Gardening
Understanding Plant Tags & Seed Packets to Increase Your Gardening Success
Check the back of seed packets for pertinent information so you provide the proper growing conditions for the plantings to flourish.
Photo courtesy of MelindaMyers.com
Gardening is a wonderful way to grow your own food and create a beautiful landscape. Proper plant selection can help you make wise purchases when visiting the garden center or ordering plants online.
Much of the information you need to know can be found on plant tags and seed packets. Understanding this information can help you select plants suited to the growing conditions in your yard.
Most gardeners first learn about plants by the names that friends, relatives, or fellow gardeners use to refer to them. Each plant also has a unique scientific, also called botanical, name. Since plants can have multiple or regional common names, it is important to check the botanical name when shopping. Checking the tag for the botanical name ensures you buy the right plant.
You will also see the word "zone" followed by numbers in the information on trees, shrubs, perennial flowers, and vegetables. These numbers reflect the plant's ability to survive the average minimum winter temperatures in the hardiness zones listed. You can find your hardiness zone on the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Plant Hardiness Zone Map. It is often included in plant catalogs and other gardening resources to help you find plants suited to your climate. Despite record summer temperatures, it is still important to select plants that can survive the average minimum winter temperatures in your area. Selecting plants that tolerate both the highs and lows where you live will increase their chance of returning each year.
Make sure the plants you select have sufficient frost-free growing days to mature and flower or produce fruit. This is listed as the number of days from planting until harvest. Count the number of days in your growing season from the time you can plant to harvest to see if it's a good choice.
Always check the mature size and spread of the plant you select. Picking the right size plant for the available space will save you time and frustration having to prune the mature plant down in size.
No matter what plants you select, make sure to call 811 at least three business days before you begin planting. Wisconsin residents can also file online at www.DiggersHotline.com and gardeners in any other state can visit https://call811.com/811-In-Your-State. They will contact all the appropriate companies who will mark the location of their underground utilities in your designated work area. This free service can help reduce the risk of injury and the inconvenience of accidentally knocking out power, cable, or other utilities.
To remind everyone to call before digging, April has been designated Safe Digging Month. Please make contacting 811 part of your gardening plans and remind family and friends to do the same.
For more gardening information, register for Myers' free webinar "Understanding Gardening Basics to Boost Your Gardening Success" on March 29 at 6:30 p.m. The webinar is free, but registration is required. Just visit Myers' website www.MelindaMyers.com. If you can't attend the live webinar, a recording will be available to watch 24 hours after the live presentation.
Melinda Myers has written more than 20 gardening books, including The Midwest Gardener's Handbook, 2nd Edition and Small Space Gardening. She hosts The Great Courses "How to Grow Anything" DVD series and the nationally-syndicated Melinda's Garden Moment TV & radio program. Myers is a columnist and contributing editor for Birds & Blooms magazine and was commissioned by Diggers Hotline to write this article. Her web site is www.MelindaMyers.com.
Antiques
Latest Antiques, Collectibles, and Auction News
Photo courtesy of Wayne Tuiskula
Today's column is another auction news roundup and sports memorabilia leads the latest news. A pair of Air Jordan game-worn 13s Bred (short for black and red) sneakers are heading to auction. USA Today writes that "the shoe feature[s] an unconventional holographic eye and an outsole resembling a panther paw." The sneakers are the only Jordan playoff game shoes that have been authenticated by the MeiGray Group, which is the official authenticator of the NBA. This pair is even more valuable because they're from Jordan's "Last Dance" 1997-1998 season. A ball boy responsible for the visitor's locker room had found Jordan's lost jacket from practice the day before. USA Today reports that after finding the jacket, he asked Jordan "Can I get your kicks after the game tomorrow?" Jordan signed the shoes and handed them to the ballboy. The sneakers are expected to bring between $2 and $4 million.
A rare comic book should also bring strong results at an upcoming auction. The Detective Comics issue # 27 from 1939 features the first appearance of Batman and Robin in a comic book. It's considered one of the holy grails of comic books, along with Action Comics # 1, which featured the first appearance of Superman. The comic book is graded 6.0 out of 10 and is unrestored. According to the New York Post, only 14 other unrestored copies of Detective Comics # 27 have been graded higher. The bidding ends on March 30th and as of March 17th it had reached over $600,000. It's expected to sell for around $1.5 million. The New York Post reports that the seller will use the money to help pay for their multi-million-dollar house.
Antiques and the Arts Weekly reports that a 1908 "Wright Flyer lookalike" recently soared at auction. The plane was made by the Ernst Plank Company of Nuremberg, Germany in 1908. The hand-painted mechanical plane measured 20" with a wingspan of 14-3/4". The plane replicated the Wright brothers' plane. They write that "the front elevators, the rudder, fuselage, propellers, motor and wing tips are all virtually identical to those found in all early biplane design." The plane sold for $66,000.
In evidence that we shouldn't throw anything away, a 2007 iPhone recently made major auction news. NPR reports that after Karen Green landed a new job, her friends chipped in and bought her the first model iPhone as a present. The list price then was $599. She had just upgraded her basic mobile phone and didn't want to change service plans from Verizon to AT&T, so she left the phone in the box. After not opening it for several years, she thought it might be valuable, and it had recently appraised for $5,000. She placed it an auction where the bidding started at $2,500. It eventually rang up over $63,000.
We will be offering some antique telephones in an upcoming spring auction. Our online auction of the beautifully appointed Beacon Street, Boston home is currently underway. Online bidding ends on April 19th. Auction number 7 of the model trains, die-cast cars and other collectible toys all from the same estate will start this week. We have a large guitar collection, jewelry, art, sterling silver, and a wide variety of other items we'll be selling in upcoming auctions. Please visit our website www.centralmassauctions.com for links to upcoming events.
Please contact us at: www.centralmassauctions.com (508-612- 6111) info@centralmassauctions.com for antiques and collectibles auction services.