Today...

Tues. 3/21:  Worked my ASS off today...  I worked on those bhutanica cuttings.  I got the rootball out of the old pot and filled it with new soil, stuffed as many of the nicest cuttings as I could into the old pot as possible, then started potting up the leftover cuttings.  They made 23 pots!!  Whoa... I wasn't expecting that!  But I'll have plenty of opportunity to sell them this summer between on-line sales and the Plattsmouth farmer's market.  I'm anxious to see how that goes...

Fri. 3/24:  I didn't get back to this as I had planned.  But I got a lot done.  I filled up those new shelves to overflowing with cuttings.  I have a little space in one flat on the second shelf, which I just added 4 cuttings of onychoides to.  And I have a few more spots on the bottom shelf.  Next I'm going to take down the macgillivrayii and take some cuttings off of it.  My thought is taking some cuttings early like this will hopefully inspire both of those late-starters to kick in and start groing early.  I sure wish I could inspire both of them to bloom!!

Today, I'm starting on the newsletter, so I will be bouncing back and forth between that, blogging and working on watering and cuttings.  On Wednesday, I was watering and came across my pot of Drimiopsis botyroides that's been in dire need of unpotting, separating and potting up individually.  I've been thinking I would do this with several of my SA bulbs that are really over-running me.  My thought was that it would be a good time to sell them at the Men's Club event in May, and whatever's left can go to the farmer's market.  Well, I got the clump out of the pot and discovered there are probably 100 or more bulbs in there, stacked 3 deep!  So I ordered 200 tiny 2" pots and they should be here today.  It's going to be a real chore, but I looked it up and I see that there are places selling those exact bulbs for $10 to $18 apiece!  Sheesh - I'd be perfectly happy to get a couple bucks for each one!

Just got done taking cuttings from macgillivrayii - I got 14 potted up!  I really whacked it back.  I figure I have two more smaller ones and I don't need so many.  And I can make good money on that one.

And the 2" pots came, so I started on those Drimiopsis bulbs.  I think I estimated pretty close - I got 49 of them potted up and it looks like I got through about half of them.  I'm exhausted!  I'll finish them tomorrow and have a firm number then.  I really need to "move out" last year's plants to make room!!  But now it's at least starting to get warm during the day, so I'll probably just put the Drimiopsis bulbs out every day until it's warm enough to leave them out...

3/25:  I finished potting up the Drimiopsis bulbs - they made 89 pots and probably half of them had 2 bulbs, and a few 3, so there were way more than a hundred!  And that doesn't count the 14 Schizobasis bulbs that were in there as well.  Let me correct that - 14 POTS of Schizobasis bulbs.  Some of those pots had more than one as well...  I put them outside again today, so in the next 6 weeks, they should get to looking pretty terrific and hopefully even grow.  Oh, and that number didn't include the 4 biggest bulbs I put in a pot to keep for myself!

I also repotted the Hoya monetteae into a deep/tall cermic pot.  It's going to be a crazy heavy plant.  And guess what?  It has new growth!  I'm so pumped - is has a set of baby leaves forming on one side of the node, and another (what looks like) single leaf forming on the other side of the node.  

Last Sunday, I got several plants at Bedwell's in Des Moines when the cactus club had their meeting there.  One was a huge Albuca spiralis bulb!  It was in a hanging pot (stupid) so I took it out and put it in a clay pot, hoping that will help it dry out between waterings.  It has a nice "head" of curly-cues and a flower spike.  It's a nice one!  Cost $20, but I'd say that's not that bad for it's size.  The bulb itself is about 4" in diameter! (The pot is a 6" pot...)

It takes a LOT of sun to keep the leaves curly, so I put it on the top shelf in the GH and will put it outside as soon as it's warm enough.

I also got a Crassula I've never heard of - C. orbiularis v. Rolularis.  A very strange plant! It was in full bloom, lots of dainty flower spikes with a little ball of flowers dangling at the top.  The flowers are pretty much done now, but I got a good pic of the plant:

What's really weird about it is that it gets all this additional growth in the center.  I picked one that didn't have all the extra growth in the center so I could watch it form.  It almost looks like it's spitting out pups right in the middle of the plant!  And I notice it looks like it MAY have a baby plant on one of the flower spikes!  Very odd...

3/26:  Today is snowing!  I won't be able to put all those baby bulbs out today, that's for sure.  Though they are predicting it will reach 41, so it will likely melt off pretty quickly.

 

4/6: Obviously, I didn't get back to this and a lot has happened since that very brief post on 3/26.  The Friday before the 26th, Mom had an MRI to determine the size of the cancer mass.  Then the next Monday, she had a PET scan to determine if the cancer had spread.  On Tuesday, we had a follow up the the radiation oncologist to go over the results of the PET scan - she has the anal cancer and cancer in one of her lungs.  Ever since her surgery (her colostomy), she's had this problem with food going down.  Not a problem with swallowing, mind you, but it's as if it's getting "stuck" halfway down.  It had gotten to the point that she couldn't eat anything solid.  As it turns out, they said that the cancer in her lung is pressing against her esophagus and kind of squeezing it closed.  She can take tiny drinks and get a little down, but she has to be very careful to give each drink time to go all the way to her stomach or it "piles up" and causes great pain.  She's pretty miserable when this happens.  So as a result, she just isn't eating anything solid at all, and she isn't drinking much either.  

So today, she started on hospice.  The nurse comes Monday and a "helper"... someone who can help her with showers and other needs... will come on Thursday.  We are able to increase visits as the process goes along and we need more help.  They are such amazing people - I can't say enough about the kindness and supportive nature of the people in hospice.  I think it will give Mom some peace of mind to know that they are here for us... and I do mean US.  I think she worries about how this will effect me, but I just want her to have an easy journey into her transition.  I don't want it to be hard for her.  I mean, it hasn't been easy, these last few months, and I'm just grateful she's here and I can help her through this.  And I don't want her to worry about me.  When she came to live with me a year ago (yes, it's already been a year!!!), my gut told me that she wasn't far from her transition.  I had seen some very big changes in the way she moves, her steadiness, her eating habits.  Maybe if she had come to live with me sooner it would have delayed the process a little... I guess we'll never know.  I'm just glad she's here now.

Ok, so on to my favorite distraction... plants.  Last Sunday, my cactus club went to Lincoln to a couple nurseries for a "field trip."  It was a fun day.  I bought a few plants and a few pots - managed to spend about $75!  Urban Trails is a really nice nursery.  Very well kept, very organized, lot's of variety, plants well tagged though not always accurate (as with most little nurseries).  The other one we went to, Oak Creek, has more tropicals, more common stuff, a few Hoyas, again often mislabeled, not as organized and not as well kept.  But a nice place.  

There's so much going on with my Hoyas, it's hard to know where to start!  My shepherdell  hasn't grown much in a couple years and not only that, it started losing leaves last fall and shed quite a few over the winter.  It wasn't a bunch at once.  It's just each week, I'd find two or three on the floor, or a couple yellowing leaves on the plant.  I was worried it was not going to make it through the winter.  Then it stopped about a month or two ago.  And now I find 5 or 6 super tiny leaves right up close the the soil line.  Absolutely NOTHING on any of the hanging stems.  But I'd rather have them up close to the soil line anyway because it makes the plant look fuller.  I'm excited!

The top photo is the biggest leaf.  All the others look like the bottom photo.  Very tiny, very fragile.  

This morning, I discovered my meredithii (formerly vitellinioides) has a tiny new pair of leaves and (hopefully) a vine.  I took 4  cuttings of it last fall because some of the leaves had, for some reason, developed crispiness along the edges.  I have one more leaf I need to remove from the plant for it to look pristine again, but I've been procrastinating...

 

It's even more exciting when I see it blown up like that!

And I'm off to see how Mom is doing and if she needs anything... More soon.