February 2018 "show us some of your plants" please this month!
myermike_1micha
6 years ago
last modified: 6 years ago
Featured Answer
Comments (152)
SoCal Stewart (San Diego, Ca Zone 10A/10B)
6 years ago
Nick (9b) Modesto Area
6 years agoRelated Discussions
January 2018 "show us some of your plants" please this month!
Comments (220)Lizardhandz I am glad to hear that someone is using similar (in this case I would say 'the same' :) mix! I hope you'll have excellent result with it. I grow all succulents in it, and even few smaller potted tropical plants. I would use it for big ones too but big pots get heavy with so much grit. Color of your mix is very nice too - it depends on color of chicken grit a lot. What I bought in past, was white. Latest bag has some grayish speckles to it - it comes from different supplier I was told. Your plant has beautiful color. It is supposedly xPachysedsedum of uncertain origin, with one of the parents possibly S. craigii (responsible for color of leaves). It is suppose to grow several stems from the base, so I wonder if yours may be inflorescence? But it looks more like leaves, so maybe not. In case it blooms, pls. post photos! And do so even if it doesn't bloom :)...See MoreSan Diego Winter Show and Sale - February 2018
Comments (7)Rina, Kamloops is my home now, so 'missing' SD doesn't get much thought anymore (maybe the first winter, but not the 11th). Lot of snow here, but we'll get some sun today, and the temp will be above 0 C, so what's not to like?...See MoreFebruary 2018 Reading
Comments (97)Earlier this week I finished Death in Brittany by Jean-Luc Bannalec, Commissaire of Police in a small town in Brittany and relocated there because of "certain disputes" with his superiors in Paris. He really is a coffee addict and keeps drinking it in charming cafes and eating in wonderful little restaurants until you want to go live there, too. Last night I started Murder for Christmas by Francis Duncan, written in 1949 and reissued last year. There are five of these books, and I like this one enough to see if I can find all of them. Dated but interesting; set in an English village....See MoreFebruary 2018, Week 2, Outdoors Planting Begins For Some Now
Comments (91)The soil gets better every year if you're amending it as you should....and the gardener gets better every year too. It all works together. : ) Here in OK the thing that throws the wrench into the works and gums it all up is the weather, because we never know when we are planting exactly what the weather is going to do for the next 6 or 8 months---it could be drought and no rain for 3 months or it could be flooding rains, 12" of rain in one day and 24" in one month. How in the heck can any gardener plan ahead and be prepared for all that? I stay out of feed stores during baby chick time or else I'll bring home chicks we do not need. They are too little, too cute, too fluffy and just too adorable to ignore. The last time we were in Atwood's they didn't have chicks in the stores yet, but I figured that for sanity's sake I need to stay out of Atwoods for the next couple of months, and TSC too. Rebecca, You probably are on track with your succession planting, but with snow peas/pole beans it might be a little tricky. I like to plant pole beans early---before the peas are done---because we get so hot here so early that my pole beans need to flower and set beans in May in case the heat is about to crank up too hot in June, which often happens here. If only the weather were perfectly predictable. My English iris, ornamental alliums, red hot poker and some daylilies (but not all) have been up for quite a while now---maybe a month? The daffodils were really late, and some of the daylilies aren't up yet, but I really think that is because of the lack of moisture. The recent rainfall should help with that. The autumn sages are leafing out, so I need to cut them back soon. Most of the reseeding herbs and flowers are no shows so far, but I saw the first couple of larkspur (sprouting in a pathway, naturally) a couple of days ago. I am thinking everything likely will just explode now that we had some rain. I hope Travis Meyer is right about Spring. I'm never going to be unhappy about an early Spring because I dislike Winter's cold so much. The incredibly, horrifically invasive pink evening primrose plants are popping up all over the front half-acre, and in the garden. I pull them out of the garden the minute I spot them. I am considering hitting the ones in the pasture with a herbicide. Yes I am! One plant gives you a million more and they invade everywhere. I got rid of them in the drought years of 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014...but they staged a remarkable comeback in 2015, 2016 and 2017's wetter weather. I cannot stand them. If you let them grow and reseed as they will, that's all you'll end up with in the end. I might keep them if they'd crowd out Johnson grass and bermuda grass---but they do not---they just happily coexist with it. Do you have any idea which parts of Fort Worth they're looking at? Maybe by direction, like North, South, East or West? The DFW metroplex has grown so very huge (7.23 million people) and Tarrant County's population so large (1.8 million I think and I am not sure how much of that is Fort Worth proper and how much is the suburbs that surround it) that it is hard to talk about parts of Fort Worth, as many people now buy homes in developments in the many suburbs that ring the city. Most people who move to the area try to choose a nice neighborhood that will be a decent commute to their work so that they don't spend an hour or two commuting each way each day. So, if you can tell me where their new place or places of employment are located, maybe I can point y'all in the direction of the great places nearby to live. And, I want them to be forewarned, it is a seller's market and homes are selling fast and at inflated rates, so if they want to buy, they need to pre-qualify to know their price limit and find a great real estate agent. Many of our friends who once lived in Fort Worth have fled to the outer, outer, outer suburbs as it all has become too urbanized for them in their former neighborhoods. Some have fled north almost to Denton, to north towards Denton and then west towards Decatur and the like. Others have fled very far south---farther south than Burleson and perhaps as far southeast as Mansfield. My niece tries to keep me up to date on what's what in terms of the neighborhoods and housing developments, and it shocks me when she mentions a neighborhood that was perfectly lovely and highly coveted when we left Fort Worth in 1999, and she tells me it has gone downhill and is now "ghetto". I guess nothing remains the way we remember it once was. If Saginaw and the area northwest of it are near their place of employment, there's tons and tons of new housing developments and new shopping centers going up there---for at least the last 10-15 years, and the growth is never-ending. It used to be Denton was considered a long drive from Fort Worth and too far to move to live, but now people tell me Denton isn't far enough away. I think much depends on whether they want to love in a highly developed neighborhood with lots of homes close together, etc., or if they want to move further out and had a half-acre or acre lot or even more. The weather was gorgeous here today. I trust it was gorgeous where y'all are as well. It was a little wet and muddy, but that won't last long. It actually was nice to see puddles for once. Of course, we had a fire. Remember how I told y'all that when rain falls in a bad fire year, it can make things worst? It sort of did that today. Some vehicle on I-35 had a tire that was coming apart and a piece of flaming hot tire landed in tall grass beside the road and set the grass and trees on fire. This occurred less than 12 hours after our rain stopped falling and it happened maybe a half-mile from our fire station. I was wondering if the ground was muddy enough for the brush fire trucks to get stuck, and suspected it probably was. The answer, apparently, was yes, and I learned that when one firefighter was yelling "stop, stop, back up, back up, you're gonna get stuck" to the fire truck behind him. Sitting at home listening to him holler made me grin---not because I wanted for anyone to get stuck, but because it is just so predictable. So, now that we have had rain, the fires will continue on because dry, dormant vegetation reminds dry and dormant, and the fires will be harder to fight off-road because of the mud. As my son would mutter sarcastically "Great, just great." One thing that was odd(in a good way) today was that it was so warm that the songbirds did not have to spend every minute of every day eating nonstop in order to stay fueled up and warm. I didn't have to refill the bird feeders until almost sunset. The stores near us still have all the typical cool-season transplants on the shelves, but also more herbs that I think of as needing slightly warmer weather...and quite a few tomato plants. This was the first week I saw tomato plants, and I won't remember all the different varieties I saw, but among them were Early Girl, Better Bush, Roma, Better Boy and maybe Beefmaster or Big Beef. Most were the smaller transplants that cost $3.48 or $3.58 in 3" peat pots, but the Early Girls were larger and cost $5.88 in what was probably either a 5" or 6" plastic (not peat) pot. They also had flats of pansies. Last week they only had violas. I bet next week they'll have flats of petunias. It follows a fairly predictable pattern here. We only went to Wal-Mart and didn't go across the road to see what was at HD because their plants come on the very same trucks from BP, I think, and they tend to get the same plants in at the same time. Exactly the same, but sometimes HD does have pepper plants in about two months too early---and earlier than Wal-Mart does. It was ridiculous to stand there and look at those big monster plants, all of which could eat my tiny tomato seedlings in one gulp. It doesn't make me wish I'd started mine earlier---because our soil is still far too cold for tomatoes. I believe I started mine at the right time for my area given my weather and soil temperatures (even with the recent warm-up). I might feel differently if the soil temperatures start hitting and staying in the 50s while my tomato plants are still 2 or 3" tall and wide. Gardening is an imperfect science. I hope people didn't see those tomato plants and automatically assume it is time to buy them, take them home and plant them because we have some freezing nights in our forecast around mid-week. Dawn...See More
Jeff (5b)
6 years agolast modified: 6 years ago
- myermike_1micha thanked Ycloh1 (Singapore)
Nick (9b) Modesto Area
6 years ago
I just finished up with some new bark and like this color much better than the brown you can see in my previous post. Now I need to paint the fence next :)myermike_1micha thanked Nick (9b) Modesto AreaYcloh1 (Singapore)
6 years agoCaralluma hexagona cactus , look like the cactus trying to leave the pot :)
myermike_1micha thanked Ycloh1 (Singapore)myermike_1micha
6 years agolast modified: 6 years agomyermike_1micha
6 years agorina_Ontario,Canada 5a
6 years agoUser
6 years agorina_Ontario,Canada 5a
6 years agolast modified: 6 years agomyermike_1micha thanked rina_Ontario,Canada 5a
stupidlazydog CT zone 5b/6a
6 years agoPachypodium brevicaule just starting to wake up after its winter snooze...
myermike_1micha thanked stupidlazydog CT zone 5b/6a
myermike_1micha thanked nika_plants_zone6brina_Ontario,Canada 5a
6 years agonika_plants_zone6b
6 years agorina_Ontario,Canada 5a
6 years agoAll it needs is good light. So keeping it in sunniest spot you have, or even adding some light during winter would help a lot. Here is one of the same plants I have, overwintering in dark basement, under CFL lightbulbs for 12hrs/day:
What exactly are you nervous about? Maybe we can help...
myermike_1micha thanked rina_Ontario,Canada 5ajaittasa
6 years agorina_Ontario,Canada 5a
6 years agolast modified: 6 years agonika
Yours could look as good or even better! If you can give it more light, you'll see difference quite soon. My plant looked similar too:
I started to give it more light, and it even bloomed:
They get even more light now during winter, and spend Summers outdoors:
Stems get woody and longer as plant ages, but leaves should be quite compact. With good light, they color up better too.
Try a leaf: just leave it on surface in same pot, and do not worry except don't pour water over it when watering - water other side of pot. This leaf fell off - maybe I broke it when handling plants around; I recently noticed it is growing plantlets:
myermike_1micha thanked rina_Ontario,Canada 5aYcloh1 (Singapore)
6 years agoMyermike thanks, I like unusual plants.
Echeveria "shark fins" in a 4" pot
Euphorbia 1"pot
myermike_1micha thanked Ycloh1 (Singapore)Ycloh1 (Singapore)
6 years agobulbo monoliforme smallest Orchid?The wood is 3/4" across. The bulb about 2mm. Latest collection.
myermike_1micha thanked Ycloh1 (Singapore)rina_Ontario,Canada 5a
6 years agolast modified: 6 years agonika_plants_zone6b
6 years agoUser
6 years agorina_Ontario,Canada 5a
6 years agolast modified: 6 years agomyermike_1micha thanked rina_Ontario,Canada 5a
nanzjade z5 MA
6 years agoOksana - Gorgeous jades. I especially love those variegates, so beautiful!
These Legolas leaves are over a year old! Finally some more green growth :)
Excited to see another growth point too (at the bottom).
-Nancy
myermike_1micha thanked nanzjade z5 MAErmione_Greece(z9)
6 years ago
oks2n2_Siberia1
6 years agoAndrew (UK south coast, like 9a)
6 years agoFabulous cold-stress colours on this Sedum spathulifolium growing in a pot in my garden (it was -5 deg C last night, unusually cold for my locality)
myermike_1micha thanked Andrew (UK south coast, like 9a)Andrew (UK south coast, like 9a)
6 years agoAnother one, Pachyveria 'Thunderbird', this plant normally grows plain green but has devloped some pink hues in the cold weather, this plant is kept in a cold frame which has been dipping to around -1 or -2 degC at night this week
.
myermike_1micha thanked Andrew (UK south coast, like 9a)myermike_1micha
6 years agolast modified: 6 years agoYou know, if I had room, I would grow each and everyone of these beautiful plants. Thanks for posting. So nice.
Nancy!! How in the world did you get them to grow from leaf variegated!!?? Not even Glen has been able too nor I. All leaves come back green.
Here's to thinking outside the box. Just few different plants I grow very fragrant
One of my favorite Orchids which smells the whole yard up even in winter.
Lemon Tree loaded with fruit.
Another orchid which smells like vanilla cookies
This orchid smells like Coco butter or a day at the beach with Hawaiian tropic on.
These are on a very cold porch left dry until next month in a dormant stage.
Not sure what this one is but I like it.
rina_Ontario,Canada 5a
6 years agoJeff (5b)
6 years agomyermike_1micha
6 years agolast modified: 6 years agonanzjade z5 MA
6 years agolast modified: 6 years agodavez7anv
6 years agolast modified: 6 years ago
Related Stories
SUMMER GARDENINGHouzz Call: Please Show Us Your Summer Garden!
Share pictures of your home and yard this summer — we’d love to feature them in an upcoming story
Full Story
OUTDOOR KITCHENSHouzz Call: Please Show Us Your Grill Setup
Gas or charcoal? Front and center or out of the way? We want to see how you barbecue at home
Full Story
HOUZZ CALLShow Us Your Cottage Garden!
How’s your cottage garden coming along? Please share your photos and details with the Houzz community
Full Story
HOLIDAYSHouzz Call: Show Us Your Christmas Tree!
We’d love to see how you make your tree your own. Please show us your best photo and tell us about your traditions
Full Story
FALL GARDENINGHouzz Call: Show Us Your Fall Color!
Post pictures of your fall landscape — plants, leaves, wildlife — in the Comments section. Your photo could appear in an upcoming article
Full Story
HOUZZ CALLShow Us Your Home in the Snow
Please share your best snowy scene of winter storm Inga and tell us how you are coping!
Full Story
WALL TREATMENTSHouzz Call: Show Us Your Feature Wall
Have you used bold paint, reclaimed wood, living plants or something else to jazz up a wall in your home? We want to see it
Full Story
HOUZZ CALLShow Us Your Christmas Tree!
We want to see your holiday tree all dressed up for the season! Please show us your best photo and tell us all about it
Full Story
MOST POPULARHouzz Call: Show Us Your Winter View!
Share pictures of your home and garden in winter — whatever your climate, architecture and plantings
Full Story
Chris (6a in MA)