USDA Unveils New Plant Hardiness Zone Map

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.

What happened to winter?

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

Asiatic Lily Seedlings already? - Torn down Woods

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.

Schlumbergera Flowers amongst some others

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!

Gourd? Squash?

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.

Hurricane Irene came and left...

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.)

Odd Bug? - Solved: Wheel Bug

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.

Hiding in the handle of a watering can

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.

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.

Big Skink! Oh, and other stuff too.

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...

Frog!

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

Antlion?

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.

Using stuff around the house...

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.

Butterflies and Salvia Coccinea

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.

Identify Plant?

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?

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

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!

Definitely not Birdhouse Gourd

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.

Green Reflecting Bug?

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.

I can play here all day long!!!

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!