This & that

Bf planted an onion patch on Saturday

Bouganvillea

  

Old bougainvillea, which was pruned completely off, is now coming back up.  At least I think it is.  Why is it red?  But anyway, that's the only thing that I ever planted there, so I guess that's what it is.

Bouganvillea

My aunt sent me a few cactus clippings last summer, and here are a few cacti starting to come back.  They seemed to be dormant for a while..

Hibiscus!  Thought the frost killed it.  As you can see, there's lot of new leaves

Another hibiscus coming back.

Azaleas.  Bf says they only blooms once and that's it?  Ooo -k.  That sucks.  As far as the clipping I planted, it's gone, roots and all.  I don't know what happened to it.  Animal?  Lawn maintenance guy?  Who knows?  Bummer.  I wanted to see what would happen to it.

Orange blossoms (tangelo).  I ate one last year (the only one fruit this little juvenile tree produced) and it was delicious!

Grapefruit blossom.  This grapefruit tree has some sort of black mold.  It is a fully grown tree on the side of the house.  I am not too worried about it.  I'm not much of a grapefruit person.  Maybe I'll use them for juice or something.  They are tart!

Projects! Palm tree bed

Before

Before

After

 I think I'll add 2 more plants later to fill in the gaps.

After

After

The little green plants you see are from last season - Serena Angelonia.  They should be covered in purple flowers soon.

This bed is to be mulched too.

Projects! Doorway flower bed

Bf wakes up this morning and starts messing with me.  He says let's go to Lowe's.  I say ok, what do you want to get?  He says plants.  He says I want to buy plants that I can plant myself.  Hehehe.. funny!  I did let him pick some plants out, and I planted them up.

Here we go!

Before

Before

 He picked some tall purple ones called salvia.    They are lovely!   I filled in with pentas and let him pick the color (red).  There are also some pentas coming up that survived the frost.  Yes, FL had a frost - a few actually (3 or 4)!  And I have impatiens that live through everything - the little red flower, bottom left!  I cut them back since they were leggy and buried the clippings.  Impatiens can be propagated from clippings.

After

After

After

Grandmother gave me this angel as a housewarming present last season

Everything looks pretty green right now, but I selected pentas that have a lot of buds ready to go!

This bed will look even better once it's mulched!

Burpee podcasts

Found this on the burpee site - podcasts on gardening.  Each one is only 2-3 minutes.

http://www.burpeehomegardens.com/GardenHelp/TipOfTheWeek.aspx

I also found the burpee community.  Looks like there's lots of cool info on here:

http://www.burpee.com/community/?cid=EM_2012_03_06_10OffReadyToBloomPerennialPlants&

Enjoy!

Peppers & glories!

Before I ran out of potting soil and manure, I manged to pot up one of the peppers.   I cracked the sides and bottom of the peat pot by gently squeezing, to allow the roots to spread.   (Next to it is the cilantro from last year that just refuses to die!  I bought a 20cent pack of cilantro seeds and will start over again with the herb, this time in a hanging basket since it seems to like to trail.  I'm thinking of moving the bushy thyme from the Aerogarden into a hanging basket also..I can't use it fast enough.)

Here is the tomato, soon to be upside-down, once it reaches 5". It is a happy little tomato, and I see new leaves coming out every day.  I admit I am a little nervous about turning the tomato upside down.  I've never turned a plant upside-down before!

Here's the other pepper that was started in the Aerogarden.  He'll get a big pot soon once I pick up some more soil.

Not a great picture here, but these are the morning glories that I transplanted into the garden.  They are the plants that kind of look like clovers.   They really are doing great!  I am going to try to train them to climb this brick pillar in the front of my home.

More morning glories have sprouted in the Aerogarden and will be moved outside shortly, and trained on another front wall.  I've never grown morning glories before.  They seem quite hardy, with thick stems.  They open in the morning to enjoy the sun and close at night.  

Here is some info on morning glories:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morning_glory

Most of the stuff I try to grow is new to me!  Havin fun!

A new unexpected project

Last night I was walking through Walmart, mainly just to get soil and a few groceries.  I walked down an aisle and found a large assortment of bulbs and came to a screeching halt!  After a verrry long debate with myself on whether I should plant plants or bulbs in some areas (mainly to save money), I just decided to get 2 packets of "bulbs" (roots) that looked the coolest: bleeding hearts and lily of the valley.  (I will probably go back later for daylily roots/bulbs for the back of the house!)

I remember seeing bleeding hearts in my old neighborhood when I was a kid, and I have always liked them. I have never actually seen lily of the valley in person, but the pictures of it always look so cute - like little bells.

This is what came in the bleeding hearts package - 2 large roots.  I put one in a bed and one in a pot.

 

And this is what came in the lily of the valley package.

I put both of the lily of the valley roots in a large pot.  I learned afterwards that lily of the valley does not do so well down here in FL.  It likes cold temperatures.  I did read something on a forum where one person had luck growing it in a pot.  Good!  Because that is what I did - I put it in a pot.  Everyone online says be very careful not to let it dry out or it will die.  Hard to do in such a hot climate - just wait til summer!  Anyway, of course I hope it does well, but if not - well, it was a $5 experiment (plus cost of soil).

Days70-72

  Tomato 1. Hard to get a good shot because it's in the back of the Aerogarden.

 Tomato 1

 Tomato 1

Tomato 2

 I think the savory is mad because it keeps getting shaded by the tomato plants.  It's trying to reach around, off the Aerogarden, to get some light.

Look at this jungle!