For all you with snow on the ground, I am sending warm, hibiscus laden thoughts.
Making good on my commitment to show updates of the garden at least once a month, I'll show the gardens today. December and January just kill me when it comes to the garden. Everything starts to go dormant and dull. Oh well - Spring is right around the corner. I'm lucky enough to live where spring will start in late January, first of February. The above hibiscus bloomed in the pool garden today, but the plant may not live through the night. Even though yesterday was in the 80's, we are expecting a frost tonight that could take out many of my plants. Long ago I accepted the fact that the hibiscus never makes it out of the winter alive at my house, even though my work and my mother-in-law have had beautiful lush bushes for years. They are only 20 minutes south of me!
I found it at Costco! Relatively cheap as orchids go but I'm having trouble figuring out what kind it is because there was no identifier with it. Right now, I've got it sitting on my kitchen table where it gets a lot of bright light. From what I know, that's what most orchids need--not direct sun, but lots of bright light. I really like its color--a nice, soft purple instead of the much more common brilliant fuchsia.
reBlogged
to orchids
on Dec 17, 2007, 9:06AM
Posted by jdolangreen Reblogged by Old Roses to orchids on 2007-12-19, 00:29:36
Robins. Hundreds of thousands of robins. I must figure out a way to record the sound and put it up for you to hear, because it’s just incredible. Remember the last time you went to a zoo and went inside the aviary - there was an assault of chatters and chirps from birds? Now amplify that by a factor of ten. That is what we hear when we walk outside in the morning. . . .
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to birds
on Dec 17, 2007, 4:36PM
Posted by Reblogged by Old Roses to birds on 2007-12-19, 00:27:52
The buds on the Lilac Tree hold promise for the springtime. They are primed, just waiting for the winter to end. As the cold and frozen soil have driven me inside as there is not a lot to do with the winter garden. I have lots of projects inside, though, and the kitchen has been turned into a mini greenhouse. . . .
reBlogged
to seeds
Posted by snappy Reblogged by Old Roses to seeds on 2007-12-19, 00:27:15
I have four windows across the back wall of my family room and I spent a lot of time yesterday sitting or standing in front of the windows birdwatching while the guys watched football. I've discovered that when it snows the birds flock to my feeders. My yard was covered in birds most of the day. I saw the blue jay only once and took this picture from the kitchen window. . . .
After my Aero Garden post, I decided to hit the search engines and see what I could learn about this thing. Well I don't know how much I learned because it looks like two of the three videos that I found on YouTube are actually from the Aero Garden people. I guess that's what you have to do now a day to market a new product. And I still think the Aero Garden looks like a cool gadget. . . .
reBlogged
to gardens tools
Posted by Anthony Reblogged by Old Roses to Gardens, tools on 2007-12-19, 00:25:44
Has anyone seen the Aero Garden? The ads call it the "World's First Indoor Smart Garden." For those of you who haven't seen it, it's an appliance that makes it easy to grow herbs and vegetables right on your kitchen counter. You take a grow pod that has seed in it and drop it into the Aero Garden where it's treated to a "near perfect rainforest growing environment." It has it own lights that are on a timer and it'll tell you when it needs more water or nutrients. These nutrients come in tablet form and you just drop them in. So it's really a hydroponic setup with no dirt involved what so ever. And the Aero Garden people claim that you'll get maximum growth from your plants in a lot less time. . . .
reBlogged
to gardens tools
Posted by Anthony Reblogged by Old Roses to Gardens, tools on 2007-12-19, 00:25:23
Yes, I know what I was saying earlier in the week, but that was before the snow turned to rain and sleet, and before I had to run around doing errands in it. It reminded me all too sharply of what winter usually consists of here in Central Ohio. . . .
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to weather
Posted by Ilona Reblogged by Old Roses to weather on 2007-12-19, 00:24:35
Continuing on with the theme of taking you through bed by bed....First is tomatoes, then corn/zucchini, then melons, then the fourth bed in the row is the pumpkin bed. . . .
I have a plan. I'm good at making plans. Plans and lists. I can't seem to stop making them. Anyway, I'm planning on taking you through my summer vegetable garden one bed at a time. From previous posts, you'd know that I have 8 garden beds. Chickens take up two beds, leaving 6 for vegetables. In summer I like to have one tomato/eggplant/capscium bed, one bed for pumpkins, one for melons, one for root vegetables & beans, one for potatoes, and the final one waiting for the winter veg. Surprisingly, the winter veg should really be planted in January/February. It always seems so strange in the heat of summer to be even thinking about cauliflowers and cabbages. . . .
I don't do dreary well and since I've been grazing on my lettuce patch rather heavily, it seemed the logical thing to do would be to visit my local nursery to replenish the crop. The lettuce was the main reason for stopping at Windmill but you know, you can't just dash in and dash out of a NURSERY! Ya might miss something. . .
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to plants
Posted by weeder1 Reblogged by Old Roses to plants on 2007-12-19, 00:23:15
When invited to a Christmas party, especially one where there are many talented and creative people, such as the party we were invited to last Saturday night, I wanted to bring a gift that was more than a bottle of wine. Since we had the crazy snowstorm the day before, we were snowed in, so as one attempted to snow blow the driveways, I trudged out the the greenhouse to pick olive greens as well as rosemary, bay laurel and myrtle so that I could throw together a holiday hostess gift wreath. Now, I think I will make some for our guest next week. . . .
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to weather
Posted by Matt Reblogged by Old Roses to weather on 2007-12-19, 00:22:50
Everything has a name. And thank goodness because it’s so much easier that way. Just think if Linnaeus hadn’t shared his system for classifying everything we’d have to identify things through a key-full of qualifiers (you know that tree with the leaves? - No, not that one - I mean the one with the glabrous twigs and leaves that have 5 lobes which are slightly dentate …. oh nevermind.). . .
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to plants
on Dec 17, 2007, 3:56PM
Posted by Kris Reblogged by Old Roses to plants on 2007-12-19, 00:21:32
Recent research at Sanford University indicates that global warming is going to have a devastating effect on land-birds. *If* nothing changes between 2100 and now, we can expect to lose upwards of 30% of all land-based birds. It seems the plants they depend on have to move north or upward in height (up the nearest mountain) and the loss of area will also reduce the number of birds that the habitat can support. . . .
reBlogged
to birds
on Dec 17, 2007, 8:01PM
Posted by Doug Reblogged by Old Roses to birds on 2007-12-19, 00:20:48
I feel like the past four days have been non-stop go, go, go! Time for some down time. Thursday was spent running errands, Friday I went to a co-workers house
for a little after work party and yesterday Chris and I did some Christmas shopping, dealt with the plumber (our toilet and shower backed up last week), and went out
on Loop Road to take some photos and check out some sloughs for ghost orchids and then in the evening drove back down to Miami to go to Shelah's little Christmas party.
And now I have chores to catch up on, Christmas stuff to finish up and I want to spend some time on the bed watching Pride and Prejudice and Colin Firth in a wet, white shirt.
Now, doesn't that sound like a good day???. ..
reBlogged
to plants
on Dec 16, 2007, 10:25PM
Posted by Reblogged by Old Roses to plants on 2007-12-19, 00:19:29
Chionodoxa (Greek chiona=snow, doxa=glory) is called glory of the snow because it blooms early enough in its mountainous, rocky haunts in western Turkey down into Crete and Cyprus, that it often blooms through the snow. Here in topographically deprived Iowa it more often blooms through the dead brown leaves, so incites no raptures of glory, but makes pretty little drifts, with its tiny flowers of pastel blue showing up everywhere. . . .
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to bulbs
Posted by IBOY Reblogged by Old Roses to bulbs on 2007-12-19, 00:18:40
One of the most common questions about poinsettia plants regards whether or not they are toxic (see yesterday's blog post). But after viewing my article on poinsettia plants, reader, Rebecca...
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to poinsettia
on Dec 17, 2007, 1:28AM
Posted by Reblogged by Old Roses to poinsettia on 2007-12-19, 00:17:59
I am fascinated with things that fall out of favor, culturally and horticulturally. The list of forgotten plant favorites is long, fragrant bouquets of Parma violets scented that scented the air of railroad cars at the turn of the century, bowls of Anemones that once were the traditional Christmas flower, long before the Pointsetia made its way into cultuvation in the 1920s. Camellias, Chrysanthemums, and perhaps most lost of all, bulb pans of forced Lilly of the Valley. Once commonplace, featured in ads in gardening magazines right through the 1960's, for whatever reason, the tradition of ordering single plants of Convallaria majalis, known as Pips in the trade, fell out of fashion in the last quarter of the twentieth century. . . .
reBlogged
to bulbs
Posted by Matt Reblogged by Old Roses to bulbs on 2007-12-19, 00:17:16
via Empress of Dirt: The Garden on 1969-12-31, 19:00:00
Once upon a time there was a very very SMALL seed. . . 
