Category: Gardening (Page 6 of 156)

I went to school yesterday so I could do some work. Worship planning used up all my concentration energy, so the school stuff would have to wait for another day. I went home, and as I walked to the front door, I admired my freesias. They’re getting bigger!

My irises are sprouting too:

There’s a plant I’ve been admiring, but could never bring myself to get, because it was expensive. It’s called geogenanthus ciliatus. It has big, fleshy, shiny leaves that are black with a purple midrib. It’s weird and wonderful. My mom gave me some money for Christmas, and I decided I will use it to get a geogenanthus. Yay!

I’ve seen it several times at my favorite garden center, but that was a while back. Would they still have it? I went to the nearest location, and they were out, so I decided to go to a different location.

…but before I could head there, I had to stop back at school. Had I turned off the space heater under my desk? I couldn’t just leave it on…. Ack!

It was off. Whew!

On to the second location of the garden center! They were out too. So I checked a third location. Nope. Dang. But yay! I have a proper Quest! Woo hoo!

I did get a consolation prize though. At the second place I stopped at, I saw a colocasia ‘Black Coral’. I was so excited, because I had grown one of those on my balcony in Maui. I got it!

It looks raggedy now, but I’ll pot it when things warm up, and it will grow into a beautiful specimen.

Yesterday was a productive day. I started out in the morning just looking to get a weeding tool. I’m not sure what this tool is called, but I had one in Baltimore and used it all the time. It’s great because it gets under the roots of the weeds and gets them out for good.

After weeding, I worked in the garage a bit, but I didn’t take any pictures. It’s much nicer in there than it was. Then I potted some plants I’ve been meaning to get outside. They need full sun. They are three kinds of succulents that I’ve put in one pot. I like how they look:

I will write their names out here, so I have a record of them in the memory archive:
Sedeveria ‘Jet Beads’
Sedum adolphi ‘Shooting Stars’
Sedum ‘Aurora’/ Sedum rubrotinctum

While I was working outside, my next-door neighbor saw me and invited me to a party they were having last night. A bunch of their friends were getting together to have snacks and sing Christmas songs.

It was fun to meet some new people and to get to know my neighbors better. I’m so glad I went.

I was also excited to see the fire thingies that Lauren has talked about. They were on the tables as heat sources. I thought that if she was at the party, she would have been so excited! They even had a big bucket of pellets and a box of wood chunks to feed into the fire pots.

It was late when I got to bed. Hopefully I can get my school work done today.

The weekend is when I water my houseplants. I was excited to see that my Vietnamese Violet is blooming! It’s a gesneriad, which puts it in the same group as African Violets. It’s not very showy, but it’s always fun to see blooms on a houseplant.

My kitchen has other exotics as well. I have a jewel orchid, which also has not-very-showy flowers, but is grown mostly for its pretty leaves:

I have an unnamed begonia I got from Home Depot. It has velvety, almost black leaves with hairy undersides. It’s delightfully weird:

My most unusual plant is a begonia ferox. It has bumps on its leaves that look like spikes. So crazy-looking!

My houseplants have fungus gnats in them. Fungus gnats are tiny flying insects that lay eggs in potting soil. Their larvae live in the soil, and the adult gnats fly all over the house, and sometimes up my nose.

They don’t really hurt the plants, but they’re so annoying, I decided to do something about them. The internet says that sticky traps are the way to go. I shopped around, and settled on some that are shaped like tropical leaves. Nice!

I put them in a couple of days ago, and there are already lots of gnats on them. Hopefully in a couple of weeks, the reproduction cycle will be broken, and my house will be gnatless.

I ordered some Iris Pallida Albo Variegata tubers from a bulb company. It’s an iris that has white and green striped leaves, and pale purple flowers. The flowers smell like grape Kool-Aid! Like for real! I had them in Baltimore, and I want to plant some here.

I got the package last week, and the packing slip said “Iris Pallida Albo Variegata”, but the box was full of Don Quichotte tulip bulbs.

It is not cold enough here for tulips. If you want to grow them, they must first be chilled in the refrigerator for at least six weeks (but more is better)

They have to be in a drawer by themselves, because fruits and vegetables give off ethylene gas, which will rot the bulbs.

I’ll plant the tulips in a pot sometime in January. The internet says the stems will be very short, but I think that’ll be ok. I intend to pack them really close together. I don’t think they’ll survive more than one season.

I wrote to the bulb company. I hope they still send me the iris roots.