microb's blog: Still alive and kicking

Time flies, but if I did a blog each month for the past eight months that would be 4 hours of lost gardening time.

House maintenance went as planned, started March, finished September. Exterior of house and roof all painted. Never known a contractor stretch out a job. I still have some painting to do but nothing critical.

I'm obsessed with the Aroid collecting phenomenon that is on going. Houseplant fantics got entrenched during COVID. They are collecting anthuriums, monsteras, and philodendron for house plants and all those grow outside here in Hawaii. So I have been clearing forest to expose trees and planting areas and ordering plants online, but mainly going through the local big box stores and garden stores grabbing anything I can. Getting to the point now where the rarer varieties will cost me money. Also getting a few Alocasias. Right now we are in the middle of a dry, hot spell so have to watch what I do with moving plants but ideal weather for creating garden rooms and weeding.
The zoo plant sale came and went on April 1st and another on September 30th. Always well supported and we have added a couple of new vendors. Next one should be last Saturday in March.
One of the vendors is a good friend with a very large orchid nursery. Like 100,000 pots. He imports the orchids from Thailand in glass flasks as tissue culture seedlings and then grows them on for sale in about 3 years. He called a few weeks ago and said would I like a few trays of plants that needed to be rescued so of course I said yes. The drive out to his place is over very rocky unpaved road, so although the plants are free the toll on my van might not be. Anyway ended up with about 90 orchid plants. I constructed a monolith built of Australian Tree fern trunks to mount them on. See photo.
While at the nursery he asked if I would like some Ti cuttings (Cordalines). So "yes please" but would have to come back as he was not ready to cut them down right then. So a week later he says come get them. By that time I have contacted a friend with a large pick up truck. We drove out and loaded up about 250 Ti cuttings of many different named varieties ( he sells them online for up to $30 for a six inch cutting) He wants to clear the ground for another orchid greenhouse. After loading the Ti if gives us a tour of his fantastic tropical garden and starts to offer us cuttings of giant philodendrons and other plants. By the time we had finished the truck was loaded to overflowing.
If anyone wants to google philodrendron Giganteus of philodendron Lynette you will get some idea of what we scored, all for no cost.
Otherwise life is normal, Lost of Tradescancia hanging pots doing well, bamboos have had a good season. 3 ton of gravel delivered last weekend for forest trail maintenance. Still propagating too much, 30 pots of giant butterfly ginger in pots from seed, getting into begonia propagation by leaf cuttings. have one tray locked inside a clam shell (ate the pastries). should be rooted by end of November.
Buying too many succulents now that I have a partially covered area in my potting greenhouse. Problem is that every leaf that falls off creates another succulent and I can't throw them away.
Have built a good collection of Peperomias and added two ZZ plants, one black one green.
Making an attempt at building a stumpery, (see photo) or really a loggery from a tree that fell down, but I think it will get too much direct sun to get it covered in moss and fern. Still a work in progress
I could go on. Will upload some pics if I can find them.

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