Two weekends ago I was able to pot on some of the Chiltern’s perennial seedlings. I ended up with about a dozen pots of what I believe are Silene californica seedlings. These are strong, fast-growers. If they survive the winter in the greenhouse, I’ll plant them out in the spring, and hopefully they will end up looking like THIS.
I also potted on a bunch of Digitalis “Species and Hybrids Mixed”. I think I ended up with 40 seedlings planted in 8 pots. My hope is that I’ll end up with a nice mix of hybrids and species in these seedlings, but even if they all end up being the common foxglove, I’ll be happy.
The Digitalis seedlings are in the front on the left and in the middle on the right. Behind them on the left are the silene seedlings. Also on the far left are the seedling Acacia dealbata plants started this year. In the back of the middle tray, you can see other Acacia seedlings–Acacia redolens “prostrata.” They have adult leaves that are flat pads, rather than the delicate leaflets they held as juvenile plants. In the middle left is a Sinningia tubiflora cutting that I struck on a lark–I was pruning the mother plant and just stuck this in. It has rooted and is spreading. In the front on the right are more seedlings from Chiltern’s perennial seeds.More autumn seedlings–I dropped a handful of Hippeastrum seeds from my hardiest red/white-flowered hybrid into a pot with regular potting mix. It appears that virtually every seed will germinate. These take a few years to get to blooming age. While I certainly don’t need a bunch more Hippeastrums, I can’t help but imagine how wonderful it would be to have a dozen pots of these sturdy bulbs blooming all together on their own shelf in the greenhouse. They could be hybrids, as well, since other Hippeastrums were blooming in the greenhouse this year, too, but likely they will look like the below.Big, gorgeous blooms on this Hippeastrum hybrid. I believe it was purchased online, maybe ten+ years ago, and it has self-sown around the greenhouse. I probably have seven bulbs of this already.
I’m anxious to come up with a system for getting my Hippeastrum’s to bloom consistently. I have about half of them outside this year for the spring/summer and part of autumn, and the rest are in the greenhouse. I’ll mark them and see which ones bloom better.
In the center are the Hakea drupacea seedlings that I started early this year. They are over a foot tall and are getting more adult foliage. They seem pretty happy. I will leave them in these pots through the winter in the greenhouse and then pot them into gallons to see how big they might get next year.
Another seedling–this it a Sinningia seedling from seeds planted early this spring in my office at TeamChild. I ended up with three seedlings that look similar to Sinningia speciosa. This is the only one with a flower bud, however. I can’t wait to see what it looks like. Ever since I was a little kid, I wanted to grow Sinningia speciosa, or Gloxinia, and I even ordered a very expensive bulb once when I was a teenager, but it never grew! If these end up having big, velvety flowers, I will be thrilled! Regardless, though, they are proving to be simple to grow and happy in a north-facing window.My office seems to suit the Gesneriad clan. I had taken a few leaf cuttings of an African violet at home. Luckily, they rooted, as I neglected the mother plant and she transitioned to another realm. I moved the cuttings to one pot and then moved them to my office window at work. They sulked in the crowded pot. I finally got around to dividing them up and potting them in nice plastic pots and good soil. Immediately, they grew a few new leaves and are throwing flower spikes. The blooms open a chartreuse-cream and then fade to a creamy white. While I’m not a big African violet fan, I love this variety. I received the original plant mistakenly in an online order when I ordered something from Hirt’s gardens–an outdoor perennial plant, and they sent me an African violet! The plant looked a mess, but I gave it a chance and it rewarded me with hundreds of flowers and a very forgiving nature.I didn’t think I like pampas grass that much, but this particular one (actually, there were two of them) near Seattle Center, impressed me with graceful form and wonderful, subtle color. Our neighbors have a honeysuckle that usually looks pretty sad. It is planted in the corner of a fence and doesn’t get consistent irrigation. Since we’ve been having rainfall for the last month or so, the vines are perking up and blooming again. The flowers are amazing. These are not as fragrant as a similar vine across the street, but I imagine hummingbirds love them.
My gardens are weak on late summer and autumn flowers, but I do have a few asters around and they fill in perfectly at this time of year. Here is a gallery of the ones in the Memory Garden.
I am trying hard to find more garden time this month, knowing that I have a lot to do to get ready for autumn. There are dozens of bitter cherry tree suckers around the yard that I need to clip or saw down to try to control them. A couple of the ones in front of the orchard bed are over ten feet tall, so it is definitely time to cut them out. Yesterday, I managed to cut down all the ones in the driveway bed and some big leaf maples that have started near the driveway, too. When darkness fell, I had to give up for the night and an impressive thunderstorm came through with heavy rains. It lasted over two hours.
One thing that I’m doing differently this year is not using the yard waste container as much. Instead, I just chop up as much of the vegetation and branches as I easily can and drop them back around where they grew. This seems to make sense to me, rather than pulling all that growth and energy away from the bed and then supplementing with organic fertilizer, I can leave the energy there and let it break down and add organic matter to the soil. I can still fertilize, of course, but I’m hoping the plants will grow stronger in this system.
This weekend, I cleaned out one of the raised veggie beds and planted seeds in there–peas, spinach, and lettuce. It might be too late in the season for the peas but I wanted to give it a try.
Before I cleaned up the bed
Another view of the bed and trellis
After clean-up, from the front
After clean-up, from the side
The wet weather is expected to continue for another few days. I expect that will help the seeds get growing pretty quickly. There are other seeds waiting to grow in this bed always, including borage and calendula.
There was a brilliant surprise as I wandered the yard yesterday. Our friend Meredith gave us some Amaryllis beladonna bulbs about seven or so years ago. I have had them in the garden ever since, where they leaf out ever year and then disappear in the summer. And until now, they have never bloomed. But look what happened finally!
A few other things are blooming on the patio and in the greenhouse.
There are many chores around the garden and greenhouse that I need to tackle in the next few months. I decided to start by planting about 50 seedlings into the Memory Garden this morning.
I spaced the seedlings around the entire garden in the areas that needed filling.
Trays of seedlings and a few larger plants that went into a very hot, dry garden today.
Normally, I would wait for a much wetter time to plant seedlings, but I had the time today so I moved ahead. The ground was very dry, so I watered the entire bed heavily after all the seedlings went in.
Here is the list of what I remember planting:
Shasta Daisy–about 11 of them–a dwarf hybrid that I planted in groups of three to five around the garden.
Oriental Poppy–about 11 of these, too, which I planted in a drift in the center of the bed. These are the Fruit Punch hybrid poppies. I expect there to be some interesting colors in the batch since the mix includes plum, pink, coral and red.
There were four unlabeled perennials that I’m guessing are Erodium pelargoniflorum, ‘Sweetheart’. I planted them all together just back from the edgers on the street-side of the garden. You can see the flowers of this plant on Chiltern’s site HERE.
I planted about 9 lupines in the easternmost end of the garden where the lilies and tulips are planted. They are from the Tutti Frutti series from Pinetree seen HERE.
There were two columbines that I planted on that were runts from the sowing I did over a year ago. There were three sedums that I planted along the curb, as well as 5 thyme seedlings.
I planted a tree peony seedling that is about five years old. I’m not sure how it will do in a hotter, drier spot, but I’ve seen one that was in a similar position near my workplace. It blooms beautifully every year.
I had a weak plant from a mail-order nursery of Phlox paniculata “Laura” that got planted today, as well.
Three seedlings of Chasmanthium latifolia were planted around a switchgrass that is just starting to grow and prosper.
We took a trip up to Tonasket to our little log cabin and spent five days up there. The weather was warm and sunny and I took hikes every day. Here are some pictures of our adventures.
Rattlesnake plantain–an orchid (Goodyera)
Willow–possibly the one struggling.
A shrub I want to ID.
Another shrub I want to ID.
Close-up.
Black currants grow at the very top of the mountain–lots of them!
A new bramble for me–need an ID.
I only found one rose still bloming in all my wandering.
Beautiful forest understory.
Another bramble.
You can really see how these giant boulders break apart over time.
Office plants are interesting to me–they often have a history longer than any employees that remain. At my last job, there was a philodendron plant that was left behind by a long-time employee. I inherited it and kept it going for 19 years. When I left that workplace, I left the plant behind. It felt like it belonged to the business and never to me, and I hoped that someone else would connect with that plant the way I had. It always reminded me of that first boss who was an amazing mentor.
At my current job, an employee left and his office was vacant for a month or so. When I went in to clean the office up for a new employee, there was a tree inside looking pretty sad. I wasn’t familiar with the species, except I knew people called it a Money Tree. It had five trunks, all braided together.
Adopted Pachira AquaticaAll those dead leaves were a bad sign…
The tree was very leggy, with few green leaves. I decided to take some drastic action, so I cut two of the trunks down significantly and made cuttings of the pieces that I removed. I knew that the tree needed to be repotted, so I decided to make some compost right in my office to help kick-start the tree when I moved it to a new pot.
For the compost, I took a large ziplock bag and filled it halfway with potting soil, then I put in a little organic fertilizer and then I cut up all those brown leaves from the Pachira and put them in the bag, along with orange peels and apple cores from my lunches. As leaves died on the tree, I kept cutting them up and adding them to the bag. I was amazed at how fast bacteria developed and decay began. And the smell wasn’t bad because of the orange peels, although my coworkers were always accusing me of eating oranges, even when I wasn’t. The smell was pretty strong.
In the meantime, the tree struggled along. With regular watering and a little feeding, it started to put out new leaves and the trunks that had been shortened sprouted new leaves, as well. In addition, the cuttings from the tree seemed to be doing pretty well.
After about two months of the soil composting, I ordered a plastic pot off of Amazon and some good Espoma soil. I put a thin layer of soil in the bottom of the new pot, then added a bit more organic fertilizer and the compost bag contents. I yanked the tree out of its clay pot (not easy) and moved it to the new pot, filling in with more potting soil.
After a month in the new pot, this is what the tree looks like.
Pachira aquatica on 7/19/19
The tree is now a rich, dark green and the leaves are three times as big as they were when I first found the tree. As the pruned trunks grow, they will fill in the canopy and make it even more handsome.
My boss informed me that this tree has been around the office, including in her office and others. I may return it to her office and then grow the cuttings on for my own office. It has been fun to make this tree over and trust my instincts to cut it back and repot it. The office compost was especially fun and interesting, though I would double-bag it if I did it again!
