Tuesday...

As of about a half an hour ago, there are 61 confirmed cases of coronavirus here in Nebraska, and a 105 cases in Iowa. It doesn't seem to be spreading like wildfire, but of course without a lot of testing going on, one never knows. It still seems to be true that most of the cases are pretty mild, so there could be a lot of people walking around with it who don't even know it... who may just think that they have a cold or something. This is my 6th day of being home, though I wouldn't exactly call it isolation. That sounds so negative, and I really don't mind it... Not yet at least! I did go to the grocery store yesterday morning at 7 a.m. . They have a special time from 7 to 8 for anyone over 60, with health issues, or pregnant and I took advantage of that. There were perhaps 20 people waiting to get in at 7 a.m. and yet by the time I got to the toilet paper aisle, it was all gone! And that's about all I'm going to say today on this subject unless something radically changes...

I will move on to what is happening in the greenhouse. Since I'm going to have all this time on my hands, I'm going to go shelf by shelf and clean up plants and recite notes Here. I will start with one that was not in the greenhouse... I took down and watered verticillata this morning and she looks awesome! No hint of budding, but since it's been in the dining room, it hasn't been as forthcoming with blooms. And that's okay... It will bloom when it gets good and ready, and it's a fair trade-off to have such a pretty plant to look at when I spend so much time at the dining room table! Here she is and all of her glory...

First thing I did this morning was take my siggilatis which had gone from a decent-sized plant to one stem, thankfully with plenty of leaves, and potted it down into a small pot and hung it in the kitchen. I'm hoping it will take off this year. I decided to put it in the kitchen because the plants that are hanging there get looked after pretty diligently because they're in my face all the time. That will be good for this one!

So I number my shelves, so that on my plant database I can note where my Hoyas are located. The number one shelf is right inside the door and the numbers go left around the room. So I started with the number one shelf, and each unit has five shelves. I started with the 4th shelf from the bottom. Not that any of this makes a whole lot of difference I guess! But this particular shelf has my highest light plants because it faces south, so mostly succulents. So here are photos of the plants that I cleaned up this morning. First we have Sedeveria 'Blue Burrito'. 

I pulled four bottom leaves which I will plant tomorrow after they have a chance to sit out overnight. The point of this is to have new plants emerge at the base to create a fuller pot. There is one new sprout of new growth at the base of one of the plants. That will be very helpful in that endeavor as well!

Drimiopsis botyroides is a South African succulent bulb. I grow several species of Drimiopsis. This one didn't lose its leaves this winter and looks really good coming into spring. If I want to keep the leaves, I'll have to move it slowly into the sun. Many years, I just whack off all the leaves and let them restart in full sun, but since it looks so decent, I'll probably just put it on a lower shelf to begin with.

Pachyphytum oviferum is one of the very first succulents I ever grew, and I fell in love with it. It's common name is Moonstones, which I think fits it perfectly. It grows easily from a fallen leaf. 

Peperomia ferreyrae, which I don't really know much about... 

Jatropha berlandieri... I've never been particularly good with Jatrophas, so I'm feeling particularly impressed with myself for getting it through the winter without killing it! 

Scizobasis intricata is one of my favorite South African bulbs, but it is annoyingly prolific!! You'll notice the little white dried up sheaths where the seeds were. They open up and distribute seeds everywhere, and they come up in pots all around the plant. 

 The mass of bulbs from the top...

Last for that shelf is Crassula ovata 'Hobbit' with Haworthia cooperi as ground cover. As is kind of typical here, with our limited winter sun, The 'Hobbit' has gotten a bit leggy at the ends. Haworthias, of course, do fine in winter here and actually sometimes look better than they do typically in summer.

On the next shelf are couple of my Crown of Thorns. I have several, but these are the smaller varieties. They had lots of dead leaves on them which I got off before the photograph. They'll fill in come summer.

A week ago last Sunday, before all hell broke loose with this coronavirus thing, Kathy and I went to Des Moines to the Cactus Club meeting. We had it at a really cool greenhouse there, and the club gave each member a $10 credit towards plants to buy for a dish garden that we made for our meeting program. We brought our own dish, they provided soil and top dressing, and we could buy whatever plants we wanted to put in it. It was a really fun project! I have my new little dish garden on this shelf and this is what it looks like...

 The big red plant on the right is peperomia graveolens.  A closeup of the small plants...

The little succulent on the left is Sedum dasyphyllum minor and the one on the right is Sedum japonicum 'Tokyo Sun'.  

Also on this shelf is my small Crassula ovata 'Skinny Fingers'.  It's a little sparse right now, so I might whack it back this spring. I guess we'll see how I feel when I'm able to put it outside. I do love the trunk on this one!

Then I have a small Crassula ovata minima, in other words of miniature jade plant. I've got it growing in this adorable little homemade pot. I think it might have been made by my friend from the plant club who passed away some years back, BJ. She never marked her pots, so I'm not a hundred percent sure of that. Before I took the picture, I whacked a few leggy stems off of this. I hope it looks more tidy this year. I may do more whacking on it when it's time to go outside. In spite of being in a south window, it got leggy growth on it.

You can see the little grassy foliage in the bottom of the pot. Here's a close-up showing it's some of those bulbs that have seeded in there!

Just a few more for today... Two Hoyas that are on those first two shelves include Hoya rubra, which is a species closely related to carnosa. In fact some people put carnosa in the name, and I'm not sure what the true correct name is. I suspect it's Hoya carnosa rubra. I'm pretty sure that that's the name that it came with from Bob Smoley many many years ago as a freebie due to his slow shipping practices. This one has taken over that second from the top shelf, kind of back in the corner out of the direct sunlight.

Directly under it is Hoya bhutanica, a huge one that I got as a small rooted plant from Carol Noel many years ago. It's massive!

On the second shelf from the bottom is mostly rooting plants and what I call sickbay. So besides rooting plants are some that I'm having problems with. There aren't too many of those right now thankfully, so it's mostly just rooting plants. In addition to rooting  plants is Crassula arborescens called 'Blue Waves'. This one will eventually make a great bonsai plant...

Aloe striata is not one of my favorite Aloes, so I'm not sure how I ended up with it. This year, I may just pull it out of this pot and sell it. The other little spots in this pot have Haworthias in them, so I may just choose a big Haworthia to put in the top as well.

On the bottom two shelves are two of my three Hoya macrophyllas. At this point, I don't see signs of growth on either of them yet...

On the very top shelf is Senecio crassissimus, commonly known as vertical leaf. It's an interesting plant as the leaves literally are vertical! Last year, the main plant didn't look so hot so I chopped it up and started plants around it. It looks like the main plant did not grow back, so I will pull all these starts out this spring and pot them up and discard the mother plant, which is apparently dead.

And that's it for today!