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Sorry – no Green Thumb Today

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I’ll bet that all my Green Thumb Sunday members have been wondering why there was no GTS post last week or so far today? Well, I’ve had a bad week or rather both my husband and I had a bad week.

Chris ended up being admitted to the hospital last Friday because he had chest pains while at work (in same hospital he was admitted to – how convenient!).

If you read the post I linked to on my other blog you can learn more about his heart trouble. Basically they think he might have a rare heart arrhythmia that can cause sudden death, but haven’t been able to prove it just yet. We’ve been living with this since 2004. The doctor that admitted him to the hospital last Friday also noticed that on previous trips to the ER and or admissions his Cholesterol had always been quite high – both the good and bad cholesterol as well as having very low triglycerides, so he thought that it might be good to do an angiogram on Chris to take a look at his heart and make sure that he didn’t have any blocked coronary arteries.

As it turned out, we had to wait until Monday for the angiogram and the test was clear. His heart looks good from the inside. So he was discharged Monday evening with a prescription for Cholesterol lowering meds (Crestor) and instructed to set up some out-patient tests like a 48 hour Holter monitor and a stress test.

He’s been home all week recovering from the angiogram, but he’s feeling fine. He’s going to go back to work on Tuesday. He really only felt bad on Friday afternoon – so he wasn’t the best patient in the Acute coronary ward at the hospital because they had to keep telling him to stop wandering around the hospital. LOL he just didn’t want to be there since he felt ok.

Luckily the hospital is only a few blocks from home – a 10 to 15 minute walk. So I was able to just walk back and forth to visit. However, since I’m not all that healthy myself (Crohns, vitamin d deficiency and bad back pain over the last year) it took a toll on me and I’ve kind of been recovering over the last few days too. Believe me, it sucks to be sick, especially when your spouse ends up also being sick and admitted to the hospital!

As I said in my last GTS post my Amaryllis was in bloom so I took a whole series of pictures from buds to full bloom. I just haven’t had a chance to prepare the pics. They are still on the camera and I’m sure they need some cropping … so that will be next weeks Green Thumb Sunday post – hopefully!






It won’t be long until Spring

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I can’t help longing for spring. I’m sure most cold climate gardeners know how I feel.

Well the good news is that in only two months it will officially be Spring. Yeah, the weather won’t be so great in late March, not here in Toronto anyway, but by then we’ll know that we won’t have to wait much longer for nice weather and the first flowers of spring!

The first flowers that appear in my garden … well actually in my lawn since that’s where I planted them, are the Crocus’. They usually appear during the last week of March – often March 26th for some reason. Sometimes there’s still some snow on the lawn, but the crocus’ break through and bloom their lovely hopeful signs of spring.

Another flower that I look forward to seeing each spring is this lovely Fringed tulip:

fringed tulip

These fringed tulips are late spring bloomers though … I often have to wait until early June before they show off their lovely colorful blooms. By then of course I’m starting to anticipate summer flowers.Plus if it’s really warm in early June the beautiful blooms that I enjoy seeing don’t last as long as they should.

What spring flowers do you look forward to seeing in the near future?

Oh … update on that one Amaryllis that is about to bloom … I’ve been taking pictures of the flower bud as it separates into four distinct flower buds. I suspect we’ll have four huge blooms on the stock in a day or two. I’ll post the series of Amaryllis bud to bloom pictures in next weeks Green Thumb post.

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.

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