Saturday, June 5, 2010

This and That, Indoors and Out...

...And back to normal, I hope. It is amazing how many plant tasks can fall by the wayside when I am off my feet for a couple of days. I'm behind in moving my succulent plants outdoors, I'm behind in my indoor watering schedule, and I'm way, way, behind in my weeding and mulching outdoors. I'm also further behind than I'd like on my blogging. So, I hope this post will serve to bring everything up to date here among the leaves.

I did manage to get my four Hibiscus rosa-sinensis plants outdoors, shaded by a shrub for now, to be moved into full sun later. They've had a rather hard winter indoors. I've put several more succulents out on the front porch, and moved about 15-20 of the acclimated plants to full sun in the backyard. Once they are all out back, and I've had a chance to properly arrange and groom them, I'm looking forward to sharing pictures of the entire collection.

More succulents on the porch. Several of the plants at the head of the line (to the right in this photo) will be moving to the backyard tomorrow. I hope I can have everything back there by next weekend.

I also put the Epiphyllum 'David W. Grant,' that I wrote about on May 29, outside a couple of days ago:

Epiphyllum 'David W. Grant' just hanging around. Even though they are not the sort of flowers hummingbirds like, I hope the red color might attract some, who can then avail themselves of the feeder hanging on the right. I've heard that hummers do like Weigela florida 'Red Prince,' the row of red flowered shrubs seen in the background.

Indoors, Hoya carnosa 'Krimson Queen' has produced yet another bloom spur. I wish my other Hoyas would get with the program!

More Hoya carnosa buds, on the ninth (or is it tenth?) bloom spur of the season.

My "Peanut Cactus" with the multiple Latin aliases has put out another bud, so I'm looking forward to another luscious orange flower in the near future.

After it blooms, this Chamaelobivia aka Lobivia aka Echinopsis will join my other cacti outdoors

As for the my outdoor garden, the Salvia/Sedum beds up front are really showing off their colors:

Three views of my front garden beds. Peppermint (the cat, not the plant--I don't have any of that, thank goodness) seems unimpressed, as usual.

The Salvia plants visible in these shots are Salvia nemorosa 'East Friesland,' though I have S. nemorosa 'May Night' blooming in these beds as well. The Sedum with the yellow flowers is S. kamtschaticum. The red-and-yellow flowers are Gaillardia, either G. aristata 'Arizona' or G. aristata 'Goblin,' or both. These have reseeded themselves from my original plants. The white flowers are Thymus vulgaris, culinary thyme.

Salvia officinalis, culinary sage

I love to grow Sage, Thyme and Chives (Allium schoenoprasum) in my garden as ornamentals. I almost never harvest from them for cooking. If I get the notion to grow fresh herbs to actually use, I grow them in containers out back.

Now that I'm feeling like myself again, I have a busy weekend ahead. I wouldn't have it any other way.

4 comments:

gnikmit said...

Karen:

I stumbled upon your site in my quest to identify my Aloe saponaria. I really enjoyed reading a few of your posts. I aim to be as witty with my blog posts. Keep up the good work!

-gnikmit

Candice Suter.....Sweetstuff said...

Hi I found your blog through A Succulent Life. I am restarting my blog up. Never really got off the ground really. Yours is fabulous and I love your garden. I am a real succulent fan and you will see if you read my blog. Matter of fact I need some tips on mine. Yours fills up the whole screen and mine does not. I am not too good with how to do it yet.

Oh and I wanted to tell you a funny story. My son works in the produce department of a high end grocery store here in Sacramento, CA. He is 21 and still learning. You mentioned you like to grow chives. The other day we were talking about vegies and he said that chives were just the tops of little green onion. Oh my goodness did I laugh. I told him that chives are in the onion family but not little green onions that you buy in the store. He wouldn't believe me till I looked it up on wikipekia! So funny. Look forward to looking at your blog.

Karen715 said...

@gnikmit: Thanks! I visited your blog, and I'm sure I'll spending some time viewing your photographs.

@Candy: Thank you so much. My blog is full screen because of the template I chose. Blogger has a quite a few of them you can try out. I know some people come up with their own page format, but I'm not computer/web/design-savvy to do that. I look forward to reading your blog.

Julie said...

That 'David W. Grant' is stunning!!! I MUST FIND one of these!!! I believe it would grow all up in my giant Sapodilla tree in the back yard! I would be such a happy girl!!!
I love your Gallardia...a new interest of mine...I saw them here for the first time this summer...they seem to be gaining in popularity for use in medians in the cities.