Winter Sowing and Schlumbergera

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

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

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.

Flowers coming along...

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!

Random Garden Stuff

Luckily for me, I was able to borrow a camera. I don't know how long I'll be without my own camera but I hope it won't be for too long. In the meanwhile, on with the pictures I took...


Amaryllis

Sorry MrBrownThumb. You're gonna hate this but I have no specific names on these either! hehehe. The big bulb in the middle sprouted all these babies around it. Towards the 'front' are two bulbs I got from a friend. One of them is sending up two buds. She thinks it's yellow but she said in all the time she had it, it's never bloomed (except she has one blooming this year so we're going to be sharing the surprise.).


Clematis


Hibiscus

Pretty soon, there's going to be three huge bushes and tons of blooms. Not only that but there'll be a very huge war against the sawflies as well. I have sevin spray that I'll be using. It's the only thing that worked against the sawflies last year after I've done many other safer attempts due to the dogs. There's now a fence keeping the dogs out so I may be able to spray more diligently.


Lilies

I'm surprised they're coming up. They were doing badly last year in another part of the yard so I relocated them this spring. I didn't think they'd come up. Now I'm wondering if they'll bloom.


Roses

The roses were also relocated because they've been doing very badly the past few years. They haven't bloomed in so long and it's to the point that I honestly can't tell you what color(s) they are. I finally relocated them to this spot and I'm hoping they'll do much much better and actually bloom.