Archive for the 'Flowers' Category
As the daylight hours dwindle in autumn, so do the blooms in our garden. But a few of our plants are still managing to put on a nice show of flowers. Some of our rose bushes are producing their last bloom of the year, including our black magic roses as shown in the first picture. I pruned off most of this season’s growth from this particular rose bush back in mid-August. In just two months, it grew back rapidly and produced another flush of flowers.
Last spring, we planted cockscomb flower seeds in a pot and in our raised bed vegetable garden. They grew better in the pot. It took them 5 months to grow to full size and begin to flower, which they began to do in September. They are still looking good and holding on to their red flowers (if you can call them flowers).
October 18 2009 | Cockscomb and Roses | 2 Comments »
Last fall, I left our deciduous plumeria outdoors too long. I was hoping the cooler weather would naturally stimulate it into dropping its leaves. But when a frost hit in December, our plumeria not only dropped its leaves, but it got frost bitten badly. Many of its branches turned brown. I thought it might be dead.
But we kept it anyway to see if it would grow back. In the spring, I put it back outside, but it did not grow any leaves, and I stopped watering it in May. When it still had not grown any leaves by mid-June, I had decided to throw it away. Luckily, I didn’t get around to it, because in early July, it suddenly began to sprout new leaves. It has been growing vigorously since then. It now looks as good as it did prior to being frost bitten. It looks like another bloom is now a real possibility.
September 26 2009 | Plumeria | No Comments »
Several years ago, my mother gave me this jade plant. I planted it in the ground near our house, but it didn’t seem to like that location. It hadn’t grown for years, probably due to a lack of regular watering and insufficient sunlight. Last year, my partner and I transplanted our jade plant into a large clay pot, where it gets a regular watering from our micro-spray system. The pot is located under a porch where it gets about an hour or two of late afternoon sun.
It seems to be liking its new location. Our jade plant has grown significantly since we transplanted it into this pot. Its leaves are thick and have a deep green color. Although, our jade plant has yet to bloom for us. Jade plants are supposed to produce little star-shaped pink flowers.
Many of the jade plants I see growing in our area have pale green or even yellow leaves. I think the pale color is due to insufficient watering.
September 26 2009 | Jade | No Comments »
Potato vine solanum is a beautiful landscape bush. This is a recent photograph of our potato vine solanum bush. It needs more pruning than any other plant in our yard, because it grows numerous long spindly branches very quickly. Our solanum bush needs to be pruned about every two months during the growing season to keep it looking neat.
Right now, our bush is full of purple flowers, but it is huge and overgrown. I haven’t pruned it since June. When I do get around to pruning it, it usually takes me about 2 hours to prune it back into its original shape and then clean up the huge mass of branches.
September 20 2009 | Solanum | No Comments »
Our princess flower bush defoliated and nearly died last January during a freeze when the temperature fell into the high 20s F. It has made a big comeback since then. It has grown quickly all spring and summer. It’s now full of purple flowers and looking great. Regular watering every other day is probably one of the reasons it has grown so fast. It is getting about 8 hours of sun a day, but I have not fertilized it. I pulled up a climbing rose that was crowding it before, and that seems to have helped also.
September 05 2009 | Princess Flower | No Comments »
This is a picture of a Double Delight hybrid tea rose bush growing in our backyard. I just planted this bush last spring, and it has bloomed several times since then.
The flowers of Double Delight are white with beautiful deep pink edges. Its flowers have a strong sweet fragrance. Most of the roses in our yard have either no scent or a very subtle scent. Double Delight is one of the few roses we have with a strong scent. Mr. Lincoln also has a great fragrance, but it smells more musky than sweet.
Double Delight seems to need a lot of water like most other roses. I have been watering it every other day, and it has grown quickly ever since I planted it. Although the leaves of our Double delight are not as attractive as some of our other roses, the beauty of its flowers makes up for what it lacks in foliar beauty.
July 25 2009 | Roses | No Comments »
The top picture shows a really interesting purple and white dahlia I am growing this year. I have never had any luck growing dahlias in the ground. As soon as the dahlias sprouted in the spring time, the snails would devour them. They barely had enough time to grow one leaf before they were eaten. Putting snail poison around the dahlias bought some time, but as soon as it began to wash away, the dahlias would get eaten. I just couldn’t be bothered to reapply the snail poison every week or two. The full grown dahlias I planted in the ground didn’t fare much better.
This is the first time I have been successful growing a dahlia. It is growing in our raised bed vegetable garden, which has copper tape all around the wood borders to deter snails and slugs. The copper tape works most of the time, although occasionally one gets in.
The second picture shows our back magic tree rose, which has been in its second bloom of the season for weeks. This rose is one of my favorite roses, because it’s flowers are beautiful, and they last for so long. The third picture shows a white rose of sharon that is now in full bloom in our back yard. Our roses and rose of sharon are all growing in the ground (not in the raised beds). Our snails and slugs don’t seem to be interested in eating these plants.
July 18 2009 | Dahlias and Rose of Sharon and Roses | No Comments »
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