Saturday Plant Sale…

Saturday, March 10, 2007

Early this morning I went to the San Francisco Botanical Garden Plant Sale with my friend Howard. I purchased a Sempervivum and a type of Crassula. I’ll have to check on the names later.

I also snapped some photos, but left my camera at Howard’s condo… ARGH!… I feel weird without my camera… It’s funny how it’s become a part of me.

When I got home, I noticed that there are about 5 tiny specks of green in my Lithops container. YEAY!!!… Little baby Lithops being born, 3 days after sowing.

I also noticed one of the 12 Japanese Long Purple Eggplants sprouting. It’s been 13 days since I sowed this, so maybe the seeds are not viable… (Pause)… I just checked the seed packet and it was packed for 2003, so they are probably old… I’ll have to plant more of the newer seeds. (I don’t know why I didn’t do this in the first place?)

Garden progress:

Recent blooms: Peaches, Sparaxis Tricolor, Tulip

About to bloom: Italian Plums, Persimmons

Not doing well: some Carnation cuttings, Orange Grafted Cactus

Weekend Gardening (A Little Bit of Everything)

Friday the first really nice day that we had in a while. It was actually warm and there was no rain… so I took out all the cuttings and seedlings from my room and placed them outside in the front porch. Everybody OUT!!! Unfortunately, it was chilly again on Saturday and Sunday, so they didn’t get to come back out.

Everybody OUT!!!

We have several plants blooming outside, including our first Roses. I several photos of the Rose blooms, unfortunately, I forgot to turn the macro setting and almost all those photos came out blurry. Here are some of my Mom’s White Bank Rose and Clematis in our back patio.

First Rose Blooms of the Year   Clematis Blooms

On Friday, my Mom and I went to Costco, and they were selling Purple Fountain Grass (Pennisetum setaceum ‘Cupreum’)… Hmmm? Everywhere I go, it seems that seeds start breaking off. Knowing me, I had to save them.

Purple Fountain Grass Photo

Ornamental Grass Seedlings

Ornamental Grasses growing in my bedroom.

left: Great Quaking (Briza maxima), right: Blue Fescue (Festuca ovina glauca)

Great Quaking   Blue Fescue

Carex species.
Carex

I collected the Carex seeds back in the Summer 2005 and they grew! I have to sow more for my friend who helped me collect them. Here are links to photos of the Carex seeds when I found them: photo 1, photo 2

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.

My Shelves and Growlights

I missed carpool because I worked a little late, so I had to ride the BART, then take a city link bus to get to Vallejo. I got home around 8:45pm and was so tired. Once I walked in the house, I saw a package from Rosy Dawn Gardens. YEAY!!! … My Coleus…. I took photos, but they are still in my camera. I’ll post them later today.

Before I post them, I wanted to show photos of the shelves I added in my bedroom to grow seedlings and overwinter cuttings. This photo was taken about a month ago.

Growlight Shelves

Below is a new photo of the bottom shelf that mostly houses my Coleus. Some are grown from seeds that I collected last year and some are overwintered cuttings. Click on the photo to see some notes I added on with flickr.

Seedlings and Cuttings

Middle of the Night Planting + Laundry + Battlestar Galactica

You know some people wake up in the middle of the night and crave something to eat? Well, I woke up in the middle of the night and decided to pot some seedlings from Jiffy peat pellets to plastic cups. These include the following:

– Roma Tomato
– Japanese Long Eggplant
– Coleus Tabasco?
– Coleus Amora?
– Coleus Tilt-a-whirl

I also noticed that the Carex sp. (Ornamental Grass) that I planted on Jan. 31 has sprouted after a month a few days.

I reorganized my two shelves with grow lights to accommodate the new potted seedlings. I also removed all the plants in the aquarium and just placed them on planting trays on the shelves.

I also did two loads of laundry… This just proves that I definitely am a night owl… Now I think I’ll go back to bed and watch this weeks recording of Battlestar Galactica.

Nephew bye-bye + a Little Bit of Gardening

My nephew from Japan left yesterday :( and his 4 kids are back with their mom… so my other nephew from Korea, his wife and his 2 kids are left staying here until Friday. It’s been so much fun with the kids. I got to spend some quality time with them, and they feel closer, considering I’ve only seen them about 3 time before. It was fun wrestling with them and giving them piggyback rides (well, the smaller ones). One of my great-nephews also likes to give me massages which was a real treat.

Today, I was going to pull up the old Brussels Sprouts, but I didn’t feel like doing too much work, so that’ll have to wait.

I ended up dead-heading some of the spent Daffodil flower and pulling up weeds in the front yard.

I also left the seedlings of the Swiss Chard, Chin-Chiang Cabbage, Bok Choy, Lettuces and Sugar Snap Peas out in the back patio after harding them off for the past 2 days. I got tired of bringing them in and out, so it’s pretty much sink or swim for them.

More Seedlings…

The Sugar Snap Peas, Roma Tomato, Clemson Spineless Okra and Hybrid Summer Boy Chin-Chiang Cabbage have sprouted in 4 days.

…and last in the Coleus seedling race: Coleus ‘Dark Star’ who took 8 days to sprout.