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.