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!

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...

Orchids Update

 

The keiki project on my Phalaenopsis Happy Girl is growing like crazy!

 

 

The tips are looking like bloom buds though, so I'm anxious to see how this plays out.

 

 

No sign of roots or anything at the source point, either.

The smallest orchids are doing well, aside from the Tolumnia Tequila Sunrise. I think I'll try mounting it, the clay pot is awfully small and dries out too fast, IMO.

 

Brassavola nodosa, fragrant Lady of the Night orchid is doing okay too, though not growing super fast. I haven't been good about feeding the orchids this season, only once so far and I'm sure that doesn't help matters.

 

 Only cymbidium Suzy Q is growing with gusto, but no signs of blooming just yet. I'm not entirely sure when Suzy is supposed to bloom, but she sure seems to be mature enough so we'll see.

 

Maxillaria Tenuifolia is doing alright, but I think this driftwood dries out too fast. I try to spritz it once a week and soak it once a week too, I can tell when I've forgotten to spritz. I may need to add something to retain moisture better, but I hate to get it too wet and cause rot (that's my nature with all plants, so it's a slippery slope.)

Oncidium Aliceara Alice is growing well too, cork really seems to be the best mount for orchids in general and the small ones specifically. I soak this once a week, also.

The large vanilla orchid got to the top of the fern pole and needed to go somewhere, so I turned it horizontal. Eventually I want to make a large frame to attach and grow many of my orchids as well as the staghorn fern and suspend them over the bathtub. This one has a bit of a head start, so I may need to make the frame sooner than later.

 

Here the staghorn and varigated vanilla orchid are alive and well, but growing much more slowly. That's fine with me, this is my second varigated orchid so I'm just happy it's alive.

I'm really enjoying all these orchids, but right about now I'm realizing that it's time to refresh my knowledge of their care (especially if I want to avoid a repeat of the previous orchid murders.) Stay tuned...

Keiki Gone Wild

 

We are now 64 days post keiki project start date, and boy do we have growth!

 

 

Mother orchid looks fabulous, certainly none the worse for wear.

                                                     Wow, look at this bouncing baby!

 

Still some keiki-grow goo left at the source...

...and the stem just below looks to be shriveling somewhat. So will some of the keiki nubs become roots?

                                                           Stay tuned to find out!

Orchid Keiki Update

 

Well here we are just 14 days later and presto! Keiki growth!

 

 

                       Compared to where we started with this teeny green nub, I'm impressed!

 

This is really easy and fun so far, I hope my keiki grows to be a plantable baby orchid. Stay tuned!

 

Phalaenopsis Happy Girl Keiki Project

 I've decided to use my Phalaenopsis 'Happy Girl' for a keiki-growing experiment. What is a keiki? According to the folks at RePotme orchids, it's when  "an orchid plant will bear a little plantlet off of its flower stem or pseudobulb". I bought this kit from them to encourage  my orchid to grow one.

The steps really are easy...

...and I had several nodes to choose from. Happy Girl has two old bloom scapes that never died back, so I chose this node that looked most like the one in the illustration. Need to make this as simple as possible for myself.

Cut the papery flap...

                                                      ...there's the little green "node"...

                                                            ....then I just paint this stuff on.

Now we wait. I'm to re-apply the goo every 10 days, the keiki is said to grow "in a matter of weeks". Cool!

Since I've been absent from Blogger awhile, I didn't post that I'd re-potted Happy Girl a few weeks ago. As you can see from her roots, she likes this new pot.

See the root sticking out the side? This pot provides a lot of air circulation, and when the roots stray you can just guide them back into the pot.

The design is pretty wild, and they have several colors at RePotme where I bought it. I like that it lets the roots get enough air so an over-waterer like myself can't cause much harm.

Her roots were fairly bunched up in the old pot, and there were some dead areas to trim off.

Holy root-bound, batman!

Better! There was a slight learning curve with watering in this pot, I've settled on about once a week (although I do consult my moisture meter to be sure).

                                          Here's hoping she's happy enough that the keiki grows!