Monday, January 30, 2006

Icy Monday!!

Today, we woke up to an ice covered world - the life of retirees requires looking out the window and saying - Ho Hum - we don't have to go anywhere today - great life.

sThe ice didn't stay very long - the sun came out and it melted - and there is absolutely no snow left here. It looks like March weather.

Today - the greenhouse was swept and tidied and watered. While watering a basket of plants that my daughter gave me for Mother's Day, two years ago, I noticed that the Moses in the Cradle plant actually had a Moses - this doesn't happen very often on these plants and it is very unique - a little basket holding pretty little flowers, tucked between the leaf and stem - just like Moses was hidden in the bulrushes. I am always happy to see different things happening and growing in my greenhouse.

My pink cyclamen is blooming it's heart out today - taking the place of the Christmas cactus -which is just about finished now. The cactus is now on a bottom shelf waiting for a new pot - it has been living in a cracked plastic pot so next time I am potting, it will get fixed up.

I pulled off a lot of dead crunchies from my spider plants. I had a bucket of "straw" from them to put in the composter.

There is something really special about blooming garden plants - like begonias and geraniums - in late January.


Sunday, January 22, 2006

A "Potting" Week!

This week I did a lot of potting of plants in my greenhouse and managed to play in a lot of dirt-I keep my potting soil (Super Soil from Loblaws-the best plant soil) in a huge garbage can and when potting, I always use the lid to put the empty pots on-then scoop the dirt into the pots along with the plant or cutting and it saves a big mess on my tables. The tables are slatted - two shelf units - and the spilled dirt will hit the plants on the bottom shelf if I don't use the lid as a catch-all. Does that info make sense??
I received donated plants from a friend and they were in desperate need of new dirt - now there are 5 baby African violets - white flowers - some ivies and a Peace Lily. I also potted a number of rooted cuttings of various plants in the greenhouse, so the shelves are filling up again and the sun and warmer weather is making them grow. I have lots of flowers - geraniums, begonias, cyclamen, poinsettias, the jade is flowering and the Christmas cactii - lovely pink blooms.
On Sat. AM, it poured rain early in the day - rain turned to a snowstorm - then the sun arrived and the snow melted. We had all the weather types within hours......crazy!! This January is a strange month. I am trying to group my plants together - begonias in a row - geraniums lined up on the window shelves-I have a flat of new cuttings - easier to watch and water. My priest's plants are all together in a grouping. I'm sure the tidiness won't last long but it looks good for now.
Hope luck holds with me and all the new baby plants grow so I can take them to my Horti Club Plant Sale in May.
OH YES - I washed out a lot of pots that friends donated to me!
Next greenhouse project- repotting the giant aloe vera - she fell over and broke a lot of bottom leaves and needs a new pot and dirt.

Thursday, January 12, 2006

I worked in my garden on January 12th

Today was another spring like day - unreal weather for January 12th - it definitely is a Happy New Year for me when I can spread some dirt around my garden (I dumped some containers of old potting soil into my garden and raked it around with a stick today-it was sunny and I was outside in my clogs - no jacket or mitts-how fun is that?
I worked in my greenhouse this PM - most of the sick looking swedish ivy plant is in the composter - the leaves on the plant are this pale yellow green colour with red veins showing through - not very pretty looking. I have lots of cuttings rooting in vases and I also planted some cuttings directly into pots of soil.
My priest from my church gave me his plants to repot and bring back to life in the greenhouse for awhile-he has a spider plant that his mother gave to him and is precious to him-it really needs lots of TLC-so I repotted it into new Super Soil and it is hanging in the greenhouse-looking a little forlorn, but I am pretty sure it will revive. I will tackle my False African Violet plant next and take some cuttings from it as it is droopy and not looking too well. I find that planting cuttings from this plant into pots of soil works well. It looks as if I will have lots of plants for my Horti Club plant sale in May this year.
It was so nice in the greenhouse today - I got my Vitamin D in a large dose.
Tomorrow is computer class day so I will blog again on the weekend.
Enjoy the weather!!

Sunday, January 08, 2006

Happy New Year!

The new year is now over one week old-wow! Where did the week go? Not in my greenhouse....I wish! I helped at my church with a funeral lunch and I am still recuperating from Christmas, it seems. All the house decorations and trims are put away for another year and I managed to purge some junk also. The greenhouse is thriving without a lot of sunshine lately. Last week was rainy and miserable. Today was lovely, after a nice snowfall last night. The sun came out but we were at the church again removing the Christmas decorations, taking the tree apart, and putting everything away. The poinsettias are doing very well - a couple of them lost a lot of leaves - so they are gone, but there are still 18 left to beautify the church for a while.
In the greenhouse, the Jade plant is blooming beautifully - geraniums are in flower - I have to take a swedish ivy apart -it is looking sad and droopy - good thing there is always next week!!
I am looking forward to playing in the dirt next week.
Happy New Year to all my readers!!