Wow, Nancy. All those seedlings must have taken a long time to plant. Do you irrigate or just let mother nature take care of it? Nice seedling pics and the hibiscus are special.

Nice seedlings however I especially like the first one.

Wow, impressed by your seedling bed--just imagine what beauties are out there waiting to be discovered. All above seedling nice, really like the first two most. I also very much like gingers, "Elizabeth" grows here.

So nice to have rebloom on those lovely seedlings! Another wow on the seedling bed, a lot of fun rewarding work! I see corn growing in the background, do you have critter problems after the fields get plowed?

Sherry

Hoosier_nan , are you planting through landscape fabric? and what are the tall poles in the seedling beds for ? Do they delinieate the end or beginning of a particular seed cross?

forgot to say I love the first and third seedling .....especially the first one . Wow I bet that one calls to you across the gardens. I was hoping to see a name of the red hibiscus .......cuz I have one that looks identical but it too has no name. One day I will find out who it is.

Really nice seedlings, my favs are 1st and 3rd. Already looking forward to seeing your next year's seedlings!

That first seedling is wonderful! And look at all the little babies - Wow!

Wow! 2200 seedlings! I can't even imagine planting that many. I'm lucky to get 25-30 planted here. How nice to have some of your pretty seedlings reblooming now! The hibiscus blooms have marvelous colors!

Debra

Like the first picture. You must be younger than I to do all that work.

Dick, I am not young so Bob does all the planting--on his hands and knees. I do all the sorting of the seedlings, the tag making and the map making as well as all the picture processing and computer records.

Signet, we are using landscape fabric this year. It's a commercial type that is UV stabilized and is guaranteed for 5 years in full sun. It will be in place for only 3 years and then we will rip out the bed. We just have to do something to keep down the weeds. We have one bed that we have weeded twice this year and used Preen both times and yet the weeds grow back. We have too many weeds that are resistant to the effects of Preen. Asiatic day flower and nutsedge are two of the worst, but there are others as well.

Sherry, the biggest critter problem we have is pine voles. Riley, our dog, keeps the raccoons and possums at bay. He did have an encounter with a skunk this year. I hope we don't repeat that one. The deer come up to munch only occasionally. We see evidence that they are munching on the mulberry tree, but don't see much damage on the daylilies. We do use milorganite around the beds to deter them.

Julia, we do water. Our soil is very sandy and drains quickly so we feel the effects of a drought pretty quick. We don't have any in-ground watering system, so Bob is always dragging hoses around. We did put in another well so we have good pressure in all of the beds. We have plentiful ground water where we live.

We started on the new bed and now have only about 800 more seedlings to go. This year has been a poor seed production year, so we won't have this many seedlings next year. We are really in over our heads when we have more than about 1500.

Nancy

Wow Nancy, so many seedlings! What a production. Its nice that you and Bob have a love of these together and can work together.

I really like the photos of the first 2 seedlings.

Those seedlings are all beautiful, but the first one is gorgeous. Love that color.

kay

Nancy: Are you aware that Preen only keeps seeds from germinating? It does not kill weeds. You will need something else for that. Lontrel kills the composites but not much else.

Dick, we know that Preen only keeps seeds from germinating. Unfortunately, there are seeds that are immune to its effect. We completely weeded the newest seedling bed twice and applied Preen and watered it in, but it just didn't keep the nasty weeds from germinating. That's why we are trying landscape fabric.

We also use Lontrel, but the bane of our existence is Asiatic dayflower and nutsedge, which even Round-up won't kill. Sedgehammer will kill nutsedge, but also daylilies.

We know that the landscape fabric won't take care of every weed, but it will cut down on the square footage that we have to weed.

Nancy