I’ve had no luck detecting lately and my 3D printing project is gonna take more days to have anything to show so I’m doing more gardening during the week. I’m starting to see a few blooms on the smaller of our Ceanothus and even had some flower open on the tiny pyrocantha cutting I started last year. It will become a bonsai experiment eventually but for the moment I’m just enjoying the tiny white flowers. And from the looks of the fullsized bushes around the garden we will have a lot more in the coming weeks.
I’ve put some seedlings into larger pots, and passed a dozen tomato seedlings onto my mother in law, who gave me some cosmos and other things in trade. I must have 20 or so tomato plants going at the moment but I always think its good strategy to send some over to her house in case I have a problem on this end.
I found some discount flower pots at B&Q that are designed to sit astride the garden fence. I planted the cosmos in them and set them at the end of the drive where the Mrs has always wanted something to look at beside the bins.
There’s some new growth on my ZiZi plant. I’m very impressed with this plant because it survived over 2 years in Lockdown in a closed office. When we returned to work the owner wrote it off but I thought what the heck, and with a little care and some water it came back with amazing results. This is actually a cutting from that original plant which is also healthy and growing in a window of our stair landing.
I brought home a flamingo plant (also called a painter’s pallette) from work a couple of months ago and it nearly died in the cold snap. I brought it in and let bunk next to the VFT in the fogponics a few weeks and it not only recovered, it has produced a tiny flower! I hope it will make a full recovery. I put it in there just because there wasn’t much sunshine during the day and I had grow lights set up to help the pitcher plants and the Venus Fly Trap.
Turns out that was just the thing as this plant is a native to Columbia and Ecuador it likes a bit of warmth and humidity. I really should have looked that up back then, but before it flowered, I was unsure just what it was. I had an idea it might be related to the peace lilies we have all over the house, but I did not know it was toxic! Toxic to humans and animals. Very! I don’t currently have pets in the house (though a couple of the neighbours cats think they have right of passage) but it will probably remain living in the little bog tank I’ve set up.
I moved the two little kiwi plants out of the self watering pot as I’ve read that they don’t much like having their roots wet all the time. I lost two of them last year and that’s probably exactly why I did. But I’m learning! And I’ve learned that I planted the kiwi seeds, and the carnivorous plant seeds, and even some dragon fruit seeds all too early. I was anxious for spring to get here and should have waited for longer days and warmer nights. As a result none of them came up. OR did they? I still have quite a few seedlings that I cannot identify, yet. Just gotta be patient and see what comes of them.
There are a couple of sweetpea plants that are barely 4 inches tall but they are unmistakable even as seedlings. I transplanted them to a bigger pot just on their own, and the other plants with them were creeping myrtle seeds, which I have put in a wall hanging plant basket. Not a great description, I’ll post a pic. It basically looks like a fabric shoe rack from a flea market, but made of dark absorbent material similar to felt. I will move some of the other items into the other 5 pockets once they get a bit taller.
My lemon tree still has evidence of that honey fungus, and the online boffins suggest changing the soil as well as the frequent neem oil sprays. So I did that with fresh compost while I was putting together the three fence pots of cosmos. No sign of scale or black fungus, so its just watch and see. It seems to be liking the sunny days outside and I believe there is a tiny bit of new growth.
I rescued a foxglove from a nearby farm last summer but it never did well after transplanted. I wrote it off. Today I discovered bits of it have come back and that makes me very happy. I will try to find a shady corner of the garden where it can flourish. I am always grateful when I get a second chance to make something grow.
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