Thursday, March 16, 2017

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!