Corydalis species have an interesting history with me. It seems like the fancier they are, the less likely they are to survive. I’ve tried the pretty blue ones (C. flexulosa hybrids) in the past and they don’t ever recover from their first dormancy. I’ve also tried the less fancy C. lutea and found it to be coarser and weedy, but welcome in a shady, difficult spot. My happy Corydalis medium is Corydalis solida. This ephemeral spring bulb is up with the snowdrops and blooms just after. Mine were blooming in the memory garden by the end of February.

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The first success I experienced with this plant is a bulb planted in the pot with my Osmanthus delvayi. The pot is very full of Osmanthus roots, as this shrub has been in that pot for about eight years. The Corydalis is probably seven years old, and it never fails to impress each March. By the summer, when I’m struggling to keep the Osmanthus watered, the Corydalis has disappeared altogether.

My goals for 2020 with Corydalis solida are to feed them all well and also to add a few new kinds to the memory garden and pots in the fall.

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I’ve scaled way back on seed starting for non-native plants because I’m really gearing up for native plant propagation, but there are still probably too many exotics that I will be starting for pots and the garden this year.

Three weeks ago, I planted the seeds of Datura “Belle Blanche”, Eryngium, Monarda, and Asarina. They have all germinated and are trying to get started on the heating pad in the window.

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I also pulled all the seeds out of the refrigerator today and moved them into the greenhouse (native plants) and out to the shelves by the greenhouse (all others). There were about ten pots of seeds that ended up on the shelves, including large pots for acorns–I had collected about a dozen over the autumn. There are three seed trays in the greenhouse, along with a small pot of Cyclamen graecum seeds. In addition, there were pots with things like Asclepias speciosa, Allium cernuum, and various tree and shrub seeds of things like maples, Catalpa, hemlock, burning bush, and more.

In the memory garden, a few things are starting to bloom already–the snowdrops that I planted in fall have bloomed. In addition, the miniature Euphorbia characias is blooming for the first time.

Another plant that I purchased for a work terrarium, three polka-dot plants arrived as three tiny cuttings from a mailorder house in early 2018. They are three different color variants, one whitish, one light pink, and one deep reddish-pink.

The plants ended up in a terrarium and actually grew very happily there. They grow so fast that they end up outside the terrarium, so I clipped them back and take cuttings of the clippings.

Here is a gallery of them.

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Plant and garden books speak of foliage plants with such high regard that I’ve always felt guilty for being a “flowers guy.” It isn’t that I don’t appreciate foliage, but my heart sings when flowers appear.

This plectranthus is a bit of an exception. It has been in my collection for 20+ years. Similar to the geraniums and fuchsias I’ve had for decades, I keep it going through cuttings, which root really easily.

This plant varies from year to year in how great it looks based on my ability and willingness to give it the care that it wants.

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When I do give the plants what they need (lots of room, lots of food, lots of water and shade), they fill out wonderfully and the foliage is a real knock-out.

Really late in the season, the plants will throw up white flower spikes, too, which could be pretty. They never really get a chance, though, because they come so late and there aren’t enough of them to put on a real show.

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My plans for these plants (there are 4-5 of them right now in the greenhouse) for 2020 is to pot them up in fresh fertile soil and get them outside in a safe, shady place so they can really shine.

Here is the plant that started the Clivia addiction–and it was a very long time ago. I’m not exactly sure when my brother first purchased this clone–possibly from Park’s catalog–but it was at least 40 years ago! I think that makes it the houseplant that has consistently been in our family the longest. He dubbed it Miss Clivia and we’ve kept the name going ever since.

I believe this plant is definitely a cultivar and not the straight species. The leaves are long and wide and the flowers are larger than I suspect the species flowers would be. However, the colors are very typical for Clivia miniate, with orange and yellow in a brilliant combination.

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I will work to add photos of these plants that represent their size and vitality–“Miss Clivia” is robust, to say the least. I have a large rectangular pot with three divisions in it and then there are a few other seedlings off of her, as well, that (thanks to my labeling laziness) are impossible to find at this point.

Tim gave me a clone off of Miss Clivia about 25 years ago, I think…maybe longer. I love these plants because they are tough, don’t mind (actually LIKE) a cold spell in winter, and they put on a real show in the greenhouse in March/April. I pot them in a bark/soil mix and feed them when I remember through the growing season–not too much because they seem to do better when they are starved a bit (and they grow too big and too fast if they are fed too well).

My 2020 plans for Miss Clivia are to give them a spring cleaning and topdress with some good soil/fertilizer. If I get the time and energy, I should pot them on into bigger quarters. I’m not sure I’ll get there this year–but Miss Clivia won’t complain. She’s amazingly forgiving.

It can be tough to nail down exactly why we become obsessed with certain plants. Ever since my brother, Tim, purchased a Clivia miniata via mail order more than four decades ago, I’ve really liked these plants. When I found out that 1) hundreds of cultivars are available with different flower colors, forms and leaf shape and color, and 2) that Clivia can fairly easily be grown from seed, my obsession was born. That was over ten years ago. During about a five-year span, I ordered and grew dozens of Clivia seeds looking for flower color and variegated foliage. My “Light of Buddha” seedling is one of the stars of those efforts. Started in 2009, it has grown into a compact, lovely plant that blooms about every other year. With this clone, though, the leaves are the important thing.

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Variegation usually presents as stripes or dots, but in this plant, only the middle of the leaves are lighter and it makes for some real interest, both when the new leaves burst forth in spring and when the plant has settled down and darkened up a bit the rest of the year.

I had originally labeled this “Starlight of Buddha,” but the true name appears to be “Light” and not “Starlight.” Maybe I can cross it with a yellow clone and get “Starlight of Buddha!”

My 2020 plans for this plant are to top-dress it in the spring with new soil and organic fertilizer. Unlike the vast bulk of my Clivia collection, I keep this plant in the greenhouse year-round so I can really keep an eye on it.

Here is the plant blooming March 29, 2020:

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Here is a shot of the entire plant in April 2020.

Unfortunately, I don’t remember where this cactus came from. I would guess that I’ve had it for at least 20 years. My greenhouse isn’t very cactus-friendly because of the large fir tree that blocks the sun for a good part of the day. Despite a southern exposure, the greenhouse only gets about half a day of sun most of the year–and here in Seattle, it isn’t hot bright sun. Still, this cactus has survived and sometimes blooms. I researched the name and came up with M. hahniana, but I could be wrong.

Because of the light, and maybe because of being too wet sometimes, the plant has stretched and slunk in an abnormal way. But it doesn’t seem to mind that it is sideways instead of upright–it just keeps on keeping on.

Here is what it looked like when it first started to lean.

And here is what it looks like more recently.

My 2020 plans for this plant are to repot it in better cactus soil and try to stake it up somehow so it doesn’t look like it is trying to jump out of the pot.

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Here is another office plant that needed a makeover. When ordering some furniture to be donated to our Seattle office, I noticed there were plants on offer, as well, so I figured at the very least I would end up with some free big pots–I asked for two plants. When the plants landed, one was an impressive 5′ tree of Schefflera arboricola–cultivar “Dwarf Gold” or maybe “Gold Capella”.

We had the furniture and plants delivered into the unheated parking garage of our building, then we hired movers to take the stuff up to our suite. Somehow, they missed this big tree and left it in the garage, where it stayed overnight (it was August, so not a problem with freezing). I moved it up the next day and shoved it into my office.

Above is how the tree looked when it arrived. It was big and bushy. You can see a big lump in the main stem about halfway up. It might be a graft point, or maybe just scarring from bad pruning.

I was so excited to get this amazing plant, but it wasn’t without its challenges. It arrived smothered in soft scale insects and started losing leaves because it was so infested. Part of me thought I should just huck it in a dumpster and clean the pot up and reuse it. But it seemed worth giving it a chance, so I took the extreme measure of pruning all the branches way back, removing all the foliage, and scrubbing the branches with a rough sponge and soapy water to get any remaining scale off. I wasn’t particularly hopeful that I actually got all the scale (it was SO badly infested). And the tree looked like a dead skeleton for a few weeks. My coworkers gave me sympathetic looks and expressed a fair amount of concern for my mental health. But then, after a couple of weeks, the old wood started to break with new growth buds and the tree leafed out really quickly after that.

Here the plant is starting to leaf back out. Below is an even closer photo.

Since these photos, the tree has leafed out fully. It is responding well to regular watering and feeding. So far, the nasty scale insects have not reappeared, but I expect they will come back at some point so I’m watching them closes and I’ll be sure to wash them off before they become a problem.

We had an employee leave from my office at the end of 2018 and he left a sad office plant behind. It was a 5-trunk braided Chinese Money Tree or Pachira aquatica. I was not familiar with this plant so I did some research and moved it into my office where I could start taking care of it.

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It was tough to know exactly what was wrong with this tree. Likely, it hadn’t been watered regularly or fertilized ever. And I wasn’t sure if the braiding of the trunks might be having a negative impact.

To help the tree look less leggy, I decided to prune the trunks down significantly. I took cuttings of those clippings and one of them has started.

I started watering and feeding the tree and it leafed out happily after a few anxious weeks. I also made some compost with lots of fungus in it and when I repotted the tree, I put fertilizer and compost in the pot.

Now the tree is gorgeous, with huge, glossy leaves.

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The tree has filled in even more than this and is thriving in my boss’ office.

My 2020 goals for this plant (and its cutting) are to keep feeding and watering it regularly to make sure it stays healthy. I will pot the healthy cutting into newer soil with compost and see if it will grow into a lucky money tree.

I ordered a mixed packet of Sinningia seeds last year for the office and planted them on the potting mix in my clear cup bottom/clear cup top greenhouse. The minute seedlings appeared pretty quickly and then grew pretty quickly over the summer. I ended up with three seedlings.

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The leaves of these plants are handsome on their own, but the flowers are the amazing, shocking production they bring.

One of the seedlings was a bit precocious and decided to bloom in October. Then, all three went dormant. As a kid, I was always fascinated by these plants. They were called Gloxinias. Their bulbs were sold in some mail-order catalogs. So, I was aware that they would form bulbs, go dormant, and then sprout again.

In the last month, they have leafed out again. In order to get them a bit bushier, I have pinched the main stems back. I am waiting to see if both of the dormant buds that I’ve exposed get activated. I also used the clipping as a cutting, so we’ll see if I can get those to root.

2020 plans for these plants are to grow them into adult plants with big heads of flowers, as shown in catalogs and online.

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