Good Bad Ugly

I hope you have had a wonderful mother's day weekend!  It's been a busy few weeks for me -- first, I had the most wonderful visit from my siblings which we combined with a little trip to Vegas (always fun!) and then it was back to work.  And I have to be honest, the last few days of work have left me totally wiped.  So today was the first day I had to really take a close look at what's going on in my garden.  Being the type that saves the best for last like the dutiful hard-working child I was raised to be, I'll go a bit out of order for this:

BAD:

Fuchsia -- Okay, from afar it looks alright, good even.  I am pleased with the bushiness of the plant (in contrast to an overly tall skinny plant last year).

But the aphid wars continue.  I have admittedly only used the insecticidal soap once, in part because that spot on the front stoop has become sunnier than it used to be and I don't want to risk burning the leaves by spraying at the wrong time of day. 

The result, as you can see, is that the aphids target the new growth (flower buds) which causes the blooms to deform at best...

And not even open at worst.  

Attempted solution:  continue insecticidal soap, rotate with Neem.

Begonia -- *sigh*  Mold.  Specifically Botrytis Blight, according to Google.  

A quick synopsis:  It is a fungal infection of the plant which characteristically looks like my picture above, causing mushy brown-grey dead parts.  Optimal conditions for growing this mold, if that is your goal, include high humidity and crowding plants creating poor air circulation (gulp... guilty).  Recommendations to avoid include removing dead plant parts and watering early in the day to ensure the plants are as dry as possible.  Here is a great summary.  

I think this issue began when I planted the begonias and the leaves were touching the dirt which I watered heavily in the beginning.  Those were the first leaves to go and since then, the problem has been slowly worsening.

Attempted solution:  remove all infected leaves even if only a few leaves remain to try to spare what's left of the plants

UGLY:

Sweet jessamine -- It seems that the life span of these climbing plants is only 2 years (recall what happened to my poor jasmine plant) before huge chunks of it die.

Is it possible that this is yet another case of root rot?  Is there a root ball in the bottom of this pot?  Are these climbing plants just not meant to be grown in pots?  (As a gardening guru once told me, "lots of growth on top means lots of growth in the ground" ...except my patio only has space-limited pots)

Either way, I have been keeping an eye on this for awhile and it seems to be a lost cause... this plant is D-E-A-D (well, pretty much).

GOOD!:

Many good things!  I'll keep this succinct and let the pictures do the talking.

Tomato -- It has already grown a lot

Which I found alarming, given what happened with my heirloom tomato last year (HUGE, no tomatoes), until I saw this:

Hooray!

Geraniums -- Glorious

Hydrangeas -- have not mentioned these in a long while!  Well, let's just say there's this:

Tiny flower buds...

More on this to come as we watch and see what happens.

Gardenia -- New addition to the garden!  Thank you Olivia for the birthday gift!  It smells wonderful!  Later this week, I will be buying a nice new pot to put it in.

Definitely more good than bad in the garden... I'm smiling.  Have a beautiful week!

An aside:  A must watch if you have not already seen it...  Kevin Durant's MVP speech

Tiny dancers

A few exciting things are going on...

1. Spring is here, as of March 20!
2. If you live in the US and have any human contact at all, you are aware that March Madness is going on.  I sadly did not win a billion dollars, so it's back to my day job... and gardening!
3.  Speaking of which, as of today, O Garden, My Garden! has 56 posts... not bad... And we're going strong!  Keep reading with me and I'll keep gardening!

This week, my fuchsia plant started blooming.  If you can recall, I have had a minor obsession with these tiny dancers which I have planted in my "Thriller Filler Spiller" pot.  This particular plant, of the "June Bride" variety, is my second go at it. 

So....  Here's where we started:

And here's where we're at:

Not bad!  I have to say, I'm quite pleased with the composition of this pot so far.  The Dichondra (spiller) is trailing nicely.  I wouldn't mind if it was a bit fuller, but there's time for that, and after the craziness with last time's Muehlenbeckia, I'm okay with it as is.  The begonias are filling out perfectly, and buying a fuchsia pruned to have more branches was a winning plan.

The only trouble I have had thus far is aphids.  My little garden enemies have returned to attack the buds of the fuchsia for some reason.  In response, I have been dousing my plants in Neem oil, but they keep coming back, and the dead aphids turn into little black carcasses on my beautiful tiny fuchsia flowers.  

First world problems.

So once I get a chance to, I am going to either remake my fabulous Michelle's modified aphid spray or investigate other options.  I will say that we bought lettuce yesterday from Whole Foods and upon opening it, we discovered it was absolutely covered in aphids.  Like all up between each lettuce leaf too.  Disgusting.  While my husband was very angry (he loves salad, the man wanted salad), it made me feel a bit better -- if professionals like whoever provides iceberg lettuce to Whole Foods can't even keep their lettuce aphid-free 100% of the time, then maybe I shouldn't be so upset if there are a few stubborn aphids on my flowers.

Regardless, here's some more photos of my front door loveliness.

I find it fascinating how different begonia buds look from most other flower buds:

Here's a little known fact about begonias -- most varieties can be propagated, whether from the leaf, stem, or rhizome, depending on the type.  Rhizomes are underground stems that send out shoots and roots.  The ginger that we buy in the grocery store is actually the rhizome part of the plant.  Given the success I have had with propagating succulents, I may have to investigate this begonia propagation, especially since these white begonias are so lovely.

And lastly...

Always delightful!

I have many gardening ideas now that it is spring and time for gardening is upon us.  Unfortunately, because I have the oral boards coming up, they will have to wait just a few more weeks.  After that, all bets are off!  Welcome, Spring!

Revisiting TFS

Great news!  We are not moving!  We will get to stay in our apartment for one more year.....  which means one more year in my lovely patio, gardening!  I appreciate my garden that much more, having faced the prospect of losing the opportunity to garden!

Well, as soon as I found this out, I did not waste any time.  Last week my front stoop got a much needed makeover.  You may remember our "thriller filler spiller" pot from last June.

If you don't, here is what it started of as:

Very cute

It turned into this:

A bit overgrown

Which turned into this:

Disaster

Now there are a few things going wrong here.

1) The "thriller" fuchsia plant, instead of growing out and full, turned "leggy", growing up and up.  I tried pruning it a bit when this happened, but it was too little too late.  Furthermore, the flowers always grew at the top, and it hurt me to chop off these tiny dancers

2) The "filler" Helichysum, while a lovely color, was not a filler at all.  It too grew long and leggy.

3) Let's be honest, do you ever see the same plant outside a well-manicured building in the summer to winter?  No.  I should have replanted long ago, but I was hopeful because the fuchsia was is a perennial.

About the only thing that did not disappoint was the "spiller" Muehlenbeckia.  But even that grew a bit aggressively for my tastes, choking out the other plants a bit.

So anyway, it was time to start over.  Learning from my mistakes, I went back to Armstrong to look for a new thriller, filler, spiller.  Specifically, my wish list included a filler that I knew was going to grow into a small dense plant and a softer spiller that maybe would not be so viney.  Having loved the fuchsia's blooms, I wanted to try them again if it was possible that I could find a plant that would somehow grow into a fuller plant.  I didn't have the bug problems I was worrying about with the first one.  So here's the new front door plant family:

Fuchsia = "Thriller"

Notice that this one has more stems, 6 to be total.  According to the people at the gardening center, the pruning has to begin early -- much earlier than the stage you see the plant in now.  The downside of picking this bushier one was that I did not get the multi-colored blooming fuchsia that I preferred (those were already all tall and skinny), but I think these will be quite beautiful as well.

Beautiful Begonia = "Filler"

These popular flowers have somewhat unusual blooms with big waxy leaves that add a nice texture and contrast.  They will also always remind me of my opa who once visited us in Texas.  My dad was convinced no flower could really successfully grow in the Texas heat and our dense clay-like dirt.  And yet, Opa came to visit, planted a bunch of begonias which grew into a luscious garden.  And even came back the next year.  It was amazing.  

Dichondra, aka Silver Falls = "Spiller"

I like the delicate silvery shiny look of these leaves.  And I feel like anything called "Silver Falls" is going to be a good trailing plant.

Here is the final product!  What do you think?

Good luck pot!

Lastly, regardless of how your week is going, today is hump day, and I would like to give you two mid-week pick-me-ups.  First, a few reasons to smile!  And secondly, music from The Lego Movie, which you should definitely watch (warning: if you listen to the clip, you will probably have "Everything is Awesome!" stuck in your head for the rest of the week... is that a bad thing?)  Happy early Valentine's Day! 

Hot updates

Wow, it is HOT outside!  

True confessions:  when it gets really hot, my plants start looking like this:

...which makes me depressed to look at them, which makes me not go out there as much, which results in me neglecting my plants somewhat, which just worsens the whole situation.  It's a vicious cycle.

I've told you before about my habit of rapidly cycling through hobbies.  My husband who likes to make overly confident statements predicting my actions has said both that my garden "looks like it's in its dying cycle again" and that he thinks I will likely be "moving on soon from gardening."  ...thanks for the vote of confidence.

While I admit that my garden has looked somewhat ragged recently and I have eyed other interests I am planning on getting into with my new-found free time (namely cooking: I just bought "Cooking for Geeks" and am very excited about it as it approaches cooking from a scientific point of view), I am not intending on neglecting my garden, it's in my blood, people!  I've got a little bit longer, I've got a ways to go! (what a great song!)  So yes, here's some updates...

1. I am pronouncing the heirloom tomato project over, with an overall grade of D (not F because at least it did not die immediately). This is what the tomato looks like today:

*sigh*

I plan to pull it down later this afternoon (when it cools down a bit, my goodness!).  I really wanted to hold out hope.  My parents were here last weekend and helped me prune it and taught me about tapping on the stems with flowers to help stimulate pollination.  But this problem child has looked persistently out of control, Evan has complained persistently about what an eyesore it is, and despite being over 6 feet tall with many chances to have grown tomatoes by now, it has remained barren.  

Today, Evan also received a big bag of home grown tomatoes from someone lovely at work (thanks, Janice!). 

Upon seeing how prolific other people's tomatoes are, I'm saying, better luck next time and fare thee well in tomato heaven, Great White.

2. Not all things are terrible.  Here is a photo from today of the thriller filler spiller pot that I talked about in a recent post.  It looks great!  I will say the filler and spiller look somewhat more distinguishable in real life, but next time I may choose slightly more obviously different plants.  The Muehlenbeckia in particular has grown into a spectacular tangle of delicate little round leaves and the Fuchia has a number of beautiful flowers blooming constantly.

3. Our succulent science experiment is growing well.  Even the Crassula stem that I just tossed in there has sprouted roots and curved upward at the tip.  For comparison, here is the link to that first post.

4.  Actually, all my succulents are growing well.  I love succulents.  Pictured below is my gift succulent I've talked about before.  It's grown!

Also from Janice...  thank you!

5.  And lastly, to overcome this mid-summer gardening death depression, I went shopping today and-- surprise, surprise-- bought a number of new plants which I intend to plant tomorrow.  My sister is also coming to visit the day after tomorrow and her new man is joining next week, and naturally, I want to look like the green-thumbed gardener that I sometimes think that I am. So, lots of new and interesting plants (all heat and drought resistant!).  More later, but here's a preview of an exciting plant I had never seen before:

Ptilotus Joey (with Maidenhair Fern behind it)

And that is all for today.  Stay tuned and stay cool!

The Pretty Pot: "Thriller Filler Spiller"

Recently, Evan asked if i might plant something nice by our front door.  Obviously, the answer was yes.  This afforded me the opportunity to buy new plants, explore the world of shade plants, and also come up with a pretty display pot.  It is an art, if you let it be one.

So how do you pick the perfect pot of plant?  First there's the pot, which I won't say much about.  You need to consider your space which affects the size, shape, and color of pot you will choose.  There are also a variety of types of pots available -- ceramic, plastic, terracotta, metal, wood...  it's a topic we can cover another day.  

Then there's the type of plant which will grow well in your pot.  What is the microclimate of the pot's location?  Sun, part sun, shade?  Is the pot one that will dry out quickly?  Is it very hot or windy?  All things that will narrow down your plant selection, and thank goodness, because I have a hard time choosing regardless.

What I really want to talk about is something that is not a new concept in the garden world:  "Thriller, Filler, Spiller"... which makes me inevitably think of Bob Marley singing "Iron, Lion, Zion" every time.  It's a cheesy name that kind of sucks, in my opinion, but I must give credit where credit is due, sort of...  I did not come up with this concept.  But really, neither did the garden world.  It's kind of like the background, middleground, and foreground in art.  In essence, you want something eye-catching and tall in the back, something fairly leafy and space-filling of medium height in the middle, and something short and ideally trailing in the front.

Enough words, let's do some pictures:

Having just been to Italy, I picked a plastic (lightweight!) pot with a Tuscan-esque design and color on a stand to bring the small plants closer to eye level.  

Then I picked my thriller, which was easy -- I have thought fuchsia plants were gorgeous since I saw them in my aunt's garden in Holland.  They do have a proclivity towards developing mites, but I am pre-armed with spray.

It was much more difficult to pick the other plants.  After more than 30min of walking back and forth at Armstrong in indecision, for the filler, I picked Variegated Helichrysum and for the spiller, I chose Muehlenbeckia.

Why?  I wanted a variety of colors and shapes of foliage.  I thought the Helichysum was a nice contrast with the silvery light green that also matched the accent color of our apartment.  Also, the Muehlenbeckia had nice small leaves in a tangle of dark green to contrast the other two plants.  

I absolutely love the fuschia so I stuck with other leafy plants so that other larger flowers wouldn't detract from the delicate look of the fuschia flowers.  But there are tons of options.  Perhaps in another pot, one could do pink impatiens with trailing ivy with a tall purple leafy plant of some sort in the back.  Here's a few examples from the web (Sources linked here: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th):

  

 


And they are all beautiful and different in style!  I have noticed that other people (at least on the interwebs) tend to plant their pots significantly tighter than mine.  How do their plants have space to grow?  Anyway, I planted this pot about 1 month ago, so it is slowly filling out beautifully.  Updated photos to follow!  And remember, next time, you want to plant a pretty pot, think "Thriller, Filler, Spiller"  (or Iron, Lion, Zion).  Happy planting!

In baby stage, welcoming guests