Wet, Wet, and more Wet

Where was all this rain when we needed it during summer? It's been raining almost non-stop for days now. Everything is muddy right now. Even the greenhouse is full of water from the pooling water that backed up into it.

Normally, right about this time of the year, I get excited and can't wait to plant seeds but that just doesn't seem to be the case for me right now. Who knows, there's still time before spring before I can get excited. ;)

Garden Police

"Garden Police! Come out with your hands up!"

Man, I totally forgot about this show. I used to watch it over a year ago before I stopped due to reruns.

If you've never seen it before, the show is hosted by Shirley Bovshow & Michael Glassman. It's pretty neat how they act like police. They got the siren going, reviewing photos in their folder on their way to the perpetrator's home, then they slap up the police tape and drag the poor homeowners out.

A citation is quickly written up but it can be ripped up if the homeowners put in 'Sweat Equity' for two days to fix up the front yard. The Green Team is also brought in to assist the hosts and homeowners.

Another thing I like about the show is that they go to houses where the front yards are absolutely detestable. It's not like other shows where the yard or house already looks nice to begin with before they fancy-shmancy it up.

I wouldn't mind having an irrigation system installed in my front yard - but (un?)fortunately, the front yard isn't disgusting enough to catch their attention. ;)

Warm Temps persist...

There was a massive amount of rain that came through the area but what surprises me was that the temperature kept going up all night long. It stopped at 70 degrees. Man, it was humid out there but I can't deny that I loved watching the intense rain drown everything.

Come morning, I went to look around and to my surprise, I found out that a fire ant colony decided to seek a safe haven...



I have two pots of eastern prickly pear (the second in the upper right corner) and this pot is completely overwhelmed by the fire ants.

I can't believe that it is December. It's supposed to be winter with freezing cold temperatures. Who knows though... Starting tonight and tomorrow, it's supposed to plummet into the 30s before it warms up again.

Thanksgiving Cactus

You know, as I stare at this, I can't tell if this is pink or red. I thought at first, it was pink but it may be red. I can't be sure until the other thanksgiving cactus blooms but it looks like it is still in the process of growing new segments instead of any blooms. I'll have to watch it for a bit...


And also, to my surprise, the poinsettia I got last year is budding this year.

Thanksgiving Cacti & Christmas Cactus

Wow. I been meaning to update my blog. I'd take some pictures but once I looked them over, I didn't think they were worthy of a post. I was nudged into posting something so I decided to update on my Thanksgiving Cacti and Christmas Cactus.


Pink Thanksgiving Cactus


Close-Up of Pink


Dark Marie Thanksgiving Cactus


Yellow Thanksgiving Cactus


Left: Salmon Thanksgiving Cactus
Right: White Thanksgiving Cactus

Not only that.. but I was extremely surprised to see that my Christmas Cactus has a bud. I didn't think it would bud this year as I got them as clippings at the beginning of the year...


Christmas Cactus

Long time, No blog

Wow. I knew it was only a matter of time before the heat would make me lose interest in gardening. The past week's temperatures have actually been cool enough for plants to go from 'tolerate' mode to 'thrive' mode. It has also rained a few times and the plants are loving it.

It's really strange to see the plants thriving now when they just sat still during the extreme summer heat. Even when I watered certain plants every day - such as the birdhouse gourd - they still continued to sit still and just ... tolerate the harsh conditions. Now the birdhouse gourds are vining out and sending out tons of flowers. I wonder if it has enough time to begin to develop the new gourds that are starting to grow.

Um.. What else... Oh yes, the roses were removed and thrown away. It's a ton of work to make them happy and keep them blooming. When the heat and humidity made me water only two plants closest to the back door, the roses quickly stopped blooming and got all messy again.

I threw away all the tiny tim tomato plants. They stopped growing tomatoes even though I had them in partial shade to avoid the hot afternoon sun.

I'll try to remember to get my camera with me and take a picture of what's been happening.

Summer Smotherin'!

Wow. Humidity and Heat just don't mix together very well. I end up sweating like crazy before I can even walk down the porch steps. It's so smothering out there that I just can't figure out how people lived here in the old days before air conditioning.

I took a quick look around the place and haven't noticed anything new except that I'm not the only gardener here. Squirrels tend to bury corn from their feed and naturally, they grow! If they're in beds and out of the way, I just let them grow and pass it off to the squirrels when the corn is ready.

Don't believe me?

That's all growing in the poor Rose Bed. It's so choked out with grass and weeds. Poor things. I'm saving up newspapers to place in the bed (to be topped with mulch to finish it off) come next Spring so that it's just the roses and nothing else.

Tiny Tim Tomatoes - Tomato Kit

I was asked to make an update on the Tomato Kit that I posted about awhile back. I'm kind of embarassed because I haven't really put much effort into watching them.





Most or all have fallen over due to the weight of the tomatoes. I should've staked them up once I saw it happening but I didn't do it. At least the tomatoes are still growing. I'm surprised about that.

Hibiscus - Pink

Hibiscus - Pink
Originally uploaded by dragonslumber

I just posted seven pictures of three colors of Hibiscus in my Flickr album. Figured I'd give an update instead of reposting the pictures in this blog.

New Experiences on its way...

One of the things I like to do when it comes to plants are trying new things. I remember a few years back, I grew pineapple plants. I'll have to do a search in my pictures for them.

But new things are happening fast now.




It seems that I finally have Amaryllis growing from seed in the flowerbox. It's been days shy of a month since I planted them and I was feeling discouraged because a wild fern grew awhile back. Oy.

Imagine my excitement to see grass-like plants growing! This'll be exciting!

But it appears I have a new undertaking. Back in December/January, I had a yellow christmas cactus that had three seed pods (fruits?). Two of them fell off a couple months down the road and were no good. The third pod started yellowing/pinking up and I found out today that it had fallen off. I was annoyed but when I cut it open, there seems to be healthy seeds inside.




I'll be picking the seeds out and planting them soon to see if I have any luck with these.

It's kinda neat to take a non-traditional route by planting seeds instead of splitting bulbs or rooting cuttings.

Possible Amaryllis Seedling?

I bought an entire new bag of soil and put a certain amount into a flowerbox. After putting the red amaryllis seeds in, I covered it with saran wrap to keep it humid inside.

One of them has popped out. At least, I think it might be. I don't know.

  

There's a possibility that the soil may have had some volunteer seeds that came with it. I have no idea. I posted on a forum to ask if anyone knows that this is the correct start of an Amaryllis.

YouTube Video

Yellow Lily Looking at Sun

Yellow Lily Looking at Sun
Originally uploaded by dragonslumber

Ah, see? I can be artistic too.. Okay, this was a lucky shot.

Summer Thoughts

Yellow Lily

You know, as the heat is settling in for the summer, My yearning to garden drops down to 0%. It's weird how it works. When it's winter, I can't wait to get to planting and watching them grow. Now, I find myself groaning as I lug around gallons of water on a daily basis to make sure they stay alive. It's a real pain in the butt to see plants falling over and dying from thirst.

It wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't humid. My friend tells me that it gets up to 105 in Nevada but because there's no humidity, it isn't bad. It only needs to get 80 here before the air smothers you. As I glance to Weather.com, it's 63% humidity here and it hasn't rained in a week. Where is it all coming from? Oh yes, swampy areas nearby. That's where the overwhelming amount of bugs come from too. I know, enough complaining!

Despite a few disagreements, I lugged out the two remaining thanksgiving cacti and put them on the porch where they'll get shade. I think the air conditioning is causing the plants to shrivel up and not grow. They started to grow in spring during that time when neither the heater or AC was being used but now the AC is on almost 24/7 and the plants just aren't thriving. Hopefully being exposed to heat and minimal sunlight outside will get them back on track.

I'm surprised that my other thanksgiving cacti are growing. They're being exposed to sunlight for the same period as the jade plants are and they're doing wonderful. I wonder if they'll bloom when I move them inside for the winter.


Vegetable Garden

The vegetables are kinda growing. There's Zucchini, Cucumbers, and Squash. They're not vining out as much but I suppose that's a good thing. It won't be demanding so much water but we'll see how far long it gets in July or August... or September. From what I remember, Zucchini is on the far left but only because I see a vegetable growing from it. Cucumber may be on the far right. There's two random pots between the three vegetable pots. One has elephant ears and the other has several Amaryllis.


Amaryllis Seed Pods

Speaking of Amaryllis, It's discouraging that out of several attempts, only these two are hanging on. I wonder what causes a pod to be pollinated and then aborted. These two are of the pink/white one.

I could be horribly wrong but I believe the pod on the left was also partially pollinated by the pollen from the red amaryllis. If the pod does mature and give me seeds, I guess I'll know in due time.

The biggest one is starting to approach the size of the ones my friend sent me so at least I'm happy about that. At least two successful pods is better than none.

Discouraged About Amaryllis Seed Pods

Man, I don't know what I'm doing wrong. The pods on my red amaryllis have all shriveled up and died off. I don't get what's going on. I ripped open the tiny shriveled pods and all the papery seeds inside were white.



I took a picture of this pod yesterday. This was of the white/pink amaryllis. The four pods grew quite big and healthy but now they're all starting to shrivel up. I'm really baffled.

My online friend, who knows not a single thing about gardening, had pollinated her amaryllis at my request after I told her how to do it. She said all four pods took. Then she mailed them to me and I received them in the mail just yesterday. You should've seen my eyes. They about fell out of my head when I looked at the dried open pods. They were *huge*! How come mine aren't getting this huge? How can my friend be successful with these pods when she doesn't know the first thing about gardening (In case she's reading, Hi! :D Ha!) and yet I'm trying my best and I'm getting zippo?

Let's hope I won't fail so badly in trying to get the seeds to grow.

More Plants

Blood Banana/Musa Zebrina

(Salmon) Thanksgiving Cactus/Schlumbergera Truncata

(White) Thanksgiving Cactus/Schlumbergera Truncata

New Digital Camera Goodness

Dusty Miller Buds


Orange Lilies


Spider Plant Flower

Amaryllis, Lilies, Rose, and Cactus

An update on some going-ons in my little area.


Amaryllis Seed Pods

From the two flower stalks from the red Amaryllis, only these three took. I can't wait to collect the seeds.


Orange Lilies

From the entire bed of lilies, the orange ones are the first to emerge.


Rose

One of the roses that bloomed in the rose bed. This is an unusual color pattern.


Opuntia Pusilla


Opuntia Pusilla


Opuntia Pusilla

I'm pretty surprised that there's tons of buds on the prickly pear! I thought they all bloomed in January and that I had completely missed it. I don't think I've ever seen this many buds on them before.

Amaryllis

Tomato Kit continued...

According to the instructions, When the plants are approximately 5", you split them up. I could've tossed out the smaller ones but I decided to give every plant a chance.



Sorry for the badly "bleached" picture below. I split them up, then ran out of pots and stuffed four of them together in the last pot.




So who knows if they'll survive or not. I didn't think moving small plants was a good idea but I'm just following instructions! I do still have the packet in case I decide to try again if these meet a bad end.

A couple updates...

Amaryllis
Close-up 1
Close-up 2

In the first picture, you can see that the biggest Amaryllis bulb is starting to send out a bud. This bloomed last year and it was a beautiful flower. Oh, also an update on the Amaryllis that bloomed a few weeks back, It appears that only one seed pod was successful out of four.


Lily Bed
Close-up 1

I'm surprised that many of them are starting to bud. I hope many of them open at the same time so that I can cross-pollinate.


Roses Bed
Close-up 1

What blows me away is that three rose bushes are budding. It's only a matter of time before I finally know the colors of some of them.


Yarrow Bed
Close-up 1

People keep asking me what I do for the yarrow and the answer is... nothing! I don't know why they're so tall. It's pretty neat that there's so many buds ready to open. It'll be a blanket of white pretty soon.

A look around the yard today...

Hibiscus

The hibiscus are starting to grow in real good. This group is always the first to come and always the first to grow before the other two can catch up.


Sawfly

And it appears the battle has begun. There's several sawflies swarming around this one. Oy. I have to start applying sevin spray as that's the only thing that has ever worked on the buggers.


Iris


Iris

You know, I still can't figure out how to pollinate them? Can anyone tell me what I'm supposed to do here? I imagine that toilet-brush looking thing is the anther that I'm supposed to pluck. Where do I apply this thing to pollinate the flower?


Mini Tomato Grow Kit

At first when the seeds came up, it didn't resemble anything like a tomato plant. Then the extra leaves grew in and now they look like tomato plants. According to the instructions, I'm to start giving them fertilizer when they're 2" and then separate when they're 5".


Wisteria

I plucked a few wisteria seedlings and figured it'd be neat to take a picture of one to show y'all.