Friday, March 4, 2011

A Gardening Surprise

My container garden last year did pretty well given the multiple transplanting I had to do. While my herbs did great but unfortunately my flowers did not do as well. I had a few plants pop up, lots of green but only a few flowers. This was mainly due to the shallow planter that didn't give them enough room. There was also this crazy rain storm that may have contributed to it, too.

At the end of the summer, I moved the last few green items to a large planter on the balcony. They did rebound a little but with fall approaching and temperatures dropping, it was too late for a comeback. I left the container outside for the winter, hoping to reuse the soil in the spring. I didn't pay all that much attention to it until earlier this week when I suddenly had the urge to prepare the balcony for this year's garden.

I cleaned off the furniture, washed the windows and the doors, swept off the pine needles that had showered down from our neighbor's exterior holiday decorations, and I was about to dig up the soil when I saw someone had survived the winter.

Survivor 1

And there was even a little green sprout popping up next to it on the left.

Survivor 2

I went inside to check the seed packets from last year to see what exactly had survived the winter. As I searched the drawers in the craft room, I remembered - I threw out the old seed packets when I thought everything had died.

Crap.

Then I remembered I had started a gardening journal last year - yay! That would have a list of the herbs and flowers I planted. I found the papers and saw just the first entry that listed all the herbs and just 2 of the flowers I planted.

Damn it.

Did I ever make a list of the flowers I planted on the blog? A search of past postings found this incomplete list.

Mother of pearl!

So what the heck is this little green plant that fought to live through the winter? It's got some fuzzy leaves so I'm thinking it might be the johnny jump-ups I planted as they are part of the violet family. Anyone have any ideas on what it is?

More gardening posts are on the way as I'll be planting this year's garden soon. I'll be sure to keep accurate and complete records this year so I know exactly what I planted.

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