Boos, Blooms and Other Things

It's been way too long since my last post, so there's a lot of catching up to do.  First, the boos, as in Halloween, which is one of my favorite holidays.  As usual, I put up quite a few decorations, including the cast of characters from years past and the graveyard.  This year the weather was cooler and it brought out a lot of trick or treaters and all 450 pieces of goodies were gone by 8:15.

The graveyard

Potted glitter skulls.

Spider lights

Street view

The cooler weather has many of the plants confused, as they're either blooming or sprouting way ahead of schedule.

Gladiolas sprouting that should be dormant until February

Apple blossoms 4 months early

Nectarine blossoms 5 month early

Even the lemon is 2 month early 

not everything is early, quite a bit is right on schedule, as the zinnias, roses and habaneros are blooming and ripening exactly when they should be.

'Dwarf Pumila Sprite' zinnia

Another color of DPS

And yet another color.

Climbing Don Juan rose

A nice handful of ripe habaneros

I've undertaken a few projects recently, including sprouting celery from the cut end of some I bought at the grocery store, digging up the amaryllis and putting them in the fridge so I can force them to bloom for the holidays, along with the paperwhites and pulling up the summer squash and planting winter veggies in their place.  I'm also able to report that the fig cuttings have started to root, but the apple and rose cutting have not.

Sprouting celery, one of two I've started.

Amaryllis bulbs ready to put in the fridge

Rooting fig cutting

I had written about purchasing a couple of Stapeliads, one marked Huernis sp, the other Stapelia sp and I knew I would need them to bloom in order to identify them at the species level.  Well, they both bloomed recently and it turns out the one marked "Huernia" was actually Stapelia paniculata spp scitula, while the one marked "Stapelia" was actually Huernia somalica.  Either the tags got mixed at the nursery or someone at the wholesaler goofed up, but either way, I've happy to see them bloom. In addition to those two, 'Baby Toes' is blooming again and the male Euphorbia obesa is going to have a profusion of blooms.

S. scitula

H. somalica

'Baby Toes'

Male E. o