Plants, plants!

Friday 7/13

Almost everything is growing now.  All except my stubborn deykeae.  The little bastard knows very well that it's probably my FAVORITE of all, and it refuses to give me the pleasure of new growth.  I took a deep breath and put it out in the greenhouse.  Let me explain... I got deykeae as a cutting in 2009.  It rooted fast, but didn't grow at all the first year.  The next year, it put on just a bit of new growth... maybe 2 or 3 sets of leaves.  I was thrilled, because by then, I had fallen in LOVE with the gorgeous leaves, and the new ones were spectacular!  Each year, it has only put on a little new growth, and as it branched, I might get 6 new sets of leaves instead of only 3.  But in about year 2 or 3, there was a post on GW about deykeae, and a very experienced grower commented that this was a very difficult species to grow!  OH NO!  Not my favorite Hoya!  I was so afraid that it would all of a sudden die on me that I didn't DARE move it from the spot where it was "thriving".  So in the nine years I've had it, it has always set in the same exact spot on a shelf in my sunroom, facing east.  Now that it's July and still hasn't hinted at growing, I decided to take a leap of faith and put it in the GH where it will get the heat and sun that (maybe) it's craving.  Marco's is growing gangbusters, so maybe that's what it needs...  Added the next day... Guess what?  I see 2, maybe 3 new growth points on my deykeae!  I guess it worked!

I took cuttings of my pubicalyx 'Bright One' and got them potted up to root and eventually sell.  It's gotten so large, and it just doesn't grow as pretty as 'Pink Silver'.  Of course, at least it blooms pretty easy, unlike 'PS'.  Who knows... I may KEEP the rooted cuttings and get rid of the big plant.

And speaking of getting rid of big plants...  I took down both of my nicholsoniaes and cleaned them up.  They both sit on the top shelf in the GH and are a bit difficult to wrestle down, so it doesn't get done very often.  The leaves were SO dusty and I wiped each one individually.  It cleaned up beautifully!  Here's the bigger one:

I found several new baby leaves and growth points.  I gate it a good VF-11 bath and put it back up.  The smaller one has just one point of new growth.  I think I'll either whack it up to sell, or I may take that one to the tri-club meeting in September to put in the auction.  I do NOT plan to put a bunch of smaller ones in the auction because I got royally screwed last year!

On the other hand, I've sent out three boxes of plants so far this year.  I've got a bunch of small plants that will be ready to go a little later this summer.  I decided to let them grow out a bit to make a little more money.  I've got a nice variety though, as usual, nothing rare.  

Off the subject of plants for a minute... I had one of my favorite bracelets break on me a couple weeks ago at work.  I was so upset - it's purple and just really pretty.  Well, I went on Etsy and found someone who makes jewelry and found a bracelet I wanted to buy, and I asked her if she would be willing to repair (if possible) my broken bracelet and sent her a photo. She said she would fix it for $5!  Wow...  Well, I ended up buying two bracelets from her AND she repaired my favorite one.  They came in the mail yesterday and I'm so pleased!  This one is even prettier in person than it was in the photo:

 The other I had her make to my specs from another one.  The one in her photo was a Sagittarius in blue, and I wanted mine (of course) a Scorpio in red...

 She did an excellent job!

Saturday 7/14

This morning, I got up early and potted 4 rooted macrophylla cuttings from a community pot into individual pots so they can get settled in, grow and be ready to sell by fall.  Next on my agenda is to repot the variegated Sanseveria, which has a new shoot on one side of the pot.  I'm going to cut up the one large leaf that's left to make cuttings.  I had some cuttings of another Sans that I rooted last fall, and they sprouted baby Sans from those leaves.  They're so adorable! 
This whole plant isn't more than 1.5 inches across:

I checked the cuttings from the 'Krimson Princess' Marco sent me today.  One had rooted - none of the others are even HINTING at rooting, but they're not totally dehydrated, so I stuck them in water.  The one that rooted I put in with the mama plant and hope it will take off out in the summer heat.  I'm hoping for some new growth on the KP before summer's end.  I know it takes awhile to get settled in to new pot, new (different) soil, and in a new environment.  Fingers crossed that the other 3 cuttings root.  It's possible they were too "pink"... Marco commented that the pink stemmed ones don't like to root.  We'll see.  I seem to have pretty good luck rehydrating wrinkly cuttings in water...

Tomorrow, I'm going to the Des Moines club meeting.  So maybe more another day next week...