Oh Lynn I am in such great company!!

I love this place and the people that come here.

Me too!!

(Or is that too mushy? I'm out of here or I'll miss liturgy...)

Mother - don't miss liturgy because you were playing on ATP!!!

Staying up late, getting up early, going out with flash lights to check plants and now missing Liturgy. This site is so addicting!

Julia thank you! My evening begins with a giggle!! AND you are so right! It is quite captivating - as are the plants we are all so passionate about

OK guys. I was good and did NOT spend the whole day on ATP!

It is, however, a definite temptation -- why didn't Dave give us a little devil smiley?

I survived a visit from the auditor on Saturday -- who said (unfortunately) that I am doing a good job with the bookkeeping. I find that hard to believe! He came down because all at once there was a huge discrepancy in the books. Would you believe, for once it turns out the bank was wrong! It was a "paper error" -- which I do not pretend to understand -- and we are ahead the amount I thought I'd lost!

I keep hoping someone will decide it's time for me to retire and spend all my time playing with plants!! Well, we do have the spot picked out for our cemetery -- we're a new monastery so no one is in it yet -- but let it not be said we don't have our company retirement plan in place!

And may it be many years before anyone goes to rest in the new cemetery. I have had such a great time looking at all the photos of the Myrrbearers Monestery.
https://www.google.com/search?...
I hope to visit you one day and see it all first hand.

Great news about the audit.

I have a few seed heads I left to ripen in the beds. I might gather them soon and use for planting next year. Nothing that needed surgery, anything that bloomed had plenty of young offsets to carry on.

MotherRaphaela said: ...Well, we do have the spot picked out for our cemetery -- we're a new monastery so no one is in it yet -- but let it not be said we don't have our company retirement plan in place!

I have so enjoyed your sense of humour, MR!

Me too!!

webesemps said:

I have so enjoyed your sense of humour, MR!

Grateful that you do, Bev! Years ago at an ice cream shop, just for fun I looked at the horoscope section of the paper lying on the table. (An argument I've had with some of my Christian friends from other persuasions: If God can speak through Balaam's ass, can he speak through horoscopes and fortune cookies? ) I loved my horoscope, brought it home and blew up a copy for my office wall where I can't miss it: "The best people to place yourself next to are the ones who don't take offense. Your humor can be wicked, and it's wasted on those who feel the need to judge everything."

So I've been a bit nervous letting my humor loose here at ATP -- I think I can relax now: It seems I've placed myself next to a great group!

Since a friend of mine has continued to give me a budget for plants, a small pack of bulbs that will become a pot of white saffron crocuses arrived today from McClure and Zimmermann. I'm going to get them started and then when winter gets serious, take over another window well for them.

With winter in mind, I was also looking at some of my seedling semps this morning and wondering if some of the larger ones that are at least an inch in diameter might be big enough to go in the ground? I need some help with this one -- has anyone in my climate done this with seedlings? Thinking about how I can get around this, since some of them really look promising, could I possibly cut them up like you all have been doing with larger ones and keep half potted in a window well and half completely outdoors? They feel like my babies and I'm appalled that I'm thinking like this -- but I'm equally appalled at the thought of their going through the coming winter no matter what I do! Lynn, maybe I should pack them all up and send them out your way!

That's enough for one day... But I do hope someone can help me out with the babies!

Hello MR, in my opinion I wouldn't cut them up - I think semps that are smaller are going to be more fragile and therefor probably not survive the surgery - or they'd have a better chance if it were spring and the growing season was ahead...from what I've read on these posts, folks who live in very cold environments keep their baby semps in a garage or somewhere sheltered from the weather (just for that first year) They can take a lot of cold but as things melt and refreeze there is water - and if they're semi-dormant or dormant, water can be a problem...if in a pot you can move the pot so the water gets drained, but in the ground, unless they are covered they'll be susceptible to root rot. Again this is just my personal opinion.

Here is one of the seedling pots AKA First-born children :


One of my favorites here is not one of the larger ones: look at the larger photo, front, just left of center...

Ohhhh, MR those are precious.
Maybe Kevin @JungleShadows would have the best advice for winter your babies in Upstate New York.

I leave mine outside in the beds year round. My tiny ones made it through last winter at 5°F with no snow cover. Then it warmed up and rained, then it got cold again and rained. They all made it. But I would hate to give advise and have you lose your wonderful babies. You have several that look promising, and itsy bitsy to the front left of center is really interesting.

MR .. I live in Denver and "some" of my semps have lived for two years. We had brutal cold last year and I did lose a number of them but some survived. And I am thankful for those.

The spring freezing wind did more damage than the extended cold. Your idea of putting them in a window well seems like it might help. I cannot do that as most of mine are in very heavy hypertufa pots and if I got them in there I would never get them out.

updates of a plant I pulled the bloom off - this one is 'Hart' and has many chicks on the piece of stem that Ieft...I've been trying to see if leaving some of the stem, but no flower buds, helps the plant to send out offshoots and I think it does!

Its quite exciting!
I have had success with doing this on
Brownii, Hart, Packardian, and Zorba its a great way to increase offsets!

It seems some semps are better than others at doing that. Wonder if it is the time of year, cultivar, other weather conditions, or just where you cut the stem?

Lynn I have clipped all of these this year as they've come into bloom, so its all been during warmer weather. I have tried several others and they have either just continued to bloom or have just died out. But it may have to do with when I'm "catching" the plant - I don't always notice that one is about to bloom. Since I wasn't collecting seed (or so I thought!) I mostly clipped the bloom part off

I had plenty of extra roller blooms so I figured I'd give this a shot. I snipped a fallen rosette that had just started flowering about 2 months ago:



And now... it's doing something else. I don't know if that means it's going to bloom 3 times, or if it's making 3 new rosettes?