My Morning Glory Adventures continued..December thru January

We came from here.. http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1038105/
I will be displaying blooms from summers past here.. enjoy..









Shibouri, I. Purpurea Purple, I. Nil Miko No Mai

I've always liked the flaked purpurea flowers. So different. Now if we could get the variegated gene into their leaves, it would be mahvelous, simply maaaahvelous.

Lovely photo, Debra! My I. purpureas are still growing and blooming in the pot out back. Not a healthy as they did early last Spring, but still going strong. They are the F1 vines of the Spring grown plants. I think the colder weather has slowed down their growth and I am sure the potting soil needs to be amended. Those I. purpurea are tough vines! :-)

I am excited to grow some Purple Flaked I. purpurea higes! Was sent a couple of seeds, so those will be grown in my I. purpurea containers this coming Spring! :-) I, too, am especially fond of the flakes.

I never had a flaked mg until I met you folks. Thanks so much. I love them and am hooked.
this is a picture from summer, and rebecca is the star here.

An absolutely beautiful Rebecca.

Thanks Jackie..
here is a picture of a cot I planted before Christmas... pretty sure it is blue jishi even tho there is alot of red in the stem..

I took a walk in my Garden today.. well. actually I played in it most the day in between cooking.. Pork Roast melt in your mouth baked with apple rings and surrounded by black eyed peas, jalapeno corn bread, shrimp and coctail sauce, buffalo stlye home fried hot wings, cooked fresh carrots and cabbage and ham... that should last a day or so..
here is a series of pictures of my garden in the basement..
this is the view after you come to the bottom of the stairs and this is looking West and South.

a little closer in looking south and west

when you look to the east this is what you see at this point

here is what is on the north and end of the basement wall

going a little further south on the east wall I use the table and lights for my seedlings and you can see a white tub it has water and a bubbler and sounds nice down here.. it is full of rooted brug sticks
hubbys ironing board.. not mine:P~

oopsie.. better turn that around oh well..
this is the center of the south end garden

behind the chair on the east wall

I love this corner.. this is where my mg vines, chalice vines, coral vines, thumbergia, snail vine, stictocardia brevenis and EEs and bananas and duranta, brugs, lantana, anthuriums, and well alot of cool things here..

behind the chair is the East vine wall and there is the blooming pink picotee, by the tapioca tree, coleus that is blooming, red lantana blooming, red star hibiscus blooming, White Knight Brug from Tropicman, Red canna Austrailius from Rita, tropical milk weed, salvias of all kinds.. blooming, fading, reblooming for me..

the wall on the southwest end has decorations that have been given to me by my children..I think of them while I am down here..

reaching for the light.. waiting out the night, coldness creeping in, reaching up to touch the sun, warm us up, they look like they are happy here..

this was outside, the seedlings are volunteers..

here you can see I. Indica, red Lantana , the red star hibiscus from seeds sent to me from Lazlo

close up of red star

cropped the i indica out so it can be seen

joseph's unknown blue was beautiful, I got a few seeds from it..

christmas cactus white and red.. my first one, a present from my boss.

here are some volunteer akatsu no mai from the original pot that they first started out in outside last summer.. there is a few salvia cuttings rooted in there too.

Debra - All that I can say is that I am about as GREEN as your plants with envy! Your plants look so happy and healthy! And to have a bubbly pond too! WOW! Paradise ... in my mind! I WANT A BASEMENT!!! Love all the precious memoribilia from your kids! And your Christmas cactus is to die for! Beautiful! Mine is showing flower buds for the first time in 2 years! LOL! Looks like I might get some blooms on mine this winter, too! :-) What a nice huge basement green room! I just love it! How lucky you are to have something like that to enjoy in the dead of winter. :-) Thanks for sharing and making my day! :-)

Wonderful basement g house Debra. Love all your
plants but partial to the pretty Red Star Hibiscus

It is great, Debra. Thanks for the tour.

Thanks, guys.. I spent most of today down here, puttering around, trimming and stuff.
it is so cold outside. low teens all day. Just snowed again.
I hate Winter, I hate Snow, I hate icey winds that Blow.. don't make any snowmen.. oh so fat, just make sure I have my scarf and hat.. If I go outside today, make me hate it all the way.
There now I feel better..
Lantana is flushing again down here..

texas red star is loaded with buds..

Vines and Climbers, Pink Bedroom South Window.. those three passis are trying to take over the place around my rivera corymbosa..

stictocardia brevenis leaves with black soot.

and so off to work tommorrow, after three days of cold and snow.. I planted alot today, just to make me feel warm. I planted four lavender moon vines, a mix of seeds from vines I had brought in as bits and pieces of mgs I favored, sorted more seeds to be more organized, re-potted the shrimp plant and salvia cuttings that rooted, potted up some brug sticks that rooted, made four seed trays out of plastic snap containers ( Big Wheel IceCream Sandwich) those containers fit on my window sill ledges perfectly. rounded up my plastic bags with zippers, and all the clear plastic domes I have saved for my mini green houses. took inventory of all mgs up and going, all brugs surviving, all salvias thriving, clipped the dead heads from the coleus and pentas for seed bagging. Will be re-doing the vine corner.. I do not like how I can't access it.. anyway.. here is a photo of what it is like here now outside..

Debra - I took cuttings of all the I. batatas I got from you because I know the ones won't make it outside. It is downright cold outside right now and we haven't even hit the freezing mark! Kinda crazy to have such cold weather this early in Florida!

Gonna be a chilly one tomorrow with all the kids at school! I wonder if we will have recess and PE outside! LOL!

19 degrees here. Is it too early to plant things. I am afraid they will be long and leggy.
I have been dividing brugs into sections, picking up after the dog gone pup, he toppled one of my flower pots. Had dirt everywhere.
Was a nice way to start out Monday morning, but my fault.. I let him play with the pots outside got to teach manners for house...
Guess what?? I got moonvine Buds,blooms are next, yeah!!! I have been waiting so long, it seems. So Happy...Thank you all.

This message was edited Jan 4, 2010 9:59 AM

Bitter cold here with even colder air arriving by Wed night or Thurs, lows will be around 6 degrees. Stuffed the dog houses full of straw wheat trying to keep them warm. Wish I had a garage, just a carport
at this house.
Bought electric blankets for the front porch and the back porch cats. They love their warm blankets. We covered the back porch this summer so at least they have a nice dry place to eat and sleep,
even a cat litter box so they don't have to get out in the rain. lol

Oh Jackie! So sorry to hear about the limited space for the animals. :-( Sounds like you are doing everything possible to accomodate them and keep them warm. Pretty neat idea about the heating blankets for the cats. Too bad the dogs would probably chew them up and get electrocuted if you tried that for them. I wonder if you could drape something over the dog houses or possibly put some card board around them. I've heard cardboard is a good insulator. Maybe big cardboard boxes such as refridgerator boxes or something. I can't imagine being outside in that cold of weather. I have a dog and a cat. Both are indoor pets. The dog sleeps in bed with me between me and my dh! LOL! And the cat sleeps in the doggie bed right near me on the floor. I am sure the cat would sleep on the bed with the 3 of us, but she's anti-social. LOL!

Brrrrr ... It's quite cold here, too. Supposed to be freezing temps tonight. It's about 71 degree in the house, so not too bad inside without running the heater. Then it will warm up for one day before the next cold front hits. I spend the mornings before work moving the plant containers outside in front of the garage door. The door is dark brown and it is facing south, so lots of heat generated during the day. And then I lug them all back inside the garage at night to keep them safe from the freezing temps.

Boy! What I don't do for my plants! :-)

Becky, I am just shocked at how cold it has been down there.. I can just see you going the extra mile for your plants. I am concerned about this climate artic blast that is hitting everywhere normally tropical. I like the fact that you let your sweet dog sleep with you. I was raised like that with our family dog. My DH does not allow the Duke to be in our bedroom at all.
Jackie, my sister in Rogers said it is cold there too. she has 4 dogs and two cats. They are all in bed with her and my niece.. LOL
we used to drape a moving pad over the dog house with our last dog, Chevy. It seemed to keep the cold out. Try covering the dog houses them selves up. There is more cold headed our way, then on to you. It is supposed to warm up to 36 by next thursday tho, a week and a half of this hard freeze. we really needed it tho. It hasn't been this cold for this long in a quite awhile. Puts us back in the right Zone now. Part of my job in the early ams at work is to do a walk around on all courtesy cars and check them off. It wears me out and tonight I came home, got in my recliner and passed out. Here is my sons place right now.. he could do some ice fishing I guess.

RRM, I start seeds in January just to keep me busy during the coldness, but If I lived where you lived, I prolly would stil do the same with lots of light LOL. Congrats on the moon vine buds. I love your little unicorns too.

Becky, These are big dogs, 2 of them are 100 lbs plus and 2 are
Malamutes, like sled dogs.
Too big to be house dogs says DH. I have 3 small dogs inside and
4 cats.
The straw wheat is warm,
the same as sleeping in a nice, warm hay loft.
If I could figure out how to utilize an electric blanket for them
and not have to worry about them chewing on it, I would do that too.

DH threw a bale of hay down for my outside dog. It is so horrid out there, that would be the last straw if I brought her in. He is worried about me wanting to bring the longears in. That would be a Hoot....☺

Debra - My dh just told me that it is 34 degrees already outside and it just turned 9 pm. I was dmailing Phyllis and remembered my tropical plants out back and about freaked out! I brought all the front potted plants in and forgot the ones in the backyard! I ran out there and brought them all in. They are some of my prized plants and so they are actually in my laundry room (instead of the garage) because it is the warmest room in the house! I hope the low temps for 3-4 hours didn't kill them. Two are my bonsai plants and then my orchids and Night Blooming Cereus! Yikes!!! I hope they are mush in the morning. Grrrr ... Yeah ... this freezing weather isn't the norm for Florida. It usually doesn't get real cold until February. And even then we don't get it this bad for this many days in a row.

My dog is my baby! Dh wouldn't dare kick her out of the bed. He knows better than to give me a hard time about Lady! lol She sleeps right next to me, so she really doesn't bother him. I just had her groomed and trimmed up today. She looks like a little miniature husky. She's my baby girl. :-) She's my soul dog. ;-) And she sure keep me warm, too! :-)

I am glad that straw can be very warm. I worry about squirrels and my little hummer and all the other birds outside. LOL! If only I had a big barn I could coax them all in ... to stay warm. :-) I want to protect them ALL! I have a huge heart for animals. Can you tell? LOL!

Charlene - What???!!! You don't have your doggie or your mules inside with you???? No barn? I can just see you and dh and all these animals all piled on your bed at night! LOL! It might be a little crowded, but I bet it'd be warm! :-)