Becky's MGs and Other Plants Part 11

The other thread was up past 100 posts, so thought it best to start a new thread. We came from here:
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1029306/

This is how the neglected and sad looking Bouganville Bonsai that I picked up about a month ago now looks. You can still see some distressed leaves, but the plant seems to have recovered nicely since I bought it. And it is blooming and so pretty! Who would've ever thought to make Bouganville a bonsai? What a great idea!

This message was edited Nov 1, 2009 11:15 AM

I found this Ficus Ginseng Bonsai on clearance at Walmart last week. For $6.50 it was worth it even if it dies, because I love the pot. :-) Though I've been feeding it and watering it and getting it in some sunlight and it seems to have perked up a bit! :-)

Japanese MGs and Bonsai seem to go hand in hand! :-)

This is my 2 year old 'Margarita' Ipomoea batatas in contrast with my Powder Puff bush. Love this vine!!! Wonderful for hanging baskets or in the ground. A friend has it growing all around her garden bed as a filler between her bushes. :-) Looks great!

This is a bloom cluster of Cape Honeysuckle that seems to delight the honey bees, the butterflies, and my hummer (if she can ever get in there to sip some nectar!). The orange color is just amazing!!! I think I like orange even better than red blooms. :-)

And here are the red blooms of the Powder Puff bush. :-) This is a dwarf bush and has taken years to get this large. Slow growing plants teach me a LOT about patience. :-)

Indoors, here are the vine cuttings of I. indica (Blue Dawn) that are starting to grow roots. Yay!!

Beautiful blooms, love them all esp the red Powder Puff.

I LOVE that cluster of cape honeysuckle! I don't think i've ever seen such a thing. Can it be rooted?

Thanks, Jackie! I actually bought the Powder Puff because I really liked the red blooms! It is supposed to be a good nectar plant for bees, butterflies, and hummers. I know the bees love it!

Nicole - I have never tried to root Cape Honeysuckle from a cutting (in water or in potting soil), but I do know that it will put out roots anywhere it touches the ground/soil.

Here is the new arbor my dh and I built for the exit/entrance into the butterfly garden. I will be renovating that 3-tiered bed soon. My daylily may have found a new place to grow! :-) This new arbor has Lady Lavender and P. quadrangularis Passiflora vines growing up each side of the arbor.

Nicole - I don't know how cold hardy Cape Honeysuckle is. If you can't find one up there near you, let me know and I will attempt to root a cutting for you. Mine was very slow growing for the first 4 years but has finally taken off. It took me another 2 years to train it as a standard. So 6 years total to get it to where it looks like a tree and is about 10 - 11 ft. tall now. I am in the process of training the other Cape Honeysuckle bush on the opposite side of my yard to be a standard too. It was planted 2 years after the other one. So it will take another 2 years to be a tree. :-) The hummingbirds, butterflies, and bees love the blooms! :-)

I love your arbor. What a great idea!

Thanks, Nicole!

Here is the re-do on the 3-tiered bed. I put in a bunch of daylilies along with some butterfly nectar plants. :-)

All the daylilies were grown from seeds. :-) I am really tickled that I had such great luck germinating and growing them from seedlings. I had to put the seeds in the fridge for a couple of months to get them to germinate. Worked like a charm. :-)

You can also see where I had to do a hard prune on my Cape Honeysuckle tree (in the left corner) after the strong winds blew it forward. Ironically, the wind came again and blew it back into place AFTER I had already pruned it! LOL! Murphy's Law! Grrr ...

what do you have climbing up your arbor?

it is all looking so good right now.. glad you have green everywhere..

BeckyGardener:

I, too, love morning glories and have grown one very successfully in both CA and now in AZ. It is unlike any other I have seen or grown. The flowers are 3/8" (or smaller) and bright orange!. I'm writing you since you seem so morning glory savvy - do you know what the name of this one is??

Thanks.

P.S. It is definitely a morning glory - will forward pic soon.

Nichole - I have two different Passiflora growing on the arbor. :-) Gotta keep those butterflies happy!

Debra - Thanks! Still green here for sure!

Beesee - Welcome! I am far from an expert, but if you post a photo ... I am sure someone here can ID the vine cultivar/species for you! There are several that come to mind that it could be, but a photo would certainly narrow down the possibilities!

Becky, i showed my DH your arbor, he says he will help me with one this spring. I have four passiion vines growing already inside and waiting for outside.

Debra - I had to purchase more materials than I needed to make that arch. It actually cost me about $50, but I had enough materials to make two complete arches. Not a bad price. So one went in at my school and one at my house. Both are for Passiflora vines to attract the butterflies! This price was far cheaper than the solid wooden one my dh and I made over a year ago. My next project is going to be a small pergola (which will be a combination of the 2 different arches in my yard). It will host a small shaded seating area underneath it at the back of my house. I already have nice large Sweet Autumn Clematis vines to grow up each side. I am figuring that project will run me about $75 - 100 to do. :-) Might be a project I do over my Christmas break. :-)

This message was edited Dec 4, 2009 1:07 PM

Maybe you could send me the plans for those arches? or step by step instructions? LOL

Debra - Somehow I forgot to answer your question about the construction of my newest arbor.

It is made from cattle panel. I purchased a 16' x 4' panel. I had the sales clerk at Tractor Supply cut the fencing with large wire cutters. He cut the panel in two lengthwise, making 2 -16' x 2' panels. Then I went to Home Depot and bought four 6' tall posts. I actually used the wood used in garden bed borders instead of the thicker 4" x 4" posts. Dug four holes, dumped in concrete, leveled up the posts, and waited for them to set up. I added the cattle panel from about 6" off the ground and gently bent it around into a curved arch and attached it to all four posts using the curved nails used for live-stock panels/fencing. I did make a nice little bed at the base of the arbor on both sides to plant the Passifloras in. And then laid out a brick design for under the arbor to make it a welcoming entrance. A nice, but cheap alternative to building a more complex and expensive arbor. Worked like a charm to build at both my house and the school I work at. And it is absolutely perfect for vines!!!

Here's a photo of it. Looks good at any angle! LOL!

The 3-tiered bed in the foreground is my new daylily garden bed. Of course I have some butterfly and hummer nectar and host plants in there as well. :-) Because we've had such a mild fall and early winter, everything is still green. It's nice to have cooler weather and still have a blooming garden. :-)

Here is another angle of that area of my backyard. You can see the difference in workmanship between the two arbors. Both serve their purpose beautifully!

The yellow blooming bush/tree in the background are my large Cassia bushes that I've almost lost twice now. They have proven themselves to be hardy and determined bushes. I haven't checked them to see if there are any Sulphur Butterfly caterpillars eating the blooms. But my guess is there probably are! I see yellow butterflies in my yard all the time. :-)

This message was edited Dec 11, 2009 11:43 PM

In this photo you can see the orange carpet of fallen blooms under the Cape Honeysuckle tree.

Here is the view of the daylily bed looking through the cattle panel arbor.

And right outside of the daylily bed are all these MG sprouts. Apparently a lot of seeds fell to the ground right there when I had the containers sitting there before the vines died. I collected a lot of seeds, so no surprise that some found their way to the ground. Amazing that they can sprout without soil. That is weed/grass barrier and pine mulch that they are growing in. I haven't decided whether to gently pull them up and try to transplant them in pots or just remove them all together. Decisions, decisions ...

Here is a close-up of the bottom of the cattle panel arbor.

And this is a close-up showing the U-shaped nails that are used to hold the cattle panel in place. I bought a box of those nails for about $5. I just hammered them in place along all four posts. I placed the panel on the inside of the posts instead of the outside because I felt the posts would be support to hold the panel in place. It might pop loose if the panel was placed on the outside of the posts. Worked out beautifully. My dh couldn't even imagine what the heck this would look like until we got it together and then he was amazed at how nice and functional it was. Far easier than the white wooden arbor we built a year ago. We add a little bit each year to the backyard garden areas. One day all the structures will be in and we will be able to sit back and enjoy it all! :-)

Using the cattle panels, you could actually make a 4' deep arbor or add more cattle panels to make a tunnel of vines. That is something that I would like to do also. I wish I had the funds to buy 4 cattle panels and just store them in my garage until I was ready to use them. I get my panels from the Tractor Supply store about 45 minutes from where I live. No store local sells them. :-(

Anyway, it is basically a very simple and cheap arbor to build for vines. I look forward to the day when the vines actually cover it completely and I see green leaves and blooms covering this arbor. Should look very nice!

Here is the other side of the arbor. I have two different Passiflora vines growing. One on each side. This one is Lady Lavender. The other larger leaf vine is Passiflora Quadrangularis (which was grown from seed this year). One has purple blooms, the other has a nice reddish and purple combo blooms. (Though I haven't gotten blooms on the latter one yet, so I am only speculating.)

And this is what I see when I look straight up from underneath the arbor.

My roses seem to like the fall weather. I can only grow roses successfully in pots. They don't like my yard soil. Probably too much alkaline, sand, and clay.

And I recently transplanted all 3 ponytail palms into seperate pots. I want to display them on some kind of narrow, tall table or possibly hang them in a basket in my garden beds. I have been checking out the thrift shops for cheap furniture that I can convert into garden props. I've seen some cool stuff, but need to figure out how to finish such items to keep them from rotting if they are wooden.

Becky, if some pieces you find are unpainted, maybe you could stain them first and then use the polyurethane, sp? Or maybe it's just as effective if you paint them and then coat with polyurethane.
I'm sure someone here can tell us.

really nice garden you have Becky.. I love it.

Jackie - I read your reply and then got interrupted and never responded to your post. I am thinking that polyurethane might be the way to go. I am checking out everything. Since my budget is even tighter this year than last, I am just window shopping right now and trying to get ideas. (Will this recession ever end???? sigh...)

Debra - Thanks! That 3-tiered bed changes every single year! LOL! It's like a revolving garden bed. I never know from one year to the next what I will grow in it next. If the daylilies do good in it, then that may be the bed's new long-term look.

I had an interesting experience yesterday...

I went to water some plants on the back patio and found that the hose had a huge hole in it. Weird, because I have it wound up on one of those square hose keepers. It's a box that had the winder inside to crank the hose around and around to store. Well, I started unwinding the entire hose to remove it and throw it away. As I got towards the end of the hose, a large fruit rat jump down and ran off! I was just as surprised as the rat. LOL! Well, I had noticed a lot of mulch and other stuff piled up under the hose box container. I couldn't figure out why. Well, upon close inspection I saw that the rat was a female that had build a nest in the middle of the hose winder. It's a heavy plastic cylinder in the middle of the box that the hose wraps around as you turn the crank. There were 8 babies in there. So my daughter and I shook it until the babies fell out. I was gathering them and putting them in a bucket. And then I decided to check under the waterfall and sure enough there was another nest of 8-9 babies. Sheesh! So gathered up all the ones I could catch. They had their eyes open and were a pretty good size. So I figured they might be close to being weaned if not already. I dumped them into the vacant lot next to my house. If they survive or not ... oh well ... I just don't want 16-17 more rats cruising in my backyard. I don't have the heart to kill them, so figured I'd give them a fair chance to survive, though I know most probably won't without their mothers to care for them. I even dumped some seed mix and squished oranges from my neighbors tree in the area I released them to give them some food.

I had to let the dog out later that evening I saw both mother rats looking around their nesting area for their babies. Made me feel bad, but that was just too many rats which can spread diseases into my yard. I want a rat free yard! LOL!

I know the rats like to nest next to my house because it is safest there from predators. But I sure don't want all these rats in my yard. I am sure the snakes will eventually eat them along with the owls and the hawks. Though haven't seen any snakes lately. I suspect they are hybernating since the weather got cold a few weeks ago. The weather here is so mixed up!

It was hot today out at recess and it is supposed to be even hotter tomorrow. I WANT COLDER TEMPS!!! It doesn't even feel like Christmas when it's this hot. Sheesh! I was so looking forward to cooler weather after the scorching temps we had this past summer.

Anyway ... that's my story of the day ... and I am sticking to it! LOL!
This message was edited Dec 14, 2009 11:21 PM

This message was edited Dec 14, 2009 11:22 PM

Aww becky, really?? two nests?? awwwww gosh, I hope they are okay... well you know.. not in your yard, but okay, in thier new home. I remember the rats that lived in the banana fence line out back of our place in Miami, and the three two and three yr old boys had one in the garage cornered with sticks, I freaked!!! Well. I can't remember much of after that , but I can feel your love for all nature with your shared memories here. strange I should think of that day after reading your post. What about the lizards? Are they everywhere there like sparrows are here? My hubby calls sparrows "mice with wings", and starlings he calls "flying rats" LOL
Wish you could have some of this cold from here.. in total from october to now, Joe has caught 10 or eleven Mice from the garage raiding my seeds... I bet it was the mouse family that lived out back around the bird feeder.
I love critters.. I should be on a large island somewhere, and so should you,, LOL Now, when is the trip to cancuun? or jamaica or where ever people go to be warm and happy?

Becky, you are too funny!

rats multiply
8 x 8 = 64
so in a year you get ......

8
64
512
4096
32768
262144
2097152

better get some hungry cats.

LOL!

That probably explains photos like this one right in my backyard.

And this one.