Visiting with the houseplants

Had a wander around the house on Sunday realising that over the years, without really intending to, I've become a houseplant keeper. For years and years I said I didn't really do houseplants - I always said I couldn't keep them alive - but if that's the case then where have all these appeared from?

In the Living Room

This purple orchid is on it's fourth re-flowering in the year or so since I was given it by a friend, I'm holding out hope it's white-flowered neighbour might try again soon






The weeping fig came in the same pack as Bob about 25 years ago, and despite years of neglect now thrives on the windowsill.

This peace lily was part of another gift a couple of years ago and seems to just keep growing - mind you it has only flowered once.

In the kitchen

A bit of a mixture on the kitchen table at the moment - a baby Bob and a selection of succulents waiting for their forever homes, a scented geranium ready to be overwintered, our last Aloe Vera and a pot of sage cuttings waiting to be potted up. The dark red chrysanthemum was given to as a gift last Christmas and turned out to be four little plants in one pot - we split them and they've spent the summer outside. I brought this one in at the weekend to see what would happen and look how beautiful it is.

And then there's the white flowered orchid that was given to us a few years ago by J's cousins and the little seemingly ever-lasting cyclamen that was given to me the first Christmas I came to Stratford by a new colleague and has flowered every winter since, it's a gorgeous scarlet colour and brightens the darkest days beautifully. 

And then there's upstairs residents...

You've met Bob before and he certainly seems to have recovered from the pruning and propagating at the beginning of the year. All bar the last one of those babies has been re-homed.

And after a year in their new homes the succulents are looking great and it's their babies we'll be re-homing next. 

And dotted on windowsills all round the house....


there's the super-hot skinny chillis that have come in for the winter and the violas that are getting ready to move out and the lupin, sweet rocket, geraniums, verbena, penstemons and pinks that will all need to be potted on and over-wintered indoors until the Spring now.

And it seems that not only do we have a house full of plant-shaped memories and family and friends and kindnesses but lots of potential kindnesses to return.

Tired but happy...

Starting to flag a bit now but today we've had a lovely morning of plant and pot shuffling as whilst chilly, it has stayed dry and given us a chance to get some of the winter preparation jobs done. Mind you I'm saying we, as usual J has done most of the actual work whilst I've pointed to where I want things to live!

Normally I loathe and detest all photos of me but J took this today and I actually love it so I'm going to share it here. This is me surrounded by my favourite things and very happy to be doing something productive, yes the hair is nearly gone but the smile says it all.

wallflowers for us and a friend and a great view of the garden

Our wallflowers are now in the ground and their final pots and the spares will be being picked up by a friend later in the week, she gave us some lovely hardy geraniums earlier in the summer so it's great to be able to offer something back. Last year's bulb pots have been weeded, sorted and shuffled ready for swapping with the autumn flowering ones when they finally give up in a few weeks time, the parsley pots are indoors ready for cutting and the chillis have come in too for overwintering. Splitting and keeping the lovely little chrysanthemum that we were given as a present last winter has worked really well and, as they are now budding up beautifully, we have brought one of the plants back indoors to add to the kitchen table garden, the others can stay outside for now just to see how long they will flower outside.

As with every garden there is still plenty more to do but it feels like we've made a good start on the list which is always a great feeling. I hope you've had a great weekend too...

Bulb pots cleaned and shuffled

Who needs peat when a simple garden bin produces compost like this?

Wallflowers and bulbs into the path bed

Chrysanthemum budding up well

Roses, verbena and asters delighting

Of Boblets and Baby Succulents

Another Boblet bit the dust this week - or more accurately I had to admit defeat and throw the stick with two wrinkled leaves in to the compost bin. A bit sad but it prompted me to take a closer look at the other mini-Plants and write an update on our winter cuttings-taking exercise.

Back in February we decided that Bob the rubber plant had outgrown his space and needed to be cropped but, as usual, we couldn't resist the chance to try propagating him and getting a few free plants to share with friends and family. Of course this wasn't the first time this temptation had struck - remember all those little leaf cuttings of succulents back in October? Well, whilst Bob seems to have been a bit more miss than hit with only two really strong looking plants coming out of our adventures and 1 more that is looking ok - not bad from just 5 cuttings, the strike success with the succulent leaves has also been quite impressive even if a slow burn. We now seem to have mini plants coming out of our ears! Still it means I've got a dozen or so to take to the Hospice next week for sharing around and once they've all left home I can give Bob his second trimming...

Boblet #1

Boblets #2 and #3 plus arms of a few friends!

Echeverria minis

More echeverria minis

Pottering

Wednesday was bone scan day - a scary big deal but a necessary one and yesterday I had a quick trip to the local hospital for a blood test, routine but nonetheless adds to the fret-levels sometimes so afterwards we rewarded ourselves with a quick trip to the local garden centre - we needed compost but I wasn't up to the 25 mile round trip to get our usual peat-free Sylvagrow stuff. Luckily the local Wyevale had some New Horizon peat-free in stock so we've picked up a few bags of that to try out. We used this one a few years ago so hopefully it will be good enough to help our tomatoes and peppers to thrive in the coming months.  They've done well with the Sylvagrow start so I'm just hoping we don't put in a kink in their development with a new compost. At the moment the tomatoes are blocking the light out in the living room window so we really need the frosty nights to be over and done with soon!

We also picked up some new pots and bark compost for the orchids that are starting to to get a little pot bound. The purple one has been flowering its socks off for the last few months on the other window-sill but the white one has been looking more than a little sorry for itself so I'm off to find out how to treat it better and persuade it to flower again.

Flat surface shortage begins

We seem to be hitting peak seedlings a bit earlier than normal this year due to my adventures with propagating the houseplants. There may be some tough decisions ahead as we ought to prioritise food crops and cutting flowers rather than succulents but then again I can always get creative with the living room sideboard and dressing table top I suppose!

Succulent babies emerging at last

For now we have peas, lentils and chickpeas that have all germinated and shot up very quickly. These will soon be hardened off outside ready for planting up the allotment in a couple of weeks time:

Purple podded and Jeyes peas, Italian lentils and chick peas.

We'll then start some more peas off and a few beans of various sorts for a succession of cropping. In theory they could be planted directly into the allotment bed but as we have plenty of wildlife on the plot including voles we tend to lose too many that way! 

The echiums and pansies have also coped well with their transplanting into bigger pots and we'll need to harden those off soon as well as I need room for cosmos, sunflowers and lots of other lovely cutting flowers too. 

Echium blue bedder - a new annual for us this year

Even the kitchen table garden and the bathroom window ledge are getting in on the act this year.

Aloes and Boblets thriving in the kitchen

Indoor azalea - happier now that it's in the right compost and a moist environment!

Meanwhile the outdoor shelves are filling up rather well too...

parsnips, brussels, caulis, herbs, flowers....

Happiness is a sprouting seed tray!!

Monday's musings

Brightening the day with flowers from the garden

'Twas a really weird afternoon yesterday with brilliant sunshine, really heavy rain, high winds, huge flakes of really soggy snow and then a pretty sunset so what was there to do but bury my head into the wonderful The Girl in the tower, this is really living up to the promise of the first book in the trilogy and I only have about a third of it left - it's one of those that you want to keep reading to find out what is going on but at the same time I really don't want it to end - good job the third part is sitting on the shelf just waiting for me!

All ready to pot on

The morning was a little more productive mind - potting on and pricking out the seedlings that have been germinating in the back bedroom for the last few weeks. So we now have little pots of pansies, violas, welsh onions and big pots of sweet peas all ready to grow on.

Today has been a similar mix of chores and chilling - lots of sorting out upstairs as Mum is due for a visit at the end of the week and her bed was buried under a mountain of stuff! There's a bit less rubbish in there now but more to do before she gets a cosy night's sleep.

Violets emerging

By the time I'd done with chores for the day I couldn't resist a quick potter outside in the sunshine (boy is it chilly today!) - the violets are starting to appear now and the odd cowslip is sending up bud stalks just as the crocuses are starting to go over, so the wheel turns again. I couldn't resist bringing a few flowers indoors so a mug of hellebores, large daffodils and little tête-a-têtes has joined the re-potted peace lily and other bits and bob on the living room sideboard.

Now where did I put that book.....

.

Cuttings, seedlings and sowings - health check time

Today was health check day both for me and for all the seedlings and cuttings dotted on the window ledges.

The echiums, violas and pansies are all doing well and are ready to be pricked out. The welsh onions are okay but could probably doing with leaving a little while longer before we pot them on and cauliflowers are only just starting to show. Unfortunately there is no sign yet of the Brussels Sprouts or parsnips but they can be a bit slow so we'll give them a little more time before re-sowing.

The Boblets - our rubber plant cuttings - seem to be surviving well, that is to say none have keeled over yet so I'm hopeful that we'll have mini-Bobs to share. All the various succulent leaf cuttings that have been living on the windowsills for the last few months seem to be surviving well and now have roots so it's time they were pricked out into individual pots - a job for tomorrow methinks. Bob also seems to have survived his haircut and is already putting on new shoots and leaves.


At the weekend we discovered that two of the stems of twisted hazel we received in a bunch of flowers had sprouted roots in their vase so these have been popped into the ground on the off-chance we get two new shrubs from them. The wall-flower cuttings that we set to root in compost have had about a 50% success rate so they have been tidied up and set outside in their propagator to harden off and most of the lavender rooted cuttings are doing nicely too so they will need to be potted up into individual pots shortly and trimmed to encourage bushier growth - we'll probably leave these in pots until next spring so that they can really get established before planting into the ground.

Oh and as for my health check - the consultant is happy with my blood results and the treatment will continue as it is for a few more months  - so good news for me and for the plants!

Meet Bob Plant

Bob came into my life about twenty years ago - a mere 12 inches tall and one of three pals in a supermarket bargain set, he promised great things if I looked after him and kept him watered and fed... 3 houses, 2 towns and several different rooms later he'd ended up over 6 feet tall, 4 foot wide in places and so big he blocked the light from the small window in the spare bedroom. All this despite very intermittent watering, next to no feeding and maybe one re-potting in the last ten years, indeed some might say he's been thoroughly neglected and it's a miracle he's survived much less thrived. But thrive he has and if we didn't want to find him barring entry to the spare room drastic measures were inescapable so today we snipped and lopped and took several overgrown limbs away, leaving a shorter, slimmer model with soon to be shiny leaves and hopefully happier is his home. But all is not lost for the trimmings, thanks to a handy internet guide we have, we hope, created a few mini Bobs. They are now under cover and we'll watch them carefully over the next few weeks and then, if they are really lucky, friends and family can have a Bob of their very own...

Oh and don't tell Bob but we also identified a few more limbs for removal when he's recovered a bit.

Here in the undergrowth....

One of Bob's 5 new offspring

Heated airer or soil warmer?

A new slimline but could be trimmer Bob

Oh and while the compost was out we may have sown a few seeds too but that's for another day.

Transplanting on a Tuesday

Day two of tackling the little tasks that have been hanging over my head for a while!

So after yet another lazy start to the day this afternoon's job involved potting on the succulents that I was given last Christmas and attempting to take cuttings of the one that had gone very leggy. The wonderful J had already mixed a bucket of compost at the weekend so I wouldn't hurt myself trying to move bags of sand or compost and all I had to do was add the perlite - even I can lift a bag of perlite!

I've never been particularly keen on succulents, probably because I associate them with cacti and I'm allergic to the spiny bits on a cactus, but these were a gift from my colleagues after I fell ill last year so that makes them special and I want to give them all the care I can. So after a bit of asking around on Twitter a garden blogger called Grow like Grandad pointed me in the right direction and directed me to his article explaining how to care for and propagate my little plants.

From these three little pots:

Came lots of leaf cuttings and a few plantlets and two plants with more room to breathe:

And one less job on that list - let's hope at least a few of those cuttings take so I have some plants to share with others...