Why I Oughta...

In our indoor container garden collection, we have a few succulents that we've picked up over the years including the Burro's Tail that I bought home from the office and (just last week) began the process of planting some cuttings.   Upstairs, in the sunniest spot, we also have a container of Firesticks Cactus that I planted in 2018 .  I managed to drag that Firesticks outside last Summer and then back in before Fall and it seems to have thrived the past year or two.  It is pretty big and likely in need of a new container.  But, more on that succulent in a separate post. This is about a new (to us) succulent that I picked up recently at Home Depot.  It was a $3.98 2.5" plastic nursery pot that has these plump, crinkle-ended leaves/lobes.  For now, I decided to just leave the Key Lime Pie succulent in the plastic nursery pot and stuck it inside a larger, terra cotta container that doesn't (currently) have a hole punched out of the bottom, but appears to be able to have

Like a lot of you guys, the year of working-from-home caused me to have a little work plant casualty.  On the ledge at the Aon Center, I was keeping a couple of pots/containers of a Burro's Tail succulents that when we SUDDENLY decided to just stop going into the office were mostly abandoned.  The last time that I posted about them was at the end of October 2018 here on the blog .  Well, thanks to our office services team, one of those containers somehow survived the Spring and Summer, so when I ventured into the office in Fall of 2020, I was able to bring one of them home and nurse it along this Winter.   I mostly neglected it the past four months, giving it occasional water.  And, here's what it looks like now: The container that I have on hand is the very one that I started with cuttings from the parent succulent that I was given by a co-worker who was leaving .  If you look at the bottom of the green bin that this container is sitting in, you can see a bunch of lobes of th

 Over the weekend - without much thought - I picked up a tiny Maidenhair Fern and potted it up in a six-inch clay pot and added it our little collection of house plants.  My thought was that this would MOSTLY replace the dead fern that I tried to bring back this Winter  and would live next to the potted-up wire vine that I treated similarly .  I opted against using the traditional clay saucer for this one, opting instead for a small plastic container to keep the water from running out AND keeping the humidity level up higher.  One of the things I know about Maidenhair Ferns is that they're temperamental and like to have a higher degree of humidity around them.  Being in clay pot isn't ideal, but it is the cheapest of the pots, right?  It was just $2.99 and quite small, but looks nice potted up.  Here, below, is where its stands as of today.   Like, umm, everyone, I was naturally drawn to the light, airy leaflets of the Maidenhair that kind of dance when you blow on them.   Wha

 It seems that I *may* have made a mistake with the fern that I tried to rescue by transplanting it into a different container and giving it a haircut.  Back a couple of weeks ago, I posted a photo of this small (miniature?) fern that I had brought inside before the frost and neglected all Fal l.  It was dry, brittle and showing a lot of stress.  I decided to try to bring it back by feeding it with some composted manure and trimming off all the dead fronds.  I then put it out on the screened porch where the humidity level is a bit higher than in the house.   Unfortunately, it seems like we've seen no positive growth since the transplant and haircut.   There are still come greyish-green fronds hanging around that aren't totally brittle, but no new growth.  This is what it looks like 15 days post haircut.  Not promising.   I brought all three of the containers that were on the screened porch INSIDE the house late last week since the forecast was calling for negative temperatures

Yesterday, I shared a photo of a newly cropped small fern that I tried to bring inside this Fall and promptly neglected .  I mentioned that I repotted it, fed it and the lopped off the dead stuff.  I've put it out on the screened porch in the hopes that between the moderate temperatures, the higher humidity (than inside) and the light, it will recover with some new growth.   In that post, I mentioned that this fern was the second transplant project from outside with the first one being successful.  Hence, me thinking I could revive the fern in the same way. *That* first successful transplant was a Wire Vine plant. (or Angel Vine). It is named Muehlenbeckia complexa and Nat had it out in one of our planters on our front porch this Summer.  We dug it up, transplanted it and...mostly forgot about it.  I noticed it was stressed, so I transplanted it, gave it some composted manure, watered it pretty good and gave it a haircut.  I lop'd off all of the shoots that were bare and cut

One of the girls bought a small/miniature fern for their fairy garden in the Summer of 2019 and I somehow was able to yank it out of the garden, pot it and keep it alive all last Winter into this past Spring.  When the warm weather arrived, I put the pot out on the back stoop and the fern seemed to be happy.  I brought it in this fall and promptly neglected it.  I came across it and noticed that it was dried out, brittle and rootbound.  I repotted it and moved it to something larger, fed it with some composted manure and put it out on the screened porch.  It looked like this after repotting: It isn't happy looking.  That's (I think) a combination of neglect and the stress of coming inside to deal with the dry, indoor air and what I'm guessing is some level of dormancy-induced decline due to Winter.  All of the leaves are dry and a lot of the fronds are brittle.  If you pinch them and slide up/down, you can peel off the leaves on about 1/3rd of the fronds.   I decided to do

 I'm due for a final 2020 to-do list recap, but before I get to that full list, I wanted to put down a post here about just one item:  #12 - Paint/stain the Patio Wood Container.   Here's a link to a late-season (October) checkin on the list that at the time showed #12 being left uncompleted .  Here, below, is a photo of said wooden patio container and one of our larger glazed patio containers tucked in next to it.  And guess what?  It is STILL unstained.   I started this project back in Summer of 2019 - as it was an ask from Natalie. I used treated lumber and based on everything that I read, you're supposed to wait a while to let the treated lumber to breath on its own BEFORE staining it.  That meant that I let myself off the hook that first year.  But this year?  NO excuse.  Other than COVID, I guess. Posting this mostly to SHAME MYSELF into getting this back on the 2021 to-do list and to get it done in the Spring.  Nat wants it stained black - so I just need to get to th

Back in October of this year, I posted a photo of the new growth on this unknown conifer that is in a large container on our patio and remarked at how good it was doing this growing season .  I had overwintered this in our screened porch last year - which was OPEN to the elements, but it was protected from some of the harsher aspects of Winter including a little bit of the wind being cut down and a roof over the top of it.   I mentioned that I was going to bring this one in this season , too.  But, I was just outside and saw that I had forgotten to bring this one in and it now looks like this:  almost maroon-ish in color.   What is going on?  Drying out?  Sun scald?  Winter damage?  Seems a little early, doesn't it?   I'm going to bring this in to the porch TODAY and give it a little water to see how it responds.  

 On our back patio, we have a container with a small conifer that I'm not sure the cultivar.  I bought it last year and worked on it a little bit - as there is some wire on parts of it - but I'm not sure which kind of juniper it really is at this point.  I have two junipers - Youngstown and Chinese - that I have in containers that I planted in the ground .  My plan is to dig them up next Spring and give them another haircut/style.  My Bonsai journey has been one of buying some nursery stock initially and KILLING my first one.  In a matter of months.  Due to over-pruning it, I think.  As a result of that experience, I've kinda taken the 'lazy bonsai' route on these - by giving them an initial wiring up and then planting them (in their containers to restrict the roots) in the ground (or in this case in a larger container).  By next year, all three will hopefully able to handle a little bit of pruning. Here is the unknown Juniper that has grown nicely in the container

Documenting here, in the [garden diary] our front yard cast iron urn that I've planted the past few years.  I bought it off of Craigslist from a lady in LaGrange in the Spring of 2018 and we've kept it adjacent to our driveway ever since.  I'm not sure it is the best location, but for a variety of reasons, it has stayed put.  One change this year:  it is now sitting on top of a larger, square paver to give it a proper base. Here's what we had in the urn last year - which was a bit more colorful. This year, there are three plants in the container - with two of them being replicated from our backyard container that is based on a color pattern we saw in Paris at Luxembourg Gardens . This has a larger Blue Salvia (Salvia farinacea), in front a red Wave petunia, and tucked into the upper left is a small Foxtail Fern.  We've had Foxtail Ferns in containers the past few years and have had mixed results - depending on how tightly we've packed them into the

There I was...watching Martha Stewart talk about gardening on a segment previewing her new show on CBS Sunday Morning when she came FOR ME.  Like...came FOR ME. Ummm.. Hi there.

Here's one of our patio containers that we recently planted for the Summer.  It is a purple, yellow and red combination - which we've mirrored elsewhere - based on a bed we saw in Luxembourg Gardens in Paris.  This container has a larger Blue Salvia  (Salvia farinacea), a yellow Zinnia and in front a red Wave petunia. We've planted this large container every year - always different - but this feels like a nice combination of sun-happy annuals that should flower all season long. Notably, the Salvia (Salvia farinacea) is a perennial in warmer zones (8-10), but is treated as an annual up here in Zone 5b.  With the newly installed Eze Breeze windows in our screened porch, I'm wondering if we move our containers in there this Winter...if we'll get a little bit of a 'greenhouse effect' with the wind cut down?  Maybe this is a container that I should test to see if the Saliva will come back. I'll post a few more photos of our other containers on the pat

It has been just about a month since the last time I posted photos of our 2019/2020 Winter Amaryllis flowers in bloom .  At that time, the largest bulb - the Cherry Nymph was going strong and was putting on a pretty great (red) show.  The rest of the bulbs were mostly exhausted.  Fast forward to this week and you can see that the Cherry Nymph is STILL going strong - with a set of double blooms.  This late into February.  Pretty great. You might also note that there's a stick that I stuck into the soil and then used some wire to affix the stem to the stick and keep the bulb from falling over - and the entire pot from flipping over, too. I didn't use the alcohol mixture on this one and it shows:  it is long, tall and leggy.  And the blooms being SO BIG means that the thin stalk stems can't support the flowers.  Lesson learned:  focus on the alcohol mix all the way through the growing season. Below you'll see another look at these flowers.  I've come to the co

A couple of days ago, I shared some photos of the flowers of the 'double blooming' Cherry Nymph Amaryllis that I planted in November.  I only showed the flowers, but wanted to revisit (for record-keeping sake) all four of the bulbs for height and vitality in January.  The last time I posted photos of these flowers was on January 2nd.  You can see the photo of these same four flowers 2.5 weeks ago here .  Left-to-right, the flowers are:  Apple Blossom (Menards), Red Lion (Menards), Star of Holland (Menards) and Cherry Nymph (Wannemakers). Some notes:  The Red Lion bloomed first and exhausted itself first, too.  This had two stalks/stems. The Apple Blossom went second and is also exhausted.  However, this was the only one that had just one stalk/stem. The Red Lion has a bud that is about to burst open.  It was behind the other two, but the second stem/stalk will have flowers (I think) into February. And, finally, the heights were all over the place:  the Red Lion w

While two of the four Amaryllis bulbs are done flowering, the largest - and most expensive - bulb (bought at Wannemakers) is blooming.  It is a Cherry Nymph bulb that is billed as a 'double blooming' Amaryllis and the moniker is holding true for this beauty. Potted on November 21st, 2019 . A week in, this bulb showed no signs of growth . Mid-December and the tip of the first bud was just emerging from the bulb . Right before Christmas, it was just about 4" tall and thickening up the stem . On January 2nd, the first stem was up and trying to get ready to open . For reference, my large bulb in 2019 was just beginning to open up at end of December . On January 20th of 2019 - 25+ days past Christmas, the bulb was in bloom . And it was still throwing off flowers well into March .  Yeah....March. So, this one is blooming (for the first time) about the same time as last year's large bulb.  Will it stay blooming until March?  We'll watch and see. This r

This is the seventh post in the series on this year's (welp...technically, I suppose they're *last* year's) amaryllis bulbs.  The last time we looked that them was right before Christmas on December 21st and 20th .   On the 20th, I showed how the Star of Holland was blooming in a spectacular fashion with four blooms on two stems.  Then on the 21st, I included a few photos showing the progress of the other three amaryllis for the season; Cherry Nymph, Apple Blossom and Red Lion . We went away for a couple days for the New Year and came home to the four pots you see at the top of this post.  On the far left is the Apple Blossom.  Has fully bloomed and is a beautiful white with some red/pink lines running through it and a light green center.  It is much more pale than the Star of Holland.  I also had just one stem come up on this bulb.   But, it also was the one that was timed the best.  It had it's first open bloom arrive and open fully on Christmas Eve.  N

Yesterday, I posted some photos of the four-bloom Star of Holland Christmas Amaryllis and how it has given us some really nice red and white color flowers in the week leading up to Christmas.  Today, you can see the other three bulbs. This is now the fifth post 1 on these bulbs as a group for the season.  Starting with  the original post in this year's (2019) series of Amaryllis bulbs  that shows off all four of the containers.  Then,  by the end of November this Star of Holland had gone far ahead of the other ones .  Once the bud emerged, I switched to a diluted alcohol/water mixture to try to stunt the height on the stalk(s). And, on December 11th of this year,  I shared photos of the Star of Holland about to unfurl and show off for the Christmas season . And yesterday (as I mentioned in the lede here), was the full-show of the Star of Holland . As for the other three bulbs, let's look at where they are in the photo at the top of the post. The tall stem in th

The photo above is from the plans at Gardener's World that were our inspiration Back in April of this year, I published a list of seven additional or addendum items in my Spring/Summer To-Do List that included: "Work out the patio container situation" .  We had a hodgepodge of containers in our back patio and Nat wanted to do something about it.  She shared a few photos of planters that she liked and we came across this plan from Gardener's World that featured a simple timber planter .  You can see it above and how it features a two-tiered planter with three sections. After noodling it a bit and altering the plans a little, we ended up trying our own hand at making a similar patio planter.    Off I went to Menards and I ended up coming home with a van full of 2x3's of treated lumber. That 'altering' of the plans included Nat's decision to lop off the top level and just make it a flat-topped planter.  Here's how it ended up: Because I

Just like I did last year, I planted a few Elephant Ear bulbs in containers on our back patio.  I like the way they add a little bit of tropical interest and large leaf contrast to the pots and I think that I'll likely continue to add them (or something like them) going forward because this is the second year that I've had success with them.  Above (and below), you can see the first of our ordinary Colocasia start to unfurl.  I also planted a blackstem variety, but I don't remember which container that was in and I'm *pretty sure* that this isn't it.  At least...the stem isn't currently black, ya know? Here's a look at similar Elephant Ears in a container on our back patio last Summer (2018) .  And here's a peek at all of our containers from our back patio last July .  If/when the Black Stem Elephant Ear makes an appearance, I'll post a few photos.    

Early last Spring, I found a large cast iron urn planter on Craigslist in LaGrange and added it to our front yard landscape .  It is BIG and HEAVY and it hasn't moved since we filled it last year.   Nat has expressed that she doesn't love it in this location, but I haven't moved it yet.  And, the bad news is that I filled it this season already.  This post is to document what this thing looks like in June of 2019. You can see that I've gone ahead and applied the whole thrill/fill/spill thing.  As we get later into the heat of the Summer and Fall, I'll swap these out for something else.