Showing posts with label gardening. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gardening. Show all posts

Thursday, September 13, 2012

Plant A Let Ohs

Many moons ago I was a client at a weight lost clinic.  I went once a week, submitted to humiliation scale torture, listened to mind numbingly obvious lectures, and purchased incredibly expensive (which Mommy Dearest generously paged for), microscopic portion frozen foods. 

Yes, it worked like a charm.  I shed a punch of poundage which nobody noticed and which came back with all their extra buddies when I stopped attending the program

The skinny "counselors" encouraged me to reward myself whenever I met a goal.  Since the only reward I had ever given myself was food and I never had two dimes to spend on myself, I was a failure at treating myself.  Now, years later I discovered a present for me, me, me!

Houseplants!  Fairly inexpensive.  Big variety.  Rarely die.  No calories.  Yippee!



My oldest mother in law tongue.  Only one to survive the days at Angry Sisters house.  I don't think she killed the others on purpose, but I really miss the monstera.
Two newest.  Pink arrow and eponymous (I think).  I love the sketchy leaves.  The pots are actually dark, dark black.
Ellie Bananas tried ripping this to shreds with her chubby little hands.  Luckily she ate nothing and the plants have already recovered.
Hoya doing well despite by it's growing slowly.  I think it should have three or four more branches by now.
Christmas cactus I've had the best with so fair.  I have killed two before.  I think the trick is to ignore it most of the time.
Standard green arrow plant, pilfered from my school, and held alive by the pony.
Two tiny philodendron snatched from the Elder House lobby and (my personal favorite) jade plant.  This is another I want to touch all the time, but it also seems to thrive on neglect.  It does grow quickly enough for me.

These are my garden.  My oxygen factories.  My long delayed collection of rewards.

Friday, June 22, 2012

Saw This And Had To 2012-2



Saw this on a friend's fb page and had to take a second and then a third look.  Corporatate idiocy is usually not on my radar.  It seems such an easy target.  But this was too good to pass up.  Thanks, Becky.

Friday, June 1, 2012

Hello June

This time last year my daughters and I were preparing for a joint graduation celebration.  Baby Sister came into town from the hinterlands of New England and my two best buds finally met.  It was such a happy time.  I am still overwhelmed by the love and effort put forth by so many.  Thanks, Guys.

Now I'm trying.  Crocheted a bundle of sleeves and covered some hideous plastic containers.  Three successes there.  Grew some beet foliage that was more gorgeous than I could have predicted.

And then it died.
No broken hearts.  I composted what I could.  Saved the soil.  Reworked the sleeve.  Waited for inspiration.  And it came, eventually.

When I was a home owner I delighted in my teeny herb garden.  Terra cotta pots on a bent wire baker's rack on my front porch.  Dappled shade.  Dappled sunlight.  Bliss.  Parsley, basil, tarragon,thyme, mint, dill, and chives in abundance.  Here the scale is more limited.

And so I potted up some sage, mint, and rosemary.  So fragrant.  So lovely.  What visions I had of yummy edible surprises.  Roast chicken.  Herbal iced teas.  Smoothies.  But disaster struck!  Today I found this on my counter:


Can you see?  Hideous smudgy black spots on almost every leaf.  As if the poor plants had been attacked by aliens or acid rain or....who knows what.  "That is a disappointment" as Ron Howard would say.

I hope it's not a prelude.  June better not suck. 

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Greenery

Can you see them?
Way up there at the tippy top?
Two brand new variegated ficus leaves!
Not only are they actually alive, but no leaves have shrivelled up and dropped off from the bottom either.
First time I ever had a ficus survive!
And here I proudly present the return of the gentian.
This delicate little lovely was gifted to me here at Elder House.
I had my doubts about its survival.
The Nazi Nun used to grow them on window sills and she had a demented system.  I was assigned to watering detail.  If they perished it was due to "that stupid girl over watering" and I was to blame.  If they thrived it was due to her strict supervision of "that stupid girl".  Me again; but she took the credit.
Ah Catholics...
Anyway, I placed my gift too close to the stove and scorched most of the leaves the second day.
Stupid girl indeed.
Google search (my trusted buddy) advised whacking off the dead stuff, watering a smidge and waiting for the plant to magically regenerate.
It's working!
Take that you crazy Nazi!
And finally...
This is what happens when a gimpy old lady forgets one of her canes.
Plant was saved.  Pot was destroyed.
A minor heart breaker: purchased pot with a weird outer space flower in it during a very happy excursion with two darling daughters and equally darling grandson several summers ago.
I could still almost walk and I got to throw paint sample cards on the floor with the little guy.
Fun

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Beets


Before
During

A Bit More During
And After

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

What Is This?





Scott Glenn as Jack Crawford:  Some kind of seed pod?
It is NOT a bug cocoon.