This page is still under construction

The focus has been updating the vegetables page, but no garden is complete without flowers. I love to grow flowers. Isabella likes the showy ones with big blooms; I tend towards the more subtle touches of color among the foliage. Yes, this does have something to do with personality and character. LOL

And here I am one year later, and the pages haven't been completed, either. Maybe someday soon. We can hope.

To grow good flowers in Galena, you've got to match the temperament of the plant with the climate of the place. Now that makes sense anywhere, but it especially makes sense up here, where the flower guides are hard to come by and the local expertise has been limited.

My most profound discovery is this:

Flowers originating from Mediterranean biomes which bloom in their winter and early spring tend to do very well in our summer. Those winter flowers tend to grow quickly, bloom fast, deal well with nutrient-poor soils, shrug off cold nights, enjoy the occasional hot spell, and put up with uneven weather just fine. In other words, they're classic Alaskan interior summer flowers.

Many of the treasures I've found come from the South African mix - vendidium, African daisies, arctosis, sparaxis. Baby blue eyes, which originated in California's central valleys, does well. When I get these pages together with more focus, I'll add more to the list.

Have a great 2012!

Gardening at the
edge of the treeline


Gardening pages

Vegetable varieties

Flower varieties

Berry varieties

Herbs

Indoor plants


Topics of interest

Warming soil

Bottle heaters

Compost

Starts

Root cellar


Write to us


The Apfelbeck family home on the Internet