Sticky Fingers

Frailea grahliana

Last weekend I watched in eager anticipation because I expected to FINALLY see a flower on this Frailea grahliana that I have had for about two years now. Previously, all that has happened is that it buds then sets seed without opening a flower. I took photos to capture the sequence ...

In the morning, the bud promised to open...

Starting to open...

This is as far as it got...

because it started to rain.

So, I'm a bit disappointed that I didn't get to see the full flower open, and the next day I had to be at work and I have no idea if it opened then, but by this weekend it had finished. The other plant is budding out now so I am waiting to see if it will become a bloom or just a fruit.

I always thought that Frailea was delicate but this one is out in the garden and gets regular rain and sunshine with no ill effects - but it is filled out and has lots of offsets and has produced lots of seeds. I'm now starting out to grow some other Frailea species from seed so I hope to do well with them as I seem to be getting better with keeping young seedlings alive.

My entries in the JHS Flower Show 2009

This year I was persuaded to take in some plants for entry in the Jamaica Horticultural Society Flower Show 2009, which was this past weekend. I managed to persuade my aunt to enter some plants also.

These were my entries:

Aloe "Pepe" descoingii x haworthioides
- earned a third place award.

Echinopsis calochlora

Second place award for
Euphorbia aeruginosa

.
Surprise for me!
Euphorbia baioensis got a first place ribbon

Euphorbia debilispina

Gymnocalycium damsii

Haworthia attenuata 'variegata'

Third place for the Mammillaria beneckei.
My aunt's two plants took first and second.

No award for this Sansevieria scabrafolia

This Agave got a red ribbon - second place

Not sure if I want to do it again next year but it was a good experience and I haven't ruled it out yet. Still have quite some time to think about it and be more prepared if I decide to go again.

Petunias bloomed!

Well, all the hard work to try to keep the zinnias and petunias from dying an early death has resulted in some flowers! I'm not sure that any of the zinnias have survived, but two petunias have bloomed this week, so there may be hope yet for me and my not-so-green thumb. I didn't even pot them up from the seed tray so I probably stunted them greatly.

Just to show off the two blooms (no guarantee that there will be more, right?)...

I've entered some plants in the JHS show, which is this weekend, so I will post some photos of my entries and MAYBE others from the show (if I get to doing that).

Blooming this week

I managed to get some photos taken this week in the garden.

These are the blooms I was able to capture.

Mammillaria vetula ssp gracilis

Mammillaria dixanthocentron

Rebutia sp

Mammillaria nivosa

Notocactus horstii purpureus

I'll try to write a little bit more about each of these later.

My thumb is not very green

Today I came home in the afternoon to find the young tomato plants keeled over from lack of water. I was almost certain that I had watered them last night but obviously I did not! This may just be too much work for me, but I will continue to try. These plants need to be put into the ground now, and hopefully someone else can take responsibility for watering and keeping them alive.

Although a few of the petunia seedlings died, several are thriving and I try to remember to water them also - the zinnias haven't fared so well. Maybe I should stick to what I have learned to grow so far... plants that thrive on neglect. As I continue to diversify....

Stepping up the pace

I have realised that using the multi-cell trays with small squares gives me good results - at least for now, so I have been proceeding with some repotting within the space that I have. This weekend I completed another 120-cell tray and also a 156-cell tray. I have now reached my space limit under the verandah awning so I'll have to be creative if I want to continue on this path.

My photo log of the tray that I pinned out last January...

Freshly done in January 26, 2008

This was taken in September 2008

And what it looks like now, in March 2009

These have really grown, and the survival rate is very good - maybe because there is less soil to harbour pests and to rot the roots, I think.

Other trays....

These were pinned out in October 2008

Pinned out in January 2009

And last week's work

I finished today's activity after dark so I don't have photos of my most recent handiwork. Will try to remember to take some shots within the week.

I'm clearly not as impatient as I used to be - when I just started out growing from seed, I would pin out 4-month seedlings into 2" pots so that they would have space to grow. Now I don't have the space to be so generous so they stay in the seed pots (those are now smaller also) for over a year before I pin out - except for the faster growing species. It's all about learning and adapting as I go along.

Keeping them growing

Despite the fact that I feel as though I've run out of space to safely grow my young seedlings (under some shelter but with enough sun), I need to keep them progressing at a reasonable pace. Today I pinned out some of the yearlings to a 120-cell tray so that each will have its own space to grow, however limited it might be.

I managed to find a space for the tray by moving over a partly hanging Sedum morganianum, which I have treated very badly. It needs repotting desperately, but I can't figure how to do it without doing great damage to all the tails.

Next week I will start the greenhouse if I can get the blocks for the foundation of the sides. I think I must - can't let this season go by and stifle the growth of all these plants. I'm not back to using my regular soil mix but I'm working with a combination of some commercially available soil and so far, it works for the seedlings under shelter. I can't swear what will happen if they have to be out in the rain - so I'm not putting them out - hence the need for the greenhouse where the watering will be controlled - delivered when I say so and not by Mother Nature.

Really need to update

Tonight I realised just how out of touch I have been with this blog. Many of my links are no longer valid and I haven't even looked in on those sites in so long it's almost shameful to retain them as blogs or links that I know anything about.

They will have to remain so for a while longer because an update is something that I'm NOT going to do now, in the wee hours of the morning. So until another day... it shall remain incorrect.

My daughter has influenced me into trying to grow somethings other than cacti - so now I am struggling to keep baby zinnias and petunias alive, and to add to the problems, we have now put in a batch of tomatoes and bell peppers... it would be great if she would remember to water the tray each day, but that's left up to me. Suffice it to say that more than once I have found the poor things wilted over and about to expire from lack of water. I don't know how this will turn out but I won't give up yet. Maybe I will discover a new passion, who knows??

Still slow (or so it seems)

I just don't know how to get past this. Maybe I'm down to once a month now, and should just try to work with that until I can figure out how to up the frequency.

What to write about? I hardly have time to keep my plants alive much less to process photos and other such excitement. Not that I don't want to, but all of a sudden it just feels like there is so much else to keep me busy -including spending time just doing NOTHING. That is something I have found I need to do more and more just to keep myself within a realm of sanity.

As usual, though, if nothing else I am trying to keep up with my baby babies, to see that they get to the stage of tolerating neglect. I sowed another batch of seed this past weekend, as though I even know where I'll put all these plants and if I'll have to time or energy to care for them. Trying to keep moving forward, at least.

These are some of my older babies - I guess about a year old or so - most of them. Photos from December... and not the best either but just what I have at hand right now.

Not much happening

Not much to report except that I still am struggling to maintain my plants - maybe I've reached the point where I now have too many to be able to give them the attention they need so now they are keeling over right under my nose. The biggest problem is root mealy bugs and now I have taken to just unpotting the plants that seem at risk and leaving them bareroot because they are then less susceptible to rot when a shower of rain might pass. If I repot, the bugs migrate into the new soil and the problem continues.

The thought of repotting everything is just overwhelming, so I don't know what will happen - and I have hundreds of babies coming up. I need a management system that works!

Anyway, a few plants have shown up their blooms over the last couple of months - some for the first time - so I'll just play catch up and post them all here (at least the ones I got reasonable photos of).

Mammillaria magnimamma