Fishman65 and I have decided to start a gardening thread for pics, tips and other green thumb discussion.
Here's some pics of my cacti that bloomed this year:
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Fishman65 and I have decided to start a gardening thread for pics, tips and other green thumb discussion.
Here's some pics of my cacti that bloomed this year:
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Great idea for a thread! I love walking around nurseries looking at plants.
I like your cacti, Vee. We've had them in the past but never had flowers like that. I have considering making up one of those terrariums with succulents as a present for my mum in the past. She has a few. I saw some nice bottle ones a few months back before the lockdown. One was sideways on a wooden stand and it looked like a ship in a bottle style with sections cut out along the top.
For her birthday I got her a dwarf cherry, Kojo-no-mai. So beautiful and unlike most cherry trees it grows outwards as well as upwards. I will have to post a pic.
Well, remember, I can grow those cacti because the winters are so warm down here. We only get snow and frost up in the mountains.
Do you all bring your succulents and tropical plants indoors for the winters?
yes, post pics!
Don't you mean get with the high times?
You can buy cacti to but you're still growing it.
I got you pegged for a purist.
Actually a buddy of mine went out to California and is growing it by the acre he's making a fortune.
Of course he's stoned out of his mind 24/7 but that's the price we pay 😜
OK you'll have to either lay down or turn your device sideways as I can't seem to get images upright. I've never had this problem on Gardener's World forum, yet strangely they're fine when posted via PM.
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Wow, your yard is beautiful, fishman! Thanks for sharing! It looks like pictures you'd see in a travel magazine to go to some quaint little English bed and breakfast!
So what happens during your winter there? How much do you have to put inside? Is most everything an annual that has to be replanted every year or are they perennials that have a dormant period?
I couldn't get my pics vertical either. And they were just showing up as blank boxes on PM. I wonder with all the updates if something got messed up.
Aw thank you Vee, you are too kind but its really not that good. There isn't a lot I have to put in the greenhouse because I tend to grow plants that are fully hardy and able to withstand low temperatures. And the tender plants that I do grow are annuals such a cosmos. Though I think you can get perennial cosmos too which coming from Mexico would need very mild winters.
I like to grow most plants from seed and the greenhouse has some tomato plants, cucumbers and chillies. I have quite a few perennials and a pond that gets frogs breeding in it. I always try to garden with wildlife in mind, so lots of food for pollinators and potential host plants for butterflies and moths to lay their eggs and produce caterpillars. I've got nest boxes for robins and blue tits ( that's a bird before you ask!!) and I made nesting sites for solitary bees.
I've got one succulent on our kitchen windowsill that stays inside all year though people can grow some species here :)
Wow, you have a greenhouse too? That is so cool. At the local botanical garden I go to their greenhouse in the winter to see all the orchids that they grow and bloom. Hardly anyone has greenhouses here unless they grow orchids.
I'm in the process of redoing the landscaping in the backyard right now (I moved a few months ago). When I get it all done, I will show you pictures. I have a lot of perennials and flowering succulents that the butterflies and bees like, but as for the birds, I can only put the feeders in the front yard as cats go in the backyard.
I have a few tropical plants that live in the kitchen window box all year, like a Persian Carpet Flower (edithcolea) that I've had growing for three years. It's only made one flower though. I don't know what I'm doing wrong. It seems very happy and has grown like a weed, but still no other flowers. I also have a hybrid succulent that makes flowers that eats bugs.Attachment 5113
We keep our succulents inside. They do get sold in outdoor sections at garden centres but our frosts would kill them.
We've got a few in a small glass jar I got as a gift for my mum plus an arrangement put together from a few smaller ones we picked up in reduced to clear sales which grew much bigger. We also have two Christmas cactus which produce lovely long flowers but some years they struggle when it's a mild winter and don't quite produce them. They sprout leaves through the rest of the year though.
Yes, here the Christmas cacti become enormous. My old neighbor has one that runs across two trellises on her patio
Blimey! (Said just you :winks:) Ours are in small pots. The flowers must be enormous on your neighbour's. I didn't know that got that big. They must be a pretty sight.
I will have to ask her for some pics so I can show you guys.
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This is all I can grow Agaves and Yukka’s.I have several varieties of weeds.:D
You know I have a theory about the lawn. The longer you wait to mow it the better it looks when you finally do. if I mowed it every week no one would even bat an eye but if I let it get 2 feet tall then mow it everyone says wow that looks great!
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This is from my local botanical garden that I visit all the time. It's my inspiration...
This is a very strange looking plant Vee, is it the Persian Carpet flower? I'm not so knowledgeable on tropical plants, though if it's not producing flowers, try giving it a feed with high potassium. If its producing lots of leaves its probably getting lots of nitrogen and will keep doing that at the expense of flowers. Check what conditions the plant likes i.e sun or shade etc.
That one with the pic is the one who's flowers eat bugs. The bugs fly into the flower and get stuck, and then the flower closes back up and the plant absorbs nutrients from the bug, I guess. That's not the one I'm having trouble with--it flowers all the time.
I'm having trouble with the Persian Carpet flower. I will try the high potassium. It likes filtered direct light and warm climate, which is why it stays in my kitchen box window.
Yummmmm!
Baby Aquilegias pricked out today, baby clematis 'Sunset' potted on. Hedge bindweed pulled out, the weed to beat all weeds. Comfrey cut back to encourage a second flowering.
Nice. I'm putting in a bougainvilla along my fence today. I told you I was redoing my landscaping, right?
You did say Vee, how is it coming along? I just googled your plant...should give you some nice colour?
This thread is certainly the antidote to Vaccine Wars..:D
I don't think she's ever mentioned them/that. I'll have to ask her. I know we've never had it. Her homemade empanadas are to die for as well as her cazuela and ceviche. She really is a marvelous cook. Its good to be the "Papi" in more ways than one! :winks:
But when it comes to certain things like smoking, grilling and things like Italian or traditional American, I'm the cook. In fact, just yesterday my son and his partner visited and I smoked two racks of ribs for 9 hours. It was 'melt in your mouth fall off the bone' good! (I do my own rub too) :yesyes: I did my garlic roasted red potatoes and grilled corn on the cob too.
Positive thoughts and now I'm hungry!