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! 

Bad News Blueberry

So that's what my blueberries have been slowly turning into recently.  My blueberries have always been one of my most low maintenance plants with regular delicious bounty, so I've been in denial.  But I can no longer ignore the signs... this plant has a blight of some sort.  After looking online for some guidance and solutions, I unfortunately still am not sure why it is or how to fix it.

There are a few possibilities.  It looks most like the pictures I have seen of a virus, called "Blueberry Shock Virus", transmitted by bees.  Apparently, after infection with the virus, the plant can go into a "shock reaction" during which entire sections of the plant die and fall off.  On less-affected areas, the leaves may have little red-brown spots.  The plant may recover, but generally is not as productive as before.  And there is no cure.  

It could also be fungal infection which causes issues like twig or stem blight or stem cankers.  But with those, entire branches tend to die and fall off which is not happening so much as brown, sad-looking leaves.  This too appears to be incurable. 

There are all sorts of other diseases as well, including the phytophthora-related root rot (RIP Jasmine) and "mummy berry".  You can read all about it here.  But I think those are less likely.  Either way, I will have to wait and see.  And if my poor blueberry plant dies, then I will get a new one, since this falls under the "lifetime warranty" on shrubs at my garden center (they should have known better, muahaha).

Meanwhile, my last remaining orchid also doesn't look so hot.  The leaves are individually turning yellow and falling off for unknown reasons.  I think part of it is that I used to water it somewhat haphazardly so that water would land between the leaves.  Perhaps the stem is rotting?  I asked my cousin's cousin, the orchid grower, about all of this when I was in Holland and his advice was, "If it dies, buy a new one."  Will do!  But first I remain hopeful that the remaining leaf will not die.

The garden's not all bad shape though.  My front door shade plants could qualify for plants gone wild.  The funny thing is, I never water these plants...  We have gardeners that take care of the courtyard every Wednesday and they always water them heavily.  With that, they never really dry out.  Don't tell Evan-- I'm taking all the credit for this one.

Well, I am feeling beat.  It must be a sign that I am getting old that a weekend full of enthusiastic wedding partying makes me feel so tired, but alas, pretend as I might, I am no longer really a capable, seasoned party-er (how do you spell that?).  As my husband and I have returned to work, tired already, these moments make me ask, "How do people with kids do it??"  On that note, I dedicate the track of the day to you, and my blueberries.

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