welle
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om sweet om
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Post by welle on Feb 10, 2009 11:25:16 GMT
These are some of the roses I grew in Atlanta: My favorite one This one smelled like citrus Where I live now it's a bit too foggy for my roses to do really well.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 10, 2009 12:43:17 GMT
welle,those are beautiful. I went to a dinner party last pm and one of the guests is an assistant rosarian at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. We were both bemoaning the fact that roses I once grew in N.Y. don't perform well here at all and vice versa. So, my advice to you is to ask around (locally),talk with other gardeners/neighbors. When taking walks take notes on roses that you admire. People who garden love to share their enthusiasm and knowledge with others. You may come away with some cuttings that you can propagate yourself (easy to do).Don't let fog be a deterrent. The average humidity here is easily 60-70%.
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 11, 2009 8:28:40 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Feb 11, 2009 12:35:49 GMT
Beautiful Bixa, I only came to appreciate the bearded iris in the last couple of years. They don't seem to last very long. I'm still an ardent admirer of the Louisiana iris. Will they grow there.?
welle,I know they have some fabulous Botanical Gardens in the Bay area and many of them have plant sales. We have one here this weekend. I tend to go out and "rustle" my own. More fun
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 13, 2009 3:27:29 GMT
Casimira, getting named varieties of anything around here is almost impossible. I believe I bought that iris without even knowing what color it was going to be. I've never seen La. iris here. And no one really "speaks plant" either. There is one family of vendors who really know their stuff, but they do the floating markets, so it's a matter of convenience & luck getting to see them. I buy lots of stuff without really knowing what it is. The plant below was purchased when it was quite small. I was told it was a daisy, & indeed it had daisy-ish foliage. It was really this aster. Is this the one called michaelmas daisy?
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Post by palesa on Feb 13, 2009 5:06:03 GMT
I have been so busy growing veggies, I have totally neglected our flower beds. I bought a mix of indigenus seeds and literally threw them in the ground. I had a lovely display of colour. I wonder if Zonker took pics. Will go and have a look.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 13, 2009 11:42:47 GMT
A very happy Michaelmas Daisy AKA New York Aster,I'll bet the butterflies love that guy!
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 13, 2009 17:18:52 GMT
The ground here is very poor and compacted. Nonetheless, nothing performs like those NY asters once they get going. I have a white one as well, but it's a weak sister.
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welle
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om sweet om
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Post by welle on Feb 20, 2009 21:57:34 GMT
Gorgeous Iris, bix!
Bix and casimira, yep, there are some people very successfully growing roses in the Bay Area. The Berkeley rose garden up in the Berkeley hills is great to visit. Petaluma has a much sunnier climate than San Francisco. I live in a foggy part of the city which makes it more difficult, but a guy a few streets down has gorgeous roses. I have not put a lot of research into what kind of rose I grow here, I know some varieties are better. I bought them when the local botanical garden had a sale and just assumed they would do ok.
Part of it is that I refuse to put any pesticides on them as they are planted next to my tomatoes and rosemary. With the damp climate they tend to get fungus. Watering them more consistently might also help. We'll see this spring!
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Post by Deleted on Feb 20, 2009 22:16:29 GMT
When you're ready, I have some organic recipes for black spot, mildew and the like. We have a very moist climate in Nola as well. And I have successfully dealt with it on the Atlantic coast where it is damp. Right now I would be so psyched about INDIA to even give a rat's ass how my roses look.
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welle
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om sweet om
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Post by welle on Feb 21, 2009 3:30:47 GMT
Ah, help with black spot in summer especially, that would be great. I'm trying to get psyched for India, right now I'm in the phase that I can't believe I'm going. Alternating with sheer panic that I'm leaving in a week.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 21, 2009 3:39:29 GMT
Deep breaths and thoughts of all the wondrous sites,smells and sounds. I look forward to your posts.
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Post by gringalais on Feb 23, 2009 20:15:49 GMT
Beautiful flowers! I don't have really nice ones right now, with summer ending most of my flowers are looking a bit dried out. Here is one still looking pretty nice: And these are what I fenced in and replanted the other day, hopefully to keep the puppy out. The plant in the front has peppers that have a really interesting shape. The two in the back are supposed to fill in to be more bushy with time:
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 24, 2009 2:31:46 GMT
Gringa, I don't know if you've ever grown the top one before. Those are really popular here for day of the dead. If you let it go to seed, you'll get zillions of tiny black seeds that look like poppy seeds & that will give you lots & lots more plants. I don't know what the blue-flowered one is -- maybe a physalis? (tomatillo/gooseberry/cape gooseberry/groundcherry) The plant on the right is an oleander, and is going to get very, very big. www.floridata.com/ref/N/nerium.cfm
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Post by gringalais on Feb 24, 2009 4:19:53 GMT
Here they call the one on the right a flower laurel (as opposed to bay laurel for cooking). Didn't get a name on the one to the left. If they get too big, I guess I will have to expand the fencing, but we don't plan to be living in this house for a lot longer.
The most likely possibility is that the puppy will get to them first.
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 24, 2009 5:34:22 GMT
The oleander is deadly poison -- keep the puppy away from it! It's so poisonous that the smoke from burning the branches can make you very ill -- or dead.
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Post by gringalais on Feb 24, 2009 13:47:06 GMT
Eek! They did not tell me that when I bought it.
I have been keeping a close eye and so far she has shown no interest in those plants and we put her in the back part of the yard when we leave the house to keep her from getting into things. I think I will put some mesh on the top too and put in some more stakes to be on the safe side.
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 24, 2009 15:44:20 GMT
It is planted way too close to the wall. That is a very big plant and when it has too little space or too little sun, gets tall and ungainly. When well grown, it's clothed from top to bottom in evergreen leaves and has a nice even shape. If you all are going to be moving to a house that will need some landscaping & has space for something that size, you'd do well to go ahead & move it to a pot now for transplanting later into the new place.
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Post by gringalais on Feb 24, 2009 17:18:05 GMT
Oh thank you wise bixa. Seriously, I am clueless about these types of plants since I have never lived in a place with a yard before. Usually the plant guy knows what he is talking about, but he seems to have dropped the ball on this one. I guess repotting it and putting it where the puppy can't get to it for now is best and then I can put something smaller in the spot. I saw one on a walk today and, yeah, they get to be big!
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 25, 2009 4:44:20 GMT
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welle
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Post by welle on Feb 26, 2009 0:52:40 GMT
There was Oleander in our neighbour's yard when we grew up-I didn't find out it is poisonous until I was a teenager. Somehow we never ate that plant, though we tried most other things.
Beautiful flowers though.
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Post by gringalais on Feb 26, 2009 12:10:13 GMT
Fortunately, the puppy continues to show no interest in those plants and at least when she has gotten to plants she just pulls them out, she never tries to eat them. Still, I should probably move it this weekend, just to be on the safe side. Maybe I will put a rosebush in that spot.
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 26, 2009 15:58:41 GMT
There was Oleander in our neighbour's yard when we grew up-I didn't find out it is poisonous until I was a teenager. Somehow we never ate that plant, though we tried most other things. Beautiful flowers though. Reading all the warnings nowadays, you'd think people dropped dead right & left from gobbling the shrubbery. I didn't know until I was grown that tomato plants are poisonous. Never wanted to stick one in my mouth, either. Oleander really shouldn't be burnt though, because of the toxic smoke, and you should wash your hands well after handling it. It's a great plant in so many ways --- very dense and evergreen, & some varieties have scented flowers. Also, when it's mature and blooming, it blooms like mad.
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welle
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Post by welle on Mar 24, 2009 7:53:54 GMT
When you're ready, I have some organic recipes for black spot, mildew and the like. We have a very moist climate in Nola as well. And I have successfully dealt with it on the Atlantic coast where it is damp. Right now I would be so psyched about INDIA to even give a rat's ass how my roses look. Can I take you up on the above? Right now my roses are happy, but black spot will strike again soon I'm sure. The foggy summers tend to get to them.
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Post by bixaorellana on Mar 24, 2009 18:41:24 GMT
I am so thrilled by this flower. This is one of those ubiquitous cactus commonly sold in a small size. It's been in the ground since July of '07 and I noticed buds on it a couple of days ago. Imagine my joy to see a flower fully open this morning. There's a fat little opuntia out there with buds too -- can't wait to see what that does. Here's the plant showing another bud, with the flower-bearing branch foreshortened in the foreground: close-up: Not a great picture, but shows it as part of the landscape:
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Post by bixaorellana on Mar 31, 2009 4:01:36 GMT
Since my last cactus pictures were such big hits , here are two more. This is some kind of opuntia with very fat leaves. It hates being in a pot & only grew and became healthy once put in the ground. A couple of days ago it rewarded me with a flower, plus has a bunch of buds.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 31, 2009 10:44:24 GMT
You mentioned that you had some in bud but I had no idea they'd be this beautiful. I'm always amazed at how more mundane the plant the more outrageous the bloom. Gorgeous,Bixa! What is their bloom cycle?
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Post by Deleted on Mar 31, 2009 12:29:13 GMT
At Ikea the other day, they were selling all kinds of cacti with extravagant flowers on them. Even though I knew they had to be real, they seemed totally fake. The colors and styles seem so much in contradiction with the spiny hostile plant.
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Post by bixaorellana on Mar 31, 2009 15:12:07 GMT
I think spring is more or less the blooming time. I used to live in extreme southeast Texas -- on the Gulf of Mexico & the border with Mexico. Behind the gas station I used was an open field with lots of wild opuntia and yucca. In the spring the opuntia went crazy and it looked like a giant's candy shop with all the flowers in shades of salmon, different pinks, yellow, and white.
I find the flowers reassuring in the sense that the plant is healthily going about its business, but I really grow cacti and succulents for their innate beauty when not in bloom. They are most beautiful in the morning and late afternoon when the low-angled sun lights up any spines and brings out the architectural shapes and subtle coloration.
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Post by bixaorellana on Apr 7, 2009 19:26:52 GMT
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