Votive Candle Holders and Shades

I pinned an idea from Pinterest, showing a small concrete votive holder. I can't remember where I got the idea to use a tuna can filled with sand instead. I finally put it all together: tuna can, sand and votive with a light shade. I remember seeing light shades and painted tuna cans on a post in a different Pin but I can't remember where the sand idea came from.

Sand-filled tuna can with

votive candle.

Nigella Light

I used light shades and saucers or small bowls with candles since Garden Junk days when we called them 'Nigella lights.' For a time I collected all the shades I could find at thrift stores, so I have a supply. These are some of my favs.

I didn't wait for dark to try out my new lights. At bottom left is the old style using a saucer that seemed to work better with the larger hobnail shade.

Tuna cans are in shorter supply. I used the ones I had before mostly for measuring 'rainfall' from my sprinklers. Evenually they rust. They are not hard to obtain.

LIghts, Camera, not much Action

Temperatures today returned to warm for January. It rained more than a half inch. I spent some time in the greenhouse checking plants for problems. My parlor palm had ugly brown spots on some leaves and stems. I pruned out the uglies and repotted the rootbound palm to see if it makes a new start. Otherwise to the dump.

I love the Mardi Gras look of the Christmas lights, so they are staying for now.

Most of the Christmas Cactuses have finished blooming. I pinched off dead blossoms.

Next to bloom will be Kalanchoes on the back of the potting bench.

Broad view from the door. Epiphyllums take up much of the whole north side.

Hyacinths for forcing are starting to show a few buds. 

They're planted with Graptopetalum and Sedum Acre.

Under the bench are white begonias, big begonia near right.

I rotated pots where hyacinths were stretching toward the light.

The repotted palm is on the left behind the Epi with some Bromeliads.

The little red blooms in the white pot are a begonia.

I set some seedlings out in the rain for a short time, and two ferns. 

There are a number of things I look forward to including an Amaryllis with a fat bud and more coming.

Heaters are unplugged for now. By midweek we'll expect another freeze but maybe a mild one.

There are two daffodils blooming outside!

A Nighttime Peek

I got out old strings of twinkle lights and found two that will burn. I wound one string through the grapevine garland. The second string I stuffed into three cylinder vases that were originally Amaryllis forcing vases. Now that I've committed to growing in soil, not water, I have to find new uses for all those Vases. I don't know how many Hyacinth vases I have. They may become candle holders or some other use.

The potted palm is just too big for my enclosed porch so I brought it to

the greenhouse. It takes up a lot of space.

Click on this picture to go open Longfield in

a new tab to see Spartacus.

I potted the Armaryllis bulb I won from Longfield Gardens. The name of it is Spartacus.

White Kalanchoes are putting on buds in the greenhouse. Last year they bloomed after Christmas, I hope for better luck this year. 

Twinkle LIghts in the Greenhouse

A string of lights from previous years hung among the grapevine garland in the greenhouse. Festive. Has not improved my mood.

 Burro's Tails are a good contrast to the rest of the greens. There are little 

rooting pieces in several places because so many segments get snapped off 

because I breathed on them, or the cat sneezed. 

This side of the greenhouse has all the flowers. Plenty of Wax Begonias mixed with spider plants and Foxtail Fern, the ill-fated Amaryllis that bloomed Pepto Bismol pink instead of the pale pink I expected. So far two have bloomed. As soon as the one in bud blooms, I will send yet another photo to the disbelieving vendor assuring them that indeed all three were mislabeled.  

Christmas Cactuses on the end wall are in various stages of bud but no blooms just yet. Some are close to bloom. I mislabeled a clearly white Schlumbergera cutting as Scarlet. I don't know how that happened but the buds are white, not the deep color that will bloom scarlet.

On the opposite all to the grapevine garland are bromeliads in good stages of putting on pups. I hope to wait until spring to divide them so the plants can stay together in a few pots instead of a dozen. It's hard for me not to put things to root -- there's a Epiphyllum leaf putting on new growth. I forget how it came to be cut, but I could not throw it away, despite the 5 full-sized plants that fill so much space.

Parsley seedlings appeared in 2 weeks. Alyssum is coming up one cell at a time. I sliced part of the basal plate on an onion and left it in the refrigerator for a few days. Now I have two little pots with tiny onion plants and I planted a celery bottom the way you see on Pinterest. I think it is going to sprout.

I planted some Agapanthus seeds back in early fall when they got ripe.  One has appeared. I am reasonably sure it is a tiny Agapanthus shoot: planted in sterile soil, definitely a monocot, forming a tiny bulb at ground level, I will be very excited to grow some Agapanthus. I don't remember reading how long from seed to bloom. I hope they are faster than Amaryllis. I have pots of young Amaryllis going into their third year, still not mature enough to bloom.

Looks cozy and inviting from the outside, doesn't it? There is

not room for an armchair and a reading table.