Saturday, February 12, 2011

the Arboretum today

One of the joys of the National Capital Area Chapter of The Gesneriad Society is that we meet at the U.S. National Arboretum.  I don't always make time to walk around, but a quick walk through the herb garden? Why not? 

Although it was quite warm today, there was still some snow this morning:


remnants of snow

But spring is almost here:



spring?

We had a full meeting yesterday, featuring a presentation on growing gesneriads from seed (with a detour on Malaysian gesneriads).  I was reminded to repot the seedlings I got at the raffle table in December.  Also, why are my seedlings not doing as well as they used to?  Perhaps because I'd forgotten the sage advice I once received to add 2 or 3 pellets of slow release fertilizer to seedlings with roots - time to get back into that habit.

Speaking of sage, there is, of course, some of that in the herb garden:

Salvia officinalis