Potting Up Foliage Cuttings

When I went to look after He-Who Mowed went around the edges of flower beds, he'd gone a bit close here. Chartreuse Alternanthera was clipped off and covered with grass clippings. Most of Melampodium was gone, not a great loss since it volunteers where it will and gets left to bloom undisturbed until the mower comes by.

After the Mower.

If I'd gone out and edged the beds the way they needed, everything would still be neat and pretty. Heat and humidity made me a lazy gardener. 

Chartreuse properly edged and mulched.

I picked up the best of what would make cuttings and stuck some Chartreuse pieces in a pot of soil; the longer pieces went into a mug of water. 

Last September's cuttings. I am a week ahead.

Fairly long pieces of Setcreasea went into a vase of water. I want another long container of Purple Heart cuttings to grow over and hang down like a waterfall but I was not ready to prepare that just yet.

Last Spring's box of Purple Heart and Persian Shield.

I want Purple Heart to hang down like a waterfall.

Maybe I could just dig up the above where I planted it out.

I still have to edge those beds.

Agapanthus Seeds and Alternanthera Cuttings

This is the first time I've planted Agapanthus seeds.

I gathered some from my garden and some from a parking lot in the city where the last seeds were obviously not being gathered by whomever maintains (!) the landscaping.

My improvised seed collection envelope, bottom of my shopping list.

You know that old ladies do this?

These will be species plants even if the seeds were collected from hybrids.

I have Storm Cloud and a species type, didn't mark them as to the seed.

I labeled the seed tray so I know which are mine and which were gathered elsewhere.

I planted in damp potting soil, covered the seeds with seed starting mix and misted until damp.

Then I tucked the tray into a plastic vegetable bag from the grocery store and set it in a shady spot.

Conflicting instructions online cause me to plant in my own methods in my own time. I know you are supposed to plant in spring. These will spend the winter in the greenhouse. Germination takes from 3 weeks to 3 months, depending on whose opinion you read. Three or four years to blooms. I can wait. I have Agapanthus, I just wanted to plant those seeds. 

Hydrating cuttings before sticking in soil.

Chartreuse Alternanthera is my fav. Purple will reseed in the greenhouse floor so there's plenty of that. The red is likely to return, if not all of it, at least enough to have starts and cuttings. I can't grow enough chartreuse. Something eats it, or grass takes it or there just isn't enough.

I double my chances by sticking cuttings in soil plus filling a mug with a mass of cuttings in water.

Next spring I'll tease the roots apart and plant the water-rooted cuttings. The cuttings in soil may get bumped up to larger pots during winter when they send roots out the tray bottom.

Alternanthera plant before I took cuttings.

  

Foliage Plants in Purple, Chartreuse and Grey

Tropical Foliage will show up on Seedscatterer blog on Wednesday. Well, these are fairly tropical as well. These plants are easily propagated,

I use much Purple Heart in my plantings. It roots easily, a broken off piece can

just be stuck in the ground and it will root; the same with the Sedum acre at

bottom. Spider plants are usually thought of as container plants. They work 

well in garden plantings and in our climate will return from roots if the tops 

do not survive the winter. Baby spiders send out roots before they reach soil.

Graptopetalum paraguayense -- last year I had 36 plants, each from

a leaf that broke off, rooted in soil. I planted some along the edges 

of these beds that are raised 2 bricks high; excellent drainage here.

More Graptopetalum with an inset pot of Chartreuse Alternanthera.

Alternanthera is easily rooted in soil or water. I usually keep a coffee mug

full over the winter for new starts. Sedum acre peeks out at bottom.

Sedum acre survives with little water but recent rains has made it lush.

Greenhouse Growing in Subtropical Heat

Can I grow year around in a greenhouse? Triple digit summer temps and occasional freezing winter nights require careful planning. We've made it to July and the Greenhouse still has viable plants.

From lower left: Esperanza that just never got planted out, a

pepper that came back in to experiment with temperatures and

water. Three tomato plants rooted from suckers; a half dozen

amaryllis seedlings, and various others bits.

The difference is the Fogging Nozzles we put in after we installed an exhaust fan.

A closer look at amaryllis seedlings, four in a tray and

two larger in pots toward the back, seeds from my

Christmas amaryllis. I floated them in water until

they formed roots, then potted them.

The purple stuff is alternanthera self seeded, and the chartreuse is

alternanthera seedlings that haven't found a home. There

were a multitude of green cuttings and there are still red, too,

looking for homes as I think of it.

There's a bit of ivy that our Church Youth gave out on

Mother's Day. The bigger, paler ivy leaves are new.

Canna that was accidentally dug up.

Gerbera Daisy seedlings,

seeds from an earlier blossom

Rose cutting that has taken off.

I failed to label it, will wait for bloom.

I paid two dollars for this staghorn back

in late winter. It has grown well.

The jugs hold water for quick grabbing in

the heat of the day for plants outside.

Eventually everything will probably go outside, but they've thrived with abundant watering and mediation of temperatures.

Everything is bunched up on the floor under

where the nozzles spray on hot days.

Sometimes it is 10 degrees cooler on the floor.

Note the 'patch' where the dog tore the blue plastic.

That will have a different skirt when winter comes.

The shelves hold pots that await winter.

I made lists of cuttings to take in late summer and even wrote down things that I will not repeat this year. I can hardly wait to see what difference having the fogger makes on sunny winter days when it heats up inside. Keeping the humidity up in winter can be a problem. I think we've solved it.