Time to grow

 I'll start with another sign.  I've talked about the signs I see, often numbers and especially in license plates.  Mark, I believe, sends me 4 numbers most frequently: 73 and 77 (the years each of us graduated) and 54 and 58 (the years each of us were born).  I see these so frequently it's uncanny!  With Wes, it's triple numbers.  I think these signs are simply saying "hi, all is well".  I seem to see the triple numbers when I have times of worry, crisis or if I'm just feeling down about something.  When Mark was so bad and until about 6 months ago, I saw several every day.  It's been rather "quiet" from Wes recently and I suspect it's because life has settled into a mostly peaceful routine.  I haven't needed as much encouragement since Mom got through her painful transition.  She's probably keeping him busy on the other side!  LOL!

Anyway, yesterday I was out and about and I came up behind a car whose license plate number was 077DF - huh, my year of graduation AND my pre-marriage initials!  Then I stopped by Arby's - I had a coupon for a reuben for $3.99, so I ordered that and a small curly fry.  The total was $7.77!  Numbers fascinate me, and I think this is why they choose to use them to communicate with me!

Yesterday, I took the curtains off the French doors that go to the sunroom and put decorative film on the windows.  Here's how it turned out:

A closeup of one pane for detail:

I'm really happy with how it turned out.  It was a tedious project, but worth the effort.  I really like the effect!

 ******

I started this about a week ago then had to get on and complete the cactus club newsletter. This month, we're having a joint meeting with the Des Moines club (I'm also a member there) so on the 14th, around 10 of us will be driving over to tour the Greater Des Moines Botanical Gardens.  We'd originally planned to rent a packer van (a 15-passenger van), but for some reason, they aren't giving me my usual discount and it was going to be nearly $500!  So I'll be driving my vehicle and Kathy will be driving hers and we'll get 9 of them in our 2 vehicles and one of the newer members is driving with her sister who wants to come along.  I'm looking forward to it!

Last fall, I took cuttings of some of my larger Hoyas that really needed a "reboot".  Ones that had gotten very large and had a lot of older growth that looked a bit... well, old and dull.  I suppose plants are like people - they age out and eventually die.  So I have pots of cuttings that have been growing in perlite since last fall, and this last week I potted up a new H. pubicalyx 'Bright One'.  This cultivar of pub is probably my favorite for flowers.  The leaves are rather unremarkable, but the flowers are truly spectacular.  In fact, it's the one I use on my business card.  Here's a photo of one from a few years ago:

I love how the corona is outlined in white.  'Red Buttons' has the same white outline and is so similar in both leaf and flower, I've often wondered if there is really any difference.  Anyway, I got it potted up into a nice ceramic pot that my neighbor, Marcy, gave me.  It's now in the front window where it will hopefully grow and flower this summer.

Hoya shepherdell has been losing leaves - one here, one there.  They yellow and drop.  On top of that, it has leaves that crisp at the edges.  I figured it's a sign of doom, so I went ahed and chopped it up and made one nice potfull for myself to replace the mother plant, and several small ones to sell.

It's roughly 2 pm and I was just outside observing the eclipse.  We're in the range of 86% of a full eclipse and the "height" of it was about 10 minutes ago.  I was checking it out with my eclipse glasses and it's pretty cool.  Right now, it's a weird hazy gray, looks as if I've got my sunglasses on inside.  But my transitions are clear.  And I saw my plant rack in the sun was casting a weird double shadow, which I think is always the strangest thing about an eclipse.  I don't think the critters get quite as weird during a partial eclipse as they do during a full eclipse, though I really don't hear much bird activity right now.  I tried to take a photo using my eclipse glasses over the photo lens and it did work, but it wasn't clear enough to be a "keeper".  Oh dear, Pearl just up-chucked, which reminds me of a stupid rumor I saw on FB - don't eat anything during the eclipse or it could kill you.  The premise was that the sun would "poison" your food.  LOL... right.  Oh, it will poison JUST the food you're eating DURING the eclipse, but none of the food you will eat later.  Where does this shit come from??

Anyway, as I water and groom plants, I'm seeing all kinds of new growth.  This is the time of year that really gets me excited about the things I grow.  Gets me in a mode to whack things back, to get less-than-perfect leaves removed from otherwise perfect specimens.  Gets me excited to give them a spray-down often - if not every day, then every other day.  If you consult the Eleanor's VF0-11 flyer, it says that foliar feeding is the most effective feeding.  Of course, in winter I hate to do a lot of spraying because I fear getting mold going.

******

And here it is, another 11 days gone by!  I'm going to publish this one today, come hell or high water!  It's Sat. the 20th.  I plan to just stay in and work on plants.  Today, I've been watering the plants in the spare bedroom.  Dischidia ovata is one I typically water every other time to the others as it is in the original mix from the nursery and doesn't dry out very fast.  So it gets watered about every 20 days and seems to be pretty happy with that.  It seems to be doing fine, though I really don't see a lot of signs of growth yet.  I have a start of H. australis IML 006 that seems to be very happy.  I started it because the mother plant wasn't doing much for some time.  Taking cuttings was smart as it kicked her into growing mode and she's looking much better now!  But this small one looks so nice that I intend to keep it, at least for now.

Also in that window are three that aren't doing much yet - nummularioides, obscura and vanuatuensis.  They maintain a nice, healthy appearance, but not really any signs of new growth.  I need to trim back the obscura and will do that, probably by offering super cheap add-on cuttings when I sell others.  

I put my older variegated macrophylla in this window a few months ago and I think it's very happy!  It has two brand new leaves that I think may be all white (right now they are pink).  That's not necessarily a good thing as it does zap energy from the plant, but I'm going to enjoy it as long as they look good.  Next to it is cardiophylla, which has been growing in that window for a long time, and boy-oh-boy is it HAPPY!  It has 4 new vines and new peduncles! I see from my photos that it did bloom for me, but it looks like that goes back to 2014, so that's 10 years ago!  It's about time!

Also in that window is my oldest glabra with one new vine on it.  It's always exciting to watch those leaves grow as many of them are just massive!  And last is a rooted cutting off my allegedly "splashy" clone of fungii.  I got it from Colorado Kathy several years ago and it had 3 very nicely splashed leaves.  She warned me that it may or may not have "splash" as it grew out and the new leaves I got were not at all speckled. But it grows like a weed and looks fabulous in my sunroom! Well, last year I took the oldest splashy leaves off and rooted them separately to see if I could get a splashy plant out of it.  It has yet to grow, but I do think I'm seeing one, maybe two "growth nubbins" down at the base, so it may be getting ready to grow!

One last one worth mentioning is callistrophylla.  This has been a long-time favorite, but it just...doesn't...grow.  Well, last year it did grow a little.  I'm hoping maybe THIS is the year it will take off.  This is what it looked like in its heyday...

I got it from Gardino's back in 2008 and it did well for quite awhile, but then started to decline.  It was coming back in 2022 but was out in that hail storm and was hanging in the tree when it fell, both that same year.  I think the shock of being beat up might have inspired it to grow as it grew a little better last year.  I'm just hoping it will keep it up this year, but no signs of growth yet...

We (the cactus club) are going to participate in the Men's Garden Club plant sale again this year in a couple weeks.  So I'm hoping to sell a few things then.  I've got some leftover succulents from last year, and maybe I can sell a few Hoyas as well.  I also need to get off my duff and start selling all the ones ready to go from last year.  I'll have a few going to a lady in Idaho here in the next couple weeks (waiting for some new growth), but I have at least a flat or two that are already growing and ready to go.  Then we have the farmer's market again this year starting in June...

Something was blooming in the dining room overnight - I guess I have to assume it is Rebecca.  Hard to believe those tiny blooms can create that strong scent that was a bit overwhelming.  My sinuses have been a real mess lately and I'm wondering if the Hoyas add to that???

I have a couple small flats of little bulbs for the Men's Garden Club sale.  I got them all cleaned up and marked - I'm going to ask $2 apiece for them, which isn't much, but I just want to be rid of them.  There are a few other little things in there, like some little Sansevieria starts and one Kalanchoe.  And if I have time, I'm going to split up another pot of bulbs to add to these that I need to get rid of.  Or maybe I'll just sell them bare-root for $1 apiece.  I would also like to split up my Haworthia truncata 'Lime Green' - take all the pups off the biggest plants to give it some room to plump up as it's very crowded right now.  That's one that sells well because it's so odd-looking!