Indoor Garden

This morning as I was watering my indoor plants I was thinking about all you bloggers that were talking about the enormous amounts of indoor plants that you care for during the winter. I decided that I admire your dedication to keeping such large collections of plants alive and well. I have a measley 24 planters. I guess I have a few more species because several of my pots have more than one plant in them. I have never counted my collection before but I know my collection has fluctuated in amounts and species over the years. This ponytail palm is a funny looking thing. It had been loped off before I bought it and was at such a low mark down price I couldn't resist it a couple of years ago. It has recovered well but it has three "tails" as opposed to the one central one it should have. Oh well. I like it anyway.

These two palms are great for my home. They take low light and neglect in stride. You can actually see that the one on the right has a new frond coming up. Seeing the new frond is like an anouncement of longer days begining.

The Surprise Paperwhites that I potted-up are doing just fine. The one in the glass forcing vase is growing the fastest so far. You can see its roots venturing down into the water in the vase.

Now I am not very happy with the ones in the soil. They are behaving like a group of drunken sailors. I put them into the soil and it looks as if the roots are growing just fine but the roots are pushing the bulbs over. I set them upright daily and by the next day they are flopped down. Any suggestions for overcoming this phenom??

Here I am having trouble with these drunken bulbs and Carol wants us to consider bonsai. As much as I admire bonsai I doubt if a bonsai plant could withstand my haphazard approach to gardening, especially in containers. Perhaps my goals for this coming year should be to keep alive what is now hanging on for dear life.

Santa's surprise

We must have been a good childrenl because when we got home from birding today my DB found a bag hanging on the back door knob. Santa's helper didn't leave a calling card so I am not sure who did this but I would like to thank them kindly.



In the bag was this box of Paperwhites, a pot to plant them in and some of what they called planting medium.

Now this planting medium was some weird stuff. It was a hard dry pellet. When I placed water on it it swelled up to nearly fill the planting pot. Almost like magic. I followed directions, yes I can read, and voile I have a pot of bulbs that actually look like they want to grow. Each bulb had a bit of a pale green shoot coming from it. I have always wanted to try this but have never taken the time or effort to do it. Now will be that time. I have had a bulb forcer vase for many years. It is now being used for what it was intended. I will keep you up to date with what happens with these bulbs.

Has anyone else done this before with one of these kits? I know some of you are forcing some bulbs but I don't know if you are using a kit???