Closing out the Summer??

Hey all...

Non garden related news...

I realize that this year things have been pretty quiet here on the Blondmyk's Backyard Blog, but that doesn't mean that things haven't been happening.  It's been a really tough year plagued by problems--financial, deaths of friends and (extended) family, and horrible health problems for myself.

For those of you who don't know, I'm a diabetic.  I'm also disabled and on medicare, which has prevented me from going to see any doctor due to the insane spendown I have yearly in order for medicare to kick in.  To put it in a nutshell, I've been going without my insulin and that's resulted in several months of bloodsugars in excess of 400 (VERY unhealthy for those of you who don't know what that means.)  I've not felt like doing a whole lot at all up until this past month when I finally found a free clinic to go to and managed to get a script for some insulin.  Now I'm back in the green and raring to go!!

If you've been following me on my facebook page, then you know that I've not been bed bound.  I've posted a few goodies on there showing how the backyard has been growing this past year.  It's grown a great deal and currently sports some 90 potted plants and about another 20-25 planted in ground!  For the most part my partner, Dana, has been taking care of most of the heavy digging and watering for me while I've been down and out.  For this, much credit is due, so a hearty THANK YOU to Dana for tolerating a full year of nothing but direction and patience for dealing with a perfectionist such as myself.  I don't know what I would have done without you and I never want to know what I would do, either.  Now, on to what's happening!

My standards--Red Tropical Hibiscus--Painted Lady.  The
white spots on the petals are odd, but okay.

Hibiscus--We had a spot of trouble with these this year, but they seem to be back on track.  During the spring and early summer we had trouble with them not opening fully.  I've never seen anything like it in the 5 years that I've been growing them.  They would open halfway and then at the end of the day they would curl up and die from the heat.  I had a few wonderful suggestions about pests from a Facebook garden club I belong to (Thank you Brent, may you rest in peace) and so I Sevin dusted the heck out of them and started feeding them a bit more often.  Here are some photos to show the succcess I've had with them this year after that catastrophe!

My Tropical Hibiscus--"Smokey Mountain" 

The main problem lie with the Pink ruffled Tropical Hibiscus "Smokey Mountain."  They would even open up enough to see the pistils inside of them.  To be honest, I think that's one of the most interesting parts of the plant!  The pistils on these Hibiscus come in a variety of colors and it's one of the big things that show off variations in the plants.  It was pretty exciting to see these come back.  We are still combatting a leaf situation though that will most likely be taken care of with a more efficient feeding schedule for all of these guys.

Hibiscus "Pink Cloud" most likely, surrounded
by Blue Plumbago

Click to enlarge me!

The cuttings that I took from the Hospice that my Mom passed away in a few years back are doing famously.  One is a variety known as "Pink Cloud", and I still haven't been able to determine the variety of the yellow one yet, but it's really spectacular when it blooms.  If anyone knows it off the top of their head, please don't hesitate to shoot me a message.

My poor kitten beaten "Cape Honeysuckle"

Cape Honeysuckle--We've had a few litters of kittens running around the backyard this year, more than ever before.  This put a great deal of strain in the garden as kittens just love to get into and play with everything.  Early in the spring they got to chasing a lizard or something and absolutely TORE UP my "Cape Honeysuckle" plant.  If you remember, I was pretty proud of that plant as it was the first successful cutting I'd ever taken from a bush.  As you can imagine I was pretty torn up when I came out into the yard this spring to find out that they had busted off five branches from my poor favorite plant.

My new Cape Honeysuckle babies, almost ready for repotting.

 Rather than kill kittens, I decided to attempt to root the five broken branches.  The result was pretty good!  I wound up with three that were successful.  I gave one away to a friend just last week and the other two are just now really starting to take off and will most likely need to be repotted in something larger here within the next week or so.   Here's a photo of the poor original plant though.  It just doesn't want to come back in those places where the branches were busted off, so it looks half naked, even when in full bloom!

The Big Leafed "tree" looking plants are the Plumeria.  There
is a smaller one hidden in with the other plants waiting to find
a new pot.

Plumeria--It really WAS a rough winter last year for my Plumera, and I really feared for two of the three of them when their leafing process was troubled this past spring.  I got them as virtual twigs three years ago and they were among the first of the plants in my little potted paradise.  After a particularly bad cold spell last winter I accidentally left one of them in the house and it started it's new leafing cycle about six weeks before any of the others did.  I have NO sunlight in this house, so I was really worried for that one.  I shouldn't have wasted the worry though as that one turned out to be just fine.  It was the one I had with the giant leaves that gave me fits when the kittens decided that climbing on and/or spraying the stalks of the larger ones would be great fun. Twice one of them tried to produce leaves only to see the little nubs crumble and die off.  Long story short though it finally DID take off, but much too late for me to get a bloom stalk this year.  So, for the third year straight I've been growing Plumeria--THREE plants worth of it--and have not acquired a flower stalk...sigh.  I haven't had a real reason to photograph these, but I DO have a photo of the full garden.  You can see the Plumeria at the extreme right and left sides of the garden, using the Mayan planter as a center point.

My raggedy "Banyan Tree" cutting.  

NEW PROJECT--No pun intended here, but with all the success I've been having with cloning Hibiscus and Honeysuckle, I decided to "branch out" and try something REALLY unusual.  Down the street from us we have an oddity...a Banyan Tree...native to Southeast Asia.  You've most likely seen one before, as it's memorable.  They grow about 30-50 ft tall and they have roots that hang down from the branches like the vines that you used to see Tarzan swinging from.  They don't bloom or anything, but its just a really neat tree.  In March (I think) I noticed that they had done some pruning on the tree and left the trimmings by the driveway as yard waste.  Not being one to miss an opportunity to play with plant material, I grabbed a branch and tried my hand cloning an actual tree.  I make it sound like I've never done this before, but that's not true...I have.  My father has a key lime tree in his backyard that I've probably tried to clone a dozen times with no success.  I had one branch from the Banyan to work with though, and starting with 5 cuttings, I am now down to only one...but check it out!!!

This node is right where an earlier leaf fell off.
This one has definitely swollen to almost bud
size

Notice the small nodes right above the leaf
stalks--SOMETHING is going on!

This thing has always had these nodes on it, but yesterday I gave it a quick glance and realized that one of the nodes is actually expanding.  After keeping this twig and it's two leaves alive for a full five months, I think I finally have something happening!!!




Well, this post has gone on way longer than I intended, but there is still so much more to show and talk about.  The garden is showing a great deal of growth and there are a lot of other exciting things that are happening, so please, stay tuned!  I have at least two more posts planned for this week alone!  Until then...Happy Gardening!