Adding To My Stapelia Collection And Starting A Pepper Collection

About ten years ago, a good friend gave me a large pot full of Stapelia gigantea, then last year at the Spring Swap I received a cutting from Orbeopsis malanantha, thus starting my obsession with Stapeliads.  At this year's Swap I received two cutting of Stapelia variegata, then a couple of weeks ago I bought another Stapelia, that wasn't marked as to species and I'll have to wait for it to bloom in order to identify it. Desiring to add even more Stapeliads, I visited several local nurseries, to no avail.  I then took to the Internet where I found Miles2Go, located south of me in Cortaro, AZ.  On Saturday night, I e-mailed an ordered for six species of Stapelia and male and female basketball plants, Euphorbia obesa to go with the one I bought at last year's Desert Botanical Garden Spring Sale.  I received an e-mail on Sunday confirming receipt of my order and noting it would be shipped on Monday, then when I got home this afternoon, the package was waiting for me; now that's what I call fast service.  I eagerly opened the box and found that the plants were shipped bare-rooted, which isn't a problem for the basketball plants, as they already have a spot waiting for them in the wheelbarrow succulent garden, but I needed to buy pots for the rest of them.  A trip to the 99 Cents Only Store took care of that problem and all of the plants will get potted in the morning.  Here are the two Euphorbia obesa, followed by Stapelia asterias, Stapelia cedrimontana, Stapelia erectiflora, Stapelia flavopurpurea, Stapelia rufa and Stapelia schinzii.

Even though they all look somewhat similar, their flowers are each distinctive and I can't wait for them to bloom.  A section of my Stapelia gigantea died at the base, so I took thirteen cuttings from it and potted them. In about a month they should be well rooted, at which time I'm going to see if I can sell them to some of the local nurseries.

I visited one of those nurseries at lunch today and wound up buying four pepper plants, some of which already have fruit on them.

Dulce Italiano, a sweet pepper.

Fushimi, a Japanese sweet pepper.

Shishito, a Japanese sweet pepper.

Padron, a mild Spanish pepper.

From what I've read, if harvested when no more than 2" long, 95% of the Padron peppers will be mildly hot and the other 5% will be hot, but if you let them get 2" - 3", they'll all be hot.  Can't wait to find out if that's true, which would present interesting possibilities.

Tomorrow I'll post pictures of all the new succulents potted up, as well as updated pictures of the older ones already in my collection.

Blooms, Transplants and Acquisitions

Despite above average temps, the roses are still valiantly blooming, although sparsely, and the poor Anna apple is confused, as it's reblooming, which it's done before, but never in August.

Clmbing America

Climbing Don Juan, looking a little crispy around the edges.

Can't remember the name of this rose.

Iceberg rose

Mini roses; these were dark red in Spring.

Apple blossoms in August!!

The surviving Cel's agave Agave celsii that was planted in the wheelbarrow succulent garden on 7/25/12 has tripled in size and gotten so big it was crowding out it's neighbors, so it got transplanted into a pot and now resides on a hanging shelf along with the cactus I got from my neighbor last year and some aloe I found for free on Craigslist.

Cel's Agave, Agave celsii

My succulent shelf

I also transplanted three 3-year old clumps of sage into the ladder planted, as they were planted where I plan on adding more raised beds for veggies.  I gave them a severe pruning, as they were getting leggy, and fully expect them to thrive in their new location.

One of three clumps of sage transplanted to the ladder planter.

I also was finally able to transplant the tiny unknown Kalanchoes I got at the Spring Swap, as they finally got big enough to be confident that they'll survive.  I potted them up in a vintage frog planter, which looks great on the plant bench on the front porch.

Unknown Kalanchoe in a frog planter.

I recently spent some time on my lunch hour visiting two local nurseries near the office and found an unknown Stapelia, which I added to my collection.  I also went to WalMart and found some canna 'Tropicana' on clearance for $3, so it came home and got repotted today.  Eventually, I'll transplant them to a new bed I'll dig when the weather cools.

When I bought this it was marked "Stapelia sp.".

Canna 'Trpoicana'

Lastly, while searching for new Stapelias, I also checked out the bonsai section at each nursery and at one I found an Elephant Food, Portulacaria afra, that had been made into a bonsai and was priced well over $100.  Since I already have a nice specimen on my front porch, I decided to take a cutting to create my own bonsai at no cost, making sure to get a cutting with some girth to get the desired effect without having to wait years for the trunk to fill out.  Once it roots, I'll pot it into a bonsai pot and then decide what style of bonsai to create.

Future bonsai

Happy birthday, Larry

Hard to believe, but Larry is two years old today and throughout that time Larry's sported a lot of different looks and celebrated many major holidays in his own inimitable style.  The collage below captures many of those looks.

He's starred in his own calendar (the 2014 calendar is in the planning stages right now), given the neighborhood kids something to look forward to on their way to and from school, caused a lot of doubletakes by people driving and walking by and hopefully brought some joy into people's lives.  Keep checking back to see what he'll be up to and what he's celebrating next.

Weekend Update

Well, we had more rain over the weekend, 0.55" in fact, for a total or 0.81" for the week, actually for the entire monsoon season thus far.  Friday we had also had wind gusts up to 25 mph, but no damage at all. Other parts of the valley had wind gusts of 50-60 mph and enough rain to cause flash flooding, so it could've been worse.  Sunday it was too wet to mow or do much else in the garden, so I went shopping with Steph and checked out a store I'd been meaning to stop at for several months.  Garden Ridge is a mammoth store full of home decor, furnishings and garden stuff, including gnomes, so you know I couldn't leave without at least one.  This is Flo, the newest resident of my gnome sanctuary; her favorite phrase is "What'll it be, Hon?" as she chomps on a wad of gum.

Meet Flo, carhop extraordinaire.

The rain is helping everything to "green up", the sunflowers I planted last weekend are already pushing up and a few are even getting their first true leaves.

I'll be thinning the tomato vines and maybe even takig some out that haven't been productive; I have a few other varieties I could plant in their place.

Rain, Finally!

Well after over two months without a drop of rain, the skies finally opened up on Monday and Tuesday, with a total of 0.26" of much needed wet stuff.  Areas not more than a mile or so from my house got much more rain, but that's the hit or miss nature of our Summer storms.  With the rain has come lower daytime temperatures, topping out in the low to mid-100's, but also much higher humidity.  More rain is forecast through the weekend, so I'll keep my fingers crossed that the total for the week will approach 0.5".

Despite the oppressive heat of the past few weeks some things are still looking good in the garden, especially the lemon grass I planted back on May 1st; what was a sparse planting now looks like a jungle, so I guess I need to plan on making some Asian dishes soon.

Lemon grass, then.

And now!

The repairs to the backyard irrigation system are holding and between that and the rain, the sunflower seeds I planted last Saturday are starting to sprout.  In the photos you'll notice that I'm using 1/4" soaker hose instead of solid tubing and drip emitters, as it works much better when seeds are dispersed throughout the bed.  I run the line from end-to-end three times to maximize the water coverage.

I love how this one is peaking out of the soil.

The calla lilies I bought on clearance at Target have finally sprouted, although it looks like someone chomped on the leaves before they unfurled.

The Climbing Don Juan and Climbing Iceberg roses are still blooming, but they haven't gotten nearly as tall as I'd hoped.  Of course, when the weather cools down they should start to take off.  If you remember, the Iceberg was supposed to be Pink Peace and I'll never know if both of them were mislabeled, as the other one didn't survive, so now I'll have to look for another Climbing Iceberg to even the planters up.

After cutting down the hollyhocks thinking they were done for the year, they decided to rebloom on much shorter stalks; not as impressive as the dozen or so 6' flower stalks, but they're still pretty.

You can see that one of the dwarf white ruellia survived and is blooming as well.

I recently posted that a second 'Minerva' seed sprouted, and now I'm sad to report that but for some unexplained reason, it failed to survive more a a couple of weeks.  On a happier note, the other seedling has doubled in size and is now nearly 3" tall.  I'm keeping it under the cloche until it gets too tall for it because I'd hate to lose it as well.

Sunflowers and a Busted Irrigation System.

Last Saturday was the day everyone was supposed to plant sunflowers for the bees, but my irrigation system was busted, so planting had to wait until I could fix the leaks.  Every time I fixed one leak, another popped up and so today I wound up replacing the entire bad section and this time I used a better glue, one made for pressurized lines; so far it's holding up.  The plants sure appreciated the long drink I gave them, since the system had been down for two weeks and hand watering just wasn't satifying them.

So now that the system is fixed, I had an empty bed to fill, as the pepper seedlings all perished, so I sowed about 100 sunflower seeds in a 10 square foot bed.  If they all come up, it'll either be one heck of a display or I'll have to do a lot of thinning.  I sowed Velvet Queen, Hopi Black Dye, Teddy Bear, Vanilla Ice, Florenza, Citrus,Mammoth Russian, Wild Arizona Native, Yellow Disk, Pastiche, Moulin Rouge, Italian White, Peach Passion, Strawberry Blonde Hybrid, Coconut Ice, Black Oil and several different NOID's, about 22 varieties in all.

R.I.P. Chuck the Crow

It is with a heavy heart that Larry announces the passing of his dear friend and loving pet, Chuck the Crow. The elements had not been kind to Chuck and after nearly two years of standing vigil with Larry day and night, Chuck finally succumbed this past weekend.  Larry says that after an appropriate period of morning, he may consider getting a new pet crow, or he may opt for another type of pet altogether.

Despite the extreme heat (121 on 6/28), the tomatoes continue to produce and I made a quick salsa to go with Sunday night's dinner; fresh home grown tomatoes make the best salsa!  

With the Fourth of July just around the corner, Larry decided he must soldier on and has put his patriotism on display for all to see; Happy 227th birthday, America!  It's so hot, even Larry needs to rehydrate.

I've added to collection of lady planters with this cute little flower girl found on a recent antique shopping excursion.

Gnomes continue to seek sanctuary at Dove Manor, with two more showing up recently, including a lovely little hula girl who quickly caught the fancy of our resident hula boy and they are now making sweet music together.

My first yellow hat gnome.

Hula girl gnome

The happy couple

Lastly, two motnhs after sowing the seeds, another 'Minerva' seedling as emerged, so the lesson learned is that apparently everything about amaryllis takes time, and lots of it.