What's going on...

I'm opening a new post and will leave it open a few days while I putter around with my plants, recording the goings-on as I go.  So far today, we have Hoya pubicalyx 'Philippine Black' is still blooming after 10 days or so.  I walked into the GH one evening and the scent knocked me over.  I had seen it budding up but did not realize it had opened until then.  And it's still hanging in there, though I'm not detecting the scent like I was before.  This one reminds me of a mix of 'Royal Hawaiian Purple' (the flower) and 'Pink Silver' (the leaves).  It's just lovely...

Then this morning, when I found a first-timer, one I got last summer as H. patcharawalai (icensis).  It's leaves remind me of the pottsii group, but less oppressively succulent.  It's said to get black margins, though I have yet to notice that one mine.  Here's the flower:

I have to admit I do like the colors and how far back the coronas reflex.  It's cute!

I started chopping up my old 'RHP'.  I got a new one a couple years ago, a much nicer clone, and it's doing very well.  The old one is rather gnarly and needs a re-start.  I look forward to seeing how it grows out this spring once it gets rooted.  

I have a few losses... one is the crested Crown of Thorns.  Crests are so touchy.  I'm sure I under-watered it and that's all it took for it to collapse.  I might have lost the Hoya 7727.  It's becoming very dehydrated, so I put it in a zip lock bag to see if I can get it to re-hydrate.  It does work sometimes, so I'm hopeful.  It's funny because Colorado Kathy sent me a start of that fall of 2022 and it grew nicely for me last year.  Not by leaps and bounds, mind you, but it did well.  She contacted mid-summer and said she had lost hers, could I send her a little start back, and I got it started and sent it to her last fall.  Will I have to ask her for a start of her start from my start that was from her plant?  LOL!

Another one I think I've pretty much lost is Hoya australis ssp. tenuipes.  I've grown that one for years and it got very crazy and out of control at one point and I whacked it up.  Last year, I think I got rid of all that I had for sale and was down to one smaller plant.  Well, I put it in a spot where I forgot to water it for some time and I think it's toast.  But it's a pretty common one and I'm sure I can get a start from either Karin or Kathy if I want.  I just have to decide if I want it back.  I'm trying to be more selective about what I grow, and perhaps get rid of most of my duplicates...

All the plants on the shelf in the south window sure look terrific after a winter in the sun.  And I think every one of them has new growth - well, all but H. deykeae, which grows so painfully slow...It must be that it is simply not happy in the midwest because it seems to grow like a weed for Marco in Florida.  I've had my original one for over a dozen years and if I get one set of new leaves each year, I'm happy.  I've had years when it didn't grow an iota.  Mind you, it looks good, looks healthy... it just doesn't like to actually grow.  Marco has sent me up cuttings and they root fine and then just sit there.  I've got one in the sunroom and one in the front window this year.  Maybe I'll hit them with a double-shot of VF-11 now that we're coming into spring.

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Veering away from plants for a quick rant... On the news, they've been talking about the fact that DT is talking about pardoning all those who went to prison for the Jan. 6th insurrection once he gets in office.  Didn't he deny that he incited that day?  Didn't he deny thinking it was ok?  And now he's calling those violent criminals "patriots"?  And his followers continue to follow him.  And he talks about how "there will be a bloodbath" if he doesn't get into office.  And his followers continue to follow him.  Revenge and retribution seems to be all he talks about.  And his followers continue to follow him.  I'm simply stunned at what has become of our country.  I only pray that after November, our biggest problem is worrying about the "old guy" making it another 4 years. 

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Before I go back to plants, I started taking collagen about a year ago and noticed a few months ago that my hair has started growing fast and the texture has felt more like the old days.  My intent in taking it was to counteract my hair that's been thinning on top.  I know it's very common for women to have this problem as hormone levels decline with age, but it sucks.  I was starting to consider wearing a "wiglet" and even bought a couple, but getting them to blend with my hair takes a lot of work, and then if you get out in one of our typical midwest winds, won't it be obvious you have on a wiglet??  Anyway, it's definitely making my hair grow and MAY even be helping it fill in a little on top, though it's certainly not growing at the rate the rest of it is growing.  But a few months ago, I decided since I'm taking collagen that I would quit taking the Knox gelatin I've been taking for many years.  The stuff in that is essentially collagen, so I figured why double up.  Well, apparently there's some benefit in Knox that doesn't come in collagen because oh how my joints have been hurting!  It finally occurred to me that it might be because I haven't been taking the Knox.  So I looked it up and this is what it says about gelatin:

Gelatin is a protein that may promote skin, joint, hair, nail, and gut health. It also provides essential amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, which can provide potent health benefits. The protein and amino acids in gelatin can help the body build more collagen, a vital element in healthy skin.

So I'm back to taking it... just the last couple days, but I somehow think I can feel it already.  I really kind of missed it.  I put it in a hot cup of beef broth - I use the Tone beef base I get from Sams and then use maybe 2 tablespoons of Knox.  It's funny because I've done this for probably at least  a dozen years and a few years ago, taking "bone broth" was suddenly all the rage.  And so you can buy "bone broth" and it's pretty freakin' expensive.  It's exactly the same thing - it's all about marketing!

This last Sunday was the DM cactus club meeting, and it was their annual trip to a nursery there in Norwalk called Bedwell's Gardens.  We do a dish garden.  You can bring your own pot or buy one there, and then the club gives us a $10 credit toward plants to put in our dish gardens.  Bedwell's supplies the soil, substrate (for pots w/o drainage holes...pebbles, charcoal...) and top dressing.  So it's about creativity more or less.  I decided to buy a pot there this year because I think it's good to give them support because they're so kind to host this every year.  Here's the finished product:

 

I got two Haworthias that were loaded with offsets and picked all the little offsets off the mother plants and used them in the dish garden.  The babies I put in with other plants - most in my huge old Jade sport 'Skinny Fingers'.  (The Haworthia on the left is one I grew for many years and have been looking for, H. geraldii, and the one on the right is, I'm pretty sure, H. cymbiformis.)  I got a small Aeonium 'Kiwi' for some height (hard to tell in this photo - it's the one in the top of the photo...)  There's a tiny unidentified cactus just left and below center of the rock.  I'll get a closeup of it and see if I can't get someone to ID it on GardenWeb. And I needed a little filler and threw a bit of an unusual and compact little Wandering Jew in there.  I don't know if it will stay compact like that, and it may be too much light if I give it enough for the Aeonium.  We'll see how it does.

Just a quick aside - I guess "Wandering Jew" is no longer politically correct.  I made this comment at the meeting and a young guy piped in, "Now it's Wandering Dude.  You know, we have a large Jewish population in the midwest!"  It seems political correctness has gone a little berserk IMHO.  I mean, are Jewish people really offended by this??  I always thought it was a recognition of their wandering in the desert for 40 years - maybe they don't want to be reminded of that!  Anyway, if it's an insult, I guess it's ok to insult a "dude"!  LOL

Back to the dish garden - I found that nice rock at Corwin Toyota when I was dropping a car off for work.  They had some really nice rocks in their rock bed!  You can't tell from the photo, but it's a nice pink with sparkles in it.  Very nice and nicely shaped. 

On top of those plants, I also got a nice sized Rhipsalis.  I'm relatively sure it's one I don't already have!  It's really compact, which is an indicator it was grown down south and in lots of sun.  Well, when it starts to grow here, it may suddenly start to look like one I've already got.  If it had been tagged, I would have known one way or the other, but as is typical of Rhips, it wasn't tagged except to say "Rhipsalis".  So many of them have similar attributes that it takes someone with some expertise to tell them apart. 

And lastly, I got a crested Sedum.  A cute little thing.  We'll see how it holds up...

It's winter-hardiness is questionable, so I won't put it out in the ground.  It might survive, but because it's a crest and they tend to be less hardy in general, I won't risk it.

My Hoya pubicalyx 'Royal Hawaiian Purple", the clone I got a few years ago from Canoyer in Papillion, is bursting forth with new growth!  I counted 6 new vines, some already reaching out a couple feet, some just getting started. I might have to find a bigger spot for it this year.

I've had this open several days now and need to finish it up for now.  One last photo... I got this Orchid at the show at Lauritzen Gardens on Sunday:

The tag says Osp. Brazilian Sun 'Samba'.  I looked it p and Osp. is short for Oncostelopsis and it says it is an intergeneric Oncidium hybrid.  It's gorgeous and I hope I can keep it alive and get it to rebloom!

And with that, I'm done for now!

 
 

Signs...

If you're watching for them, signs are everywhere.  Yesterday, I was in Des Moines, and I was reminded of one that happened not long after Wes died.  I was driving to work (our business) one day and I came up to the stop light at 42nd & Center and a car in front of me had a dealer's sticker on it that said "Wes Finch Motors".  OMG, there was Wes's name, and a bird - everyone who believes in this stuff knows that birds are said to be messengers from our passed loved ones.  It was a clear message!  I wondered - is this a real dealership?  I hadn't heard of it...  So as soon as I got to work, I got on the computer and googled "Wes Finch Motors" and sure enough, there's a dealership in Grinnell, Iowa, which is about 55 miles east of Des Moines.  Of course, then comes the question of how likely it is that I would intersect with a vehicle that was bought 180 miles from here that just happened to have my brother's name on it?  And not just his name, but the name of a messenger?  It had to be fate.  It gave me goosebumps and still does when I think about it!

And I see signs all the time.  Last night, I got in the shower after telling Alexa to play songs from one of my playlists.  I can't remember the song, but as I was getting out of the shower, I thought, "Wow, it feels like this is a message from Mark."  It wasn't exactly a mushy song, but it was a loving song.  Anyone who knows Mark knows he wasn't a mushy guy, wasn't the kind of guy that said "I love you" often, but in the last 4 or 5 years, he started telling me every single day, sometimes more than once, that he loved me.  I think there came a point in his decline where he realized that I must love him an awful lot to have stuck it out.  His poor health choices did wreak havoc on my life as well as his... So it felt like he was trying to make up for all the "I love yous" that he withheld because he was the "tough guy". 

Anyway, so I get out of the shower and go out to my chair to get my bed clothes on.  I had paused my program and the screen saver was on, which are photos from my phone (I still have NO idea how that works!)  I sit down and look up and there's a photo of the framed picture that is my favorite photo of him, this one:

 I felt like that was an acknowledgement of the song.  But as if that wasn't quite enough, here comes the photo of this:

A quick synopsis of what this is... back in Dec. 2021, 3 months after Mark died, I got an flyer from Danbury Mint addressed to Mark.  Mind you, I've gotten stuff from them for years, always addressed to me.  It's been a long time since I've gotten anything from them, so I was surprised not only to see one of these show up, but it came in Mark's name!  It was actually the 2nd one in about 10 days, the the other one was a heart-shaped necklace with both of our names on it!  Anyway, this photo came up right after his photo, so it was like a double acknowledgement.  It doesn't stop there.  The next photo after this one was:

I took this in a screenshot from FB a long time ago because I think it's incredibly true!  Music was probably my strongest connection with Mark. So that was my clear sign from last night.