Archive for the 'Flowers' Category
I haven’t blogged about our jade plant in nearly 5 years. I transplanted our jade into a clay pot under a shady porch about 6 years ago. It has probably quadrupled in size since then as can be seen by comparing this photo to the photo in my last post about it in 2009.
Our jade plant is full of flowers right now. Last winter, it bloomed for the first time. This winter, it started blooming in December and is still going nearly two months later. Nothing else is blooming in our area now, except for a few early blooming trees.
We give our jade plant used coffee grounds as fertilizer about twice a month. It seems to like the coffee grounds. Jade needs relatively little water and seems to like being in shade. In winter, it gets afternoon sun, because the porch it sits on faces south. But the porch shades it most of the day in spring and summer.
February 09 2014 | Jade | Comments Off on Jade Plant in Bloom
What’s been blooming in our yard this month:
I’ve shown most of these flowers in posts from previous years, but I can’t resist showing them again, because so many great flowers are in bloom in our yard this month. The first three pictures are showing our Black Magic rose (long lasting flowers), Sheila’s Perfume rose (very fragrant), and ginger Snap rose (deep orange color). The fourth picture shows our white philadelphus (left) and our pink Cecil Brunner rose. The fifth picture is one of our red Camellias (not sure which variety). The roses, philadelphus and the red camellia are in bloom right now. I took these pictures today.
The last picture is one of our Lavender Lady lilacs. This photo was taken 3 weeks ago. Our lilacs were only in bloom for about 2 weeks.
April 20 2013 | Camellias and Lilacs and Philadelphus and Roses | Comments Off on Spring Flowers
I planted seeds from a variety of sunflowers called Mammoth Grey Stripe in late May of this year. Some of them have grown as tall as about 10 feet. They just started blooming about a week ago. This is the first time I have grown sunflowers in many years. I’m not sure if I am going to bother to harvest and utilize the seeds, but sunflowers really do make an impressive display in a vegetable garden for a few weeks.
August 13 2012 | Sunflowers | Comments Off on Sunflowers
Our amaryllis belladonna is in bloom again. It has at least a dozen stems of very fragrant flowers this year. After the leaves died down, the flower stems appeared from the dry bare earth and opened up into clusters of flowers in only about 2 weeks in late July.
Amaryllis belladonna requires almost no care in our climate. I never water or fertilize it. They live off wintertime rains. I only need to clean up the dead leaves in June and the dead flower stems in September.
I think I planted only one amaryllis belladonna bulb about 10 years ago in this spot, but it has multiplied into several bulbs over the years. It took years to come into flower, but now it flowers reliably every summer. I see amaryllis belladonna flowers all around the Bay Area. They often grow in untended dry areas, such as in strips between the sidewalk and the street.
August 10 2012 | Amaryllis | Comments Off on Amaryllis Belladonna
We are growing biennial hollyhock flowers in one our raised beds again this year. Last spring, I planted about a half a dozen double flowered hollyhock plants that I bought from a nursery. We also have single flower hollyhock varieties that reseeded on their own from last year’s hollyhocks.
The flowers are beautiful, but the leaves look messy. Their upper leaves are full of yellow spots, and most of their lower leaves have turned brown and died. I suspect the problem is a disease called hollyhock rust. The hollyhocks that are growing together in a group of about 8 plants seems to have much more of the disease than the few hollyhocks I have growing on their own in other parts of our garden. I don’t want to spray fungicide on them, because I have them growing near vegetables. So I will just pull them out as they die back later in the summer.
July 15 2012 | Hollyhock | Comments Off on Hollyhocks
« Prev - Next »