Still no moisture here, I am kinda worried about the stuff outside. It is all perennial, but I still worry.
Just made my three batches of doggie bones for all the dogs in my life as presents, from a lamb bone left over with stock. I bet Duke is smelling them right now, anyway he is begging.
Debra, that is really pretty ... variegated Pentas? My red pentas were hit hard by the cold but they are very plentiful in the garden centers around here.
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I know the doggies in your life will love their Christmas bones!
This is a photo from last December 2009 before our extreme winter temp's last year killed everything. These Pentas had been in the ground for about eight years and were so pretty ... they were mush after such prolonged freezes.
I have a dwarf variety of Pink Pentas in a mixed container planting ...
Lin, I wish we were neighbors - your flowers are gorgeous!
Kay: The Red Pentas are no more, lost to the freezes last winter and I didn't replace them. Pentas will survive for a long time here usually but it was just so cold for so long last winter that they succumbed. There are a few Knock Out Roses in that area now. My yard is looking pretty pitiful this year ... come spring I may undertake a lot of new landscaping, I want to go with mainly native plants. I also think next winter I will try to talk my husband into wrapping the entire deck in heavy plastic ahead of the first predicted cold snap and just leave it all winter ... and maybe put a heater out there to offer more protection to all the container plants!
That brom is gorgeous. I save my pentas every year as they are annuals here. I have many colours. Kay, I will send you some if you like them like I do. I wish I could get them as large as yours get, Lin, but by the time they get that big, it is time to cut them and root them and start all over. They are a tropical here for me..
Amazing plants for the season! Sorry to hear about the weather. Do greenhouses need to be heated for the Winter in the lower States?
I use a greenhouse to keep plants dry.
Here's the December harvest!
Clockwise from top left; Kobacha Pumpkin, Spanish Red Bananas, South American Plantains, and Ice Cream Bananas.
Darling Debra, thank you, but we can get those here 9 months out of the year - I appreciate you, lady bug!
Metro, I would REALLY like to be YOUR neighbor!!!
Dave, Oh those look yummy, I love all the colors. That pic would have been great for the Fruit/Vegetable category in the photography contest last month!
I sometimes wish I had a greenhouse again. I had a decent sized GH (20x20) back in the 1970's, but it wasn't heated so I still had the hassle of moving plants inside during extreme cold. I was working very long hours back in those days too and it finally got to be too much, hauling plants back and forth and eventually I just had my husband dismantle it. Now that I'm retired I'd love to have a greenhouse to play in. My husband told me a few days ago that he saw a greenhouse kit online ... hmm ^_^
Debra: Butterflies love the Pentas. This photo is from last month:
Royal Mandarins / Temple Tangors are the best Citrus this time of year.
I grind them up with Cranberries to make a fresh holiday relish!
Dave, will you share the recipe for he Holiday Relish, I'd love to have that one! I made Cranberry Sauce today with a recipe that my youngest sister has been using for years, it includes fresh cranberries, chopped apples, raisins, walnuts and it also uses the juice of an orange and lemon.
Oh Lin,
Please share that recipe also ! Sounds Yummy ! I LOVE Cranberries.
Is it okay with everyone to put it here on the thread, or would d-mail be preferred?
Grate the rind of two large citrus into a sauce pan.
Add one pound cleaned fresh cranberries.
Add two cups (one pint) of fresh citrus juice.
Slowly bring to a boil & stir until the ingredients are well mixed and thicken.
Remove from heat, cool and serve.
I will post the recipe here but if there's any objection I will delete the post.
Cranberry Sauce
1 cup Granulated Sugar
1 cup Water
16oz Fresh Cranberries
1 medium Granny Smith Apple, peeled, cored and chopped
1 cup chopped Walnuts
1/2 cup Golden Raisins
1/4 cup Grand Marnier (I substituted 1/4 cup Orange Juice and 1 teaspoon orange extract)
Juice from 1/2 Orange
Juice from 1/2 Lemon
2 teaspoons Ground Cinnamon
1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg (I used ground)
Combine sugar and water in large saucepan and bring to a boil. Add the cranberries and return to a boil (the cranberries will pop and soften.) Lower the heat and let the liquid simmer for a few minutes. Stir in the remaining ingredients and simmer for @ 15 minutes. Remove pan from the heat and let sauce cool. Spoon into individual mason jars and refrigerate.
Serve as a side dish to Turkey, Chicken or Fish.
I make up baskets of goodies (cookies, breads) at Christmas time and sometimes add a little jar of the cranberry sauce to the basket.
Thank you Dave, copying that down right now!
Aaah, the fragrance of orange blossoms is one of my all time favorite scents, wish they could make a perfume that smelled as good! I grew up in Virginia and had never smelled orange blossoms until moving to Florida in 1967, and I fell in love with that fragrance!
My neighbors tree:
I am so jealous of everyone's beautiful tropicals. I hope some of mine will survive. It has been SO COLD here. Some days it doesn't even go past low 30's for high!
Rita, $350 for a mickey mouse plant? That is crazy! I had a little tiny one and I killed it after the first year. They are so hard to grow. My aunt down in Tampa has promised me one from the temple but I haven't seen it yet, so we'll see. The way I see it, it wasn't meant for me to grow one of those mickey mouse plant here in Atlanta. They have them at the asian stores here but they are pretty expensive (for me). I think around $50. They have them around Chinese New Year.
Merry Christmas everyone and hope you have a prosperous New Year too!
Oh Nicole, it is so hard to believe your cold there. It is crazy. Okay, I have blooms on the Alba Moon vine now..
I have the sticto in the closet and this turbina in the main room, and on the opposite wall is the purple moon vine, it is next to start budding, it is putting out new clumps of growth on the main stem.
Wonderful, Debra!
raining again today.... :(
wish we'd get some, without the cold weather.
The days start getting longer TODAY - I am so excited - spring is almost here!!! Of course, I have to admit - it's like spring here, today - 65 degrees and a predicted 70 tomorrow!!!
What are all of you doing for frozen bananas? This is Musa 'Sweetheart' and I plan to just cut it off at the base but I wondered if there are other methods for dealing with this mess?
ardesia,
I know down here in general we leave plants alone till spring. Not sure about Banana's as I have not grown them, but I'm thinking it would be the same. If you trim off the frozen growth, and then they put out new and we get another freeze, which we could very well do, then the new growth will freeze, and then the plant is even more stressed. Again, NOT sure on this when it come's to Banana's.
mj
Mj, we gotta get you a banana! LOL I have a baby one , I will put yer name on it. I am not an expert, ardesia, but I would tend to agree with Mj on this one. Poor thing! Gosh, it looks like it needs a blanket!
Debra, LOL....you'd get a big kick out of this. We have a "golf cart" with a dump bed on it. Right now the dump bed is filled with all the blanket's we had on all the plants that we covered...about 30 blanket's, and we even saved the big box's the hot water heater came in to put over some tall plants. Still had some get frosted back even with being covered. 37º on the front porch now....weather said 45 over night last night. I better not have anything get a NIP !!! Ok... I will try the Banana ! Goodness I have plants everywhere ! I pulled some out of the barn to get them watered but am keeping them close, but I think I can pull the rest out for a few days at least, let them get a drink. I put them right up under the Oaks that are next to the barn just in case we get a light frost, they should be ok there for a few days. They are calling for another freeze early next week tho. No pics to post now, maybe I'll take one of the Iochroma still blooming in the bedroom. Do they make seeds, do you prune them the same as Brugs ?
That's funny, we have a golf cart with a trailer hooked up and it is either carrying yard trash to the neighborhood area where we can dump it or it is being used as a repository for plant blankets, pots of tender plants, you name it.
I am careful not to cut back most plants but bananas are different. The picture was taken at a bad angle and it is hard to see but that tree trunk was about 8' tall with the leaves extending another 4' or 5'. The trunk is pretty large and when something that big freezes and melts it can cause a lot of rot.
This was the first truly hard freeze I can remember in the 10 years we have lived in this home. Last year was bad for us but last week was downright brutal. We got down to the mid twenties, not good at all.
Iochromas grow to a tree like a brug does, if you clip it the blooms seem to be less, here anyway, I try to let them bloom as much as possible, they do set seeds, they are small and round, kind of like a mg pod, I have rooted a few cuttings like I do my brugs.
Debra, do you have a rooted RED ich. to trade? I've been wanting one - already have the purple.
Kay, I wish I did.
We are supposed to get snow on Saturday and Sunday.
Mele Kalikimaka is the thing to say
on a bright Hawaiian Christmas day.
That's the Island greeting that we send to you
from the land where palm trees sway.
Here we know that Christmas will be green and bright
the sun to shine by day and all the stars at night.
Mele Kalikimaka is Hawai'i's way
to say Merry Christmas to you!
Mele Kalikimaka a me Hauoli Makahiki Hou!
A hui hou aloha, Kavika
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Aloha, Dave
Oh that is beautiful. Thank You... freezing here!
Mahalo and Merry Christmas to you too Dave - and everyone else.
This little bee does not understand why this cold damaged sasanqua is not quite as sweet as it usually is.
MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!
