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Sooooo this post is my 1,500th since October of 2009. Wow! That’s an average of 300 posts per year for the last five years. That’s a lot of writing, a lot of time, a lot of discipline, a lot of photographs. Not too shabby, eh?
Instead of having some sort of celebratory giveaway – because, you know, all I have is imaginary prizes to offer – I thought I would return to this blog’s roots by showcasing the houseplants who have been the driving force behind it.
Like the south foyer crew:
From left to rightish, that’s Ellie (Euphorbia milii), Dottie, Crissy and Easter (the Schlumbergeras, or Christmas Cacti), Vicente (Huernia), Elise (Euphorbia milii), Gus (Gasteraloe), two unnamed succulent bowls, Carl (Stapelia), Calamity Pete (NOID Cactus), four unnamed succulent bowls, and Izzy’s offspring (more on them in a minute).
I spent part of yesterday cleaning everyone up and prepping them to be photo ready and winter ready. Everyone got showers, everyone’s saucers got cleaned. The floor was swept and mopped. It’s been quite awhile since they have gotten much attention from me – the summer sorta slipped by without much effort on my part.
The only ones I didn’t want to move to the kitchen for sink showers were the Schlumbergeras, because they are beginning to bud (just starting) and it’s best to keep them stable once buds start to form. Turns out, I missed Crissy’s buds completely when I looked last week (they were in the back, I turned her around as I went to clean behind her pot and boom! There they were!). She’s way out in front of the others:
One upshot of spending some time with the houseplants is discovering flower buds you didn’t see previously. So woohoo for Crissy! Lots of nice pink blooms in time for Halloween.
Do you remember when I used Izzy’s cuttings to make a cursive L for Liza? (Izzy is a Kalanchoe rhombopilosa. Click here for the original post about the letter.) You can still kinda see the shape:
If you squint, that is, and use your imagination. That’s a lot of growth from only February of 2014. They are happy little guys!
The kitchen windowsill crew wanted to say hello, too. Here they are:
There are other plants in the house, of course, like Danny (Dieffenbachia), Peach (Norfolk Island Pine), the Chlorophytums, Haworthias, Synadeniums, an Osmanthus and some others. They’re all growing well. They were excited to hear about the milestone for this blog, because they love knowing their images are out there in the world for anyone to see.
Lots of the plants that were here when I started the blog have passed away, or been brutally thrown away by me because of bugs or annoyance or whatever. That’s ok. Plants come and go. I can’t get all emotional about them because that’s just the way it is. I think I did a nice job of appreciating each one while it graced my home.
One plant who hasn’t gone yet is Candy, the Lime tree. She was banished to the outdoors for the summer due to mealy bugs, but she’s actually been thriving out there. I plan on cleaning her up and getting her back inside in the coming days. I hope that having vacationed outside all summer will help her bloom indoors all winter. Fingers crossed anyway.
Anyhoo. That pretty much catches you up on what’s going on around here. 1,500. 1,500!!!!!!
I’ll be back tomorrow, I hope to see you here.
Helloooooooooo! Happy top o’ the week to ya!
Did you have a nice weekend? I hope so.
There was a lot going on in Albuquerque. One event I managed to attend was our Cactus and Succulent Society of New Mexico sale at the garden center on Lomas near Eubank (next to the skate park). I’m not a member of the club yet – I need to talk to them about joining – but the sale was good. People were cheerful. It was super crowded though. I was hoping for a chance to talk to some of the growers but they were mobbed by other people. Everyone was busy!
In the coming weeks, I’ll show you some of the winners of their plant contest, as well as introduce you to a couple of new plants I got. Exciting stuff!
In the meantime, I thought I’d share some highlights from the casa this week:
My cursive “L” for “Liza” – made out of pieces from a Kalanchoe rhombopilosa – is growing well!
That’s a score for Team Liza.
I’d gotten the original Kalanchoe at the same succulent sale a few years prior. I looked for more at this year’s sale but didn’t see any. I wouldn’t have bought another one – I enjoy the plant, it’s interesting looking, but it’s not my favorite by any stretch of the imagination. I was surprised not to see them for sale, however.
After seeing some of the contest entrants at the succulent sale, it made me wish I’d entered my “L” – I may have earned a few points for creativity. Maybe next year!
In other news, my cute little birthday pepper plant is also growing well on my kitchen windowsill, biding his time until he gets to go outside for the summer:
I’ve noticed that vegetable and herb plants, even the tiny ones, drink way, way more water than regular houseplants. This baby guy has a seemingly unquenchable thirst. He’s sitting in a saucer with pebbles, which I add water to every day. Sometimes twice a day. Crazy for such a little ol’ plant! Clearly, he’s happy and spoiled.
Speaking of vegetables, a few of the onions growing in my container gardens are starting to bolt. Boo!
I have the garlic and the onions growing next to each other, so I was hoping that I was actually seeing garlic scapes and not onion flowers, but alas, they’re from the onions. I snapped ’em all but I believe the damage is done. I’m going to keep my fingers crossed that the rest of them grow fine. I really, really want them to grow to maturity – they’ve been growing for so many months already! I should have answers in the next few weeks.
And finally, big news – the hummingbirds are back! The feeders are out for the season:
I don’t know why I’m so surprised every year when they come back.
I’ll be back tomorrow with photos of what’s blooming in and around the casa for the April Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day. If you have photos of your spring blooms but don’t have your own blog, send them to me and I’ll post them for you in an April Garden Nonbloggers’ Bloom Day later in the week.
I hope to see you back here tomorrow.
Hmmm…someone’s getting all bendy again:
That’s Izzy, my Kalanchoe rhombopilosa or ‘Pies of Heaven.’
Izzy thinks that if she grows fast enough, she can eventually touch the ceiling. I’m not one to squash anyone’s dreams, but from what I’ve seen of her the last three years, she’s not gonna make it. I wish her well in her journey, blah, blah, blah, but she’s not meant to be a tall plant. It’s true – she’ll always be short.
Shortish, anyway. For her clan, she can get fairly tall before she falls over – about six inches tall. I used to think she was thirsty when she did that, but now I know that her stems can’t support her own weight. At least not sustainably.
That doesn’t stop her from trying. Because she’s such an enthusiastic grower, she grows up, she tips over, I cut her. Then she grows up, she tips over, I cut her. We’ve been dancing to the same song for awhile now.
I knew I wanted to mix it up.
I thought maybe it would be fun if I planted her in a way that celebrated her vertically challenged life. I was pretty sure I could find a way to help her shine in her own element.
I started, again, by cutting her to pieces:
Then I tried something new.
I planted the leaves to spell a cursive L, for Liza:
Haha! I love it. I hope she never grows up.
Oh dear.
Someone’s not happy!
Unless of course she’s bowing to me as a display of respect and admiration for my superior caretaking skills.
Riiiiiight.
The plant is Izzy, a Kalanchoe rhombopilosa, which I picked up from a Master Gardeners’ plant sale here in Albuquerque a few years ago. She came with no instructions, no guidance, no helpful care tips. Online, there’s very little info about how big she’s supposed to grow, how wide she should be, what the heck I’m supposed to do with her.
But if I’ve learned to read her correctly, flopping over forward means she’s not crazy about me right now.
So I chopped her head off:
Haha, sometimes I amuse me.
Seriously, no Kalanchoes were hurt during this blog post.
The plant may have simply been top heavy, and that’s why it toppled over.
Or it could be a water issue – too much or not enough. She sits on my kitchen windowsill, and perhaps gets a little too much attention from me.
From what I managed to gather online, these plants don’t grow very tall. They’re meant to be little. So maybe she got too tall for her own good?
I prefer that explanation over a watery one!
Even though I don’t know much about this type of Kalanchoe, one thing I do know is that I can plant the leaves that fell off and start a new plant.
Easy propagation is always a very, very good quality in a plant.
Here are the leaves in moist vermiculite (the top inch or so, there’s soil beneath):
The vermiculite should help promote quick roots, but the leaves don’t even need it. I could’ve put them in regular soil, or even back in the same pot they had been in, and they’d grow just fine.
With the bottom leaves clipped off and planted, I planted the big stem in the same pot:
And now Izzy has another offspring (her second).
If anyone out there has grown Kalanchoe rhombopilosas, I’d love to hear about it. What were your experiences? Got any growing tips? Lemme know in the comments section! And thanks!
I like to encourage people to take photos of their houseplants, because it’s fun to see how they’ve grown.
The space that photos offer gives us a perspective we might not otherwise see.
I’ve been thinking about perspective a lot lately. It’s probably the season, I’m sure I’m not the only one who uses December to take stock. To review what we did right, and what we did wrong, to consider how to do better in the future.
I think it’s natural this time of year.
For me, it applies to the houseplants, too. I like the process of going back and reviewing what went right, what went wrong.
Take Izzy, a Kalanchoe rhombopilosa, for example. Here she is newly planted in April 2011:
And here she is in August 2011:
This is what Izzy looks like today:
Apparently I didn’t do a very good job sealing the pot before I painted it. The paint has been chipping away and bubbling. The Kalanchoe’s isn’t the only pot in the house that looks shaggy. I can never tell how the sealant will work until I try it, some pots look fine and others don’t.
But the pot is not my point.
The Kalanchoe plant has grown great, despite setbacks, like the time she was bent over from thirst.
I didn’t know anything about her when I first got her, so I’ve learned a lot.
Recently, I learned something new about her.
If you do something dumb, like give her too little water, and she drops a bunch of leaves, you can put those leaves in the soil and they’ll grow. No rooting necessary!
I’d suspected this about her, but now I have photographic proof.
That’s a really good quality in a plant, in my opinion, the ability to generate growth from a fallen leaf.
It gives me hope for the future.
I’ll be back tomorrow, hope to see you back here.
Good To Grow 