yardgranny6's Blog

Bloom #3
Sep 24, 2007 | 2:11 PM PST
Tags: #3bloom , Giant Tib , cuttings , SunnyRoom , humidifier , cutting vines , Hubby's B'day

The third bud on the Cereus plant will bloom tonight. I will be calling some folks to see if they want to come over for awhile. This has been a real treat. I will not bloom again for months. Worth waiting for don't you think?

I am experimenting this year with a Giant Tibouchina (fuzzy leaves) It is about 4 foot tall and I am going to take cuttings and then bring the plant inside. I am told to bring it in before I need to turn the heat on so it can get acclimated.  I will need to do cuttings soon. Right now it is beginning to bloom. I will post pictures in a few days.

I also have the smaller version of the Tib, it has small narrow fuzzy leaves but the same purple flower. They are also just begining to bloom so I will have pix of that one as well. I have taken cuttings of this one before and managed to have them survive inside. This year I will be bringing two plants indoors.

Then there is my Cats Whiskers, the three Hibiscus and now the Cereus plant. My sunny room will be full of plants. Maybe they will do better having some company. There will be a day of moving the furniture around in order to find a place for all the plants plus my little plastic greenhouse that will be holding the cuttings I am going to take. Plumbago, mexican sage, three types of alternanthera and likely there will be others when I go out with my pruners to get the job done. I have been wondering if running a cool air humidifier some would be a good idea? The heat is so dry all winter. Make a comment if you have any thought on this.

This morning I tackled a mess of vines running up into the dogwood, crepe myrtle and a little oak tree. What a job. My body doesn't know why I do these things. It took about 3 hours inbetween resting and helping hubby get set up to finish painting our old metal chairs.  In SC if anything stands still long enough, honeysuckle, virginia creeper and that nasty thorny smilax vine (which grows on tubers the size of a man if they get old enough) will latch on and grow to the moon and back again.  The Cherry Laurel that I had cut down this spring left behind hundreds of baby's. It reseeds all over the place. If I can pull, cut and kill what I can find this year, there won't be so many to come back next year.

The fern/hosta bed got a head start last week. Planted some toad lilies, sedums and ajuga there as well. As soon as I finish cleaning out the corner part of this area, newspaper and mulch will go down and it will be ready to wait until spring. 

Tomorrow is Hubby's birthday, he is still a baby, 9 months younger than myself. :-D  So don't know that I will garden any. Would love to surprise him with some friends to come by to say Happy Birthday to him. Will let you know how that comes about.

More to Come Later