The mystery of the wilting Azalea

A few months ago I could not figure out why my azalea kept wilting on me. All of a sudden it would just be limp, and the whole plant looked close to its death. Not having much experience with azalea's, I didn't understand what was going on. Now that I own a few, and have also seen a friend caring for hers, I have it figured out.


I bought the above pictured azalea a couple weeks ago. I couldn't resist it. I got it covered in buds, and I knew how beautiful my neighbors was while it was in flower. I had one of mine re flower for me but not even close to the amount of flowers this one has. A friend of mine has a bi-colored azalea, and it is so pretty, that I had to get another (it kind of replaced my white one that I froze to death a couple weeks ago)


I think that I like azalea's more than any other flower other than a hoya, of course. I like that they are big showy flowers and they come out in abundance. I like that they have no scent, they never become over powering. I like that there are so many different types and colors, there is so much variety. And now I finally realize they are not too hard to get to re bloom, if you don't freeze them to death first. It was only last week, and I really thought we had seen our last frost. Boy, I was wrong...lol.


Anyways, I went way off topic on the wilting mystery. It was a watering problem. These guys use so much water when they are flowering that they get watered almost every 36 hours (on really hot days, like the past few). As soon as they need water, they start to wilt, and it seems to happen so fast. I wouldn't think it does them any good to wilt (the soil isn't completely dry, but bordering on moist, so I know the roots are not going completely dry), and giving them water seems to perk them back up. Now seeing three different azalea's in flower at the same time, I believe I have it figured out.


I knew they were heavy feeders, so I give them 1/4 strength fertilizer every watering. I did not realize that they used so much water. There is a difference in the pot's weight after 24 hours without water. I have to say that this is the first plant I have noticed that used so much water. Maybe because it so obviously tells you it needs it by wilting so fast. It's kind of a neat phenomenon.


I think these are just so pretty when they flower, I am so glad they are what they are. They capture the whole room's attention almost instantly. I could own a million of these, and still love seeing them flower.

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).

A Murder of sorts

What a graceful life it had. I never knew it's name up until a few weeks ago. It decided to put on an inquisitive show, which made me question it's character.....I didn't know it well.....What iwas it? Luckily, GardenWeb has a "Name that plant" forum, and they identified it as a Pepperomia (possibly glabella). What ever, it was one of those plants that I didn't really like, but my daughter decided to keep in her room. Everything seems to flower in her room, I just don't get it. I wasn't really impressed with the flower. C'mon, seriously,I like Hoya's, Schlums & African violets, and this was some weird little green thing, that kind of freaked me out a bit. It doesn't even compare to the flowers of hoya's, schlums, and gesneriads.......it would be like comparing a squirrel to a pancake......exactly my point.....it just can't be done, it makes no sense....lol.



I have been telling my daughter that she can't let her plants go bone dry, but at the same time said don't over water them either. So one day after school, she asked me if it was okay that her plants had been watered last night but she bottom watered them in a tray.....and they were still in the tray, full of water ( I admit to doing it too once in blue moon, and have never had consequences like this. When I saw her plant, I was in total shock. I had never seen a plant that went black like this. I have seen them rot, I have seen the effects of frost damage and I have seen them lose the will to live after being under and over watered. It was the oddest thing......it had to of been poisoning, it had to be murder. **LOL** I salvaged a few cuttings for her, but I didn't even check the roots out, it was way too far gone. And this is why we are told to never let plants sit in water for very long. An hour or two shouldn't hurt too much, but over 20 hours.....that tends to be a little too long. I guess it depends on the plant, and what you are using for mix, but generally this is frowned upon. Proof is in the photo below. A picture speaks louder than a thousand words.



I had mentioned in my post yesterday that the Dragon fruit seeds (Hylocereus) had started to sprout. When I went back and looked at my blog entry, I relized the seedlings were barely visible, so I took a few more shots today, with better close ups of the seedlings.




If you look really closely (clicking on the pic enlarges it for more detail), you can see that a few still have the seeds attached to them. Planting these particular seeds is a great thing to do with kids. My kids actually tried something new.....lol. They were amazed at this weird fruit I had brought home. The seeds are so viable that kids can plant them, and watch them grow, without testing their patience. Mine didn't even have the chance to ask "when are the seeds going to grow?" & "how much longer?"



So my hubby planted a few of these seeds in some rock wool, and they have sprouted already as well. We mentioned the thought of continuing these seeds in rock wool by buying a bigger cube of it (the ones in the pic are 1 inch by 1 inch), and letting them live in rock wool alone. We are going to try and get a hold of some bigger rock wool cubes. I think it will be fun to see what happens, and which ones grow better.

dAmN mEaLy bUgS! & Yellow Datura's

Damn I hate these things. They make my skin crawl, and it grosses me out to no end when I see them. Really, what is their purpose? Do they really need to be part of the food chain? Would the world collapse without them? Can they at least stay off MY plants? Especially the Hoya's?!?

I took it as a photo opportunity, and grabbed a couple pics. If you really want to see them up close and personal.....then click on the pics, either way they are still gross. Then I promptly did the q-tip dipped in alcohol thing. The alcohol just kind of melted the mealy away until it was a wee blob of brown. And of course every other mealy bug ran and hid away, because I can't find another. Now I will be on Mealy watch for a week. GROSS!!


On a better note.....Double Yellow Datura's. Found some seeds today. I am going to have the best flowers for miles around.....lol.

(photo courtesy of TM Seeds)

Caught a spider mite with my CAM!

SPIDER MITES!!

Well, I always wanted to see what these look like, other than their tell tale webs.......I finally got my chance.....lol. To the naked eye, any of what you see in this pic is a mere spec, other than the leaf veins.. I couldn't even say how much zoom was used, as it a combination of zoom & Photoshop (no editing was done to the pic, only resizing to blow up the pic).


Clicking on the image will bring up a bigger pic that you can see even more detail on.

What doesn't kill it will only make it stronger!?!

Let's talk about my Hoya compacta. It is in a 6inch pot, in the same mix that it came in from the nursery (which normally I change, because it tends to rot my plants over time). Although it is mostly a peat based mix, I have not had too many problems. It goes through water quite quickly because it is nearly potbound. I also have a severe under watering problem, as mentioned before, so I am doubting that the mold was caused by moisture, but what do I know?


Last week when I took it down to be watered, I noticed there was white mold growing on top of the soil. I flushed it well (it was pretty dry at this time), but when I watered it again tonight, there was more mold. Not as much, but enough just the same.


Well somewhere on the world wide web I read that cinnamon has anti fungal properties......so I gave my hoya a cinnamon dunk (I just hope the mold is fungal in nature). I sprinkled cinnamon on all the soil, and then flushed out the soil again. When that was done, I sprinkled some more cinnamon on only the mold, and hung it back up in it's place. It has been recommended to me that I re pot it with a more loose draining mix, but I really don't want to mess with roots right now, as it root bound enough to flower, but not so root bound that it won't take up water.


If by next week when I water, there is mold again, I am going to have re pot it in to my own mix. I am hoping the cinnamon works, since re potting, and combing through the roots to remove the old soil, is a time consuming task, and I always tend to break plants when I do this.

Wish me luck, and like I said, if the cinnamon doesn't kill the hoya, it will only make it stronger.

**Update** 20 days later, it needs water again. NO MOLD!! It worked. Cinnamon to kill mold, fungi, whatever it was. (Cappuccino cinnamon to be exact...lol).