Desert Rose (adenium) seedlings growth

I was hoping that when I made the second post, that it'd be about one of my seedlings blooming. That isn't the case. I figured maybe if I finally complain, one of them will do something about it. Let's see, where did I leave off of two years ago... Oh, yes! Sharing my successful cross-pollinating attempt between my adeniums and the seeds that came from it.

I held off until Spring 2017 before I decided to surface-sow 20 seeds. This is because I was still nervous about a failed attempt during Winter 2016 where I bought seeds to participate in a Community Grow Out. All of those seedlings died. They had a good start during very late summer and didn't seem happy during Winter under a grow light,  I don't know. But anyways, I digress.

On April 15, 2017, decided to start with 20 seeds so that I'd have lots of seeds waiting for further attempts should I suffer another severe setback because I never really have luck with seeds of succulents. I thought I had a picture of when I set it up but it appears the picture I have is of when the seeds started germinating about a week later on the 23rd.

April 23, 2017 - Desert Rose seeds germinating

April 30, 2017 - Desert Rose seedlings growing

June 6, 2017 - Still going strong!

Then there was an issue that forced me to repot the seedlings. I thought I took a picture before I did the repotting but I guess I didn't. The storms got stronger in July and I wasn't paying attention and the mix stayed too wet that rot was appearing. I was scared that the seedlings were way too young to be repotted into gritty mix but I took the leap, again relying on the fact that I had more seeds to grow if I had to start over again.

July 23, 2017 - 13 adenium seedlings repotted into gritty mix.

July 23, 2017 - Showing the damage on "Three Musketeers"

I didn't want to waste gritty mix on the remaining three which I've come to call "The Three Musketeers".

I threw away the remaining seedlings that were shriveling up and soft. I thought I took a picture but I guess I didn't. One of the shriveling seedlings that I tossed aside had actually recovered and started sprouting leaves. I stuck that in a flowerbox full of normal dirt as an experiment. After a bunch of storms, the tip of the plant shriveled up and lost its leaves so I yanked out the seedling to see the roots and tossed it away again (keep this in mind for what's coming later).

August 17, 2017 - It adjusted pretty well to the gritty mix.

August 17, 2017 - Three Musketeers are still going!

October 20, 2017

October 20, 2017

This was when temperatures started dipping way too low for my comfort and I started bringing them in during nights before putting them back outside for the day. This continued well into December.

December 23, 2017 - Approaching Christmas and they're all here still!

Winter finally made a permanent appearance in January that I set up the seedlings in front of the heating vent with the grow light panel I used last year. I was nervous that the seedlings would struggle and die like the batch of seeds I bought the previous year so that was a nail biting time.

January 6, 2018 - Seedlings under grow light.

January 6, 2018 - Seedlings under grow light and in front of vent for heat.

February 6, 2018 - Back to a out-during-day-and-under-grow-light-at-night routine.

April 2, 2018 - They survived the winter much to my relief.

Then, come the 24th of April, I decided that, hey!!! Since all my seedlings survived the winter just fine, why don't I plant the rest of the seeds to see if any are variegated or whatever else?! I mean, gosh, they say that germination rates are terrible the older the seeds are and they're from 2016, right? I'll just nurse what comes up! They can't all be alive and kicking, right?

April 24, 2018 - It's go time!

Look at that bad boy! All those seeds! So old! So old and only a few are to come up!

May 10, 2018 - Seedlings coming up...

May 15, 2018 - That's... a lot.

May 23, 2018 - All starting to stand up!

Then on May 27th, I was moving pots around to make room in the back of the wagon when I came across a strange lump. I picked it up and I could not believe what I was looking at. The seedling that was growing in the dirt box last year. It was STILL alive. I don't know how! How did it survive the whole winter out there? We had days of frozen temps with snow sticking around...

May 27, 2018 - Discovered seedling from last year...

May 27, 2018 - Immediately potted in gritty mix.

June 13, 2018 - Seedlings still going!

I guess it was kind of disappointing that there's no variegated or anything new or funky. Many of them seem to be normal and happy!

July 4, 2018 - Give me freedom!

The seedling I always kept next to the Three Musketeers finally burst through its cup which was kind of amazing to see. It was quickly repotted.

July 4, 2018 - Repotted in a random pot!

July 4, 2018 - Seedlings still going!

July 4, 2018 - Seedlings side profile.

July 16, 2018 - Three Musketeers next to split its cup!

July 27, 2018 - Everyone together in one shot!

That's pretty much where I am today (I apologize for the two weeds in the cups. I kind of used them a as a 'water' meter in case they needed watering. Bad idea, I guess!). I do sometimes dance back and forth when it comes to the little seedlings because of the rot the older seedlings endured last year around this time. I'm guessing because there's so many seedlings in it this time, that maybe it doesn't stay wet too long. I don't know. I haven't experienced any issues yet. They're still happy so far... but I know they'll have to be repotted eventually.

I have in mind some idea of maybe using a somewhat long tray with gritty mix and working them in row by row so that I can put them under the grow light come winter or something. But man, it probably won't work out that way. I know I can't do them in separate cups right now because that'd take up a LOT of space.

Hopefully making this post will prompt one of the older seedlings into blooming but I don't know! Sorry about all the pictures. :D

First post: Desert Rose (Adenium Obesum) Seed Pods and Seeds

Amaryllis Cross Blooming

A cross-pollinated amaryllis bulb of mine is finally blooming. I made this cross in 2012. I bought a fake "Candy Floss" from edensblooms in 2012 (no idea what its true identity is so I've called it Fake Candy Floss since). I don't believe it has ever bloomed again, at least I don't recall it flowering again? This is the mother.

This is the father. I don't know the name of this one, but I've had it forever. I also don't believe it's hybridized because when I successfully selfed it, the babies that bloomed were exactly like it, no variations whatsoever.

Year after year I fertilized the crossed seedling and I was starting to think it was taking after its mother's dislike for blooming. All it did was make offsets. Finally this spring, it has sent up a flower stalk.

I thought the whole thing was going to be pink like the mom and you'd have to squint to see dad's stripes but this is interesting. I don't hate it but it looks generic, I'd say. At least it's a strong flower in appearance.

10 Years

Wow, I just noticed that my blogspot account turned 10 in January. I was thinking about gardening this year; taking in how warm December, January, and February were and how everything's growing. Now the NE is being battered by a blizzard and the frozen cold temperatures are coming down here giving us some freezing nights for about a week or so.

Thankfully only one iris bothered sending up a bloom but I lost a couple of amaryllis blooms but eh, that's fine, I suppose.

To think back over the 10 years and try to remember all the beds and plants I've tried and lost... Looking over the amount of entries on this blog every year, seeing how the number is smaller and smaller, makes me wonder if I've lost my passion for gardening, or if it's just really the same kind of thing I'm experiencing every year and gaining nothing new about re-posting some of it every year.

Though my more recent posts seem to be a quick condensed version of events, which I guess it's nicer to see how everything unfolds in one post instead of trying to track down progress through periodic posts.

March 16, 2017 - Amaryllis

I remember how I was hell-bent on breeding all kinds of Amaryllis to see if I could get something unique enough for myself to keep around. It was hard to watch the whole thing go up in smoke after the Red Blotch was introduced to the garden.

I still have some amaryllis around. The ones that were in the ground outside were all removed when I couldn't keep up with the fungus, but probably made worse by the vines and weeds that grew in over the fence. The ones in flowerboxes are still okay, mostly because they're protected from rain so the blotch isn't quite able to take over everything while it's still cool and dry right now.

I'm really not sure what I'm gonna plant this year. So far I'm thinking I'm going to get a lot of sunflowers going, if I can. I don't know why but I just seem to miss them all of a sudden. And then there's my personal cross-pollinated desert rose seeds I'd like to plant to see if I can get anything out of those. The ones I started late last year have been unhappy under led grow lights in the den. Hoping some of those survive as I bought them as a unique cross so it's something totally new to have.

Now that I've separated my Dragon's Gold Iris, I think I'll be pampering the heck out of the rhizomes in hopes that there's even more babies to spread out and keep it going. Very funny that I've become extremely attached to it. hehe.

I think I am more surprised by my success with Iris. There's so many of them around that I'm sort of sitting around waiting for some virus or fungus to crop up and wipe them all out. I guess it's sort of pessimistic to think that way, but man...

Hope everyone has a great spring when it finally rolls in!

Desert Rose (Adenium Obesum) Seed Pods and Seeds

This has been an interesting journey. I finally had two desert roses blooming at the same time so I decided to look up on how to cross-pollinate them. I came across this really interesting post someone made on how to cross pollinate them. The pictures are extremely helpful; it showed me where I could find the pollen and how to do it correctly. Though they weren't kidding when they talked about it being difficult to see at certain points even when you tear the flower apart and get everything set up for a crossing. I did this on only a handful of flowers.

June 22, 2016 - Desert Roses

June 30, 2016 - Desert Roses

July 7th, 2016 - Appears to be a successful cross!

Somewhere around the 4th, 5th of July, I noticed these two little nubs seeming to stay around a while, while the others would dry up. I didn't want to get excited but eventually it seemed like these two were the only ones that were growing in size!

July 10, 2016 - More growth!

By now it became obvious that I did succeed on just one flower. I made several more attempts after but this would be the only one to succeed. I was prepared for the possibility that nothing would take because of the article stating success rates would be very, very low. So this was exciting!

July 28th, 2016 - Seed Pods growing bigger!

August 6, 2016 - Huge pods!

August 28, 2016 - Seems to have maxed out!

It was incredible to watch this explode in size, especially on such a small plant! The pods were so heavy that I was worried the branch would snap under the weight of it. At first I twined the branches together for more support, and eventually propped the seed pods up against the branches of my larger Desert Rose for more support. And then pretty much left it alone since.

October 10, 2016 - Adenium Obesum seed pods opening

October 10, 2016 - Close up of seed pod opening

It was pretty neat to finally reach the day when the pods started opening and little fuzz balls started popping out.

A seed with the ends puffed out!

I was curious to know how many seeds each pod had so after I prepared the seeds, I counted them. A total of 163 seeds were there, with 48 of them not appearing to be good (they were shriveled up and I felt no lump in them).

I'm thinking next spring I gotta put more effort into seeing if I can get my bigger one to be the mother next time.

UPDATE July 27, 2018: Desert Rose (adenium) seedlings growth

Crossed Tall Bearded Iris

I thought I blogged about this before but I guess not. I wrote the flower off as 'dead and gone' when it bloomed. But anyhow....

In 2013, I crossed an Immortality Iris with a "Purple Mom/Black Dad" Iris, and I was successful. I got a seed pod, I winter-sowed them and posted a picture of them growing the next spring/early summer. 

During Spring 2015, quite a few flowers came up. 

I started documenting the flowers coming up...



...and all of them were purple...



What's this?!



It was the only "white" one to come up and I was completely obsessed with it. Unfortunately around this time, I caught something bad. All I remember is that there were a lot of pollen flying around and then all of a sudden I had a fever, a lot of sweating, and after a week of that, a cough moved in and then went deep into my lungs. That was a nightmare that lasted for way too long. I even went out with a paint pen and scribbled on the leaves so that when I got better, I'd be able to find it and separate it.

By the time I got better, all the original leaves in the pot had died down and gave way to new leaves. I had no idea which one I wanted to dig up, and pretty much wrote the flower off as dead and gone.

Then cue 2016. For some reason the garden did not bloom much this year. I had very few amaryllis blooms, as well as a handful of iris blooms scattered around. I don't know if it was because winter wasn't cold enough? I don't know.

Then to my complete and utter surprise...



Only one iris bloomed in this pot and it was the one that I thought was long gone.



I was absolutely determined to separate it this time while I still can. After the flowers ran their course and shriveled up, I got it repotted in a pot all by itself.



There were two teeny, tiny rhizomes attached to it so I'm hoping it'll eventually take over the whole pot with a bunch of new rhizomes to carry on the legacy.