Garden Events 2011

I added some garden events into my calendar:

2011 Golden Gate Chapter Scion Exchange
Saturday, January 22, 2011, 12-3 PM
First Baptist Church; 4555 Hilltop Drive; El Sobrante, CA
www.crfg.org/chapters/golden_gate/scionex.htm

Sonoma County Orchid Society
“Waves of Orchids”, Spring Plant Show and Sale
Saturday-Sunday, February 5-6, 2011
Santa Rosa Veterans Building
www.sonomaorchids.com/springSale.html

The San Francisco Orchid Society
“Natural Wonders”, the 59th Annual Pacific Orchid Exposition
March 3-6, 2011
Fort Mason Center, San Francisco CA
www.orchidsanfrancisco.org/poe.html

San Francisco Flower & Garden Show
March 23-27, 2011
San Mateo Events Center
www.sfgardenshow.com

San Francisco Epiphyllum Society Show & Sale
May 28, 2011, 10am – 3pm
San Francisco County Fair Building
affiliates.cssainc.org/san-francisco-epiphyllum-society.html

San Francisco Cactus & Succulent Society Show & Sale
Saturday-Sunday, June 11-12, 2011, 9am – 5pm
San Francisco County Fair Building
affiliates.cssainc.org/cssa-affiliate-events.html

July 4th Gardening…

My Masdevallia Orchids in the hanging wooden pots I made are doing quite well. I replaced the string from the two of the pots where hanging on with much stronger galvanized wire.

The flowers of the Masd. Huayna Picchu and Masd. Ruby Slippers ‘Baby’ continue to bloom…

I see a new Masd. Huayna Picchu flower spike forming. It’s interesting how many tiny spots there are on the flower and the flower spike.

I took dead leaves off Masd. Red Panda, but I noticed that it has new growth.

Told my Mom that as one of my Orchid flower matures, the bottom petals cross over. She replied, “just like what I do in my exercises.

I divided the Dragon Fruit Cactus and potted it up into a larger terra cotta pot. Hopefully, it’ll continue to grow larger.

I noticed that the Euphorbia platyclada has tiny little dark yellow blooms, which are not noticable until you really look at it closely.

On the opposite end, the Rebutia krainziana is putting up very noticeable yellow blooms. This is the second round of blooms for this cactus this year.

I noticed that the two Japanese Long Purple Eggplants both have fruits. One has three and the other just one… but they both continue to have flowers, even though they are still just about a foot tall. I hope they grow taller.

I planted two more Coleus pots today. In one pot that I found the Plectranthus argentatus ‘Longwood Silver’ in, I planted a big dark maroon leafed Coleus with no name.

In another pot, I planted:
Coleus ‘Sedona’
Coleus ‘Electric Lime’
Coleus ‘Mariposa’

For some reason, some of the leaves on the Tomato ‘Rutger’s Select’ are burning from the sun, but the other Tomatoes next to it are fine. I hope that they’ll be okay and just keep growing.

I harvested some seeds from a plant I purchased from Annie’s Annuals, but I can’t remember what it is called… something Tips… I’ll have to look it up…

Lotsa Potting…

Saturday, March 17, 2007

I hardly did any gardening today since I went to San Francisco and Oakland to hang out with friends. We saw Zodiac then had “tea service” at… um, I forgot the restaurant. Later, we did some shopping and had dinner at The Home of Chicken and Waffles in Oakland.

I also happened to see a common weed along the side of the road, but this one had variegated leaves, so I took a cutting. I’ll post a photo of it later, to see if anyone can identify it, since I don’t know its name.

Sunday, March 18, 2008

I took a whole bunch of photos in the garden today. I was going to take more photos, but the sun was kinda harsh. My mom was so cute; she helped my by holding a sheet of cardboard to block the direct light from the plants and flowers I photographed.

Siberian Squill   First Columbine Flower

My Mom also showed me a shrub that she had been growing for a few years. She said that this is the first time it bloomed this profusely. I asked he what it was, but she said she lost the tag. Anyone know what this plant/flower is?

Unknown Flower (2 of 3)   Unknown Flower (3 of 3)

I made some Orchid mix with some bark, perlite and charcoal. Initially, I was just going to pot the all white Cymbidium that I bought for my Mom, but she caught me and asked if I can pot the other Orchids she purchased at the SF Orchid show too… so I ended up potting about 3 Orchids.

Potted Cactus and Succulents

I also made a large batch of Cactus mix out for potting soil, perlite and sand. I potted most of my recent succulent purchases from the 99¢ store and the Sonoma Orchid show. I ended up potting about 18 Cactus and Succulents.

Winter Vacation…

I can’t wait for winter to end…

I’ve hardly gardened in our yard after being discouraged by some really cold weather… well, relative to our normal weather. We’ve had a couple weeks below freezing, which is normal elsewhere… but is kinda rare for our area.

Here are a few of my indoor winter projects:

Coleus: I’ve been overwintering my Coleus in my bedroom again and I think I now have around 40-60 different cultivars. Several didn’t make it, but most survived, some better than others. I’ve had problems with mealy bugs and ants, and can’t seem to get rid of them. I actually took everything out of my room today and sprayed them off in the back. Hopefully, I got rid of a majority of them.

Orchids: I have also started a small collection of Orchids, which I got as gifts or pass-a-long, or $5 baby plants I got from Home Depot. I recently added a few more with plants I got from the Pacific Orchid Expo which was in San Francisco this weekend.

Cactus: I (re)discovered a package of Cactus seed and planted them…. and they are growing really well.

Mango: I thought I would try planting a Mango seed from a Mango we got from the grocery store, just for the heck of it… I didn’t think it would grow, but surprisingly it grew really really fast. It’s a little more than a month since I planted the seed and the plant is now about 7 inched tall.

Feijoa (Pineapple Guava): I got several seedlings of a very tasty Feijoa, which a grower was giving away at the last scion exchange. I’m trying to grow them and hopefully in a few years, I’ll have my own Feijoa tree.

One other kinda big thing happened last month was that the company I work for moved to the building next door… and luckily my new cubicle has windows!!! Now I can garden at work… and I now have more than half of my overwintering Coleus on my window sill :)

Weekend Gardening

I transplanted more Snap Peas and covered these to keep the bird from them.

It was overcast and cooler… Felt very much like a Fall day…

I potted up my recent dollar store Cactus and Succulents buys.

Potted Dollar Store Cactus and Succulents

I felt like doing more, so I decided to divide my Carex plant that I grew from found seeds into 4 pots.

Carex Plant   More Carex Plants

I then realized, maybe I should have waited and divided this in the spring… but I’m sure they’ll be ok… They’re pretty tough plants.

Succulents…

I checked the Peas that my Mom saw the bird eating yesterday and they looked like they were bald. I hope they will recover… My Mom but some netting around it, but I think I’ll go to the store and get the thinning netting for gardens.

I thought I was going to do more gardening, but there was not much to do. So I moved a few things around and watered a bit.

I also took a photo inventory of most of our Succulents and Cactus… I didn’t realize how much we had. I don’t even think I got everything…

Here are photos of four more additions that I purchased recently from the dollar store

Dollar Store Succulents   More Dollar Store Succulents

I’m pretty sure the tall white one is Variegated Indian Corn Cob (Euphorbia mammillaris var. variegata), but I don’t know what the others are.

2 More New Succulents + The Birds

I bought two more succulents from the dollar store. One’s a columnar cactus with four sides. The other is a Echeveria/Aeonium-type with greenish/blue/gray diamond/spoon shaped leaves. (How’s that for a description?). I’ll have to take a photos of my four new succulents I got this week and see if anyone can identify them.

When I got home, my Mom tattled-taled on the birds and told me that she saw them eating my Peas leaves!!!! Damn-it!!!!… I haven’t seen the Peas yet, but I’ll take a look tomorrow… Hopefully, they are okay and can rebound… I think I need to get a net to keep those birds out.

Weekend Gardening

I thought I would be doing a lot of gardening this weekend, but there was actually not much to do. Surprisingly, the weather was warm… even after the rains we got mid-week.

I transfered about 18 Spinach seedlings from 2 six-packs into 3 inch pots.

The Bok Choy and Lettuce that I planted to replace the ones that were eaten are sprouting… and the Swiss Chard that were spared are getting bigger now.

Hopefully, we’ll have a lot of greens for the Fall, Winter and Spring.

The Sweet Peas and Snap Peas are also sprouting, but I won’t plat them in the bed until they get a little bigger, since they seems to be favorites of the birds and slugs.

I potted up a succulent (I think it’s some type of Kalanchoe) that has been growing from a leaf. I’ll have to post photos later, to see if anyone can identify it.

On Sunday, I took my mom to do some grocery shopping at the Filipino store, then we stopped by the 99¢ store and I found 2 more Cactus (actually one is a Euphorbia, so technically, 1 cactus)… I’ll post photos later.

Oh, I also forgot that on Friday afternoon, I took a late lunch and walked up Filbert Steps again to shot a few photos.