Plants & Such

USDA Unveils New Plant Hardiness Zone Map

2012-01-25T16:41:00.000-05:00

USDA Unveils New Plant Hardiness Zone Map / January 25, 2012 / News from the USDA Agricultural Research Service

Thought I'd pass this link on to others. An updated plant hardiness zone map. I gave my zipcode a whirl and was surprised to see that the border of 7b and 8a is no longer 'next door' but is now way up state.

Iris seedling

2012-01-17T12:58:00.001-05:00

I love how my iris seedling is starting to look like an iris. It seems 'big' in this picture but it is incredibly tiny in the pot. Quick to miss when looking around. hehe.

As it is right now, I've spotted three iris seedlings in this "Black Mom/Purple Dad" pot. The "Purple Mom/Black Dad" pot has nothing so far.

Dragon Arum now?

2012-01-15T14:48:00.001-05:00

Wow... I was surprised to see these two poking out of the ground. Dragon Arums. Already?

What also surprises me is that these two used to be by the mailbox before I relocated them to the amaryllis bed. After I relocated them, they 'vanished' and I assumed they just rotted away.

The dragon arum in the other bed (the one I take pictures of with the big flowers) haven't come up yet. Those two suffered a mishap last year where they bloomed and immediately both plants just died down to the ground. I wonder if those bulbs are still around or not. Time will tell. I have a love/hate relationship with the dragon arum but always pleasantly surprised to see them make an appearance (even if it's always way so early in the year while frosts are still coming).

Amaryllis bulbs - Green Dragon and Candy Floss

2012-01-14T14:52:00.002-05:00

My order finally came in!

I bought Green Dragon Amaryllis in honor of 2012 being 'Year of the Dragon'. Candy Floss was tossed in because two bulbs are always better than one, right? And I definitely want more color added to the collection so that cross-pollinating becomes many more times the fun.

Gotta dig up two pots and get them planted... Now I need to look up information on how to store the pollen so that I can use it on the reds when they bloom this spring.

Follow the sun...

2012-01-12T13:45:00.000-05:00

I'm not one of those lucky people that have a big south-facing window with shelves to help plants gets sun during the winter months so I keep relocating the amaryllis to a chair and slowly push it across the kitchen floor to follow the sun. Someone else appreciates it as well.

Amaryllis and Gypsy

Of course, have to keep a close eye on them both to make sure she isn't nibbling on the plant or ready to stretch out and send the pot tumbling over. Amazingly she hasn't thus far. Once the temperature starts reaching to a point where it doesn't feel like I need a jacket, I set the pot outside on the back porch for full sun. Then it comes inside to go on a high shelf before the sun goes down.

Looks like after tonight, there'll be a handful of days where the lows will be in the twenties. That's something at least!

Cleaning up backyard - Iris Seedling

2012-01-11T12:57:00.000-05:00

It appears the cutting company is done removing the pine trees from the woods that butt up against the backyard. For us, the focus is now on the side of the backyard and the mess that was caused by Hurricane Irene when she toppled the pine trees back in August.

With the weather cooling down and while the wisteria vines have lost their leaves, the clean-up of the backyard has finally started. For a couple days now, it's been a lot of cutting and tugging at the vines. As for the pine trees that were laying on the fence, a couple of them were removed with the chainsaw until the chain broke.

Slowly getting it loaded up. Once the chainsaw is fixed, the rest of the fallen pine trees will be cut off the fence. I don't know about the mess on the other side of the fence seeing as that isn't our property but some of those pine trees are leaning over into the backyard. I don't know how long they'll have before they give up from the weight of the wisteria on top.

Right now the top priority is to just clear everything off the fence and straighten it back up for the dogs. It'll be nice to see the edges of the yard again.

So much for winter-sowing. Looks like at least one Iris seedling has germinated and started coming up...

Iris Seedling

Both Iris pots will be moved into the greenhouse to protect them from the freezing temperatures that are coming (assuming winter gets here) in case more seeds have germinated.

Cherub's Smile Bearded Iris

2012-01-07T15:29:00.001-05:00

The weather has been really nice for a while. It's 71 degrees right now as I write this. It's shorts-wearing weather. Little gnats slipping in through the screens of opened windows. And of course plants reacting to the warm weather and getting ready to burst with new life. And we're just a week into January.

I found out that my two Cherub's Smile Bearded Iris bulbs started growing. It looks like they got stung by the cold weather we had a few days back. On one hand, I'm still annoyed that we haven't had prolonged "winter"-iness but on the other hand, I am quite tickled to find out that the two dried up bulbs are still alive and kicking! This pot will have to be moved into the greenhouse when temperatures drop below freezing.

So how's the weather where you live?

What happened to winter?

2011-12-29T09:17:00.000-05:00

Saw this video on Weather.com and just had to share it!

Asiatic Lily Seedlings already? - Torn down Woods

2011-12-28T13:46:00.000-05:00

So I go out back while muttering about Old Man Winter's tardiness, see? What do my eyes see?

No. Yes. What? Wait...

Is this some weed taking over my box? No. The other three pots with different winter-sowed seeds are empty. I snap a picture, hop on Google, and to my horror, I discover that these indeed are asiatic lily seedlings. What are they doing popping up already? This is the curse of a winter that won't stay cold. I dragged the pot into the greenhouse because with the seedlings trying to grow before winter has even fully settled in yet is making me nervous. Now I wonder if the other winter-sowed seedlings are setting out roots and haven't popped up yet. Stress. Stress. Stress.

Speaking of stress...

The picture above was taken on December 3rd when I noticed the pink string on the tree.

This picture was taken today. The owner of the land decided to hire a company to take down all the pine trees so that he could sell them to a sawmill. It was sad to see the pine trees come down and be carted away. I don't even know if they're done yet because their machines are still sitting in the woods. Now when night comes, we can see lights from other buildings on the other side of the woods. It's an odd sight to see when coming out onto the back porch at night.

I lived in this house since 1995 and for a lot of things to change so abruptly this year alone was really difficult for me to handle. Our beloved Bear that we adopted in 1995 passed away this year. The fence we built for him around the backyard in 1995 had been destroyed during Hurricane Irene. Now the beautiful woods have been destroyed. I think 2011 will personally be the year that will be remembered as the year that everything 'home sweet home' came to an end.

Smith & Hawken: Amaryllis Bulb Kit

2011-12-27T06:47:00.000-05:00

I hope everyone had a very merry Christmas! For Christmas, I received an Amaryllis Bulb kit from Smith and Hawken. It contained a Minerva Amaryllis bulb.

The bulb was pretty good sized and there were leaves trying to start.

What I found baffling was that after I poured three cups of water into the pot and came back after an hour, I saw that the 'growing medium' didn't even come up halfway. I used a butter knife to stir it and the growing medium was mostly soggy and only came up halfway in the pot.

So I re-read the directions in case I missed anything. I didn't know if I had to add something beforehand.

Even the illustration shows that the pod was supposed to fill up the pot.

Lucky for me, I remembered some pellets from a mini-greenhouse that never got used and tossed in about eleven of them to fill the rest of the pot.

Voila! A potted Amaryllis.

Besides the lack of growing medium, what makes me nervous is how the pot has no holes. It has three little "rubber-stops" on the bottom to prevent the bottom of the pot from scratching the surface.

I guess as long as I just keep it moist and not wet, it should be fine until I get it into the ground come next spring.

Still hoping to get my hands on a white amaryllis but it seems they're not easily found for some reason.

Schlumbergera Flowers amongst some others

2011-12-04T12:12:00.001-05:00

I guess Winter doesn't exist anymore... Or he's just dragging his butt this year. It's sort of hard to believe that we're in December and my plants are still alive. The heater was used once thus far when it hit 30 overnight. I left out the two boxes of spider plants and while they got singed, they pretty much continued on.

Anyhow, my schlumbergera (Thanksgiving Cactus) are blooming. Got the red, pink, and Dark Maria going. Normally cold temperatures come and I stick them in the greenhouse with the heater. The plants lose their buds before they have a chance to open. With how warm it's staying, the flowers are coming out to play.

The yellow schlumbergera is always the last to open so this one is still working on opening their flowers.

And of course, randomness like a decaying angel.

And the shadow of a lizard. They're all running rampant still...

Also! Before I forget, as a personal note to myself, I received two new bearded iris bulbs about a week ago and I know come next spring, I'm going to forget and say, "I know it said 'cherub' something!" Instructions said to get them out before first frost so I stuck them in a pot. They looked pretty shriveled up as is so I don't know if they're even alive. Guess I'll find out come next spring.

Bearded Iris Cherub's Smile

Hope everyone else is doing well!

Winter Sowing and Schlumbergera

2011-10-27T11:43:00.000-05:00

Pots ready for winter-sowing of the seeds!

I got these four pots ready for winter sowing. Iris (Black Mom/Purple Dad), Iris (Purple Mom/Black Dad), Asiatic Lily, and Clematis. I kept reading over and over that winter sowing was needed for these seeds so I'm just going to have these pots sitting outside all winter long and see if the seeds do pop out come spring. A fun new experience. At the moment, it's the Iris that I can't wait for. I'd love to see those pop up but the others would be fun to see too.

Dark Maria - Schlumbergera

It also turns out that the schlumbergera have started pushing out flower buds. I guess I was a bit surprised because a good chunk of them fell apart or got too much water or it was too hot or... It was a serious pain to keep them happy this year and I have just about given up. Though, it's refreshing to see them try to flower. I know the buds will fall off once the temperatures drop and I have to get the heater running to prevent them from freezing - which always shocks them into dropping their buds, unfortunately.

Pink? Red? Schlumbergera

Gourd? Squash?

2011-10-04T07:18:00.000-05:00

Trying to figure out what this big bad boy is... I posted it on a Pumpkin/Gourd/Squash forum but haven't had a reply yet. Does anyone know what this is? It's a very large gourd or squash. My first reaction was that it was a gourd so no idea if this thing is edible or not.

I've been hitting Google Image but haven't come across anything that looks like this yet.

Post-Irene with thoughts about Katia

2011-09-02T12:40:00.000-05:00

It's hard to think of how a week ago, I was annoyed at the local meteorologist for popping on every 30 minutes to give updates about Irene. I just kept grousing that it'll be, "just wind and rain!" Now that I've had time to absorb everything that's happened last weekend, I feel a little gun-shy towards hurricanes. I've always welcomed them because it meant rain - and I definitely welcomed Irene because I thought she'd come in and get us caught up water-wise due to the drought we had during the summer. I never could've seen it coming that she'd destroy a lot of things in the process.

I propped the plants (Purple Bells? Purple Stars? I can never remember the name of this plant...) up with posts and they recovered pretty well.

As it is right now, a lot of things are still sitting around (Can't really move big trees around and there's no chainsaw here). For the first couple of days, the smell of rot filled the air because the wind wasn't really moving at all and the haze was sitting around. Yesterday and today have been really nice weather and there's some wind so everything smells better.

Looking at the 10 day forecast on TWC, it seems the days of 90's are at an end. Just a lot of 80's.

There's more and more talk of Katia and maybe purchasing a generator. A friend of the family let my father borrow his generator on Monday which was used for about 2 hours to power up some floor fans before the lights finally kicked on. A brief experience with that says that maybe one should be purchased after all. Who knows... If Katia actually does come flying straight in like a bat out of hell and does an 'encore' of what Irene did...

Hurricane Irene came and left...

2011-08-30T09:41:00.001-05:00

Hurricane Irene roared over us in NC and caused a lot of damage. When I came out the morning of Saturday, I filmed this:

And then I did an update video:

A tree fell on our lines.

A better shot.

Fence was pushed over.

It had enough of the winds and keeled over.

Came out Sunday morning (28th) and looked around. The butterflies and hummingbirds were out in full force. I made a fresh batch of nectar on the grill's burner and snapped this picture of a butterfly making do with a couple of flowers from the Salvia Coccinea

(I went into more detail on my other blog: Hurricane Irene paid a visit.)

Prickly Pear Growth

2011-08-23T15:28:00.000-05:00

May 17, 2011 - Prickly Pear Cactus

August 23, 2011 - Prickly Pear Cactus

You know, it really stuns me how fast this prickly pear cactus grew. It was struggling in this small terra cotta pot and the main pad died down (that shrivelly gray mass that all the pads are on) so I finally had enough and decided to stick it in a pot that was clearly too big for it. My reasoning was that I didn't want to repot it any time soon - if ever. I was also hoping it would just die off and I can toss it away and move on.

That didn't happen. Instead it's been growing by leaps and bounds these past three months. I can't believe it. It won't take long before it's too big for THIS pot and I am definitely way too afraid to try and repot it in a larger pot.

I do want to experiment with a pad though. I'm thinking that next spring I'll stick a pad in a fresh pot, let it grow, and then leave it out all winter to see if it'll overwinter like my eastern prickly pear does every winter.

Schlumbergera Seedlings update & Stapeliad

2011-08-04T15:12:00.001-05:00

Stapelia Gigantea bud growing longer...

Schlumbergera Seedlings

I don't like the idea of posting pictures of my schlumbergera seedlings. I guess I'm so discouraged when it comes to them. With the utter total failure of the first pot earlier this year, I've sort of adopted the attitude that as long as I don't develop an attachment, it won't be no skin off my nose when they keep dying. With that in mind, I decided to finally add a smidgen of miracle gro fertilizer to the spray bottle. I figured if this small amount still burns them, oh well. At least I tried.

I can't help but feel some sort of excitement in the back of my mind that there's still a good amount that's still growing. With first leaves popping out of some while random others just keel over... It's survival of the fittest even though I'm trying to find advice online.

I posted on a forum that was meant for growing schlumbergera from seedling. After explaining that my first pot attempt was potting soil and this current attempt is peat moss, I was told that next time I should add perlite and vermiculite to break it up a bit. There's also suggestion of maybe buying a cheap grow light. With how long it's taking these to grow, I'm worried they won't make it in the greenhouse over winter. Maybe I could set up some small grow light in the laundry room and bring the seedlings in to keep them safe. It's something to think about.

Stapelia Gigantea

2011-07-30T19:38:00.001-05:00

Stapelia Gigantea Flower Bud

You know, it's kind of neat to see it sending out a bud. My experience with this plant has been pretty much a roller coaster. After receiving the plant in a rather soggy pot last year - it was given to me with black rot already having set in. Pretty soon the entire plant just died. I realized that after everything was slowly dying away, there were these little 'clippings' that had been tossed into the pot and was pretty green. I potted those up in different soil.

Then they grew a little bit. Then they got stung in the greenhouse over winter. I thought the plant was pretty much going to die after it got stung but to my surprise, once spring came, it set out to grow new 'arms'. Now to see it have a flower bud, I'm really pleased. Had it died after being stung from the cold, I might've written this plant off for good.

Amaryllis progress and chili peppers

2011-07-29T16:05:00.000-05:00

Amaryllis Seedlings

It's hard to believe I got more seedlings coming up. It's very very addicting. I should probably quit planting them because I probably will have too many to know what to do with! I'm still hitting them with a very weak fertilizer mix every time I water them because I want them to bulk up as fast as they possibly can before winter comes.

Chili Peppers

I believe these are ghost chili peppers. They sprouted from some peppers that fell back into the pot last year. I didn't think the seeds could overwinter but apparently they can! So the plants popped back up and there's some new peppers.

Chili Pepper Bloom

Odd Bug? - Solved: Wheel Bug

2011-07-25T11:19:00.001-05:00

As I was watering the plants, I came across this unusual bug clutching a bee. I want to say that it looks like a preying mantis and stink bug mixed together. Anyone recognize it?

UPDATE:
Mystery solved. It's a Wheel Bug (Arilus cristatus). I went to take better pictures but the winds kept moving the plant around so all I got were fuzzy pictures. I also accidentally scared it into dropping its meal and it took off. Once the winds calmed, I managed to get a better side profile picture of it.

Venus Fly Trap, Gladiolus, Phlox

2011-07-18T08:51:00.001-05:00

New template design. Like it? Heh! I was told that the template I had on here was years old and that I should hit the template library for a fresh design. Now it's got that Google +1 that's sweeping the internet by storm.

Venus Fly Trap

My VFT is doing good. You can see a couple traps have dead bugs in them so they're slowly thriving. It's impossible to tell from this angle but this pot sits on top of a saucer that has rainwater in it.

Gladiolus

I thought I had a gladiolus that was red with yellow 'throats'. This one is more on the pinkish/purplish side.

Butterfly in Phlox

In the humid morning when the sun comes out and there's no wind, there's this strong heady smell that surrounds this huge batch of White Phlox. I took a few pictures of this butterfly and this one came out the clearest.

Bees on Sunflowers

2011-07-16T13:05:00.000-05:00

Bees on Sunflowers. Pretty neat, huh?

Here's the full picture. You can see my stake on the left is struggling like heck to support the sunflower. It was straight up at one point but has fallen over ever since and the stake hasn't been able to keep it upright since. If it wasn't for the bees on the little flowers, I think this would've been cut down at some point! Is this an unusual sunflower with so many little heads on it?

Tomatoes

2011-07-16T11:05:00.000-05:00

My vegetable pots pretty much shriveled up at this point. I think I have some unidentified vegetable vines still growing but no idea what they are. The female flowers die off even though there's plenty of male flowers.

The tomatoes that I planted just for the heck of it are still going strong.

These are the Tiny Tim tomato plants. I tried tying them up but the plant sort of bent over seeing as how they were unable to support the tomatoes.

That big weird streaky red tomato on the bottom right is from a grape tomato plant. It was growing in a pot that had the husky cherry tomato plants. Kind of odd!

Amaryllis Seeds growing...

2011-07-14T14:46:00.000-05:00

So... hot...

Anyhow, a quick capture of my five flower boxes of amaryllis seedlings. Just stick a bunch of seeds in some pots or flower boxes and after a couple weeks, they should start growing.

For personal records:
The two red boxes and the tan box - Red Mother/Red Father.
Two green boxes - Red Mother/PinkWhite Father.

I was also asked about my other flower boxes.... A bit embarrassed to post a picture.

I know, I know. Shame on me! It amazes me how persistent the weeds are. I spend all spring and early summer constantly plucking everything out. Once the temperatures get too hot for me to stick around too long, the weeds take off like wildfire. There's four flower boxes pictured there if you can't tell from all the weeds. ... heh.

Hiding in the handle of a watering can

2011-07-04T22:38:00.001-05:00

It was incredibly hot and muggy out today. After I watered the vegetable pots and set the watering can down, I noticed a pair of eyes watching me.

It's amazing how long the smoke has been lingering in this area. There's fires going on around here in several counties and just when it seems like the air will clear and the sky won't have some rust tinge to it, the air quickly becomes white and the smell is really bad. Central air has to be turned off or the smell gets into the house.

It's also weird to see it say "Smoke" on weather.com. I never knew that status existed until I saw it in mid-June or so. Could sure use some rain... The drought is kicking my butt here.

Asiatic Lily Seed Pods

2011-07-03T19:22:00.000-05:00

As time passed, it seems most of the lily seed pods that started swelling have stopped. They're starting to shrivel up and I guess it didn't make it or didn't pollinate afterall? At east that was the Tiger Lily ones that started and then stopped.

I do have one plant in the backyard that have three seed pods swelling right up though!

I thought I posted a picture but apparently I didn't. I took this picture of the plant back on June 5th when it was actively blooming.

I have no idea who the father would be. Possibly pollen from the Tiger Lily, Easter Lily, or Whatever the tall dark red/orange one is.

Iris Seed Pods / Sunflowers

2011-06-20T10:06:00.000-05:00

I was surprised to wake up this morning and find out that it poured last night. A lot of green everywhere! Boy, everything certainly perks up pretty quickly when a good rain comes through the area. Too bad it only seems to happen once every few weeks. Thunderstorms sure don't like passing through here for some reason.

Iris Seed Pod

I was surprised that the pods have started splitting open. They were white-ish yesterday but this morning they seemed to have really jumped and started splitting.

Sunflower

Amaryllis Seed Pods opening

2011-06-08T23:30:00.000-05:00

A couple amaryllis seed pods have begun to open. This is when I break the heads off, spread them out over a paper towel, and let them dry for a few days. Then I immediately stick them in a flowerbox to germinate them as soon as possible.

Milky Way Morning Glories

2011-06-04T05:32:00.002-05:00

I can't believe it's only 56 degrees as of 6:30 a.m. I decided to head out and get some pictures of the Morning Glories.

They've been growing in this pot out of the blue so I guess some seeds came from last year. It was a total surprise because I dug up some green elephant ears and stuck them in this pot so you can also see them mingling with the MG leaves there. So far one kind of flower has revealed itself. Milky Way Morning Glories.

The white morning glory flowers with purple marks are pretty interesting to see.

Radish Seed Pods?

2011-06-02T18:07:00.000-05:00

The only thing I know about radishes is that you have to pluck them while they're young or that they'll get too 'hot' to eat. I plucked one radish but it was this long root so I didn't bother dealing with any of the others. Eventually they grew very tall and had lots of white flowers which attracted butterflies.

Eventually I saw these weird seed pods. My first thought was that they were a lot like green beans. I went on Google and was surprised to see a bunch of articles where people say to harvest them when young and then eat them raw - such as using them as salad topping!

You always learn something new!

Cucumbers and Morning Glories

2011-06-01T15:07:00.000-05:00

I actually have cucumbers growing. The plant isn't withering away in the humidity in the hot sun or full shade. The cucumbers aren't growing all weird and wonky. It's actually pretty neat! With how dry it has been around here and the humidity being lower than normal, I think I might have a shot at growing a batch of normal cucumbers this summer! And to think I complained about how it hasn't rained in a few weeks. (It did rain on Sunday and the humidity on Monday caused a couple of sunflowers to fold over and break. The garden struggled in Monday's humidity, that's for sure.)

I've been equally surprised with the Morning Glories. I don't know what kind these are except they're growing from a pot where I put Crimson Ramblers in the previous summer. However it's clear from the flower's coloring that this seems to be some other sort.

There are several sorts of vines growing. I don't want to say the leaves are dinner plate-sized but they're rapidly approaching it. I had the pot in the middle of the backyard but from how thick the vines have been, I decided to lug this pot over to the fence so that they can have some support. It has been wilting in the sun but I'm trying to keep the pot watered in the meanwhile just to see what all the flowers are.

What is also interesting to see is that there's Daddy Longlegs all throughout the vines. It's like they've positioned themselves at certain intervals and waiting...

Amaryllis seed pods failing...

2011-05-31T13:24:00.000-05:00

As a lot of pods started swelling, I was amazed at how many of them there were. I was starting to think there'd be too many and I wouldn't be able to get them all planted! Unfortunately as the days pass, the number of pods are dwindling.

Some pods burst open - which I'm told it means it hadn't been successfully pollinated?

They're failing in batches as well.

And while some were growing rather big, something attacked them.

So I might end up working with a much smaller batch than I thought.

Sunflower stalk splits into two?

2011-05-25T11:33:00.000-05:00

A sunlit tendril curling in front of a vegetable plant leaf. No idea what the plant is though... So far, I know that cucumber has made an appearance because of all the little cucumber flowers. I also saw a couple of zucchini flowers. Whether any has pollinated or not, I don't know... I seem to still be in that mindset that they'll all die off in the soon-to-come summer heat anyhow but I'm still watering the pots diligently.

I walked by a couple of sunflowers growing in the grass/sand (It's fun to let plants live if they don't exactly get in the way). However, I noticed something really odd!

Somehow this sunflower stalk split into two and it's got two healthy stalks coming out of it. They're pretty much the same height as the other sunflowers. Kind of odd!

Salvia Coccinea returns...

2011-05-23T09:57:00.000-05:00

Wow, that's embarrassing. This whole time I thought the plants growing in the bed was Blue Queen Salvia after tossing a packet in.

As soon as I saw the flowers this morning, my eyes bulged. "That's the flower from last year!" I didn't think they would return after the constant snow we had over winter. So now the bed is actually bursting at the seams with Salvia Coccinea and not the Blue Queen Salvia like I thought. Now I wonder if there's any salvia in there.

Maybe it wasn't a total waste of money in buying the May Night Salvia afterall...

I decided to get it to replace the two that died last summer because the bed they were in had dried up way too fast and couldn't stay wet.

Pink/White Amaryllis

2011-05-20T21:57:00.000-05:00

Glad to see the Pink/White Amaryllis returning. There's another bud coming up that's like it as well. I'll have to mark them so that I know which seed pods are pink/white - as well as any stalks of any reds that I use the pink/white pollen on.

Random flowers!

2011-05-19T18:00:00.000-05:00

These are the blooms of radish.

Stella de Oro - daylily

The old sandbox remains. I'm not sure where these sunflowers are coming from. I know my nephew dropped a bunch of seeds in this box last year and one large sunflower grew. Is it possible other seeds overwintered and returned?

White Yarrow

Amaryllis, Orange Lily, and Marigold

2011-05-14T15:52:00.000-05:00

Marigolds

Orange Lily

This is the second stalk of my seed-grown amaryllis. I thought it was all red but there's a hint of it trying to have a white/yellow throat on the three upper petals of both flowers that opened so far. The other two on the same stalk aren't open just yet.

Amaryllis, again...

2011-05-11T09:23:00.001-05:00

The left clump of Amaryllis is just exploding with red blooms! The right clump is still slowly sending up blooms - hoping that one of the buds will reveal that the pink/white bulb is still around. The middle seed-grown clump is now sending up a fourth bud!

Also, personal note to self - started second batch of schlumbergera seeds (thanksgiving cactus) in a pot.

First bloom from seed grown Amaryllis

2011-05-09T07:53:00.000-05:00

The first bud from my seed-grown batch (from 2007!) finally opened and revealed that it is very much like the other reds! I guess this means there'll be a whole bunch of red amaryllis growing around these parts. hehe.

Amaryllis

My friend sent me a batch of mystery seeds and I told her right away, they look just like the Century Plant seeds. Sure enough, the black seed got pushed out as it germinated and I told her, "Yup. It's agave seeds. It's doing the same thing the Century Plant seedling did." Then suddenly this little green blade shot out. I said to myself, "Well, my Century Plant seedling certainly didn't do this!" I did some searching online and I *think* this is a yucca seedling.

Amaryllis, Clematis, Cat, and the rest....

2011-05-07T20:48:00.001-05:00

Red Amaryllis with strong white/yellow throats.

Other angle of same amaryllis.

This red amaryllis has a hint of white/yellow throat but mostly red.

Clematis seed pods. After the petals fall off, they start looking like thread balls.

Random cat! Have to toss one of these in here... Meet Gypsy. ;)

Iris seed pods. Boy, they grow really big, don't they?

A random Petunia volunteer. There's quite a few of these in the cracks of the stones. I'll have to lift up the stones and pot them all.

This is a mystery seed that a friend sent to me. She has no idea what they are. So far it seems to look and act like the Century Plant seedling with a big giant black seed at the end of a green stalk.

Dragon Arum

2011-05-04T17:01:00.000-05:00

The other one is still trying to catch up. It would've been neat to see both of them open at the same time. Today is surprisingly chilly (56 degrees!) and the wind is constantly blowing. Though, during brief moments when the wind shifted, I could smell a horrible odor wafting from the flower before it got lost in the winds.

I don't know why the leaves are all curled up. Yesterday was hot and I figured that maybe it dried out a bit too much so I gave it a good soak. The leaves haven't responded. You can see that the smaller ones are fine. Their leaves weren't curled up at all through the whole thing so I don't know what gives.

Century Plant seedling

2011-04-30T17:07:00.001-05:00

After the disappointment with last year's attempt with the Century Plant seedlings from a kit, I tossed the left over seeds into a tomato pot with the attitude of "If you take, you take. If not, I'm done." Then after someone knocked a tomato pot over, I was pretty much under the impression that the seeds are a loss.

I went to water the tomato plants and imagine my shock to see this little guy poking out. I'm.... going to not be excited about it. I expect it to die but you never know. He might just keep pushing on and I'll have to repot him down the road. Who knows. Gardening is mysterious and fun yet frustrating. hehe.

Venus Fly Trap and other updates

2011-04-30T14:57:00.000-05:00

The left amaryllis clump has tons of blooms coming up and getting ready to open. The middle clump is my seed-grown batch and there's still only two buds (which I am still ecstatic about!). The right clump is still slow going. In the back are the banana plants. For some reason, the leaves of the largest one is coming out all damaged. I'm not sure what's going on with that one.

A close-up of an amaryllis bud from my seed-grown batch. Fingers tapping impatiently...

My dragon arum plants are still slowly opening. You can see the purple edging on the left one. It's getting close now.

Two purple iris flowers and a pollinated seed pod to the side.

I got to thinking that I really miss my prickly pear flowering every spring so I yanked the plant out of its terrible pot and repotted it in a much larger pot (which is semi-medium). Suddenly one pad just shot out so it's extremely happy at the moment.

It took me a little bit to remember what these are in the amaryllis bed. I knew they weren't weeds and I do remember opening a packet and just scattering the seeds all willy nilly without doing anything else. I believe these are the Blue Queen Salvia seedlings.

And yes.... I finally got a Venus Fly Trap today! It's kinda weird because I usually see Venus Fly Traps in red pots with a plastic 'cup' on top. I've never seen it sold like this before. The pot is very tiny and I can't help but feel I need to repot it so that it doesn't dry out so fast. Either that or I'll just have to set up a dish with some rocks so that water always touches the bottom.

Easter Cactus

2011-04-26T11:41:00.000-05:00

Ah, It's opening at last! Better late than never...

I keep thinking I should go out and buy another color of Easter Cactus so that I could try cross-pollinating but just haven't done so...

Schlumbergera Seedlings

2011-04-23T11:46:00.000-05:00

The seeds I planted back on the 21st of March are slowly coming up. They seem to just sort of.... sit there. A couple turned transparent and keeled over. Some seedlings just don't seem to know which way is up. I'm not sure. Oh well. My fingers are crossed that at least one will pull through and grow. It'd be awesome to say that I got a thanksgiving cactus by growing it from seed instead of receiving it as a clipping.

Seed Grown Amaryllis - Buds!

2011-04-21T15:41:00.000-05:00

I can't believe it! I went to check the amaryllis to see what was new and I spotted two buds from my seed-grown amaryllis! I can't believe it! Finally I'll get to see what the flowers of this batch will look like! I can't wait!

Big Skink! Oh, and other stuff too.

2011-04-20T19:20:00.000-05:00

Amaryllis Bed

This is the amaryllis bed. The middle big clump are my seed-grown ones. No blooms yet, sadly. The taller plants in the back are the banana plants. So far the main one returned and there's five others shooting up.

Dragon Arum

Dragon Arum Bloom

The left dragon arum is done sending up leaves. The tip of a bloom is now pushing out!

And of course, gotta toss in a big skink...

Tomato plants slowly coming up.

I dug out my box and I realized that most of the seed packets were marked for early 2000. I tossed them all into the two pots and figured if any takes, I'll do what I can. I was told about using a bag with a wet paper towel to check to see if any seeds are viable but at the time, my mindset was "It gets hotter here every summer and they've stopped thriving in this area for a few years now.".

A better angle. Right away, radishes popped up and I thought they were the only ones viable. Eventually random vegetables have popped up and I don't know what they are. I guess I'll just have to keep them watered and see what happens but I won't put too much effort on these guys...

Flowers coming along...

2011-04-15T12:11:00.000-05:00

One clump of Amaryllis already has 2 flower buds. Makes me a tad worried because I don't see any popping up from my seed-grown batch yet...

Fuzzy caterpillars are popping up everywhere!

Angle-shot of Clematis flower.

I was surprised to see two Iris flowers already open!

Frog!

2011-04-12T09:51:00.000-05:00

Just had to post this green tree frog that decided to cling to a christmas cactus ...

Dragon Arum & Iris

2011-04-07T16:35:00.000-05:00

Dragon Arum

Getting pretty tall!

Iris

They're sending up a couple flowers so far...

Wisteria

2011-04-06T18:00:00.000-05:00

Looks like it happened again this year. Instead of exploding with flowers before leaves come, they both arrived at the same time with much fewer flowers. I guess pruning the vines back didn't encourage anything. It seemed to have hampered it big time. Ah well...

Antlion?

2011-03-21T14:31:00.003-05:00

Mostly I'm just testing the 'upload video' feature since the quality of this video is a little terrible. While looking around to take pictures, I noticed several little pits and crouched down to see better. It turns out that there was a little beetle/bug trying to get out and towards the end of the video, you can see dirt being shoveled out while the beetle ends up getting flipped over several times.

I'm not sure what's going on here. Doesn't seem like the beetle is in any danger. I assume it's an Antlion since it's the only one I know that digs a pit.

Er... Second day of Spring!

2011-03-21T13:26:00.005-05:00

You know, I honestly thought today was the first day of Spring but it turns out that yesterday was the first day. Oops. Oh well... hehe. I fertilized all the plants so hopefully there'll be a big burst of growth everywhere.

Wisteria

Hen and Chicks

Below are pictures of some type of aloe plant? I made a thread about repotting it last year but never got around to it. I really need to but I feel helpless because I'm not sure how to do it and whatnot. I really should and just get it over with.

Thanksgiving Cactus

This plant got bit the worst when frost managed to hit the plants in the greenhouse (It's so frustrating when that happens). I was about to write this plant off but was pretty ecstatic to see new growth.

Oh, and as a tiny note to myself, today I started a batch of thanksgiving cactus seeds. Hopefully third time is the charm.

Random Plants

2011-03-18T09:46:00.003-05:00

AMARYLLIS

This picture is of my Amaryllis batch that I started from seeds in 2007. My fingers are crossed that at least one of them blooms this spring. Just one. That's all I'm asking! I really really want to see one of them bloom to see what they look like.

Dragon Arum (Dracunculus Vulgaris)

I am really stunned that we haven't had a frost yet. Look how big they're getting! Usually we have a last minute frost that hurts them but nothing like that has happened yet. Fingers crossed that there's no frost coming through here again...

Macro fun - close-up of Dragon Arum leaf.

Wisteria

The blooms are getting ready to come out. I don't know how many flowers are getting ready to come out this spring but I don't think we're in for a usual flashy show.

Using stuff around the house...

2011-03-07T20:11:00.003-05:00

You know, It's kind of fun to hit Google and do searches to see if anyone's using random stuff from around the house to use on their plants.

I just made my usual fertilizer:
24oz can of beer
2 cups of epsom salt
1 cup of ammonia
1 cup of molasses

I know there's several variations of the recipe, the different amounts, people being concerned that one amount was too much so they put in a smaller amount, etc. I believe a cup of water or two is added as well to dilute it but I don't bother with that. This is what I make and I put 1 tablespoon per watering can.

I use this fertilizer mostly for my thanksgiving/christmas cacti. They love the stuff and they bloom like crazy when the time comes. If I recall correctly, I read on one thread that this shouldn't be used on herbs.

When the roses were getting ready to be thrown out after several years of not blooming, I decided to make 'Banana Slush' and that's where you buy really brown bananas that are normally ready for banana bread but you just blend it up in a blender (peels included) with some water and pour it around your rose bushes. I did this every two weeks and they all bloomed like crazy. There were some roses that we totally forgot the color of and it was quite interesting to go "Ohhhh, yeah. Remember? You/she/he/they got it from such and such and then planted it here and etc..."

Problem was, as soon as I stopped feeding them the blended bananas, they pretty much stopped blooming. It was a fun period but with the roses reverting back to their non-bloom state, all of them were thrown out. Funny enough, one popped up the next spring ... It was quite a surprise so that one is still around.

I also found a thread where people talked about using their leftover coffee in their pots to pour on their plants due to the tannic acid. People shared experiences of someone in their office just pouring the leftover coffee in a potted plant and it ends up being really happy for it. I have yet to try this. (Probably best to dilute it even though one person said they just did it straight without doing anything else to it)

I tried saving coffee grounds (I don't drink coffee so it's sort of a pain to remind others to save for me) and that only worked briefly. I don't mind because when I did have a batch of coffee grounds, I couldn't really figure out where to apply the stuff. The batch I had was used for a tomato plant with a couple of banana peels that were saved.

There's also the tip of using eggshells in watering cans for the calcium.

Venus Fly Trap

2011-03-05T19:36:00.004-05:00

I was looking over my old gardening pictures from 2005 and 06 (It appears earlier disks require a UDF Reader and it doesn't work on this computer. Ouch.). I saw this picture of a Venus Fly Trap that I used to own, dated August 24, 2006.

It's hard to tell but I have it sitting on top of a slightly domed lid that's resting on top of a plastic bowl with water. The domed lid comes from one of those old mosquito repellent things that you light up and put the lid over it. I figured it'd sink into the water a bit so that the VFT pot was always touching the water.

The plant lived for a couple years until that year (2006) it insisted on growing out of the bottom of the pot (The picture there sort of demonstrates it. The clump on the left was growing out of the bottom of the pot). After that winter, it never came back.

Looking at this picture makes me want to buy another one this year. I think I will!

Dragon Arum

2011-02-24T11:50:00.003-05:00

Dragon Arum (Dracunculus Vulgaris)

Looks like it's that time of year again... I'm hoping there won't be any nasty freezes from here on out but it's still early yet.

Butterflies and Salvia Coccinea

2010-09-01T12:28:00.002-05:00

Boy, it was a pain in the butt trying to upload this to Youtube. After failing to upload for four times, the fifth time was the lucky charm.

For the past couple mornings, yellow butterflies have been flocking around this plant, Salvia Coccinea. It came from the Hummingbird Garden Kit. I'm so impressed with this plant that I think I'm going to start buying seeds to toss into that bed for next spring.

Easter Cactus - Fat leaves? Look like cactus?

2010-07-29T15:08:00.003-05:00

Is this normal? I have an Easter Cactus that likes to grow random leaves that look like mini-barrel cactuses or something. What causes these fat leaves with lots of bristles sticking out of it?

Schlumbergera Seeds

2010-07-16T19:20:00.003-05:00

Terrible picture! hehe.

While moving the thanksgiving cactus and christmas cactus out of the greenhouse so that they'd get some rain, I found out that two of the seed pods fell off so I brought both of them in. Unfortunately one of them inexplicably disappeared somehow. I opened the other pod and pulled out the seeds. They look healthy so I figure I'll plant them tomorrow and see what gives..

Phlox and Butterflies

2010-07-06T14:34:00.002-05:00

These are my Grandmother's phlox. After she passed away in 2003, my mother dug them up and brought them over. They've gotten real huge this year! Major surprise...

Probably the only picture where they didn't look like a blurry mess... With the constant flapping and glaring sun, it was a nightmare! hehe.

Identify Plant?

2010-06-23T19:05:00.003-05:00

We have a winner! I knew we would. From a capsule in the Desert Gatherings' "Hummingbird Garden" tube (Post 1, Post 2), I introduce you to a really nice plant that has overpowered all the others!

A close-up.

Can anyone identify what plant this is? It looks familiar but... The other plants are still growing but they're hidden and sort of trying to grow out a bit but I'm not sure how long they'll last.

And of course, the sunflower in the sandbox has flowered. ;)

Sunflowers and giant Ants?

2010-06-11T20:07:00.003-05:00

What's going on here? The bottom of every leaf looks like this! It's creepy. I thought maybe these big giant ants were eating something under the leaves but now I wonder if the ants themselves are eating the leaves.

Searching Google shows nothing except people making claims that ants do or don't eat. Would anyone happen to know what's going on?

Dragonfly

2010-06-10T09:22:00.001-05:00

Dragonfly was a bit patient but very skittish and kept flying around. These two photos were the cleanest out of a batch of blurry pictures!

Amaryllis

2010-06-04T02:03:00.002-05:00

I thought I posted this yesterday! Guess not... hehe.

I spotted a couple of opened amaryllis seed pods. I collected them and have the seeds spread out on a paper towel to help them dry out. I am gonna get my hands on another flowerbox and start this next batch. Fun!

Then I went to check on the flowerbox for the seeds I planted - they're coming up!

Amaryllis galore! How can you not love this? hehe.

Definitely not Birdhouse Gourd

2010-06-02T07:16:00.003-05:00

In my previous blog entry, I posted about a vegetable-type plant growing in my bed. I was hoping it was birdhouse gourd making its weird random appearance but that wasn't the case. The plant has started sending out male flowers. I haven't seen any female ones yet...

If it is pumpkin, it's gonna be an ugly mess pretty soon once the bugs discover it. I'm not going to make an effort to save them. I gave that up years ago.

Volunteer Pumpkin?

2010-05-31T17:26:00.001-05:00

Close-up of Sweet Banana Pepper bloom

Some are thinking this is pumpkin. I'm scratching my head and wondering where it could've come from. Sure, we dumped a few pumpkins in the woods in the backyard but that's far away. I really hope this isn't pumpkin. The bugs will kill it flat in no time! But uh.. Here it is... taking over the bed.

Guess we'll see in time of what it produces.

Sunflower in Sandbox / Century Plant Seedlings!

2010-05-30T19:43:00.002-05:00

I know that pictures shouldn't be taken when the sun is pretty much gone but couldn't resist.

Sunflower growing in sandbox. An interesting experiment by my nephew, of course...

A bit excited to see this. These are Century Plant seeds coming up.

Over the weeks, I slowly put in more seeds when it looked like they weren't coming up. I ran out of Joshua Tree seeds and so far it appears none of them are going to come up. It was just neat that Century Plant actually grew! hehe.

Vegetables

2010-05-23T14:42:00.003-05:00

The vegetables are slowly coming along!

The squash are hit and miss. For some reason the plants sent out a lot of female flowers first so a good chunk of them rotted off before the male flowers popped out.

These tomatoes are uh... Not sure. The two big ones are Husky Cherry - I believe. The small flimsy one is Grape Tomato. There were two but one sort of broke off but it re-rooted and I stuck it in a separate pot. I know I should remove one cherry tomato plant but they're so big and healthy and.. I may as well let them stay and see what I can get away with. hehe.

Amaryllis seed pods! I may have to get another flower box and plant more seeds!

Green Reflecting Bug?

2010-05-22T13:48:00.003-05:00

Does anyone recognize this green bug? Even though it was green-ish, the body still reflected me and my camera as you can sort of tell in the picture there.

Darn birds!

2010-05-20T14:17:00.003-05:00

I hate it when birds pick THE worst places to build their nests. I walked by my hanging tomato plant and this madness of fluttering zoomed by my head. A bird didn't like me being too close. Too close to what? .. Apparently the hanging tomato basket!

A lot of fidgeting, ladder climbing, leaning in awkward positions - I was able to find out that the nest did not have any eggs.

I feel like a monster for pulling the nest out and chucking it aside but the tomato plant is more important. If there were eggs in there - then I'd be really out of luck. There's been situations where we were way too late and we had no choice but to leave stuff sitting in one spot for weeks. A couple examples - One bird made a nest through a hole on the side of the grill. Because there were eggs, it had to be left alone. Another situation, there were three folding chairs on the cement porch out back and someone threw tarp over it to prevent it from getting wet. A bird actually made a nest in one of the cupholders of the folding chair. There were eggs in it so we left that mess alone until the babies hatched and they all left.

I need to put something over the holes to prevent this from happening again to any of them.

I can play here all day long!!!

2010-05-19T15:36:00.003-05:00

There's a family of rabbits living under the shed. Must be... I was told that two large rabbits were in the yard over the weekend and now this little one has been playing in the grass for hours. Makes me a little nervous to think of letting the dogs out there. The rabbit ain't too far from the shed but you just never know if the dogs will get to the rabbit first!

Dragon Arum and Phlox

2010-05-13T13:44:00.002-05:00

The second Dragon Arum opened!

Phlox!

Kind of weird how when you look from the top, it's all uniform.

Updates on a few things

2010-05-12T12:41:00.003-05:00

The first picture is really for my personal record - With the Grown-From-Seed Amaryllis planted in the bed, I decided to fish out my batch of Amaryllis seeds that I saved from last year and re-used the flowerbox. I think this batch of seeds have some seeds from the pink/white Amaryllis too. Who knows. It's all mixed together.

The "Desert Gatherings" update (Original Post - 20th of April). The Century Plant and the Joshua Tree seeds did not grow thus far.

For the Hummingbird stuff, Seeds from one capsule EXPLODED as you can see from the picture below. The pot next to it shows two of the big brown seeds have germinated. All the other pots have done nothing.

My Easter Cactus is blooming like crazy! A picture of a red bloom open. :)

Amaryllis Bed

2010-05-11T09:52:00.002-05:00

Now with the Hibiscus gone, the Amaryllis bed can come to fruition! Also a Banana Plant just to be random.

Now there's temptation to gather the other colors of Amaryllis!

Next - To get a batch of soil for the flowerbox so that I can plant Amaryllis seeds that I saved from last year!

Dragon Arum - Opened!

2010-05-10T06:48:00.004-05:00

Brrr.. Stepped out and it's 52 degrees! I also noticed... Dragon Arum!

Probably a little grainy since the morning sun is obstructed by all the trees. It was so weird to see it in person. Looks funky and unusual! I love it!

Unfortunately I could not smell anything. I also did not see any flies. This may be because it's way too cool outside right now. There's also tons of honeysuckle vines (you can vaguely make out all the flowers covering a tree in the background of the second picture) and their sweet smell is very overpowering right now.

I was told the stench was overpowering yesterday when the flower was in the process of opening while the hot sun was beating down on it.

Dragon Arum

2010-05-05T16:56:00.004-05:00

The Dragon Arums are doing okay. As you can see, for some reason they tend to pout and curl their leaves. I'm not sure what's causing this.

It amazes me how all those weeds/grass was ripped out over the weekend and all it takes is a few days for them to come rushing back. :\

The reddening edge! Can't wait!!

Close-up of the two blooms ready to come...

A combo...

2010-05-02T21:07:00.003-05:00

Probably the only image of the Iris that even came out well. The sun and my camera don't mix too well.

The two dragon arum blooms. One caught up with the other so they seem to be about even in their process. hehe.

And I found my green elephant ears! They're coming back! Whoa!

A white and yellow colored Iris

2010-05-01T16:07:00.002-05:00

One of my favorites!

I think the very light purple Iris may not pop up this year. The plants seem to change colors every year for some reason. hehe.

Red Amaryllis

2010-04-28T16:02:00.002-05:00

Amaryllis is opening!

I have plans of sticking all the potted amaryllis into the ground once they're all done blooming. They'll go into the old spot where the hibiscus used to be.

Eggs under Leaf - Bugs?

2010-04-27T13:36:00.001-05:00

I was watering my spider plants and noticed this.

A close-up. I wonder if anyone knows what they're eggs of? Pretty neat to find!

Dragon Arum - Sending out flowers!

2010-04-27T11:12:00.002-05:00

I don't believe it. My two biggest dragon arums are each sending out a bloom.

Hard to see. I tried getting closer shots but the camera decided to focus on random parts instead of the part I wanted. hehe.

Iris

2010-04-22T12:43:00.003-05:00

The Iris are all sending out buds. Two of them have opened. Everything else is still working on it. hehe.

Planted Seeds - Joy!

2010-04-20T11:13:00.002-05:00

Turns out that there was another tube from Desert Gatherings. A hummingbird garden. I was thinking of opening the capsules and spreading the seeds out but a few people I talked to all said the same thing. "Why?" I can't imagine a bunch of seeds in capsules are gonna do fine but... Instructions say nothing about doing anything with capsules so I just stuck them both each in a pot.

The large brown seeds - I put two to each pot so that's 5 pots altogether for the hummingbird assortment.

I planted 2 Century Plant seeds and 2 Joshua Tree seeds. Didn't want to use them all up right away. I was confused by the instructions though. It says to keep the pots in an inch of water. I found two lids and just poured water in 'em and all. You can see the tiny terracotta pot there, obscured by the spider plant stolons. hehe.

The one thing I did find neat in the instructions was this: If your plant reaches at least four inches in height, please return it to the desert from which it came.

My sister bought the seeds in Las Vegas soooo... I don't see myself going there any time soon! hehe.

Seeds of Century Plant and Joshua Tree

2010-04-19T15:41:00.002-05:00

Look at this! My sister got 'em for me. She knows I'm a sucker for kits and all.

One's a Century Plant Kit (Giant Agave). It comes with a tiny terracotta pot, a little bag of dirt, and seeds for the ultimate experience!

The other is a tube for Joshua Tree seeds. It contains a small shovel (decoration?) inside.

They're both from "Desert Gatherings". Anyone have experience with them?

Camera Fun

2010-04-18T18:27:00.002-05:00

Schlumbergera

Clematis

Sun Plaque

So what am I complaining about, right? ;)

Goodbye Hibiscus

2010-04-18T12:22:00.004-05:00

Sometimes you have to make a choice on what plants you have to banish from your garden - even when you've struggled for years on trying to save it. I used to grow pumpkins for years but I finally gave up because there's quite a few varieties of bugs here that attack the pumpkin. I loved growing them and sometimes I miss them but the aggravation of trying to save the pumpkins just drives me nuts.

Well, a choice was made today. The hibiscus is to be exiled and never to return to my kingdom.

Why? Because of these...

Sawflies. I've tried and tried to get rid of these suckers but it just ain't working. Sevin worked like a miracle but it required a huge fence around the three so that the dogs couldn't brush up against them. Once the plants get big and start blooming, I stop spraying because I just don't feel comfortable with the idea of bees and butterflies coming up to the plant and getting poisoned.

My fingers were crossed that the cold winter would kill these buggers but it hasn't done a thing. There's a huge cloud of 'em over the trio and it was a nightmare trying to get pictures when they were getting all over my legs and arms. Ugh.

I tried. I tried but ain't no saving them. They have to go.

And of course, an obligatory macro picture just to make sure the silly thing is functioning...

Bush Honeysuckles are Evil!

2010-04-17T09:23:00.004-05:00

It's in full bloom again. I remember *years* back when this first flowered, I took pictures and posted it at a forum to see if anyone would recognize it. Everyone said the flowers look like the honeysuckle vine but no one's ever seen it in tree form. "A hybrid of some sort?" so I thought that was pretty nifty. I did tons of searches but never did find anything except the annoying honeysuckle vine.

Today when I went out, I took pictures of the tree and decided that maybe I should post them on a forum again but out of curiosity I did a google search for honeysuckle and came across Bush Honeysuckles! I was pretty surprised to discover it so quickly! ... and also surprised to see that there were many sites devoted to the idea of destroying them. Yikes.

I don't think this tree will be destroyed. Hummingbirds know there's a feeder hanging in the tree so they return every year for it.

May Night Salvia - Hen and Chicks

2010-04-16T10:55:00.002-05:00

Hey. Can you see him? Yeah, I can't either.

Totally surprised to see two pots of May Night Salvia. I planted them in the bed. Definitely a welcome addition!

I kind of um... not sure how I feel about the Hen and Chicks when I saw these. Every time I have these, they never really do anything. They slowly die out instead of spreading out and growing more. I've tried them in several beds in case they were getting too much sun or too much shade or... Hm. I guess it's neat to have them again. They are definitely one of my favorites.

Twists and Turns

2010-04-13T09:44:00.004-05:00

Life is full of twists and turns. That's something we learn early on. My four year old nephew is visiting and there was a big ceremonial sunflower planting. He learned to put dirt in peat pots and stuck sunflower seeds in each one. Then they were obviously planted in my freshly dug bed. I wasn't there for it but hey...

I haven't seen any of the seeds sprout in the bed anyhow. There's no room to stick amaryllis in here for now so I guess they'll just stay in pots for a little bit longer.

A most unexpected surprise! A rose bush! This spot had a raised bed with two rose bushes growing. When I made those banana peel concoctions, the plants thrived and bloomed. As soon as I stopped, the plants just went back to struggling and sickly. The two rosebushes were thrown out and the raised bed was taken out. The dirt was spread around. To see this rose bush pop up... I'm not sure how that happened. Roots? Seeds? I don't know. It's most unusual!

This was also another neat surprise. I didn't expect anything to return because of how frozen the winter was. To see moss roses growing in this basket was pretty awesome.

Sometimes my camera hates me and doesn't want to do macro. Then there are times when a shot comes out surprisingly well. This is a close-up of Spiderwort flowers.

The dragon arum was starting to do its little 'getting weak and ready to fall over' act so a cage was set up around it to keep it upright. The base of the dragon arums are pretty thick though. My fingers are crossed for a bloom this year!

I wasn't sure if I was going to toss this one in or not... It's a shot of the Empress Paulownia flowers. The tree itself is pretty terrible looking.

Vegetable Pots

2010-04-08T18:44:00.005-05:00

Okay, cheating happens... like when you think the peat pot thing was a total disaster so you rush out to get something big and awesome instead. There's Spacemaster Bush Cucumber, Goldbar Squash, and Sweet Banana Peppers.

This spot here is in the shade. When I had this in full sun last year and the whole thing bombed, I just decided that maybe the plants will be less stressed if they had shade for a good chunk of the day. They will get evening sun though...

I am also happy to see that a couple amaryllis are starting to send these up... None in my grown-from-seed amaryllis though. :\ Shucks. Which means I'll be fertilizing them like nuts this year but I do want to get them in the ground since the flowerbox is warping from their growing mass.

Freshly Dug

2010-04-06T17:00:00.005-05:00

I'm convinced that the cold winter destroyed my Elephant Ear bulbs. I had regular green that returned every year as well as Illustris Elephant Ears that were pretty invasive. Pretty to look at but if you plant it in one spot, expect it to forever thrive there!

I was told to be patient, that they'll come back. I still decided to dig up the bed. If I find bulbs, I know they'll return... After all, as you can see from this old picture, I couldn't get rid of them at all from that spot! However, as I dug up the bed, I didn't find a single bulb. I thought for sure I would find rotted bulbs or something but.. no. There was nothing!

I added cow manure and some fertilizer. I haven't added anything to the bed yet. I do plan to put Salvia, Catnip, Morning Glories, Hyacinth Bean Vine - so far.

It looks like the leaves are impatient again this year. As you can see from this old post, Wisterian Adventures, the flowers pop out first in full force and then the leaves come. It looks like the wisteria decided to skip tradition again this year.

And of course, an obligatory 'Do not buy Wisteria if you're thinking about it because they're totally invasive and will take over everything and spread for miles and miles and miles just like this sentence'.

New Tomato Hanger

2010-04-05T19:16:00.005-05:00

I got a new tomato hanger. This time it is "Tomato Planter" by Handy Trends. I was thankful that my tomato plant was still rather small. The plastic 'star' there was really tough. I'm not even sure this was a good design. What happens when the trunk of the tomato plant gets thicker than that?

I struggled to pull the tomato plant through and filled the bag up. I hope I didn't damage the root system or anything. Guess we'll see. This is definitely a temporary location! Just couldn't find any other hook! hehe.

And then an update on my peat pot tray. Some of my Salvia grew and then died. I guess it was too much for them so I may have to stick the seeds directly into the bed that I plan to make for 'em. The Scarlet O'Hara Morning Glory seeds were planted in three peat pots but for some reason only one peat pot took off!

Pollenerrific!

2010-04-04T15:31:00.005-05:00

*cough cough* The pollen in the air is getting worse. Every day that passes, the air gets more and more yellow. Yesterday I was filling a bird feeder when suddenly thick yellow stuff rained down from above. A pine tree was literally dumping them by the pound over my head. Not amused.

The only thing pollen is helpful for is identifying locations of spiderwebs. I had to take a picture of this one because it looks like it's just hovering there. What I am curious about is why the immediate spiderweb got pollen-clogged yet the strands that support the web is untouched...

I love surprises! Guess what I spotted growing in my banana plant pot? This tomato plant! It's definitely gotta be from the cherry tomato variety. Towards the end of summer, lots of little cherry tomatoes were rotting and falling off. One must've landed inside this pot and this little plant took off. It's the only one I see right now. When it gets bigger, I'll have to repot it - maybe even do a hanging tomato with this one - if not, it'll be in a container of its own at least.

I was asked to post my Pachira Tree. This guy was the only one to survive from a 'Dollar Tree'. The rest died one by one and this one was the last one to hang in there. Eventually he grew! I wish I could show how fat the base is. It just seems small in this picture. hehe.

And of course, the trailing petunias that took off in the pachira pot. I was really surprised that they already started blooming. That was fast.

Dragon Arum update

2010-04-02T12:09:00.001-05:00

Getting quite big already... I also noticed the base is getting thick as well so maybe the plants will follow through this year.

Peat Pot Tray

2010-03-29T15:07:00.003-05:00

I went crazy with how many seeds I tossed in this tray. There's a whole row of Blue Salvia and a whole row of Catnip. Tossed in the obligatory Cucumber. I was surprised I couldn't find any yellow squash so I'll have to get some later. There's Calabaza Squash? Picture showed something that looked like Zucchini. There's also some Tiny Tim Tomato, Starfruit, Scarlet O'Hara Morning Glory, Purple Hyacinth Bean Vine, Phlox, and Moonflower. I found out that some spider plant seeds were saved. I decided to have fun and plant a couple in two peat pots.

So it's a whole variety of 'em. I don't expect all of them to grow though. I think some seeds were pretty old. In fact I plan to open all my morning glory packets and just sprinkle the seeds around.

Topsy Turvy this time around!

2010-03-28T13:37:00.004-05:00

Suffered a tiny setback when one of the metal wires came loose. Improvised and fixed it. So here they hang for now. I didn't think the old rusty hooks would support them but this will do as a temporary location.

One tomato plant is "Husky Cherry" and the other is "Quick Pick". I decided to stick with small tomatoes since they usually produce much better for me than regular tomatoes do.

Hopefully this will do much better than the Upsy Downsy did. With extra dirt and the possibility that it can contain water better, it might produce more.

Amaryllis - Sick of 'em yet? hehe.

2010-03-10T16:13:00.003-05:00

I fished out the box from the side of the shed. Also removed layers of pine needles that fell over 'em. It's pretty weird to see hardcore bulbs when I had planted them as seeds. My fingers are crossed that they bloom this spring. If not, I still plan to stick 'em in the ground. It's getting too packed in there as it is!

Dragon Arum

2010-03-07T20:49:00.004-05:00

Ever since I discovered Dragon Arum (Dracunculus Vulgaris), I've wanted to grow them. I love how wicked their blooms look and how it emits the smell of rotting meat. I even went as far as buying bulbs from two different places.

And I am sick of this plant. No matter what I do, I can't make it happy at all. I've tried several locations and finally left it in one spot since it reacts the most there. It will grow into a nice sized plant and then just keel over one day out of the blue. I think it may get to the point where I'll never see a bloom in person.

I was surprised to discover these though (late night photography isn't a good idea! hehe). I had no idea that the Dragon Arum even bothered to come up yet! We haven't even had warm temperatures yet. I checked the 10 day forecast and it appears that spring is slowly creeping its way in. Maybe this year will be better and the plant will send out a bloom that'll cause me to plug my nose as I pass by...

Schlumbergeras

2010-01-17T14:28:00.004-05:00

I stepped out today and was greeted with 74 degrees in return. Where'd that come from?! It's been frozen around here for about two weeks. I knew it was going to sprinkle through the night but tons and tons of rain was dumped. Gnats are everywhere which is a bit surprising because I was sure the long-term freeze would've cut them down. Hmm...

The weather must be wreaking havoc anyhow. Tomorrow's high was 71 and now it's at 58. So we'll see how it goes. Anyhow the warm temperature allowed me to open the greenhouse doors and take some plants out to inspect them. While the freeze/heater stressed some of them, they all seem to be doing okay.

The thanksgiving cacti dropped a good chunk of their new fruits, which was disappointing, but some are hanging on. I already wish spring was here so that the plants can get back to thriving instead of tolerating current conditions.