Myosotis Sylvatica (Forget-me-not) is blooming! this plant I added into Wine Barrel #3 a couple months ago. I purchased a 6-pack of them, but only put one plant in the wine barrel, the other 5 are on the side of the house with the other plants I'm propagating, or storing in wait for a spot. in 4" pots. they are also doing well.
Today the Honor Rose bloomed - it also has a very nice fragrance and a beautiful pure white bloom.
I went to the Sacramento Zoo's King of Feasts event on Saturday night, and won the bidding on a collection of CA native plants from Cornflower farms. I have never actually been to their nurseries, but have been meaning to go for quite some time. They are supposed to have a strong selection of ca natives, and based on their donation to the zoo for the auction, I would agree.
My winning bid got me a Bearberry, a California Fuschia, a Red buckwheat, blue idaho fescue, allen chickering Sage, and a hummingbird sage. They also provided an information sheet to go with the plants.
Black mondo grass is great looking but very expensive as far as grasses go. I'll divide this when it's ready to get a few plants out of my $14 investment. Right now it's blooming, with these spikes of fantastic little blooms.
I bought this Leonotis leonurus plant in a small 4" or 6" container last summer, and planted it in a pot with some other orange flowers, now it is a monster! It's blooming for the first time this year, until now it's looked pretty much like a gigantic weed.
It's about 4' tall now, and very leggy.. . the wallflower that is in the same pot is leggy as well, I'm going to have to change stuff around in this pot to make it look a little nicer. Until then it's on the side of the house with my to do list of plants that need a home, or are recovering from near death experiences.
I've had this rose for a number of years, and I had let it get over run with runners from the rootstock. So, today I cut all of those runners out (they are in a pile on the small table next to the pot) and gave it a little rose fertilizer, hopefully it will bloom now... This one really does have a gorgeous bloom.
FYI - Hybrid tea roses can get runners, which are the stems that grow off the rootstock (which is typically an old english rose in a dark red color that has very hardy roots). The Hybrid tea has been grafted onto the rootstock, because it typically has roots that are more suseptable to diesease or water issues. When a Hybrid Tea Rose has died, very often the hardy rootstock will grow but you will not get the same flower you purchased, just a small red flower that typically only blooms once in a season.
I have a few Blueberries in pots, but only one of them has fruit on it this year. I neglected to keep up the soil and fertilizing of them for a couple of years and I think they were not happy because of this neglect.
Blueberries like a very low PH soil - like azaleas, the PH should optimally be 5.5 but can range from 4.5-6.0. The soil should have some actively decomposing matter in the mix, like pine needles or bark, peat moss is a great adddition, leaf mold, etc...
This variety that is fruiting this year is Darrow, a Northern Highbush variety that fruits late season.
The fruit is nearing ripeness, they should be ready to pick in a week or two. I'll need to pick up some bird netting to keep the birds from eating the fruit.
I've had this apricot tree for about ten years and have moved it around with me from place to place. It's in a large plastic pot. The variety is Tilton. This year I purchased a Blenheim (the most tasty apricot), but that one will not fruit until next year.
This year I bought three new rose plants; Brandy, Honor, and Voodoo and put them in pots. This weekend the first bloom appeared in the Brandy rose bush. It's super gorgeous, perfect for cutting, and has a very nice but light scent.
OK - so I think this might be zone 10, but I spent the weekend helping my parents build a new planting bed in their backyard. We planted Winter Gem boxwood which only grows to 48" tall so even if it doesn't get trimmed as much as it should it's never going to get bigger than it should. The plants in the middle are Lantana and do very well in the california valley sun, and bloom throughout the summer with great lavender-colored blooms
This is not complete - it will get a layer of black bark, as a mulch over the weed barrier that's in the picture above.
Well OK, it's only one tomato, but I'm so happy that everything in the veggie garden seems to be doing well. The tomato is a Costoluso Genovese.
Today I went to the Sunset Celebration event at Sunset Magazine in Menlo Park, CA. While I was there, I saw this great trough container in their veggie garden. I thought it would be a great container for strawberries, since it lets the berries hang over the edges of the troughs. This is a great solution for those with a small amount of space!
The house we rent came with a lemon tree in the backyard, it has only produced one lemon since we've lived here, which is why I know it's a lemon tree. I was confused the first year because the leaves kept turning yellow so I thought I was over watering, but then the leaves would turn brown because I wasn't watering enough. And all the fruit turned yellow and fell off before it was even an inch.
I've since learned that these are all signs of iron deficiency. This season I've put down citrus granular food, and then a few weeks later a liquid iron suppliment. It's still looking a little yellow, but the fruit is still there for now...The package says to put the iron suppliment down every three weeks if the plants is still yellow, so I'll be keeping an eye on it.
I love hibiscus - the blooms are so gorgeous, and come in so many colors. The one pictured above is called "Brilliant" it's a bright red blooms about 5" across.
I had four Hibiscus plants, but now I'm down to two after this last winter. I think I brought them all indoors last winter, but this winter I left them all outside, and it killed two of them, this one survived, and the last one is barely hanging on, but I think It will come back.
