Succulent Seeds Itself

This adorable little succulent is one of my favorites. Here is the whole back story and you can see how awesome it looks when it blooms. I've since repotted it into something a little larger and it's bursting at the seams again. This year when it bloomed I noticed it was going to seed. I kept meaning to gather the seeds, but because I'm lame, I forgot.

It went along with out me and seeded itself into the pots that live nearby. I found a little tiny sprout in two empty pots that used to house freesia bulbs and one growing in the moss around the heliotrope.

Once they grew a little more, I transplanted them into their own little containers and gave them away as gifts. Remember how I said they "used to" house freesia? Yeah, I guess I didn't pull out all the bulbs because my friends have reported back that something else is growing now that winter is here. Oops. I mean, bonus!!

All Tucked In...

...and ready for frost. With lows in the high 20's, we are reaching hard frost status. Our porch is on the second story and three sides have stucco walls so it doesn't get quite as cold as gardens and open spaces.

Still, I piled all my plants against the house, strung some Christmas lights and covered them up with old sheets. Let's hope it works.

Rope Hoya Blooms

I don't think I've blogged about this amazing little plant. I found it at Target a few years ago and it was a complete impulse buy. A Rope Hoya with has long pliable branches with these convoluted leaves that are sort of folded and twisted around the stem. It's sort of a slow grower, so it stayed in it's pot for a couple of year.

I transplanted it last year and it took off since it had been a little root bound. One day I walked into the kitchen and I thought some sort of insect colony had moved in. It looked like a tiny hornets nest hanging off of one branch. After a closer look I realized it was a bloom! A hanging cluster of fuzzy little buds.

I was totally excited! It took a few weeks to actually bloom but it changed so much. Each oblong bud flattened out in to a round dish so the cluster when from bell shaped to a round poof ball. The fuzzy hairs disappeared and thick waxy pink buds appeared that looked like milky stars.

When the flowers finally opened the waxy pink was still inside, but the petals were this crazy velour texture. And each little flower was only a half of an inch wide. So little!

It was one of the most exciting blooms I've had. It's a damn fun little plant.

Post Script: because I forgot something! It has a really fragrant aroma to it as well. Almost like lilies. Sweet and floral and sometimes a little spicy. Very intriguing.

You can just see the weird flower on the right side.

The bloom a little closer
And a super close shot of the fuzzy little buds
Half open
More open
So cute!
Amazing and tiny little flowers

Aloe Splitting

I've written about my aloe plant before. Read it here to find out the history if this 13 year old plant. And yes, back in September 2008 when I wrote it I may have said it needed to be repotted. Here it is Fall 2011 and I finally did it!

It feels like killing the plant because you basically take it out of the pot and break it into chunks. Some of the older parts had stalks that were almost 2 feet long and wrapped in a circle amongst the other stalks. Not healthy at all. And yes, I do feel bad now.

So, you can see a small pile of separated plants below. I ended up trimming a ton of dead leaves and chopping off the huge stalks to restart them as new plants. It took 3 medium-large pots to plant all the parts.

Needless to say, I'm set if I burn myself.

Just a few parts.
Two of three pots.

Last of the pots.

Free Plant Blooms

Thanks to my friend Carolyn, my porch has some lovely blooms right now. Her left over plants included this rudbeckia that shot up fast and has a lot of blooms. I love it when friends over buy at the nursery.

Wholesale Florist

I'm not above buying cut flowers, I just usually don't find anything interesting enough to buy. Enter the wholesale florist.

Flora Fresh is located on Fee Drive in Sacramento and if you are lucky enough to have a business license, you can buy there. I've made a few wedding bouquets from here. Always something new and interesting.

This trip I was just looking for something cool to have in my house and I found it. Dianthus, green trick variety. Little puff balls of feathery green that look like they are out of a Dr. Suess book, and they look great in my Icelandic vase.







And then some huge flowers for my huge glass vase. Eremurus in yellow and orange and some kangaroo paw that was on sale. Big, bright and feathery, the little flowers just keep opening day after day.








Plants are great but sometimes fun fresh flowers just hit the spot.

Double Spike Spaceship

My trusty first orchid. The one that started it all. Every year another bulbous thing grows and a spike grows and flowers. This year something weird happened...two bulbs! Which means two spikes!!


I really love the weird shape of this flowers.


One of this years bulbs has a new little growth. I don't know if the other one will grow, but either way, after this bloom it will be repotted. There's nowhere else for them to grow!

Free plants!

I've been very good about not buying plants. Sticking to my budget and all. So I was very excited to get some free, extra plants from friends.

The chive was starting to flower so I took a photo of the gorgeous bloom before I trimmed it all back


This pot ended up with a red dahlia and two gazania that look lovely in the blue pot.


I also ended up with two rudbeckia that will be red and a yarrow that's not pictured. I'm very excited to fill some empty pots with flowering plants.

Lavendar at the Lamm Farm

Twitter is a wonderful thing. One quick post from Amy (@citad) about planting 990 lavender plants and I'm on my way to the Lamm Farm! Here are about 700 plants. The rest were kept back since they were grown especially for the Lamm Farm and some of the varieties weren't quite big enough to travel.

Here are the resident bees that will help these plants produce their best. It will take two years for the plants to grow full sized and then they will harvest. Until then, they will be pruned back so all their effort ends up in the roots.

They had tilled and prepped a who area with weed cloth before we got there. Then irrigation lines were put in and an orange dot where each plant should go. You cut an X in the cloth, push the dirt out of the way and plant the little guys.

The first row was a little less than straight but the we got the hang of it. The Folgate was healthy and large (as seen below) but the Grosso, which will be even larger were shipped out a little bit small. Not all of them survived.

Being fabulous farm hosts, they even fed us a barbecue lunch which after planting all morning, tasted fabulous!

There were about 8 friends and family that come out for the planting party. It was a lovely day spent in gorgeous weather chatting to wonderful plant lovers. There's @tikikristi & @betweenthelimes.

Do I look happy? Living in a condo doesn't let me have much dirt time so this was a wonderful day. We even got to put our names on a row. So proud!

We figured about 575 plants were put in the ground that day. And after a round of Popsicles, we all went home tired and happy. Frequent guest blogger The Jenny (@the_Jenny) also came out for the fun. I would do it again anytime.

June Rain

It's June in Sacramento and usually it is in the 90s and I'm desperately trying to make the transition to watering my porch plants every other day. Since I water by filling a bucket in my kitchen sink and then lug it over the carpet to the porch door...it's sort of annoying.

This year, the weather is just plain wacky. 60s & raining. I'm sure my plants will be confused soon, but for right now they are blooming, getting some fresh rain water and enjoying the cool weather. And I'm enjoying not lugging the water.

Peperomia Caperata

I used to call this little guy my work plant since I didn't know the name, but since then my friend Carolyn identified it as Peperomia Caperata. Otherwise known as the pepperoni plant. It's still doing well in my office and right now it has 11 little flower spikes. Either it's happy or it's trying to tell me it wants to be repotted. Not quite sure which yet, but it looks good!

Blooms on my Porch

Here is a little sample of what is blooming on my tiny porch right now. It makes me happy.

Geranium: Flaming Katie

Little succulent flowers just starting to grow.

Last batch of Meyer lemons for the year.

Potato plant, in tree form.
Oxalis

Geranium: Vancouver Cenntenial

Random iris

Surprise, it's an Iris

So I got this free iris from a vendor at the Zoo event Bloomin' Crazy about 4 years ago. I stuck it in a pot with some flat leaf parsley that has since died.

The other day, Ben says, "Your big white flower is blooming." WHAT?

I look outside before I say he's crazy and that iris is blooming! One stalk with 3 flowers. I didn't even notice it throwing out a spike.

Ant Plant Goes to Seed

So when I bought this little guy, they told me it was an Ant Plant. I've since googled that and it doesn't seem like those at all! Any ideas?

If the fall, this whatever-it's-called plant started blooming a ton! Covered in little pink buds that never seemed to open. A few month later I started noticing all these long, thin seed pods and it stopped blooming.



Then one day I come into the kitchen and there is all this fluff on the sink and the windowsill. After closer inspection I realize that the pods have split open and all the seeds sort of floated around. I collected about 50 or more seeds over the next couple of week and am keeping them. I want to see if I can sprout them this spring. I figure damp coconut coir will work but we'll see.

The Tale of Two Plants

There once were two of the same plant from the land of IKEA. At $.99 my office mate & I couldn't pass them up. It's been a couple of years and they are still in the original plastic pots, tucked inside a ceramic pot but you can see the difference!



What is the difference? Location, location, location!

They both live in a window sill, but one is shaded, the other gets semi bright light. Moral of the story? It's all about finding the right spot for the right plant. Everything is easy after that.

Bulbs? What bulbs?

Oh man, I've done it again. When my bulbs are done producing, I just stack them up on the corner of my porch and apparently they are ready to come out and do some growing. But I've forgotten them and they have resorted to growing out of the tiny cracks.

Sorry little bulbs. Extra sunlight and water for you!