Spring has sprung outside and in my house!

After dissapearing from the blog scene for a while......I am back.  Nothing was really happening in my plant world, and life got pretty busy there for a while.  I moved again into a more permanent house, and my plants love it!  After watching them all do nothing or die for months, it has been nice to see them take off in this new house.  The lighting in this place is close to perfect, its almost like having a sunroom.

Quince Tree

Hoya Carnosa

So here's a few pic's of everything that is starting to bloom.....some in the house, some outside.  Spring in the maritimes is just the most beautifu season I have ever seen.....much different than out West.

This is the first time I have ever seen one of these bugs in my life......needless to say, I stayed in that night.....it died on my steps, and was pretty nasty to wake up to.  I am told it's a June bug......it definetely looks like it crawled up from hell and onto my screen door.  I didnt know what the hell I was looking at when I saw it.....thought I was hallucinating little devil bugs.....lol.

African Violet

Tulips

African Violet

Quince tree flowers

Hoya Carnosa

Hoya Meliflua

African Violet Flowers Slide Show

This slide show thing has got me fascinated, I remember doing this in college with power point, and it could get pretty tricky trying to learn all the bells and whistles of the program. Nowadays, it is just too easy.

This slide show is all African Violet Flowers from my newly destroyed collection. I may never see these ones bloom again.....unless I got a leaf before they all rotted and babies spring for me. Enjoy!!

CopyCat slideshow

Ya, Ya....I am a copycat. I have nothing blooming or really happening, but while blog reading today, I came across this post, and absolutely loved the sideshow, so I had to do my own. Mine is different in the sense that I did a puzzle sort of slide show, so it makes for a bit of a guessing game.

Look for an AV slide show in the days to come too, I just can't resist.

Blooming right now:

Pink & white azalea
hoya shepperdi
hoya lacunosa
hoya carnosa
hoya compacta
lipstick plant (lobbianus)








lipstick plant (mona lisa)
lipstick plant (black pagoda)
numerous african violets





goldfish plant (nematanthus)
red philodendron
calamondin

June Blooms

Noid African Violet

Crown of Thorns ( this has bloomed non stop since I got it a year ago,
it is never without some flowers)

Calamondin

Hoya Shepperdi

Hoya Lacunosa

Noid African violet

Aeschynanthus "Black Pagoda"

Hoya Compacta

Hoya Heuschkeliana

Nematanthus aka Goldfish plant

African Violets & Powdery Mildew

Recently I noticed some odd looking dust on a few of my African Violets. I thought at first that maybe this was a trait some of them had, it didn't look terrible, just hairier. I noticed it again a few days later on a couple other AV's and decided to look more into it, it just didn't look right. I went to Dr.Optimara, and ruled out alot of things. I was left with either botrytis or powdery mildew, both common when it comes to AV's. The pic below shows some of the barely visible dust.

I was having trouble deciding which one of these ailments it was. Botryris causes a fuzzy gray mold, whereas the powdery mildew looked more like a dust. But since I have never actually seen the difference, I was torn. Both are caused by lack of air circulation and high humidity conditions. I am willing to say that yes I have a space problem, they had been placed quite close together, and the humidity has gone up in the past few weeks with Spring coming on.


I decided to get an answer on a gardening forum I frequent and it seems almost certain that this powdery mildew. I had heard to spray Lysol around the affected plants, and wait a couple days. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. The next step from there would be to treat with a fungicide, or if all else fails, toss the plant (Take a leaf or two though).


I had a bottle of concentrated lysol, and I mixed one capful to 500ml of water. and sprayed them down. I made sure to get underneath the leaves and flowers and all along the stems. The next day they was a dramatic improvement already. A couple of them got another spray down, but it seemed much better that the previous day.


I had to see what kind of damage the lysol would do to the flowers so I didn't disbud them right away. The pic above shows the damage done by the lysol spray. The leaves had no damage, and the powdery mildew seems to be gone. I spaced them out a little better and I have been trying to open the windows more often to keep to keep the air circulation going a little better. Right now, I would say that the Lysol worked, and it isn't so bad to have to deal with. The worst part was having to remove the flowers from many of them.


The pic above and below this paragraph are pics of the piles of flowers I had to remove from my plants. It didn't seem like a lot until I starting get a pile on the table. The pic below shows some of the size variations in the flowers of AV's. Some are almost an inch and a half across (pink fantasy upper right corner), where others are only a half inch (purple double in the center).

More Blooming Av's!

As I promised, here are more pic's of the Av's that are blooming for me right now. I left 3 out because I don't find them to be the nicest ones.....they are kind of plain. I also have duplicates of a few.


The Av in the above pic has bloomed for me once before, a couple months ago. It is one of my favorites. The Av in the pic below has flowered for me before as well. Again, one of my fav's.


The pic below is a new bloomer for me. The flowers instantly got my attention, especially since some of them are pure white, and others have some purple in them. I have never seen this occurrence before in Av's. It has a really unique look to it with the different colored flowers.


Below is a pic of my only "named" Av: Very Berry. The flowers on this one are almost wax-like. Even though I love the flowers on this one, I don't really like it's foliage. The leaves are quite long and it seems to be a large Av, rather than a standard or mini.


The pic below is one of my favorites as well. I just love the fantasy markings and the way it sparkles. This one makes me think Chimera because of the stripes of purple it has. Only one of the flowers on this Av is open, which makes me really curious about the other flowers. Will they have the stripe as well? Of course I am also going to take a leaf from this one, and see what blooms.


And last but not least is another one of my favorites. These flowers are quite large, close to an inch in diameter. This one has variegated leaves as well, which make it quite beautiful even if there are no flowers. Notice in the pic below that the Av on the left has semi double flowers. The flower in the middle is also semi double. The flower on the right is single, only 5 petals. I think it is so cool to see such variations on the same plant.


Up until a couple years ago I had no interest in Av's. I didn't even think they were that pretty. I am not a fan of fuzzy or hairy leaves. I had heard that they required special care, and could be a little tricky to grow. So I had to try it out, I had to know how hard they were to grow. I had to know what people saw in this plant. Well now I love Av's, still not a fan of the fuzzy leaves, but the flowers are so pretty. I always seem to have a few of them that are in flowering mode. Now I can't imagine not growing them. I am such a sucker....lol.

I'm back!!! With lots of Blooming African Violets!!

OMG! The past three weeks have been horrible without internet. I have missed so many posts from my numerous favorite blogs, and missed so many threads from the forums I frequent. I am going to need a week just to catch up. I am so glad to be back and posting again, and I am so glad to be back in the World Wide Web.

So many of my plants are starting to take off again, while many others are starting to form buds. It's starting to feel like Spring, despite the dump of snow we just had yesterday.


I have never had so many African Violets in bloom before. I think I have at least ten of them throwing flowers out right now. Some of them I have never seen before, and didn't even realize how pretty they were going to be. The African Violets in the above pic and the pic below were birthday presents from my family. I can't take any credit for these ones, but the rest I can....lol.


This purple AV is one that I have never seen before. I planted the leaf almost 11 months ago. This is it's first bloom. It's color is more the dark violet/blue color that I see in many other AV's. I dis budded this one because I am going to try and grow a few of my AV's on a "show" schedule, with hopes of lots of blooms all at once, like you often see in AV shows. I would think even the everyday violets we all see in the stores are grown with a similar technique, so that when it is time, they have a ton of blooms. The ones I have grown from leaf are putting out flowers, but only a few, I want to get the "Oh Wow!" effect.


These fantasy violets are constantly flowering, it is quite a reliable bloomer. It isn't one I get tired of seeing either. I favor bi-colored and fantasy AV's, quite honestly if they aren't semi-double, or double (blooms), or bi-colored in some way, they barely get my attention. Kind of like how I feel about the AV in the above pic, it's okay, but it's so plain. As the collection grows, some plants have to make the move....lol. Impress me, or I am giving you away.


The last pic has also become a very reliable bloomer, almost too much so. I had laid a leaf or two of this last year. Now that everything from that time period is starting to bloom, I seem too have way too many of these guys. I have seven or eight blooming right now, and I have given away close to thirty (though not all of them were this particular type). It's starting to get a bit boring.....lol.

I have more Av's blooming right now that I will post pics of. I also have quite a few other plants that are budding or are in the process of flowering. I shouldn't run out of things to write about for a while......since I am still going through internet withdrawal, I'll be sticking around this time. LOL.

Thanks to everyone that inquired about my absence, I will be reading a lot of blogs over the next few days, I am so eager to see what I missed.

Blooming African Violets!!

Such wonderful, reliable bloomers. Even in the dead of Winter they bring a smile to my face.


This pink AV has been camera shy for the past few weeks. (Can't get a decent pic.....dammit)

I have a couple clones of this one. It was one of my firsts, and has proven to be a steady reliable bloomer.

This is the first time I have seen this flower. Grown from a leaf 10 months ago. Something Victorian about this one.

I love these fantasy markings.

I am a total sucker for the geneva edging too (white edges),

Same flower taken with different settings on my cam. The true color is just like the top one. Now if only I could remember which settings I used....lol