Thanks y'all

Hey all,
Sorry I haven't been around lately, I've been crazy busy!
Just wanted to let you know that my 2nd ever gardening idea was posted today, just in case any of you are fighting a losing battle with rabbits or squirrels or the like.
Here it is if interested: http://garden.org/ideas/view/S...

Here are pics of the Castor plants that I was protecting from rabbits in the above idea, now all grown up.



Here was one of the beds at the beginning of May for comparison.

J.C. that is a great idea. And the link to other ideas is wonderful. Thank you so much for posting.

Excellent article explaining the rabbit proof enclosures. I imagine you could even make them a little larger if necessary.

Thanks! And you are correct Judith, you can pretty much make them as large as you need (within reason ) you will just probably need to add more than four shims (stakes) if they get much larger.

J.C., I saw somewhere when you posted about your experiment of having semps indoors. I tried a few in our A.C. south facing window during the summer and they have thrived. I will put them back outdoors for the winter. I was wondering how your experiment went?

Audrey we would love to see photos of them. I can see that might be a great way to deal with the Texas summer heat.

Audrey, the experiment is going okay. As to be expected there have been losses, but overall they are surviving quite well.

I currently have 2 experiment pots, with neither getting very much natural light at all. In one pot I had 5 semps, an agave, and an aloe plant. Two semps died a while back (this was the first pot to experiment with, before I learned to underwater them severely). And in the other pot, I had 22 semps. Five have died, but the rest are doing quite well. It appears some cultivars are much better suited to indoors than others. Unfortunately, I can't say for sure which those might be specifically, since nearly all of my experiment plants are NOIDS. However, one that is doing quite well indoors is Purple Beauty.

Great report J.C. Can you show us some photos of your experiment?
Purple Beauty is such a nice semp.

Thanks for sharing J.C. All mine are noids also. I got my first batch a year ago and needed to see if it was even possible to grow them here before I got hog wild ordering all the fabulous new colors out there. I lost a lot of them. The ones that have done well were in mostly shade. They need much more water than what I had read.

Lynn here is my indoor experiment. I think what I am going to start doing is when my frost sensitive stuff goes out for the spring I will bring in the semps. They seem to do alright in the window. I think they know that the other option is hundred degree temps for months at a time and are thankful to be living in a cool window.




Here are some outside that have done alright.

They all look good Audrey. It seems that it helps to have it cool when indoors.
But your outdoor ones look good also.
In your Texas summers they would need bright shade and depending on the potting mix, more water. But the watering would have to be in the cool of the evening. Or you could even use ice cubes in the evening to water them. That would cool the surface of the soil and water all in one application.

Hello again everyone!
I haven't been around lately because I've been busy, and then my old computer's hard drive decided to self-destruct. I now have a bit of free time and a new computer, and things are starting to grow again. So I can finally post a few new pics.
Now I just need to finish cleaning up all the semps and the flower beds.

Looks great JC! Good to hear from you, glad all is well, your plants are looking healthy and happy!

Wahoo J.C. What great photos. Sure missed you while you were gone.
All the plants look so beautifully healthy.
What is this interesting looking plant?


The colors coming on in your semps is wonderful.

Thanks all!

Greg, how are your semps doing? The recent pic of Pacific Blazing Star I posted were from chicks that you sent me. Thanks again!

Lynn, that is a verbascum bombyciferum. It's more commonly referred to as "Turkish Mullein" or a "Teddy Bear Plant", I think named for its tall, crazy fluffy blooms. That one is only about a year old and hasn't bloomed for me yet, so I don't have any bloom pics yet.
I guess I should add it to the database.

It is very cool looking.

Welcome Back J.C. Thanks for sharing the update of your beauties. Have fun!

I was going through some old photos and realized I never posted my first ever blooming semp from last year. Here is some of the progression of the NOID.








A little bonus photo:

I cut back my 2nd ever blooming semp today as an experiment. I'll periodically post update photos here to chronicle how it progresses.

Before:


After:


And now we wait...

Just a few random photos I took today: