Bouquet in a Dish

Succulent Collection

Adventuring

To me, even the littlest step into nature can provide an escape… but in the eyes of children, you can bet that it provides a grand adventure.

Clearance Bin Voodoo

I need to stay away from the clearance bins at big-box garden centers… I have this burning desire to scoop up all the poor mistreated half-dead specimens in no-plants-land (aka the clearance-cart), nurture them back to pristine health, and then brag about how I resurrected each unique diamond-in-the-rough back to health. This is a very dangerous addiction though… Plants that have been banished to the clearance cart are usually in really bad shape and more susceptible to bugs and diseases, that can, if not properly addressed, infect your snuggly safe collection of plants at home. 

But when I see a HUGE bucket of Gollum Jade marked HALF OFF… I am absolutely compelled to save it!  I LOVE unusual plants… the weirder it is the more I want it!  And I had searched 3 Home Depots and 2 Lowes for a “Gollum” jade that was in decent shape. Everything out there was overpriced and ratty looking. And then at the last Lowes in my area I see this giant Gollum marked half off because of OBVIOUS neglect.  I HAD to buy it! 

Succulents are tricky to read and die easily from over watering… but given it’s symptoms (bone dry soil, sitting with the cacti in full sun, wrinkled faded foliage, 115 degree high temp days) I deduced that it might just need a giant drink of water.   After 2 good soaks, I let it sit for for almost 3 weeks.  And then I divided the jade trunks, ripped off the pot bound roots, and placed them in five planters of orchid bark, fine gravel, perlite, and river stone top dressing.

Today ‘MY Precious’ is almost completely wrinkle free and very vibrant green.  I just love taking pictures of it’s long slender fingers. Do I sound disturbing?  Yes, I realize I’m in love with my plants.  Don’t judge me.

I’ve already started 4 or five leaf cuttings, as well!  Baby Gollums for ALL…  (If I can bring myself to part with them!)  Now I just need to find a clearance bin Hobbit to complete my weirdo Lord of the Rings jade-plant collection.  😉

My latest find was a $1.25 “Voodoo” Aeonium.  Who could resist a plant with a name like that?!?  It’s still in terrible shape… and I have NO idea how to take care of it.  Apparently they are dormant in the summer and require little to NO water during this time.  The soil medium in the plastic pot was moist and looked to be a peat mixture… (not good.)  So I decided to immediately tamp off as much of the old soil from the roots as possible, dip them in superthrive (probably not the greatest idea to re-wet them), then I changed the soil to my new “crunchy” mix… , and now I just have to play the waiting game until I see new leaves forming.  Hope they make it!

I also have a cute little Crassula muscosa “Lizard’s Tail”  that seems to be doing well in my little succulent/cacti dish.  I LOVE it’s name, too!

PS. I will also accept any plant that you are ill equiped and unable to care for/keep alive… as long as it is weird.

Cacti and Succulents

I am too lazy to look up all the proper scientific names right now… so these are either common names or names I’ve made up.

Blue Giant

Succulent Cacti Dish

Some aloe I stole from my parents and Mammory Cacti (Common name thimble cactus but I call it this to remember it’s scientific name: Mammillaria gracilis var. fragilis)

Variegated Elephant Bush – might possibly take over the planter

Nursery… I finally got the iceplants to root!  And I LOVE the way the Mammory cuttings look like octopus arms!!

Christmas Cacti with lots of new red leaves

Some crazy succulent that grows on mountains in Brazil… will look into this one more… used to be thought of as a euphorbia (Pencil Cacti)

My Precious (yes that is it’s name) Gollum Jade

One of my many climbing succulents – Hoya carnosa variegated

Rope Hoya

Pink-Silver Hoya… I call her Meddle… after one of my most obsessed over bands: Pink Floyd.

Plant Babies

I’m sure you all have noticed how obsessive I am about my interests… So lets skip the witty banter, where I pretend to be embarrassed while you all make fun of my nerdiness (which I, not-so-secretly, think of as coolness)… and skip right to MORE pictures of my plant babies. 

I’m also a hopeless nurturer… SOOO if you would like me to make you a plant baby… this plant hussy would LOVE nothing more than to procreate for you.   🙂

Hoya carnosa  ‘Krimson Queen’ – variegated leaves with light pink flowers

Krimson Queen

Hoya compacta ‘Regalis’ –variegated leaves that form curled long ropes with light pink flowers

Regalis

Hoya lacunosa ‘Ruby Sue’–small, dark green leaves with prominent leave bracts and tiny fuzzy cream colored flowers


Hoya australis ssp. australis –large vining green leaves with white flowers when blooming   

australis

Hoya publicalyx ‘Pink-Silver’ –large silver speckled leaves with darker pink flower clusters… I named her Meddle. 🙂

Pink-Silver

Hoya blashernaezzi –yellow blooming variety with large lime green leaves (pictures SOON)
Hoya carnosa ‘Krinkle 8’ – green leaves with 8 dimples and light pink flowers

Scindapsus aureus ‘Marble Queen’ (boring old variegated Ivy) If you want some… I have TONS of regular and variegated!  Seriously… take some.

Schlumbergera bridgesii ‘Christmas Cactus’ –Thanks Amber! Still pretty little… slow growing and has not bloomed with the characteristic pretty hot pink flowers.

Mammillaria fragilis ‘Thimble Cactus’ (this scientific name always makes me think of mammaries, and then I giggle in a juvenile kind of way)

Euphorbia tirucalli ‘Pencil Cactus’ or ‘Milkbush’ –Thanks Misti! (poisonous sap that SOMETIMES causes severe allergic reactions in humans.)  I warned my boys never to touch this plant and they apparently, in turn, warned their Grandad… because several weeks later as we were coming home and walking past the plant Riley tattled… “Grandad touched the poisonous plant mom!”  And Lathan chimed in, “and he didn’t die.”

I have also started cuttings of my Cephalophyllum speciosum ‘Ice Plant’ … not really sure if they are going to make it!

Ice Plant (left, front)

Where Have All the Average People Gone

This song is fitting for my current mood. I’m very sad that sometimes it is hard to find self-worth in my personality and talents… When the rest of the world is geared for superficial perfection.

At this point, I think my introspection may have finally caught up to my spewing, loud mouthed, extraversion….  More and more, I find myself at a loss when passing ideas onto others.  Or maybe I just don’t feel it’s fair, because the ideas they are passing back, more often than not, make me feel empty and alone. Who knows how MY crazy makes others feel.  I wonder if it burdens them like passed judgement, or pity… Maybe this is an innate human insecurity… to over analyze what others think of you. 

But how people differ is represented by the ways they cope with never fully understanding where they stand in the world… or to others.  The scary part is the status quo for filling the meaningless void of insecurity.  Artificially produced happiness to keep us from thinking about our unending march toward oblivion.  Yes, I may be rambling about consumerism again… But also, quick fix problem solving that only leads us to the insatiable desires to consume more and care less.  Shopping, power trips, drugs and alcohol, plastic surgery, fame, fortune.  What do people really desire?  Love?  A sense of belonging?  Attention?

Ugh!  It’s so tiring, and I’m certainly guilty of the same. I think in a way, my urgency to be different and unique is how I make myself feel better about feeling… well… different and unique.  I also have a very serious problem with split personality disorder (but that has already been explained in another blog.) Rereading the aforementioned blog, I now feel like a regurgitating hack. 😉

But, ultimately, I need to remember that making people smile, laugh, or feel special is a renewable resource that will never require consuming an artificial, oblivion numbing, means to an end.  ALWAYS try to find the beauty in someone, some being, some piece of nature, some object of character…. rather than some hollow way to accept yourself.

said the emo-weirdo-girl.

Dead Coyote

Dead Coyote pup in the road
that had followed his mother many times before.
Why have you fallen prey to the vehicles of man?
An insatiable appetite from easy meals,
tiny purse dogs and lazy fat cats…

Where will your spirit go, trampy pup?
Will it reside with thieves and underdogs,
forced to the tree peppered outskirts of ravaged lands…
Or in the mowed alien fields of suburbia?

Yes, they will help you survive little dog.
The pleasures are many, 
easily taken by all who reside.
Without proper gratitude to upturned trees,
and extinct wild grasses…
never again dancing with the breeze.

One Crepe Myrtle
Two Crepe Myrtles 
3 Crepe Myrtles
Four…  Knockout Rose.

You are a shadow in the night,
whispered into misread warnings of dawn people.
Yelping and screaming,
you dispel such nonsense… 
only to fuel fear in reputation.
You don’t belong here little coyote,
necessities are better off respected.

Please
Please
Please
Follow your mother,
back to the wood.
For I fear to be the only mourner…
as the turkey vultures rejoice in your demise.

Plant Pilfering and my Aunt Pam’s Garden

I have developed a seedy new habit… Whenever I see a robust and bustling garden, I have an insatiable desire to loot it.  Always begging for seeds and offspring plants at any opportunity presented.

In my third year of gardening, I can say that my style has been largely inspired by my Aunt Pam’s “tough and adaptable, natural and Texas native” planting creed.

This au naturel style is abundantly clear when meandering down her thyme covered stone steps… the entrance to her whimsical, butterfly-peppered sanctuary… filled with patches of periwinkle Plumbago, pungent Spearmint, and happy little clumps of Blackfoot Daisies. Continue walking, and the crunch of the crushed rock underfoot will fill your ears as you explore the P-shaped path of her little prairie garden… Strange old world herbs, utilized by long ago pioneers, bushing to the right… trailing Vinca (occasionally blooming with bell-shaped lilac flowers) ever so slightly grappling up the wall of her house for more space than the floor of the garden will allow it… Autumn Sage and Turk’s Cap to satisfy the greedy hummingbirds buzzing around them, all held ransom by a border of redbud trees and tall red yuccas (that always seem to be blooming with their ferocious crimson spires reaching towards the sky.)

Even in negligence, this garden would survive. In fact, without the dutiful hand of a keeper, the “daughter plants”, as my aunt would say, and “grand-daughters” …would pop up wherever the breeze or birds directed them to take hold.

I'm obsessed with my little rock garden, filled with different types of Sedum, Iceplants, Torch Cactus, Salvia, and Skullcap

This lovey Rock Rose seems to be doing well in my West facing garden of fire… for now.

This is what I want to emulate in my own garden. NATURE’S beauty. Not the fake, pointy, manicured nail of perfection. While cookie-cutter gardens are very beautiful, the maintenance involved seems tortured and insincere. I don’t need voluptuous ‘Knockout Roses’ and begonias to be satisfied with myself, er uh, I mean… my garden. 😉 It sometimes feels like I am surrounded by prisons of conformity and compliance.

                

 

But I also know, that when my garden is lush and thriving… I would do the same for my friends and family. Share in the joy of gardening.  Let the grand daughters go play in someone elses yard! 

I have also taken to collecting seeds from my own plants, and I relish discussing each variety. So far I have Salvia greggii, ‘Winecup’, ‘Nana’ Coreopsis, two types of ‘Rock Rose’, and I even took seed from my ‘Batface’.

Rock Rose and the White Crab Spider

Citronella Plant and the Lynx Spider

Will I ever have daughter, even grand-daughter plants in my garden?! I certainly hope so.

3 year old Salvia greggii ~ one of my FAVORITES

 

Goodbye, Old Friend

I’m sad to tell you all that I have decided to remove my sweet Yucca that has become infested with Yucca bugs, as she has been suffering a slow painful death while the little fiends suck the life blood from her soft spikes. 

I’ve attacked the bugs with organic pest repelents to get rid of them… but they came back anyway.  And I’ve tried non-organic pest killers… which just made things worse for my beauty by affecting the weak foliage.  I really don’t feel like war-ing with the bugs anymore… so I am accepting defeat.  I’m so sorry my old friend.

Hopefully I will not get too beat up removing her.  And in her place I needed some sort of small tree or shrub… so I’ve picked up an unusual yellow flowering shrub called: Genista racemosa… A desert/tropical that will not burst into flames in my west facing front garden.  And I’m hoping it might even provide a little shade for the smaller girls in the garden.  BUT I have a creeping feeling that I may get a caterpillar infestation to defoliate the newbie… because, well, it’s me.  Very hesitant and nervous.

 

(Mine is about 1/3 this size right now)

PS: My Little Texas Garden – Spring 2011 coming SOON!