Tues., May 11th

I'm getting ready to go to Plattsmouth to take Mom to Red Oak.  She called yesterday to tell me that they had put Sandy, her best friend, into Hospice and she wants to see her.  I was with Mom a week or so ago when she got a call from Sandy saying that she most likely wouldn't be able to make it to Mom's 80th birthday party, which is this coming weekend.  Mom had her on speaker phone and she sounded bad, almost like she was drunk (which she was not, I'm sure), even though she was making every attempt to sound cheerful.  She's such a nice lady... but both she and her husband have been having serious health issues lately.  He's got cancer they can't really do much about, and she's... well, mostly just aging out, I guess.  She's diabetic and I think has a lot of health issues related to that.  But she is in her mid-80s, which I guess is older than the national average of life length.  Well, this lady will be sorely missed...

I've been clearing off one of my shelves in the GH so that I can take it apart, which will give me the room to move the others around and give the GH a good cleaning this year.  Boy is it scroungy!  There are places in the corners that have a thin layer of black moldy gunk growing.  It needs a good scrub-down with some clorox water, and maybe in the future, I'll periodically spray those areas with a mold-inhibiting disinfectant.  Anyway, once I get it all cleaned up and before fall gets here, I'll replace the shelf. 

 

Wed., May 19th

Well, it's a week later - I intended to get back and write more and get this published.  But that day turned into a long one - we didn't get back to Omaha until after 5 p.m.  Sandy was surprisingly cheerful and seemed not bad at all, but that might have been a facade.  I hope we didn't stay too long, but she seemed to SO appreciate having Mom there.  Her daughter, Chris, was there... Chris is kind of a loser.  She's my sister's age so that would make her 58, and she an alcoholic that just got out of rehab, again.  Court ordered.  She is a serious, falling-down drunk.  Also there was Sandy's son (she has two that live on the east coast) and his daughter.  They were trying to figure out her finances because, get this, her husband's daughter packed him up and took her back east with her!  He's dying too, and according to Chris, she (his daughter) "drained the accounts" and took off.  I'm not so sure that's what happened - I suspect maybe Chris did it and blamed it on them.  Whatever the case, it's a mess and something poor Sandy should NOT have to think about at the end of her life.  It's just... SAD...

I took today off to go a follow-up with Dr. Tierney, the doc who did my hysterectomy.  Without going into gory detail, I had (uh-hum) SOMEthing exit my hoo-hah a couple weeks ago that I suspect is something they left behind after surgery.  It was perfectly square, which doesn't seem like something that would naturally be in there!  I called his office to ask if perhaps there could be something that might have been left in there to (for example) absorb discharge, or like a gauze bandage to cover where it got "closed up" with (I assume) stitches.  No, she said, shouldn't be anything like that in there.  She said she would ask the doc and get back to me.  I got radio silence for several days, then she called me back and said he'd like to see me at the 6 week mark, "just to make sure everything is healing properly."  He told me at my last visit that he used to do 6 week check-backs, but he quit doing that because it seemed unnecessary.  Well, I think he might suspect what I suspect and wants to make sure there's nothing else in there!  LOL!

On to a more fun subject!  I recently had my first trade in some time.  Actually, I sold this lady some cuttings, but she had 3 that I wanted so it was a sale AND a trade.  I got a replacement for my tsangii (YAY!!!), a pub called 'Jungle Garden' that has some beautiful coloring (maybe it will keep it, maybe it won't...), and the third was supposed to be Dee's Big One, but it wasn't.  It was something Logee's sells as Dee's Big One that is NOT! It's a very nice clone of carnosa, I'm pretty sure.  But it's ok - not this lady's fault.  I was telling Karin in my cactus club about it and she has apparently gotten that from Logee's as well, so I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who think they have a Dee's that don't...  But that put me on a hunt for the real deal.  I tried sending Awanda (who I got mine from about a dozen years ago) a message through FB but didn't get a response.  So I went on Etsy and I'm pretty sure I found it.  The seller wanted $49 for a rooted cutting - well, I've been hard-pressed to pay that much for a Hoya (though that's cheap compared to what some people are willing to pay!) so I threw out the idea of a trade.  At first, she said she'd be willing to trade for a 'Michelle'.  I felt like saying, "Yeah, I BET you would!!"  I saw one of those from Ric go for over $1000!  I told I do grow it, but I call her "that bitch, Michelle" because she drops baby leaves - maybe one in 10 make it to maturity, so it never seems to get bigger.  If I get one or two leaves a season, I'm thrilled!  But I told her what I do have that she might want to consider and she liked lobbii, so I gave her two cuttings of lobbii for the Dee's.  (And I threw in some Dischidia nr. Burma as a surprise...)  This is her first trade (wow, really??!) and she's very excited.  Me too!

But I'm glad she chose lobbii because when I went to shoot her a photo, I noticed mealybugs!!  YIKES!  So I took it out to the back porch (wow, was THAT a chore - that is one crazy-ass big plant!) and shot all the mealies with alcohol, washed it down good and brought it back in and gave it a drink of bug poison (BATS).  I hope that wipes out the buggers!

Two of my three H. macrophyllas are putting on new growth, and both set 3 new leaves together!  Wonder what that's about?!  I'm not complaining, mind you, they're beautiful.  But the problem is that they STOP with the three leaves instead of a vine continuing to grow. Now I want some vines! Here's the ones in the sunroom - I think they're done growing - 2nd photo is a closeup of the biggest leaf showing how the silvery flecking looks like a fine snowfall with an occasional big odd flake!

And this is the one in the greenhouse, showing the back of the leaves because I couldn't get a good photo from the side facing the window...

 

Those are still growing - they keep that deep bronze color until they're full grown and start to mature.  Just waiting on the third one to start growing.  I may just put that one outside this summer...

H. pubicalyx 'Pink Dragon' has a single open umbel...first photo is a closeup without the flash, second is with a flash...

And the plant is getting new growth in at least two different places!  So I guess it's out of the funk it seemed to be in last fall.  Maybe it was just typical dormancy...  'Black Dragon', on the other hand, it, well EH.  I whacked it up and put cuttings in two different glass jars of leca and rooted a third in soil.  The ones in leca have tiny growth nubbins, but it's going to take a LOT of growing out to hide the old yellowish leaves!  The one in soil, on the other hand, is doing fantastic and actively growing.  

It's been raining off and on for the last three days, and rain seems to be in the forecast for the next several days.  I've gotten all but a few plants out - I'm trying to decide which of my Hoyas to hang in the tree this year.  I did already put variegated mac out.  It needs to be renewed, and a lot of it is trying to revert back to green.  I took some of the green cuttings off to start to eventually sell and I'll probably take more off.  It's got a vine with green leaves that it putting on new growth and I want to wait to see if the new growth is all green or if it comes back to being variegated before I whack it off...

A few weeks ago, I repotted H. siamica into a bigger pot.  That little bugger has been in the same 2.5" pot for YEARS, in my kitchen window.  It has done ok, but never been a big grower. But it dries out fast, and I thought maybe it just needs more root-room to take off, so I moved it to a 4" pot and put it back in its spot.  Well, I can see at least 3 placed with new growth!  Maybe this will be it's year!

It's a sweet little plant with hairy leaves (though you can't tell from the photo).  I apparently lost notes on where it came from, but I just did a search of my blog and found I got it from Joni in 2012.  Apparently, I ordered a dozen from her in late November and the box got "lost" for over a week.  Of the dozen I ordered, I still have 4 and this is one of them.  Now I understand why it's been a slow one - Joni's plants were always weak - she would take cuttings from newish growth, which really isn't a good idea.  New growth is strong when it's connected to the mother plant, but take it away from the mother and it STRUGGLES to root.  Well, think about it - it's putting all its energy into growing and suddenly, it has to stop and put its energy into rooting.  I think it stunts them and it can take them a long time to recover and start growing again.  Anyway, I think after nearly 10 years, it's going to be a productive plant now!

Well, I need to get some stuff done.  It's stopped raining for the moment and I need to decide on more Hoyas to go out to enjoy the rain!