We're coming from here: http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/774433/ That one has gotten long, so we'll just continue on from here. :o) Everyone, please keep posting your pictures, sharing what you know, asking questions about what you don't know, and having fun in general! :o)
Here's Strep 'Cassandra'
Here's Strep 'Bristol's Blackbird' with the second bloom open. I have gotten so that I really like the shape of these blooms. Very different and unique, and it really is very close to black.
The first Strep that ever bloomed for me that I grew from seed. Yes, you've seen it before, but here it is again! LOL
A bud on the Phal opened for me! Yay!! Now I have a total of 3 flowers open on this one! I think this one is just beautiful!
Sinningia 'Flair'
Rain, thanks so much for the name of that plant........smarty pants.........i never know the name of anything (LOL)...............love your blooms............especially the dark purple strep and this sinningia 'Flair'..................envy setting in i can tell........................
I wish i could figure out a way to scan a picture from the AVSA magazine this month...(I think I can) of a show winning plant of sinningia Mackenzie...............let me go try...........
i have been waiting so long aiko chirtas to boom and finally she did ,my first yellow one of them
Very pretty Eunice! I have 2 Aiko's and they get HUGE! But, I too love the yellow flowers! broke a leaf off awhile back and it rooted and has babies popping up so I will have a few Aiko's to trade in the spring!
Oh dear....very pretty......now I'm gonna have to get me some Chirita's.
thats wonderful,been thinking of takeing one off ,i have 3 of my others down
somebody sent me a few seeds a while back,it just said gessies on it there finally comeing up, my first seeds ever of these,
Oh Amy ... I thought I posted on this thread earlier today but I don't see it! Must be Gremlims in the system!
Anyway, what I said earlier is the Strep's are Beautiful but I really Love that Sinningia 'Flair' .... what a pretty plant! I am going to break down next spring and buy a Sinningia! I just love the micro mini 'pusilla' you gave me and I also have one of the mini Rio das Pedras Sinn's that Jannich gave me. That one has a little bloom on it right now!
More beautiful pictures! I love the variety that everyone has been showing too!
Starfly that yellow chirita bloom is fabulous! And I am definitely going to be adding a few Sinningia to my collections of gessies! The picture of that Mackenzie in the latest AV magazine that Gail mentioned is just gorgeous!!
I bought a few pings from cascade carnivores too and although I haven't had any of them turn the beautiful pink or red I had a little one bloom! It is p. macrophylla....I bought three of them as they were just 2.00 a piece because they were small and just coming out of dormancy....they were still in the moss when it budded up... I was surprised and delighted!
~Brenda
I never could get a decent picture of the blooms, they were such a pretty purple with a little white in them. It sent up two blooms....one right after another.
~Brenda
I then got it into a decent container with some crushed granite instead os sand mixed into teh soil as that is all I had....sure wish I could have captured the real beauty of the bloom!
~Brenda
This is one called red leaf doing it's duty!!! LOL I have since changed it out and put it in the granite av soil mixture and it has grown well.
I get such a kick out of them and hope I can keep them alive. I have hit them a couple of times with water with Eleanor's in it by accident and I know they don't want any type of fertilizer!! So far they have survived those two mess ups on my part and are now doing good on my well water....
I saw some at Lowes the other day with the venus fly traps, they were just called butterworts .....
~Brenda
One more note from me and then I'm off to pot up my hoya seedlings.....
.................Gail I too (like Kim from earlier) would love to send you some money for some of that wonderful fertilizer from the nursery you will go to in November. I need more blooms on my AV's and I think that will do the trick!!
Here are the only Sinningia I have...my four Fuzz seedlings that are doing well, this is from a couple of weeks ago and they have grown yet more and are really showing some "fuzz" on the newest two leaves!!
~Brenda
I love all the pics.........and starfly, that Aiko is gorgeous.................congrats bmedel on your new 'fuzzies'.........................I will load up on this fertilizer when I go..............i am sending Kim, Lin and you some on Monday just to tide you over until I go in November and i will load up........................
Starfly.............you are going to laugh at what i did..........when something doesn't bloom for a long time, i get impatient and plant the leaves................here is what i did to my Aiko yesterday....................
Everyday is a new day in growing..............never ever have I had a baby plant with the mother blooming!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I don't recognize the leaf and look at the gorgeous color of the bloom...........what a shame i don't keep better records..........I will come back when all the blooms are open............
How cool Bmedel .... Love your Ping .... those flowers are too cute! I see you use those little fruit cup containers too ..... I am always saving those and the jello pudding cups from the recycle bin .... make great containers for leaves and babies!
I gotta get one of the large size Sinningia's ... they are just soo neat.
Gail: I've never seen a baby bloom like that with the mom leaf still attached! That is a pretty AV! By the way .... saw your classified ad's - great job! I saw a couple I want to get, so I gotta get an order together and will d-mail it to you soon!
Well, you will all be proud of me. I purchased my first bag of AV potting soil this weekend in preparation for the upcoming trade :) I can't wait to try my first strep! Gail, I'll be looking on Monday :) I'm wondering if hubby is going to allow me to purchase a plant for my birthday....I've been giving hints so maybe....just maybe *lol* He keeps telling me I'm out of room but I say...well, if I move this here and I move that there and well, some of these dust collectors can go.....somewhere *lol* I don't have any pictures to share and for some reason my goldfish plant is dropping flowers, leaves and buds to beat the band. I think it's just because it was in full bloom outside and I brought all my plants in for winter so they are all letting me know in their own way (crown of thorns dropping leaves too) that they know winter is coming and they aren't real happy with it. Can't say that I blame them.
BUT, I do have some Hardy Hibiscus Luna Blush babies on the stand next to my bed that I'm looking at as I type and I'm patiently waiting for the datura's I planted to sprout. I HAD to start some seeds and these things I figure I will grow as houseplants until I can put them outside *lol*
I'm very nervous about growing streps or anything as they intimidate me for some reason. They just look so delicate and pretty. I have never been able to grow an AV and I'm hoping streps will be easier to grow. I need things easier than AV's. I find them hard to make happy.
Kim
Beautiful pics, everyone! Love the Ping flowers, Brenda!
I've only got a second, but Kim, I can't grow AVs well at all either! Streps, though, are so easy, and I think you'll find that you do just fine with them. Really, I do. :o) They're not nearly as delicate as they look, and at least for me, are so much easier than AVs.
And it's so much easier to get the cat hair off the Strep leaves : ))
Our cat went missing 3 months ago. We think either a fox or coyote got him. Not sure. BUT we now have a chinchilla named Daisy and she won't be peeing in my plant pots :)
Aww...sorry about your cat.... A chinchilla???? ok....you have to post a picture of her......
Here is Miss Daisy. She is the SWEETEST little thing you ever did see!
ooooo.....and she looks super soft too!!! Do you let her run loose in the house?
We have a foyer and I just close the french doors and she runs all over the foyer and bathroom. She's SOOO soft. We just adopted Daisy. She was living in a single wide mobile home and the people had 5 children. I don't think she was really happy there. She seems to LOVE all the space here. Even hubby thinks she's cute.
she is precious!!!!!!!!!!!
Oh, Miss Daisy is soooo cute! Sorta looks like a cross between a bunny and a mouse!! I have never seen a Chinchilla and they are adorable! I googled and found some interesting information on these little critters: http://exoticpets.about.com/cs/chinchillas/p/Chinchillas.htm
How are they around kids? They look so soft and cuddly .... that face is just sooo sweet!
WOW...15 year lifespan, just like a dog or cat. I wonder if you can litter train her....
She is great around my daughter who is 13. They are easy for young ones to "squish" as their bones are quite small in the rib cage. She just LOVES to be held. You can't walk by her cage that she's not sticking her head out. She hops like a kangaroo. They take dust baths and roll around like a washing machine in the dust bath. She can be litter trained but it takes a long time to train them. We just adopted her so that will be something in the future that's for sure. They are quite expensive, Pet Smart asks $120 just for the chinchilla. Then there's the cage etc. I found her in a classified ad for $100.00 including the cage. We had to drive an hour to get her. This is my daughter's big Christmas gift this year as she has wanted one and been researching them since our cat went missing. The cat was Jess's big time and she's been heartbroken since his disappearance. It was good too because Daisy was miserable and hissed and pee'd when the people went to take her out of the cage. She hasn't once done that here. She would also "growl" at them and hasn't once done that here either so I think it was a PERFECT match. It takes her like 10 minutes to eat a raisin and she holds it with her little front paws. They are allowed 2 raisins a day as a treat :)
I bet Daisy thinks she is in Heaven if she had to live with 5 kids at her previous home. And, depending on the ages of those kids she may have been handled roughly and that is why the growling and peeing ... she was not a happy chinchilla! So glad y'all adopted her and are giving her a good home! I know she is Happy now!
Kim... what a lovely story about your new family member, Daisy! I am such an animal lover, and I am so happy for you and your daughter to find such a gift as this perfect friend!
Good luck and keep us posted!
Karen
Thanks Gail for the wicking info, I just have to try it again. I may experiment on a few to see how I do. I have tried it before and had a lot of trouble getting the wick to work, then the plant stayed too wet all the time and I had to constantly be pulling the wick out of the water and putting it back later. I think I made a bigger mess wicking than I did without it. But....I do find that when I check the dampness of the streps with my finger, I think I'm packing their soil down, so wicking may be the answer for them.
i don't touch the soil when I repot.....................maybe you mix is too heavy if they are stay wet ...............................some people use twice as much perlite and they do soil=less mix........i don't but others do..................
I got this pretty Begonia 'Bonita Shea' from Snowrose recently .... went out this morning and found her blooming!
Did you kn ow that Snowrose grew these from leaves???????????? Mine is blooming too...........tiny little delicate white.....................I am impressed.............I took a cutting off of mine.........hope she makes it as I LOVE this begonia.............
******edited to say.........I also just saw that i stuck a leaf............please root............
This message was edited Oct 2, 2007 4:36 PM
Oh, I had no idea that this Begonia could be propagated by leaf! Yay! I will have to give it a try in the near future! Don't want to mess with her just yet ... too afraid of killing it!
Good evening everyone!!!
I have a couple photos to share, but they are not necessarily gessies.
First, is a grow-light set-up that I built (all by myself) from scratch, last year... so that I could have some sort of lights for my plants. At that time, I lived in an apt that had northern exposure only. :o( Talk about seasonal affective disorder!!! This year, they informed us that they were renovating ALL apts in our complex, so we had to move out of ours, into one of the new ones... and we got an all southern exposure! Woo-hooo!!!
Anyway... I used craft lumber and wood screws for the whole thing, and one of Wal-Mart's 4ft shopights. The whole thing is adjustable, up and down. It works!
The only problem... I got into gessies this year, and EVERYTHING needs grow-lights! As you can see, I'm already full up! Gotta get me one of those Wal-Mart shelves now! You ENABLERS!!!!
Here's the frame with lights...
And then... (this is definitely NOT gessies)
So many of you were following my progress with my luna moth caterpillars. I had eleven to go into cocoon... and I thought they would stay that way through the winter...
One did not! She hatched out sometime in the past four days... I just discovered her today.
So beautiful, but yet so sad... too late in the season for her, and no one to share it with!
:o(
But she is lovely, and I will make her as comfortable as possible.
Thank you for letting me share...
Karen
