A Look Back at April in the Greenhouse

 

 

 

A look back and a look forward.

 

Easter Cactus bloomed late. Maybe we'll call it a Mother's Day Cactus.

 

Perhaps we chould use the botanical names of all these epiphytes; my cactuses that are designated as Thanksgiving Cactus by some growers because of the segment shape bloom precisely at Christmas. I call them Christmas Cactuses even though they're not the old Christmas Cactus my Mother grew.I can remember Schlumbergera but Rhipsalidopsis gaertneri does not roll easily off my tongue.

 

I spent time setting up a stepped bench for the cactuses in the greenhouse today. I think they might be happier spending the summer out on the north side of the greenhouse rather than trying to keep them cool inside. All those little rooted pieces are turning into a bigger collection that I expected. A good plan might be to set out a row of Gardenia cuttings on the north side and make my temporary benches behind the Gardenias so they are less vulnerable to pet traffic.

 

The little Kalanchoe cuttings are suddenly 8 inches tall and it is a long time until Christmas.

 

 

 

Bomeliads are needing a summer home, or should  they stay inside under mist?

 

Tillandsia babies will be ready to pot before summer is over.

All the tomato seeds sprouted, Cassias are sprouting, another legume for butterflies.

Only one Pride of Barbados seed sprouted. There's still time for the others. Outside, I have 7 Caesalpinias that returned from roots. Two are established plants. The other five are second year seedlings that I hope will bloom this year.

There's a fat bud on one of the Agapanthus outside! It took forever last year to get a few blooms. These are starting early after a mild winter in which the tops were not killed back.

I think I saw two tiny Tithonia seedlings today and I am sure of Madagascar periwinkles coming up thick and fast. These two do not have to be started in the greenhouse here, reseeding in place.

 

I noticed today that there are tiny tomatoes on a volunteer I let grow in the new flower bed on the south side of the greenhouse. We'll have 'Tommy Toes' for salad and then I'll pull it when the Lantana beside it gets going. I have only one white Lantana plant. I'm waiting for white blooms in the front garden so I can take cuttings.

 

Many of my chores were outside. I gave the self-seeded petunias a haircut to keep them blooming and get rid of the seed heads of the rye grass in that bed. I pulled a few weeds, too.

 

I moved an Echinacea, moved some 'Sweetness' daffodils, transplanted some striped Cannas. It doesn't seem like much when I'm doing little chores but they add up. We got sprinkles of welcome rain, hardly enough to run me inside. Tonight it's raining again. 

 

Work, Busy Work, Getting Rooted Cuttings Planted

I was reading another blug where the writer said she worked outside as long as she could and then went inside to read and write. I go inside to make more lists.

I can cross off my lists the 3 dozen Pentas rooted over the winter.

April, 2012

Everything is later this year. This time last year, pale pink pentas were blooming where I'd set them in this bed, along with tall plants of Verbena on a Stick. Five of these pentas have put out new growth from old roots. I added five rooted cuttings, only two of which are yet brooming. There is one tiny Verbena bonariensis about 2 inches tall.

I doubt it makes any difference to Butterflies if Pentas are planted by color. White Pentas are in the Yellow Rose bed, old joined by new cuttings.

When the Pentas in this bed really get blooming, this Iris will just be spiky foliage.

Rose pink and what we call 'Miss Julie's Favorite' pink are in the Pink Rose bed, again old plants and new.  There were only 3 each of dwarf lavender and dwarf red with a white eye to put under the Magnolia. Red Pentas are in yet another bed.

There are more than a dozen Chartreuse Alternanthera rooted; a tray with several Datura seedlings needs to grow on a bit before they're planted. Brugmansia cuttings are in the ground. They were pale; greening up since planting.

This time last year Brugmansias were much bigger than this year.  The plants were bigger; this precocious Brug cutting has a bloom larger than the plant, so big that the bloom lies on the ground. Plants returning from roots are much bigger and greener, but there are no other signs of buds so far.

 

 

The Brug where I found the snake last week is the last to put out leaves, so far just tiny buds have appeared. I wonder if the reptile frightened it out of a month's growth? That's the same bed where I planted rose and pink Pentas today. I carefully pulled the pine straw back with a rake with a long handle before I planted and dug holes with post hole diggers with sharp edges.

 

Rhipsalidopsis, Easter or Mother's Day Cactus

 

 

 

Most of the rest of the greenhouse plants are Epiphytes that remain in pots, Bromeliads, some Kalanchoes for next winter's bloom and a few other exotics that can take heat and enjoy high humidity since I have to mist to keep temperatures down.

 

 Linking to Tootsie Time for Fertilizer Friday -- I have to remember to give the newly planted Brugs a bit of fertilizer so they will green on up. Go see what everybody has for the Flower Flaunt and encourage Tootsie, whose father needs prayers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Staghorn Fern and Friends

Staghorn ferns belong to the genus Platycerium. I bought this plant in a tiny plastic pot for $2.00 last winter at a big box store.

The plant produces two distinctly different fronds, basal and foliar.

Basal fronds, often called “sterile fronds,'' are rounded thickened fronds which grow in overlapping layers and clasp onto a growing surface. Shield shaped, they protect the roots, collect nutrients and
take up water.

Antler shaped foliar fronds also called fertile fronds, grow spores on the underside for reproduction.

This plant spent last summer in this same spot, seemingly loving the heat and humidity and sun.

This winter I brought my Bird's Nest Fern Asplenium nidus from the house where it was not particularly happy to the greenhouse.

I didn't start out to be a Rainforest gardener but between the Epiphyllums, Schlumbergera, Ferns and Bromeliads I'm getting there.

 

Epiphyllum oxypetalum.

Flauntin' my Flowers with Tootsie on Fertlizer Friday

A Haircut and New Shoes Make Happy Plants

You know how potted plants get that sinkhole around the stem and the soil packs down so they're sitting well down in the pot a couple inches?

 

You know too how lanky some plants get?

 

I gave all the Schlumbergera cuttings some pinches now that bloom is over.

I collected the pinched pieces to root, all with at least three leaf segments. If a piece fell off, I saved it too. Sometimes a single will root and grow; I try not to waste a precious bit.

 

Every pot within the cache pots had soil that had packed down an inch or better. I pulled out the whole plant and put new soil in the bottom of the pot, enough to bring the soil level almost to the top. Of course when you lift a plant, it no longer fits at the top because of the slanted sides. I carefully sifted more potting soil into the spaces around the edges.

 

 

There were enough cuttings to have a half-dozen of each color: pink, peach, yellow, white and scarlet. Six cuttings are perfect for making a Rainforest Sphere in the manner of Steve Asbell's Rainforest Drops. He hangs his, I set mine on an empty pot. 

 

Steve puts unrooted cuttings into purchased  grapevine balls filled with moss, I root first and then tuck rooted pieces into a moss-filled grapevine sphere made from collected wild grapevines.

Do what works, use what you have.

 

I left the Easter Cactuses for later after they bloom. They'll enjoy a haircut and some new soil sometime after Easter. Anybody that's rootbound gets a bigger pot but epi's are not wild about getting big pots, just a bit of a lift.