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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.






Orchid blooms for the new year

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Happy New Year! I hope that everyone is looking forward to 2009.

I’m looking forward to a fresh start. I didn’t make any resolutions other than to hopefully be healthier this year and well … I just have to hope for my Crohn’s to settle for that to happen.

I don’t really have any gardening news … not when it’s freezing cold here and the garden beds are covered in at least a few inches of snow.

My indoor plants are doing well though. One of my Orchids is blooming for the first time in about three years. It has one bloom so far and several other buds, so it looks like I’ll have Orchids blooming all month. The bloom is white.. Somehow I don’t remember it being white in the past. Odd! My other Orchid plant has developed a stem and has a few buds on it, so it will be blooming shortly as well.

I rescued my three Amaryllis from the basement yesterday. I’d forgotten about them! I brought them inside in early November when it started to get cold. I usually keep them outside on the enclosed from porch during the summer. It faces north so they don’t get a lot of bright light, but it’s enough to power them up for winter blooms.

They had survived their stay in the dark basement and were starting to sprout pale green leaves. Now they are on the kitchen table (near south facing window) and hopefully they’ll produce some blooms in February or March.

I love Amaryllis blooms. It’s a pity they only last about a week or so. Hopefully my three plants will stagger their blooms a bit and I’ll get a month of blooms.

How are your gardens and houseplants doing? Any blooms? Any new plans for the garden this year?

Wishing you a Happy New year, health and happiness (and a green thumb) in 2009! Thank you for being loyal readers!

We’re getting new neighbors

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On January 1st the home next door will have new people living in it. Renters … not sure how I feel about that.

Sofie, my former neighbor (and stalker) and owner of the house, had a stroke last February and she’s now living with her youngest son. The family tried to sell the house in the Fall but it didn’t sell so they decided to rent until the housing market is a little better.

So … come January 1st a lady with two kids and a young boyfriend will be moving in. The kids are 6 and 9 years old or so we’ve heard. We haven’t met the new people, but in talking with our former neighbors son it sounds like the people gave them an “iffy” feeling. I hope they turn out to be ok neighbors.

Our former neighbors on the other side of our house had a kid, but we have a high fence on that side so we only had to deal with the occasional toy thrown into our garden.

The side of the house that the new neighbors will be on has a shorter chain link fence and some of our roses and other plants tend to hang over or creep over to their side of the yard.

I hope that the kids are well behaved and don’t start pulling on my plants or damaging them come Spring and Summer.

In the Spring Chris and I will take a good look at the roses and Rose of Sharon that’s growing on that side of the yard and give them a trim in order to make sure that they aren’t going into the neighbors yard.

If you have neighbors with kids or possibly bad neighbors have they ever gotten into your garden or damaged your plants? Yes I know, some of you will probably have horror stories of wars with neighbors.

I’m just asking since I’m used to having older neighbors around rather than young kids. I also have some poisonous plants in my garden (monkshood, Datura etc) and that’s another reason why I hope that the new neighbors kids are good and stay in their own yard.

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