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?