Friday

Well, today I'll talk about the weather first. We've had several days in a row of really nice weather, anywhere from the 50s and up, Wednesday was in the low 70s. Some of them even sunny! Yesterday started out warm, 55 degrees in the morning when I got up. Around noon it was nearly 65, but then within an hour or so the temp plummeted to around 50, and by 5:00 it was in the 30s. And this morning I get up and there's a skiff of snow on the ground! Bummer!

Now on to the coronavirus statistics today. As of 8 a.m. this morning, there are 273 cases in Nebraska and we've had a sixth death. Today I looked up the breakdown to see where it's most concentrated. Of course I knew that Omaha had the most cases... The last time I remember looking it was 140 in Omaha, and today it's 143... Not a significant change there. Sarpy County, which includes our suburbs, is another 23, which I think you kind of have to throw in with the Omaha statistics. Washington County, which is just north of us, has 19. You kind of have to throw that in to Omaha as well because so many people from that county work in Omaha. Lincoln, which is 50 miles away and a nice size city of around 60,000 or so, only has 12. (Note inserted: imagine my shock when I looked up Lincoln's population to find out it's 284,000!!!!) Now that kind of surprises me because a lot of people commute from Lincoln as well, not necessarily to work here but for business in Omaha. Then we have Hall County which includes Grand Island, which I'm pretty sure is the second largest city in Nebraska. Over a hundred thousand I think... (Another note inserted: again, my shock is registered that GI has a population of only 51,000!) I lived there briefly in 1979 and it's a good-sized city.  (Not so much!) They have 19 cases. The county that includes Kearney, which is a college town, only has 8. Not bad for a lot of young people who probably are hard to keep at home. Maybe they shut the university down early enough that it didn't have a chance to get its hold there. Then the last one I checked was the county that includes North Platte, which is another good-sized city, probably about like Lincoln.  (Not even close... about 24,000, half of GI!!) They have 13 cases. The rest are 2 or 3 here and there around the state.

I have bookmarked a page from the University of Washington, The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. They have projections state by state. They're showing the peak will be April 15th, and that is the nationwide peak. Each state has its own peak, so I guess what that means is that overall, the worst of it will happen on the 15th of this month. Of course, they update this daily according to what the true statistics are actually showing. They are basing these statistics on the current situation, and since that can change according to how we follow instructions, we can affect the outcome by doing what we're supposed to do.

According to the Nebraska statistics,  in the end we'll have 447 coronavirus deaths. Our peak day will be the 23rd of April with 15 deaths on that day. Using around 2%, which seems to be about the maximum death rate with this, it looks like they're projecting that we will have around 24,000 cases of coronavirus in Nebraska before it's all through. Sounds like a lot!  Now these "end stats" are as of August 4th, so that does not mean we'll have 24,000 cases by our peak date...

Back to my plants... and finishing up in my bedroom... First we have wibergiae, another species that has nice markings. I got it as a cutting from Ric in 2013, and it seems to have taken off the last couple of years. It seems to like the window in my bedroom.

Hoya Michelle is one of those that I got from Carol about three years ago, one of three hybrids that she was selling for $33 a cutting! I lost the other two, and almost lost this one as well. Last year, I whacked off a piece because it wasn't doing well and put it in a large seashell. That one is doing fine, and this photo is of the original one. It hasn't grown, but the leaves are fat and happy. I see a teeny tiny green nubbin poking through the stem up close to the soil, so I think it's getting ready to grow!

DS-70 is an old favorite.  This is my smaller (and healthier) one. Leaves are nice and plump and it's even got a new vine!

Cardiophylla is a beauty with shiny, medium-large leaves.  I got it from Colorado Kathy in 2012. It's been a fast grower!

I got meredithii x crassicaulis in 2010 from Gardino's. The leaves are spectacularly patterned!

Verticillata albomarginata (or variegata) is my favorite of all the variegated I grow, which is probably why I have two of them. One hangs in my bedroom, and the other one is on the bottom shelf in the greenhouse growing in hydroton.

Hoya juannguoiana is another one I got from Dee in 2011. It was a little bit stubborn for me in the beginning, but it is turned into quite the beauty! However, this last early fall the leaves started to dehydrate. Not all of them mind you. So I took cuttings from the dehydrated stems and put them in four different pots. They have rooted nicely and only one has started to grow so far. I took more cuttings of others that were dehydrating and they're rooting. And there are still some dehydrating leaves, so I'm not sure if it's going to make it. But the weird part is that there are nice newer plump leaves right beside and on the same stem as the dehydrated leaves. I just don't know what to think of it. So I'm done cutting on it and we'll set it outside this spring. I'll probably keep a couple of the rooted cuttings and start a new plant just in case this one doesn't make it.

Hoya lacunosa is a favorite amongst a lot of people. The fragrance of the flowers is to die for! I've had many of them over the years, the Exotic Angel kind, and they always eventually die. I've never been sure if it's the soil that it comes in or something else about it. The one I currently have I got from Mulhall's a year or so ago. It was nice and full, and I put it in my mix. But every time I take it down, I have to cut off dead stuff. Some of it looks terrific, but there's always dead stuff in there. So it shrinks and shrinks... It's down to about 55 or 60% of what it used to be. And this one has yet to bloom for me.

This next one is Rhipsalis agudoensis, and it really seems like the bright reflected light in the bathroom. It hasn't bloomed, but it sure does look nice.

This is the first subquintplinervis I got from Ted Green in 2008. For the first several years, I fought some kind of fungus or something that kept coming back. It appeared on the underside of the leaves and it was like a dirty, crusty stuff. I would clean it off and a few weeks later it would be back. I can't really tell you when I finally got rid of it for good, but I think it was with diligence and perhaps using alcohol repeatedly to clean it off. Once it was gone, the plant seemed to thrive. Like all from the pottsii complex, it doesn't grow terribly fast.

As long as I'm showing plants hanging in the bathroom,  here is the whole inconspicua. I know a few days ago I posted photos of the flowers, but I left out a picture of the whole plant.

A couple from the kitchen... This first one may be nervosa. That's why the question mark. This is another one that isn't on my list, probably because of the unsure identification, but I think if I remember correctly it's one that came from Marco. I seem to recall that it's one that he got at his local market and sent to me, and either had no ID or the ID didn't seem right to me. If I'm correct, it's the one that I posted a photo of and nervosa was the ID that came back, but it wasn't definitive. And few are until they bloom. Well, it didn't do real well for me right in the beginning, which is really typical of rooted plants that come from Florida. They're just never very happy to come to Nebraska! Typically, it takes a year to 18 months for rooted plants from Florida to adjust to our Northern climate. Anyway, it has three of the original leaves and all are nice and healthy. However there are no signs of new growth. But I have a feeling this will be the year!

And last one for today is another questionable species. At least I can narrow it down to one of two... Unfortunately, I did not mark it when I took the cutting. It's either a cutting off of my aldrichii that I lost a couple of years ago or it's a cutting off of my ridgida which I still have. I'm hopeful that it is the aldrichii. I lost the aldrichii to a fungus so if it is that species, I just hope that the fungus doesn't show up again. However, on the positive side it has two new leaves!