Don't be fooled. Inside this thin coating of sweetness is a fiery core of total insanity.

Friday, April 13, 2018

Four Friday Follow-ups

It's Friday and I thought I'd post a few follow-ups to show how things have progressed in my garden and greenhouse.

Begonia Tubers

Back in February I posted here about potting up Begonia tubers. I had bought some new ones and pulled last year's out of the garage and into the greenhouse when they showed signs of resprouting. They're coming along just fine, most of them.

Last year's Begonias looking pretty lush

Most of this year's have sprouted and will soon have to be potted up into bigger pots and maybe given a little flower fertilizer




Fat-Bottomed Girl

My Adenium obesum lost almost all its leaves back in the fall when I moved it into the greenhouse. I posted about it here. It had an unopened flower that never did open and one single leaf that held on all winter, while the plant waited in a strange state of suspended animation. I wasn't sure if it was dead or alive. My Pachypodiums always lose their leaves after being moved into the greenhouse, but they almost immediately produce a flush of new ones.

She finally leafed out again and apparently is very much alive and getting ready to bloom.

Ruby, my fat-bottomed girl (so-named because she has a caudex)


I stuck a pair of eyeglasses around her caudex and a Black Panther figurine into her pot as an ornament (I really want a Freddie Mercury figurine, but for now Black Panther will do)

The Cutting Garden

Most of the seeds under all of those berry bottom cloches have sprouted, but I haven't taken them off yet. Something (maybe a crow) has chewed on the Lupine seedlings whose cloches I removed a few weeks ago. They only tried a few at the edge, not all of them, so possibly it's some other creature. The back garden is fenced, so I'm voting for one with wings. I'm going to leave the coverings on as long as possible.


Lots of sprouts

Chewed Lupines

I also moved some Lunaria annua seedlings into the bed since the dried coin-shaped seedheads make good vase material


The Lost Bottle Bed

I just finished redoing this bed a few weeks ago, and I'm already rethinking whether there are enough shrubs in it. The area directly behind the fence is deep shade. I've been wondering if a Hinoki cypress might work there.


Trying to decide if this is a Hinoki cypress size hole

In the photo above there is a shrub just behind and to the right of the broken pot -- a Euonymus hamiltoniana ssp. sieboldianus whose tag claims it will reach 15 feet.

The Dicentra formosa that I transplanted into this bed are thriving so far

Some of them didn't miss a beat and are flowering

Dicentra formosa is one of those plants that grows from the tiniest piece of root. I'm hoping it spreads to make a nice carpet, along with the Oxalis oregana interplanted with it.

Back Garden Bed By the Fence

I spent Thursday on my hands and knees crawling around this bed in the back garden pulling weeds -- a combination of shotweed, purple deadnettle and dandelions -- in a misty rain. But the area is underneath Douglas firs so it's somewhat protected, and I know if it's not a day of driving rain I can probably get something accomplished in the back garden under the trees if I dress warmly enough.

This bed is very wide, and has been redone often -- too many times to count -- in the 9 years we've lived here. The last time I posted about it here. I may have finally gotten the plants right, but I figure now it's time to put a path through it. It's too deep to access easily, so a path through the middle is on the To Do List.


I'd like to put a path here, up between those two rocks, past the Douglas fir and headed toward the dragon's egg at the far end


There's plenty more going on around here, but that's it for now. How bout you?