Houseplants

My stupid Mandevilla is not doing well indoors.  First it dropped all the flowers and stopped making them, which is fine, then it started losing leaves and not growing any more, and it's looking pretty thin.  Now it has spider mites all over the top, so I think I should just put it out of its misery.

The Hibiscus seems fine.  It's definitely not going to flower, but the leaves still look really good, and I kind of think it's still growing, although it's getting a little spindley.

The Jalapeno looks fine, I guess.  It never looked great, even outside.  The Ginger actually looks fine too, so we'll see how it goes.

I put the grow light on the curtain rod, over the little plant cluster, thinking if I leave that on sometimes it will give them enough light to get by.  The light is still like, 4 or 5 feet away from the plants, so I don't know if it even does any good.  If I could, I would love to grow greens inside this window, with the little bit of sun and the light.  Although, if I want to do that, it would be so much smarter to do it in the laundry room with the light up close.

I put the Clivia in the attic, hoping it will go into whatever dormant period it's supposed to go through, and maybe flower at some point.

I also have two different containers of Paperwhites going.  I don't think these look all that great, they're too tall, the flowers are not that big, but I'm going to try a few more rounds.

Bulb Time

Ok, finally planting some bulbs!

First I did a bunch of forced bulbs in little containers, like Hyacinths and mini Irises and some Crocus.  They're up in the attic, which may or may not be the appropriate temperatures.  I should be able to pull them out starting in early February.

I planted 40 of the Ice Follies daffodils in the other bed, along with about 20 of whatever I had in there last week.  Then I ordered 25 more Daffodils, a big yellow kind called Dutch Master which should arrive by tomorrow.

I put the Foxtrot Tulips in the window box, along with a few Blue Pearl Crocus, and so far I don't think the squirrels have eaten them.  I do need to water that thing, I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be damp at least to start, so they can start growing some roots.

I bought 50 mixed Crocus, and planted them around the little trees above the retaining wall.  I think that will be really nice, they are often planted under trees like that.  And having them elevated like that should make them more visible.  50 Crocus bulbs is not a lot of Crocus.  I wish I had bought 100.

I have 20 Perennial Tulips, most of which I planted in the front bed yesterday it 2 swaths.  I ordered 40 more, so I guess I will kind of fill in that space with Tulips.

Now, this is the problem- Tulips especially don't hold up well if a bunch of annuals are planted on top of the bulbs, and then watered, and the bulbs all rot.  So... I don't know if I should just pull them up after they're done, and then replant, or if I should maybe not even plant much on top of them, or whatever.  I guess I'll deal with that later; the important thing is to get them in the ground.

I planted some of the Hyacinths in the side bed, and dug some holes for the ones that I ordered.  I think it's 20-30 bulbs total.  I'm going to mix in a lot of Grape Hyacinths around those.

So, we're looking at around 80 Daffodils, 60 perennial Tulips, 20 Foxtrot Tulips, 25 Hyacinths, 30 Grape Hyacinths... so around 200 bulbs total.  Hopefully they will all come up. I think I ended up spending around $100 total on these.