Busy Nights…

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

I asked Micheal, (one of my best friends) who started his own garden design business a few years ago, if he wanted some Agrostemma ‘Ocean Pearl’. He did, so I planted three more six-cell packs outside.

Later after dinner, I sowed more seeds from penguingardener (Maraming Salamat!):

Tomato ‘Bloody Butcher’
Easter Eggplant Hybrid

I then got zealous (is that the right word?) and even though it was late, decided to transplant the Tomato and some Eggplant seedlings into larger drinking cups.

Repotted Tomato Seedling Batch 1

OMG!!! That took a while… It was really really late, and I was only about half way done, so I decided to do the rest next next day.

Oh yeah… I found a mutant Tomato Seedling.

Mutant Tomato

This Tomato seedling either…
1. had a leaf bending down that went through a side stem, or
2. had another seedling fuse right into the stem, pinning one of its leaves.

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

I started hardening off the Tomatoes and Eggplant seedlings I transplanted yesterday by taking it outside when I left for work, then bringing them in when I got home.

Michael emailed me asking if I can also plant some Bells of Ireland, so I passed by Target after work and bought some seeds.

I transplanted the rest of the Tomatoes into more drinking cups. I have so much!!! I think I have about 26 individual plants in drinking cups.

Repotted Tomato Seedling Batch 2

I then sowed some Pepper seeds:

Tricolor Variegata Pepper
Carmanola Rossa Pepper
Topepo Rosso Pepper

The last two are from penguingardener (Maraming Salamat Ulit!):

I also performed surgery on three dying Coleus (Velvet Lime, Amazon and Dark Star Hybrid) that I mentioned yesterday.

Coleus I.C.U.

I really hope they survive!!!

Enough with the Mealy Bugs!!!

I planted a small terra cotta pot with four Coleus ‘Pat Martin’ plants.

I was planning on planting another Coleus pot with the ‘Velvet Lime’, but the it, along with the ‘Dragon Black’ was just infested with Mealy Bugs, so I made a decision to decapitate them and try to start new cuttings. I got all (or at least most) of the Mealy Bugs off the cutting and planted them in drinking cups covered with plastic bags. I hope these grow fast.

Unusual Coleus with Three Leaves per Node

As I was planting my Coleus into pots on Sunday, I noticed that two of my Coleus were a little unusual. Instead of the usual two leaves per node, these had three leaves per node. Hmmm? Mutants?

One was a ‘Dark Star (Hybrid)’ that grew from seed…

Coleus 'Dark Star (Hybrid)' (3 Leaves/Node)   Coleus 'Dark Star (Hybrid)' (3 Leaves/Node)

…the other was ‘Velvet Lime’ cutting from last year.

Coleus 'Velvet Lime' (3 Leaves/Node)   Coleus 'Velvet Lime' (3 Leaves/Node)

Work: Before, During and After…

This seems to be the longest day… especially with yesterday’s incident. I couldn’t sleep, so ended up sleeping at about 5:30am!… I didn’t wake up and was late to work.

Since I was late to work, I couldn’t take carpool, so I drove in. Ironically, look what was in front of me on the freeway…

Animal Control Vehicle

An animal control vehicle!!!!! I sure could have used them yesterday!!!

Yesterday, one of my coworker was explaining some of my cameras features. I thought I would try my hand at a long exposure shot.

Long Exposure Test

This is taken at the parking lot near my work. I was working overtime and took a break outside. The street in the photo is The Embarcadero in San Francisco. Can you see my Honda Civic?

Since I drove into work, I thought I would take advantage of my car and transport all my overwintered Coleus in one big batch (instead of my “What can I fit into one grocery bag” method. So after I finished all my work (at 11:30pm), I packed all the remaining Coleus at work and made my trip home.

Welcome Back Home (Batch 3 - The Finally)

top row (left to right): Coleus ‘Velvet Lime’, Coleus ‘Amora?’
middle row: Coleus ‘Jade’, Coleus ‘Pat Martin’
bottom: Plectranthus ‘Zulu Wonder’

Welcome Back Home (Batch 2)

The second batch of overwintered Coleus cutting from work that I was able to fit in a grocery bag.

Welcome Back Home (Batch 2)

top row (left to right): Coleus ‘Bronze Pagoda’, Coleus ‘Alabama Sunset’
middle row: unknown Coleus (from Target), Coleus ‘Kong Scarlet’
bottom: Coleus ‘Velvet Lime’

Earlier This Week…

Sunday Jan. 29, 2006

I was able to take some photos of the garden. I just haven’t downloaded them to my computer.

I potted the Yellow Crocus that my brother didn’t plant into two small rectangle pots that I found laying in the corner of the garden. I also potted the Giraffe Dahlia and the Yellow Peruvian Daffodils that I purchased the previous weekend into one gallon pots.

Tuesday Jan. 31, 2006

Five potted Coleus cutting (3 Kong Scarlet, 1 Pat Martin and 1 Velvet Lime) graduated from the Coleus Aquarium and are now in their new home at work to over-winter.

I purchased a Jiffy-7 Mini-Greenhouse with 12 Jiffy-7 Pellets, for $1.88 just to try it out since I never used it. I planted 2 pellets each of these seeds:

– Tomato ‘Brandywine OTV’
– Tomato ‘Great White’
– Eggplant ‘Scarlet Chinese’
– Coleus ‘Dappled Apple?’ (Collected from last year)
– Columbine ‘William Guinness’
– Carex sp.? (An ornamental grass that I collected)

I also bought a pack of small ZipLock-type bags to organize all the seeds I’ve collected, especially the Coleus seeds and Ornamental Grasses that where here and there.

The Jiffy pellet were convenient, but seemed small, but I may move the seedlings to bigger pots if they grow too big and not ready to go outside.

Wednesday Feb. 1, 2006

I bought three more Mini-Greenhouse as gifts; one for my coworker Purr and two for Michael’s birthday.

I also bought a few seeds packets:

– Columbine ‘Barlow Mix’ (Aquilegia vulgaris)
– Zinnia ‘Candy Cane Mix’ (Zinnia elegans)
– Zinnia ‘Envy’ (Zinnia elegans)
– Nicotiana ‘Peace Pipe’ (Nicotiana sylvestris)
– Blue Fescue (Festuca ovina glauca)

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]