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It's just about warm enough to take a lot of my basement grow light plants out back, but they need one more drench of mort aux fungus gnats before I unleash them on the world. They'll get that today and about mid-week next week most of them will go out. This is mostly coleus, with a couple begonias and wandering jew and the Schlumbergera for which ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
clindau and I stand as godparents.
The last bloom on the last scape of Hippeastrum Class of 2006 was beginning to fade when we came home. It drooped on Friday and shriveled yesterday. I'm ready to cut it off. That's the end of indoor bloom except for a couple of undistinguished begonias that I wintered over.
I found the industrial-strength systemic fungicide I need to tackle the H. papilio on the internet. When it gets here I'll cut the leaves off the bulbs (three adults, two adolescents, and two juveniles) and wash off/soak off any extraneous soil. Then the bulbs get two baths -- one at 115F for two hours to kill off any mites and one at 85F for 30 minutes to kill the fungus. Then some time drying and then I replant. One adult and two adolescents were gifts from my daughter-in-law; the other two were rather expensive purchases. I'll be disappointed if this doesn't do it.
Outside I have lovely pale yellow pansies, plus blue flag iris in the front and many green things. Right now watching the green is soul-satisfying enough -- and, of course, the red of the lovely maple, now a good 12-15 feet tall and taking over the back garden. The wisteria is starting to leaf out and put forth more abundant racemes than it has done before. We should have wisteria blooming in a couple weeks. The peony has only put out four flower stalks, but I'm simply happy that it has survived our brutal winter.
One of my mongrel hostas (huge green leaves and a thuggish disposition) started edging its way into Martian Invader daylily territory. If I had more space I'd put a chunk of Martian Invader elsewhere for safekeeping and enjoy the show as these two duked it out. But I don't have another spot that would work for the daylily, to which I am sentimentally attached, so I attacked Big Green instead. I had planned on just pulling off some leaf stalks and throwing them away, but most of them came up with a nice chunk of nodule and a couple of roots (or at least a root bump). Having nothing to lose by experimenting, I cut back the foliage and tucked them in planters here and there. If they survive and prosper I'll see if I can adopt them out.
Yesterday we went to a local mini-festival. On the way back I passed a single-lot garden that featured a plethora of seedling rose campion. And when I say plethora I mean it's carpeting the walk. That being the case, I didn't think the gardener would be likely to miss a straggler or two from outside the garden gate, so I helped myself. Not enough sun in the back, but I think it would co-exist nicely along with my seedling maple out front. Or it may get drowned by the rising tsunami of feverfew. Who knows?
Neither the gazania nor the marigold seeds I bought from Burpee are showing terrifically good germination. Good thing I planted twice as many as I could use.
The angel wing-type begonia cutting that I picked up from the Flower Show floor two months ago is finally putting out roots. Two small water roots, half a dozen nodules. I hit it with Root-Tone and potted it up, covering it with a plastic tent to keep the leaves humid.
Here's a photo from yesterday's walk over to the festival -- the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ of the Apostolic Faith, which has a one-square-block campus in our neighborhood comprising the church building and a senior citizen garden-apartment-and-townhouse-style gated community, has planted a couple of young Cornus by one of its gates. They're clearly going to be lovely things if they flourish.
Oh, snap. With my 20/20 hindsight, I just realized that I could have carted over a bunch of my red Schlumbergera and left them on the neighborhood association table with a "free to good home" sign yesterday. Well, it won't be the last festival / yard sale / block party this summer.
clindau and I stand as godparents.The last bloom on the last scape of Hippeastrum Class of 2006 was beginning to fade when we came home. It drooped on Friday and shriveled yesterday. I'm ready to cut it off. That's the end of indoor bloom except for a couple of undistinguished begonias that I wintered over.
I found the industrial-strength systemic fungicide I need to tackle the H. papilio on the internet. When it gets here I'll cut the leaves off the bulbs (three adults, two adolescents, and two juveniles) and wash off/soak off any extraneous soil. Then the bulbs get two baths -- one at 115F for two hours to kill off any mites and one at 85F for 30 minutes to kill the fungus. Then some time drying and then I replant. One adult and two adolescents were gifts from my daughter-in-law; the other two were rather expensive purchases. I'll be disappointed if this doesn't do it.
Outside I have lovely pale yellow pansies, plus blue flag iris in the front and many green things. Right now watching the green is soul-satisfying enough -- and, of course, the red of the lovely maple, now a good 12-15 feet tall and taking over the back garden. The wisteria is starting to leaf out and put forth more abundant racemes than it has done before. We should have wisteria blooming in a couple weeks. The peony has only put out four flower stalks, but I'm simply happy that it has survived our brutal winter.
One of my mongrel hostas (huge green leaves and a thuggish disposition) started edging its way into Martian Invader daylily territory. If I had more space I'd put a chunk of Martian Invader elsewhere for safekeeping and enjoy the show as these two duked it out. But I don't have another spot that would work for the daylily, to which I am sentimentally attached, so I attacked Big Green instead. I had planned on just pulling off some leaf stalks and throwing them away, but most of them came up with a nice chunk of nodule and a couple of roots (or at least a root bump). Having nothing to lose by experimenting, I cut back the foliage and tucked them in planters here and there. If they survive and prosper I'll see if I can adopt them out.
Yesterday we went to a local mini-festival. On the way back I passed a single-lot garden that featured a plethora of seedling rose campion. And when I say plethora I mean it's carpeting the walk. That being the case, I didn't think the gardener would be likely to miss a straggler or two from outside the garden gate, so I helped myself. Not enough sun in the back, but I think it would co-exist nicely along with my seedling maple out front. Or it may get drowned by the rising tsunami of feverfew. Who knows?
Neither the gazania nor the marigold seeds I bought from Burpee are showing terrifically good germination. Good thing I planted twice as many as I could use.
The angel wing-type begonia cutting that I picked up from the Flower Show floor two months ago is finally putting out roots. Two small water roots, half a dozen nodules. I hit it with Root-Tone and potted it up, covering it with a plastic tent to keep the leaves humid.
Here's a photo from yesterday's walk over to the festival -- the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ of the Apostolic Faith, which has a one-square-block campus in our neighborhood comprising the church building and a senior citizen garden-apartment-and-townhouse-style gated community, has planted a couple of young Cornus by one of its gates. They're clearly going to be lovely things if they flourish.
Oh, snap. With my 20/20 hindsight, I just realized that I could have carted over a bunch of my red Schlumbergera and left them on the neighborhood association table with a "free to good home" sign yesterday. Well, it won't be the last festival / yard sale / block party this summer.
