Night Watch

I finally remembered one night to photograph one of the prayer plants in its “prayer“ position. From its habit of folding its leaves upward at night came its name.


Lately I’ve noticed that the prayer plant’s news leaves are much larger and have darker markings than the older leaves. At first I couldn’t think of any conditions that were different, then I remembered that when I repotted it I used potting soil fortified with Miracle Gro. I normally opt for “plain” soil but only the fertilized kind was available at the big box store. So, I guess without trying, I’ve proved their claims. ;)

Mud Pies

Though my husband is a non-gardener he tells me that he really enjoys reading this blog each day, “It’s refreshing.” He does say that he grew things like “giant” corn stalks when he was young.

Today he reenters the gardening world with a creative gift from family, a tiny greenhouse of miniature flower pots to be planted with “fragrant herb” seeds.


Much like the set-up for Oskar’s growth, this kit has soil “pellets” that spring to life with the addition of lukewarm water. The little “soil muffins” grow and grow to be twice the size of the pots! There’s even soil left over. Mud pies. My husband declares it, “messy fun.”


Next come the nearly microscopic seeds, mint, marjoram and the tiniest ones yet—chamomile pressed into the fork—fluffed soil.


And finally, the clear plastic greenhouse gets closed up to hold in the moisture that helps seeds germinate; then it greets the world from a sunny window sill. The sun is burning off the frost outdoors and warms us indoors—inside and out.

Room to Grow

About a year ago, I decided that I needed some of God’s creation in my studio to inspire my creativity so plants were the obvious solution since I have neither the room nor necessary commitment for an aquarium. The trouble is, and this makes for many difficulties, though my studio window faces south, the deep overhang makes for little natural light. Since I’m very fond of palms and I knew that Areca Palms were fairly easy to grow, I bought a tiny one for my worktable. My friend G. who has a deep green thumb started has with a tiny one and has grown it as tall as I am (average height)! Despite the low light and my latent discovery that they like “high light”, my little palm has at least doubled in size over the past year or so.


Between its increasing size and occasional dried out branches, I decided that it’s time to move the Areca out of its flimsy three inch plastic pot to a nicely designed red-violet non-porous five and one half inch pot. The extra two and one half inches suit it well and the red-violet color will look a lot better in my studio.

The Areca palm is also known as “Yellow Palm” and needs to be kept “thoroughly moist at all times”*, which is why a non-porous pot will work the best for it in the dry indoor air. The Reader’s Digest Complete Guide to Houseplants also says that it’s a slow grower, adding only eight inches per year even in the best circumstances—a plus in indoor close-quarters. Slow growth also keeps the cost of repotting to a minimum as well as the weight of carrying it when it comes to moving time.

It rained so hard this morning that the rain uncharacteristically drenched my newspapered potting set up—but fortunately I got it done without my getting wet. And now the sun is peeking through.

A New Home for Oskar

It’s time to put the pieces of the puzzle together and settle Oskar into a home so that it can grow properly.

The directions say to put the “planting disc” in the pot—what an improvement over the usual bag of light soil that easily goes airborne, and add approximately two cups of warm water. It’s bubbling and popping; this is fun.


“Fluff with fork.” Hmm…dig might be a better word. “Add more if needed.” Yes, more water is definitely needed unless I want a solid bottom layer. Another cup; more digging. It needs still more but how much more? A little more, more—stop. It takes three and three-quarter cups of water. The gold-colored pot is heavy and warm, with no drainage holes.

I’m to set the bulb in the soil with one or two inches of bulb showing above the soil. This will take newspaper on the floor and a trowel.

Now that Oskar is settled in, I’m to put it pot and all, in a warm place. I certainly have that in the morning windows.


We’ll have to see if Oskar will bloom by Christmas or not—the box says “8-10 weeks.” I may have started too late but then again, maybe not. I’ll keep you posted.

The weatherman’s thermometer read 29 degrees this morning when we got up. White frost covered everything but I covered nothing. And everything from the purple sweet potato vine to ‘Victoria Blue’ salvia to the peppermint is fine (though the yellow-green sweet potato vine is definitely waning). It’s time to put away the sheets.

Progress

The hyacinth bean vines have made some neat-looking purple seed pods, hyacinth beans—the very thing they were created to do! I like the way they’ve arranged themselves as a cascading “mobile”.

Still more heavy rain fell this morning but now we have sunshine! We’ve not seen much of that stranger since last Wednesday or Thursday. I was beginning to think we were in the Pacific Northwest!

Now that autumn is officially here, maple and oak leaves around town are beginning to turn reddish.

No more white stuff has turned up on the soil. The avocado plant that I pruned has the smallest beginnings of new branches! This morning a moth delicately sipped from the pink pentas; I’ve never before thought of moths being delicate. The butterflies didn’t accept the invitation so I guess the guests will come from “the highways and byways”.

Too Early for Snow!

White fuzzy stuff has spread over the soil of three of my pots. At first I thought it caused by the excessive moisture from four days of torrential downpours—maybe. I have seen some tiny white flies buzzing around. Could they have “woven” these “blankets”?

Until I have time to search the books or internet for the answer, I’m dealing with it in a direct manner; I’m skimming off the top layer of soil with a plastic spoon, then throwing away both the soil and the spoon to avoid contaminating other plants.

Yesterday, after another series of downpours, my husband and I saw both ends of a rainbow! The big round clouds were golden, while long white ones had blue and golden stripes—perhaps some silver lining as well. It’s good to be reminded by a rainbow that God will never destroy the earth again by water!

Room to Grow

My plant purchases from two weekends ago finally have bigger pots to help keep them from drying out and to give them room to grow. Lack of potting soil caused the delay. I finally got out to the largest corporation on earth, hoping to find plain potting soil. Unfortunately, every bag had fertilizer in it. I have my own, organic fertilizer—I didn’t want all that. At last, I found one that didn’t have fertilizer called “Moisture Control”. It’s supposed to keep the soil from being over or under-watered. I’m skeptical. It was all they had. We’ll see.


I potted the peppermint and a heliotrope. If you’ve ever wondered what the color fashion and interior design call heliotrope looks like—here it is, a medium violet/purple.

We had a pretty strong rare earthquake tremor here yesterday but I didn’t feel it and none of my pots look out of place, so they don’t seem to have felt it either.