible. These two conditions led to what I call The Great Pansy Famine of 2010 also known as “Shoot, we’re sold out of pansies and the next crop won’t be ready for another 10 days.”
But it looks like the famine may be nearing the end. We have parts of tow crops of J6 ready with one more coming on that will be ready in about 10-14 days. Plus two more crops of #4 pansies. We also have #6.5 and #12 mums that are still in Bud or are Cracking some color with a few that have some Light Color, plus the ornamental cabbage and kale to go with all of them.
