A Green Coleus in the yard

Earlier this year I planted coleus plants. They have all grown very big, but the one that really surprised me was the green one. This is the only one I have ever seen that was completely green. Most of the ones I have seen are red, pink, a deep red that almost looks black. I was amazed that I had one that was completely green. To be honest my husband was surprised as well. This is the second year I have planted coleus and I can assure you it will not be the last. I am hopeful that I will be able to grow them and sell them. There is a nursery in my area and I am hopeful that they will let me work there part time, it not I hope that they will sell me some of the used greenhouse pots that they have. Honestly I would not mind getting used pots as part of my wages. I can clean them out and then plant more plants. I know how to clean the pots out so that there are no harmful bacteria in them. I have not contacted the nursery because I can't work anywhere now because, at least not until my little girl starts school. That will be in august of this year. I will contact them then, I have thought about contacting them just to enquire about the pots, who knows they might just give them away, if not I might be able to get them very cheap. It never hurts to ask.

New Amaryllis bulb 2011

This is a bulb I started this year. The quarter beside it is a typical size quarter. I like the fact that you can see the two roots that are growing on the beginning bulb. To me it is amazing that a flower as large as the Amaryllis can start from such a small seed, but then it has always amazed me about how plants can grow from such small seeds, especially when the seeds are little more than dust for example a butterfly bush.
I will say one thing, if you want to grow Amaryllis bulbs you have to be patient because it takes an estimated five years before it will reach blooming size. The worst thing for me is the waiting to find out what color the flowers will be because when you start growing it from a seed there is a very good possibility that the flower when it finally blooms will not be the same color as the parent plant. You can blame that one on hybrids. If the bulb has an offshoot the offshoot bulb will be the same color as the parent plant. To date none of my bulbs have had any off shoots, but I am hopeful that one day when will. All I have to do is take care of them.

Dirt recipes

In my previous post I told you about just how poor my soil is, and that if I want anything to grow I have to keep it in containers. I felt that I needed to explain how I do some things. First when I plant something in a container I always make my own soil so to speak. I have a specific recipe I use for bulbs and specific recipe I use for everyday plants . The secret for bulbs is bone meal. I would never plant a bulb without mixing bone meal in the soil, or at the very least putting a small amount of bone meal at least a half inch to an inch below the roots. Bone meal is suppose to be good for the roots and helps them grow better and faster. If you think about it, that is all a bulb really is a large root. I also use the same bulb dirt recipe for flowering tubers as well.

Bulb dirt recipe

2 parts potting soil (sometimes I will use 1 miracle grow and 1 cheap potting soil)

1 part peat moss

1 part course sand (or you can use perlite)

Bone meal as per package directions

I have used this recipe with all my bulbs and it has never steered me wrong.

Bad dirt = small plants that do nothing

Earlier this year I gave my in-laws several of the pepper plants I started because I simply did not have enough room for them. Well recently they have been getting peppers and I thought I was doing good with a pepper that was around three feet long. The same plant in there garden has produced peppers that were at least six inches long. It takes a while to build up the soil and they have had the garden spot for literally years. I guess I am going to have to plant something in a container with better soil. Most of what i have in my yard is sand and or clay. I have six large oak trees and I have been told that the oak trees simply drain all of the nutrients out of the soil and make it hard for the other plants to live. True I have had (or I should say my husband) put fertilizer on them several times a year and it has helped some of the plants survive and dare I say thrive. The red pepper in the picture only measured three inches that's a big difference when my in laws who have better soil get the same pepper that is twice the size, or possibly larger. Gardening takes work, I'll just have to get some more containers and some decent soil to plant my plants in, if I want them to grow to any size worth eating.

My Cold Frame

This is the Cold Frame that my wonderfully supportive husband build for me last year as a Christmas gift.

Amaryllis growth

Back in 2009 I decided to try and grow an amaryllis bulb. I did not have much to work with but I did have the desire to try. It has not been easy but it has been rewarding. I made the decision this year to keep the bulbs outside when the weather started getting warm. The plants seem to do better when they have natural sunlight. The bulbs were in 5 inch pots in my cold frame. The cold frame as of now is only a large wooden box without a top. I took the top off because the plants would get to hot if I closed it, I guess you could say it looks like a large planter. Anyway I put the plants in there because if the wind is blowing the walls of the cold frame will protect the plants I don't have to worry about them. Yesterday I noticed several of the leaves of the bulbs were getting somewhat bigger that I expected. Anyway I decided to re pot one of the bulbs. I choose a bulb that had rather large leaves. I was surprised at just how large the bulb had gotten. I have a total of twenty bulbs I started in 2009 and I am going to re pot them all in six inch pots. I don't expect all of them to be as large as the one I most recently re potted but, at the rate this one is growing I do expect a bloom within the next two years.

Gardenia's are blooming

I looked outside my window this morning and the sight that greeted me really made me happy. Every year for the past few years my husband had been putting some fertilizer on the Gardenia bushes in the front of the house. Since he has been doing it they have been blooming. This year is no exception. They are called August Beauty, I guess because they bloom in August, when it is very hot. Well is has been very hot as of late and the plants just started blooming. The reason I planted them at the front of the house is I like the way they look and while in bloom they make the entire house smell so sweet. Also it is easy to root them, and easy to tell of the plants are alive because they are evergreen which means they stay green year round. If they start to die they simply won't be green anymore. I think Gardenia's are one of the prettiest flowers and the fact that they smell so sweet, I just think they are just about the perfect bush. The only problem I've had as far as them being a yard plant is they look leggy and I need to prune back so that they will look more like a bush. My husband said I massacred one last year because I cut it back so much last year. True I did cut it back more than most people would, and it probably won't bloom this year but this year it is starting to look like a bush instead of a few branches sticking out of the ground with a few leaves on it. I only did one, as an experiment if it does fill out I will do another one this year after they have stopped blooming, because you are not suppose to prune or cut back any shrub while it is blooming. You are suppose to wait until it has finished. So if I cut another one back it will be in the next few months.