Category: Gardening (Page 2 of 151)

I slept until almost 8am yesterday! Wow! So late! It felt really good.

After a little couch time, I went out for a diner breakfast. Mmm… Then I did various shopping stops. It seems like I go to my favorite garden center almost every weekend. This time, it was because they sent me an email saying poinsettias had arrived. I didn’t get any poinsettias, but I did have a great time looking at things. And even more exciting was the fact that the magnolia tree next to the entrance was blooming!

I surely have posted about this before, but I love the scent of magnolia blossoms. I honestly don’t know if it’s because I actually like the scent, or if it’s because it reminds me of happy times in my my childhood… smelling the wonderful magnolia trees in the front yard of the daycare center house next to my school. My mom was working there, trying to make more money for our family, but I was just having a great time hanging out with other kids.

I know this is another plant post, but I didn’t take a picture of anything else yesterday, and my African violets (which are genseriads like my Emerald Forest Plant) are exploding with flowers right now. I mean, just look at them!

I think Southern California must be a truly magical place for plants. I don’t remember having such floriferous results before.

Happy Friday, everybody!

I got a few unusual plants for my kitchen window, but one of them was too big for those shelves, so it’s in my bedroom. It’s a Sinningia bullata, or Emerald Forest Plant.

I got it because it’s a gesneriad, which is a group of plants I seem to be increasingly interested in, and because it is supposed to be a frequent flowerer… with ORANGE flowers. It’s flowering now! Yay!

The crinkly leaves are weird, which is fun, be even more weird is the thick hair that covers the stems and undersides of the leaves. It’s so thick, it looks like spiderwebs or something.

When I first got it, I thought it was a spider mite infestation and tore some of the hairs out. Poor Emerald Forest Plant. I won’t damage you like that again…

I got some roses a few weeks ago, and I want to plant them in the planter in front of my house. I’ve been putting off doing it, because cleaning out the old plants would be a lot of work. I recently got some freesia bulbs in the mail, and that clinched it – I need to plant the roses and the freesias!

Yesterday morning, I decided to do it!

After 45 minutes of work, the old plants were mostly out, my green-waste bin was full, and I was EXHAUSTED. I used to garden all morning before I ran out of steam, but worn out after 45 minutes?

I had a supervisor to make sure I did things right.

There are three plants that have big roots, and the old shovel the previous owner left me wouldn’t do it, so they’re still there. I got a new spading fork later in the day, but didn’t have energy to use it. The roses and freesias will have to wait.

The oriental lilies in my kitchen are just finishing with their last blooms. They still smelled good last night. I have loved having them. I got them on the 11th! They’ve lasted almost two weeks. Wow!

I almost got new ones when I was in the grocery store yesterday, but I think I’ll wait. I need to clean off this little table before I put some flowers on it again. It’s really cluttered, and the flower pollen and petals were really hard to clean up with all the junk in the way.