Today is Wes's birthday... He's 52.  Geezy-peezy!  My little brother is 52!  Boy, do I feel OLD.  It got me thinking - we were both in our 30s when he and Sally moved to Indiana.  Wow.  I sure wish he was closer...

It's early - 6 a.m.  I'm just waiting for the sun to come up so I can start working in the GH.  I can't believe the B.S. that we call "weather" around here!  It's April 30th and I had to turn on the A/C after dinner last night 'cuz I knew it would be too unbearable in here to sleep.  It got up to 84 degrees.  Hell, this morning when I got up at 5:00, it was still 72!!  Today will be about 10 degrees coolor, but tonight a cold front will move in and it's going to rain, get down to 48, which is perfect.  The plants I put out can use the rain. And they've been predicting it's going to get cold at night the next few days and I had a plan to wrap the shelf in plastic and put some sleeping bag warmers in there to help.  But guess what?  Now they're predicting we'll get at least a couple inches of SNOW overnight Thursday into Friday!!  WHAT??  I can't leave them out in snow!  Which means I have to bring them all back in.  But I want them to get the rain, too, so my plan is to make room for them today and bring them in sometime tomorrow after they all get a good soaking.  What a hassle!  So today will be "make room" day, and tomorrow will be "carry in" day. 

I got four new bulbs from the CSSA - Kathy ordered them along with some for herself and some for Tom.  I picked mine up on Sunday and here's what they will look like...

Albuca villosa...

Albuca ballii...

Ornithigallum fimbrimarginatum...

...and the flowers...

And last, Oxalis flava...

All the the Ornithigallum are winter growers, so I probably won't see any growth until next fall.

Sunday the 28th...

I'm so pissed - I spent the better part of Thursday putting my succulents outside.  It's been beautiful.  Well, now they're predicting that it's going to get down into the 30's at night and highs of 40's during the day starting Wednesday.  They say it will rain and we may even get some snow!  How much does that SUCK?!!  This spring is making me crazy.  I'm thinking I may just throw some plastic around the shelves and let the plants tough it out.  I guess we'll see...

I have a lot of cleaning to do today and tomorrow, but I'm also going to be doing some watering and making some notes here.  Everything is really popping right now - the plants seem to believe it's really spring, even though the weather does not seem to be cooperating.

Hoya inconspicua - leaves are fat and firm and the peduncles (and there are about a bazillion of them) seem to be fuzzing-up, so I think it's going to start pumping out flowers here very soon.  Here's a photo of the entire plant:

...and a closeup of the leaves...

It's a smallish Hoya, leaves right about an inch long.  Very easy to grow, thankfully.  I got it at the same time I got davidcummingii, which did very well for me the first year then went to shit.  I have a piece that continues to hang on - I guess we'll see what happens with it this year...

Hoya lacunosa continues to do well.  I had to restart it... was it last year?  My huge main plant was in dire need of being transplanted and when I did so, it was NOT happy.  So I started several cuttings in my own soil (because you can never really get rid of all the awful soil on EA plants...) and once it get established, it grew and it's been blooming off and on all winter.  Here's the plant now...

It really looks pretty good for a complete restart from a year ago (even two if I'm off by a year.)  But I would like it to produce some new growth closer to the soil line, so I pinched new growth on the three longest stems.  I don't know if that will do the trick clear up by the soil line, but I can always root some cuttings and put them in there later if I need to.  Here's a flower from today:

The photo turned out good!  I used my tripod, which always helps.  Love those super-fragrant little flowers!

Hoya cv. 'Mathilde' - I talked recently about how well it's doing after it was in decline last year.  I thought I'd post a new photo of her...

It's shiny and the leaves are fat and hard.  It's got new growth and new peduncles forming.  I think it's going to be a very good year for 'Mathilde'!

Monday the 29th...

I sent out one of my Hoya kerriis I rooted a couple years ago.  I'll miss it - it had this one interesting leaf on it...

Pretty, extra deep heart.  The dang box went over 1 lb. by 3/10 of an ounce, so it cost me an extra $3 to send it!  So much for making money on my plants.  I can't seem to adequately estimate weight...

I also sent Amber some cuttings of my favorite Dischidia...

Grrr... why don't photos stayed turned??  Anyway, it's D. oiantha.  I think she'll like it!

Well, I have a lot to do, so I'd better get off my duff!



Still cold - this SUCKS!!  It's 30 degrees and the wind chill makes it in the teens and they're actually predicting snow flurries.  It's almost May, for God's sake!  What's up with this?  Last year at this time, we'd been using our A/C off and on for a month!

Well, my back deck is all cleared off and ready for my plants, if it ever gets warm enough to put them out.  But oh, what a mud hole the back yard is!  It's been raining for the last several days and it literally looks like three little ponds out there.  I've sent Erik (our landscape guy) an e-mail about putting in those large pavers that have been sitting in the driveway for a few years and then sodding the rest of the yard.  We HAVE to do SOMEthing out there.  The whole yard is just erroding away...

Yesterday was Mom's birthday.  Aunt Judy is in town, which is probably a great b-day gift!  I got her this cool wine glass I found on Amazon...

They're called Lolita wine glasses and they have about a bazillion designs.  Each are hand-painted and they're just as cute as can be.  I'm thinking I might order me a few for myself!  I've found a few I like - one with a cactus on it, some with flowers, one with hearts.  They have a lot of really adorable ones for just about any mood or personality.  What fun!!

Mark's been "working on" my bedroom closet.  He's put in what they call cedar "car siding" (why they call it that, I have no idea!)  He did the spare bedroom closet a few years ago and it turned out beautiful.  With this one, I first took out the shelf that sit above the hanging bar.  I painted the woodwork and above the wood border that the shelf sit on - a nice, bright yellow.  Then I sponge painted over the yellow a terra cotta color to compliment the color of the cedar.  Here's the painting...

He still hast to put the trim on the ceiling.  (He had to fir out and put cedar on the ceiling, too, because there was some old water damage...)  Here's where he's put the cedar below that trim board...

Isn't it pretty?!!  Next he'll be putting in the shelves - we're changing it from a clothes/hanging closet to more of a linen closet with shelves.  It should be a big leap in getting me organized!

I'm just hoping he can get it completely done before they start the bathroom - then I'll have somewhere to put all the stuff from the bathroom and won't have to be tripping over boxes of stuff until it's finished. 

... I started this one on Tuesday and it's now Friday and what a difference a few days make!  Yesterday, I put out a butt-load of my plants.  Yes, it may be a bit risky, but I'm sick of waiting!  If they predict something close to freezing, I'll throw some plastic over them.  But I only put out my tough succulents - no Hoyas or jungle cacti yet. 

Aunt Judy's going home today, so I'm eeting her and Mom for lunch.  I may try to go down to work early - I'll see how I get around here.  But before I forgot...

My Hoya latifolia is growing!!!  I've had this puppy for 7 years.  It was one of the very first plants I got from Carol Noel.  It's been one of the slowest growing plants I've ever had.  I'm not sure it's even put on ANY new growth in the last two years - maybe a leaf, maybe two... I don't know.  But it has FOUR new growth points!!  FOUR!  Wow!  That's unprecidented!  I put it up on the top shelf, back kind of out of sight, either last year or the year before.  It's one I used to look at often and feel frustration that it did so little.  So I thought maybe if I put it where I won't see it often, it will not be affected by my frustration with it.  (If you think I'm being silly, please read The Secret Life of Plants...)  Well, I could tell it was happier because when I get up there to water (I have to use a step stool to get up there), I've noticed it looked fat and happy and super-duper succulent.  But this takes the cake!  I'm extremely excited!  And now it has that whole top shelf to itself (now that I've taken the other stuff outside) so it can be "plant-gone-wild."  YAY!

I'm up early, watching the news - they caught and killed one of the Boston bombers, and the other one is on the run.  Unbelievably, they have the whole city of Boston and surrounding communities shut down and have told civilians to stay home, stay inside.  Wow.  That seems crazy extreme!!  But think about it - if they think there are no citizens on the street, it'll be easier to spot "they guy" when he tries to go anywhere.  Hmmm...

I pulled down a cactus I got at one of our club meetings a few years ago - I have no idea what it is (I'm not good at recognizing the differences between genera...), but it came from one of the members of the club who brought a whole bunch of offsets to share, and the offsets had tiny offsets of their own.  The one I got had three tiny offsets, and the "mother" plant itself was pretty darned small.  Well, after a winter on the top shelf, it looks like a million bucks!  Here's a photo of the mother plant...

...and a closer look at those babies...

 I'm not sure I would believe those babies came from that mama if I didin't own it and know that they're connected.  I wonder at what point the babies lose the little spines and why...  I think I'll take it to next month's meeting and try to figure out what it is.

Well, I'm getting ready to go over to Mom's - Aunt Judy is in town and I'm going over for coffee and cake (yummy!) before I go to work. 

Got my hair cut yesterday.  My stylist has been doing my hair for a bazillion years and I've worn it basically the same way all that time.  A year or so ago, I took her a photo of what I wanted and I think I might have said something like, "Like this, but maybe not QUITE so short..." because it WAS a radical change.  And I liked it.  Well, last time she cut it, she didn't go short enough - by the time I go to her, no matter how long I'm wearing it, I'm way, WAY too shaggy, and she did lop off a lot of it, but it got shaggy too fast for me, so I figured it wasn't short enough.  So I took the pic back with me this time, but I didn't say "not quite so short" this time and, WOW, is it short!!  I'm getting ready to wash it and see what I can do with it.  I mean, it FEELS great!  But I just hope I don't look like a 12 year old tom-boy!  LOL!  Guess we'll see. 

All three of my Hoya fungii are starting to grow.  I think the one in semi-hydro was the first, but I see new growth on the other two now, too.  How will they do this year?  Last year wasn't a great year for fungii.  It used to be such a good one for me until my main plant took a nose dive.  I started several cuttings, the one in semi-hydro and a few others, some of which I sold.  I kept the one in S/H and one in soil and then I kept the mother plant - it had one vine that had remained looking relatively healthy.  Well, that one vine is starting some new growth back about a foot from the pot.  I really, really need to take it down this year and unpot, shake off the old soil and put some new on.  This thing gets SO dry SO fast, and I'm sure that is some of the problem.  It's already in a big pot, but I guess maybe it needs an even bigger one...

I just took down 'Dee's Big One' to water it and it is infested with scale.  I'm so pissed...  I lopped off two long, fairly bug-free vines and soaked them in dishwater for about half an hour, inspected them carefully and I've got them in a glass of water until I can take time to pot them up.  I put the mother plant away from other plants and I'll put it outside the moment it's warm enough.  Of course, I treated it with BATS - we'll see if I can salvage it.  I'm amazed at how quickly those things can take over a plant.  And where the heck did they come from??  Dang!

Mark has started on my bedroom closet.  Well, barely.  He got a nail gun and compressor, so he framed the ceiling so he can put some cedar on the ceiling, which I hope he'll get done today.  Then he's going to cedar the bottom 2/3 of the closet, up to the trim piece, then we're going to put cedar shelves up to that point to turn it into a linen closet.  With the big walk-in closet downstairs, I don't really need another closet for hanging clothes up here.  I'll have to post photos of all this soon...

My Dischidia ovatas seem to all be blooming right now.  I have the one in the kitchen in a seashell, two in the sunroom and one in the GH.  The one in the GH is the rounder/fatter leaved clone I got from the UNO greenhouse. 

They sure changed this a lot.  I'm sure once I get used to the changes that I'll like them, but it's always a bit of a challenge to adjust when you're used to doing things one way and it's suddenly different! 

Yesterday, we had a cold front move in (the day before it was in the 70's!) and it started out raining in the early morning.  They predicted that the rain would eventually be mixed with snow, so when we started seeing some flakes coming down with the rain about noon, we weren't surprised.  Mom & I were at work and we were waiting for the linen delivery guy to get there so we could go home.  He finally got there about 12:30, so we finished up what we were going and left about 1:00.  We walked out to find it looking like a blizzard!  It was falling fast and furiously, by now no rain at all - only snow.  By the time we got home, they were the biggest, FATTEST flakes I had ever seen in my entie life!  They must have been the size of a silver dollar!  And when they **splatted** to the ground, they looked like little bombs, spreading out even larger and instantly melting!  It was absolutely, stunningly beautiful!  I could have been mesmerized by the sight for hours, but thankfully, it didn't last long.  The trees are still holding onto their leaves and it would have been detrimental if it had kept up. 

Well, I volunteered to give a little "talk" about Dischidias this next Sunday at our plant club meeting.  Kathy asked for ideas about the meeting because she's pretty tied up getting ready for some craft deal in mid-Nov.  (That lady SURE has a lot going on!!)  I came up with this, figuring it's one genus I could ramble on about for a bit, and asked that everyone bring a plant(s) from the same family (Asclipiadaceae).  Oh how I wish we could get some "new blood" in the club - maybe some younger folks who would have energy and enthusiasm.  I have a feeling that one of these days, Kathy is going to just say, "Ok, I'm done being president... If one of you guys can't do it, this club is done."  At which point I think the club WILL be done.  If I was retired, I could perhaps handle both being president AND newsletter editor, but I just don't have time to do both now...

There's not really much going on with my plants right now.  They're all back in the house for the winter, of course.  I chopped up MOST of my Hoya fungii this year.  I've got a start in a hanging pot in the GH, one in hydroton in my bedroom (I'm not sure that one is doing so great...), and another one in a hanging pot in the bathroom.  My australis ssp. tenuipes is bloomin right now and smells amazing at night.  Little davidcummingii continues to bloom.  Lacunosa has blooms hither and dither - it may be getting ready to rest...  I put lambii in the sunroom in the south window.  It just hasn't done much of anything in the GH, so figured maybe a change of venue might help.  A couple days ago, I turned my pubicalyx 'Pink Silver' in the dining room and washed it down with the VF-11 spray.  This may not sound like a big ordeal, but the plant has gotten so large, it's a bit of a fiasco.  (And that one is my smaller 'PS'!!)  When I got it turned, the leaves facing the window are now facing the room and, oh BOY, are they pretty!  I do this about every 6-8 months and I really enjoy the beauty of the side that was facing the window!  And it doesn't hurt that the leaves get that nice wash-down...  They get to looking so dull with dust.  I really need to do that more often!  But it requires laying down a layer of newspapers to catch all the water as it drips off the leaves, so it's kind of a hassle. 

I have a lot of my larger Hoyas that are terribly potbound that I should probably commit to either potting up a size or topdressing this winter. 

Sunday...
Well, the snow was a biggie, but not really what I'd call a blizzard.  It was a lights snow, and it didn't blow around at all, really.  It ended up being about 9" here at home, doesn't look like we got as much at work.  In Papillion, a little can look like a LOT real fast because it DOES tend to blow down there, even when it's not so much here.  (What a difference 7 miles can make!)  But it wasn't bad.  Got to work yesterday and found that our lot-clearing guy hadn't been there yet (a full 30 hours after it had stopped snowing) so I called him and he was there pretty quick.  We're supposed to get a little more snow tonight/tomorrow and maybe into Tues., though it's not supposed to accumulate more than 1-3 inches.  It sounds like there's a good chance it'll be a heavier snow, though.

I'm trying to spend some time in the GH today.  I just finished watering a shelf of plants (the ones that needed it - when it's been cold like this, the bigger ones don't need watered very often...)  I'm not finding a LOT of new growth yet, but every one I find a growth nubbin on gets me excited for spring!  What kind of caught me off guard was looking at my four largest Crown of Thorns.  They all seem to be showing signs of new leaves, but two of them are actually developing buds!  CofT usually don't start growing this early so I'm a little surprised... especially since those four sit at the back of the GH where they really aren't getting a lot of light.

I found some new leaves on H. mindorensis - I grow this in a stoneware soup bowl in the sunroom.  It grows nicely for me, but it has yet to flower.  I'm thinking of moving it to a sunnier spot.  Next to it sits the noID I got from Colorada Kathy - it's also got a new nubbin on it, though no signs of leaves on the nubbin yet.  What I find interesting is that even though these two do not get a lot of light, they're some of the first to shows signs of growth.  Connecting this with the Crown fo Thorns, I'm wondering now if I'm on to something here... hmmm.

Monday...
Our electricity will be going out any minute.  As I pulled into the driveway today at about 3:45, I heard a big "CRRRAAACK!!" and as I parked, I looked up and saw the electric wires that go over my neighbor's back yard to a pole behind our year violently swinging in the air.  I got out and hoofed it down the driveway to see that someone coming up 42nd Street had smacked into the pole hard enough to break it in two pieces!! WOW!!  Anyway, about an hour later, I went out to take a photo of the pole and there was an OPPD guy out there and he came up and told me we'll be without electricity for about 3 hours tonight while they replace the pole.  YIKES!  I've turned up the heat (our house gets cold FAST as we have no insulation...) and the heater in the GH, hoping to get it as warm in there as possible.  It's not horribly cold outside (31 right now), thankfully, but I'm sure now that it's dark, it won't take long for the GH to get cold.  The OPPD truck is out there, but I think they're waiting on a pole...

Mark - he's such a dick!  Even though we know the lights will be going out soon, he took off to go to the bar.  I told him I'd like him to stay home so I don't have to hang out in the dark by myself.  But that's Mark.  I've always said he has "only child syndrome"...  I don't mean to insult decent people who are only children - I don't think they're all like that.  But it's so freakin' obvious to me that he was a spoiled only child.  What HE wants to do supercedes all other's wishes.  It's times like these I wonder what would happen if I really, REALLY needed him.  I shudder to think... 

Just popping in to note that Hoya pandurata has started to grow!  This is one I got from Plumerndr 3 years ago and it was a real problem child.  In fact, last fall, it was doing SO badly that I took a cutting, figuring I'd make a last-ditch effort to save it.  The main plant proceeded to die.  (I still have the "stump" as I'm holding out hope maybe it will come back this spring... I'm not very optimistic, though.)  Well, the little two-leaf piece did root, but the two leaves are ugly, so I was still not particularly thrilled about it sitting among my other lovely Hoyas, so I put it on an east window sill in the sunroom, kind of hidden behind a larger plant.  I take it down about once a week and water it.  Well, last week I noticed what looked like a growth nubbin' on the side of the stem about halfway between the soil and the two ugly leaves.  And today I took it down again to water and, sure enough, there are two little leaves emerging!  Of course, these plants that came from Plumernder came all the way from Thailand, and I'm lucky to have any of those left.  According to my database, I still have three of them.  I'll have to check out the other two and report how they're doing here...

The Hoya kenejiana I got from Gardino's has new growth on it already.  Once it gets growing good, I think I'll go ahead and put it in with the little piece I managed to salvage from my old kenejiana.

And here's some REAL exciting news!!  I found new growth on H. cardiophylla, a rooted plant I got from Kathy last year.  It's a BEAUTY and I've waited to get some new growth.  I think it might have grown a bit for me last summer, but I couldn't swear to that.  I didn't take a pic of it when I got it (dummy me!), but looking at it, I can't imagine she would send me such a large rooted cutting in a trade, so I think maybe there is a chance it did grow some last year.  I can't believe I never took a photo of it, though, so here is one now...

...and here is the new growth starting at the base...

My variegated form of verticillata is budding up - well, at least the one in the south sunroom window is.  I've got 3 of them now - one in the GH, one in the spare bedroom, and the one that's budding up.  They all look great, but I'm excited to see the buds on this one since (I believe) its the youngest of the three.  I started it when my main plant had become pretty dehydrated 2 summers ago.

I took it to our cactus club meeting yesterday for Show & Tell.  For once, Arline didn't say "will you start me one of those?"  Maybe she's getting the hint that I'm not going to be her personal source for free Hoyas.  I mean, I don't mind sharing now and again, when it's MY idea.  But she seems to think I'm willing to giver her as many as she wants.  If she was really good at growing them, I'd be more willing to give her cuttings to start on her own.  But she's gotten to the point where she really isn't able to care for all the plants she has and more often than not, I soon heare a plant I gave her died.  She always says something that makes me feel as if she's implying there was something wrong with the plant.  In reality, I'm pretty sure the lady is a plant hoarder - her SIL talks about how she can not pass by a nursery without stopping in, and they often go home with her car stuffed with plants that Arline can neither afford to buy or to care for.  The lady is 80-something - she needs to cut WAY back to a few beloved plants that she can take care of and she'd be SO much happier.  It feels terrible to kill a single plant - I can't imagine how it would feel to kill them by the dozen!

Enough on that rant!!  On a funner note (I know...no such word as "funner" but I don't care - I'll make a dozen new words with the root word "fun" 'cuz that's what it's all about baby!) Tom says the rooted cutting of macrophylla I gave him has taken off and gotten one of those massive leaves.  He seemed very pleased with it!  I'm so glad for him - he is gonna LOVE it as it grows.  And it's going to impress and WOW everyone who visits the UNO greenhouse.  I'm proud that he can say he got it from me!!

Well, I need to do some watering.  We had a warm weekend, but I only had one window open in the GH, so the plants probably got warm and dried out.  And I want to get that done so I can get started painting my bedroom closet.  Mark's going to cedar it for me, but first, I need to paint the woodwork.  I picked out a beautiful, bright yellow.  I'm excited to get it done.  I'll post a photo when it's all finished...

I am sooooo sad.  My brother, who I've always known is one of my soul-mates, was told today that there isn't a lot they can do for his cancer.  He had chemo last late summer through late fall/early winter, then started in a study earlier this year.  But he's been having all kinds of symptoms, issues, problems, and the docs are expressing little hope for any kind of resolution.  They have suggested weekly chemo might... what?  I'm not sure at this point.  Give him some time?  **SIGH**  I don't know...  This has to be the saddest day of my life.  I feel so helpless - what can I do? 

Of course, there's a chance he might read my blog.  He knows about it.  If he does, I want him to know he is my hero.  He has put up a fight for life that anyone would be proud of.  He's suffered through so much - he's had serious health issues since he was 17, and honestly, I don't think any of us thought he'd make it to 40.  He's almost 52 now, but it's still way to young to let go...  In spite of everything he's been through, he's the kind of person I aspire to be.  He's ambitious...  OMG, his house is always so neat and clean!!  How does he DO that?  I mean, I'm a perfectly healthy person (pretty much so, anyway) and I can't seem to keep on top of the clutter...  And he worked in health care - because of all the time he's spent as a patient, he makes a particularly good caregiver.  He has the utmost empathy...  And he's so darned smart.  Every once in awhile, I do something or figure something out and I say something like, "Hey, I think even Wes might have had trouble with that one!!"  A "tee-hee" follows...  Everyone knows what that means!

I just hope he knows how much I love him.  Love will always connect us.  But it's especially hard to know he's going through all this with all the miles between us.  Thank goodness he has Sally.  She's such a blessing.  But oh, she must be absolutely beside herself.  It takes me back to that first few days Mark was in the hospital last summer - honestly, I was convinced I was about to be a widow.  I felt like an emotional train wreck for about the first 48 hours... But Sally will get through this.  Her family is a great source of support, and we'll do whatever we can for her.

More later...