Saturday, September 6, 2014

September

Some suggested varieties of these cool season veggies include: Broccoli: Early Green Sprouting, Waltham 29, Atlantic, Green Comet, Green Duke

Cabbage: Gourmet, Marion Market, King Cole, Market Prize, Red Acre, Chieftan Savoy, Rio Verde, Bravo

Celery: Utah Strains, Florida Strains, Summer Pascal

Lettuce: Crisp - Minetto, Ithaca, Fulton, Floricrisp; Butterhead - Bibb, White Boston, Tom Thumb; Leaf - Prize Head, Red Sails, Salad Bowl; Romaine - Parris Island Cos, Valmaine, Floricos

Onions: Bulbing - Excel, Texas Grano, Granex, White Granex, Tropicana Red;

Bunching - White Portugal, Evergreen, Beltsville Bunching, Perfecto Blanco;

Multipliers - Shallots

Peas: Wando, Green Arrow, Laxton’s Progress, Sugar Snap, Oregon Sugar


2020

September 12, Hit Willow Tree with Bethia and came away with Texas Sage, Cuban buttercup, 3 pentas, 3 bulbine, and a little fennel for the butterflies.  Very happy. Bulbines top out at a foot, with the flowers perking up another two, blooming in summer. Half will go in Melanie Garden. Each clump will grow to four feet wide. Texas Sage will grow to 3 to 5 feet; prune in spring or after blooming. Give it 3 feet of space when planting. Cuban buttercups will go to 2 to 3 feet, need an inch of water a week, reseed? Pentas: For best results, plant pentas in late spring in a site that receives full sun and has well-drained soil. Most pentas grow about 15 inches wide and 2 to 3 feet tall.

September 4, Stage 1 work began on the Melanie Garden, a strip of land with lousy soil and no sprinkler system. I planted five (6?) Florida native porterweeds. For each planting, I dug a deepish hole, put absorbent packaging at the bottom, a layer of dirt, watered, inserted the plant, filled around with dirt, surrounded with water-soaked cardboard 'tiles', added a shallow layer of the sandy soil to the cardboard to hold it down and topped with a donut of mulch. 
Here's hoping. The plants in pots are a pencil cactus, two iresines, and a succulent. 


Neckace pod bush. (Yeah, right.) Just planted at the beginning of the month. Enormous rains for several weeks.

2019

To do:

Fertilize citrus and avocado

Dividing Daylilies, ??? Caladiums??? Clear off excess dirt. Cut the tubers into 1- to 3 1/2-inch sections, using a knife. The size of the tuber determines the size of the caladium plant the first year after planting. For larger plants, create sections 3 1/2 inches long. One-inch tubers will result in smaller plants. Each section must have at least one "eye" or growing point. One new leaf will grow from each of the growing points.

One of the few routine maintenance chores needed when growing daylilies is dividing them. Depending on their growth, your daylily clump will usually become crowded after four to five years and flowering will diminish. 
https://www.wikihow.com/Divide-Daylilies.

And check out the sanseverria too.
DONE, 9/2/2019

Planted truly beautiful Nora ixora in front along Melanie border.  Have high hopes.
Planted some beautiful tickseed (coreopsis) in a pot near the palm tree.

Had house cleaned. The chemical the dear boys did something of a number on all the plants near the houses.  As did the termite folk earlier.  Note to self; plant nothing close to the house. Keep things in pots.

2018


Is blue porterweed something you should blog about?  The insulting "weed" in the name implies that it's a vigorous self seeder and that's true, but oh, how beautiful is the blue.  When it turns cold and the blue spires blacken, I'll rip them all out and welcome them again in the spring. Unlike beach sunflower, they don't leave behind a barren patch beneath them, reminiscent of a bombed-out crater, so why not let them have their day?

Sunday, August 24, 2014

Train Line to Narnia

A Secret Garden

I discovered a beautiful English garden blooming behind walls when I visited Highclere Castle, where the popular BBC seriesDownton Abbey is filmed. Was I surprised when I saw the plaque on the wall with the garden's name, "The Secret Garden?" Not at all. I was an England now, where all my favorite children's books seemed to be coming true.

Photo: TF Sherman

Harry Potter Land

Arriving at Platform 9 3/4

We took the train from Heathrow Airport to St. Pancras Station. Bleary with exhaustion from the flight, we stopped off in Harry Potter land. On the left of the picture, you can see people posing by the famous Platform 9 3/4 at which Harry embarked each school year for Hogwarts.

We didn’t try imitating his technique of ramming his trunk into the platform, but trotted off wheeling our suitcases in ordinary Muggle fashion.

Photo credit: © User:Colin / Wikimedia Commons / CC-BY-SA-3.0

Wardonia Hotel

Former residence of Mary Poppins

I’m almost certain that our hotel was once the house that the Banks children lived in, and that that front door was the oneMary Poppins knocked at to answer the advertisement for a nanny. Can’t you see her blowing away her competition as they cling to those iron gates? Also, there was a very nice square for us to play in directly across the way.

Three homes must have been thrown together, in the same manner as the the dance academy was created in Ballet Shoesby Noel Streatfield.

Oooh, and in the lower basement windows — can you catch a glimpse of Sara Crew from A Little Princess, her face thin and pinched, starved and persecuted as she was by that awful Miss Minchin? The stairs on those houses are narrow! I went up and down with a suitcase. Carrying a hod of coal would be just awful.

Photo by TF Sherman

On a Nearby Alley

Across from the 500 year old church with the haunted cemetery, down from the Irish pub, and before the policeman on horseback...

On our way to the nearest Indian restaurant, on a sort of alley which wasn’t even a street, we passed St. Mungo’s Dispensary.Harry Potter fans know it as St. Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Mysteries and Maladies. They keep this one very mum.

Photo: TF Sherman

British Museum

The Red Pyramid, Kane Chronicles, by Rick Riordan, author The Lightning Thief

I was happy to discover the Rosetta Stone all in one piece at the British Museum. (The dad in The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan had blown it up one midnight performing a secret rite to summon the gods of ancient Egypt — big mistake.) I found this dude to be much scarier.

Photo: TF Sherman

I couldn't actually see Bigwig and Holly and Fiver from the bedroom window of my B & B in Combe, near Bath. But I could imagine.

I couldn't actually see Bigwig and Holly and Fiver from the bedroom window of my B & B in Combe, near Bath. But I could imagine.

The Eagle and the Child

Birthplace of Narnia AND Middle Earth

In Oxford, we stuck our heads in the door of The Eagle and the Child (also known as The Bird and the Babe) where J. R. R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis and other members of The Inklings gathered in the private Rabbit room in the back to read each other the manuscripts of their, Lewis’ Narnia books, and Tolkien’s even more monolithic Lord of the Rings epic.

Supposedly, Tolkien was not a good reader, mumbling and even putting his listeners to sleep. At one point, according to the story, fellow English teacher Hugo Dyson woke up and said, “Oh, lord, not another f—— elf.”

Photo: Wikipedia

Lyra's Oxford

The Golden Compass

Look out at the rooftops and spires of Oxford. There is no way to find a view less than amazing. Not hard all to imagine a daemon scampering over the rooftops in desperate need of help…

Photo by TF Sherman

The Perch

Alice in Wonderland meets The Wind in the Willows

While we wandered, we ate pick up meals wherever we happened to be. Pub food is not really reliably delicious, and I found English breakfasts to be astonishing. I’ve always begun my day with cereal and fruit, and tea and toast was delicious, although I skipped the marmite in favor of orange marmalade. But the rest of the meal was extraordinary. On one breakfast plate was served an egg (just one), pork and leak sausauges, rather more like hot dogs than our sausage, bacon, rather more like our ham than our bacon, beans, a stewed tomato, and mushrooms. That’s truly a hobbit sized breakfast.

I would have been happier if I could have gone back and had it for lunch, but instead we had to rely on a series of gastronomic misadventures. Pub food is not always reliable, (that’s a joke), and everything was very, very expensive too. Marzipan from Hotel Chocolate sustained me. I had just read Jasper Ffordes The Last Dragonslayer, and one of his inside jokes was about a character abusing marzipan. I could sympathize too well.

We were lucky enough to be given a walking tour of Oxford but British author Peter Furtado, who had just autographed a copy of his new Histories of Nations for my husband. He suggested we follow up a wonderful day with dinner, and he made reservations at The Perch just outside Oxford. We didn’t know what to expect when the taxi delivered us to a 17th century thatched inn. Inside, the place was homey, the waiters friendly, and the cuisine French. While we waited for Peter and his wife, I strolled out in the lovely garden. The path I followed led under vined arches to a welcoming, easygoing Thames. I was spellbound, waiting for Ratty and Moley from The Wind in the Willows to punt by.

When I told Peter how amazingly lovely I found The Perch to be, he nodded. “Yes. And historical too. Lewis Carroll and C. S. Lewis both came here. It was one of the first places where Lewis Carroll gave a reading of Alice in Wonderland.”

Did I mention that the French food I ate there was the best food I had in England

Sunday, August 3, 2014

Coleus experimentation


I love coleus but I'm very miserly too; I expect to walk out of the garden store with three pots of different coleus, go home, cut them up, and end up with a dozen plants per. And when I root them, my goal is to produce new plants with roots (of course) and a doubled stem before I put them into the ground.

And this is just what I did this year, but I'm not really satisfied with the rate at which they are rooting.  I read recently that plants generate a rooting solution, so if they share a pot with another rooting plant, their growth will be spurred. That sounds good.

I had cut off one long sprig for rooting, and then cut that sprig in two.  I am noticing that the middle part, which looked like a poor balding orphan when I stuck it into the pot, is looking quite perky now, in fact, better than its leafier big brother. Because the leafier big brother was putting his energy into sustaining those big leaves, when it came time for him to be clipped to make room for the doubles, he was in a bad way. 

So now I am trying a different way of rooting my cuttings. I have two batches of new cuttings.  On one batch, I've removed all the large leaves, and they look like pretty helpless soldiers. They're sitting in an inch of water now because their stems are so very short. The other batch still has the top leaves on, but I stripped all the side leaves.  

This particular breed of coleus is very prone to doubling.

Monday, July 14, 2014

Winter vegetable garden

Winter vegetables:

Beets. She describes Bull Blood as being her favorite.
Order seeds:  http://www.johnnyseeds.com/p-6310-bulls-blood-og.aspx
Place in a bin in backyard.
http://inmykitchengarden.blogspot.com/2007/04/how-to-grow-beets-from-seed-and-why-you.html

Saturday, June 28, 2014

June

2021

6/7 Willow Tree, bought Juniperus procumbens 'Nana' or dwarf Japanese juniper and Victoria blue salvia to line front path. Juniper will grow 4 to 6 inches a year and reach 4.5 feet. Salvia will grow to a 1 and 1/2 feet tall and 9 inches wide.  Needs richer soil. 

Fertilize citrus and avocado
plant moss roses and zinnias
2020




6/11 Went to Willow Tree with Bethia, where I picked out a crossandra and some Corsican mint. Not very sensible choices, but it was love at first sight. Now I just have to figure where to put them. 

6/30  Just Fruits and Exotics have shipped an Australian Green Finger Lime  and Sugar Belle Tangerine. They are unboxed and standing in the shade, waiting for their final resting space.  I'll definitely wait for the rains.  Tangerines ripen in November, and Limes are everbearing -- when they turn color and 'feel full'  Tangerines are on trifolate or sour orange rootstock so should like acid soil. ???


On a less cheery note, still working on thinning the bamboo, and yearning for a better backyard plan. But backyard serves no real purpose except as a path from Janie and Claire's cars. Got to plan around that.


2019



Rain lilies went to town after I separated them and planted them along the path!


Update:  Avocado tree is doing okay. It was blighted this spring, so no crops, but it's looking ok.  All the Santa Rosa stuff perished long ago. 

This year's new plantings: a really gorgeous Celosia which I'm trying to propagate. Just took three cuttings, and only three because I hate to denude the plants, they're so full and beautiful.  Looks fantastic with the red-leaved coleus, which I'm also working at propagating. 

I have a lot of purple shield which have graduated to pots on the window sill of the porch.  They're such a beautiful true purple, but they can't take full on heat.  I would put them around the palm tree but I think they'd burn up. They're very effective in pots near the door, but they should have something with them. I'm not sure what.  Maybe some flower.  




2014

Many new plants!!!

Mexicola grande avocado tree, courtesy of my sweet Bethia: If you do get just one tree, here's a tip to increase fertilization: Spray flowers with a weak honey water mixture, like 1:10.  The bees and wasps will be all over it, pollinating away!  Really worked for me.

It is sometimes called the year-round avocado because of its long harvest season. To extend the harvest, store fruit for up to six weeks in cool temperatures. The fruit matures on the tree but ripens after it is picked, so delay picking and store in a cool place to provide avocados almost all year. 


Moringa tree: In front yard, again, courtesy of my sweet Bethia: I'm expecting a bumper load of nuts...in about five years.2011

Home Depot: Broke down and bought a mini pink which I've almost killed already. Bought coleus which I immediately began to snip up and propagate with great satisfaction. Bought luscious begonia which will probably be dead by the next time I read this, bad me.

My order from Santa Rosa Nursery arrived: 
Items Ordered:Price:Status:
$4.99Shipped
$8.97Shipped
$2.99Shipped
$4.99Shipped

It's not such a hot idea to order super cheap on sale plants; they arrived very root bound and droopy, the lower leaves burned yellow. I ripped out some whip-and-a-chain beach sunflower and replaced with gaillardia I planted Buddleia by the bougainvillea and hope it will be answer to all my dreams. I'm eager to see my sedums take off -- their leaves look radically different.

Also bought on impulse from Home Depot:  Calarhea. Medium light, moist soil, and warm home temperaures of 70 - 75.  Meant to be just a houseplant? Remarkably beautiful leaves.

My four cubic yards of dirt quality mulch from the city was probably at least one cubic yard too much, but oh well, I'm not through yet. Tired, but not through.


2011

A beautiful red bloom on the hibiscus, amid the beach sunflower.  I fertilized with fish emulsion last week, and this week, the hibiscus do seem to be blooming better. The fish emulsion is stinky, but it's fine stuff.
 I'm thinking a little purple queen near the wall would do well and look good.