this blog

has kinda gone defunct, because I had various health problems and injuries one after another, and simply didn't plant a garden last season, or this. It's all weeds out there plus some self-seeded and perennial herbs, a few flowers. Borage, nicotiana. I still have the mints, the figs, the geraniums (for now). The chives died in the heat this week, but perhaps will revive with some watering. . . 

I don't know if I'll get the garden going again, but did want to make note of some changes.

One: we got a new cat!

two, actually-

The first one is quite a little beast. Sweet at times, but definitely has her own mind. And she likes to chomp on plants. Has eaten my big spider plant- all the foliage shorter, with shredded ends. Well, now I will be glad of all the babies to start new ones with! (I used to constantly give them away)

I had to give away and re-home a ton of houseplants that would make her sick (or outright kill her) if she nibbled on them. And I'm so glad I did, because she shows no signs of stopping. My Pilea peperomioides has bite marks in all the leaves. And the second cat we adopted, the tortie- she likes to dig in the dirt of my parlor palm. I'm sweeping up and replacing dirt in there all the time.

I kept only a few of the toxic plants- heartleaf philodendron, velvet philodendron, zebrina and pothos 'cebu blue'-

they are on very high shelves she can't reach, or hung from the ceiling.

It was difficult to part with so many, but many went to my brother-in-law's girlfriend, a woman just as passionate about plants, and when I visit her home I will see them thriving. The giant dracanea flowered again the week after she took it home!

Photos of our big schefflera, the only houseplant we'd named (Bob), right before I gave it away.

I had recently cut it back severely. There were plenty of new baby leaves growing

Some stem pieces I had cut and dipped in rooting hormone, the leaves all dropped off and I thought they were done for, but I pulled one out and after weeks and weeks, there were roots finally growing at the base of the cutting. So I was looking forward to see if those finally sprouted new leaves. Maybe they will and I will see someday.

I was most sad, to part with my angelwing begonias. These were cuttings I'd just started of the narrow-leaved one (forget the variety name at the moment)

And all my different coleus. They're planted outside in the front beds or in pots now, but I won't be bringing cuttings inside to keep over winter again. Toxic. I can't even name now, all the ones that are gone- but it was well over half my collection. Two-thirds or even three-quarters of it.

I do still have most of the semi-succulents, the creeping charlie (sweedish ivy), boston fern (shabby but regrowing), most of my african violets, and the zygo cactus. That's about it. For now.

Someone had just offered me cuttings of her zz plant, one I'd always wanted to have, but I had to decline. That one's toxic too. It's just not worth the risk. I know I'll never teach this cat not to chew on plants when she's bored (or antsy that dinner's not getting served fast enough). But we already love the kitties too much, they are more to me than plants right now.

first frost

Last night. I had just planted out more of my new plants during the day- slender mountain mint, sedum and New England aster on the larger sunny sideyard. (Probably the last will get eaten by the deer, though I'm taking the chance. These plants much bigger than the ones I tried setting out before, if that makes any difference). They'd been in the mini greenhouse until now, I still have the bergamot and American beautyberry in there. Undecided where to put them. Have a full week of sun and warmer nights up ahead, so I can take my time. I planted the elephant's foot out on the easement, near where there's yellow salvia, ferns and solomon's seal under a maple. 

Brought some of the plants into the basement window for the night: all the geraniums. They're looking better since the temperatures dropped this past week. I think because it killed off some of the insects that were plaguing them.

The citronella is still one of my favorites. 

Lime scented one is upstairs

next to the stevia. Which surprised me by sprouting tiny new leaves at base of some stems.

My one echeveria 

It's still quite small for the pot size

Doing quite poorly is my cuban oregano. Leaves are all small, tons have dropped from the lower stems. Not sure why, though I suspect insects again. Planning to clip all this back and restart in another pot.

I did a drastic thing to our big schefflera in the dining room window. Cut all the leggy tall stems, and replanted in the pot. I did one first about two weeks ago, dipped the end in rooting hormone, and watched to see if the leaves would die and fall off, or if it would recover and sprout new growth. It appears to be doing the latter! So I went ahead and pruned, replanted all the other tall stems:

Window feels very exposed now, to say the least.

plant swap!

I made this bench on the front porch (some of the legs a bit wonky, it's not nearly as sturdy as I'd like, but it does the job of holding up whatever I need to set down for a moment)

and here it is with plants ready to go to the swap. I took two rue, four pots of echinacea, the mini geranium, some coleus, three potted catnip, and some aloe vera babies. But nobody wanted the catnip, I had to bring it home again. And I'd had it identified wrong all this time- I thought I was growing catmint, but it's catnip- no wonder it seemed too tall, and the flowers not-quite-right. I was corrected at the swap.

and what I brought home! Here's some, plus more pics below of individual detail- the one lower front left is buttonweed. Not even sure I'll plant that one now, having discovered it's considered a difficult-to-control lawn weed . . . 

The rest I'm pretty happy about. I got slender mountain mint-

'Shrubby' St. john's wort- Hypericum prolificum-

Elephantopus carolinianus or Elephant's foot (referring to the root) makes small purple flowers, in the aster family. Seemed interesting!

A sedum that looks different from the ones I already have-

Virginia sweetspire

Also a small rosemary plant, two New England aster (yes, trying that again even though every time they disappear. I think get eaten) and a wild bergamot (monarda, or bee balm) why do plants have so many names for the same thing. And- shining sumac! I have wanted a sumac for many years, although I was hoping to eventually find a stahorn sumac, this will do for starters.

American beautyberry!! Very excited about this one.

and a good-sized rosemary that someone had obviously just pulled out of the ground, so maybe I'll have one that gets through the winter at last. It's as tall as my hip.

Plus a few little houseplants- two little succulents, Haworthia and a dwarf snake plant, plus this one with purplish tint that wasn't labeled- it looks like another begonia variety to me, but I'm probably wrong on that.

and three bags of iris bulbs- 'Black Gamecock' Louisiana Iris, 'Pallida' and 'Victoria Falls' both a tall bearded iris. I've never grown iris before but I have a damp area I think they'd do well in.

time to joyfully plant stuff

the coleus

I potted up all my cuttings. More than I'd planned on, took the ones off the aquarium and put them in pots too (changed my mind on that). I liked the look of this handful of the 'witchy' cuttings in a jar, with all the growing roots visible,

but those got potted too.

(Parent plant looking good still)

My favorites are in the kitchen window

and almost every other too

Lots of these 'gay delight' as well

Disappointingly, the 'exhibition limelight' that used to make such big leaves, is puny this year

and the crazy 'rodeo drive' cuttings faltered as well (half of them got mold and I removed lots of icky leaves/stems)

Not pictured but doing fine: the 'kiwi fern'. Have been pinched, and growing new leaves already. Since houseplants, here's a few more: 

I took cuttings from the pot of arrowhead

and put them in a jar of water to start more stems

and now that it looks nicely recovered, here's a photo of my shiny begonia

restart

My little pilea has been um, looking awful. All the stems full of dead dried-up leaves to the last few inches. So I cut the good ends off to restart in water jars, and cut back, threw away all the rest of the stems. Probably going to start in a new pot again. Not sure if it was pests, or just dried out because I hadn't watered often enough.

There's lots of cuttings. Maybe I will restart two pots.

The smallest were two short for even those tiny jars, I should have just tossed 'em, but had this little string-of-hearts cutting too, so I put together in a medicine dosing cup.

That pot still looks very sparse, even though this is the second time I've taken cuttings to root and multiple. (It started as just one piece).

Losses

First I will say of a recovery. I thought my boston fern, which has been sitting ignored under the deck for months, had got fried in the heat. Walking past it the other day I just stopped and started pulling out dead fronds and stems, and then gave it a big drink of water. Now it's perking up again, but the center is all brown and the few fronds still green are pushing outside edge of the pot. I'm tempted to upend it, cut out and discard the dead center, repot the living sections. But all the times I've tried to divide a boston fern and repot in the past, I killed it. So I'm hesitant . . .

I had two parlor palms. One finally died, and I also gave up on the madagascar palm and tossed it out. So disappointing I couldn't keep that one happy.

But my other parlor palm is doing okay- though a bit dry and pale at close inspection.

And now the sad news. Which I'm feeling rather miserable about, as it must be my fault. I lost most of my fishes yesterday. I was doing a water change, larger than usual- thirty percent when usually I do fifteen to twenty percent. I think it had been two weeks, and I know that before that I had long neglected the tank, so I thought: more clean water is better! Except it wasn't. 

It started out fine- the fishes were acting perky, flitting around the siphon hose- one even got sucked into the bucket and bruised up, I put him back in the tank with regret, not sure if he'd survive that physical trauma. Last time I did a wc I had dosed some plant ferts, even though they're old and probably expired- and I was admiring how the plants look better- I hadn't noticed they were doing poorly, but now some of the crypts have redder stems, and stand up taller

-I tried to get a picture of a minnow by the crypt undulata-

Some anubias leaves had melted, and lots of vals, so I spent time cutting out the dead bits. But the green leaves still there on the vals looked healthier than before, so I think those plants were just ditching the old leaves and growing new in response to the changed conditions. Even my bolbitis fern looked greener and more upright.

Large anubias

Attempt at a quick full tank shot-

Then I noticed the water line wasn't quite up to the lower edge of the rim yet, so I went in the kitchen to fill another gallon. I poured it into the tank, and things went bad immediately. The minnows started looking super stressed, bending their heads and tails up, gaping at the surface, or crashed on the bottom not moving. Only one was swimming with normal posture. Their bellies bloated white (burst swim bladders?) and then some started spinning, randomly darting into corners and running their heads into the substrate. Disoriented? Starved of oxygen? I could only think that something was bad in the water, so my immediate reaction was to do another water change in hopes of diluting whatever it was. 

I changed another ten gallons. One fish died. Several of the others relaxed a bit, and the paradise fish- who'd been hiding under the bolbitis driftwood- came out to breathe at the surface. His fins clamped, but he wasn't writhing or swimming erratically like the others. I tried to figure out what went wrong. My first thought was the old ferts were gone toxic, but I'd put a bit in the shrimp bowl, and those guys were fine. And aren't shrimp more sensitive. Then I thought maybe something wrong with the tap water- the test showed very little nitrate (5ppm or less), zero nitrite but some ammonia (barely green in the tube). But again: the shrimps and snails in the bowls were fine.

Then I happened to smell my fingers. Strong sulfur odor. Realize if the prime had dripped on/from the cap, I got some on my hands. I thought I'd wiped or rinsed it off, but not good enough. And maybe I miscounted and that last gallon had an extra drop of prime in it, three instead of two. I didn't think one extra drop would matter in a thirty gallon tank. In fact I used to double dose prime in my first tank a long time ago- and while that wasn't the best thing to do, none of the fishes died suddenly like this. 

Because the minnows were dying, one after the other. While Tucker hid alternately in corners and under the driftwood. However much prime was on my skin could have been extra concentrated. (I know I didn't have any sunscreen, insect repellent or lotion on my hands). The other factor is that earlier in the week we had a power outage. It lasted hours. I was about to pull out the battery-operated air pump to run the filters overnight, when it kicked back on. So I thought the tank was fine. But maybe it was out long enough that some of the good bacteria colony died off, and it hadn't recovered all the way yet? Also, I hadn't vacuumed the substrate in a long time, and a few stems got disturbed, releasing some mulm into the water column. Any one of these factors don't seem like disaster on their own, but altogether I think it's what sent my little fishes into shock. Low bacteria strength, sudden release of ammonia from the substrate, accidental overdose of dechlor . . . 

The minnows all died by nightfall. 

Tucker was not looking good. Every time he went up to breathe, there was an odd raspy sound. Injury to his gills? I don't know. I thought this would be my last picture of him alive.

Surprised and relieved to find him still here in the morning. Even came to greet me at the glass, fins alert.

And his color looks good. 

And he's relaxed- more than I've seen in ages. I suddenly wonder if he found the minnows bothersome- all their quick activity. I'm inclined to think he's just happy to be alive, but it's probably that he finds the tank environment more calm now.

He even wanted to eat this morning. This past week I'd been giving him small crickets out of the garden- which I figured was safe- but he looked a bit overfull. So I gave him half a chopped up cooked pea. He snapped those bites up. I'm so glad.