Flower focus: Geraniums

Meet my favorite flower of the moment, the mighty geranium:

These are no delicate little spring buds to sneeze at, they are hardy easy-care plants and live up to that reputation.

But the buds are fuzzy and cute

A few interesting facts:

-What we commonly call geraniums (the plants pictured here) are not true geraniums.  There is a different flower that is technically a geranium in botany world.  Our commonly referred to as geraniums here are actually of the Pelargonium species.  Confusing, isn't it?

-Many different types exist, including the "common geranium," ivy geraniums (what I have), and scented geraniums.

-The leaves of scented geraniums can be used to flavor jelly and cold drinks.

Should you plant geraniums?

If you live in a warm, dry days and cool nights with mild winters, than this is a perfect flower for you!  That is to say, if you live in California, yes!

Care:

-Light -- full sun unless you live in a very hot area, in which case partial shade is better.

-Water -- Moderate to regular water

-Soil -- well-draining soil

-Feeding -- depends on the quality of your soil.  Generally, light feeding required.

-Other -- Pinch spent flowers to encourage blooms!

Ivy geraniums differ from common geraniums in that they grow 1-1.5 feet high but can trail 3-5 feet.  Both types have fleshy succulent-type leaves with bloom clusters in the white-red-light purple color spectrum.

I was first inspired by the ubiquitous geranium in terracotta pots and window boxes that I saw in Italy and decided to put a little Italy in my patio garden.  What great flowers!  

An aside, the music video is totally weird, but I love this song-- Big Data, "Dangerous" 

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

It begins!

Ah, the power of goals and public opinion (in this case my New Yorker siblings'... they arrive tomorrow!).  It was just the kick in the booty I needed to get a move on with my garden.  I realized after I started that the main reason I had been delaying was that I hate cleaning, of any sort (dishes, house, unpacking... you name it).  And a big part of getting the garden back in shape was uprooting, trimming, sweeping, trashing dead things.  It was not pleasant, and I almost got attacked by two large shady-looking black spiders, but it set me up for the fun part -- planning this season's perfect garden, choosing flowers with promise, that fresh smell of new damp potting soil and little wet leaves, and that optimistic feeling you get when everything is planted and looking so great!

I literally spent the whole day gardening yesterday (thus the blog post delay to today!) and now in addition to a good sore feeling in my muscles, I have a garden again.  Here's where we're at:

Dug up the tulip bulbs which are now safely stowed away in my fridge for next year

And then began planting.

Of course, there's the tomato.  

This time, not heirloom.  Armstrong's had this handy sign up, so I chose accordingly:

I went with the Roma tomato, both for its alleged ease of growth in pots as well as its versatility in cooking.

A few of the tomato plants at the nursery already had tomatoes on them.  You never want to buy a plant that's too mature (like a tomato plant with tomatoes already on it), but mine has a few flowers already.  I am feeling good about my tomato prospects this year.

In the wine crate, I went with a flat of Alyssum.

If you pay attention, you'll see these everywhere, especially used as borders because they have a spreading tendency.  I have an inexplicable love for this little plant.  I think the tiny flowers are cute (you'll see right now, I have Alyssum flowers as my background) and they smell really nice.  My hope is that they will spread into a big box of white flowers.  I think perhaps last year, I chose plants that were too tall (like basil or lavender) with the result that the shallow box could not support the roots.  Little box, little flowers... perfect.

Next up, in place of the tulips, I've got Geraniums.

I was never a geranium fan until I went to Italy and they were literally everywhere... little window boxes, restaurant patios, fancy gardens in giant terracotta containers, rooftops, everywhere!  There, they seem to love red geraniums.  I've chosen dark burgundy because I liked the color, but I like to think it's my little Italian influenced corner.

They are supposed to be very hardy and I've chosen an ivy-type variety, so with any luck they will trail down a bit down the ledge I've got them on.

On our tabletop, we've got a new addition, the Euphoriba millii. 

Baby succulent farm at left, new Euphorbia milii at right

It is in fact in the same family as the poinsettia, you may remember, with little red bracts at the top.

I've cleaned up our kitchen window with a few new Succulent additions.

And last but not least, what I am most tentatively excited about, is the Vertical Succulent Garden.

All succulents except top left, Dipladenia aka superhero plant

I did not buy a single one of these succulents, but actually used what was formerly the kitchen window disaster area as well as propagated succulents to mix and match into pockets!  (More on this next week...)

Lots of gardening!  I realized yesterday at the end of the day that I hadn't looked at my phone once, I had gotten so into the flow.  That's happiness for me :)

This week will be a big test for my new plants with their first heat wave.  It will also be a big week for me as it is my birthday this week and as I mentioned before, both of my siblings will be in town which is GREAT -- I can't even remember the last time the three of us were in LA together.  Celebrate!

An aside, before there was Pharrell...  Destiny's Child "Happy Face"