Saturday, August 29, 2015

Late Summer Blooms

 
 My bloom scape on the keiki is looking great!
 
 
 
Plus I still have what appears to be a growing baby plant as well, I'm anxious to see what happens.
 
 
 
I had a weak moment at Home Depot and got this jasmine for $1.98-it still has some sweet-smelling blooms on it.

 
They had perennials on sale too, so I got three perennials and a pretty red bougainvilea vine.

 
This was covered with bees at Home Depot, I'm surprised none of them followed me home.

 
Pretty echinacea, I selected a plant with mostly buds to prolong the show.
 
 
LOVE the bloom color on the vine, too bad it has no fragrance.

 
The blooms are even pretty before they open.
 
 
This palm is showing some growth and looking somewhat less ratty, but I'm pretty sure it will be treated as an annual and left out to succumb to frost. These never stay nice looking for me anyhow.


My new big brugmansia is looking super nice! I'm planning to repot it before it comes in for the winter.

 
The fuschia is blooming like crazy, too. It seems to me that they've done something to these plants to keep them blooming without dead-heading. I have given this Miracle Grow a couple times, but I've never had a fuschia bloom non-stop like this!


                             Here's hoping for a nice mild autumn, I want the show to keep going!

Wednesday, August 12, 2015

Outdoor Plants 2015

 
My big brugmansia died a few months ago, so I got a new one from a dear friend who grew it from a cutting I'd given her off of mine. Kinda bushy and I like them in tree form... 
 
 
...so I trimmed it back.

 
Stuck two of the cuttings in water to root...

 
...and one in the pot where the big brug had died. This pot is outdoors, I was hoping something could grow from the roots of the dead plant. So this stem has lots of room to develop into a new plant.

 
Some other houseplants on the porch are this ratty looking palm...

 
...new brug, old brug, and some sapling trees growing in last year's empty pots. Not sure what these trees are, but I may want them so I'll keep them going until I can ID them.

 
Here's the only annual I bought this year, fuschia perked right up after I watered it.

 
The two cuttings in water began to rot later, so i cut off the rot to try something else.
 
 
Soaked some spagnum moss...

 
...these white bumps are future root nodes...

 
...put a drainage disk in this enamel cup...

 
...then wrapped them up in paper towel with moss. Hopefully they'll root and not rot.


As I was checking on the outdoor cutting I got an amazing surprise-a baby is sprouting from the dead stem of my original brug! Yay!


                            Plus new growth starting on the stem I put in the same pot-hooray!

 
Baby leaves!


The new plant looks very happy after the cut back too, developing a sturdy, woody stem.


So far I've gone from no brugmansia to five in short order. Always good to have extras, one can never have too many fragrant blooms, IMO.

Keiki News

 
It's official-one of these branches is a bloom scape!
 
 
 
I'm hoping the other two stems coming from the keiki site will still develop as a new orchid, but two more bloom scapes will be alright too. I must say, so far this project has been great fun. Stay tuned for further developments...