WOW! Amazing Tropical Paradise in the mountains of Tennessee! I LOVE that variegated Banana tree ... but Mel, your entire garden is beautiful!
Kell: Thanks for "bumping" this old thread so we could visit Mel's garden!
Summer Vacations for Mel's Hoyas and Tropicals
Yes, the variegated Banana is something else
Truly amazing what one smart determined woman can do (with a very green thrumb).
Kell! How wonderful to see you on the Hoya forum! I have missed you!
Thanks for the nice compliments. The garden is my escape from the real world and a great source of fun, exercise and stress relief.
You are missed too! I visit Susie on the vegetable forum. I have to go where the girls are. LOL
OMG, THAT Kell! Hey Kell, howzit? What are you growing now? Into tropicals in general or/and hoyas?
Carol
Hi Carol! I was recently talking to a friend who was telling me she visited you. And do you believe with my post hormone mind, I cannot remember to whom I spoke! LOL. But whomever it was, she had a great time. LOL I am so bad.
Didn't dear Mel get her variegated banana when she was visiting you? I think I remember her telling me that.
Depends on what day on what I am buying madly. LOL So true. Today I was on a nursery hop 2 hours away desperately seeking succulents and a special bomerea. I ended up with the coolest variegated farfugium. I started with those 3 years ago. Unfortunately, I keep moving to another genus but I always keep my old loves so I still buy them too. If I listed all I collected I would still be typing in the morning!
I heard you are no longer selling hoyas. What are you getting into? Still growing brugs?
If it is variegated, I want it. LOL
HAHA... Yup...still growing brugs but not growing out seedlings and planting them madly. Dealing with what I have and on to new horizons! Currently collecting anything I don't have!!! My latest passion is daylilies...they are spread all over like wildflowers...and amaryllis. Spring around here is a thing of beauty!!! Heck...all year round!
Was recently in SF...supplied hoya and dischidia for the Borneo exhibit in the Ca. Acad. of Sciences. Love SF...so creative and so outside the box. Yes...winding down my business to be able to pursue painting and writing. Still on the collecting end of hoyas tho...also dischidia which I am stuffing into all the trees with the hoyas!!!!
Will keep you in mind for the wierdly and wildly variegateds...they are my fave too!
Ciao
Kell, That was Jeanne that visited Carol! She is such a world traveler. LOL. Is it "safe" on the vegie forum? (LOL)
Carol did find the AeAe for me. I was able to get one pup to live and then the mother plant died. I gave the pup to a dear friend who is fighting salivary cancer and loves bananas. It was a little hard to part with, but, gives him so much joy and happiness that it was totally worth it.
LOL Mel, our Jeanne from Canada? Shoot, I am so blond. LOL
Yes, go visit Susie in Vegetables, her true love now it seems. Well, along with Bud. LOL. She will even talk back to us. LOL Someone asked me just the other day if she still grew brugs and I had no clue. I doubt it. I need to ask her.
Gee Carol your plantation, (I was going to say yard but that hardly describes it accurately), sounds so enticingly fantastic.
Yes, SF is great. How cool you got to strut your stuff at the Borneo exhibit in the California Academy of Sciences. I was there this summer but can't remember which floor was Bornea. You might have gone after for when I was there the rainforest was a bit tattered looking and sad. Needed a spruce up for sure, a bit of fertilizer maybe. The WOW factor was not quite so loud.
How beautiful to give your koa'Ae to a good friend like that and that he has been living with aloha....bananas ARE healing, you know! I just learned that if you rub the inside of a banana skin on bites, it was stop the itch. We could create "Eau de Banane" to stop itches!!! There is certain 'mana' in a gift of that banana...it was sacred and only the Kings family could own them. Therefore, if you were gifted with one, you receive the power and are only allowed (by tradition) to gift the power/banana. It is said that anyone who sells that banana carries a bad intention/spirit. Tonsa folks write me asking to buy one and I won't sell them...(besides if I got caught I could get in real trouble with the Plant Gestapo
Kell, the new Horticulturealist (OMG, did you see how many letters that word has!!!) is really savvy and it looked healthy when we were there.
Yes...still have the brugs...but I rule them now, they don't run MY life!!! Happy with what I have and just whacking them down/back is a full time job. I finally got a SeedPod on HG and the seeds grew about 2" and croaked! Wierd. In the meantime...Tillandsias, Bromiliads, Gardenias, Torch Gingers, Bamboo are some of the obsessions that have...well, obsessed me...to say nothing of Crinums, Amarylis and Daylilies. Doesn't it kill you!!!! Hoyas are still #1...but I also am growing lots of vegetables (asparagus, winged beans...) and I have misplaced my gardening staff, MIAs poor things. Do you think they will ever come back...? Help....
BTW...Sitting here on my lanai scratching my Little Red Fire Ant bites and hearing the piercing calls of the coqui frog....another foreign invader I think it important everyone know that it's not always perfect in Paradise! My, how we suffer!!!! (grin)....
Carol
Hawaii has fire ants? Bummer! Are the fire ants a big problem? I've heard that a fire ant colony is very hard to kill/destory/get rid of. Thank goodness fire ants cannot live this far north since it's too cold. (cold isn't always a bad thing!) (:o)
Mike
(not meaning to hijack this thread) LFA (Little Fire Ants) are a BIG problem!!! Trees get covered in them...picking fruit, coffee, and flowers, pruning, moving plants is a chore! We have to plan a couple of days in advance, spread the bait with the poison and then do any work needed. The bites are horrific! I was pruning a vine and they fell into my blouse....8 nasty bites all over the front of my....my....my'self' and that was 3 days ago and they are still itching like crazy!
Lucky you Carol. I bet you are in heaven there, fire ants or not. Ihad to look up wqhat dischidia were. Looks like Hoya. LOL
I will have to do a return visit to California Academy of Sciences if I can get my DH to go again. Did you get to go to he Conservatory of Flowers and of course Strybing? Just beautiful.
So are your rubbing your chest with banana skins.
Yes...it works!!!! chest, arms, legs, neck...you name it.!!!!
I will have to remember that. I always have a banana on the counter for my parrot. He gets a piece when he sreams at me in bird.
LOL, I was going to ask the same question Kell just did about rubbing your chest with banana skins! Fire ants are awful! We have them here in Florida too. I remember one time driving down a country road with pastures on both sides of the road and all these hills of soil ... Fire Ant mounds! I've read they have actually killed cattle but that could just be an old wives tale! I just know I despise them and they are near impossible to get rid of totally. You pour the insecticide on the nest holes and a few days later they pop up elsewhere! They sure hurt when they bite ... leave red welts on you and itch like crazy as Carol said. It seems like they are taking over here in Florida. We have all kinds of ants and this year has been bad ... the backyard seems to be nothing but ant hills this summer! We have hundreds of the little anole lizards which eat ants but there are still tons of ants around.
I do have one banana tree in the backyard but it has never produced fruit. I think I will stock up on the fruit next time I go grocery shopping ... we do like bananas and I've used the skins around certain plants but never thought about rubbing them on my body for insect bites! LOL, Carol .... better start bottling that "Eau de Banane", LOL .. I'd buy it. I always loved the fragrance of Banana Boat tanning products (at least I think that was the one) ... love the scent of bananas, coconut and pineapple - great combination!
Kell, what kind of Parrot do you have? My husband had an Indian Ringneck Parrot once .... bird hated me and would bite me every chance he got! He screeched and screamed constantly wanting to be out of the cage but only came out when DH was home to deal with him! I love birds and wouldn't mind having another one in the family someday but don't know if I could take a loud one. My sister's next door neighbor has dogs and birds. I fell in love with one of her birds, a White Breasted Caique (pronounced kike) named "Mango". He is so colorful.
I didn't mean to commandeer the thread but a mango is a tropical fruit and Mango the bird has tropical colors. ^_^
Oh, my sympathy goes out to you, Carol. I've never been bitten by a fire ant, but I've been bitten by lots of other biting/stinging insects that leave the skin itchy and they are no fun at all.
I've never heard about the banana skin itching remedy, though. Dumb question: do you rub the outside of the banana skin against your skin or the inside of the banana skin? (I'm guessing the inside, but I'm not sure?)
Kell,
I have a parrot, too, and I've never tried to give her banana. I'll have to try it. She's a pretty picky eater (as are a lot of amazons), but it's worth a try to get more fresh fruit in her diet.
Thanks,
Mike
LOL...you rub the inside. And it does work. The potassium must break down the element in the sting... We have the Little Red Fire Ant...Wassmania ... almost impossible to see with the naked eye and they don't have HUGE nests...they are quite small and about 10 feet apart....they get the dog...and where dogs sleep outdoors, they have been known to sting their eyes, rendering them sightless (but that is a fairly serious infestation). We bait them with peanut butter...put the poison in it to take to the nest (hopefully).
Carol, I am glad you mentioned banana leaves.
I am the bug magnet, I wonder if it works on mosquito bites as well. It's been awhile since I got bitten by red ants(knock on wood) but I did get a stung by bee awhile back, my foot swelled up huge and discolor my foot for a long time. Whew!!!
You can pour hot boiling water on their mounds too for instant wipe out!
Lin, cute mango!
lin,
I worked part time at a pet shop that specialized in birds for almost 30 years. Caiques are wonderful birds and are not all that noisy, either. Caigues were a very easy bird to get to lay on their backs and play. I can get my amazon to lay on her back and play, but not for very long.
Indian ringneck parrots (technically, a true parakeet; the little birds sold as "parakeets" are actually budgerigars, from Australia) can be VERY noisy, but the crown for noisiest bird goes to the conures. I have no idea why anyone would have a Nanday or Jenday conure? Completely obnoxious birds that are noisy constantly. We quit carrying the Nandays and Jendays because folks always wanted to bring the birds back after having the birds for just a couple of days.
Mike
(my apologies for the thread-hijack)
Thanks, Carol! LOL.
I wasn't sure and it could have been an an oil or some other property on the outside of the banana skin that would cause the relief.
Mike
I have an Indian Ringneck. Worse idea I ever had. My son was going to go off to college and I wanted a baby to love. I just didn't realize I would have a baby for the rest of my life. Well rather he is now in his perpetual terrible 2 year old state. LOL I have had him for over 8 years.
He was beautful with such along tail. Flew all over my house. So affectionate and loving, still is. But then I went away for a weekend and came back to a featherless bird. He never recovered. He lets them grow some then pulls them out again. He is now stuck in his cage for he can no longer fly with no feathers except when I let him crawl all over me. It is so sad. He is so sad.
I will have him till I die. And he does scream at me. I scream back Talk English!
I have been playing with the idea of giving him to a rescue but then I look a his little featherless self and I feel like a traitor. He just does not have a great life and I feel terrible about it all. He is too old to get a mate I have been told. And 2 birds screaming would drive my husband nuts.
The worst are all the moths we have now from the birdseed. My husband kills them everyday. We have no idea where they are even breeding.
Anyway, Baby eats very well. The least I can do for him. I feed him all high fat foods that he loves. I am hoping he dies before I do for my son has told me he will not take him. He loves peanuts, cheese, ribs, turkey, all fruit and esp. cookies. He loves summer for I buy him fresh peas in the shell that he shells and white corn at the farmer's market. Not to mention all the fruit I get there. Oh try giving your bird that dried pineapple that is so sweet. Baby loves it! Oh and spaghetti. I buy frozen spaghetti just for him. He looks so cute with a tomato sauce face.
Anyone want him? LOL
Kell: Oh, your poor baby! I know they look pretty pathetic when they pull their feathers out like that. I've been told many birds do pull their feathers when stressed. My husband's ringneck "Sandy" (aptly named because we were on vacation and found him at a pet shop on the beach over on the west coast of Fla.) pulled his feathers at one time too but not for an extended time thank goodness.
I always figured the ringneck's were "one person" birds ... he didn't like anyone but my husband. When we bought him he was a baby and the pet shop said they were old enough to be adopted out (sold.) We knew nothing about birds at the time and come to find out the poor baby wasn't cracking seed yet, he was sooo hungry! We had to go to the pet shop and buy the little eye dropper thing and some type of feed we mixed with water and hand feed him for awhile. We had him for @10 years and were both working long hours at the time and felt it wasn't fair to him being left alone so much. So, we found a lady who rescued and raised birds. She had a female indian ringneck and was very knowledgeable about a lot of birds. She thought our Sandy was past the breeding age but slowly acclimated him to her female and they ended up becoming a mated pair, producing a few clutches. We used to go visit him once in awhile but then with lots of family "stuff" over the years we kinda lost touch. We know he had a good home and was really, really happy every time we went to visit so we felt good about giving him up.
Kell ... Spaghetti?? LOL, your baby must be an Italian Ringneck! That is so cute, I can just picture that face!That is a new one for me ... had no idea birds would eat something like that! We used to feed ours lots of green veggies and fruits along with the store bought seed.
Mike, yes I should have said Indian Ringneck Parakeet since it is a true parakeet. We had two little budgies when we first got married ... named Them Tweety and Sylvester! Tweety died and we had just the one for awhile, he lived to be 12 or 13 which our vet said back then the little hybrid budgie's usually only had a lifespan of maybe 7 or 8 years. After a couple of years, we found a little black kitten and named her "Tweety" because Sylvester the bird already knew his name and came when you called him! Folks used to always tell us we got it backwards with the names, LOL. Tweety the cat lived to be 24!
My husband always wanted a Moluccan Cockatoo (the "Baretta Bird" for those of my generation who saw "Fred" on the t.v. show Baretta back in the late 60's/early 70's.) They are gorgeous birds. I think the one on the Baretta t.v. show was a Moluccan but I could be wrong. When we had birds, we always clipped their flight feathers "just in case". A lot of folks don't agree with that but I've heard of so many birds flying the coop and never being found! A lady I used to work with years ago was babysitting her daughter's African Grey Parrot once when her daughter was out of town. She never clipped his wings, or had them clipped. Her father had the bird on his shoulder walking around the house one day and not even thinking, walked out and opened the garage door, the bird flew away and they never found him. Hopefully someone did and gave him a good home!
Carol: Ants seem to be everywhere here in Florida! We have the little fire ant (Wassamanie) like you: http://flrec.ifas.ufl.edu/entomo/ants/Pest%20Ants%20of%20Fl/little_fire_ant.htm as well as the Red Imported Fire Ant: http://flrec.ifas.ufl.edu/entomo/ants/Pest%20Ants%20of%20Fl/red_imported_fire_ant.htm We have way too many ants here in Florida in my opinion! I counted 18 listed here: http://flrec.ifas.ufl.edu/entomo/ants/Pest%20Ants%20of%20Fl/
We have too many bugs! ... and gator's & snakes too!
Kell,
If I am remembering correctly, I think that Indian Ringneck Parakeets live to be 30 or so.
It's too bad your bird started plucking its feathers. Once they start plucking it's really hard to get them to stop. Birds love things to stay the same and change is very stressful on them. Do you rearrange the room the bird is in, or switch the sides of the food and water dishes or change the configuration of the inside of the bird's cage at all or very often? All of those things will really stress the bird and if you can eliminate any of those stresses (if they exist) it will go a long way to helping the bird recover.
Speaking of talking English...my amazon speaks Portuguese and it drives me nuts. She also cries like a baby, makes the sound of water dripping into a metal bucket, cries (asks) for water, cries for grandma.. all in Portuguese. She whines constantly and I cannot really be on the phone because she gets so jealous (I'm paying attention to the phone and not her!) When I got her I thought it was cute that she cried - if I had only known!
As far as the moths go, they're Indian meal moths and will get into any grain-based product you have: dog food, flour, cake mix, rice, cereal, etc. I had rice in a Rubbermaid Servin' Saver plastic container with the tight fitting cover and they got into that! They also ate their way into a box of Jiffy Corn Muffin mix.
King Arthur Flour carries a pheromone sticky trap that catches the males and once you get one sex out of the way, the numbers go down. I am surprised at how many the trap has caught. I still find females on the walls and I just grab a paper towel or Kleenex and get those. The moths seem to go in cycles; I think I've gotten rid of them completely and then I'll start to see a few. The sticky traps have really, really helped. Just go through all of your cupboards and check anything that is grain-based.
Here is a link to the website: http://www.kingarthurflour.com/
and here is a link to the page the moth traps are on: http://www.kingarthurflour.com/shop/items/moth-traps
The traps work great!
Coco loves dried papaya. I buy this for her and give her a couple of small pieces every day in her food bowl. She also loves green grapes and apples, but she is terrified of red grapes! She loves all of the high fat foods as well with any type of potato chip being her fav.
I'm going to make pasta for dinner tonight so I will have to give her a small amount and see if she eats it.
Lin,
Baretta's bird was a greater sulfur crested cockatoo, Cacatua galerita triton. The Triton is the second to the largest of the greater sulfur crested cockatoos. (There are actually 5 or 6 birds in the Greater sulfur crested cockatoo family.) There were actually two birds on the show: one of the birds did most of the tricks and the other bird did most of the talking. It's very possible that the "Freds" are still alive today. The Greater sulfur crested cockatoos are VERY intelligent birds and make great pets if you have every minute of your day to devote to them. Cockatoos are the most affectionate of the birds and really need (read demand) your attention.
Moluccan cockatoos are beautiful large birds that are a soft peach color with a recumbent, salmon crest. Muluccans are also called Salmon Crested cockatoos.
The one bad thing about cockatoos is that they have a very fine powder that they preen into their feathers, rather than an oil, like all other birds, and the powder gets on everything.
Mike
(edited to correct spelling)
This message was edited Aug 3, 2009 6:22 PM
That is so funny about your bird speaking in Portugese and crying like a baby! So cute!
As much as I love birds I don't think I want a large one. I'm getting too old for the noise, LOL.
Years ago my husband came home from a pet shop, telling me of a bird he saw there (the manager was "babysitting" a bird that belonged to his friend who was out of town.) The bird was in a cage and yelling "Help, Let me outta here, Help let me outta here!" And, then it would sit and whistle the tune from the Andy Griffith show! Some birds are pretty intelligent and some of them also require constant attention. I think I will just "visit" them once in awhile and let others deal with the noise.
Mike, thanks for the info re: the difference in the Cockatoo's! I knew there were a few different kinds but was thinking the Baretta bird was the Moluccan. I just remember it being a big white one!
Thanks too for the link about moth traps! I feed backyard birds and look closely at seed bags before buying because years ago I had a problem with moths in the birdseed! I will have to tell our friends about them too as they have been having a major problem with moths lately! Their elderly dog died a few months ago and a bag of dog food sat in a little nook in their kitchen, and she said it was full of moths when they got around to cleaning out dog toys, treats and food. They keep thinking they've gotten them all and then a few days later more have hatched somewhere!
A few years ago our friends had a problem with birds nesting in their chimney ... one died in there and oooh what a mess. Down here we don't use our fireplace's often and their fireplace doors had not been opened in a long time. One chilly winter day she decided to get a fire going and when she opened the doors, thousands of moths began flying out ... her husband was gone on military duty so she had her son check things out. There was a dead bird in the fireplace and moths flying everywhere. She said it was like some horror movie!
We used to have chimney swifts nest in our chimney in the summer but heard about the mess they make so we had a cap installed many years ago so the birds can't get in there! Two weeks ago we were over at our friends house, sitting in the living room and you could hear the birds chirping in the chimney! They still haven't capped their chimney and are going to have to have it cleaned thoroughly before they can use the fireplace again. The birds leave a huge mess when they fly away and it can be a fire hazard. Chimney swifts migrate elsewhere in fall but they are everywhere around here all summer long. I love being outside and watching them, seems like hundreds flying so fast in circles and all diving into a chimney at the same time!
Ok, I'm rambling again. LOL, what else is new, huh? Going to lurk on a couple of other threads now! Have a great night everyone!