Gardening with a Not-So-Angry Redhead

April 30, 2012

Terrible Photos

A recent batch of just plain awful photos...

Ugh, what's happening here? The rose is out of focus. There's terrible light. The framing is atrocious. Blech.

A good example of why the flash on my camera is awful. Just awful. Plus the subject is ugly. Sickly looking ghost plant, random roadkill cactus... why?

Horrible framing. Focus on the rhizome rather than the leaf. There's no good excuse for this one. It makes no sense.

BLUR! What a world, what a world!

And more blur.

And even more blur.

Awesome! Nothing's in focus! It MIGHT have been pretty, but we'll never know, now will we?

Talk about ugly. A fly on a sickly sweet potato vine with an extra dash of awful.

MY EYES!!! The overexposure is practically radioactive!

And finally, even more blur.

I don't know why anyone looked at this post.

April 29, 2012

While I was going through my eBay binge, I became enamored with the genus Rebutia and Sulcorebutia for their crazy thorns, moundy growth habit (I like moundy things), and GORGEOUS flowers. I'm currently enjoying the flowers of Rebutia fulviseta.

There are more buds on this cactus, and I'm hoping that I'll get an awesome cluster of flowers blooming at once rather than this single flower which is nice but who wouldn't want more?

From what I've read online, I am dangerously likely to kill this cactus with water, and apparently a lot of people do just that. I made the potting mix very coarse with lots of rocks, sand, perlite, decomposed granite, etc. with a thin matrix of coconut coir and some fertilizer. I also hedged my bets with a terracotta pot just in case.

For the record, you can find this plant from sources other than eBay, but there is a dizzying array of this genus available on eBay. I could easily have continued to buy more, but I managed to stop myself because at some point, logic kicked in and I realized I'd never grown any of these plants before. Still I wound up with 3 Sulcorebutia plants in addition to this single Rebutia, but it could have been worse. Much worse.

April 28, 2012

Easter Lilies (Lilium longiflorum)

Maybe I was a little heavy handed with the photo editing in the last one...

April 26, 2012

Some Plants in the New Side Garden

The plants in the side garden seem to be holding steady and no longer shocking as badly as they were a couple weeks ago, and I'm continuing to add more although space is filling up quickly. Some aren't visible because they were recently planted (Amaryllis and Oxalis) or planted a bit too late in the season (Daffodils). Also, I don't have all the names because some are wild transplants from the backyard.

1. Yucca recurvifolia

2. 'Geranium' Daffodil (Narcissus 'Geranium')

3. Turk's Cap 'Big Momma' (Malvaviscus drummondii 'Big Momma')

4. Wild Sunflower

5. Orange Zest Cestrum (Cestrum aurantiaum 'Orange Zest')

6. Switchgrass (Panicum virgatum)

7. 'Red Lion' Amaryllis (Hippeastrum 'Red Lion')

8. 'Feelin' Blue' Deodar Cedar (Cedrus deodara 'Feelin' Blue')

9. Lion's Tail (Leonotis leonurus)

And from a slightly different angle with more plants being shown - the purple bowling ball should be a good visual marker:

1. Switchgrass (Panicum virgatum)

2. 'Geranium' Daffodil (Narcissus 'Geranium')

3. 'Red Lion' Amaryllis (Hippeastrum 'Red Lion')

4. 'Feelin' Blue' Deodar Cedar (Cedrus deodara 'Feelin' Blue')

5. Lion's Tail (Leonotis leonurus)

6. 'Red Beauty' Dianthus (Dianthus gratianopolitanus 'Red Beauty')

7. 'Big Sky Sundown' Coneflower (Echinacea 'Big Sky Sundown')

8. Wild Oxalis

9. 'Petite Pink' Oleander (Nerium oleander 'Petite Pink')

10. Three Varieties of Daylily (Hemerocallis) including 'Prairie Blue Eyes', 'Challenger', and 1 unknown

11. Desert Willow (Chilopsis linearis)

12. 'Strawberry Seduction' Yarrow (Achillea millefolium 'Strawberry Seduction')

13. 'Henry Duelberg' Mealy Sage (Salvia farinacea 'Henry Duelberg')

There's more to the side garden than what I'm showing in these two photos...

April 25, 2012

Red-Headed Irishman (Mammillaria spinosissima)

Here's another eBay purchase that I couldn't pass up:

It was crazy top heavy so I had to make an extra heavy potting soil with rocks and sand and lead and kryptonite. For a Mamm. it's quite large which is one reason why I had to buy it.

Ok, so maybe I didn't HAVE to buy it, but I've been experiencing non-buyer's remorse when it comes to plants (negative reinforcement - the avoidance of pain). Plus I got it at a good price (rationalization).

It had a few blooms when it arrived - a color clashing magenta! And from the pictures you can tell this plant is large enough to produce a full halo of flowers as evidenced by the spent blooms in between the tubercles.

Love the contrast with the white, red, and green!

It's soooooooooooo pretty! I love the amount of color on this cactus. The green is just barely visible - from a distance it looks like fuzzy rust.

Hopefully next spring, I'll get an awesome flower display to photograph. I'm sure it will be spectacular!!

April 24, 2012

Cactus with Crazy Long Spines!

A few weeks ago, I lost my mind on eBay and bought quite a few cacti. I have put a personal ban on myself for a while from purchasing more because I could see it quickly going down hill into a psychologically disturbed botanic mania. Plus eBay is evil!!! Something new and cool is always on there, and it's so easy to get absorbed into the frenzy. Fortunately, I caught myself before any damage was done.

One of the plants I bought was being sold as a Cereus sp., but I have my serious doubts about that. The reason I bought it was because OH MY GOD THE SPINES ARE RIDICULOUSLY LONG! The trunk is about 7" tall, and the longest spines are nearly 4" long!!

Be sure to click for the full experience of horror and magic!

I've never seen anything like this one, and I have no idea what cactus it is. If someone out there knows what this is, PLEASE TELL ME! Until I get a proper plant ID, I will call it Rabid Baby Killer because babies are cute and so is this little guy. :)