Lotsa Gardening Going On…

My Coleus hunt continues… I went to Mid City Nursery and picked up three more Coleus:
Coleus ‘Henna’
Coleus ‘Dipt in Wine’
Coleus ‘Glennis’

Me and my Mom are clearing Veggie Bed #2. I’m pulling up the old Kale Dwarf Blue Curled and my Mom is gathering up the river rock mulch. I’ll add some compost and potting soil to raise back the soil, then figure out what to plant next. Most likely Tomatoes and Pepper and maybe a Potato.

I planted 4 more Coleus pots today…

Coleus Pot #7:
Coleus ‘Swallowtail’
Coleus ‘Rustic Orange’
Coleus ‘Dipt in Wine’

Coleus Pot #8:
Coleus ‘Chocolate Mint’
Coleus ‘Sunset Strip’
Coleus ‘Snazzy’

Coleus Pot #9:
Coleus ‘Molten Lava’
Coleus ‘Henna’
Coleus ‘Lava Rose’

Coleus Pot #10:
Coleus ‘Florida Sun Jade’
Coleus ‘Indian Summer’
Coleus ‘Glennis’

Sweet Peas in the backyard are pretty much spent so I’m collecting the seedpods and chopping them down…

Working in the garden with a Citronella candle to ward of the mosquitos

My Oriental Limelight Artemisia is growing way to big and overshadowing the Orange Fuz Geranium growing the the same pot, so I cut some of its canes down to make some room for the Geranium to get more light. I also removed a bunch of dead leaves from the bottom part of the Artemisia. I think they’ll be ok for now, but I’ll probably separate them come fall.

I was cutting some of the old Red Texas Star Hibiscus stem off and noticed a couple tiny blue balls in the Mondo Grass growing in the same pot. I think it’s the Mondo Grass seedpod… It really cool, but it’s too dark to take a photo of it right now. I’ll do that tomorrow…

There are currently 4 Red Texas Star Hibiscus growing. These have never bloomed, so I’m wondering if I should pot it up to a bigger pot…

I accidentally knocked over the Euphorbia genoudiana pot, so I potted it up into it’s new permanent home…

Coleus Pot #13 (The Oranges)

Coleus Pot #13 (The Oranges)

(Top, right center, bottom left) Coleus ‘Sedona’, Coleus ‘Rustic Orange’ and Coleus ‘Copper Splash’. Creeping Jenny growing underneath the Coleus.

Something is nibbling on the leaves!!! >:(

Planting Til The Sun Goes Down…

Once I got home, I hurried to plant some pots before it got too late. This is what I planted:

Coleus pot #13: (The orange pot) ‘Sedona’, ‘Rustic Orange’ and ‘Copper Splash’
Coleus pot #14: ‘Purple Oak’
Coleus pot #15: ‘Pineapple Prince’ and ‘Pineapple’
Coleus pot #16: ‘Alabama Sunset’
Coleus pot #17: ‘Amora’

and 2 more non-Coleus pots, but I’m spacing and can’t think of the combinations. I’ll check tommorrow…

A Few Baby Coleus…

Here are a few of my Coleus babies I have growing in my bedroom.

Coleus ‘Twirl-a-whirl’ (Last years “Mama” plant) + (Cuttings and Hybrids)

Coleus 'Twirl-a-whirl'   Coleus 'Twirl-a-whirl' (Cuttings and Hybrids)

The larger plant on top (of the above right photo) are cuttings I took from the mama plant on the above left photo. During the winter, it has lost it’s swirling petticoat leaf shape and turned greenish orange. It will most likely return to it’s darker swirling leave once it returns outdoors.

The two cups on the bottom (of the photo above right) contain seedlings from the same mother plant as the above cuttings. Two are almost a pure chartreuse while one is chartreuse with a purplish vain. The one on the bottom right is a kaleidoscope of green, burgundy and reds.

Coleus ‘Dark Star’ (Last years “Mama” plant) + (Hybrids)

Coleus 'Dark Star'   Coleus 'Dark Star' (Hybrids)

Coleus ‘Dark Star’ hybrids grown from seeds harvested from the mama plant on the left.

Coleus ‘Rustic Orange’ (Last years “Mama” plant) + (Cuttings)

Coleus 'Rustic Orange'   XXXXXX-XXXXXX.jpg

This cutting (of the above right photo) barely made it… I had it overwintering at work and it died back to almost nothing. I brought it home, took new cuttings (with leave smaller than half an inch) dipped it in rooting hormone and planted them directly in moist perlite. It has really sprung back to life!

It’ll be interesting to see how all these turn out, especially the hybrids.

5 Day Weekend…

Friday, July 1

Today was the start of my 5 day holiday weekend. I had a lot of errands to do so I was only able to do a little bit of maintenance gardening and everything is looking good.

My mom and I went to Mid City Nursery in American Canyon. Even though this nursery is less than 10 minutes away from my house, I’ve never been to it because it closes before I get home from work.

I was very impressed. They had a lot of plants that I normally don’t see in larger garden centers, including some Fuchsias, Coleus and Euphorbias that I liked. I ended up buying 4 plants (I’ll post photos later)

Euphorbia Mozambique
Fuchsia hybrid “Golden Marinka”
Fushsia triphylla “Firecracker”
Coleus “Velvet Lime”

Saturday-Monday, July 2-4

My friend Darwin and I are going to Reno to take a mini vacation and visit my friend Michael. Michael introduced me to Coleus last year and actually gave me my first cutting (unfortunately it didn’t survive). Michael is starting his “Garden Design and Installation” business and I was looking forward to seeing him and his work… So I packed some Coleus I rooted and brought it along with the business cards that I designed for him.

We visited several nurseries and I did buy some plants (I’ll post photos later):

Coleus “Pat Martin”
Coleus “Jade”
Coleus “New Orleans Red”
Coleus “Stained Glassworks Burgundy Wedding Train”
Coleus “Gay’s Delight”
Perilla “Magilla”

Michael also gave me a cute little hypertufa pot that he made planted with a succulent.

Tuesday, July 3

Since this was my last day of the long weekend I wanted to visit the Berkeley Horticultural Nursery again… just to see if they had any new Coleus…. and they did… so I ended up buying five more… I just couldn’t resist.

Coleus “Wild Lime”
Coleus “Wild Lime” (I think this one is mislabeled because it’s different than the previous “Wild Lime”)
Coleus “Exhinition Magma”
Coleus “Rustic Orange”
Coleus “Trailing Rose Frost”

I also noticed another nursery on the way home. So I checked it out and OMG they had a Coleus sale. Buy 3 get one free… So I got four more along with a Euphorbia species. The Coleus were old and already flowering, but I’ll just take cuttings of them and make new plants.

Coleus “Dragon Black”
Coleus “Tabasco”
Coleus “Sunshine Burgundy Sun”
Coleus “Kong Green”

With all these new plants, I stopped by a local store and got a couple of cheap 18 inch pots. I also got Mondo Grass Ophiopogon and “found” some detached baby succulents.

Once home, I did major potting. All in all, I potted 5 succulents, a hanging Fuchsia pot and 3 large pots with Coleus.

I’m sleepy, so that’s it for now… I’ll post some pictures soon…

[edited June 8, 2005: Added missing plant names]