As the Garden Grows

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Tropical bloom

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I grow several tropical vines, mostly passion flower, that I have to bring indoors each fall as they can’t withstand our harsh winter temperatures here in Toronto.

One of the vines that I bring indoors I still haven’t identified. I think it might be some kind of trumpet flower, but still … I’m just not sure.

Do you recognize this flower? I grows on a vine with medium green oval / oblong leaves.What is it?

Tropical flower - vine

When I brought this vine indoors in October I brought it upstairs to sit in a south facing window. Much to my surprise sometime near the end of November it produced two blooms. My vines almost never bloom indoors when I bring them in for the winter because the light is too low – even in a south facing window.

I’m happy to report that the three passion flower, the unknown vine, and my big jasmine are all doing well, yet I’m sure they are impatiently waiting for better weather so that they can get back outside!

Do you bring plants indoors during the winter? How do they fare indoors. Do they bloom, do they struggle to survive because of dry conditions in the house and low light levels?

Update – One of my Amaryllis is about to bloom. It developed a flower stalk about a week after I’d brought it up from the basement at the end of December and it will soon have some huge blooms! The other two haven’t developed flower spikes yet but I expect that they will soon. Oh and my two Orchids have flower stalks – one is flowering and the other is developing buds … plus I bought one more orchid and it’s blooming as well. So between the soon to flower Amaryllis, blooming orchids and my still blooming hibiscus I have lots of indoor flowers to tide me over until spring.






Thinking of Clematis as it snows and snows

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I don’t know about you, but I’ve just about had my fill of snow. It’s been snowing all week and it’s apparently going to be snowing quite a bit next week too. Hmmm maybe after that it will totally stop and the weather will get better? Warmer? Ha … now that’s a pipe dream.

So … since I can’t do anything about the weather or the fact that it’s only January and there’s no way I’ll be doing any gardening for months I decided to post one of my favorite pictures of my Clematis Jackmanii.

When I first started my garden in 2002 I planted the clematis Jackmanii, my first clematis, near my tall wooden fence. I also put a trellis on the fence to help guide the clematis when it started to grow. Later on that year, in the fall, I planted my now huge William Baffin rose in front of the clematis. It gives the clematis roots shade and the clematis grows on the fence and well … into the rose as too.

Here’s a shot of the clematis in bloom. It’s growing on the fence and it’s long vines entwined a small birdhouse that we had on the fence at the time …

clematisjack

Now … doesn’t that make you think of summer and all it’s promise?

Oh and BTW the birdhouse is about 6 feet from where I planted the clematis so that goes to show just how big this Clematis really is!

Some shots of my Amaryllis in bloom

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Since I was telling you how I rescued my three Amaryllis from the basement in my last post I figured that it might be worthwhile posting some photos of the Amaryllis that I grow. I have no idea what kind I have, all I know is that I have two types. Two that I purchased as bulbs and grew on my own and one that I inherited from my parents. Unfortunately I don’t have any photos of my parents Amaryllis in bloom. If it blooms this year I must take a photo of it.

Here’s a close up of one of my Amaryllis blooms:
amaryllis

And for those that don’t grow Amaryllis, here’s a shot taken from a distance, just to show you how large the blooms are!

amaryllis

You can see one of my orchids blooming behind the Amaryllis just to the right. Orchid blooms are about two inches in diameter or perhaps a little smaller … so you can imagine just how big those Amaryllis blooms are!

Excuse the tacky curtains in the background! These pictures were taken in 2004 and those were the kitchen curtains that came with the house. They’ve since been replaced with cream white curtains.

The Amaryllis plants are starting to green up. You might remember that I said in my last post that when we brought them up from the basement they had new leaves on them, but that they were a pale green. Now that they’ve had a couple days of sunlight they are becoming greener. In a week or so I’ll start giving them a very weak dose of fertilizer and hope for blooms in two or three months.

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