Adventures of a garden crazy city dweller.
The first outdoor gardening of the season today as I planted out my pink frost hellebore. To be safe I had been hardening it off for a week by leaving it outside for increasing longer periods of time.
While it wasn’t bothered by the cold I did notice that every day it wasn’t watered it wilted rapidly. Once I depotted it I knew why. It was severely rootbound, strangling itself. I cut the roots a bit and tried to loosen up the root ball but it was tightly wound. Hopefully it will do well.
Despite my lithops coming from different sources and different varieties. They are showing true seasonal influence and all starting to divide at the same time. The indoor temperature is consistent year round but they are at a west facing window and it seems they are responding to day length. They were purchased at different times over the last 7 months.
Meanwhile my lithops from seed (planted in december) are thriving.
When I first got this amaryllis about 5 years ago it bloomed splendidly. Two stalks and 4 flowers a piece. The next year was good as well. The following year however the flower show was down to one stalk and as I prodded the bulb it seemed to have shrunk! I could not for the life of me figure out why my bulb was shrinking. I gave it the correct resting period, correct temperature, fertilizer, etc. What I had not realized was although amaryllis plants make lovely houseplants while blooming they need to be outside in the summer. They love the sun. I had previously been putting my amaryllis on a relatively shady porch all summer and it just couldn’t get the energy reserves it needed to gain size. Instead it was shrinking because it used up it’s reserves every year.
Now after 2 summers in the sun my amaryllis is bigger then ever! It’s blooms are 9 inches each and I have two flower stalks.
Blooming now Christmas Gift amaryllis:
Now don’t get me wrong, your plant needs time to acclimate. Put it in the sun slowly for a little longer each day but once it’s use to the sun it will thrive. I leave them in the containers all summer but water and fertilize regularly.
After such a harsh winter I was pleasantly surprised to find some of my daffodils popping up in February. Interestingly, this year the mini daffodils seem to have beat out the snow crocuses for popping up their little heads.
Mulched with bark fines and then I allow the leaves from our gingko to provide extra cover. Hope these are blooming by mid april if the weather is kind. If I’m not too lazy I think I will take the extra effort and cover these in a pile of leaves if we have any more extra cold days.
Meanwhile in the house the mini daffodils I forced in the fridge are blooming.
This year as part of my winter gardening projects I decided to try my hand growing roses from seed.
The seeds I ordered were Garden Party (mini rose) from west coast seeds. Advertised as blooming same year if started early.
The instructions suggested potting the seeds and chilling for 10-12 weeks but I need to save some space in my fridge. Instead I mixed about 10 seeds with damp vermiculite in a ziplock bag and popped them in the fridge for 10 weeks.
I took them out of the fridge and planted them on December 30th. Three seedlings sprouted which while a little lower than the expected germination rate (62%) I’m quite happy with.
Even though the instructions said to plant them early for blooms the same year two of them started blooming when they were less than 2 months old.
My forced hyacinths are finally blooming. Bloom size tends to be so much smaller than outdoor hyacinths. After some researched I believe this may because they don’t have a cold enough temperature in 5 degree celsius fridge. Next year I will try setting it colder. At least this one looks like it will have a second bloom too as I see a little bud between the leaves.
Almost every year I buy some hyacinths for indoor forcing in the little fridge. Despite having a fridge dedicated for this purpose my results have always been subpar with at least half the blooming producing short subpar flowers or the larger ones stretching for light and falling over.
This year I got a free package of muscari in the fall with another bulb purchase and I decided to give shot at forcing them. To my surprise they seem so much less finicky than hyacinths and are ready so much sooner. I potted them in soil this year but next year I will try to get a tiny bulb vase that fits them.
This is all I did:
I brought mine to my dining table after the buds had formed and despite being nowhere near a window they haven’t stretched at all. They are still blooming and look great even two weeks later. I will have to update later with total bloom time.
My Tillandsia Ionantha scaposa which I purchased from grow something about 1.5 years ago is finally producing pups. It’s the first time that I’ve seen major growth on an airplant despite having them for nearly 2 years.
I recently separated the first pup when it was about 1/3 the size and new pup is already forming.
I’ve had this lithop for a few months and I’ve finally noticed it dividing. I don’t know the variety. The larger one is from Succutera and the three smaller ones are from east end garden center. They are at east facing window.
For the first time this year I grew one of the jumbo amaryllis bulbs.
Above is amaryllis flamenco queen. It grew two stalks with lots of flowers but I was disappointed the flower size was the same as my regular amaryllis bulbs. The stalks were also much longer and had to be cut. I would not grow a jumbo bulb again. Continue reading “Amaryllis Adventures”