Mystery cactus

A few years ago--maybe five or six--I found a cactus leaf on the floor of a local greenhouse, next to a floor drain. A single leaf, rather small and wan, already limp from having been knocked off its mother plant--but looking around, I couldn't locate the source. I slipped the leaf in my shirt pocket and, fortunately, remembered it at the end of the day. After floating in a cup of water for a day or two, it seemed visibly revived, and I had not much trouble rooting it. I think I had to wait almost six months before it actually put out a second leaf.

Fast forward to last year: the wee cactus has been steadily growing in a narrow wall pocket (planter) in my bathroom and has four or five arching stems. Then, finally, it popped: seven or eight tiny flower buds that opened nearly all at once, after growing and growing for a couple weeks, into gorgeous shaggy multipetaled crimson blossoms. Such a nice surprise.

That was last year. This year, the cactus is a bit larger, though still on the smallish side, and still growing in the same planter. There's finally enough of it that I felt comfortable removing a three-leaf section to root for a friend. And it's blooming again, only this time one bud will appear, grow and swell for a couple weeks, and finally open--expanding open during the day and half-closing at night. Each blossom lasts about a week before closing up for good and eventually dropping off. Meanwhile, a second bud starts to develop on another stem, and then another, each taking its turn. It's a nice extension of the blooming period, but I don't know why it's behaving this way: the plant has been in the same location for years now.

Oh, and I don't know its name. Do you?

Hoya kentiana

I bought this wax plant at the grocery store I think--or maybe at Lowe's--two years ago. It was tagged as Hoya kentiana. I keep it hanging in the sunny bathroom window. It's finally started to bloom!

Below you can see a second bloom spur developing:

Winter boarder (3)

When I decided to grow impatiens from seed last winter (a year ago), I picked a variety that was supposed to be deep, dark red. The seedlings came up fine, and after a couple of months they were ready to set out in the shaded area beside the house. When they finally bloomed, I was chagrined to find that they were a bright, fiery neon red, not the more medium tone described (and pictured) on the packet. (So it goes with such advertising, as most of you gardeners know.)

This past fall, despite my lack of love for their neon hue, I couldn't let the frost get to all the impatiens. I brought one inside to grow under lights in the attic (and if it hadn't been for Randy, I'd have forgotten about it) (thanks, hon). Here's the lone survivor, still screaming vermilion, but face it: any color is welcome during this long muddy pre-spring tease. This year, instead of seeds, I'll take cuttings from this "mother plant" to start another row for the shade garden. They do brighten up the alley beside the house . . . I just may try another batch from seed. Maybe white. How could they lie about white?
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It was warm enough yesterday to scrabble around in the kitchen garden just outside the back door. I cut down the old stalks of perilla (the original plants were a gift a few years ago from Glynis, and she was right--it comes back doggedly from seed every year, in both our garden and our neighbors'), the dead geraniums, the frozen mint (new green shoots coming up already from that one). A small clump of columbines that reseeded last year are looking quite green and robust. I ought to dig them up and thin them out, but I didn't get that done. Oh, and I think the tarragon is coming back: very happy about that.
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We have new neighbors in the small add-on apartment in the back. Alas, they're smokers: it literally comes through the walls. My eyes are burning. And the smell, yuck. I hate that it gets into our quilts. We have a sizeable air filter upstairs but need a second one for downstairs now. Can't wait till it's warm enough to keep the windows open . . .

Winter boarder (2)

When I grew geraniums from seed last spring, a few of the laggards never made it outside to the garden, but stayed on the laundry room sill in small pots. This winter, I moved two up to the bathroom window, which gets bright direct sun for a couple of hours. The third plant, which was truly puny, is still in the laundry room and still in its original yogurt cup, but it has finally decided to bloom.

I'm curious to see what color it turns out to be. When I set nine of the others out in a large square planter, they hadn't yet bloomed; I gave a few extras to Jackie next door. Many of my geraniums turned out a garish fuschia or a shriekingly orange-red (too red for my taste; I much prefer the softer, purer red or the near-salmon red-pink ones), while one of Jackie's ended up the prettiest of the batch: a lovely pink-and-white bicolor. For the rest of the year, I glanced through the fence and admired (well all right, coveted) that one geranium.

Little straggler, runt of the litter, you're my last best hope.

[photo: winter geranium, 2/23/08]

Winter boarder

I swiped a cutting of this plant from a neighbor last fall (over a year ago). It was late October or early November, and I was out trolling for last-minute snippings of tender annuals to coddle indoors over the long winter. In the planter, the original plant (or "mother plant," as we gardeners call it) had bloomed delightfully all summer and fall, and I'd admired it enough to covet one. One night, when a particularly bitter cold snap was forecast and the neighbor had decided (or neglected) to drag in (or cover) his plantings, I knew it was now or never. I think I actually pinched two cuttings. Stuck them in water on the kitchen windowsill and hoped for the best.

They took months to root. I hadn't expected such a delay, but maybe the cold had already shut down some survival mechanism; I don't know. In fact, only one cutting survived. I coddled it along and put it outside in a small pot on the patio table when spring rolled around. It slowly grew, but never bloomed. In late summer, I repotted it. Still no blooms. I brought it inside anyway in the fall and gave it half a shelf in the sunny window of the laundry room, where it continued to grow and sprawl and, finally, this winter, to bloom.

I'd tell you what it is, but I can't remember its name. I've thumbed through my mental catalog of blue-flowering annuals (Browallia? Streptocarpus?), but nothing sounds right. For now, it remains a gorgeous stranger.