Category: Gardening (Page 2 of 159)

Yesterday morning when I went out to my car, I saw that my iris was blooming! Woo hoo! I stopped to smell it for a while. It smells just like grape Kool-Aid! Yum!

During the school day, I walked the eighth grade to a park next to school. We hung out and talked and enjoyed the morning. While walking the park, I noticed that there were honeysuckle plants. Honeysuckles! I smelled them too, because they’re so sweet-smelling.

And then I drank some nectar. You break of the end, then pull the pistil out, and there it is. Yum!

Well, I seem to be posting a lot about plants lately, but what else am I going to talk about? It’s summer, and I’m a plantsman.

I was watering my houseplants yesterday and saw something exciting. My jewel orchid has a side sprout coming up on the edge of the pot:

I am so excited! I’ve just had this one stem for ever so long, and though I love it, it does look a little small. But now I have two stems! I think it’s a foretaste of more stems to come… maybe a whole pot-full of beautiful jewel orchid leaves!

The other surprise was in my geogenanthus pot. I don’t think I even posted about my geogenanthus, because I was embarrassed. It was this beautiful, black-leaved, shiny, fleshy plant. As soon as I got it, it started to die. I was able to slow its death and stretch it out over several months, but eventually, it was just dirt and sticks.

And then yesterday I saw this:

There’s a new sprout coming up on the edge of the pot! The geogenanthus is alive! And growing! I can’t believe it!

It’s a little hard to see, so I circled it:

My days are filled with end-of-year school busy-ness, so I don’t have much spare time or energy for much else, but I do still like walking in the garden in the evening. The stuff in the front of my house is the smelliest (by design), because it’s nice to walk past them on the way to or from the car and inhale their wonderful fragrance.

My iris plants aren’t blooming yet, but I’m going to post a picture of them anyway, because I’m SO EXCITED! There are flower stalks on them! I planted them back in November, and it’s about to pay off.

The iris flowers will smell like grape Kool-Aid. Yum!

I planted some mgambo tree seeds back on April 20, thinking that they probably wouldn’t sprout. They were years old. Two of them have sprouted! Woo hoo! Here’s the biggest one:

I’m not sure what I’ll do with this tree. Will I plant it in a big pot? Will I secretly plant it at school? I think I have some time to decide.

The tree itself isn’t special-looking, but the seeds are fuzzy, and the seed pods are bright pink. The pods are woody, and as far as I know they are permanent. Here’s a picture of the pods and seeds I found online:

I planted a tomato plant last summer, and it sort of languished. It didn’t grow very much, only made a couple of tomatoes, and had bugs. But in the winter, it didn’t die. It grew bigger, fell over, and started producing a lot of tomatoes – tomatoes that slowly ripened, then rotted.

This spring, I paid some attention to the tomato plant again. I’ve tried to prop it up a little, and I began watering it.

And I harvested some tomatoes. I have ripe tomatoes, and it’s only the beginning of summer! Will I have tomatoes all summer long?