Went to Vegas this last week - my first time there EVER, and probably my last.  It was worth making the one trip, mind you - it's just not my bag.  I'm not much of a gambler, though I took a pile o' money and came back with almost all of it (I played plenty, too!), I still got bored with it pretty fast.  We were only there from Tues. morning about 9:00 until Thurs. about noon, yet it was about 24 hours more than I would have cared to be there myself.  We did, however, go see Terry Fator, a really great ventriloquist!  Wow, it was a fabulous show!  Merry really wanted to go see one of the "all male reviews" and was not real enthusiastic about seeing a ventriloquist, so I bought her ticket and I'm so glad I did!  She enjoyed it every bit as the rest of us and was even talking about taking Rick back to see the show as they will be back there for a business thing next month...

So it's been a good summer for my plants.  So good, in fact, that I am definitely going to have to find homes for a LOT of stuff this fall to make room for what I can not live without.  I probably added 25 or so Hoyas to my collection.  All cuttings, for the most part, but they rooted nicely and most have started to grow.  And of course all my other stuff has been growing by leaps and bounds.  Hoya fungii is reaching across the greenhouse as well as Hoya aldrichii.

 And aldrichii has been a-bloomin' it's head off!...

 Another first time bloomer is 'Bright One', the pubicalyx in my bedroom:

So I've been looking at Hoyas on eBay - not to buy, mind you, but I'm thinking about selling some there and I'm trying to get an idea of what I can ask for them.  Well, I found one that looks like my noID and I wanted to note it somewhere so that when it blooms, I can check it out.  It's sp. Bangkok Red.  I guess we'll see when it blooms...

Publishing this nearly a month after I started it.  I have to stop leaving them as drafts then publishing later, making it old news!  LOL... I'll continue on here and publish when I'm done...

Sooo, new in the last month?  This last Tuesday, we (Mom, Merry & I) went down to Pilot Grove cemetery in Iowa.  That's where my grandparents (my Dad's parents) are buried.  Back in 2004 when my Dad died, we had him cremated and had a memorial plaque put on the back of their gravestone.  We had one made for Wes this spring to put next to Dad's.  It turned out really beautiful...

When he was cremated, Merry got us each a pendant with a little tube inside to hold a bit of a loved one's ashes.  Those have "always in our hearts" on it, which really says it all.  I really miss him SO much!  I can't hardly believe that it will be one year since we lost him on August 26th...  Time is a weird thing.  Seems like it couldn't be a whole year in so many respects, but at the same time, if feels like a lifetime ago.  But I still feel him all the time, so I'm thankful for that.



My white Epiphyllum bloomed and actually had two together that it kept long enough into morning for me to get a shot...

Nice, huh?! They usually look spent by morning.  I had set my alarm to go take a photo in the middle of the night, but when it went off, I said "aww, screw it" and went back to sleep.  I lucked out!  This is out on the front porch.  It's one of the shelving units I use in the GH, and I roll it onto the front porch in the spring.  Why?  Because this Epi has gotten so large and so entangled in the wire shelves that I would have to cut it down to take it out.  I've also got a very large Hoya ('Red Buttons') on the top shelf I leave undisturbed, too.  I may have to do some whacking on that one in the next couple years!

Then at work, we have this massive Pony Tail Palm.  We've had it several years, and winter of 2012/2013, I moved it up into a much larger pot, then we put it out on the patio last summer.  It didn't do much - I think it was getting settled in the new pot - then when we brought it in to my office in the fall, Mark broke the top off of it.  Well, in all honesty, I'd been wanted to "top it" anyway, but Mom seemed less-than-thrilled with the idea.  I left it that way through the winter and was just very careful not to water it much at all.  Then, this spring. I whacked it.  I mean, REALLY whacked it!  And it sat there, and sat there, and sat there.  And NOW, it's finally getting all kinds of sprouts right below the whacking point.  Here's the whole thing, to show the size...

 

...and here's a closeup of the new sprouts...

 

And now we're finding more sprouts lower down, too.  I think it's going to turn into quite a show plant!  I have a much smaller one I did this to years ago (that I need to repot this fall...) and it got this big, full "head" of foliage.  

Then a week or so ago, I whacked my oldest kerrii.  I've had this plant for at least 20 years, I'm sure.  And I've started several from it, I've got another nice-sized one I grow that came from this one.  And the older foliage on this one was looking... well, old and ugly to be honest. It had new growth that looked good, mind you, so my intent was to whack off the newer stuff and start cuttings to sell, then toss out the stump and old ugly foliage since I have another nice sized one.  (I also have a fairly large "hairy" kerrii, and a good sized veined clone, too!)  Well, I whacked away and whacked away, and cut off the old stuff so I could get it in trash bags - if you grow kerrii, you know what I mean.  The vines are super-stiff and you can't bend them, so I was chopping it up to make it fit in trash bags.  I got down to the basic stump, and right there at the soil line were three brand new leaves at three different growth points!  I didn't expect to find brand new growth on a 20-year-old woody stump like that!  I couldn't bring myself to throw it out.  Check out the 3 new leaves and the sheer SIZE of that old stump!!

You know, though, now that I think about it, I threw a bit of compost on it a month or two ago.  This spring, we had a guy talk to our cactus club about the benefits of compost - not in relation to indoor plants, mind you, but in relation to gardening in general, and the lawn.  He offered samples in 2 liter jugs and I brought one home, and I put some (several tablespoons) on a few of my very old plants that are just too big and cumbersome to repot into bigger pots.  And I also started a cutting and marked it.  The cutting rooted and grew remarkably fast, and I've been impressed with how that older bigger plants I used it on are doing, too.  But I'm thinking maybe this is why kerrii produced new growth on this old woody stuff.  Hmmm...

Chuck Hanson gave me a couple Dischidia cuttings.  One has done very well, D. complex...

A very cute little species.  I should probably move it to a smaller pot, which I'll do before I bring it inside.  The other one...mmm, hasn't done so well.  It's D. platyphylla...

It's been months now and it hasn't rehydrated, so I threw it in with the ones I'm trying to grow mounted, because they seem to be doing so well.  (Surprisingly!!)  Maybe it'll take, maybe it won't.  These shingle-type ones can be a bitch to grow. 

So this spring, I decided to mount the one shingle-type Dischidia I've been growing in pots with other plants, and I got a new one from Jan that can be grown either way.  I put that piece of cork bark I got a couple years ago in a small tub, with some orchid bark under and around it.  Then I soaked it - put water in the sub and just let it sit to get good and wet.  Then I put the new and old Dischidias on there (including cuttings from one I grow in my kitchen) and left it on the front porch.  I told Mark when he goes out there to smoke, he should use the spray bottle and wet it all down, and he's been doing that at least a couple times every day.  Well, that must be about perfect because the new Dischidia seems to have rooted and has remained perfectly hydrated, and the old cuttings seem to be rooting as well.  The old shingle-type seems, well, like it's maintaining.  I haven't seen any new growth yet, but it looks (I think) like it's supposed to look, at least.  Here is a photo of the whole thing, and you can see the old shingle-type down along the bottom of the photo...

In the upper right corner is a piece of the one I've been growing in a pot in my kitchen.  I think that one is acuminata.  The really green one is the one I got from Jan, D. cleistantha (maybe a hybrid?)  But check it out - it's so happy, it has flower buds!...

Fun fun!  So it seems to be working.  We'll see if we can maintain it through the winter, though...

Anyway, that's about all today.  More soon!