Hows everybodys co op plants doing? I am off to the store to get more potting soil. The bananas have outgrown their pots again. I am not ready to put them in the ground yet.
Hows everyones co op plants
Lisa, what is the plant, with the variegated leaves, in the upper right of your picture? They all look just great!
Wow yours are looking great! Mine are doing well too. I'll have to get out and take some pics later. My pancratium has bloomed! Surprised me and I didn't get a pic :~( but it was lovely!
I think the plant you are asking about in her pic is Alocasia Hilo Beauty. I got one too. Mine had a rocky start because I think I gave it too much sun, but since I moved it into deeper shade it has come back with a vengence!
Here's the plant file on it. http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/51592/
Thanks, Jo - I thought it might be, but knowing Lisa, it could be some rare banana! LOL
Sadly my banana didn't make it, it was extremely small though and it was already so hot here. Also my heliconia never even got off the ground as it was a black spongy stick when it arrived. But everything else has really taken off. I put mine all in the ground around my fountain and they are loving the moisture and shade since we are in a drought.
Kim
Thought I'ld bump this up. Want to see how everybody's stuff's doing.
All mine is going like gangbusters. My Scadoxus, rain lilies, pancratium (sp?) have bloomed and my cucumas are just opening. And my giant crinum is getting just that LOL...Giant!!!
My cucuma is opening up. Bananas need to be bumped up. Alocasias are coming along very nicely. Everything has awesome roots when I pull them out to repot them. And my Crown of Thorns is flowering steadily.
Well, I lost all my namwah pearl. Just too much rain. I also made the mistake of not removing the netting around the roots of some of the plants so some were slower to take off. I removed the netting and have bumped them up to 1 gal pots now and they are starting to take off.
The variegated thingy looks like an alocasia to me. ????
Here is my Euphorbia 'Peach Delight'
Curcuma 'choco top'
Beautiful! I have to get a pic of my Curcumas they are looking pretty good too
Pictures- yes!
You know, I did lose my heliconia. Is there a secret to those? It didn't help, of course, that the squirrel dug it up after I potted it, but I don't think that's what did it in.
Mine are doing pretty well too. Out of the squashed Nam Wah Pearls, 3 are still alive. One had great coloring and one of our chickens (or something else, I didn't see the act) pulled it out of the pot and ate it.
My other Nanners are doing well, as are the EEs, I'm not sure all the names are right, the coloring is off on some of them.
Here's a group shot:
Here's an unusual Colocasia Elena:
Here's one more, Musa Gran Nain.
Sorry about your Musa and Heliconia, blue eyes! It's so hard when we expect great things from a plant and then they croak on us.
On another co-op I ordered a variegated dogwood, was planning on what to plant around it next year- only when it arrived, it was a 2 inch stick with a broken branch. That was a waste of money! LOL
The rest of my plants are doing ok, so I can't complain. I haven't seen any blooms from the curcumas yet but we have been in a prolonged drought plus 100F+ temps so I am just happy that things are staying alive at this point. My variegated maranta is probably my favorite so far, growing very well under my bananas.
:) Kim
Lakeside- you have chickens, too? For now, all of mine are in coops. I had a hen that I would let out now and then, and she liked to eat my seedlings, too!
Here's a poor shot of my Curcuma Deep Pink Grande, they are really beautiful, but the sun was so bright that it looks washed out
And here is my Scadoxus Blood Lily
Yes, we have chickens! Dreaming of daily eggs, my husband bought 6 baby chicks at a Tractor Supply Store. Let me just tell you all, this is not the way to buy chickens! We ended up with 5 roosters and a.... well, to be politically incorrect, a retarded chicken. Lyle is very cute and sweet but seems to be very, um, slow. He sits on the edge of the coop all day. If we put food and treats down on the ground beneath him, he'll coo and chirp, and look down, but he doesn't seem to know how to get down off the 4 ft tall coop. We have a chicken coop inside a 6x12 dog kennel. Everyone gets locked up at night and gets to wander around and knock over pots (their specialty) during the day. The roosters are all eager to get out and wander around in the woods all day, while Lyle sits on the coop.
It's been quite the adventure- one of the smallest bantams has taken to terrorizing me. I have pots along a wide path through the woods, and Mousey has taken to lurking in the woods behind the path. He'll leap into the path and chase me. I'm very disappointed I can't outrun a chicken!
Oddly enough it reminds me of a movie- "Better off Dead" with John Cusack. Everywhere he goes he is followed by a paperboy on a small bike, wanting his 2 dollars. Before Mousey started the actual attacks I thought he was just being friendly and following me- ha!
Yesterday I discovered something- if I yell for the other bantam rooster (the other 3 are fat birds) Chippy, Chippy will run over to us and jump at Mousey and drive him away. So that's making life a little easier.
Oh, and to keep this on topic, my Colocasia Cranberry were the first plants to really take off and grow, but now they aren't growing any bigger and seem to be failing a bit. They might need more light- I had to move most of my plants into the forest path because 2 months of 90 degrees almost every day, no clouds, no rain, was killing everything. Even the bananas can't take the full sun. This weather!!!!!
Here's a photo of the path through the woods, with Mousey acting all innocent, pecking around. What he is really doing is blocking my path back to the house.
Yes, he's been kicked, poked with a stick, and other deterrents. Right now, Chippy is my best defense, followed by waving a big butterfly net, and flapping a shirt or towel at him. No, we aren't going to eat him.
LOL! I get my chicks from a feed store and they are sexed, for the most part. I can't imagine having a "need" for more than one rooster, although we do because one of the "girls" turned out to be a boy. So, now we need a second coop! Roosters can get very territorial and some aggressive, but I understand your dedication to stick by your animals. Our first rooster I rescued from a grocery story parking lot and he grows jsut about every minute of the day. So, no wonder he had found himself homeless! My second rooster is a georgeous Americauna and I raised him from a chick, so he stays, too! I have one sexlink hen that has really made a lot of eggs this year, and we lost a few hens to a possum early in the year, so I now have 7 beautiful pullets that I've had since they were a week old and doing very well. One Bard Rock, one silver laced Wyandotte, 4 Americaunas and one brown leghorn.
I'd like to find a recording of a rooster crowing so I can play it for my neighbor at 3am. He is really nasty and let's his homeless brother and brother's girlfriend live in a tent in the corner of the yard where our yards meet. They burn oak logs in a barbeque grill and smoke me out every day but the fire department won't do anything becuase it's in a grill. I set up a sprinkler on my side of the fence and when they burn, I turn on the sprinker (reclaimed water) to keep the smoke level down in the house. The rooster sound would drive him crazy, LOL
You can borrow "Riley Rooster" anytime. He's a little bantam bard rock and he can hang out in a small cage for a day or two. BIG crow for a little rooster!
Well, I spoke with the city fire chief and he said that "recreational burning" is allowed provided that it does not pose a health risk or discomfort to neighbors. I explained that I have an inhaler for allergies and mild asthma and that my eyes are constantly tearing due to the smoke that invades the house. He immediately sent a fire marshall over as they were at it again and they were told they would have to cease burning or face fines.
Hopefully, that will be the end of it but he is pretty nasty so we'll just have to see.
Thats great Budgie! I hope it works! If not I'm thinking a rooster, or maybe even a donkey would work. My neighbor has a poor old lonely donkey that brays all the time, he's really loud! It doesn't phase me, but a lot of my neighbors get upset. I know it's just because he's in a pen by himself, donkeys are social critters poor old guy....
Unfortunately, even though I live only a few blocks from an agricultural/horse area, I am municiple city and farm critters are banned except potbelly pigs. The neighbor on one side has a few chickens and 1 rooster for awhile. The bad nieghbor would be out there yelling every morning that he would kill it if it didn't shut up. Well, I didn't hear it for some time and asked the nieghbor about it. He said he found it dead in the yard one day.
Co-incidence or poison, who knows. I try not to push his buttons too far. My dogs used to break through the back fence a few years ago before I replaced it and reinforced it with wire. About that time, something got into his rabbit hutch and killed his pet rabbit. He called the city and animal control and said it was my dogs. They were all set to take my dogs away but when they questioned him further, he admitted he assumed it was my dogs and didn't actually see them. The animal control officers examined but of my dogs and no blood or rabbit fur on either dog or in there teeth. They said without evidence, they would not pursue it but recommened I reinforce the fence. A couple months later, I got 2 rescue rabbits and have had them for 2 years now in a raised cage that the dogs can walk under if they want. After an initial sniff or two, they have totally ignored the rabbits. The nieghbor knows I have them and I think it irks him that the dogs don't bother them. We had a huge possum around that was always trying to get in my flight cages of cockatiels and parakeets and occasionally I would find one missed a toe or 2. It would surprise me if he was responsible for the rabbit death. Even so, whenever the neighbor gets mad, he still rants about it 3 yrs later. LOL
What I wouldn't give for a farm with no neighbor for at least 5 acres!!!!!!!!!!!
I live on five acres and in most places can't see my neighbors. HOWEVER, I had a "bad neighbor"- 3 in fact. One had pit bulls that killed no less than 7 cats collectively among us, including my beautiful princess orange butterfly tabby that I had since my first year of college and our other neighbor's full grown Sharpee. The other 2 are just meddling and melodramatic- long story short....because of the pit bulls and YOU CAN'T GET RID OF THEM IN THIS county, I got a dog, too. He's more loveable than anything, but it made me feel better. It quickly became evident that we would need an electric fence- hound dogs love to roam! Well, it was an expensive and lengthy process during which my dog went over to greasy haired lady's house and jumped up on her while she was feeding the chickens....OK, that's not good, BUT, he's no murdering pit bull by far. Second time he went over, he chased her cat up the tree. That night, she called the ambulance after she stormed onto my property blah blah blah blah. I think it was nosey neighbor #2's idea for the ambulance- greasy haired lady wasn't so injured she couldn't force her way onto my property and walk the whole way up the driveway getting an earful from me......and all she claimed in her own words was my dog scared her cat up the tree. Well, nosey neighbor #2 has a daugther that's a lawyer, made a claim against our homeowner's insurance.........long and short after a lot of wasted time, they never turned over the alleged injury report but their lawyer demanded that I euthanize my dog.
Anyway, it all worked out eventually. Some people have different opinions about electric fences, but I probably could not have kept this rescued dog without it and we have had not problems so far (knock on wood.) Needless to say I will never speak to the 2 nosey neighbors and the pit bulls are gone thanks to the son's girlfriend popping out a baby and suddenly they had a reason to care about their murdering dogs and got rid of them.
P.S. I have nothing against pit bulls in the hands of good people and I am a big fan of the dog whisperer. The point of the story is that you can have bad neighbors no matter how large or small your place is, so at least we can empathize with each other. I do believe in karma, and I think being angry or difficult to other people will eventually come back to you. And possums are a major predator of small animals and pets. I will spare the details, but if anyone wants to dmail me there is often a very particular pattern to the way the kill their prey as was the case with my hens.
We have 50 acres and just one neighbor close that is across the road, the next closest neighbor is at least 1/4 mile away, in our rental house. Interstate 44 is on one side of us. Our neighbors cows and horses have been grazing in my yard, their cats visit and tease the dogs. My dogs are penned up. One of the neighbors I have to forgive because she is a ditz. She called and said she was turning her dog loose that had been penned up for 10 yrs, not spayed and would I make sure my dogs stayed home so they didn't breed her. She is about 1/2 mile away, her dog is scared of storms and has been at my house numerous times getting away from the thunder. I was nice and didn't tell her she was an idiot and took her dog home after the storm was over. I thought that was pretty nervy to call and tell me to keep my dogs at home and she was the one turning hers loose. She is moving and I think one of the neighbors has the dog now. People can be aggravating though.
dylancgc,now you did sit your dogs down and have a talk about safe sex did'nt you? LOL That one takes the cake and is WAY beyond Ditz! Going to be shaking my head about that one for a while.
My co-op plants are all doing well even with the drought this summer. Forgot what the sticks were at the moment but they never did anything. All the others are loving the pouring rains we are having this week. Im happy!