We came from here!
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1061641/
The last post I made there we were talking about these cute little guys and trying to figure out what they truly were!
Well anyway , too, while I was at that nursery I picked up a prayer plant and a couple more polka dot plants just to feed my fetish. While they cannot seem to label their plants, they willsell tons of them on eye appeal! And they continue to have plants at great prices and quality!
Aha! Ruellia makoyana: http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/38212/
Hey Blossombuddy, thanks for the link to the new thread. Your newest plant here: http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/p.php?pid=7446330 is a Maranta, commonly called "Prayer Plant" because the leaves will sometimes fold up in the evening: http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/54735/
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&source=hp&q=images+of+maranta&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=u_RIS4KuHYWXtgeC9ODkDQ&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=1&ved=0CBAQsAQwAA
I have not had a prayer plant in a long time and this one I got is very colorful! I love it!
Here it is again!
Some refer to Calathea as "Prayer Plant" also because the leaves fold at night. I have only one C. Dottie that I bought last summer. I love this plant. It's slow growing but such a pretty color.
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/105550/
Thats lovely!
Thanks! I never had a lot of luck with Maranta or Calathea and have never been able to keep them alive for very long. This one seems content so hopefully it will live a long while! I'm sure my problem in the past was over watering.
Well, I think most houseplants are lost to that.. sometimes its a tough call.
Anyone forcing snowdrops (Galanthus) this winter? As with other minor bulbs, I think the flowers are best appreciated in a window garden. Love the nodding white bells with pale ribbons of green. Anyway, this is the featured houseplant (if you can call it that) on the blog this week.
Kevin
The only bulb I had going forced was a paperwhite. its done.
Thats a beauty there thouhg that you have wintergardener! I might have one or two in my garden, but not many thats for sure.! For some reason thye do not do well here. I think too much water.
blossom - I have many snowdrops outdoors. They all flourish on a south-facing slope, where the soil is very well drained.
There ya go, your key words.. WELL DRAINED
My key problem... floods
Now, my daffodils love the water in the spring.. as for tulips, hyacinths, these lilttle snowdrops.. they say they cant swim!
Heres my paperwhite with some of the impatiens I have indoors. Now go figure, I am propagating impatiens with ease like crazy in the house. I tried them in my gps. They did not do so well! I have about 50 cuttings started!
Sadly, Americans overlook impatiens as houseplants. In England, however, this is not so. There they adorn many a window garden. I have a single pink variety growing this winter, but my all-time favorite, impatiens, one flourished in the house last year, was a pink double, or "rosebud" variety. How it bloomed and bloomed without a hitch from September through May. In the picture below, the plant is to the right of Narcissus 'Golden Sun.'
I have found that impatiens cuttings grow roots practically overnight in pots of straight vermiculite. What is your preferred rooting-medium? Regular potting soil?
And what, may I ask, is "gps?"
Hi wintergardener.. gps stands for MY GLORIFIED POTTING SHED!
Go here for more info, I have a series on it going.. we are up to #9!
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1068990/
For my containered plants I am using an all purpose soil. Looks about like black dirt or I will use dirt from my garden with home generated compost. Our home soil is mainly gold sand so we put the humous with it and it makes a fair soil. I generally do not use compost that is manufactured and processed because I have seen how some of the compost processers make the stuff and personally I would be getting a soil test kit on those bags and be testing for foreign pollutants such as heavy metals. Its very aggrivating how ill conceived some of the composting operations do their methods only to learn that some processors literally take in harmful garbage. The stuff is just about as far from "organic" as you can get.
We raise horses and other animals and so we make out own and so I know what is in our compost is 100% organic and pure and untainted.
YOur narcissus is lovely! Right now I only have one impatein and it is the orange one pictured above. I had pink and white, but those colores fizzeled on me. I love the doubles and will have to try thouse!
Here is a pic of my GPS!
Blossom - Love your gps! I'm jealous!
I'm with you on the compost business. I make my own potting mixes from various concentrations of leaf mold, garden soil, and sand or perlite. Of course the leaf mold and garden soil must be pasteurized first (for houseplants) but this is little trouble. The AVs and ferns are particularly fond of leaf mold -- not sure why more growers don't use it. It's free, too!
Kevin
I will get leaves and grass clippings from some of my neighbors and we will get woodchips from one of our friends who is a tree surgeon and with the horse and chicken dung, we are prettey good to go.
Since we use our manure for the garden too, I always advize gardeners to ask the horsemen or animal dung suppliers if they are using chemicals on their animals. Some of the strict organic growers will turn their noses up on that manure.
Ferns are good from removing arsenic from the soil. Many times you see ferns growing by older homes and they do fantastic in soil that is laiden with lead or arsenic. Some schoold districts have been known to plant ferns in playgrounds and such where children play to keep the soil clean.
You can tell so much from certain plants in how well they do and what they are "eating"!
Ever notice that on the highways and roadways you will see red clover, queen Anns lace and Chicory! Those plants love salt! They also take the lead and other metal impurities that is washed from our cars into the road ditches.
PLants our greates purifiers! Amazing!
Oh, I think its quite "crimminal" what these alleged composters do in taking garbage in. What they take in is not meant for compost so many times and it is just horrible. But some people will do anything all for the $$ yano.
I love my GPS too, my only regret, its not big enough! Its only 16 by 8. Hence the nicname of glorified potting shed! But you would be surprized on what that litle beauty will put out. If you go back to my earlier threads and read on i ramble on about things I do in it and such! I have even raised chickens in the derned thing one year! LOL!
Blossom, that is fascinating. I had no idea that ferns and the other plants you mentioned behaved as soil purifiers! Thanks for the wisdom!
Kevin
Yano, I hear a lot of gardeners bragging/complaining they got something growing out of control in their garden. The plants either love it or hate it where they are and then if the gardener hates it where its at, they want to relocate it or kill it.. Some gardeners simply do not understand that plants grow good where the environment is friendly to them.
Some plants like a "hostile" environment, case in point salt, lead and heavy metal lovers or take poison ivy, a fascinating plant in its own way, some people are allergic, some not, but that plant thrives on air pollution.
I have a peice of native ground that is host to poison ivy. My scourge though is not so much the plant itself as thankfully I am not allergic, but the scourge is actually air pollution. While to some poison ivy might not be welcome, you really have to give credit to that plant and all others for comsuming the bad air we breath and giving us the oxygen we also need to survive. Somehow I just cannot bring myself to kill that vine out in our woods that is probably 50, maybe 100 years old as it cuddles an oak tree that is about the same age if not older. That ivy plant is of mammoth proportions. And so is that majestic oak. To survive that long without any interference is a feat in itself. I have to admire that plant simply on its survival tenacity! Here, it hurts no one, unless of course you are a trespasser with an allergy hanging out in woodland where you dont belong!
Its only human nature to want things how we think they should be rather as to how nature lends itself. We humans are the only "animals" in nature that simply does not yeild to getting along with nature. Perhaps if we did, the world would be a much different place.
Got a gal on another forum, she is trying to get rid of columbine. Its her scourge. Says it does really well where its at and she does not want it thereand she cannot seem to get rid of it. Ima thinking, well, it loves it there. But yet she wants to rid that bed of it and put it in a place where maybe it will not do so good. If it were me, Id leave it. Redesign the garden to accomocate the plant since really it is a lovely weed and go from there. Why try fighting nature. But then thats me! Question is, why does it like it there and not the other spot in the garden? Sometimes you really have to run with the plants like for its environment or you will amend yourself silly and some soil, well it simply cannot be ammended.
Blossom, I think you are absolutely right. Here in the northeast, wild sumac is considered the bane of gardeners. It grows with rocket speed to heights of 20 feet and more, and provides tremendous shade as well as shelter and food for birds. It certainly mitigates soil-erosion, for its root system is massive.
By leaving my wild sumac in place, I found that I could use it to create a privacy wall between the manicured part of my property, and a patch I turned into a Woodland Garden.
I have also left an enormous poison ivy vine (like yours, probably 100 years old) in its position on an ancient maple tree. I wouldn't dream of touching it, for more than one reason. It is near the corner of my yard, and thus deters unwanted guests!
Well wintergardener, met "Goliath"! He is a charmer isnt he!
Sumac is actually very lovely especially in the fall. There are several kinds, both the poison and non. We have sumac.
The major thing with our ground is is it will only support plants that grow pretty much native and without a major overhaul to ammend, new things will not survive. And actually, if you start ammending things you can change an entire eco-system here and so we need to be absolutely mindful of that.
Fascinating thing about Goliath there is that his leaves are absolutely huge! Notice the ribs on the bark of that oak too!
Thanks for the picture. I'll have to photograph mine. The vine growing up my maple tree has an enormous "trunk." Yes, it is very, very old!
Now, do you have the antidote to poison ivy -- jewelweed -- growing nearby?
Nope! Neither of us are allergic! But I dont go out of my way to pick it either. We mow alot of its babies and that stuff gets in places where we have to clean equipment by hand, we dont bother wearing gloves, the clippings fly and hit us, we walk in it, gets on our cloths and such.. but so far, no rash. Occassionally pull a handful in weeding, but so far, so good!
They say the urisol oil in the plant can last for weeks in clothing or on something too. I pity those that are allergic. It is one rash that is very hard to get rid of for some.
I was trying to think on how big those leaves were on Goliath and they will cover a turkey platter! Amazing how that vine can be. And yep, old Goliath is very woody and has "trunks" and the vine has feet grabbers that hugs that tree with a vengence. Its truly amazing how they both survive! There is also a grape vine on that old oak with Goliath! The oak probably is 100 years as is the vine. I know they are both over 50 anyway. The woods caught fire one year and there is damages from that out there too.
When the grape grapes and Goliath spews his berries, they are about the same size and color! Oddly, the ivy is pretty in bloom. I would say 75% if not more of our woodland is covered in poison ivy of all sizes and it is a beauty in the fall with its fall colors! Really, quite the amazing plant. Most of the ivy here though are low growing and spreaders. Goliath is a unique speciman, but he has some brothers hugging other trees that are not quite as majestic in porportion!
You know what? what we don't know won' hurt us. Sometimes that is very true.
It is when it does bother me when I want to get rid of it. You know as your body ages it chages. At one time I wasn't alergic to it when I was younger, them I went thru a stage where I was, now I am not as bad as I was. Amazing what the body and plants can do too and For each other.
Plants have very amazing lives and differences. I love looking for them. So all we can do is ---Keep growing for the love of it!!!
Well, all we can say is all plants are simply amazing!
Glad you could stop in!
I have heard people can become allergic to it at any time, so that is one reason to why we do not "flirt" with it. We try not to pick it, but we cannot help the mowing of it. If I were to spray it.. I would kill just about everything that lives here and I certainly do not want to harm the special ecosystem that is present on our ground here. Its a rare thing with rare plants. I have to be very mindful of that!
Kevin,
Thanks for starting this thread. I've looked through both the first and second parts of the thread and you (and everyone else) have some very nice plants and displays.
In the first thread, you have this photo posted:
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/fp.php?pid=7354068
Do you know what kind of tree is visible through the window? Looks old and cool.
Thanks,
Mike
How did you get it to light up so good for the picture??
My pictures don't come out that bright. That was beautiful.
Mike - The tree outside the window is a very ancient Beech. There are more pictures of trees on the property here: www.agardenforthehouse.com
ridesredmule - photographing plants in windows is tricky indeed! I find it helps to balance the light from the window with some kind of light in the room. It also helps if the day is overcast. Such was the case for the picture below. It's from a recent feature on my blog, concerning the winter-forcing of spring-flowering shrubs.
Kevin
This message was edited Jan 20, 2010 9:12 AM
Kevin, thats lovely.. try this link! Its all about forcing branches to bloom for flwoers in the house and even some tree starting! Im doing some right now! I need to get out there and snip some!
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/944548/
I will be starting a new 2010 link soon!
Well, I found my snippers so Im off to the garden to pluck my branches for forcing!
Before I go, guess I best water my spider plants!
I have a terrible time raising spider plants.
I don't know what I do wrong but they do tend to die for me. Do you have a secrete?
Right now, mine are under florescent lights. I water them about every ten days and give them a royal soaking! I use Thrive for fertilizer.
When the leaves are turning brown that is a sign you need to clean theleaves out and water!
Some times I will go a little longer on the watering. Let them dry pretty good, but watch for brown out!
When they are outdoors I soak the heck out of them once a week and they are on my porch so they are in shade a good part of the day. I have not had any luck with them in the full sun.
Well, anyway, its so far working ok for me!
I have a dozen baskets in the house right now...they will all need a division. I have three varieties! Most are the white and green striped ones.
You can root these things easily in water, but I let the spiders show a wee bit of root before nipping some. I have also just taken the spiderbabies and cut them free and dipped them in rooting hormone and stuchj them in a pot.
That pic above was last year when I first got my plants from a trader here on DG! They did so well, by the end of summer I had 12 baskets!
The fluoride in our water supply causes the tips of a lot of plants to turn brown and dry up. This is especially true for Spider plants (Chlorophytum comosum). I'm pretty sure that fluoride, unlike chlorine, will not dissipate out of the water if the water is left to sit overnight.
No problem with floride or chloride I have well water.
Then Now I got waterbuckets full of rainwater that I water my plants with.
Sometimes I add a splash of Peroxide to help purify.
Also use Cinnamon to help keep bacteria down in the soil.
I use well water.
Oh, forgot in the summer I will use chicken poo tea.
Yea, I got donkey and mule poo. Wonderful stuff. Sometimes I put it in bottom of pot ,top with potting soil and plant whatever I want.
Wonder Poo!!!!
I have a donkey too. And several horses. Always wanted a mule baby from my Pasos. Tried several times but my friends jack had hormone issues.
Wonderful. Here's the mule .
AWWWWW! Sweet!
We thought maybe our jack would breed the mares too.. but he does not have any interest in horse girls. He was raised with jennies!
Right now I have too many horses. Need to cut back. I dont have time to do the riding I used to do and want to find that happy medium where I can ride, garden and relax is there is ever such a thing.
Im a full time rancher/gardener/wife
A very good thing to be. Guess I'm just a farmlady. Gardener, sometimes jewelry maker, just whatever I want to do, since I am retired. Have Three donkeys, 1 mule and about a dozen very nice chickens and four dogs and 1 hubby. Too bad. you may have to rent a jack that isn't too particular. I bet there is some out there somewhere just put an add in the paper. I get Western Mule magazine and they will have a special Jack addition coming out soon.
