Need Joy? Come on Over!

Not that anyone needs color and light and joy right now...I thought I'd offer up a little virtual stroll through the greenhouse, just to stick our noses into a few flowers. This is what greets me when I open the greenhouse door. Needless to say I find excuses to go down there about five times a day. Hooked on it. It was a rough winter, all rain and no sun, but now that the plants are getting some sun and heat, they're exploding into blossom. 

I find this interesting. When my big hibs froze on Jan. 30, 2019 (heating failure due to frozen gas line), there were a few tiny shoots around the base of The Path's trunk that didn't die back. They have grown a little and are blooming like crazy now. I don't know if it's because they're so close to the fertilizer, but they are much the best blossoms this plant has put out. It's dopey looking but I LOVE IT.

Creole Lady is still bewitching, but she's decided to lay back to let The Path, with her dress around her ankles, take center stage. She'll kick it up a few notches when she finally gets outside in May. 

And there's a Lady in Waiting. Look at this tiny baby Creole Lady that I got in the summer of 2019! She's finally coming into her own. More flower than leaf...

Two blossoms at once is very unusual for a little cutting like this. But so gratifying. My huge Lady slumbers behind her. I absolutely love having an understudy that's small enough to carry into the house should the need arise. Like, drastically plunging temperatures, foretelling another disastrous greenhouse freeze.

This plant...I live for its blossoms.

The Thai Giant crown of thorns is just ridiculous, 3' tall and loaded with peppermint-striped flowers.

Started from a 2" long cutting taken in 2016. I have tried to take cuttings of this one but none have rooted for me. Sometimes it just works. Sometimes it doesn't. 

This little Gartenmeister was a tiny shoot that sulked all winter long, then sprang to life when it got sunny. I like to carry this plant over because I'm never sure if I'll be able to find it in the spring. 

Same for Trandshen Bonstet. That one, far as I know, you can't get anywhere but The Glasshouse Works in Stuart, Ohio. Mine is 4' tall now! Roots really well in plain water!

A volunteer impatiens peeking out from under the foliage of my willow-leaved fig. This is the magnificent tropical bonsai that froze last year, and has somehow come back. It looks like a hairy sea urchin right now, but I have faith it will make some decent branches in time.

The geraniums are just spectacular now.

Black Knight is a volcano of the darkest possible foliage and gleaming coals. 

Can't wait for Happy Thought to open its scarlet tanager-red single flowers.

Due to its interesting start in life, this Happy Thought plant has a ridiculous number of individual trunks. 

Both Happy Thought and Vancouver Centennial (shown below) have a really interesting habit of making baby plants amongst their flower heads, way up there on the end of a long stem. It's so weird. I have observed this for years and always wondered what's going on with it. Two years ago I started experimenting with trying to propagate more plants from these funny little leaf clusters. Vancouver's plantlets always got mildew and rotted away in my rooting chambers (just a clear plastic cup inverted over a pot of damp soil).  But two years ago I managed to root a tiny leaf cluster of Happy Thought, and that's the plant in the photo above. It grew painfully slowly, but it grew, and it's a fine, fine plant now.

Of course, I will keep trying because plant propagation is one of my vices.

April's Gifts

The greenhouse has once again become a place I resort to for comfort. Every plant you see here got the crap frozen out of it on January 31 when the gas well on our land froze solid. And each one came back. It's amazing!

Speaking of gifts, look at Creole Lady!! She froze solid on January 31 (read it and weep here) but look at her now!! I'm told all hibiscus need a severe cutback from time to time....well, maybe. I can tell you neither of us needed a greenhouse freeze at the end of January.

But then again...maybe I had to lose all my beautiful plants, live without them for a few weeks, to make room in my heart to say yes to Curtis on February 19. Maybe everything happens for a reason. Or maybe it's all just mindless, undirected randomosity. Some things feel as if they were guided by a higher intelligence. This thing, for one. From what heavenly cloud did you flutter down, Sugarbean?

Creole Lady, when will you flower again? That's OK. You don't have to answer. Just put out leaves and leaves. Feed yourself first.

The Path looks like a hairy stick. But it's alive, and it will be beautiful again by July, mark my words. 

The red-brown powder is dried blood. I'm trying to keep the chipmunks from chewing the leaves off my hibs INSIDE THE GREENHOUSE as fast as they grow out. Yes. That is what's happening INSIDE the greenhouse.

Thai Giant Crown of Thorns going nuts! Nothing eats a COT. They have nasty milky bitter  Euphorbia sap. I wish more of my plants had that.

Teeny Kenyan Crown of Thorns trying to keep up! I love growing these two extremes of the same species. Oh what humans can do to a plant, a dog, a chicken, a horse.

 

My friend Alan told me to dig up my big lemon verbena and put it in the basement for the winter. Well, that worked! It's delighted to be welcomed into the greenhouse and smells divine. 

Runner's tea a-coming!

My seedling impala lilies, or Adeniums, who never batted an eye at the freeze.  I can't wait to see what color their flowers will be, when they get old enough. It could take years upon years. That's most of the fun.

See the little score marks on the caudex of this one, below? Chipmunk. Climbed up to the top shelf and chewed these helpless little Adenium seedlings.

Erodium reichardii, a little alpine geranium, also weathered the freeze without losing a leaf. (The chipmunks chewed one side off it, but it grew back).

My gardenia sulked a bit after the freeze, but she is going to blow me away when she finally bursts into bloom. Every stem has a fat emerald Christmas bulb at the end.

I counted and there are 24 buds ready to pop on this plant. I keep feeding it, hoping it'll grow some more leaves on those spindly stems. But when it blooms I'll forget all about its looks. This is the plant I got for $10 on clearance last summer. It survived the freeze pretty well.

I was sure my Fuchsia "Gartenmeister Bonstedt" was a goner. But up from the root it comes!

 

As does this incredible hybrid balcony Pelargonium. Already has a flower bud forming!

It just takes time, faith, and care. That's all. 

It hasn't even been two months, and here they all come roaring back!

 A tidy shelf of color. So grateful to have my Vancouver Centennial still with me, and a new dwarf pomegranate seedling in bloom for the first time.

 

Against all expectations, my pink fuchsia Trandshen Bonstedts all came back from the root. This is one I was harboring in my house, my "plant ark." 

And then there's Happy Thought. I've missed you so. Remember my gigantic Happy Thought from last winter?? My pride and joy?? It was almost six feet across.

Well, this cutting that rooted and is blooming for the first time is all that's left of it, and I'm so, so happy I have it. I have to keep it on a pedestal inside the greenhouse or the chipmunks, hungry for anything green, will destroy it. Life is harder than it ought to be sometimes.

 

 Yesterday the chipmunk jumped onto the plant on its pedestal and clipped off some leaves, just to keep me from relaxing and enjoying my plants. Havahart will be set tomorrow. I've caught one and I'll catch this one, too.  Peanuts and peanut butter will get him.

It seems that death and destruction is always waiting when you try to grow things. There's always something trying to get at the things you love, whether it's coons and snakes after your bluebirds or deer chewing down any little tree you try to plant.  Or #$#$%$# chipmunks breaking into your greenhouse, climbing the baker's racks, and annihilating your precious plants. It's always something.  Despite it all, the plants persist, and so do we.

Another lovely thing that keeps me going: nesting bluebirds. They're building, laying, incubating, singing and tussling everywhere. This pair cannot decide which of three different boxes they want. They have spent so much time poking around. Now another pair has shown up to contest them. They could be incubating by now, but they dither instead.

 I've already got baby Carolina wrens piping in the copper bucket under my front eave! Must be a record, such an early hatch! They're trying to beat the rat snakes. If they can pull off a brood before the snakes stir, they're way ahead.

 There are now five eggs in this Carolina wren nest, placed somewhat atypically in a shallow, small slot box along the driveway. They are such clever artisans where nest building is concerned. I love those birds.

I love this little bird, too. He likes to bake his bacon on the porch and on the lawn.

It feels so good to look out the kitchen window and see a dog on the stoop. Even if it has no front legs. Papaw still gets around pretty good wifout his legs.

Figured out why Curtis smells gently of potting soil most of the time. He has dug hisself a couple little setts where he cools off when his bacon is overheated.

There's no sense getting exercised about how dirty he is. As soon as it dries, it just falls off him like rain. I try to make sure that happens outside. On this particular morning, he had an al fresco breakfast because he was raining a fine sprinkling of potting soil. If you click on this photo you can see the fallout.

Just a few things that make me happy, in a roller-coaster spring of wild oscillations in the weather and my heart.

That Which No Longer Serves

A 10 x 12'  hobbyist greenhouse is like a very small boat. It can only hold so much. 

My natural tendency as someone who loves and actually needs flowers is to stuff it to the gills with plants I think I can't live without. 

Which is OK until the plants get big and old and start taking more than their fair share of space. Even that I can deal with, until they also begin harboring insect pests. A plant I adore can  easily overstay its welcome and become a liability almost overnight. 

Such was the case with the original edition of Hibiscus sinensis "The Path."  This monster is head-high to me, and taking up the whole southwest corner of the greenhouse. 

She was given to me by my dear friend Donna as a foot-tall youngster in the spring of 2014, as a sort of greenhouse warming gift after the Great Greenhouse Apocalypse of November 24, 2013.  She was part of that which saved me, the replacing and planting and salvaging of all the plants that I had loved that died that awful night. I loved her with my whole heart, and set about making her happy.

 And she set about making me happy. By April 25, 2015, she was quite a specimen, in her prime. Amazing what two years and some cow manure will do. And she's ready for a larger pot!

By midsummer 2016, The Path had turned from a manageable little filly into a gigantic rangy horse, despite some severe pruning in the winter of 2015.  The growth potential of a happy hibiscus is awe-inspiring, incredible. Even The Path, who famously "blooms more than she grows," still grows a ton. 

Being big isn't necessarily a sin in a small greenhouse, but I'm afraid that being chronically bug-infested is.  

The unwelcome confetti of mealybugs--one of the worst pests I know

An explosion of aphids on a new blossom.

Not only these pests, but The Path was harboring red spider mites and scale as well. I've got to hand it to hibs--they have absolutely cornered the market on insect infestations. Everything loves them. The only thing The Path didn't have was whitefly.  One Typhoid Mary in a greenhouse is one too many. Thanks to her great size, it took a lot of effort to turn her around so I could spray her from all angles. That didn't happen, so the pests just multiplied in the myriad places my homemade Dr. Bronner's soap/isopropyl spray never reached.

Recipe:

 In a 1 qt. spray bottle, mix

3/4 cup 70% isopropyl alcohol
2 T Dr. Bronner's Peppermint Castile Soap
and
1 QT water.
Shake well and spray all surfaces of the plant,
concentrating on the undersides of leaves and growth tips.  You're welcome!

I walked into the greenhouse on the first snowy morning of December and knew it was time for The Path to go. When I was a kid, my dad used to tell me stories about the Eskimos turning elderly people out into the snow. I don't know for sure if that was an actual practice, but with what I've read about Inuit culture, and with greatly limited food to go around in an Arctic winter, I could see it happening. He also used to talk about people chewing food for those who'd lost their teeth, so clearly there are two sides to every story.

For me, saying goodbye to The Path was a test of my resolve, of the strength of my vision for a better world, in this one microcosm in which I can exert some control.
As I attempted the first lift of her lead-heavy planter, I felt the muscles all across my lower back stretch and then give. Oops. Note to self: Commit  all executions before watering. 

I dragged her the rest of the way out into the snow, groaning and cursing my foolishness for even trying to hoist that leaden pot.


Even covered in aphids, she was still so beautiful.  But I couldn't even cut the flower to bring it inside, for all the aphids.



Enjoy your strained back! Serves you right, she seems to say. I was in bloom, in bud. I could have gone on 'til May.

Ow, I answered. So was I. Now I'm going to be hurting for two weeks.

You were killing everyone else in there. No fault of your own, but true nonetheless. It's time.

While I was at it, I brought out "Queen of Persia," a beautiful lime and magenta geranium I've been propagating and trying to grow for three years. No matter what I've done: starting it over from apparently healthy cuttings; consistently cutting back all the diseased parts,  leaving it out for the summer, taking all the soil off the roots and repotting, the new growth of this plant always turns brown and shrivels. I suspect it's infected with a virus, and there's nothing I can do about it. I think she's given it to "Petals," too.  So goodbye to you too, Queen of Persia.  Out in the snow with ye.


When I came back into the humid warmth of the greenhouse, Creole Lady was looking wan and hanging her head. She'd caught red spider mites from The Path, and now needs daily spraying. 

The greenhouse was a bit darker for The Path's absence, but it wouldn't be for very long. That unprepossessing looking plant on the far left has a secret.

Just three days later, The Path's understudy, carefully nurtured from one of only two cuttings I've ever been able to root, would burst into glorious bloom.

You see, the understudy is the same plant, just rejuvenated. Through a cutting, I've made a clone of the original.  Oh, the power and the glory of plant propagation. Ain't it wonderful? Plants, for me, are an endless Fountain of Youth, the ultimate renewable resource. I can only be this heartless when I know an understudy's got my back. 

There are metaphors in this, and they are rich. I've written and deleted several paragraphs here. No sense in leading the witness. I think it's best that we each have the room to draw the metaphor that fits our situation.

For the New Year, look around. See if there are things in your life that no longer serve you. 

 That once brought you joy, but no longer do.

Examine your attachment to them. Why are you keeping them around? 

Because you think you're expected to?

Because you can't imagine getting rid of them?

Because it would be mean to do that?

Because people would be appalled if you got rid of them?

Because it's never occurred to you that you had the right to throw them out? Who are you waiting for, to give you permission?

Let it go.

Maybe the end of usefulness is only natural, like insect infestations, like decay and rot. Part of the great process.  Perhaps it's even to be celebrated.


Smithiantha says YES. No more mealybugs on me.

 Gardenia is planning a fragrance party in a month or two.

Little Alpine Geranium (also from Donna!) keeps a-bloomin', looking toward spring. Mama's taking cuttings...

Life goes on, in a less-fraught, simpler, more beautiful and less buggy way.

And the greenhouse becomes a happy place once again.

Do you have a skin to shed? A load to lighten, a path to clear? 

Why not give yourself permission to do it?

Merry Christmas! and thanks for being here with me for my ELEVEN YEAR blogaversary! 

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