New Plant Table

Months ago when I thought I was moving I downsized my plant collection substantially. I went down to 5 potted indoor plants. My outdoor plants were all planted out and I was ready to move. Things change, and I've been slowly accumulating more houseplants again. I had a small set of lights under a kitchen cabinet, but that space was painfully full (trying to raise ferns from spores again). Now I'm in the process of reviving / rehabilitating some african violets for my aunt and needed some more space.

For $1.00 in new lumber I made the table above. I cheated in that I already had the lights and the table itself, I just needed to devise a way to put the two together. Two clearance 4 foot pieces of 2 x 4 solved that problem. It's 4 feet wide, 2 feet front to back, and 2 feet tall. I really wanted a multilevel plant shelf, but this will have to do. I can add a third or even a fourth set of lights for spring when I'm planning on starting massive numbers of veggies inside again (I should be able to fit 4 flats). Too bad it's already full :P.

Realized Plants

Those cheap roots I got a few weeks ago are now sprouting, well, all but one of them. I seem to have 3 clematis, 2 red hot poker, and 1 big peony (not pictured). The fourth clematis may sprout, but isn't looking likely. The bag for red hot poker said three plants, but I only found two.

Resuscitating Houseplants

A few months ago when I though I might be moving I liquidated most of my houseplants. They were listed for free on craigslist, and some people were nice enough to pick them up. I kept 6 or so that I was more attached to. I then proceeded to neglect most of them to near death. The two in my bedroom were doing fine, but the few I stuck under lights have been frying. I pulled them out yesterday to figure out what was going on.

The first is a very old african violet. I've had it for probably 8 or more years now. On fiddling with it I realized it now had two crowns and the root system had rotted off. This isn't really a problem for african violets. I had to drag out some dirt I microwaved a few months ago (the only potting soil I know the location of) and re-pot the original crown and the new crown and stuck them in zipper bags. I ended up with tons of extra leaves, so being a plant idiot I popped them in some more available dirt and in 6 weeks or so will have more little clones. I expect I've just been cooking my black jewel orchid as it keeps dropping leaves for no apparent reason. The other truly abused plant is a 3 year old amaryllis I grew from seed in 2007. I had never re-potted it. So yesterday I nicely removed all its dead roots and gave it new dirt and a new pot.

I still have a begonia with just 1 leaf I'm not sure what to do with, but I'm not completely sure why I kept it in the first place, so it may be bound for craigslist.

Daily Photo - Frosted Rosette

A hens-and-chicks rosette, nicely frosted.

Frosty Morning

I got up at dawn again today, and spotted frost covered shrubs so forced myself outside. These are with a tripod at f/14. The shutter speed was camera determined unless I thought it was wrong.

Lupine with Frost Maple Leaf Lupine with Frost

I got a book out of the library last week that had an understandable section on how and why frost forms. Science 101: Weather Synopsis was dampness coupled with clear skies on a cold night.

Lady Slippers Are Up

Bulbs Have Arrived...

The Early crop of Fall bulbs is now awaiting customers at your neighborhood plant or home improvement stores. Too bad they're rarely labeled correctly, and you get to wait months to figure out what they will actually look like. I mostly have this problem with daffodils. I buy specific varieties because I like what they're supposed to look like, and months later they aren't that variety at all... However every time I buy a bagged Astilbe it turns out to be white, even if I bought a pink variety. Same thing happens with Bleeding Hearts. This year I'm trying Bearded Irises. When I was in Washington DC in may it was that time of year, and they were blooming everywhere. So far I've bought 5 varieties to try out, Vita Fire, Color Tart, Full Tide, and Night Edition. I might return the Full Tide, as pics I've seen online look almost nothing like the pic on the package, another pet peeve of mine. I ended up potting these up rather than tossing them out into the garden yet. This year starting with the spring roots and bulbs I potted everything that was a perennial. I got bargain plants weeks after the sales, and potted them up to survive the winter and grow some actual roots. 5 or 6 astilbes, 3 or 4 day lily types, I tried to get more purple cornflowers, but only one of them is a cone flower. One of the others is a balloon flower judging by the actual flower I got on a little pathetic stem. I also got a number of nursery propagated wildflowers for $1 each. All the Christmas Ferns from that group came up, the other ferns didn't, but I dug them up a few weeks ago, and none had turned to mush, so likely they will come up next year. I also got a few trilliums, two trout lilies and a jack in the pulpit, which as far as I could tell might as well have been dirt, but I'll give them till next summer to do something. I also picked up some Dutch Iris bulbs this year, and I'm trying Iris reticulata again. Last year I had a few, but after they bloomed something carried them off. Never saw them again. Hopefully I'll place them better this year.

Actual Gardening

At ten this morning I decided I wouldn't go hiking. Since it was supposed to rain for a few days straight, I figured I'd get some plants in the ground. Especially since yesterday I spent some money on some very nice plants, and didn't want to chance killing them through laziness. I'm a sucker for nectar plants, as I'm always trying to get butterfly pics, and it is infinitely easier if they show up in the backyard. To this end I have 3 types of milkweed, 4 types of bee balm, numerous kinds of mint, some phlox, 5 or 6 kinds of yarrow, a bunch of coneflowers, and 2 kinds of rudbeckia. I'm lacking host plants other than the milkweed, but I'm working on that. I bought a shorter kind of bee balm, a rudbeckia, and another swamp milkweed (which I totally recommend, as mine has been blooming nonstop since June.) The swamp milkweed actually came with a monarch Caterpillar... to add to this I saw a monarch fluttering about today laying eggs on my other milkweed. Hopefully, I'll be seeing some more soon enough. I also had my first experience with spray paint, which I'll likely never repeat. It is the stinkiest, and least efficient way to paint, unless you happen to be painting wicker like I was. With three coats, it still does not look done, but the chairs will at least be staying serviceable for another year or two, so I guess it was worth the irritation. I finished around 7:30. Though technically there were two shopping trips in there when I ran out of paint, and thought I should see what other plants could be found in a bargain area. I bought three Strawberry Seduction Yarrow plants for $1 each. And yes, their first bloom of the year was floppy, black, and dying, but all three were growing back from the roots quite happily. Judging from several I bought last year at the bargain price, they'll bounce back just fine. I also remember eyeing them when they first came in a $6 bucks each. Patience gets the plant, provided it isn't one you must have in which case that's what credit cards were made for. Now if only I could keep a butterfly bush alive through the winter I'd be buying the bargain ones of those too...