repotting sweet potato

My two pots of sweet potato vine on the front porch started to get pale and wilted from colder nights. The one on the left is still out there,

but the other (deeply notched leaves) I upended into the compost bin (there were a few nice purplish tubers, but I didn't save them), and replanted the pot with rooted cuttings off the back of the window tank.

will do the same soon with the other pot.

coleus into winter pots

Some people keep their coleus cuttings in jars of water all winter. I remembered this week why I don't do that- mine start to go fungal. So it was time to pot them all up. I have six varieties I keep going now-

the purple-veined 'gay delight'

my oldest- pink 'watermelon' (blurry pic oops)

favorite 'kiwi fern'

here's 'exhibition limelight' and 'wizard' something

another pot of 'wizard', the orange/lime green one (many many more cuttings of this are on the back of the window tank now), and one more 'exhibition limelight'.

hard to believe but my summer stand of the orange/lime coleus is still out there in the front yard, braving the cold rain. I expect to pull them for composting any day now, when they wilt hard.

33 somewhat greener

I removed the aponogeton from this spot a few weeks ago- see updates on my 45. Planted a few crypts (they're undulata or lutea) in its place. Ludwigia palustris all melted away in here (but a few remain static in the 20H, and in the tenner they're growing new leaves).

Lady's side of the tank feels rather empty now, but I gave her back the clay cave.

Stuck an anubias on top of it. Hoping that if I try a re-introduction, the clay arch will give her shelter from the male if needed- although I never see her making use of it yet, she didn't even check it out (that I saw).

I added more crypts to this corner (from the 20H).

As it gets closer to winter the window light is weaker, so I removed one of the plastic layers behind the tank. Now have to clean some algae off the front glass every week, but conversely my other plants appear to be doing a bit better. Bolbitis ferns show more green- also helps that I tucked some subwassertang behind the driftwood piece.

The stuck-together leaves on the crinum unfurled- and they have all straightened out nicely

Crypt cordata is putting out a new leaf (very sturdy looking shoot) and some of the vals are getting greener, a bit taller.

Ludwigia var arcuata has small new leaves, too (hard to get them in a photo).

I removed the sweet potato vines and put more coleus cuttings across the back of the tank. Not sure if the change in light, or the removal of sweet potato roots is what gave the plants a bump. But I'm starting to like the tank again.

Inhabitants: Perry spreading his tail

Lady won't pause for her photo today. She gets more excited than Perry when I am near the tank, now- zipping back and forth waggling her fins. (Excuse the rough photoshop job I did in the corner to mask the filter sponge from detracting focus in the picture).

pink and purples

I added two of the last celosia fans, to one of the mum bouquets in my house.

Here's the small bunch on my desk

It's got lavender pinks, and more standard pinks (I forget the actual variety names)

some of which have a lovely fade into cream

and deeper salmon pinks

I didn't take pictures of the purple ones- that plant is smallest and has the fewest flowers this year

schefflera bud!

Our huge schefflera plant, that covers nearly the entire dining room window, is forming a bud. I didn't even know they would flower, until I looked it up. This is just as exciting as seeing my 'corn plant' dracanea bloom two winters in a row!

snail rescue- and shrimp loss

I found a nerite in distress in my largest tank today- stuck in the space under the fishing line that ties down these buce 'brownie ghost'

it's high time to cut those lines anyway, I'm sure the plants cling on their own now. I reached in with scissors. The snail immediately started moving off. It had scratched its shell on the ridge of dragon stone.

I'm down to one malaya shrimp in the tenner. Because I found the largest amano eating the other one- which had probably finally died of old age.

Here's the last one, on the filter sponge. It's looking pretty red.

Soon it will just be amanos in here. If I ever find malayas again, I'll get some. I like them.

yard plants- fall closing in

I pulled up most of the celosia around the mailbox. There's a few nicely-shaped red/pink blooms still out there. (I never got any large enough to be called 'brain flowers' this year, but the fans were nice).

For all the grand size nicotiana leaves reached- still no flowers. Oh well.

They did fill in blank spot along the fence nicely enough with greenery. Not sure why an empty spot in the middle of the patch- did I step on a few? or something ate them

Here's a front view of that back perennial bed- with the nicotiana patch off to the right. See my new camellia in front of the compost bin!

pan to the left

Really happy how my ferns did this year. Must remember again: squash the box elder bugs in spring, and water occasionally in the heat of summer

Echinacea did shockingly well this year, too. I will definitely have to thin out the younger plants, come spring:

Here's a front view of them- row of their parents behind, with the dead flower heads

Closer to the house, I'm also glad how well my clematis performed. It never kept greenery so high up the post, before. Either it's just finally getting mature, or I did a good deed for it soap-spraying all those whitefly and mealy bugs early in the season.

Not a plant I really cultivate, but I indirectly encourage it, because I don't pull it up with the other weeds. The blue-green one that changes shape. Here's some that came back after their summer dormancy. I still wish I knew what they are (tried a google image search and the match it came up with was begonias, ha).

pink and purple mums

Well- even though I was disappointed in chrysanthemums last year, I decided their burst of color when everything else is going dull in the colder weather, is kinda nice. So I bought a few more to fill in blank spots in the front row.

You can tell which ones are new because they have dense masses of flowers- and the ones I previously had in the ground are all loose and fallen-over. (There's the end of outdoor coleus behind them. I'm about ready to pull those up, they're starting to look sad due to night chills).

In fact all my older mums have fallen over so much it's embarrassingly unattractive for something so bright in the front yard. It's my own fault because I completely forgot to pinch their greenery in spring- I was so pleased to see them growing like little shrubs. I propped them up a bit on stones but it looks silly.

So I cut a ton of the leggy flowers- especially the pink ones- and made indoor bouquets.

The largest is in my living room.

The flowers look so perfect close up.

I must really try to remember next spring, when the mums are calf-high, to start pinching them back. I don't need dense masses of flowers like they came straight from the shop- I like to see some greenery- but I don't want them flopping over, putting their pretty faces in the dirt, either. I have to put some effort into it next year, see if they're worth the trouble of keeping.