millertime

Recipe for trouble...(also known as "Bloom Day bonehead")....last Saturday this was my sky......and this was my earth. What does this add up to?Uncontrolled impulse shopping at a large garden store! Well, I was in the area, and I'd never been to this place before. As you can see in the picture, I went nuts for more houseplants! And I did so have Bloom Day flowers-look at those african violets! Hey, my vertigo meds make me spacey (that's my story an' I'm stickin' to it! ;-) See Gizmo off to the right, taste-testing my corkscrew rush? How very helpful! ;0(The spiral trellis in the foreground was wrought-iron and very sturdy........cute little orchid, packaged kinda strangely (to me), but I've never bought one before, so what do I know? Here we have ficus 'Sylvie' , and I was happy to get a smaller one. I have always wanted one of these, but I'm short on space for large houseplants right now....
....I couldn't resist trying another nepenthes, especially since this one is small enough to fit inside the tabletop greenhouse with my other happy carns'. Amusing tag...is this some unholy alliance between the talking trees on the Wizard of Oz and that Kool-aid guy? Yea, I never trusted that big goofy pitcher anyway.......some decent cultural info on the back, though.... ....and look at the nice pitchers!
Several, mostly larger like this....cool!There! All cozy with your new buddies...now survive, dammit!My new orchid is a cattleya , and I hope it's relatively easy to grow. They had some orchids twice this size or better, but they were more than twice as much. Think I'd rather kill a smaller, cheaper orchid first!This is the exact cultivar...I can't wait to see it bloom!These two african violets had no tags, but pretty is good enough for me. I love the variegated foliage on this one... .....and the pretty blooms on this one. They're nearly red and white, very contrasty.
Now for some "dirt therapy" that I cannot satisfy outdoors....let's re-pot these guys!

Ficus first...and it looks much happier! Then this plant, whose ID had me stumped for awhile. It was labeled "foliage plant" (hrumpf!), but it resembles a wandering jew to me (or in the same family).

After more research, I decided it's a striped inch plant , callisia elegans , and the cute foliage will be nice to have around. (Along with the cute white flowers-more Bloom Day action!)
Kinda root-bound....

....there! Stretch out your legs buddy!Now for the orchid...look at this tiny pot....I think we can do better than this........yea, looking cramped........there! I soaked some bonsai soil overnight (has lots of wood chips and is designed to hold moisture), along with some moss for the top and bottom of the pot, and used a water plant pot. (I've seen orchids in mesh pots). Now orchid can hang with these two, corkscrew rush and alocasia 'amazonica' (I think). Since the rush and alocasia are marginals, they can cool their heels in water until summer, then out into my water garden they go. The orchid will stay on the rocks above to get some humidity but not too much moisture. (Hope it works out okay!)
While I was re-arranging things, I almost tossed out this poor night-blooming cactus I got awhile back off Ebay, until I spotted the green. It was damaged by the cold (winter-shipping hazard), and had looked really bad from day one. I'll give it awhile....

....then I found a deeper pot for some of the bulbs Vonne sent me. They should be much happier now!

Just one more...this odd little mess was a pot of purple wandering jew that fell and broke. I was pissed and frustrated at the time, so I just threw it in this old frying pan. The w.j. grew fine and needed a new home, and I liked the look of this arrangement of broken clay. So I went outside in the cold, ripped up a blue fescue grass seedling and some 'Doone Valley' thyme. I like it!
So Happy Bloom Day...again! And don't forget to visit our Bloom Day founder, Carol to see her gorgeous blooms!