IT's FLOWER TIME!!!

Apparently winter is proper time for flowers to bust out in my household. I think because of all the water and the shorter days, as soon as we brought in the Christmas cacti they EXPLODED into bloom, followed by my African violets and a few Lithops I picked up at Adams. I plan to post the living stones another time- the ones I fostered at college are HARD CORE DYING. I've lost so many. They shriveled up to nothing in slow painful deaths. I'm watering some even though its not the time of year to water them. I'm not sure how many will live to see the warm sun of spring.

Suburban Nature vs. House-Based Nature

There has been a lot of suffering by the plants as the summer has progressed. We move all houseplants outside during the summer as to give them nice air and sun while the weather's good. If I lived somewhere where it was nice all year round I don't know that I would have house plants- having them outside is lovely.

During the move and the summer, I got gradually used to the new demands of my 27 houseplants, no longer crowded on shelves in my south facing window at the dorm.

Towards the end of the school year I got some cool looking hens and chicks. all different colors all different sizes- they have pretty much unilaterally shrunk off and turned green. At my house there's the front porch- a brick oven of direct sunlight- and the back porch, a shady half lit twinkle paradise for shade loving moisture needing plants. My hens and chicks hate it in both places. In the front they get scorched. In the back they don't get enough sun and grow up up up and away out of their containers to grab the light.
Before:

After:



My kalanchoe has been nibbled and chewed on to excessive proportions- perhaps the shock will do the thing good. I need to chop it back like you're supposed to do every year. so far this summer besides getting eaten it has exploded to mammoth proportions. I have a kalanchoe bush on my hands back there.
Before:

After:



the Jades aren't doing well either. With all the rain they've doubled in size- right little trees back there- but they have been prey to deer...squirrels maybe a woodchuck or some kind. My favorite has but three leaves going for it now and it barked all up from the trauma.

My Christmas cactus was also shredded. I found it one morning broken in half on the ground, half of it unceremoniously chewed off and in pieces. The leaves grew roots, although the plant has looked decidedly shabbier since. Finally I brought Old Betty (a Christmas cactus) in- it too was getting ravaged- the damn thing was twenty or thirty years old I couldn't stand to let it get chewed to death after owning it for a month. A woman at work was moving and couldn't take it with her. It grew a bud from all the water and barked up from all the chewing but it seems to do ok on the tv cabinet by the window where it ended up inside.


this bottom one is my mom's prized christmas cactus with coral flowers. She hasn't seen it yet. when she does she will either cry or curse or maybe go squirrel hunting.

Surrounding the tastier plants with Aloes (which are growing like ragweed and overflowing their pots) which the animals seem to hate with a passion seemed a good way to stop the nibbling. Strategically placed spider plants, aloes and snake plants are keeping the animals away from the more tender succulents; the jades are hanging in there. I moved them inside- all the hurricane rain in the last three weeks has pretty much borderline root rotted a lot of them, we;ll let them dry out and pray they beat the other pest- My plant nibbling cats.

Winner: Suburban Nature has decimated the house nature, chewing, tearing and infecting it with a fiery passion i had not know deer, squirrels and mites to have before this long wet summer.

HEY--that "sempervivum" is actually a "Jovibarba heuffelii"!

See these healthy hens and chicks? OH MAN so lovely, nice green color. Then the pestilence hit, the accursed blight of the Mealy Bug. Our verminous foes rooted deep in the little folds of this plant, barely full grown, and formed enemy camps in the tight rosettes. What was once a perfectly clean, dainty and elegant plant was now a plant with "too many damned leaf crevices".



This was gently, then violently treated with the Atom Bomb of non-pesticide bug killers; Rubbing Alcohol (95%) and Ivory Dish Soap. I chose Ivory because it's easy on my skin but Tough On Bugs. When first attempts failed, I upped the ante and spritzed morning and night, for about 10 days, following each dose at the end of the day with a spray of clean water. I was terrified that this would reek havoc on my hens and chicks because they are after all succulents and constant drying of rubbing alcohol followed by being nightly drenched might do them in.

They recovered surprisingly well. The bugs could not survive what was essentially plant chemo, and are nowhere to be seen right now. I think they are just regrouping somewhere. I have in mind a Bug Camp, with a little Cocoon clad bug Napoleon.



The results above are after we lost the tiny guy, a casualty of war, he will be a sorely missed comrade. As his life slipped away his leaves turned brown, dry, crackly. His fellow plants seemed to be doing ok in the following months; one even sprouted some intense new growth while I was gone for a week. See it sticking up?

The weeks (week) went by since the new growth. Suddenly, the others took a dramatic turn for the worse. Their leaves were forming halos around the healthy plants of dying crackling foliage, it looks dehydrated, but was well watered...Confused I ran to the one place I thought an answer may exist! The internet. By the time I got to it, one of the groupings looked like this. Note: If your plant looks like this? It's already dead.



Notice its lack of roots.

It was then that I noticed on a sempervivum website- originally searching how to make my hens and chicks MAKE CHICKS ALREADY, that there are plants that are masquerading as hens and chicks. These plants also form tight rosettes, but don't make any "rollers" also known as chicks. They divide by forming a thick tuberous root and then splicing themselves, which is why hens and chicks grow flat, and these guys grow sideways, back to back. In the first pic at the top, notice that they seem to be growing like dice, with a plant on each face of a cube.

The way to get these apart you ask? NO IDEA. On the nets they say that you have to split them because they will not reach out and make new growth. Perhaps my plants are dying because they are too mounded? I'm not sure. They have adequate light, water, (read: not too much water, an appropriate amount of water)they are in adequate soil, and the chemo is a distant memory. I hacked em up anyway and threw them back in their pot. They are prolly gonna die, but they were anyway, so why not try a last ditch effort. Below is what they look like now. Soon there will most likely be one.



All the others tolerated both the chemo and a transplanting really well and are thriving. not putting out babies, but also not dying- Go ME! I'm not a total failure as a Plant Mommy!

New Addictions

I have found several new addictions to research lately:

One is orchids. While I have always believed they were extremely high maintenance to grow, some research has afforded me the knowledge that several species of orchid are grown easily indoors on coffee tables everywhere, bloom during the year and look nice between times. I am now, though I swore preciously that I never would, considering some orchid plants. Right now it would be a bad idea in my tiny one room apt, but in the future I assume I will have more room to spread out and orchids are on the list.

I also learned that other more finicky species of orchid grow in greenhouses, and thus have been researching good designs for table top or small tiered indoor greenhouses. I went so far as to design a tabletop greenhouse made out of mostly PVC pipes and thick plastic, lighter weight than glass, easy to work with and joint together, and sewable to put in plastic zippers for closures and vents. The tabletop part will become storage cabinets for various plant things, like an indoor garden shed and made from 2x4's, and the top of the PVC pipe holding the A frame up can also be useful for hanging baskets.

Since a greenhouse seemed like such a cool doable idea, I began doing more research on plants I had previously found unattractive, but now find fascinating- Pitcher plants. Between all the different species and various regions they are found in the research is both daunting and exciting. From the notoriously hard to grow Sun Pitcher of the high Andes to the flashy red Nepenthes Ventricosa of the lowland rain forests, to the Marsh Pitchers of the boggy parts of the USA, all are unique and fascinating. With the exception of the Sun Pitcher, these plants for the most part would enjoy the warm humid atmosphere of a casual greenhouse with lots of light.

So to would the many varieties of Venus flytrap-I have been interested in these plants before, but the fact that they require hibernation has always turned me off. It seems all carnivorous plants need hibernation with the exception of a few breeds of each. Getting over this to the fact that there will room in the back of a fridge for them someday, they are so intriguing I can't help but bookmark site after site of info on them. I have found also a wealth of information about sundews, of which the Cape Sundew sounds the most friendly to grow.

In my garden I am still fighting the accursed mealy bugs. Now with a spray bottle of rubbing alcohol, Ivory dish soap and water twice a day. I plan on repeating this procedure until the bastards are gone.

We also went to Lowe's to find Boyfriend a plant, and in the process I saw a plant I have never seen before. It had crinkly folded leaves, dark green, waxy and plastic feeling (it wasn't a fake plant like everyone else suggested though). I left without it, went home and researched the crap out of it, because it didn't have a name label. The plant I came up with- without having the plant in front of me for reference- was a variety of lipstick plant.

After a few days I couldn't take it any more, and I went back for it.
Je Presente:





I Googled the nursery name barely visible on the label and went through their stock a bit and POOF- It's a Rope Hoya, not a lipstick plant. The more I read about it, the less I know for fact.

Fact: I have unknowingly purchased for myself another wonderful succulent. But that's where the facts stop and the opinions begin.

Some people's grow like weeds, some people's never grow; some keep theirs outside all year round, others say they are strictly indoor plants. Some water theirs all the time, others mist them, others say don't water often because they are a succulent and they'll drown. Some people's bloom three times a year, others have never bloomed, or haven't bloomed in seven years. Some live for 60 years, others die in a month. There are east, west, and south facing windows, peppered with advice on how to grow the perfect rope Hoya, from bright sunlight to "never ever bright sunlight you'll scorch the leaves". I have never in my life researched a plant with more confusing and controversial rearing techniques in my life. I'm hoping I can keep mine alive long enough to find out what my specific plant likes- it seems each one is unique in its requirements. Should be interesting.

Pests and New Growth

Mealy bugs have taken over mostly all of my sempervivums (the pointy ones in front below, pictured months ago when they were healthy).


Once I figured out that they were not in fact produced by the plant, I trawled the internet looking for home remedies.

Result:
Rubbing Alcohol/ dish soap.

I applied with a brush and torched those suckers. I obviously didn't get them all because a few have begun reappearing which tells me I need to get a bottle and go to again. They nest in between the stalk and leaves and like for all the world like miniature tent caterpillars; fluffy white cocoons putting spots on the leaf surfaces of the plants.

All I can say about their ecological standing is that they have no natural enemies my ass. They attacked my baby hens and chicks and they are SO screwed. Found them on my infant jades this morning as well making white residue all over them and chilling in the cracks between their stems and leaves. I may have to give every plant the once over.

The lithops are dividing well, some having twins most having just one "baby". Lithops Karasmontana is all tall and spry and leggy and I can't seem to get it enough sun even though it sits in it all day. The one pictured is a lithops dorothae that was planted as an adult back in September. each photo is around a month or so apart. This is generally how these plants grow, close to the ground sprouting leaves from the middle.









My hawarthia retusa is putting out babies which is nice to see.

My African violets that are pains in the asses and won't flower even though it's been a year since they stopped...one has a bloom. a single sickly looking purple flower. This identifies her as Yolanda. I stuck a jobe stick in there over break and voila, a few weeks later one bloom.



The white one still churns out flowers like it's its job.