The Cheapskate on Tour...St. Croix

Not too much gardening at home this week because we're away in St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Here is some of the island flora...

Above, is the island's chestnut tree.

This is a flower from the trumpet vine that looks like a wisteria with huge flowers.

A red flower from the succulent planter outside of our room. I can't remember the name, anybody know?

The fruit on the calabash tree. They make maracas out of this fruit.

This is a dried up flower from the calabash tree.

Darryl
Copyright 2013 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

Cheapskate Rural Gardener: Making Hanging Flower Baskets

I love spring flowers, the more the better. A great way to get a quick and colorful accent is to hang flower baskets. You can buy them, premade, at local garden centers and home improvement stores but you can save a few bucks and have a bit more control if you do it yourself. 

You'll just need baskets to hang them in, potting mix, transplant solution, fertilizer spikes, and the plants...all readily available at your local garden center or even online in some instances.

I use iron hanging baskets with a coconut husk liner. I put in enough potting mix on the bottom so that it will push the smaller plants up to the side of the rim.

I'm getting snapdragons, pansies, and violets in 2 inch mini pots. I arrange then on top of the potting mix, leaning against the side so that the flowers can rise above the basket rim.

Next, cover up the roots and in-between areas with potting mix. I'm leaving a hole in the middle large enough to fit in the upright snapdragons that I bought in 6" pots.

This next step is just an experiment for me this year, I got some seeds for some plants with hanging flowers, amaranth, to see if it will grow in and extend the time for blooms so I don't have to repot the baskets so soon (usually, I have to replant my hanging baskets one time during each season to keep them going). I'm sprinkling them all around the top soil of each basket. You don't have to do this but it's just something I want to try.

Fill in the remaining spaces with your soil and tamp down. Mix up some transplant solution to stop transplant shock and water in the basket thoroughly.

Since the baskets will be hanging high over my head, I insert three fertilizer stakes in each basket. These release fertilizer slowly through the season when watered so I don't have to climb a ladder to feed the plants.

Hang them up where you want them, I put them on the front of our house over the porch. Water thoroughly every other day...every day when it is very hot. This is another thing I don't want to break out a ladder to do so I set it up on a automatic micro-sprinkler on my drip system, which I show you how to set up on our post The Poor Man's Sprinkler System.

Now, the only thing left is to relax and enjoy your new flowers.

Darryl Musick
Copyright 2021 - All Rights Reserved

The Lavender Lost...

Our lavender plants are well established and provide much beauty and fragrance to our yard and patio.

Vigorous growers, they produce scads of blooms and grow to nice, large orbs of purple and green.

Earlier in the season, I'll cut back the blooms to encourage a second one.

Late in the summer, though, the plant is spent and it's time to cut back.

This is a good time, too, because once the flowers are gone, so are the ever-present bees who might get a little riled when you stick a big pair of loppers into their midst.

Chop, chop, chop...and now the garden waste bin is full.

I'm done for this year, the plant now has plenty of room to fill back up. Just need to sweep up this mess and I'm finished for today.

Darryl
Copyright 2014 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

Orchids of the Earth

It's time to repot some cymbidiums.  As my mother-in-law would tell you, it's a chore I should do more often.

In general, cyms should be repotted every 2-3 years. It's not a tricky process but it is hard work and messy at times.

First, to determine which plants need to be repotted, look for plants that have filled up the entire pot. Maybe they look more dead than alive and the mix is broken down, that would be another sign that they need to be repotted.

You'll need the plant, a pot (usually I put them back in the same one, on very vigorous plants I might increase the pots size a bit), mix, trowel, hammer, and pruning seal (not shown above).

Knock the pot off. You can see this plant is more root that soil, indicating it needs repotting. With your fingers, reach in and break up the root ball. Remove as much soil as you can, along with dead roots.  I also remove the dead-looking back bulbs and maybe even some green growths to make a more centrally-shaped plant.

You can also pot the dead looking bulbs, as long as they feel very hard and firm to the touch, and new plants will grow from them.

Cymbidiums are terrestrial orchids, meaning that they grow in the ground in the wild unlike epiphytic orchids (like cattleyas, dendrobiums, and phaleanopsis), which grow on the side of trees.

This means you can't use straight bark chips on them like the other orchids. I buy a pre-made mix from an orchid nursery but you can also make your own using 50% small to medium bark chips, 25% perlite, and 25% peat moss.

You can see that there's a hole in my bag. Want to know where the Cheapskate is? Just follow the trail of cymbidium mix.

Put an inch or two of mix in the bottom of the pot. Spray pruning seal on any wounds left by tearing off old bulbs. Find the leading growing edge of the plant. Cymbidiums don't grow out in all directions, the green point at the bottom of the bulb above is the new growth. The plant will grow in this direction.

Put the none-growing edge up against the edge of the pot and the new growth facing the center.  Fill with mix all the way to the edge of the pot. Use a hammer handle to pound the mix down as tight as you can.

If you've pounded the mix tight enough, you should be able to lift the plant by the leaves and the pot will not fall off.

Once done, it should look something like this with the growing edge given room to grow across the pot for the next two or three years.  Water it in and put back on your orchid bench.

Darryl
Copyright 2014 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

Enjoying the Fruits of our Labors

Gardening is in full swing. Chores are being done with regularity and, in this warm drought year, the plants are doing spectacularly well.

We've been working our behinds off and, now, we're going to take a little break to enjoy the results. Check out the cherry tomatoes sneaking in to the hanging dendrobium, above.

Speaking of orchids, the cymbidiums on our orchid bench are almost overwhelming in their color.  My mother in law gets mad because I'm behind on my cymbidium care chores but they still bloom anyway.

The Moonstone and it's unknown neighbor rose let me know they're doing well in the drought. They survived our earthquake too, but that's a story for another day.

Double Delight still delights...

...and Mr. Lincoln is producing it's usual platter-sized, deep red blooms as it always does at the beginning of the blooming season.

Here's a very delicately colored pink bougainvillea to finish off this week's look at the beauty side of our garden.

Darryl
Copyright 2014 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

A Chore Left Undone

Until today, that is. A couple of years ago, my wife bought a jasmine plant with the intention of putting it in the pot where we had a morning glory growing.

Even the best intentions go awry, sometimes. The plant languished in our herb garden with the promise of "someday." I guess she had enough, so she finally got around to doing it this past weekend.

Fairly straightforward, clean out the pot, stick in the plant, and water in.

Here she positions the plant and cleans off the dead roots. She's much more careful than I am about these things.

In the end, here's a tidy jasmine in the pot. But wait, what's that at the bottom of the pot?

Turns out there's a lavender volunteer from a nearby plant growing out of the bottom of the pot. Handy little find. I transplant it into our citrus grove so when it grows up, it can attract bees to pollinate our fruit.

Darryl
Copyright 2014 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

Everything's Coming Up Roses

The first bloomers are here.  Just a quick post to highlight those roses pushing the boundaries.

 

While there are still some in the front yard that have yet to bloom, almost all the roses along our hot, sunny back wall are in bloom. 

That's 'Angel Face' at the top of the page...the very first to bloom this year.  This one, just above these words, is an unknown variety we got cheap because it had no name tag.

'Moonstone' is beautiful but flawed. The flowers get very heavy and break the stems. It's also a magnet for earwigs.

'Double Delight' lives up to its name...

...and 'Mr. Lincoln' is the elder statesman in our garden.

 

Darryl
Copyright 2014 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

The Season is Springing Out All Over

The blooms...they just keep on comin'.  Cymbidium hybrid Lloyd Hawkinson 'Madrigal' put out two spikes with these white and pink flowers.

That's not all, you can browse our posts for the last couple of weeks to see more cymbidiums in bloom.

This little dendrobium is blooming...

...as are our bletilla orchids. 

I always recommend the bletilla to people who say they can't grow orchids because these literally take no care at all from me.

Not to be outdone, our hanging basket dendrobium has opened too. This climate is perfect for dendrobiums.

This little Angel Face rose will be the first bloom for us this year.

And finally, after getting a big haircut last season, this Superbells Calibrachoa hybrid in a hanging basket is back.

Darryl
Copyright 2014 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved