My Amaryllis plants rebloomed

I know you have been wondering where I have been. It always takes me longer these posts than I imagine. These flowers actually bloomed in May, and this is my first opportunity to write about them. I know. I’m bad for taking so long, but as they say, better late than never. Below are the latest photographs of my Amaryllis flowers. I hope you enjoy them.

How to get your Amaryllis to rebloom.

1. Remove each flower after it dies. Once a flower has died, cut the flower where it meets the main stalk with a clean knife or scissors. Make sure to remove the green lump and thin green stem attaching the flower to the stalk. This stops the plant from making seeds, which requires a lot of energy that could be going into survival and growth instead.

2. Cut the flower stalks once they are yellow or sag. The main stalks contain food and water the plant can use, but they will likely begin to droop or turn yellow shortly after the flowers fade] They are no longer useful at this point, and should be cut back to within 2 inches (5 cm) of the bulb.

3. Put them in a sunny spot, and just keep watering them making sure that they never dry out completely. A lot of people suggest that you put them out during the summertime in the ground, but I have no place to put them outside, so they just stay in my apartment all year round
4. At the end of the fall, take the bold side of their pots, and store them in the cool dry place for the winter. I find that storage, and repotting process is key in order to get reblooming to occur.

My Noni plant has sooty mold

My Hawaiian Noni plan started to develop on the leaves, and on the stem. When I asked the plant expert at chalet Garden shop in Wilmette, she said that it was sooty black mold. It is a type of mold that grows in the secretions of honeydew that is produced by many different types of common houseplant pests. In my case, I have a problem with spider mites. She could tell that it was spider mites because there were also holes in the leaves of the plant.

The best way to get rid of the sooty black mold is to get rid of the spider mites, or whatever past is producing the honeydew secretion. Although the mold is not harmful to the plant, the insect that it needs in order to grow, can kill the plant. At the first sign of sooty mold, the pest that is producing it should be located, and eliminated.
Neem oil is a good treatment for both the pests, and the sooty mold. Spider mites have been a big problem for me this year. I keep on treating my plans for them, and they keep on coming back all the time.

My Pussy Willow Tree

Two weeks ago, I bought this pussy willow tree. I’m going to try to grow it as a bonsai tree. I am worried that it will not make it through the winter because it needs to go through a cold period of time, and Chicago has colder winters than it is accustomed to. Anyway, I’m going to try to keep it indoors until it gets warm enough, and then this summer I’m going to put it on my balcony. I live in an apartment, and unfortunately, I don’t have a garden or backyard.

I have a grow light that it’s growing under, so I’m hoping it will get enough light. It needs at least six hours of light a day, and a lot of water. I also read that they like a lot of humidity, so I’m going to misted every day. Above are my first pictures of it.

There seems to be some disagreement online as to whether or not this tree can survive indoors. Most of the articles that I read say that it cannot live indoors, but I’ve seen many videos online that show people keeping their trees indoors, so I’m kind of confused about this. The other problem is that this type of plant is very susceptible to houseplant pests such as scale, and spider mites, so I’m going to have to be very vigilant and take action at the first sign of trouble. What I have learned is that it’s good to occasionally spray your plants with a mixture of water and alcohol because it’s a good idea to keep the pests at bay if it all possible. Often I have found, that by the time you see them, it’s too late. Don’t wait until your plant looks sick. Occasionally spraying with water-alcohol mixture can be a good way to keep the pests at bay.

My corn plant bloomed (ti plant)

My corn plant a couple of months ago, and I’m just now getting around to posting the pictures. Sometimes it takes decades for this type of plant to flower, and I’ve only had this one about a year, or two at the most. It produces an arching terminal panicle of pinkish buds that open into masses of white flowers. They only open in the evening and at night, but then, what an extremely pungent scent they emit! Intense, heady, sweet, the fragrance spreads throughout the whole apartment. It is so intense that it sometimes becomes unbearable and people feel that it is necessary to remove the flower stem off or to relocate the plant in a spare bedroom and close the door at night.

In my case, the set was very strong, and it was all over my apartment. I thought it was coming from the petunias that I had, but then I realized it was coming from my corn plant. If you want to experience this unusual sent for yourself, you may need to wait quite a while. No one knows what causes this plant to bloom, it can happen in any season. Your chances of success will be much better if you put it in a location with a lot of light as opposed to a dark corner where this type of plant is usually located in people’s houses. This plant is also called a Hawaiian ti plant

My cactus died

Remember that cactus I just told you about? About two weeks ago, it dried up and died. I have no idea what happened. I followed all the instructions that I read about on the Internet, and only watered it once a month, and it imploded. I’ve never had any success with cacti. They are supposed to be easy plants to grow, but all the cacti that I’ve ever had have died, so I must be doing something wrong, they always get attacked by fungi, or just dry up. They are definitely not one of my favorite plants.

Someone left a cactus outside my door

About a month ago, someone left a little spiny cactus outside my door. It is called a Mammillaria marksiana.

Mammillaria is a genus of spiny cacti native to Central America’s desert regions, Mexico in particular. Plants generally form clusters of spherical or columnar stems, and flowers. Globe-shaped fresh green stems are produced by Mammillaria marksiana covered in red-brown spines.  In spring, flowers emerge during the day and are bright yellow. It eventually grows into a cluster of stems, but it takes several years for this to happen.

The cactus is currently not growing very well, but I have it on the table that is far away from the window. I have now read that it requires full sun, so I’m going to find a place for it closer to the window, and see if it will flower. We will see what happens, hopefully, it will flower in the spring. It should only be watered from the middle of spring to summer. It should be fed once a month with a special cactus fertilizer. As with all cacti, in climates that are cold in the winter months, it is best grown as a houseplant. However, it can be moved to a sunny outdoor location in mid-summer.

For more information, click below.

https://www.gardenersworld.com/plants/mammillaria-marksiana/

My New Juniper Bonsai Tree

I bought a Juniper bonsai kit at Home Depot. I’ve always wanted to have a Juniper bonsai, but the problem is that junipers are outdoor trees, and all I have in my apartment is a little balcony outside. When the weather is above freezing, it is fine for my tree, but I’m going to have a problem when the weather gets colder. Outdoor bonsai trees must go through a period of cold weather in order to survive. If they do not go through this cold period of time each year, eventually the plants will die. Most people who have outdoor bonsai trees take the entire pot, and dig a hole, and plant it in the ground during winter. The reason for doing this is that while the top part of the plant can withstand the coldest winter temperatures, if the roots are left in a little shallow bonsai pot, the roots will freeze, and the plant will die.

My problem is that I have to figure out some way of protecting the roots during winter, particularly because the winds on my balcony become extremely cold during the winter in Chicago. I will need to construct something to be able to protect the roots of my bonsai tree so that the roots will not freeze this winter. Maybe I can construct some kind of an insulated box for it. Previously, I had another Juniper bonsai tree that I tried to keep indoors. After about three or four months, it dried up, and died even though I watered it regularly, so I know from experience that this type of tree will not live indoors.

My corpse flower is putting out a new leaf

I would like to give you an update on my corpse flower. Amorphophallus titanum, more generally referred to as the corpse herb, is one of the strangest plants you will cultivate indoors. This is certainly not a plant for beginners, but it is undoubtedly one of the plant world’s greatest oddities.

Usually, this type of plant only puts out one large leave each year. The leaf is supposed to die back each year. However last year, the leaf did not die back. This year, it appears to have put out two more leaves, so I’m not exactly sure what’s going on. I don’t know if this means that a second bulb has developed, or if the same bulb is putting out multiple leaves. The plant is so rare, that it’s difficult to find much information about it online.

I am currently growing mine in a fishbowl. During the winter, I had the top of the fishbowl covered with plastic to increase the humidity, but now I’ve taken the plastic off because it was causing the leaf to bend a lot. When the winter comes again, I’m not sure what I’m going to do because I still need to find a way to increase the humidity, so I may need to wrap it again. Above, you can see what it looks like now.

Read more at Gardening Know How: Corpse Flower Facts – How To Grow A Corpse Flower Houseplant https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/houseplants/voodoo-lily/grow-a-corpse-flower-houseplant.htm

I’m Growing Cucumbers In My Apartment

Cucumbers that I’m growing in my apartment are doing great. Just follow these tips.

Choose a compact variety of cucumber. You don’t want one that’s going to grow very tall.Read the seed packets to identify the best choices for small-space gardening.

Use a trellis. Take advantage of the vining habit of cucumbers and make use of vertical space . Even a tomato cage can serve as a trellis.

If you plant a lot of seeds, you’re going to have to remove a lot of the plants from the pot. Each type should have only one or two plans so there will be enough space for the plant to grow large enough. Otherwise, there will be too much competition among the plants, and you won’t get any cucumbers.

Buy a grow light. You can buy one at Home Depot, or the hardware store.

It is better to get self-pollinating cucumber plants. Otherwise, you’re going to need to pollinate them yourself. Pollinating them can be done, but it does take a while as you need to transfer pollen from one flower to another using a Q-tip.

I found many pages on the Internet about growing cucumbers in containers. You can easily find them if you search for them. This is just a few tips to let you know that they can be grown in pots by a sunny window with a grow light. My cucumbers get both artificial, and natural light.

My Crinum Lilies Are Blooming

My Crinum lilies are blooming. It seems that most people grow them outdoors, but I grow mine indoors, so the first thing I want to tell you is that they can be grown indoors all year round. They get watered once a week, and they are right next to a sunny window, and they’re doing just fine. They usually bloom in the summer.They have a lot of baby plants, and I recently had my assistant transplant the baby plants into smaller pots.

I feel badly that I have not posted in so long, but the spring and summer have been very difficult for me. Usually in the spring, I go to the Chicago Flower Show, and usually I would have at least one post about that, but this year the flower show was canceled because of the coronavirus. Also, my lungs are rather weak because I have cerebral palsy, so I haven’t left the house very much at all because I’m afraid of catching the coronavirus. Usually this time of year would be a prime time for me to go around looking for more plants. Okay, so now I feel like I’m making excuses for being lazy, and getting involved in other things instead of working on my blog which is probably the case. I realize that telling you all this is being totally unprofessional, and everything that I’ve read says that if I want people to read this, then I need to focus on what you want to know, and not what I want to tell you, but I just can’t follow the rules. I’m going to tell you what I want to tell you whether or not that’s what I’m supposed to be telling you. That’s just the way I am.