Because Someone Was Pouty…
::looks in the general direction of Mr. Subjunctive:: Ok so he had a very good point when he said “but we only get one picture” in his comment but in my defense it was night time, it was past my bed time (yes I know I posted it at like 9:20…but I wake up at 5am and I really like to sleep so don’t judge!) and really since it was dark I could only get one picture. Anyways, since they were requested here are a couple more shots of it in the day time (because holy crap it actually stayed open til I got home from work! It wasn’t purely night blooming after all!!!!). In case you’re wondering what I’m talking about, go see the previous post.
As Mr. S suggested, KILL THE FATTED CALF AND CELEBRATE!!!
AHHHHHHHHHHH OH MY GOD YOU GUYS!!!!!111!!1!1!!!!
This maturely titled post is because this happened:
OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD MY EPIPHYLLUM FINALLY BLOOMED AND THIS MEANS THAT I CANNOT USE LOWERCASE LETTERS BECAUSE I’M SO EXCITED!!!! Sure it’s only one bloom but it’s nearly 8″ across and it’s taken me 5 years to get that one bloom so I think I’m allowed to be overly excited by it. Right? Right? Yes. I think I’m going to stay awake all night and stare at it now, just in case it’s one of the ones that only lasts one day.
Garden Bloggers Bloom Day
Jatropha cathartica
Well this is it. The one single plant blooming in my apartment on Garden Bloggers Bloom Day. Sure there are things blooming in the hall (which I’ll show later) and yes those are my plants but it is a little silly that I only have one flower right now.
That being said I have this to look forward to (unless it aborts…):
Epiphyllum in Bud
As I’m sure I’ve mentioned before I’ve had this thing for almost 5 years and it has never done ANYTHING (except become gigantic). And now I get a bud! I really hope it doesn’t abort, I’ve been ridiculously excited about it ever since I noticed it a few weeks ago.
As I mentioned I do have a couple things blooming in the hallway. First up we have Hippeastrum ‘Red Pearl’. This one is probably my favorite amaryllis in my collection. The wilted flower is the result of me trying to cross it with Hippeastrum ‘Garden Supreme’ and another two flowers have been crossed with an unknown mini red and white. We’ll see if any of them take.
Hippeastrum ‘Red Pearl’
And last but not least we have my random home depot Calceolaria that almost doesn’t count since I bought it in flower but it’s too fun not to show.
I do have other stuff blooming outdoors but I just don’t really care about it right now so I’m not going to bother with it!
Make sure to head over to May Dreams Gardens to see more GBBD posts!
On a side note I just realized this is my 200th post. Yay, my blog made it to 200 posts (I was doubtful I’d make it past 100…). Lets see if we can make it to 300!
Here a Bloom, There a Bloom, Everywhere a Bloom
Ok maybe not everywhere but at least there are a couple…
Mixed Container of Taxus x media ‘Hicksii’, purple Campanula media, yellow snapdragons some sort of lavender bacopa, and Fizzy Lemonberry Pansy
This container sits by the back door…It seems kinda cramped now but I think as the plants grow a wee bit it ooze over the edge and look a little less squished.
Sauromatum venosum
This guy…I’m not sure how I feel about this guy. I’m not even sure why I own it. I got the tubers for $3 at Home Depot last year…I knew what I was getting into but I still did it anyways. It’s a corpse flower. It’s not the super gigantic ones (Amorphophallus titanium) but it still has the lovely smell of poo and dead things. So why did I buy it? Well… I actually really love the foliage. Last year I cut the flowers off, this year I want to actually see them (since I can leave it outside and not worry about smelling up the house). So yeah…here goes something.
Assorted violas with Picea pungens ‘Iseli Fastigate’
These containers look a lot nicer in person. The violas actually stand out really well and the blue of the spruce contrasts really nicely with the tan of the apartment building. Now that they’ve been established for about a week they’re looking even better, the violas are starting to trail and they’re just smothered in blooms.
Yellow, Orange and Red Calceolaria
And last but not least we have this Calceolaria that I got at Home Depot of all places. I normally HATE Calceolaria but I liked how this one had the flowers held high on long stems instead of the typical blob right near the center of the plant. It made the plant look much more distinctive than the typical orange or yellow pile of ugly. Besides, this one came in my favorite color combination so how could I resist???
Epiphyllum Bloom!!!!!
Guys guys guys guys guys! For the first time ever my massive Epiphyllum hybrid of unknown nature has a flower bud!!! Let’s hope I don’t kill this thing… I’d love to know what color it actually is.
Squeal!
The Stephanotis are blooming, the Stephanotis are blooming! Well..the buds are swelling… I guess they’re not technically blooming yet. But eeeeeeeeee! My office is going to smell so…perfumey soon. Hopefully it doesn’t make me and my officemate gag like a hyacinth would
ChiBot trip 2004506
Do you ever have one of those moments where you see a plant that you’ve lusted after forever but never known the name of it and suddenly it’s on a sale bench and it’s dirt cheap? Yeah I had that moment today at the Illinois Orchid Society Sale at the Chicago Botanic Gardens. Turns out the object of my lust was Epidendrum pseudoepidendrum (False Epidendrum Epidendrum? Great name there guys… I guess it turns out the original genus was Pseudoepidendrum but it got reclassified. Couldn’t we have kept the original specific epithet and ditched the oxymoron name?).
The flower is rather huge for an epi (a bit bigger than a US silver dollar as opposed to the usual quarter or nickle sized blooms). I love the tricolor effect of the flowers. It’d be interesting to use this in breeding with a Cattleya, could you imagine a big gaudy florist cat with colors like this? On a side note, the longer I look at this flower the more I want candy. Maybe I better move it…
Anyways since I was already at the gardens I decided to walk around and gawk at some early spring blooms. Nothing out of the ordinary but all still pretty!
-
- Primula malecoides
-
- Wisteria Trees in the lobby
-
- Combo pots in the greenhouse lobby
-
- Iris reticulata
-
- Iris reticulata
-
- Adonis amurensis
-
- Iris ‘Katherine Hodgkins’. I gotta get me some of these!
-
- Iris ‘Katherine Hodgkins’
-
- Galanthophiles rejoice!
-
- Iris reticulata with some wonderful birches
-
- Dwarf Conifer Garden
-
- Hamamelis of some sort
-
- On to the Japanese Garden! This view always reminds me of the movie “Spirited Away”
-
- Migrating Mergansers
-
- View from the Japanese Garden
-
- View from the Japanese Garden
-
- View from the Japanese Garden
Spring Cacti
Time for a brief tour of my Minnesota hardy cactus patch!
My pink flowered Opuntia fragilis x Idontrememberwhatii (polycantha var polycantha x fragilis maybe? Perhaps the one named Claude Arno?) has survived yet another winter unscathed.
As has the heinously spiny orange flowered Opuntia hybrid
Good old O. fragilis being smothered by another larger Opuntia (perhaps engelmanii? cymochila? polycantha? I just can’t remember!!!) If it hasn’t become obvious many of my Opuntia have become horribly confused over the year and I can’t remember who any of the yellow flowered ones are. I know one of the larger padded ones is chartreuse colored and I know one of them is ‘Smithwick’ but until they plump up and flower I have no hope of even guessing what they could be.
On that happy note I’m just going to post pictures of the rest because really, what do I have to say about them? They survived yet another embarrassingly long winter without a single fatality and none of them even looked remotely rotty. The rest of these guys are mostly things that I have ID’s for so that’s at least helpful, right?
Opuntia ‘Little Grey Cloud’ (I think)
These Hens and Chicks are offspring of plants that have been in our family for at least 100 years
Some sort of blue Ephedra cultivar…I can’t remember who
Opuntia fragilis ‘Dunn County Wisconsin Strain’
Echinocereus triglochidiatus
Escobaria vivipara
Spring is…sort of Springing?
It’s finally starting to look like spring! So I’ll give you an (exceedingly) brief tour of what’s going on in the yard. First things first, my Acer palmatum ‘Sango-Kaku’ appears to have survived the winter almost entirely unscathed in spite of being purchased for $3 from the Wal-Mart parking lot in July with almost no soil in the container, sitting on the patio in a pot with almost no soil until October during a record hot summer, and finally being planted in mid October, just when Japanese Maples LOVE to be transplanted (not. They want to be planted in early spring so they can get acclimated before struggling through sub zero temps). So really, I’m quite excited.
My Sambucus sp. is starting to leaf out and I love it. The leaves look like tiny purple hands unfolding from the stem. Actually when I think of it that way I’m kind of weirded out by it. Oops..
This Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’ (Yes I know it’s now something else but I can’t remember what that something else is and quite frankly I think it’s dumb to change it anyways) was a 1 gallon pot with a single stem when I planted it 2 years. Now it’s gigantic (for a sedum). So excited! They always make me happy in the spring, they’re one of the first plants to start flushing out for us which means actual spring can’t be too far away!
I’ve got another Hippeastrum starting to bloom. I’m fairly certain this one is ‘Red Lion’. Nothing tragically exciting but I will never complain about an amaryllis bloom. In other Amaryllis news, I think I lost my ‘Neon Rose’. I crossed it with ‘Supreme Garden’ and the cross actually took. This is good news. The bad news is that the energy to try and form seeds completely depleted the bulb and now it is barely extant in the pot. I cut the stem off but I’m pretty sure it’s too late.
The Narcissus in the south garden are so much farther along than I thought they would be. This clump is already all budded up! You have no idea how happy this made me. I’m so excited that plants are finally happening outside!!!!!
On a semi botanical note, what do you do when you have an excess of willow branches? You make a wreath! This one is going to my Grandma for Easter. It’s a lot prettier in person. It’s also gigantic. It’s about 4′ across. Oops. Oh well, Grandma has to love, right?
The Jungle Grows
Looks like my window in my office is starting to become part of the jungle as well… An orange Masdevalia, pink Reiger begonia, Salvia guaranitica, Linaria, Davallia fejeensis (rabbits foot fern), Episcia, Begonia heraclefolia, and Cymbopogon citratus (lemon grass) are all growing happily in my west facing window
My south facing window (yes, I have two windows!) has a few more plants…but I’ll save that picture for later
Flickr Photos
More Photos
