"Colours are the smiles of nature." Leigh Hunt

It was a nice treat to see the Gervase Amaryllis sending out a second flower scape. It was doing very nicely and growing quite tall (Gervase has a 2.5 to 3 foot stalk).  Then one morning I went to look at it, and the stalk had fallen to one side and cracked right across the base!  There was nothing for it but to detach it and treat it like a cut flower.

I filled a vase with some warm water and flower preservative, then re-cut the stem to a better length. Next, I inverted the flower and filled the hollow stem with water. I plugged the hole with my thumb and quickly re-inverted it into the water in the vase. If that is a bit tricky for you to do, you can always fill the stem with water and them plug it with a cotton ball. This helps against the dreaded air bubble in the stem which prevents the flower from drawing up water.

Hopefully, the flower would now have a chance to fulfill it's potential.  It had 5 buds, and when it bloomed it had a real surprise for us!

Remember that Gervase is a lovely red and white candy-striped Amaryllis.

 But the next bud was totally red (bottom right).

And then in between was a bloom that was half red and half striped!

So there are 2 solid red blooms, 2 red and white striped blooms and 1 half and half!

And to cap it all, the bottom of the cut stem decided to go rococo on me.

David and I have been very entertained by this antics of this plant.

Photo Credits:  David Kelly

Look what’s blooming in my house this week.

I promised to let you know when the other Amaryllis bloomed and bloom it most certainly has. It was labeled correctly and it has turned out to be Gervase. 

 

I wanted to show off a few of my other plants that are blooming right now.  The first is a particularly fine example of the humble African Violet, or Saintpaulia.  African Violets are easy to propagate and fairly easy to grow (once you figure out that they don’t like getting their leaves wet, and so they should be watered from below).  African Violets  are commonly available and inexpensive, so are often thrown away when they’ve finished blooming.  Although common, it isn’t easy to find named varieties of African Violets unless you buy from collectors.

We bought this African Violet from a specialty vendor at Canada Blooms one year. I actually bought it as a present for a friend and stole a leaf so I could grow one for myself.  I remember waiting for the bus after the show and a lady in the line-up asked me why I was wasting my money buying expensive African Violets from the show, when I could get them more cheaply at the grocery store. I didn’t want to waste my time arguing with the woman, she had obviously made up her mind, but the reason why I bought this (and other African Violets) from specialty vendors is because they are special. They seem to flower for much longer periods and the flowers are outstanding. This one has huge purple flowers with white frilly edges. What do I mean by huge?  Look at this.

Two and a half inch flowers!

 

And finally orchids.  Who can resist the lure of the Phalaenopsis or moth orchid. They are now so common and so cheap that they’ve become throw away plants too.  It is tricky to get them to bloom again and over the years I have resisted the temptation to buy orchids because I  just couldn't seem make them re-bloom.  Last year my best friend gave me a lovely little orchid and this time I was determined to try to make it re-flower.  I took the advice of Ed Lawrence, who does the gardening phone-in show every Monday at 12:30 p.m. on CBC Radio 1, who explained how to make the moth orchid re-bloom.  It has a lot to do with light levels, but more importantly you need to give a period (I think about a month will do it) where there is a 10 degree difference in temperature between day and night. I guess that is to simulate what happens in the jungle where they are native.  Ed then explained that one trick to achieving this is to water the orchid by placing ice cubes on their roots. Apparently the icy water is enough to create the temperature difference.

And it worked!  Look at this. 

 Apparently, this only applies to the moth orchid. I hope this wasn't a fluke as I bought myself another orchid last week! I'll let you know how it goes.

If a tree falls in the forest … Part 3. Where does it land?

Choosing plants that will be happy despite neglect, lack of irrigation and animals that would love to have a salad bar grown for their delight is quite a challenge.  One clue as to which plants may do well is to look at what is already growing on your land. 

I am incredibly lucky as there are a variety of habitats on my lot. Broadly speaking, there is the land, the water and the water’s edge – which is sort of in-between.  Wetlands are extremely important to the ecosystem. They are nature’s septic systems, and their job is to catch and filter the water of its impurities before it goes into our lakes and streams.  Fortunately we are beginning to understand the importance of these environmentally and are nurturing them.

One of the loveliest of flowers that thrives on the water’s edge is the Iris versicolor or the blue flag Iris.

Beautiful Iris versicolor at Purdon Conservation Area. They are living in a fen, which differs from a bog as it has water running through it rather than sitting (stagnant).

Further investigation showed that Iris are not a tasty treat for deer so when we came across this Iris siberica "Contrast in Styles" at Burts greenhouse in Odessa, we splurged. 

We knew that this beauty was a marginal and would be happiest in a wetland setting. And as we would not be around to nurture it, we needed to make sure it was sheltered, so we decided to plant it in the wetland between the large island and mainland in a part of the lot we call the Deer Run (I will be uploading a map soon so you can see where all these places are). David cleared a space for it and it was lovingly planted. I whispered a few words of encouragement to it to help it on its way and then we went away for a week, hoping that our lovely Iris would be happy in its new home.

When we came back, this is what we found…

The tree which fell in the forest landed on our newly planted Iris!!!

OK, I know it’s taken a long time to get to the punch line, but I’ve enjoyed the journey, and I hope you have too.

P.S. I’m not sure what has happened to the Iris. We look every time we go, but we can’t say for sure where we planted it (of course we didn't label it) and there are a lot of grassy type plants where it might be. The tree’s still there though…. And my guess is that it will be there for a while.