Eager Clivia Seed

Today I learned that Clivia seeds will germinate when they are ready, even if the fruit hasn't been picked yet.  I saw that little root poking out of a fruit I had procrastinated picking.  Here it is with the fruit cracked open.

Promises of Lazy Gardener Tales to come...

I plunked a fig into my yard this summer and the little guy is already gifting fruit.  It is a lovely little Chicago Hardy which I had in an 8" pot for the previous year.

Why the "Lazy Gardener" tag?  Well...in a fit of genius *cough* I decided to do a hack job of preparing the bed, and made a smallish one very close to the patio, completely ignoring the sheer mass a fig tree can attain.  I know this, but I chose the lazy way out.  A couple weeks after, while visiting my brother, I had an up close look at his fig tree.  I know this tree to have been viciously pruned last fall, yet by the end of June it was already about 8ft tall and perhaps as much in diameter.

I sense I'll be doing a lot of battle with my "little fig tree" in the coming years.

On the bright side, I'll have lots of cuttings to root and share, and perhaps this means the Passifloras have finally met their match...

Advice for the Lazy Gardener: Radishes!

Some of you may recall my approach to lettuce. It just so happens, I take a similar hippie approach to radishes. I don't always plant them, but I always have them owing to the fact that I usually let a few bloom and drop their seeds everywhere. This year I was delighted to find that I finally have some hybrid radishes. The crop is long, like a white radish, but have a slightly milder flavor and some color on them like the little red radishes. I like this because (a) they're bigger than the teeny red radishes, and (b) the horseradish-like flavor of those white radishes is a bit much for me. Not that I don't like spicy, just not that type.

Another reason I let my radishes go to seed is they young seed pods are a right tasty snack as a fresh munchie of salad topping. But here again, the white radishes produce a very strong seed pod, that while lovely pickled, is not to my taste fresh. Hopefully these hybrids will find a nice balance somewhere in-between.

Flowers are a standard brassica-type shape and color (yellow), held on a big, bushy inflorescence. To store seed, let the pods mature and dry, and select branches with no evidence of mould. Then crush open the dry pods and sift out the seed. To let them do their 'thing' in the garden, just knock the seed pods off the dry stems or let them fall on their own. The seeds may or may not actually come out of the pods, but they often still manage to germinate through them. I never put any effort into that part, that's why its called "Lazy Gardening."

Anthurium repotting

Just for kicks, a few photos of a recent adventure in Anthurium repotting. The plant, named Anthurium 'Marie', has been in this pot for 2 or 3 years (since I bought it), and probably could have been repotted last year, but I procrastinated. The next two photos are what I started with. As you can see, it is looking a bit overgrown and under-potted.




In a fit of insanity, I thought I'd try to cut the pot away from the roots, without damaging the roots on the outside of the pot. That was slow going, and after struggling to pull back the first half of plastic on one side, I saw there was more root than media in the pot. That's about when I skipped to ripping the pot off the plant. Below is what I ended up with.



So I lost those stray roots outside the pot, but I'm not really convinced it will set the plant back any! Also, needless to say, I did not attempt to remove old media from the root ball. I then found a pot several sizes larger and reset the root ball, back-filling with a large size cattleya-type mixture of coconut husk chunks, charcoal, sponge rock, and diatomite. Results below.



It looks so happy now!

As a side note, DiatomiteUSA has shut down all sales through its website! ::GASP:: They have a note on their site that DiatomiteCanada.com will continue to serve our needs, but that of course will probably mean higher shipping. At least there's still a supplier.

Portrait of a Plant Stand

This is a new plant stand I recently completed. It will considerably shorten my daily watering routine by allowing me to water many of the mounted plants with a watering can rather than taking them in batches to a sink.
It consists of hard wire cloth affixed to a simple pine frame with a plywood base. There is plastic sheeting in the back, simply attached so that it will be easily replaced if it develops an algae coating. There is a plastic bin on the bottom to catch drip and to house a few phrags and some ferns. Also, there are wheels on the bottom to easily allow me to move the stand around as needed for watering.

In Bloom: What is this?

A weed that I neglected to remove all summer has finally come into bloom. It is quite attractive. The flowers are pea shaped (= legume family associations?) and small, less than half an inch. Its not a bad looking critter overall.
Do any of you know what it is?

UPDATE: With fluffnflowers comment plus a few from the Orchid Guide Digest I now believe the plant to be either Lespedeza cuneata or bicolor, both of which look very similar to my plant, are found in the whole of the Eastern half of the US, and, unfortunately, are listed as invasive weeds by one or more states. Hm.. I don't suppose anyone would want seed from my pretty little friend then.

Um, what is that?

A mystery.

In late May I had a few lots of seed soaking prior to planting. I had been procrastinating the task for a couple days for some unknown reason, and suddenly one morning I decided they needed to be taken care of immediately or the viability would decrease. So one morning before work I threw them into community pots and left, thinking I would label them when I got home. I did not. After a couple days I couldn't remember which was which, but vaguely thought I should be able to identify them by their leaves if they came up.

This week this seedling appeared. You can't see it in the photo, but there are two other small sprouts coming up too. I was very confused when I saw the shape of them. I thought everything I had planted was passifloras. Despite the variety in the genus Passiflora in regards to leaf shape and markings, so far all the species I have grown have been quite homogeneous in cotyledon morphology. This was not it. Looking closer I realized they also were not cotyledons.

I sorted through all my seed containers (twice) for inspiration but found none. After a couple days it finally hit me - while in Florida I had collected some fruits off of a Suriname Cherry tree. Three, in fact, equaling the number of seedlings showing. They had single, nut like seeds inside. After digging around in the pot near one seedling I found that same nut nestled in the soil.

Hey, they grew! Mystery solved.

I have grown other seeds (such as from mangoes) that have not shown cotyledons above the soil, but never anything this small. The nuts were hardly larger than a peanut. I wonder why there is this difference in habit from the typical seed.

I'm pretty sure the other pot contains Passiflora lutea, which are also germinating.

Anyhow, I will now resolve to always take the 60 seconds to make a label. Um...lets hope I don't slip up again.

Advice for the Lazy Gardener: Amaryllis Tubs

Ok, so lots of people have amaryllis bulbs. You go into the garden center, and there they are...tempting you... But most people think of them as a Christmas flower, and so force them to grow at that time of year. Very few actually realize the bulbs are summer growers and are actually hardy to zone 8, even 7 if in the right spot, planted deep, and mulched over winter. Growing them in such a way means you have BIG impressive flowers followed by nice foliage in your garden in summer with very little effort vs. attempting to grow them well in a pot during the dimly lit winter months, which generally results in weak growth.

I however live in zone 6. I used to plant them out in the garden every year, and dig them up in the fall just before or just after the last frost and store them in the basement in a plastic bin. This is a hassle, and they take up space that could be filled by the weedy fiesta I call my veggie garden. So this year I decided to try something different.

I got some 14 gallon plastic bins, the deep kind with good handles on the side, and drilled about 4x half inch holes in the bottom plus a couple on the sides about 1 inch up. Fill to a depth of 1-2 inches with some aggregate (non-biodegradable styrofoam peanuts are ok) then dump in your favorite potting mix. Mix in a bit of bone meal and/or whatever other goodies you have around, then set in your bulbs and fill in with soil. I recommend setting the bulbs so the top of the bulb is just below the rim of the container (I shall explain in a moment). You can also add some nice mulch on the top if you like.

Voila! Stick that sucker out on your deck or back patio in full sun. In the top photo you can see I also have some basil plants co-habitating in the tub on the left. Growing them in summer means they can get lots of light, and they can be watered frequently with the hose.

As the weather starts cooling, water less. When first frost sets in, drag that sucker into the garage or basement and let it dry out completely, then put the lid on the container and stack them up (hence the need to set the bulbs below the rim). Instant out of the way storage free of digging, wriggling messes and extraneous effort. Next spring, drag them outside and open them up as soon as the temps are consistently averaging around 50F at night. If they stay with the lids on too long they'll grow funny - they always know when its spring even if you don't bring them out of the basement.

PS: the flowers currently in bloom are slightly fragrant. They smell a bit like pine.

Advice for the Lazy Gardener: Lettuce

Many people have discovered the joy of wildflowers that re-seed or spread, generally popping up randomly in your yard. I'm here to tell you that if you loosen the reins on your veggie patch you can have the same kind of fun. Three years ago I planted a loose-leaf lettuce mix. Every year since then I've had lettuce without planting it. I just let my favorites go to seed.

Loose leaf lettuce is great because you can snap off a mass of leaves and they'll just grow new ones as long as you leave the central crown. The flowers are kinda cute too. They have yellow or white daisy-like panicles of flowers. Although they do look a bit weedy when the fluffy mass of seeds appear.

Speaking of weeds, you'll need a good amount of open ground for this to work, so you'll have to tolerate some amount of weeds on your veggie beds. The lettuce always ends up in different places (occasionally there's a plant in the lawn) but crop rotation is a good thing anyway.

I often find that the lettuces are up as early as when the crocus blooms, so by the time of daffodils you might have a good salad going, especially if you do the same thing with radishes.