Here is another seed-grown pet plant. I think it is about ten years old now. I am very obsessed with the flora of South African and seeds for this plant came with one of my orders from Seeds Africa. I don’t have a lot of photos of it, but you can see the trunk (caudex) on it after all these years.

I think this plant may have bloomed without me noticing…hopefully, I’ll pay more attention in 2020 and get a photo of some blooms.

I probably won’t do much to this plant in 2020 other than try to feed and water it appropriately. It doesn’t ask for much!

Maybe six years ago, I decided I needed to focus my plant collecting somehow. At that time, I discovered the Pacific Bulb Society, an amazing group of very smart people who grow and love bulbous plants, or geophytes. I became a member. The group also has several bulb/seed exchanges each year where members donate seeds and bulbs and the organization sends them off to members for very reasonable prices. I got some seeds of Habranthus robustus, among many others. Having never grown anything like them before, I was skeptical…but they turned out to be pretty easy to germinate and to grow and they live happily in the cool greenhouse.

These bulbs are easy to grow–they just look a little like grass all year. I leave them in the greenhouse in summer and they always surprise me with flowers. Just days after a good watering the flower stems appear followed by the lovely pink lilies blooms. Each flower lasts but a few days. They send stems up multiple times, though.

My 2020 plans for these plants is to repot them early in spring in 2/3 soil and 1/3 sand and lots of organic fertilizer. I will divide them at that time, as well, and as an experiment, I’ll put a few of them out in the garden. They are potentially hardy to 10 degrees.

Originally, I purchased the seeds for these plants for friends Arliss and Mike to throw on a steep cliff next to their home in Parker, Arizona. The hope was for something that would grow easily and stabilize the erosion they were experiencing at the time.

Somehow, I never got around to giving them the seeds and now they have purchased a different home in Arizona that doesn’t require any erosion control. In addition, I’ve learned a lot more about accidentally introducing invasive species. So, I started the seed last January, instead, with the intention of keeping one or two as bonsai starts in the greenhouse.

Here is what the plants look like today:

The interesting thing about these shrubs is that they started out with typical Acacia delicate foliage and now the adult leaves are very different–paddle-like and thick and sturdy.

Here are some photos through the year of these little shrublets:

As with the Acacia baileyana “purpurea” seedlings, my goals with these plants for 2020 are to pot them up in half potting soil/half sand and feed them well to get them growing through spring/summer. I will move them outside to a sunny spot once the weather warms up.

These are young, fun plants–I grew them from seed last year. The seeds came from Australian Seeds. By following the germination suggestions, I had good results and ended up with a few seedlings, which are now more like saplings!

Here are some photos of the progress of these plants from the time they were started a year ago:

Acacia baileyana is a classic cool greenhouse plant. It supposedly blooms when fairly young and can be kept at a reasonable size. Twice before I tried to get seeds to start and failed, so I’m pretty thrilled to have year-old trees that are eighteen inches tall. The foliage is elegant, but the purple tinge that the seedlings showed when young has faded. I suspect that the greenhouse is too shady to bring out the “purpurea” genes.

2020 plans for these plants will be to pot them up in half potting soil, half sand and feed them well in the spring. They will go outside once winter leaves for good, probably in a sunny spot on the driveway, where they may once again find their purple genes.

Here is another old friend of a plant, gifted from brother Tim more than twenty years ago. This plant came to me as a start of a Wisteria and I decided to bonsai it. I have found it challenging as a bonsai but interesting as a potted plant. The plant only flowered one time in all those years. I just remember it had lavender flowers with a slight blue blush and a sweet fragrance. It has been at least ten years since that one flower spike appeared.

Here is how the plant’s trunk looks today. The rest of it is long, thin branches about three feet long.

And here is what the plant looks like when it is leafed out–you can see leaves both at the top and bottom of the photo.

This started as one plant and has since morphed into three divisions of the same plant. I have had the original plant a long time, but I don’t remember at all where I got it. I suspect it might have been at the Flower and Garden show here in Seattle–maybe ten years ago or more. This is a Pixie Lavender x Ignea “Bean” cross.

Here is what the plants looked like in the greenhouse today:

They are a little scruffy coming through the winter. They should start sending up spikes any time and are usually in full bloom throughout the spring.

Below is a gallery of photos of them in bloom. The striking, bright flowers always grab my attention and tempt me into photograph after photograph.

I’ve found these orchids simple to grow–they don’t ask for anything special. The greenhouse gets down just above freezing and that doesn’t bother them. They are potted in small bark orchid mix with some moss from the garden thrown in. I feed them by putting granular fertilizer in their tray so they get some fertilizer with every watering in the growing season.

Plans for 2020 for these plants include to divide them each in half to end up with six divisions that I can sprinkle around the greenhouse for spring color.

There will be multiple days featuring Pelargonium species and cultivars through the year, but the Day 14 plant is a showstopper, Pelargonium papilionaceum. This shrub-sized plant offers a lot and takes very little. It reaches six feet tall in pots, blooms prolifically in early spring with interesting, bright flowers. My favorite asset is the fragrant leaves, spicy and bright–they perk up my mood in the greenhouse and on the patio.

Here is one of the plants in the greenhouse today:

The leaves look pretty good still, but if it gets cold enough, more of them will drop. They provide a buffet for webby little green caterpillars of an unknown species that I see all year long on this plant. Below are a bunch of photos from the years of these amazing plants.

I’ve had these beauties start from seed blown around inside the greenhouse. They also generously start from cuttings. I hope to have them forever.

The 2020 plans for them are to repot the larger plants into fresh, fertile soil and take more cuttings to have new plants coming along.

A newer species is featured as the Day 13 plant. It is Hakea drupracea, an Australian native shrub that I started from seed just last year. The plants are struggling in the winter greenhouse–there was a period when the Vornado fan wasn’t on and they developed some botrytis mold, but they are recovering now that the circulation is better. Here is what they look like today:

I like the way these little shrubs are growing. You can see the newest leaves are almost like needles. Below is a sequence showing their progress in about a year.

Plans for these plants in 2020 include potting them up into larger pots early in the spring and moving them outside for the spring/summer/fall seasons. I’m not sure how long it will take these plants to bloom, but I look forward to their interesting, fragrant white flowers.

My Day 12 plant is a survivor. I ordered it from eBay from my favorite seller Strange Wonderful Things. It is a bulb of Brusvigia grandiflora that I’ve had for about eight years. I think this bulb wants a lot more sunshine than I’ve ever been able to give it in the greenhouse, so it leafs out a bit and then goes dormant, but doesn’t really seem to thrive.

Here are some pics of what it looks like right now, just some strap-shaped leaves:

The flowers on these plants can be amazing, so I plan to take better care of it in 2020. I’ll top dress it and set it out in a sunny spot for spring/summer/fall. Maybe that will make the difference.

Another orchid finds its way to star on Day 11. This one is Pleione formosana. I received the original bulb eight or so years ago from an eBay seller. It has grown well and reproduced consistently so now I have dozens of Pleione plants. Here is what my main pot looks like now:

The old bulbs get two offsets every year after flowering, so that is a nice return. On top of that, though, little wispy leafy stems appear in the fall and at their base are bulblets. Dozens of these little starters appear in the pot every year. I pot them all up and grow them on. It takes two or three years for them to get to blooming size.

I take these plants for granted because they are so easy, but when you see the huge, glorious flowers they produce every spring–that’s when I remember to appreciate them. Below are the many ways I’ve appreciated them with the camera over the last few years.

The leaves are also impressive.

The plan with these plants in 2020 is to keep them growing and keep propagating them so I can sell some of the offspring at plant sales and try to grow some outside in the garden.