We had a winter storm, or what I like to call “winter.” Since snow doesn’t fall in significant amounts in Seattle very often, it causes quite a stir and messes up traffic and work schedules–and gardening plans!
It started innocently enough, as an inch or so on one day.
The next day, the snow got a little more serious. We ended up with about eleven inches of snow over the course of a week.
I ended up at the office every day, even when it was closed, so I felt less guilty playing with my plants there and making plans for more of them. The miniature African violet is doing well. It keeps sending up flower spikes, but they don’t open properly. I assume it is too cold, so I cut the spikes all off, but within a week, it is sending up more–you can see one at about 11:00 on the photo below.
The African violet’s flowers have been disappointing, as they don’t open widely–just to a cup shape, but never a saucer. On the other hand, the Sinningia “Freckles” from the Violet Barn, purchased at the same time, has gorgeous flowers that last for weeks at a time. It has three buds coming on it, so I should have flowers on my desk for a month, at least.
I also have a Primulina tamiana, the Vietnamese Violet, on my desk that appears to be growing well. There is also a Parlor Palm, Chamaedorea elegans, that has only three fronds, but seems to be doing well. I have a terrarium with some strongly growing Polka Dot Plants, Hypoestes phyllostachya and a Euphorbia that is struggling with some mildew or something, and a tiny Senecio succulent cutting from a co-worker. The big plant in my office is a hand-me-down sad-looking Pachira aquatica that is about four feet tall. It is braided and needs a good repot and reboot.
My plans for the office are to move the Hypoestes to pots of their own and put something tiny and delicate in the terrarium–maybe a dwarf gensneriad. I have another couple of containers at home to maybe make into terrariums for my desk, as well.
Since this photo, I have taken cuttings from two of the stems, trimmed out the old dead stumps from the middle and removed a zip tie that was holding the braids together, but strangling the plant. I started to regularly water and feed it, too. My biggest concern is that the old wood may not leaf back out, so I’m waiting nervously until some buds start to swell on the trunks from which the cuttings were cut. The stems are interestingly hollow.
On the home front, I was worried about the greenhouse denizens when the temperatures dipped down into the teens one week. The worst feeling hit me when I went out BEFORE the really cold weather to check all the systems and there was frost all over the inside of the greenhouse door and it was frozen shut! But once Leon helped me break inside, I was relieved to find the temperature was fine and the heater and fans were working well. I did bump the thermostat up to 50 degrees to be sure the whole inside stayed above freezing through the cold snap. Luckily, we never lost power and everything appears to have survived, including the newly transplanted Australian seedlings.
And speaking of those, here are some seedling updates.
