gloriosa....

Gloriosa Lily is blooming! Actually, this is the second bloom... the first I snipped off and gave to someone down the street...

I love this plant, it's fire-hot blooms seem to be perfectly happy in our summer heat. I'm very interested to see how tall it gets... right now, it's climbing about 2 feet, but supposedly, it can get much, much taller... Thanks to Julie, over at A Succulent Life for sending me these wonderful plants...

Well, Hildy has up and done her thing again... looks like she'll be doing it tomorrow and the next day too...

This pic was taken with a cheap kodak. At 6 am. I am a bit past staying up until 1 am to take pics of cactus blooms in their full glory. I've done it before. Several times. The thrill is gone.

Seriously, if you look at past posts... you will see that I've stayed up till the wee hours of the morning, sometimes aiming my trucks headlights to light up a shot... on one memorable occasion even balancing a flashlight, umbrella and camera in the rain, all so I can produce a pic for my blog friends. No more... Love ya to death... But...

Besides, I get up at 5:30 am to get ready for work anyway. Which is really surprising to me. When I worked in bars, that's about the time I came home and crawled into my coffin.

Regardless, there's Hildy up there. Four blooms tonight, more over the next couple of days. Probably more blooms over the next couple of months too.

nothing at all...

no pics

Oh Well...

I've had one of THOSE weeks... although I have to admit that yesterday was the worst of it... so when I got home about 5 pm, I kinda collapsed into a comfy armchair and woke up about 10 pm because the neighbor was pounding on my door... but I'm getting ahead of myself.

So, Thursday... the worst day at work imaginable... Picked up at a church office. An envelope that's going 30 miles away... OK... picked up another order on the way, get to where the envelope is going and it's locked up tight, signs say appointment only, with a couple of phone numbers... I call the phone numbers which ring inside the empty office... call dispatch, he calls everyone he can think of... 45 minutes later and the other order in the truck is already late, so I go drop it off.

Then I go to the airport to pick up, sign all the papers, go through all the security carp, and the guys in the warehouse bring up 12 boxes. That were damaged in transit. Nice... so I demand, on the behalf of my customer, a damage report, call dispatch, so there's another 45 minutes of sitting in a warehouse... actually standing in a warehouse. There's a small square painted on the floor where you have to wait. No chairs. Security guy sitting in the only chair, staring at you. Whatever...

Finally get the reports, loaded up, take the reports to the office of the actual shipping company that I've been subcontracted through, then, on the way to dropping off the boxes... I'm exiting the freeway when some woman bashes into the back of my truck. I'm fine, she's fine, my truck is fine (big metal bumper back there has a couple of scratches) but her little KIA is not in good shape.

Another hour wasted while she tries to convince a cop that bashing into the back of my truck is all somehow MY fault... then I deliver 12 boxes, some of which are damaged, total weight of 250 lbs, to the 9th floor of a bank building.

Then I called dispatch and said... enough.

So today was actually rather uneventful.

I made deliveries... and that envelope from yesterday is still in my truck, no one will answer any phones at the pick-up or the delivery now... finally, ended the day by taking the envelope to my office and telling them it was their problem now, came home, collapsed in the comfy armchair, woke up because the senior citizen neighbor has a smoke alarm going off... turned out to be a dead battery alarm so I ran to the store, bought a nine-volt, changed the battery under the watchful eye of their guard dog... and haven't been able to even think about going to sleep since.

And that's my life.

Wee haw.

hildy's gearing up!

Well, Hildy, my Cereus hildmannianus, (aka Peruvian Apple, or one of the dozen or so plants called Night Blooming Cereus or Queen of the Night) is gearing up for blooming... counted this morning and there's 18 buds forming. Now, usually some of the buds will abort, usually under half... but I've tried to see if I can get more of them to stick around this year, by giving her a shot of plant food a couple of days ago when I first noticed the buds forming.

Currently, Hildy is about 4 feet tall, and consists of a trunk that was broken off and now has 4 branches, 2 from near the base and two from further up the stem. The branch in the pic is the tallest, and it would appear that the growing tip has become damaged in some way, as it doesn't appear to be growing... but the other three stems have already put on about 3 inches each this year. Eight to 10 inches a year seems about par for the course...

Next is a newer plant that I managed to aquire earlier this year. A San Pedro cactus, (Trichocereus pachanoi) that I found at Wal-Mart of all places around May.

I wonder if Wal-Mart is aware that they're selling plants that are often used by idiots to produce mescaline? Seriously, I about got into a fist fight with some stoner when I purchased this thing... It was the only one there, and we were both intent on aquiring it. Fortunately, aging hippies are often slow moving. Their reflexes are shot...

Of course, I won't be producing mescaline from this plant. I just like the looks of him...

Slightly less than 18 inches tall... he (I think I'll call him Packy) Packy is large enough to bloom, but I don't know if he will honor us with any blooms this year. You'd think he would, I saved him from some hippies blender. I mean... where's the gratitude, right? He looks a lot like Hildy, with less spines, and fuller bodied.

I wanting some of these taller cactus for the new planting bed I'm putting in... of course, I won't be able to leave them outside... but I'm thinking of plunging old nursery pots into the ground, so that I can set my big guys in the ground for the summer... just put them in the plunged pot and fill around their actual pots with gravel. Come autumn, when the frost are threatening, I can pull them out fairly easily.

And now... I must apologise... My internet service has been blinking on and off like a defective strobe light with a short circuit. I haven't been around to post on my blog, or to comment on my friends blogs.

but I am keeping up with you!

Plant updates...

Spent part of my afternoon out in the yard...

first a quick shot of the gloriosa lilies sent to me by Julie over at A Succulent Life... 2 of the 3 stems have made it, and they're starting to climb... and even putting out some buds! I can hardly wait!

And now we have to check in with Claudes Home for Wayward Plants... I have been planning on extending the border on my front yard for a couple of years now... and I started digging today... with bermuda grass lawns, it has to be done very thoroughly... you have to get down in the dirt and break up each clod with your hands, and make sure you get all the grass stolons out. Which can be tricky... Bermuda stolons have hard pointed growing tips... they can pierce right through a cactus!
Anyway... I got the larger of the rescued Sago's in the ground...

It'll look better after I get more dug up, and mulch, and other plants around it... hope he's happy...

The other sago still needs some love... he put out exactly 1 small and stunted leaf... but today I noticed that there's some more coming out... maybe these will be more normal sized...

weeds

Now, it's probably no secret to anybody out there that I'm not the perfectly manicured lawn type. I just don't apprecieate them. Especially not if you're expecting me to be the one out there doing all that manicuring.

You feed them, water them and do everything possible to make them grow, and then, the split second they grow... you chop it off. At which point, you water them to make them grow again...

it makes no sense.

Plus... if you have a perfectly manicured lawn, you miss things like this...

I have no idea what kind of weed/wildflower this is, but I have to say it's cute as the dickens. Probably prompted into bloom by our recent rains, it's a cheerful little guy, and each bloom being less than a quarter inch across. If it bloomed longer, it would no doubt be a much cherished addition to the garden... as is, we just enjoy it for what it is... whatever it is...

I found it growing in the lawn outside a factory/warehouse so I had to take a shot for you...

Why do my plants insist on doing wierd things?

Well, some of my regular readers may recognize these plants... having seen them before. These are the infamous Ferocactus wislenzeni... or at least I think that's what they are... or, I thought that's what they were... I'm not 100% sure anymore.

Now, origionally, I got these just over a year ago, in the mail from an ebay seller in what had to be the absolute worst packing job ever...

There were five total... I wanted them because these plants are rather winter hardy for a Ferocactus, and they're reasonably common as a landscape plant in this area... they're also way too expensive for my small budget to buy one of any size, so I bought these seedlings, hoping that I'd eventually get them to blooming size. One I planted in the rock garden, and the other four I potted up to bring in last winter... They're all doing just fine, actually... I went out to do some basic plant stuff today, and here they were...
Now, it's fairly easy to see in the above pic, that the second from the left is putting up a little pup or offset. My reading tells me that this isn't common, but it isn't unheard of. The plant generally grows as a solitary column though... I didn't think too much of this when I noticed it this spring. It happens... and heres a close-up of it...

Then, in taking care of them... I noticed that another one was putting up pups... 2 to be exact...

Ok... that's not right... if something is uncommon, half of them shouldn't be doing it, right? So, off to the front yard... and what do you know...

The one in the rock garden is doing it too... that means out of 5 plants... thats 60% of my Fero's are doing something that they're not supposed to do...

So, the question is... Do I have some remarkable Ferocactus? or did that dweeb, in addition to packing the cactus badly, pack the wrong damned cactus? Which forces the question, what are they? The one that survived the winter seriously narrows the field. Echinocereus will survive here, and pup rather redily... after they're bigger than this... theses are really too small... Well, I don't know.

And of course, they're not putting out the hook shaped spines... I had put that down to them being still juvenile... the spines they're getting now are definitely a little different from the spines they had when they got here... so, there's a definite chance that they're not fero's or if they are, they're not wislenzeni...

But if they're not fero's, then I need to find some more, because I really really want feros.

If they are fero's, then why are they doing this? The inside ones got no water during the winter, as our winter isn't long and I wanted dormancy. They haven't gotten too much or the wrong kind of plant food, as they've gotten none that I know of... and the two that haven't pupped still may, they're noticably smaller than the other three. They may be waiting till they reach the right size...

Really, I don't need this confusion right now...

episcia...

I've posted about this plant before.

The thing is, it's been raining for about a whole week solid... well not exactly solid... the days start out all right, sometimes even sunny, but by the afternoon... well, you're just driving along and suddenly, it looks like someone up and dumped a swimming pool over your truck.

It's not fun.

Especially when you're hauling mattresses.

But I had to post something... I mean, I've resorted to clothes hangers in the previous post. That's scraping the bottom of the barrel...

So, here's the Episcia. NOID. It's a cutting off a plant that was given to me by a lady down the street. Well over a year ago.
Planted in one of those evil self-watering pots that promote root rot and yada yada yada... but quite frankly, if you expect something like this thing to survive in my house, it has to be in one of these pots. You skip watering an episcia, and they just don't get over it.

It sat for the longest time in my kitchen window...but it outgrew the window and kept mounting attacks into the sink... now it sets on top of the terrarium where the African Violets are living. I figured there was enough light for the African violets, there's enough light for this. It seems to be happy.

Wish I liked it better. And really, I don't know why I don't except that, like the African violets, it just ain't my style. It's not like I hate the thing... if I did I wouldn't have said "What a nice flame violet" when I was at that ladies house for coffee and at a sudden loss for topics of conversation. Of course, I immediately ended up with a cutting. I should of kept my blasted mouth shut... warning... don't go handing out compliments when you're out of things to talk about...

So, I don't really like it... and I don't really dislike it... I guess I'm more or less indifferent... and if I had anything else to talk about, this post wouldn't exist. Hmph.

Hangers? Really? NO, REALLY?

No garden pics today... It's been raining off and on all day... a cold front is moving through, tomorrows high temp will be 86 F... brr, break out the sweat shirts... so, no gardening happened today...

So, today, since I couldn't garden, I decided to take some stuff into the flea market for the booth. OK.

So I loaded up my truck... and I have literally hundreds of those plastic store hangers... you know, the ones with the wire hook that swivels around? For some reason, I collect them. I've never figured it out... When I had my own store, they were very valuable. Later, when I decided to cut back on using the clothes dryer, a plastic hanger was perfect for hanging shirts and such in the garage or even off the eaves of the house. (Wire hangers stretch out the shoulders and sometimes leave rust stains.) Here in Texas, air drying is quicker than the dryer anyway... but for some reason, much like when ever I see a still alive plant by the road, whenever somebody cleans out their closet and tosses a box full of these out on the curb on garbage day, I pick it up. Don't take me wrong. It's not a fixation, I don't jump out of bed and go running through the neighborhood in search of hangers. But if I see them, I pick them up.

So, I have, out in my storage shed, tons of these hangers.

So, other dealers at the flea market are always asking to borrow one or two of mine... and I know I'm never going to see it again, but I'll "lend" it to them anyway... I have plenty, right? It's really no big deal...

Well, the other day, someone 'borrowed' one, then I actually saw them writing their vendor number on it, so it'll be returned to their booth after whatever on it is sold... which really pissed me off for some reason. I know, terribly petty of me, but damn... now if they were writing my number on it, so it would go to my booth later, that would be cool, but they're not... They're blatantly laying claim to something that isn't theirs. GRRRRRR

Anyway, I decided that I would just put these hangers of mine, which let's face it, I have way too many off, in bundles of 10 and sell them off, for a buck a bundle. That way, the next time someone wanted to 'borrow' one, I'd just say "actually, I sell them..." They're cheap, I'm not making much money off of them, but I'm not getting pissed off... everything is cool, right?

So, on the way in, I told Joy, the cashier who works on the days that I don't, what was up... and she agreed with me that it was a good idea. Besides, you should always tell the cashier what's up... that way if anybody said they needed hangers, Joy would say, 'Claude's got some for sale in his booth.' And Joy always tells me what's in her booth too, when I'm cashier. It works out well...

So, I sat 8 bundles in my booth, didn't even get them in the basket I was gonna put em in, just laid them on the floor then walked back to the truck to grab something else... and when I got back six bundles were gone. Walked back up front, and Joy was putting them in a bag for a customer. I bought a coke, me and Joy had a bit of a laugh, and then I went back to my booth, and the other 2 bundles were gone...

Who the hell would of thought that bloody hangers would be such a hot item?

Here I've been concentrating on collectables, china, and other items of decorative interest, and what I should have been doing is running around saving the landfills from unnecesary plastic and wire hangers.

Anyway... in the future, the $1 bundles will consist of 7 hangers. Might as well get as much as I can right?

cats birds and cactus...

First... we got rain! Not much, but enough to wet everything down...

Next... we got dead birds! Phennig was very proud of himself this morning and brought this home. I can only hope it's the mockingbird that has been pecking holes in my tomatoes...



And now, we got Leuchtenbergia principis, also known as the agave cactus...


I saw this somewhere... I've been wanting one for a while, but I hadn't seen one to buy. Actually, the only one I'd ever seen in person was at the Ft. Worth Botanic Garden, through the windows of the greenhouse... so when I saw one in a big box store, I grabbed it.

I know it doesn't look like a cactus. It looks like an agave. But those leaves aren't leaves... they're the plants tubercules.

We all know that some cactus produce ribs of spines, and others produce bumpy tubercules. These are tubercules taken to an extreme level... to the point that they look like leaves. They'll get up to 6 inches long, and the entire plant can get to 2 feet tall... This is the only species in the genus, but the genus is very closely related to barrel cactus, and they can produce intergeneric hybrids referred to as Ferobergias.

And those spines aren't half as mean looking as they appear either... they're papery.

And that's as exciting as it gets around here.

Have a great weekend everyone!