When it’s pouring rain outside, the greenhouse is definitely the best place to be. It’s not exactly warm on a gray day and it’s not completely dry either but it is full of summer’s promise. Visitors can’t help asking if the plants are for sale. It’s a good question because I’d want them for my own garden too. But, alas, they are not for sale – at least not here. Everything in the greenhouse is destined for Blithewold’s gardens. We have some new plants that I’m especially excited about and just in case you might be too, here’s the scoop on where you can find them:

Avant Gardens is selling a new (it’s new to us – is it new to the world?) hummingbird mint – Agastache ‘Summer Glow’. If it glows anything like the picture on the tag I’m smitten and I don’t even love yellow. Those will go in the North Garden. They are also selling this adorable violet with pewter leaves (Viola walteri ‘Silver Gem’.) Anything that looks like jewelry really needs to be planted in the jewel box of our Rock Garden.

Annie’s Annuals, a mail order source on the other coast, is selling a hook sedge (Uncinia uncinata ‘Rubra’) that promises to turn garnet red in the garden. I suppose they should go in the Rock Garden too but I’ve had my eye on them for a necklace of containers. A speckled leaved honesty (Lunaria annua ‘Rosemary Verey’) from Annie’s will find a spot in the Display Garden and I hope-hope-hope it comes true from seed next year.

Dahlia ‘Kaili’, which came in exactly a month ago as a rooted cutting from Corralitos Gardens, another mail order source from California that specializes in the prettiest dahlias, is already fulfilling its promise. We can be certain that it, ‘Golden Cloud’, ‘Granville’, and ‘Bishop of York’ will be gorgeous planted in the North Garden.

With more and more people planting vegetables, they are easier and easier to find as starts at almost any nursery or farmer’s market. We grew these tomatoes from seed from several different sources including Baker Creek and Johnny’s. I can’t wait for my first Sungold snack…

Have you found plants you’re excited about this year? What are they, and where can we buy them?

This week we just about finished planting 300-something new perennials – with the garden volunteers’ help, thank goodness! – and that meant it was time to pick up another order. One of the highlights of Gail’s and my year is our spring trip to Avant Gardens in N. Dartmouth, MA to grab our order and see if there are maybe a few other things we can’t garden without. We found a lot this year. We should have brought the truck.

The owners, Kathy and Chris Tracey have a love of plants that is obvious and totally infectious and their nursery is like a fabulously curated art gallery. — But less fancy-pants; it’s as comfortable as a kitchen. They grow and sell plants that they know are awesome performers and they trial every new plant that intrigues them in their own garden, which is attached to the nursery. They’re also famous for fabulous pot combinations and the most sublime trough gardens. Seeing their plants so artfully planted and growing gangbusters just makes us want everything even more.

The nursery is well off the beaten track but so easy to find. Just head north (away from the mall) from the Faunce Corners exit off 195 in North Dartmouth and follow the road until it Ts. Take a left there and go winding along the shady country road until you just begin to wonder if you’ll ever get there. Card carrying Blithewold members who visit Avant Gardens will be richly rewarded with a 10% discount but they also have a fabulous online catalog here. If you aren’t already hooked to her feed, Kathy writes one of the most read-ably fun and informative blogs with the best name: Garden Foreplay. The plants she sells are definitely seductive…

Have you been to Avant Gardens yet? Did you find treasures too?

All of the advice you ever read about sowing seeds includes a suggestion to keep a record of what you’ve sown when. I’m pretty sure my head would explode if we didn’t keep track. We also try to record every good idea about the gardens before we forget them in separate books for each garden. In calendars we keep a daily record of the weather outside, what we’ve done all day and who has been in to help. Our calendars — and the blog — are invaluable for remembering whether last spring was the really rainy one or if it was 3 years back, and great for keeping us on track for pruning the roses and other seasonal must-do-nows. And I like to think of these things as an extension of Estelle Clements’ diligent, if sparsely worded, daily record of every happening at Blithewold while she was in residence with the family.

Over the last few years we have tried different methods for keeping track of our seed sowing. We used to simply write lists of what seeds were sown on a particular day, along with the seed source. One page (or two) per day. We could go back to previous years in the book to see what we sowed when but we didn’t keep track of germination timing, success rates and whether or not we liked the plants. Luckily Gail has a good memory for that stuff.

Last year we decided to try using Excel to keep track of all the plants in the garden, including seeds. I’m glad to have the data at my fingertips but it’s not easily accessible for everyone. So this year we’re going back to a book with some database inspired changes. Truth be told, I got the new template from our friend Pam (the self-described “propagating fool”) who got it from The Victory Garden.

In a grid notebook, we have lined out sections for plant, variety, source, quantity (I added that category), date seeded, date germinated, germination success, transplant date, planting out date, harvest date, and a wide space for comments. I know we’ll be good about writing down the date seeded because we’re already in the habit. As we get busier, it will be interesting to see if we’re able to make time to keep track of the rest of it. So far so good but then I’m always enthused to use a new tool at least until it doesn’t feel new anymore.

Do you write it all down? Have you ever used one of those 10 year calendars? — I think that might be next on my record-keeping wishlist. What’s on yours?