My House Happenings

I had so many random pics that didn't necessarily need a whole post, so I lumped them together and one whole post. So many little things are going on right now, and so other things just are and deserve a pic.


My lipstick plant has a few flowers coming these past few weeks. It looked liked it might go into full bloom, but it has blasted many buds. It might get to partial bloom, and still put on a mini show, but nothing like some of the shows I have seen these plants put on. Still it is the first time I have seen this plant get this far into bloom since I have had it.

My variegated rubber tree completely stopped growing this past winter, but has begun to start growing now that spring has really arrived. I have read that it is quite hard to get these to branch, they tend to just keep growing straight up until they are quite large and mature. Mine has branched. I am quite pleased because it won't grow so straight and lanky like they tend to do. I hope the other two trees in the pot would branch as well.


A few of the jade leaves I got a few months ago have sprouted new little plantlets from the base of the original leaf. This cultivar of jade, pictured here, has the neatest fingers like leaves. The tips of them are a dark red, giving them the coolest look.


My dragon fruit cutting, hylocereus undatus, has an odd growth coming in on it. It isn't growing from the side joints like I have seen other branches form on. I have never seen this on any of my epiphytic cacti before. Maybe it's a new branch, maybe not.....only time will tell.


Back in my little world of hoya's, I have a heutschkeliana that looks like it might be dying. A little odd since it is finally spring and most of my other plants are starting to take off. I thought maybe I had let it go too dry, but it still looks like overwatering to me, and that just seems unlikely in this case. All I can do is keep an eye on it and hope for the best.


My hoya compacta is budding, only from one peduncle, but still. This is one of my favorite hoya's. The flowers look alot like my KQ, and smell nearly the same too. They both are reminiscent of chocolate. I would have thought my carnosa would have smelt like chocolate more than these ones, but I was quite wrong, as carnosa seems to smell more floral-y than I expected.


My hoya carnosa flowers are starting to get the messy drippy look now. I think they still look amazing almost more so with the clear sap dripping from it. I even think the dead and gray one in the background looks stunning. This was the hoya that smelled alot more floral-y than I expected. It was a nice scent, but I am not into floral scents like I am say a fruity or sweet smell.

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.

Green Thumb Sunday.....Winter Bloomers

I am so glad that there are certain types of plants that can and will bloom in the dark days of Winter. I get nervous when the days get colder and darker thinking it will be months before I see flowers, but this never happens. Reason......because there are plants that flower under less light than others, and there are plants that are considered short day plants (which means they need so many hours of darkness to flower, such as a schlum or kalanchoe).

The plants I have seen flower over the winter, that are in my collection are:

African Violets
Various Lipstick plants (Aechynanthus)
Azaleas
Schlums (Holiday Cacti)
Kalanchoe
Goldfish plants (Nematanthus)
Fuchsia
String of Hearts (Ceropegia Woodii)
Crown of Thorns (Euphorbia milli)
Passion Vine (Passiflora)
Poinsettia

The above links will take you to some of my older blog posts, each one having a picture of the
flower.

I know there are many more winter blooming plants such as Mandevilla, Cyclamen and some begonias. There are many articles to check out on the net that will help to determine which plants flower in the winter.

Fuchsia

Sclumbergera

Happy Green Thumb Sunday!!

Jade cuttings

I like Jades (Crassula), and there are more varieties out there than I knew about. I have had the regular type, crassula ovata fro some time now. When I got it, I split it up into a few pots, giving my daughter a couple, and leaving myself with one. Well that one got severly damaged by the frost this past fall, and it might have made it, but it slowly kept rotting away and I eventually threw it away. The other couple that my daugher has tended to are doing well. I also have the Crassula ovata "tri-color", but it quite small and just started to grow, as it is a new cutting as well. I like it, I think the variegation is quite pretty. Here is a pic of it below.


Recently I got another cutting if the tri color Crassula, as well as a couple leaves from the Crassula cultivar "gollum". This particular one is quite unique, with long almost finger like leaves. I have seen pics of this one grown as a bonsai specimen and I think they are just the coolest looking plants. A jade in flower is a really stunning thing to see.


The "secret" I guess to cacti and succulent cuttings is to let them callous over and then plant them in dry potting mix. They are quite susceptible to root rot, thus the reason to let them callous over first. Well, I have not succeeded in this callousing over thing, and only have success by just laying the cuttings on top of some moist potting mix. I find my cuttings go soft and mushy before they even have a chance to callous over. My first tri color cutting was left out to callous over, and once it started wilting I laid it on some potting mix, and it rooted quite quickly. So I will stick to this method, even though it is not the "recommended" method.

I really hope the cuttings root, especially the "gollum" cultivar. As soon as I see roots, the camera will be out and I will take some pics.

Pointsettia & Crown of Thorns Blooming!

I have never really paid any attention whatsoever to Pointsettia's and I want to emphasize this. I knew what they were, but that was about all. Pft.....I thought people bought them for the flowers.........how ignorant I can be....lol. The foliage turns color once day hours are cut back, and I must say the foliage is stunning! I remember the big red and green point's you see at everyone's home around Christmastime, but I had no idea there were cultivars. There are purple ones, white ones, pink ones, and multi colored points. I guess they still get flowers, mine has little buds, but they are not what the plant is grown for. Well, needless to say, I had to get just one, I admit they still don't peak my interest as much as my hoyas, but I had to try. I have no idea if it will last until next season but hopefully I keep learning, and I will be writing about next year. Here's the pic.One of my constant bloomers is my Crown of Thorns....Euphorbia milli. Again this isn't a plant I had a lot of interest in, but I had to have just one, because I do like them. I bought them out of bloom because they were cheap and split them up. Both pots sat in South windows, but the one upstairs was slower at flowering......possibly because that would have been the pot I transplanted to. But since it started blooming, it has not stopped either. It is a cute little plant. It seem to lose it lower leaves quite regularly, but it continues to grow upwards. Since getting it early in the summer, it has put on at least four inches, and will probably have to be cut back in the spring.

And last but not least I am glad to see that my hoyas and gessies are still continuing to grow even though we are getting about 10 hours of light a day right now......I have had the lights set up since late summer. I hope all my plants can keep me going through the cold winter.